Nostalgia

Once again, I’m in Cappadocia on a school holiday. This Friday is the first day of Kurban Bayramı which commemorates the near sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. On that day, I will for the first time witness the sacrifice of an animal, a calf I believe. The animal will then be cut up and distributed amongst the poor, family members, and friends. Such distribution falls within the tradition of charity promoted by Islam. Not for the faint of heart, it will probably also be the last time I witness such an event, yet I am curious about it.

In the meantime, I visit friends and acquaintances, walk in valleys where I’m prone to stealing crisp apples (no one else seems to be picking them in forgotten orchards), revisit favorite places and look for wooden tools and boxes in antique stores. Recently, I found an old knife sharpener fashioned from a forked tree branch, some nails and a cylindrical stone. Beautiful in its own rustic way, but too large (and probably too expensive) to carry home, I have to be satisfied with a photo of it.

I love one small street in Uçhisar in particular. Its houses are ramshackle, and there is always some kind of activity in front of them, usually related to food preparation. On any given day, a shalwar wearing woman might be making pekmez, often called grape molasses, in a huge circular pan set over a smoldering fire. Another might be opening walnuts with a knife, or emptying pumpkin-like vegetables for their seeds. Chickens and goats vie for the leftovers, clambering over a shallow pile of manure waiting to be brought to a field. Sometimes, a cow makes itself heard from behind a door. In the autumn, both men and women patiently chop wood with short-handled axes, seated on low chairs or tree stumps next to piled twigs. There is no natural gas heating in Uçhisar, so many people heat their houses with a ceramic stove fueled by coal and or fire. These stoves generate great but very localized heat. I’m reminded of how much time and energy the process of living and feeding can take.

The other day I went to Ortahisar to look at the “castle” and the antique stores around it. As I was walking through a very narrow street, probably gawking at houses, I heard a merhaba (hello) behind me. An elderly gentleman named Hasan led me through a grapevine surmounted door to his home. At one time, the stone house must have been quite magnificent, with an inner but small open area, stairs and doors leading to various rooms. Now, it is a cluttered shithole with piles of potatoes in corners, apples in crates, dusty jars of pickles on shelves, and all manner of junk jumbled in piles on the windowsills. It’s as if nothing can be thrown away just in case it might by some miracle work again or prove of value to some unnamed someone. While his wife, Cahide, made tea, Hasan showed me his three sheep in an adjoining building. I drank enough tea to float to the dolmuş stop. I was fed more than acceptable grapes from the vine, and questionable apricots and apples in homemade pekmez. Cahide ceremoniously pulled a stack of scarves with oya trim out of a bag and “convinced” me that a gold-sequined one would look wonderful on me. Although I have stacks of oya trimmed scarves at home, I purchased one from her at a slightly inflated price. I’m prone to making such pity purchases and she knows how to work a customer. Cahide showed me one room in the house, her very small bed and sitting-room, the arched ceiling and walls thick with white paint and the atmosphere equally thick with an accumulated odor. Maybe Cahide and Hasan accost every foreigner wandering behind the castle, and maybe those wanderers also make pity purchases, I don’t know.

I’m still awed by stone houses with their vaulted rooms. Abandoned houses on the hillside are often marked by crumbling foundations and a standing arch supporting air instead of walls. I like to explore the interiors of extant houses, testing wood floors before putting my full weight on them, and venturing into their littered cave rooms. Some have simple but beautifully carved fireplaces and blackened walls. I wonder what it was like to live inside them, how they would have looked covered in textiles, how they might have smelled like fresh bread, stew, people and animals. Currently, there is much restoration in the old village of Uçhisar. Caves are being emptied of trash, and ruins are being cleaned before rebuilding begins. Part of me welcomes such restoration because it means the architecture is appreciated and jobs are created. Another part of me prefers the ruins, the disorder and the possibility of discovery. Would this village be as attractive to me, all brand-spanking, newly restored? Is it possible to be nostalgic for something I never knew?