Journey of a Thousand Storms Read online

  ‘How long does the whole process take?’ I ask Arya.

  ‘More than a year at best, usually two or three years. As soon as you go inside they give you brochures with the latest statistics on asylum seekers. According to those more than ninety-five percent of cases are rejected.’ My heart sinks.

  ‘What if you can’t convince them you’re a refugee?’ Azita asks.

  ‘You can appeal,’ Shadi says, ‘but it takes more than three years to have your case reopened and get another interview.’ She points at the man with stitched lips. ‘That’s what’s happened to him. Poor man has been here seven years with his four kids. He’s a Kurd from the west part of Iran.’

  ‘You should never do anything like that,’ Arya insists. ‘If you try any form of protest, you’ll be arrested and they’ll close your file forever. If you do anything wrong, even steal a loaf of bread, you’ll be deported.’

  ‘They’re brutal,’ Shadi says.

  ‘So why has he done this?’ Azita asks.

  ‘He’s had enough. He told us the other day he’d prefer to be sent back to Iran and hanged.’

  ‘How do you survive for such a long time here while you’re waiting to be processed?’ I ask Arya.

  ‘You must have money with you because as an asylum seeker you’re not allowed to have a job. If you work and the police find out you’ll be deported.’

  ‘Does the UN give you money?’

  Arya laughs. ‘Are you kidding? We’re nothing to them. The UN only protects you if your interview is successful and you’re recognised as a legitimate refugee.’

  I steer Azita away. ‘We can’t do this. We don’t have enough money to survive for more than a year here, even if our case is accepted.’

  ‘But we’ve no other option. We have to try, Kooshyar.’

  ‘No, I’m going to Israel.’

  ‘Then I’ll take the kids with me to Iran. We can still live there – it’s you who has the problem.’

  Two police cars turn up, and several officers try to drag the man with stitched lips into one of the cars. He resists, and his kids start crying. His wife screams and a policeman hits her. I cover Newsha’s eyes. Finally it all ends and the whole family are taken away. Every­one watching is shaken.

  ‘Now he’ll be deported,’ says Arya sadly. My heart aches. I have no hope or faith in the UN.

  An hour passes and a young man appears, wearing an expensive suit with a thick gold chain around his neck. He’s Turkish but speaks English very well, and he hands out some business cards.

  ‘I work for Mr Kamal, an excellent Turkish lawyer. He used to be at the UN so he knows all the tricks to prepare your case. He’ll give you a story guaranteed to be accepted, and his fees are quite reasonable.’ I grab a card but a minute later a young Iranian man comes up to me.

  ‘Don’t go to that bastard. He’s a charlatan. I paid him five hundred dollars and he gave me the same story he gives to everyone. My case was immediately rejected.’

  I thank him and throw the card away. I look up in frustration and notice a few men on the balcony of one of the surrounding buildings looking at us. One man is taking photos.

  ‘Iranian agents might be watching us,’ I whisper to Azita.

  At nine o’clock, two security guards open the gate and the crowd rushes forward. ‘Line up and stay calm,’ the guards order.

  They let people in one by one. After three hours Azita, the girls and I reach the front of the queue. Newsha is hungry and keeps falling asleep in my arms. We’re guided to a small office where a young man is sitting behind a desk.

  ‘Show me your ID,’ he says without eye contact. At least he speaks English.

  He looks through Azita’s passport. ‘What about you?’ he asks me.

  ‘I had to flee from Iran, so I only have my driver’s licence.’

  ‘Give me that,’ he demands. After photocopying the docu­ments, he orders us to stand against the wall so he can take a photo. ‘Hold the girls up a bit higher. Yes, that’s fine.’  Then he tells us to wait and disappears into another room.

  A few minutes later he comes out holding a piece of paper with English and Turkish words on it and two pictures of us.

  ‘This is your ID in Turkey from now on. Your appointment is in three months, on 12 September, and the UN is not responsible for you until your case is accepted. Now you must go register with the Turkish police as asylum seekers and surrender your passport and any other identification.’  Then he walks away.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ I tell Azita as the guard directs us out of the building. ‘We can’t survive here for another three months and then wait however long to get the results. We must go to Israel.’

  ‘No, Kooshyar.’ Azita storms off. ‘It’s all your fault we’re now here like a bunch of homeless beggars. Look at us!’ She starts crying, as do Niloofar and Newsha.

  ‘Okay, I’m sorry.’ I walk behind Azita, trying to calm her down. ‘Let’s go find a place to stay for the night.’

  Though Ankara is much cheaper than Istanbul, I don’t know how we’ll survive more than a few months in Turkey.

  FIVE

  I was kidnapped for the second time in May 1997. This time they took me to an abandoned garage outside Mashhad and handcuffed me to a metal chair. I was surrounded by four men and was shocked to see that one of them was Mr Sayar, an old photographer MOIS had sent me to spy on. My job had been to become his friend and get the many photos he’d taken of Jews. After a few meetings Sayar gave me several photos showing Jewish people at their festivals or celebrations. Not wanting to condemn innocent people, I came to the foolish conclusion that if I proved I was not a good spy they might let me go. So I passed on to Samadi only half of the pictures Sayar had given me. I now realised sending me to him was a test of my obedience.

  Sayar stood in front of me, grinning bitterly. Two sturdy young men held my arms firmly while Sayar lit a cigarette and walked slowly towards me.

  ‘I told you to be careful, Kooshyar, didn’t I?’ His legs were touching my knees. ‘I’m going to teach you a lesson today, a painful lesson.’ He dragged on his cigarette and flicked the ash off the tip. He then put his knee on my chest, creating a crushing pressure, and burned my skin with the lighted end of his cigarette.

  ‘You Jews are cancer cells. You’re the AIDS virus,’ he said through clenched teeth.

  I wished I knew a different way of responding to the pain, because screaming and twisting my limbs seemed ridiculously inadequate. The man on my right punched me in the face to shut me up, but it didn’t work. At least being punched distracted me from the burning sensation on my chest. I was afraid they’d crack my head again. After the last incarceration I spent almost a month in hospital with a fractured skull, leaving me with debilitating headaches. I knew that if it happened again I would die.

  After taking another drag Sayar put his cigarette against the left side of my bare chest, then the right.

  ‘Let go,’ he barked at the other men, like a hunter dismissing his dogs. ‘Undo his handcuffs.’

  One of the men cut the plastic band around my wrists with a Stanley knife. He was clearly reluctant to do so but Sayar knew that what he’d done had left me a broken man. The word ‘Islam’ means ‘surrender’ or ‘submission’. What a perfect name, I thought.

  ‘I’ll do whatever you want,’ I managed to say to Sayar. I was his. I no longer existed. I would’ve been happy to die at any moment but I could not tolerate one more minute of this agony.

  Sayar smiled.

  We catch a minibus to Ankara’s police headquarters, a giant com­plex with a seemingly endless number of departments. The more oppressive the regime, the more intricate its law enforcement. We finally find the large hall for asylum seekers and there are many people already there – including a lot of Iranians – waiting to be processed. I see three officers arresting a group of young Russian women for illegally working as prostitutes.

  It’s now eleven-thirty and Newsha is starving, so I go back outside
and purchase a small sandwich for her from a mobile cart. After waiting three hours in the hall, we’re finally called into the chief superintendent’s room. He’s around fifty, and makes it clear he’s tired of dealing with illegal immigrants and asylum seekers. He looks at the paper with our photos on it, given to us by the UN.

  ‘Iranian?’ he asks without looking at us.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I reply.

  ‘What are you doing in Turkey?’

  ‘We had to leave the country —’

  ‘You’re not a member of a terrorist group, are you?’

  ‘No, sir. I’m a doctor, in fact.’

  The officer starts writing something on another piece of paper. ‘If you were a doctor, why did you have to leave Iran?’ His tone is harsh.

  ‘Sir, it’s complicated . . . I was arrested because I wrote some books that were condemned by the Islamic regime, and I’m a Jew so —’

  ‘You’re a Jew, are you?’ he interrupts me again. ‘Why are you here, then? Turkey is a Muslim country. Why don’t you go to Israel?’ He stares at me.

  ‘Sir, my wife is a Muslim and she doesn’t wish to live in Israel.’

  There’s a heavy silence in the room. Niloofar starts crying and Azita asks the officer if she can sit down but he ignores her.

  ‘You’re not carrying any guns or drugs, are you?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘You’re not Kurdish?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Okay. We’re going to keep all your passports and documents here and give you a piece of paper as your legal identification. If you leave Turkey we’ll give your original ID back to you on the day of your departure. Now, listen to me.’ He’s looking at Azita and me intently. ‘While you’re here as asylum seekers, if you do anything wrong, and I mean anything, you will be deported immediately. Understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ we both reply.

  ‘You must go to the police station nearest to your accommodation and sign the registry every day, so we can make sure you’re living in Ankara. And you’re not allowed to work, study or travel anywhere in Turkey. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Dismissed!’

  Degraded and fretful, we leave the office. Niloofar needs feeding and Newsha’s in tears – she can feel the fear, shame and, worst of all, humiliation in her parents. I can’t do anything except distract her, and I try telling her some lame, funny story. We sit down in a corner of the busy hall and wait another two hours for our kimlik, identification card, to be given to us.

  We leave the building and after changing buses several times, by five o’clock we’re looking for a place to stay in the suburb of Ulus. It’s full of narrow, crowded, dusty streets, with a few ramshackle houses and some dodgy shops here and there. Dishevelled men are selling stolen items in the street: an old hairdryer, a rusty pair of pliers, a broken fan, worn-out pants and shirts. Everything is corroded and tarnished.

  We find a cheap, old motel and pay for one night. The receptionist asks for ID when we check in and as I hand him our kimlik he says, ‘Evsiz.’

  In the morning I suggest to Azita we rent the room but she feels unsafe after drunk people yelled and walked up and down the corridors all night. The room is also in the worst position, right next to the toilets.

  We decide to look for a rental together but have no idea where to start. We climb into buses going towards other cheap parts of Ankara. I walk the streets with tired little Newsha’s hand in mine, and Azita’s behind us with Niloofar in her arms. It’s an extremely hot and humid day. I don’t know how to say ‘rent’ or ‘real estate’ in Turkish so I look at all the shop signs for clues. I finally find a real estate agent but as soon as I start talking the man realises I’m an evsiz and hurries me out.

  By two in the afternoon we’re exhausted, so I buy three boiled eggs and a piece of bread and we sit in some shade to eat our lunch. When we set off again, I spot the two Iranian men who were following us in the bazaar. These men can’t accidentally be in Istanbul and then in Ankara. I keep an eye on them using a concealed dentist’s mirror in my sleeve, which I worked with while spying for MOIS. I don’t say anything to Azita as I know she’d panic.

  The next real estate agent is kind and tries to talk to us. When he realises what we’re after he shakes his head and says, ‘Kefil.’ I don’t know what he means.

  At seven in the evening we catch a minibus back to the motel in Ulus, fatigued and frustrated. That night I hardly sleep, wonder­ing whether the two Iranian agents will harm me and my family. I think about my mother, who has no idea where we are or what’s happened to us.

  In the morning our ordeal begins again on another scorching day. We try a few different areas and end up on the outskirts of Ankara, where there are horrible, cheap houses but nothing for evsizs to rent.

  We decide to return to the UN tomorrow to get advice from Iranians who’ve spent more time in Turkey. We have to find an affordable room because we’re paying twenty dollars a night at this motel, a rate I’m sure is much higher for us than for Turks.

  In front of the UN building we speak to a young Iranian man called Payam, who’s been in Turkey for three years. ‘I took part in a demonstration at Tehran University against the regime and was kicked out of uni. They arrested five of my classmates – I was lucky to escape. The UN officer interviewed me last year and I’m still waiting for my results.’

  I see the grief and disappointment on Payam’s face and feel sorry for him. He then notices Newsha and Niloofar and says sympathetically, ‘At least I’m single. You have a wife and two little kids.’

  ‘I must find a place to stay, Payam. What should I do?’

  ‘Go to the real estate offices. It took me seven months but I now share a room with an Iranian family. Before this I slept in the streets many nights.’

  ‘How do you say house in Turkish?’ I ask him.

  ‘ “Ev”.’

  ‘How do I ask for a house to rent?’

  ‘Just say “Ev var?”, which means “Is there a house?”  They’ll know what you mean.’

  ‘Someone said something about a kefil.’

  ‘Yes, you’ll need a guarantor, a Turkish person who’s a public servant and is willing to guarantee you.’

  I look at him in despair. Finding such a person is likely to be impossible. As we walk away Payam says, ‘Try Dikmen. You’ll have more luck there.’

  Within an hour we’re in the suburb of Dikmen. It seems more prosperous than Ulus, with proper houses and ordinary shops, and there are a lot of real estate agents because it’s a newer suburb.

  In the first office we try, there are three men playing backgammon.

  ‘Ev var?’ I ask them.

  They turn to look at us. One of them says something I don’t understand and waves us out. We go to more than six real estate offices without any luck, until in the afternoon we walk into one at the end of a long street. It’s a comparatively nice room with air conditioning. I would love to sit for a few minutes, just to cool down. There’s a man in his early twenties with a ponytail and jeans. I ask him if he speaks English.

  ‘Yes. How can I help you?’ An older man, who I assume is his boss, is quietly watching us but I’m relieved I can at least talk to someone.

  ‘Listen, brother, I’m a doctor from Iran. This is my wife and children, and we’ve been looking for a room to rent for two days. No one seems to be able to help us. We can’t sleep in the street, and my youngest is only two months old and she’s getting dehydrated. Do you have somewhere we can stay?’

  The young man stares at us. I’m so apprehensive he’s going to turn us away. Finally he says, ‘Come with me,’ and leaves the office.

  When we’re outside he asks how much money we have.

  ‘I couldn’t bring much with me, but we don’t care what kind of room it is. We just need a roof over our heads. Please, brother, please.’

  The young man nods. ‘Okay, wait here.’ He goes back inside and says something to the older man
, then comes out again and directs us to follow him.

  He walks over to a red Fiat, opens the door and gets in. We stand in the street, watching him.

  ‘Come on. Yallah,’ he says.

  I sit in the front passenger seat and Azita and the kids are in the back. It feels so good to be in a normal car again, not a taxi or a bus, and I remember my brand-new silver Peugeot in Iran.

  The young Turk says, ‘That agency only has expensive units, so we’re going to another one that has cheaper rooms.’ It only takes us ten minutes to get there. When the car stops he says, ‘Listen, don’t bring your family. We’re going to say that the room is just for you, okay?’

  ‘Sure.’ I ask Azita to stay in the car with the children. Before entering this other agency, which has a much smaller office, the young man pauses and holds out his hand. ‘I’m Bulent.’

  ‘Hi, Bulent. I’m Kooshyar.’ And I shake his hand vigorously.

  Bulent goes into the office and I follow nervously. He talks to an elderly man at the desk and after a few minutes I hear ‘kefil’ again. My heart sinks. But Bulent says something to the old man, who then opens a drawer and gives Bulent a set of keys. I cannot believe my eyes.

  ‘Let’s go and see this room,’ Bulent says to me.

  ‘Thank you, Bulent. God bless you.’

  After a fifteen-minute drive we stop at a five-storey complex. ‘Here it is,’ Bulent exclaims as he steps out of the car.

  The building is old and unimpressive, and is shaped like a tall man doubled over in pain. Most of its windows are broken. Bulent uses one of the keys to open the main door and when he opens it I can see stairs going up and down. I’m hoping he’ll go up, but instead he goes downstairs and we follow him. The staircase becomes darker and damper as we walk three storeys down. I grew up in basements in Iran, but never as deep as this.

  Finally we reach the bottom. It sounds like the earth’s core. ‘That’s the heating engine!’ Bulent shouts, pointing to an enormous machine rattling loudly. Next to it is a small door, which Bulent opens using another key. We enter and see two rooms and a small bathroom with a hose hanging from the roof instead of a shower. It looks like a fishing rod bending from the pull of a gigantic stingray.