Ahmet the Pig

The shadowy room buzzed with fluctuating conversations and the crack of wood from a stove in the corner. I hunched angrily against the roughly carved stone wall muttering periodically, "Ahmet is so rude. He’s such a spoiled little prince, I can’t believe he would smoke up everybody else in the room except for us. I mean we work hard for him, it’s the least he could do. Just because we won’t sleep with him, doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t share his grass. What an asshole. I hate him."

Ali nodded in agreement and opened her mouth to let loose her own barrage of epithets against Ahmet when suddenly the door opened. A gust of freezing air swirled in accompanied by the Doctor. He was a short round man with a shiny balding head, heavily lined face and a mischievous sense of humor. Although he functioned as the town doctor, he had never formally studied medicine. The only real training he had received was from an old dentist who had been a notorious drunk; shots seemed to be his favorite type of treatment. But the Doctor wasn’t here as a professional, since he also happened to be one of Ahmet’s friends.

He strode over to us and said, "Yallah." Which means many things, but at that moment meant, "Come with me." We immediately jumped up like obedient pups and ran out the door after him. Although he was a friend of Ahmet’s and any command to go with him meant to go with Ahmet, we eagerly followed because any command to go with Ahmet meant grass. Ali and I exchanged a look of humiliation, embarrassed that our desire to get high superceded all else including our dignity, but relieved to find that this need was mutual for us. We climbed into the car, giving Ahmet a guarded but friendly greeting. Ali asked where we were going, to which Ahmet replied, "We are going to get high." We settled back into our seats, smiling contentedly, picturing a short trip to someone’s house for a smoke, and then home again to the beloved backgammon board and the warm glow of the fire. A pleasant evening lay ahead of us and we were happy.

The car twisted and bounced along the dirt road that led into the center of the sleeping town, speeding around blind corners and scraping along the wagon ruts left in the frozen mud. We pulled to a stop where the darkness was split open by the garish light of an exposed bulb dangling over the counter of a tiny shop. The blue flicker of a television danced across the bottle of Raki as it was handed across the wooden counter to the Doctor. I froze in the backseat. Raki? A bad sign. Neither the Doctor nor Ahmet was very good at holding his liquor. Ahmet was definitely the worst of the two; his already boorish nature, if exacerbated by alcohol, was enough to turn the entire town against him. He had a knack for picking fights and barging into people’s homes hurling insults and demanding grass. I didn’t want to be dragged along for a ride like that, but presently we were trapped. Ali’s nervous questions were curtly silenced as Ahmet took a swig out of the bottle and turned up the music crackling out of the half broken car stereo. "We are going to smoke, it is all right" was hardly the reassurance that we were looking for.

We drove off into the dark night, still unsure of our destination, but reassured by the fact that the town was small and the walk from Murat’s or Hassan’s or Ebo’s house wasn’t far. I hoped that Ahmet would behave himself, since even these friends had been known to hold out on him when it came to sharing grass. Ahmet was tolerated by most people out of respect for his family and from a sense of civic duty. In a town this small it was important to keep the peace.

I concentrated on the barely perceptible shapes of the cave houses, empty wagons and piles of wood as they slid past my window and disappeared into the bottomless night. My stomach started to tighten as the car acclerated and the scattered lights of the town fell behind us. I stole a glance at Ali and read the same look of confusion on her face that I felt pounding in my own heart. Now, where was he taking us? We were on the road to Uchisar and Ahmet did know a man who lived there...but why was he dragging us along? The Doctor and Ahmet continued to pass the bottle of Raki back and forth as we sped along the nearly deserted road. Ahmet shouted over the blaring belly dance music and swerved as he turned to argue with the Doctor about something. Ali had little patience for Ahmet and finally snapped at him, "Ahmet! Where are we going? Slow down!"

Ahmet nodded and grunted, "We are going to get high." then raised the bottle of Raki in the air and glanced at Ali through the rear view mirror to indicate that everything was fine. Uchisar flew past us and was engulfed in the darkness behind the tail lights. Everything was not fine. Ali yelled at Ahmet, insisting that he tell us what was going on.
"Ok,ok,ok!" he replied, turning down the music at last, taking another sip of Raki and grimacing before replying, "I have a friend, he live, ah, 45 minute away. He grow grass. He do not smoke. He do not sell. He do not give away. But he like Raki, so tonight we bring him Raki, we play music, we dance, and after he drink, he sleep and then we steal his grass. Ok?"

He smiled.

"WHAT?!" we shrieked in unison. "Steal his grass? NO WAY! Ahmet! We’ll get caught, he’ll know it’s you who did it, this is so stupid! Steal his grass?!?!"
"No, no, it’s ok" he replied, waving his hand at us to brush away our protests "It’s ok."

He refused to listen and eventually we quieted down and resigned ourselves to our fate. Trapped in the backseat, weaving through the night to some far away spot where we would rob someone for his drugs in a harebrained plot dreamt up by two illogical drunks, and surely we’d get caught and end up in Turkish prison. I frowned in disgust at Ahmet’s selfishness and turned my pouting face towards the window.

The black land slipped by like a dream until we finally turned down a dirt road and stopped in front of a small, dimly lit house. Ahmet hopped out of the car, and ordered us to wait for him. He came back a few minutes later to retrieve the Doctor, and whispered fiercely that Ali and I should stay in the car. We were relieved, but confused. Perhaps Ahmet wasn’t going to go through with his stupid plan and we could safely go home now. As the minutes dragged on, we grew antsy and our anger heightened. What was he doing in there? Was he smoking grass without us? It wouldn’t be surprising if he’d dragged us all this way just to leave us, freezing, in his dark car while he got high.

"Why are we waiting out here?" Ali snapped, "We should just go inside and tell Ahmet that we want to leave."
"I don’t know. He told us to wait in the car. I don’t really want to go up to some strange man’s house in the middle of the night and knock on his door. I think we should just wait here. What are they doing in there anyway?" I replied nervously.

We strained our eyes against the thick night, but could only make out the faint outline of a roof behind the stone wall that we were parked in front of. No sound wove its way through the frigid air to our ears that could explain the strange predicament we suddenly found ourselves in. Ali and I had been traveling around the Middle East for almost a year now, stopping here and there to work when our money ran low. We’d ended up in a lot of bizarre situations, but this one felt different. We had allowed ourselves to be whisked off in the dead of night to a remote spot in the middle of nowhere, which meant that we couldn’t just walk away from whatever was about to happen. I was always more nervous than Ali, and I let my mind run, looking for some explanation, but it failed to click on to anything plausible. I turned my gaze towards Ali to gauge how she was feeling. If she still looked calm, or just annoyed then everything would be ok, but if there was the slightest look of fear in her eye…

Well, that was a relief. At least Ali only looked seriously pissed off.

Suddenly the Doctor and Ahmet appeared out of the frozen darkness and hopped into the car.
Warm relief flooded over me, "Are we leaving now?" I chirped.
"No, we are not leaving." Ahmet replied. "We wait here for 15 minutes and then we go inside. We drink Raki and we listen to music and guzum, guzum," he looked pointedly at me and then at Ali, "You dance. Tamam?"
"DANCE?!"

Suddenly it all made sense.

"You can go in and drink with this man and steal his grass and do whatever you want, but I am not going in there and I am NOT dancing!" Ali bellowed at him.
Ahmet angrily shushed her.
"Why do we have to be quiet? He knows you’re here. Why do you have to wait out here for 15 minutes? What is going ON Ahmet?" She hissed.

He replied by taking a long swig from the bottle of Raki before passing it to the smiling Doctor.
I grabbed the Doctor’s arm. He was a fairly reasonable man; he couldn’t let this happen.

"Please! We don’t want to dance! We want to leave. This is a stupid idea! We won’t do it!"
The Doctor smiled and nodded drunkenly at me, "Tamam ablar. Ok."

They argued in Turkish until finally Ahmet sulkily agreed that we would not have to dance.
“But look for where he keep his grass, ok?”
We sat in stony silence until the 15 minutes had passed and Ahmet opened the car door and whispered, "Yallah"

A warm house had to be better than sitting in the car. We would just have to be extra careful that we didn’t end up as trade for the grass that this man supposedly had. But who was this man? Why did he grow grass if he wasn’t going to sell it or smoke it? It just didn’t make sense. There was some piece to all of this that was purposely being left out by the Doctor and Ahmet and that made me even more nervous.

The door was opened by a stout middle aged man with cold eyes and pursed lips. He glanced suspiciously at Ali and me and didn’t reply when we greeted him. He muttered to Ahmet as he led us into a large chilly room with arched ceilings. Everything was white-washed and clean, and the room was ringed with the usual wide benches littered with pillows. The floor was sparsely covered with a few carpets and a big black wood burning stove sat dormant in the corner. The room was painfully lit by a bright fluorescent bulb tucked into the curve of the ceiling accentuating the hideous clash of colors and patterns that abounded in the pillows, rugs and frilly curtains. It was truly awful. The combination of obsessive cleanliness and sheer bad taste only added to the tension that already filled the night.

I stared at our host, Hussein, while he wasn’t looking, trying to figure out from the shape of his head or the gesture of his hands what he was all about. He certainly wasn’t friendly towards Ali or me. He wasn’t hostile either; he just didn’t consider us. We were women, so we didn’t matter. This wasn’t unusual behavior for a Turkish man, but most of the people that we’d met in the small town that we were living in were friendly and acted as gracious hosts when we visited. This man was just rude. Ali and I settled into the cushions along one of the walls and watched quietly as the men carried on an animated conversation in Turkish that our limited knowledge of the language prohibited us from participating in.

The bottle of Raki circled among the men until finally our host left the room, returning a short time later with a bag filled with grass. He passed it around for everyone to examine and Ahmet quietly pocketed a small amount before handing it back to Hussein. I felt my heart leap in excitement and relief that the grass was finally here and we could smoke soon. I had begun to think that we were enduring this cold garish room and this rude man for nothing. At least now we were assured a little puff out of it.

Ahmet began our ritual smoke by rolling a gigantic spliff. This took some time and was a pleasure to watch. The thrill of sharing a smoke was only partially about the actual effects that the grass had on us. It was the process that we loved as well. Watching Ahmet craft these magnificent spliffs that were so solid and perfectly smooth, filled me with anticipation and awe. The slow indulgent way that it would make its way around the circle of people felt peaceful and relaxed. You could linger over your smoke and enjoy the weight of it in your fingers, the taste in your mouth, and the feeling of the thick warm air as it expanded your lungs and seeped into your blood. A gentle process that swept you up and moved through your body until eventually your arm would softly rise and gracefully extend the smoldering joint to the person sitting next to you who would accept it with a quiet smile.

This was the moment that we perpetually sought. This moment of beauty and tranquility and gentle camaraderie that lay within our reach at all times if only we could find grass. It wasn’t really the grass that brought it about, but a joy of living and breathing in this beautiful world among these ordinarily magnificent people whom we loved and shared our lives with. Yet the grass was the social glue that held it all together. A beautiful conduit, a graceful means to a joyous end. And so Ali and I pined daily for our smoke, but were no different in our desperation from Ahmet who apparently pursued nothing in life besides grass. He was the owner of the pension that we worked at, but he did no work there. His mother ran the place with our help while Ahmet lived the life of the spoiled and pampered first son. Perhaps his endless quest for a smoke was a sign of boredom, an easy way out of this cushioned life that held no hardship or challenge for him.

The spliff slowly circled the room and the effects of the grass softened our apprehension about the evening. Hussein disappeared for a moment and returned carrying a tray filled with oranges, dried fruit and nuts. Finally, the night was settling into a routine that we were familiar with, a smoke, some conversation, food and drink. We felt comfortable at last and leaned back against the garish cushions. A fire was finally lit in the wood burning stove and loaves of bread were put in to warm.

We listened through our haze to the conversation that the men were having about dogs. Ahmet had just bought an Irish Setter puppy on his last trip to Istanbul and the puppy had been sick for the past couple of days. Hussein perked up when he heard this and said that he also had a dog that was very sick. He left the room and returned dragging a half dead dog with him. It was nothing but skin and bones and was shaking so hard that it could barely stand up. It looked semi-conscious until Hussein made a move or a sound and then it jumped as if trying to anticipate his command and started shaking harder. The dog had obviously been beaten its entire life and was mortally afraid of its owner. I felt sick to my stomach. I didn’t want to look at the awful sight, but couldn’t tear my eyes away from the dog. It was incredible that it was still alive, but I hoped that it would die soon so that its tormented life could end.

Ahmet and Hussein disappeared, much to my relief. I was glad to be rid of them, since the appearance of that dog rekindled all of my suspicions about our host. Something was terribly wrong here and this man was not like the other people we had met. There didn’t seem to be a core of goodness in him, and I couldn’t understand why we had to be here. Feigning friendship for this evil person was a new low that we were sinking to just to get high. After an hour had passed and the two men still hadn’t returned, I began imagining all sorts of things. Was Ahmet trading himself for grass? Was that what all of this was about? I reviewed the night in my mind. The way Hussein had treated us, the way he’d treated Ahmet, stolen glances, tiny gestures… Was it true? If so, Ahmet would never admit it. But it made sense to me; it had to be the missing piece.

The night was dragging into the early hours of the morning and Ali and I were tired of this outing. We wanted to leave since we had to work in just a few hours, but Ahmet was nowhere to be found. The Doctor went to look for him and returned to say that Ahmet had left and we would have to wait until 6:30am when a bus would come by on the main road that would take us back to Göreme. Ali and I were livid. It was so entirely typical of Ahmet to ditch and run without telling anyone. He did this all the time, but usually we could walk home. Now he’d left us stranded in some other town at a strange man’s house in the middle of the night. It was just like him. He rarely thought about anyone else unless they had something he wanted. What were we supposed to do? I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. I didn’t care if I had to wait on the side of the road for three hours in the freezing cold for the bus to come, it would be better than staying in that awful little room. The Doctor tried to reason with us, but soon began giggling at our anger, grabbing the sides of his head and rolling backwards onto the cushions in fits of laughter. We stopped cursing Ahmet and turned our anger on him, which only made him laugh harder. He looked so funny, his compact body curled up, gripping his balding head between his hands as he rolled around emitting peals of laughter, that eventually we began to laugh as well.

Much to my relief, Ahmet and Hussein suddenly walked into the room and we realized that it had just been a joke. And a very typical one for the Doctor, he loved to tease us like this. In fact most of the Turks that we’d met had the same teasing sense of humor. Except for Hussein. He seemed utterly devoid of humor or joy, which made me uncomfortable. I watched the two men suspiciously for some indication of where they’d been and what they’d been doing. I thought I saw Hussein staring at Ahmet with a knowing smile and felt that my suspicions had been confirmed. Maybe we can go now, I thought to myself, if the grass has been paid for… Hussein turned to me, scooted his chair closer, grabbed my foot and started to rub it. Oh no, not this I thought. I pulled my foot away and curled up closer to Ali in the corner. The night seemed to have come unhinged and now anything was possible. I was weak and tired, afraid of our host and his sizeable anger, unsure that Ahmet or the Doctor would have any power to stop him.

“Please, take us home now. We have to work soon, this is enough.” Ali pleaded.
“Guzum, guzum, ok we will go.” Ahmet replied

He turned to Hussein and told him that we were going to leave. Hussein banged his fist on the table, his face blazed red and he began shouting at Ahmet that we had to stay all night. We couldn’t leave yet. We’d driven almost an hour to get there, it would take almost an hour to get back and we hadn’t stayed that long. We had to stay; he would not let us leave. He ranted on for awhile until finally Ahmet agreed, much to our disappointment, and we sat back to wait until Hussein’s desire for company was fulfilled. Ali and I slumped into the cushions, too tired to try and translate the conversation that the men were having anymore. The Doctor peeled an orange and fed us slices to revive us as I watched Hussein for signs that the Raki was winning and he would pass out soon. Unfortunately he seemed to be a tireless drunk, someone who was fueled by alcohol, instead of sedated by it.

The men continued to talk and yell while we smoked and another hour quickly passed. Ahmet finally convinced a sullen Hussein that we had to leave. I practically ran out the door in relief. All I wanted was to be far away from this strange man who beat his dog, and probably his wife, and might be trading sex for grass. I had a bad feeling about the place that wouldn’t settle or go away, I just wanted to go home. We stumbled into an inky black night that felt heavy with the anticipation of dawn.

The Doctor drove us silently down deserted roads until suddenly Ahmet began screaming and pointing out the window. He tried to grab the wheel from the Doctor to make him pull over and stop. Ali and I sat up and looked to see what he was pointing at. At first I had no idea what it was, but then I realized that it was the moon. It was enormous, hanging low in the sky, a deep blood red, and sliding between two jet black clouds. It looked like it was absorbing light, concentrating the color until it was so thick that it should have left a smear across the clouds as it sank beneath them.

The Doctor was driving in circles now, Ahmet still screaming and simultaneously trying to grab the wheel and dig in the glove compartment for his camera. Ali and I sat dumbfounded in the backseat. We watched the moon slither across the sky, silhouetting the peaks and spires of the bizarre rock formations in front of us. It looked like we’d landed on another planet. Or the apocalypse had begun. It seemed to be an omen of something frightening, yet beautiful. Ali grabbed my arm and stammered, “THAT is the most astounding display…of nature…I have ever seen…” The world fell away as we stared at the moon. Ahmet’s flailing arms, flashing camera and screams came from a distance and the car dissolved as I felt myself drawn into that oozing red on the horizon. We sat and stared until the blackness of the sky began to fade shade by shade to grey and the outlines of the fields in front of us took shape. The moon finally disappeared behind the earth and we slowly drove away through the bumpy backroads that split the frozen fields around us.

It was daylight when we got home, still high but exhausted. The strangeness of the night had left me feeling apprehensive. The questions in my mind about Hussein hadn’t been answered and the ferocious beauty of the moon frightened me. There was something sinister in the air that even the bright sun couldn’t chase away. I felt like we’d traveled to a place that wasn’t rooted in reality and now this world seemed sharp edged and flat. I sat on the edge of the wall surrounding the pension, sipping my coffee and staring down at the town below me. I watched the fluttering movements of the women in their courtyards and on their rooftops beginning their day. They seemed so blissfully unaware of the danger that I felt lurking behind me.

Yet everything around me was unchanged, it was as peaceful and beautiful as it had been the day before. The air felt cool and soft, the sun sharp and warm, and the colors and shapes of the valley below me were familiar and comforting. I wondered about the eerie otherworld that I had traveled to in the night and whether it was always there. Just how much was hidden from me in this place, kept separate by my limited understanding of the language and the culture? I knew I was only scratching the surface here and that my memories of Göreme would be idealistic half-truths, despite how real they felt to me. I closed my tired eyes and listened to the sounds echoing around me, I made up ordinary words for the half-heard conversations, silly jokes for the laughter and created a world of familiar things inside my head. I sighed happily. There is no lurking danger, I thought, just ordinary life dressed up to fool you.