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FIVE YEARS OF MY LIFE -- AN INNOCENT MAN IN GUANTANAMO |
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Chapter 4: KUSCA, TURKEY THE VILLAGE OF KUSCA IN THE SAKARYA REGION OF Turkey is surrounded by mountains, but they are full of trees and other lush greenery. The air is warm and soft-it smells like salt and cough drops. Not far from my grandfather's house, the sea rolls in. You can hear the sound of the waves from his yard. A river flows behind his hazelnut grove. I called my grandfather Dede. As a child, I used to play every summer amid the trees. When I was hungry, I'd pluck a few nuts from the branches and crack them open. The shells were so soft that I could crack them with my teeth. I'd climb up into the branches and then jump down to the ground. I'd hunt for mice with switches that I carved from the supple branches. But what we liked most was sliding. My cousin Ibrahim and I would often steal metal sheets from my Anane's (Anane is Turkish for grandmother) oven or my mother's, my aunt's, or our neighbors' stoves. Our hazelnut grove sloped steeply toward the river. We'd take the metal sheets, which smelled of baklava and bread, sit on them, and slide down the hill. The sheets were big enough so that we could lie on our stomachs and pick up a head of steam. Sometimes we'd go tumbling or land in the water. We ate hazelnuts until we were about to burst and our stomachs ached. In Dede's garden there were also fruit trees, cherries, and apples. My mother had a sister and two brothers who still lived in the village; we had a big family. I often went swimming with my uncle in the Black Sea. Or sometimes I'd get up on his tractor, and my uncle would let me steer. It was a nice life. We went fishing in the river, using nets instead of poles. We threw back what we'd caught. Anane bought her fish in the village, since it was very cheap. Sakarya was pure freedom, I thought that night in the prison camp. When we wanted to go fishing, we went fishing. When we wanted to go swimming, we went swimming. Even the cows went swimming, I remembered. The farmers would bring them to the river and herd them in. And when we wanted to go riding, we went riding. We had a horse. There were animals in the grove, including snakes, some of them poisonous. As long as I didn't frighten the snakes, they wouldn't bite. They would slither over my legs. It would feel raw and cold, and then they'd disappear. I didn't like walking through the brush, though, because I couldn't see where I was stepping. I killed a few snakes out of curiosity, but normally I did them no harm. One time when Ibrahim and I were older, I saw a very long yellow snake. We had been tramping through the brush on the edge of the grove, and suddenly the snake appeared in front of me. Its skin was glowing yellow, and its belly was white. It was lovely, but it also looked very dangerous. I took a thick branch and bashed it on the head. It rebounded into the air, and I quickly stepped to one side. I hit the snake repeatedly on the head, but it was like the creature was made of rubber. Ibrahim stood there and watched, laughing. "What are doing?" ''I'm trying to kill the snake. It's dangerous. Come on and help me!" Ibrahim laughed. He went and got a twig from one of the hazelnut trees and stripped the green bark quickly and skillfully, as if it were a peel, from its hard, white, and very moist interior. "What are you doing?" I asked. "What good is that little twig?" Ibrahim grinned. He stood in front of the snake and rubbed it a couple of times gently on the head and belly with the twig. The snake became calm. Then it stopped moving entirely. It was dead. "How did you do that?" I asked. "It's like poison for snakes," he said. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it was true. This was new to me, that strength and aggression aren't always the best answer. I had played with twigs like this as a child and even chewed on a couple of them. The sap didn't hurt me. But for snakes, it was deadly. *** I had spent the summer before I was captured in Kusca as well. That was five or six months ago, I thought. It seemed so long ago. I had announced to my parents that I wanted to get married and start family. I was old enough to look for a respectable woman. A multesima-a Muslim woman who adhered to the rules of Islam. I had had enough of the girls in Germany. I had had enough of discos and Turks who used and dealt drugs and got sent to prison. And I was sick of my job as a bouncer. I wanted to do something sensible. I had had both Turkish and German girlfriends. They only lasted a couple of weeks, and sometimes I even had two simultaneously. It was just for fun. I was seventeen or eighteen years old, and I did what all my friends did. Now I wanted to put that behind me. A multesima wouldn't hang around in discos. She wouldn't cheat on me or disappoint me. I could have children with her. But you had to marry a multesima, and before I could do that, I had to change my life. I had to become pious and live according to Allah's rules. That's what I did. In the past, I had occasionally drunk alcohol. I put an end to that, and I quit all my jobs as a bouncer. One day, my aunt called and said she knew a young woman in Kusca I might like. Her parents were religious people. She told me about her and sent a photo. In Turkish villages, when a young woman reaches a certain age, the family of the young man visits her parents' house and tries to reach an agreement with her family. If the young woman and the young man agree, things can happen very quickly. In our village, there were two large families: mine and Fatima's. My aunt had known Fatima since she was a child. She used to help out around the house. I called Fatima and we agreed to meet in the summer. We didn't know whether we would like each other. I only had two weeks' vacation because I was about to complete my apprenticeship as a shipbuilder. My whole family drove to Turkey as part of a convoy in my father's Mercedes, as we always did. There were a number of families from Bremen or the surrounding area who were driving to the same region in Turkey or at least in the same direction. Along the way, we would stop and eat together, and other Turkish-German families would join us. At times there were as many as ten cars in the convoy. Turkish people don't like to travel alone. My father took his vacation, and Ali and Alper were on holiday from school. My aunt and uncle were expecting us. I had the time of my life. My aunt arranged a meeting with Fatima. According to our rules, a man is only allowed to meet with an unmarried woman if a third person is present. It doesn't have to be the parents. The point is that everything stays decent. We met at my aunt's. When I saw Fatima for the first time, I immediately liked her. I told her about Bremen and how I had grown up. I told her about my apprenticeship, the discos, the kung-fu studio, and I made it clear that I had become a religious person. She and my aunt listened carefully. I told her that I wanted to live with my future wife in Bremen. There was talk that we might marry. Then she told me about herself. At the end of our meeting, I said that I would think things over and that she should do the same-then we could tell one another what we'd decided. I was already sure after our first meeting that Fatima was the right one for me. I didn't need to meet her a second time. So I asked my parents to start the necessary steps. We don't propose marriage by bending down on one knee in front of the bride-to-be. Our parents make the arrangements among themselves, once we have made our decision. My parents delivered my proposal to Fatima's parents. First, in line with our tradition, they had to go shopping. Allover Turkey there are stores where you can buy whatever is necessary-everything from a suit to a bridal dress to gifts for the bride's family. One such gift is a special kind of handmade chocolate that isn't meant to be eaten, but rather kept as a memento. My parents drove to a store in Sakarya and bought a watch for Fatima's father, a suit for Fatima's brother, a blouse for her mother, a headscarf, and other such items. Everything was wrapped up nicely. Then my parents and my grandmother went to visit Fatima's family with their gifts. Salam alaikum -- Alaikum salam. They had tea. Tradition demanded that I not be present at this meeting. In accordance with custom, my parents introduced my proposal, invoking the "command and will of God" and presenting the flowers and gifts, including the chocolate on a silver platter. Fatima's parents then said, also in keeping with tradition, "We'll . consider it." Fatima's father knew me, we had met once in the mosque. He remembered me well-but of course he wanted to know what I did for a living and what my future looked like financially. His daughter's wedding would be a somewhat sad occasion for him since he wouldn't be seeing her very often, if she lived in Bremen. In the end Fatima's father said, "If our children would like to marry, let it bring them happiness." Then he asked Fatima, and she said yes. Everyone shook hands. Then they discussed the details of the wedding. If they hadn't accepted my proposal, Fatima's parents would have given back all the gifts. Weddings, so people believe in Turkey, always bring good luck. So we spare no expense. It's a question of honor. Every detail of the ceremony is prescribed and follows tradition. One week before the wedding, it was announced via loudspeaker in Kusca and the neighboring villages that Murat Kurnaz was going to marry the daughter of family X (I'd prefer not to give their name) from Kusca. All the inhabitants of the villages were invited. On the eve of the wedding, the men and the women in our families celebrated separately. The women sang sad songs about Fatima's departure from her childhood home. She wore a red headscarf as a sign of grieving and my mother gave her gold jewelry. *** The wedding ceremony took place in my aunt's yard. Hundreds of people came. We sat at a table decorated with flowers, were served like royalty, and got lots of presents. We were given a Koran (a symbol of faith), a candle (a symbol of light) a mirror (a symbol of enlightenment), and rice and sugar-the symbols of fertility and the sweetness of life. We exchanged rings, bound together with a red ribbon. We were happy. My mother was happy-my father, too, although he had to pay for everything. But he wasn't thinking about money. That is our custom, and many Turks save up for a long time in order to be able to celebrate a wedding some day. My vacation was coming to an end. Fatima and I had agreed that she would stay with her parents until I had taken care of the formalities in Bremen so that she could emigrate to Germany. That was supposed to be around Christmas. My family stayed in Kusca. I took the bus alone to Istanbul and flew back to Germany. On the plane, I started to worry. I was now married. I had longed for a wife, and Fatima was a pious multesima, just as I had wished. But what did I know about our faith? I had prayed in a few mosques, but the mosques didn't teach us much about Islam. I hardly knew anything about the Koran, about how it had been written and how it was meant to be read. I knew very little about the prophets and the laws and the commandments. How was a pious husband supposed to behave? What were my responsibilities? I hadn't even really learned to pray properly. For a multesima, what I knew wasn't enough. My German friends in Hemelingen had learned about Christianity in school or during communion and confirmation. Religion wasn't taught at my school, and as a child I'd mostly skipped the lessons on Islam at the mosque. I could go back there and sit among six-year-olds in order to catch up but it would take years in Germany until I'd learned everything-there are Islamic schools in Germany, but they are only open on the weekends. So I thought about what my friends in Bremen had told me about the Jama'at al-Tablighi organization. At mosques in Hemelingen and in the center of Bremen I had heard about the Masura Center in Lahore. There I'd be able to learn everything I needed to know in order to be a good husband and a good Muslim in less than two months. That's how I imagined it on the plane back to Germany. A stewardess came and asked me if I wanted something to drink. I didn't look at her. That much I already knew: If I was going to be a good Muslim, I was no longer allowed to look at another woman. We refrain from doing this not out of a lack of respect for women, but because we hold them in such high regard. I looked at the floor of the plane and ordered a Coke. I had thought about going to Pakistan and studying at the Mansura Center for some time; now my mind was finally made up. I could go there and be back by Christmas. It was my last chance, and my last adventure, before Fatima came to Germany.
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