Someone shouts his name—HaZinE!—loud and clear, shattering the nervous silence, as if a muezzin calling the faithful to prayer on a bitter cold morning.
Woken from his trance, HaZinE sits up on his heels, tips back his head, and begins to sing the refrain to one of his hit songs. Surprised, the executioner drops his shoulders and lets him, still holding the sword high. The crowd quickly picks up the tune, singing boisterously, making an anthem. A thousand people breaking the law, a thousand people singing a ten-year-old pop song, a thousand people singing in English, “We are electrified, No longer terrified, We're here to testify, We are good to die. Freedom, freedom, freedom.”
As if suddenly realizing what he's there for, the executioner pushes HaZinE back on the block with his foot. The crowd continues to sing, shaking their hands in the sky. The blade swishes down, a bolt of lightning, a thunk of metal on stone. HaZinE's head tumbles on the black plastic, blood sprays, seeping out of his neck into a red puddle.
“Leeleeleeleeleeleelaay!”
An all out riot ensues, five hundred women screaming and ululating—“Leeleeleeleeleeleelaay!”—five hundred men pushing and shoving.
Within moments, dozens of UNI soldiers and police arrive, pushing people back, arresting them. Black vans screech into the plaza, and authorities open the rear doors, indiscriminately shoving people inside.
My protector behind me, turns and pushes away, trying to save himself. I figure he might know what he's doing, so I follow him.
Nearby a policeman raises a baton, and I scoot under his arm, my eyes focused on the nearest alley.
Rough hands grab my arm, jerking my purse and bags of groceries. My bag splits; groceries and toiletries tumble to the ground. Abandoning my purchases—there's no way to pick them up—I clutch my purse to my chest, lower my head, and try to run. My arms are yanked behind my back.
“Let go of me, you brute!” I yell, kicking one squarely where it should do the most good. He crumples with a groan; another soldier grabs my burka, twisting the eye hole so I cannot see. The gun flips out of my purse and thunks to the ground.
“Arrest her!” yells a mutawa.
More hands seize my arms, hustling me, nearly lifting me over bodies fallen in the crush.
Someone hits me in the chest, and I gasp for breath. Dazed, I find myself thrown into the back of a dark, dirty van with several dozen other women, piled in with no room to breathe, standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Surely they don't mean to suffocate us.
Frightened eyes stare at me from behind black burkas.
“You women are arrested under the sharia law of the Islamic Republic of Turkey. You will be tried and hanged. As you gasp for your last breath, I shall watch you twist in agony until the life goes out of your wretched bodies. I will laugh as your lifeless forms are tossed into a lime pit. I will spit on you. Such is the fate of traitors.”
The voice seems familiar. I push around the women and try to see who is talking. Standing on tip-toes, I pull myself up on someone's shoulder with my chin. I gasp, and stumble back in revulsion.
The man speaking is Shirzad Sahar.
The doors slam and the van pulls away.
Twenty-Four, July 2021
Gebze
After twenty-four hours in this sterile prison, cowering in overcrowded conditions, without food or water, bleached by relentless florescent lighting, I, along with forty other women are loaded up into two vans and driven for an hour to another prison in the outskirts of Gebze, a town on the Asian side of the Bosporus.
Apparently the authorities in Istanbul can't handle the great number of female arrestees; we are being split up and sent to nearby prisons.
The van takes us through the Turkish night, up steep hills, grinding its gears. With nothing to hold onto, we tumble into each other as the van swerves around sharp curves.
Finally, we stop. A single uniformed soldier opens the back, and we are told to get out. A grim wall rimmed with concertina looms against the dark sky. We are marched through an iron gate, down a short cement path, and into the prison.
The corridors are illuminated by bare electric light bulbs, flickering in low wattage, like heat lightning, as if at any moment we'll be plunged into darkness. Our footsteps ring out on the raw cement floors, through twisted corridors. Cool dampness seeps from the walls, and I get the sense they are about to cave in upon me like the sides of an ill-dug grave.
Guards, like slow-moving shadow puppets, step aside as we pass, pausing in their chores to gawk. They give off the rancid odor of sweat and cigarette smoke.
While the prison in Istanbul was bleak and institutional, this one hasn't been updated in a hundred years. I later learn that it had been condemned and slated for demolition, recently reopened to handle Resistants and the many violators of sharia law. One building is reopened for us women.
Erol will figure out that I have been arrested, but how will he ever know I'm in Gebze? I'm sure he is doing his best, and he'll recruit the local Resistance, so there is a small glimmer of hope. Now he has two people to get out of jail. I'm sure he's furious. I won't blame him if he leaves me here awhile to stew over my stupidity.
I never really made much of an attempt to learn the language of my in-laws, a choice I now regret. I run through my head the words I know I will need. Water is su, food is yemek, bread is ekmek. Baby is bebek. No is hayir. Yes is evet—I don't imagine I'll be needing that much.
One guard takes my fingerprints, another hangs a number around my neck and takes a picture. In my niqab. It almost makes me laugh.
Our handbags are inspected. The guards split us into two groups and march us down another dimly lit corridor, leading us further and further down into the earth. We stop in front of a great steel door, and the guards shove the first group inside, which includes me. The steel door slams shut.
We stumble into a large room with thirty or so women sitting on the floor and on beds. As my eyes adjust, I see rows of triple-stacked bunk beds, reaching to the ceiling. There are a twenty of us from the van, so that makes at least fifty women to share twenty-four beds. Beige paint-flaked walls, barred windows high up on one side. A din of voices vibrates through my skin. Black hair, olive faces, huge apathetic brown eyes.
The place stinks worse than any latrine.
We take off our veils. A few women around us cover their hair, but, no one covers their faces. A small relief.
I suppose a few are thieves or prostitutes, but most have committed some minor offense like wearing make-up or selling contraband. Others were raped, and now stand accused of adultery. All poor, all trying to survive. As far as I know, my only crime is getting caught up in a demonstration—oh, and that naughty bit about carrying a gun.
Immediately I sense a new social order, with its own set of rules. I am desperate not to offend.
A woman grabs my hand and pulls me down onto her bunk. Other women are doing the same, apparently choosing a sleeping partner, marking their territory. They have figured out that bunks will have to be shared, and are quickly choosing the smaller women.
“Welcome to paradise, habibti. My name is Belma. You're sure to love it here.” A woman above us laughs. “What is your name?”
She knows some English, which is a relief, her voice rough and gravelly. Her dark kinky hair stands out like a tepee around her narrow face, her coal eyes quick, like a squirrel.
“Abeela,” I say. “I am Dutch. I was making a pilgrimage to Mecca with my husband, and got caught up in a demonstration.”
“The execution of HaZinE?”
“Yes,” I say, surprised she is so informed. “My husband doesn't even know I'm here.”
She smirks. “Good luck to him if he goes to the police.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Chances are he'll get arrested himself. Don't worry. They let spouses visit each other in jail.” A cackle from above again.
Her assurances give me little comfort, but then, I'm not sure that was her intention. She takes my right hand,
turns it over, and inspects my palm. “You're here for awhile. They won't execute you until you have your baby.”
How does she know I'm pregnant?
“Come, we were just about to make tea.” With the possessiveness of a five-year old with a new doll, my new manager drags me into a corner where several women crouch around a tiny propane stove, as if at a campfire. They motion for me to sit, and serve me tea, with olives, feta, and honey on toast.
They are mostly Turkish, with beautiful eyes—dark and luminous, delicately outlined with curling black lashes, with brows arched above like scimitars. Some wear skirts, others voluminous trousers in brightly colored prints, calledşalvar. Several have an odd habit of cracking their knuckles. I learn their names—Arzu, Filiz, Jale, Omay, Tansu, Zaide—and how long they've been here.
“Every summer a fever comes through and takes about half of us,” Belma tells me. “See that woman over there?” She points to a petite woman who looks no older than fourteen. “She is a Yazidi from Iraq. She was taken from her family to Syria by UNI soldiers and made into a sex slave. She stabbed her keeper and escaped to Turkey, but was caught and arrested. Since she was pregnant, she wasn't executed. Every time she gets assigned an execution date, she gets pregnant again. Any one of the guards will take you if you are willing. They find out she's pregnant, and she's safe until the baby is born and weaned. Then she gets pregnant again. She's on her fourth child.”
“Where are her children?”
“The prison director finds homes for the boys. The girls he sells into slavery. Has a heart of gold, that one.”
As I relax, I notice more detail. It looks more like a refugee encampment than a jail. A handful of kilim rugs create sitting areas on the concrete floor, clothes are neatly piled at the foot of the beds, a line strung across where clothes dry, metal lockers against one wall. The beds are little homes, decorated with pillows, plastic flowers, and photos of family and pictures torn from magazines taped to the bunks.
My stomach rumbles, and I wonder about food. I'm guessing us newbies arrived after dinner. Belma offers me an apple, which I scarf down.
It is late and the women begin settling down for the night. Belma hands me a roll of toilet paper before showing me the bathroom.
The toilets are in a small space between the dorm room and the steel door to the hallway. Two toilet stalls behind wooden doors, hanging crookedly on their hinges, swing inward. In the center of the stall is a porcelain floor plate with footrests and a three-inch waste hole, which emits a singularly odious odor. An exposed pipe sticks out six inches from the wall, from which a steady stream of water flows down the toilet hole. A long aluminum trough stands against the wall with two spigots for washing our hands. Several women wash out tea cups and underwear, hanging their garments on a line suspended over the trough.
The guards searched, but did not take my purse when I was booked, so I have a toothbrush and a small bar of soap. I get the worst of the day's grime off of me, brush my teeth and head back.
Belma pulls me to her bunk, hands me a scratchy cotton nightgown, and tells me to undress. Her manner is rather bossy, I think, and I don't like being dependent. But my survival depends on accepting her protection. We sleep foot to head, back to back. I don't dare toss and turn like I usually do. My body is tense, even in repose, my mind whirring, trying not to despair.
Lord, help me . . .
Four naked light bulbs dangle from the ceiling throughout the night, flickering, batted by moths, the gloomy ominous light of an abandoned subway. I wonder if Kazan's jail is like this.
The night is filled with sounds—women's voices murmuring, moaning, crying, snores, sighs, and restless turnings, shoes shuffling, pages of the Quran flipping, knitting needles clicking. A small television sits on top of a refrigerator in the corner—Tom Cruise in an action flick, mouthing Turkish. It is never turned off. And always the sound of water rushing from leaky faucets, splashing on the floor, making everything feel damp.
Sleep does not come. Time advances breath by breath. The night will last forever.
Listening to the rushing water in the bathroom, I imagine I hear the sea.
I imagine I hear the Allegro cutting through the waves, under full sail off the coast of Spain. Jean-Luc at the wheel.
I imagine I hear breakers bashing the shore. But I know it is the tinnitus in my ears, the echoes of silence, the exhaling of fifty other women in a concrete room.
I imagine I hear the cries of seagulls gliding over the piers, scouting for muscles, or a stray fish dropped from a fisherman's net. But I know it is the cry of a man, across the courtyard, being tortured. Crying out for his mother. Crying out for death.
Finally, I sleep.
#
The muezzin calls at 6 AM. No doubt a recording, but I imagine a white-robed mullah, turbaned, standing in a minaret, arms out-stretched, greeting the morning sun. Across the land people fall on their knees.
I have already begun to live in my imagination.
Belma is already buzzing around the room, so I lazily stretch my legs, watching the golden light angle down from the two small windows above, observing the women.
About half rise slowly and patter into the bathroom to wash. They lay out their prayer rugs in a row, and perform the salat, reciting the takbir, bowing prostrate, standing, sitting.
At least I know which way is southeast.
In the far corner, seven younger women standing together, eyes wary, bright with schemes, slightly militant. They wear jeans, their hair short; they refuse to veil. Everything about them bristles. They keep to themselves, speaking French to confound the guards and snitches. Belma, coming to see if I'm up, sees me watching them, and whispers hotly, “The terrorist girls,” shaking her head in disapproval. Political prisoners or Resistants, I imagine. I will approach them carefully. I do not want to be branded as one of them.
A half-hour later, a harsh male voice barks orders in staccato Turkish from a squawk box on the wall. The rest of the women scramble to get dressed, grabbing their burkas and veils. Belma takes my elbow and shuffles me out of the room down a narrow stairway to a lower floor and out to a large outdoor courtyard. The women stand in three lines. “No smoking, no speaking,” Belma warns me.
Ten-foot cement walls, covered in concertina, entomb us in morning shadows.
Four men arrive, two UNI soldiers in blue uniforms, two prison guards, all with AK-47s on their backs, strutting like peacocks. The women stand stiffly, looking down. Even the Resistants. The women's warden enters the courtyard, a man with a luxurious handle-bar mustache, who swaggers up and down the line, inspecting us.
I stifle my nausea, taking rapid breaths, my forehead covered in sweat. It suddenly hits me that if I am unfortunate enough to give birth in this horrid place, this man will take my baby and sell it to the highest bidder.
He faces us, arms across his chest, and, as a guard counts out loud, twists the ends of his mustache with his fingers like a cartoon villain. We're not even given the dignity of a roll-call. Numbers without names.
The warden shouts, “Allahu Akbar.” The women break ranks and shuffle back upstairs.
As we leave the courtyard, I see another group of women enter across the yard, chatting excitedly, women with children and babies, and nursing mothers. I wonder what they could possibly have done to deserve to be in prison, and why they are allowed to keep their babies. Then I understand—as Muslims, they may keep their children. The woman who had her babies taken from her is Yazidi.
Well, that's some comfort.
I expect to be shuffled into a cafeteria. My stomach growls loudly. “When do we get to eat?” I ask, trying to catch up with Belma, but she shoves me in a line behind a rickety table, where a woman hands out numbers as if at a deli. Apparently every day the women draw a new number—the order in which they will be allowed to use the propane stove to make meals throughout the day.
We have drawn number eight, which means breakfast will be around eleven o'clock. When ou
r time comes, Belma motions to two other women I met last night, Filiz and Zaide. Apparently the eating groups are made up of four to eight women. She opens a locker, takes out four plastic plates and soft aluminum silverware, and lays the table. Other women bring out food from other lockers, which are protected by padlock. We eat Turkish-style moussaka bought from the food vendor, a pot of beans, olives, feta, bread, and tea.
Belma eats carelessly, her nimble fingers darting from her full plate to her mouth. Filiz, short and heavyset, eats slowly, daintily, and I realize she is very pretty, her heavy dark hair pulled back from her heart-shaped face, her smooth unblemished skin the color of cappuccino. Zaide, wiry and young, waits until everyone else has served themselves, then gobbles up every last crumb.
While Zaide finishes eating, Belma and Filiz and I drink tea. They smoke Samsun cigarettes, an unfiltered Turkish brand. The whole country stinks of them, and there is no escaping them here. I can't bring myself to smoke, but do appreciate that it covers up some of the more noxious smells of the prison.
Coffee is barred by prison rule because the women prisoners can't resist reading the future in the grounds in the bottom of the cup. Fortune-telling is strictly haram—which makes it the women's favorite pastime. They make do with tea leaves.
There is a short discussion about money. I'm to give Belma two Turkish lira every morning for purchasing food from a man who comes around selling food. Two lira is about sixty cents. Belma asks for another ten lira for my share of staples—butter, olive oil, canned tomato paste, beans, rice, and pasta. Apparently Zaide has no money, and does the cleaning up for us. We split her share.
After we eat, the women return silently to their bunks, curl up, and sleep through the afternoon. I lay on my shared bunk and look at the stained mattress above me poking through a metal mesh.
I feel myself slowly slipping into a thick fog of despair. I am caught in a riptide, and everything seems to be floating away, until I realize I'm the one floating away.
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