Journey of a Thousand Storms Read online

  ‘This is it,’ he says.

  The room is noisy, gloomy and extremely humid, and the murky bathroom stinks, but we’re so grateful to have it.

  The rent is fifty dollars a fortnight and I agree to a three-month lease. On the way back to the office I ask Bulent about the kefil.

  He says, ‘It’s okay. I already told him I would guarantee you.’

  I’m so grateful for Bulent’s compassion. ‘But you don’t even know me.’

  ‘I trust you, Kooshyar. I’ve lived a life that allows me to dis­tinguish good from bad.’

  An hour later, after signing the paperwork and paying four weeks’ rent, we say goodbye to Bulent. I offer him some money but he refuses.

  Three hours later we’ve moved into our new home in Dikmen, putting our small amount of luggage and few belongings on the concrete floor. It’s ten o’clock at night and we’re all so exhausted we don’t care where we are. I try the toilet and realise it’s just a hole in the floor with no seat. Azita puts Niloofar on her outstretched legs and rocks her until she goes to sleep. I lie down next to Newsha and roll my shirt into a pillow for her. She closes her big brown eyes and after I’ve told her a story about a little boy who loved pigeons, and who flew into the air with seven birds and reached paradise, she too falls asleep.

  At eleven-thirty Azita and I are still talking about our grim future in Turkey when we’re startled by a knock on the door. I panic – it must be the Iranian agents.

  ‘Stay here,’ I tell Azita. I walk cautiously over to the door and ask, ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s me. Bulent.’

  I open the door slowly and see him with a woman in her fifties. He steps inside and introduces the woman as his mother.

  We say hello and the woman looks at Newsha and Niloofar lying on the concrete floor. She seems concerned and whispers something in Turkish to Bulent. ‘My mother wants to know if you have any bedding,’ he says.

  We shake our heads in embarrassment. ‘But we’re okay. I’ll find something to sleep on later,’ I say.

  Bulent’s mother says something to him again. ‘We’ll be back soon,’ he says, and they leave.

  Half an hour later they return with a mattress, two small blankets and four pillows. Bulent’s mother is carrying a bag and hands it to Azita with a smile. It contains a few small shirts and skirts for Newsha.

  ‘Thank you so much. Thank you,’ Azita says, and then bursts into tears. Bulent’s mother hugs her and says something in Turkish.

  ‘My mother says these clothes were my sister’s when she was little. She wants you to know she’s happy to help anytime,’ says Bulent.

  I’m frozen in astonishment. ‘You are angels,’ I whisper to Bulent and his lovely mother.

  After they’ve gone, and Azita and the girls are all in a deep sleep, I sit down in a corner. I’m absolutely fatigued and emotionally shattered. I cry silently for a long time.

  SIX

  The next day I catch two different minibuses, the cheapest but slowest mode of transport in Turkey, to sign the register at the nearest police station. When I arrive the officer at the front desk is reading a magazine and completely ignores me. I stand there for five minutes, unsure of what to do, then eventually say, ‘Sir.’

  He continues reading, so I say it again more loudly.

  He finally looks up. ‘Iranian?’ he asks harshly.

  When I nod he points at a pen on the desk in front of me, which also has a large book open on it. Many names from other countries are written in it, some of which I recognise as Iranian. The officer says something in Turkish I don’t understand. I guess he wants me to sign the book so I write my name and date it.

  When I put the pen down the officer shakes his head and goes back to his magazine. The whole experience makes me feel humiliated, and I curse Azita: without her stubbornness we would be in Israel by now.

  It takes me more than an hour to return to our basement in Dikmen. When I get back Azita tells me we need to set up a kit­chen because buying takeaway food is expensive. I promise to find something but I have no idea how. What I do know is that when our money runs out, we’re doomed.

  I buy a secondhand, undoubtedly stolen, prepaid mobile phone for five dollars in Ulus, which I plan to use only for vital calls. Though it costs more than ten dollars a minute to ring Iran, I have to make sure my mother is safe. She’s shocked when she hears my voice – she can’t believe I’m still alive.

  ‘What are you doing in Turkey? They told me you were in jail. They told me you were going to be hanged.’ I know she’s talking about MOIS. ‘They took me and kept me there for ten days. They interrogated me . . .’ she says, sobbing.

  ‘I’m sorry, Maman jan. I just wanted you to know I’m fine. I have to go now, but I’ll call you again soon.’

  I hang up. I can’t ask her about her interrogation or tell her more about myself as phones are tapped in Iran.

  The next day I go to Ulus again to find more cheap stolen items, and buy an old pot and some ancient spoons and plates. I also get some electrical elements to make a kind of stove. At university I studied physics, maths and electronics (as well as history and mythology) as much as I studied medicine. I also worked in elec­tronics for many years in Iran, including in Reza Frekans’ radio repair shop where I made a crystal radio at the age of nine.

  I return again the following day to look for a fridge. The salesman is Izhak, an Assyrian Iranian man in his thirties who’s been in Turkey for seven years. His ethnicity delights me because one of my books deals with the history of the Assyrians, who ruled the Middle East and Mesopotamia almost three and a half thousand years ago, prior to the Persian Empire. Assyrians these days are mainly Christian and live in parts of Iran, Iraq and Syria, and they undergo much scrutiny because of their faith. Izhak works illegally in the fridge-repair shop while he waits for the UN to reopen his case. He scratches himself constantly and I feel great sympathy for him, knowing he probably isn’t able to shower more than once a week. Izhak lives in perpetual anxiety and despair, knowing that he could be deported at any moment. I see my future in him.

  He sells me a thirty-year-old fridge for five dollars instead of twenty. Later on I realise that Izhak has a lot of experience and knowledge about Turkey, refugees and the UN, so the next day I return to get some advice. Izhak tells me, ‘Be careful. There are many con artists here who’ll take advantage of your misery. Waiting for the UN is hard but if you have a real case and your life is in danger, they’ll eventually support you.’ I’m amazed Izhak is so optimistic after what he’s been through. At the end of our conversation I feel a glimmer of hope.

  The following day Izhak takes me to his house after work. It’s an awful unit in downtown Ankara: a single underground room and an outside toilet. It reminds me of where I lived as a child – we also never saw daylight or felt the breeze. Izhak’s unit has a timber floor and when I look closer I can see fleas jumping around. I realise now why he’s constantly scratching.

  He offers me tea and a piece of bread. I ask him why he left Iran, and he says it’s because he’d converted to Christianity and could have been hanged for forsaking his ‘true’ religion. To me Izhak embodies true Christianity: he’s risked his life for his faith, and he’s a very kind man. He has an elderly mother in Iran to whom he sends a small amount of money every month. His story tears at my heart.

  The next morning I visit Izhak again at his shop. Conversing with him is somehow comforting. While he’s fixing an old fridge he tells me, ‘There’s a place called Saklamak Haneh run by Islamic hardliners in Turkey. They give one free meal a day to homeless Muslims. They might help you.’

  Izhak has just written down the address when a sudden com­motion breaks out around us. The police have come to arrest illegal workers. Sellers abandon their wares and run through the narrow alleyways between the makeshift shops, knocking things to the ground. Izhak drops everything and sprints. I watch him disappear down a lane and never see him again, this man who lives in poverty and dr
ead because of his faith.

  I decide to walk to Saklamak Haneh and find it in less than half an hour. In a large hall with metal benches a man is serving sticky rice from behind a counter. It’s midday so there are a lot of people eating. The server has a thick torso and wide neck, and his bushy moustache reminds me of pubic hair. He has a conspicuous brownish blotch in the centre of his forehead, the result of years of pressing his forehead five times a day on mohr for prayer. Mohr is compressed, consecrated soil that symbolises Allah, and devout Shias go all the way to Najaf and Karbala in Iraq to get it. The more encrusted and prominent the forehead mark, the more pious the man. Pressing the head is quite important in Islam. Shias press harder than Sunnis, men harder than women. The chief in our slum, Mullah Mohamad, used to tie a hot rock on his forehead with a piece of cloth for many hours a day to get a nice round mark. His son Hassan, who left Iran and became a rap singer in Dubai, revealed the trick to my friend.

  When I go to the counter the server asks me where I’m from. When I say ‘Iran’ he shakes his head. I try to explain I’m a registered asylum seeker but he still refuses to give me some food. It seems their generosity is reserved solely for Turkish citizens. Perhaps the charity was established by an Islamic political party as a means of gaining support; obviously an evsiz Iranian can’t vote in the next Turkish election. Just before I turn away, an older man walks behind the counter and says something in Turkish to the server. I gather it’s something like, ‘Muslims are Muslims – it doesn’t matter where they’re from.’ The server reluctantly gives me a small bowl of rice. I ask the older man if I can take home some food for my children but he says the facility is only for homeless people, who must eat on the premises, so I give back the bowl of rice and leave.

  The next day I return to Saklamak Haneh with Azita and the children, and we wait for the older man to appear. Though he has no mark on his forehead, he has a kind heart. When I see him I go up to the counter with Newsha and Niloofar. He looks at them, the hunger obvious in their anxious eyes and pinched cheeks. He turns away and is silent for a moment. Then he says to me, ‘Bring your pot with you every day and I’ll give you food to take home.’ This becomes our deal: I receive one free serve of rice every day from the Saklamak Haneh and take it home to share with my family. It is almost all we eat.

  We’ve been living in the subterranean unit for two weeks when one night, at about one in the morning, there’s a loud banging on our door. I look at Azita, who’s panicking. She says not to open it but I get up and ask, ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Bulent. Open the door, Kooshyar! There’s been an earth-quake – get out now!’ he shouts. We all rush from the building to see thousands of people in the streets. Bulent’s fiancée, Funda, is in his car and we join her. We stay there, all jammed together, for hours. There’s absolute chaos around us – people huddle in small groups wherever they can on the street or in cars. Throughout the night we occasionally feel tremors and we’re very grateful for Bulent’s Fiat.

  For the next three weeks I watch the news on televisions in shop windows and see footage of towns that have been completely demolished. At least seventeen thousand people have been killed, nearly fifty thousand are injured and thousands more are missing. About half a million people are now homeless and the damage is about six and a half billion dollars. Yet we felt nothing in our unit deep in the ground.

  The next week I go back to the UN to get more advice from asylum seekers gathered outside the building. The UN, the Turkish government and the police tell us nothing – like slum dwellers, asylum seekers don’t exist in the eyes of the outside world. But talking to other refugees is tricky: much of the information might be incorrect, and it’s dangerous for Iranian asylum seekers to divulge too much in case intelligence agents are nearby.

  When I arrive the police are arresting someone for protesting. I see Shadi and Arya again. They’ve been thrown out of their tiny apartment because the landlord discovered they were sharing it, which is illegal, and they’ve been looking for new accommodation for days. I offer to share our place – such as it is – and they agree immediately, offering to pay half the rent. That same day they move into the other room of the unit. We’re all happy because now at least we have people to talk to.

  Though it’s good to have company, our place is far from ideal. The two small rooms are only separated by a thin fibro wall. In the corner of our room the ceiling is covered in mildew and the single shower is cramped and mouldy. As well as the constant clamour of the heating engine, we can hear all the noises of the people in the units above us – walking, talking, snoring and sometimes yelling. One Turkish couple fight continually – the woman’s deafening screams are punctuated by furniture smashing.

  Nevertheless we sit and talk until late every night. It’s all that’s keeping us sane. We discuss everything, but mostly what happened to us in Iran and what may happen to us in Turkey. Most of our stories are full of heartbreak and disenchantment. One night when Arya is out meeting a friend, Shadi tells us why they left Iran.

  ‘Arya divorced me three years ago and married another woman. He was just not interested in me anymore. Then I met a man, Ali, who I later found out was married. But, as you know, men can have more than one wife in Iran so I was seeing him a couple of times a week. I have a three-year-old son and a seven-year-old daughter from my marriage with Arya and they lived with me. Ali was very nice and would spend a lot of money on us. After a while he told me he was a Revolutionary Guard, and he introduced me to a fellow soldier, a friend of his who was a brutal man,’ she says.

  I know how ruthless these Revolutionary Guards are. They’re above the law and have total authority to arrest, jail and execute people. They even fight in foreign ‘jihad conflicts’ against infidels. Everyone in Iran is terrified of them.

  Shadi continues. ‘The other man raped me. I was too scared to do anything.’ She starts crying. ‘After a while there were three men who would regularly rape me, sometimes at the same time. They were in the secret service and they’d take me to their safe house to do these horrible things to me. They could kill me if I tried to defend myself.

  ‘Then one day Ali asked me to do a job for him, which he said would make a lot of money. I had to go to a dollar seller and ask to buy thousands of US dollars, pretending I was rich. When the man tried to sell them to me, Ali and the others would come in and arrest him.’

  American currency exchange is controlled by the government and it’s illegal for anyone to exchange US dollars in Iran.

  ‘I did this many times and they arrested several people. The victims had to pay hefty fines to be released. But after almost two years Arya came back. He had separated from his second wife and we decided to live together again. Ali threatened to kill both of us.’ Shadi sighs. ‘That’s why we left the kids with my parents in Mashhad and escaped to Turkey. Our interview at the UN is next month.’ I’m horrified at Shadi’s story, and can only imagine what it’s like for her and Arya to be separated from their children.

  Once a week they go to the telephone centre and call them. One day, because using my mobile phone to call Iran is expens­ive, I go with them to ring my mother. She’s worried about me but I can’t tell her anything, especially about going to the UN. I just say I’ll come back to Iran soon, and that we’re doing well in Turkey. She tells me the government has taken my house. This is the house that cost me a hundred and forty-five thousand dollars, a high price in Iran where home loans are practically non-existent. I bought it a year before my arrest and spent months renovating it but didn’t get a chance to enjoy it. Now I’m afraid that if the UN rejects our case, my children and Azita will be sent back to Iran without somewhere to live. If that happens, somehow I must stay in Turkey and work illegally, just like Izhak, until I get enough money to pay a people smuggler to get me to another country. From there I will apply to bring my family to live with me. This could all easily take several years.

  My mother also tells me she’s moved to Isfahan, where she was born,
but her Jewish relatives haven’t accepted her back into the family because she married a Muslim. Our Jewish family assume my brother and I are Muslims because of our father, while the Muslim side consider us Jewish because of our mother. So we belong nowhere.

  Every night, while the others sleep, I sit and think in despair until dawn, looking at my traumatised and starving children and worrying we’ll soon be separated. I don’t know how they’d survive in Iran without me. I keep myself busy during the day by teaching Newsha the English alphabet and how to read and write simple letters. Bulent and Funda also relieve our isolation when they visit every now and then.

  One night Azita and I, along with Shadi and Arya, go to the large supermarket nearby to buy bread and milk. For many weeks Newsha’s been asking us to buy one of the colourful boxes of ice-cream in the shop but we can’t afford them. When we go back to our unit, though, I surprise everyone by producing a box of choc­olate ice-cream I’ve managed to steal. Everyone cheers and we sit around the ice-cream box, digging in with our crooked, rusty spoons. I watch Newsha as she eats, her eyes shining with pleasure. All the anxiety has lifted from her face and her small hand grips the spoon with a vitality and determination I haven’t seen for a long time. Here we are in a slum, surrounded by noise and dirt and with nothing but a few shabby belongings, but for one precious moment it’s as if we’re in paradise.

  The Turkish police still treat me with disdain when I sign the book each day. In the afternoons I walk Newsha and Niloofar to a small park so they can play on the slide or swing and try to forget about our situation. Some Turkish people there look at us suspiciously and are possessive about the play equipment. One day when Newsha is on the swing a Turkish boy and his mother come over and tell her to get off, calling her an evsiz. She’s quite upset when I lead her away so I tell her ‘evsiz’ means ‘Iranian’ and is not a bad word.