They say look for the prescription in dialogue.
Maybe that's why the roads first lead to the story of a friend.
That's how my path started.
Everything was fine in the apartment.
Or so I thought.
I was a child.
I understood when I grew up:
That all was not well in the apartment...
And my “other” that I am.
It was the 90s.
This was Hrant's homeland.
We lived in a complex of blocks of twenty flats each.
We were in number 6.
Next apartment 7: Armenian Faruk uncles.
Our houses were next to each other.
Wall to wall, back to back.
It was as if it was not a choice but a necessity.
Or the silent architecture of a truth.
Uncle Faruk was a carpenter.
Let me say that sentence too, just for completeness:
“Armenians are craftsmen, very good craftsmen.”
There were twenty apartments in our block.
The distribution was again unfair:
One Alevi, one Armenian, the rest eighteen Sunnis.
We had borders.
Boundaries strictly enforced by our parents.
Boundaries that we are not supposed to cross, that we are supposed to know, that we are expected to feel.
Our house had an L-shaped living room.
One half of L was ours, the other half was not.
It was the guest room.
There was no door, no glass.
But there was an invisible border.
My mother forbade us to go from the living room to the guest area.
It was not necessary.
Because that border was already felt, even if it was invisible to the eye.
Invisible borders
It was everywhere.
We were Alevis.
But there were others who were subjected to more severe limitations:
Our Armenian neighbor.
Uncle Faruk tried to protect the borders.
But the eldest son loved a girl.
He was way out of line.
After long struggles, they got the girl.
But every love had a price in this land.
The price was clear.
Defeated.
Accepted.
The family surname was changed.
Armenian surnames were erased by court decisions.
It was replaced by a Turkish surname.
It was not enough.
“No Armenians.”
“Let him be a Muslim too.”
It's done.
I don't know what an Armenian family went through over the years.
But I think the fear is that the children “has be has Turk” he already had them named.
It was not enough.
Fear grew.
Problems have grown.
Surnames have changed.
The children became Muslims.
Listen to the folk song Sarı Gelin (Yellow Bride), which is originally Armenian, from this perspective.
We moved out of there after eight or ten years.
Where to?
To an Alevi neighborhood a kilometer up the road.
We were able to go.
They had to stay.
We needed an Armenian neighborhood.
It did not exist.
Years have passed.
It's still in front of my eyes:
Uncle Faruk's wife and my mother whispering, trying not to let us hear them.
I would miss most of them.
But I never missed your tears.
“Others” they were mostly good people.
But the one who lives in the same apartment as us “others”nin,
Who could tell us what happened outside the apartment?
And again years passed.
What happened?
Hrant Dink was murdered.
Today is January 19th.
Alevis were massacred in Sivas.
And many more things happened.
I can't even begin to describe it.
Now in our house we break pomegranates every December 21st.
When it is time for Ashura, you cannot make Ashura without pomegranates.
Maybe that's why...
The pain of still invisible borders is felt most acutely in the kitchen.
Note Names and locations have been changed.
I have filtered what a friend of mine told me through a conversation.
Love.