My Name is Hatun

Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdish 

She doesn't remember how long she's been here. Time is erased from her memory. From a honey-colored mid-afternoon to eternal darkness... There is a humming in her head, her body is exhausted but that invisible fist that sticks in her throat isn't there. An emptiness, just a huge emptiness is growing in her soul.

She hears the door being unlocked; two consecutive metal clinks, like a couple of words uttered timidly. Her eyes are opening softly. The morning light creeping in through the stable's opening door is snuggling by her bare feet like a helping hand. But it doesn't last long, two dark shadows are covering the light. She doesn't even look at the people who are casting the shadows. She knows it is her father and 15-year-old brother. She quietly moves in the corner where she's curled up. It hurts when she moves. All her flesh, bones, muscles are smarting with pain. The places where her father and brother hit her yesterday... There's something above her upper-lip; something like a scab. She touches it, blood: her own dried blood.

Her brother's voice saying "Father, look, look" is breaking the silence in the barn. "Look, she's moving, Hatun is awake".

"Don't call her Hatun", her father says. "Hatun is the name of your grandmother. Your grandmother was a virtuous woman. This one could not be worthy of that blessed woman's name".

"She couldn't", echoes her brother. "Not worthy... This one is spoiled goods".

His voice is emulating his father but in vain, however much he might try he cannot be as full of hatred. His father doesn't want to draw it out, perhaps because he sensed it too. What if this ninny relents and changes his mind...

"Spoiled goods ...", he says with a grudge. "Let's get this over with."

These words don't scare the girl at all. She knows what will happen to her. She waits without moving. She hears the footsteps of her brother shuffling indecisively on the dirt floor. She doesn't care. A memory falls into her mind. A fancy, wooden cradle. A blonde boy in the cradle, he is just three months old. A boy who is scrawny, always sick, always crying. She is five years old, rocking the cradle of the blonde boy to calm him down. But the child keeps crying. Her mother enters.

"What have you done to the boy? Why did you wake him up?", her mother shouts.

"I haven't done anything mom. He just woke up by himself, and started wailing."

Her mother doesn't believe her, she pinches her arm. She screams and moves away, hiding in darkness. She silently cries in the darkness.

Her brother saying "Hand me the knife and let's get this over it" scatters the memory. She is looking at her father's hand through her eyelashes. It remains in the shadow but even if she cannot see it, she knows very well about that blade, the one that will claim her life now. It is the knife they use in eid al-adha (feast of the sacrifice), it is broad and sharp. It is whetted a day before the feast so as to not torture the sacrificial animal because that would be a sin. "You have to take the animal's life with a single cut". Did they sharpen the knife last night too? If they did, what did her mother say? She always got worried ahead of the feast. Is it now ahead of the feast?

"Hold the haft tight", her father says as he hands the knife to her brother. "Otherwise, you will cut yourself."

A small lamb appears before her eyes. A ball of wool like snow, there is a black spot only on its forehead and rear foot. Its eyes are fawn, color of rock. The lamb's name is Muslu. His blonde brother has now grown, Hatun is now raising Muslu like her doll, her own child. Until one day when her brother and father cut it on eid al-adha. She had locked herself in a room not to see it, she recalls what her father told her brother who was holding Muslu.

"Hold the lamb's head tight or you will cut yourself."

A bitter tear is surging to her dried eyes as she recalls Muslu. She remembers a redness, forming a puddle in the middle of the dirt yard. Muslu's brown eyes are looking surprised as if asking why, why have you murdered me. Her father's bloody fingerprints on its white fur. Her tears are silently running down her cheek.

"Why did you stop?", her father asks her brother. "Are you afraid or what?"

She half-opens her eyes and looks at the frail body of her brother; the knife in the child's hand looks like an organ that doesn't belong to him. Her father is one step behind him.

"You will restore our family's honor", he encourages him. "And it's a good deed in the eyes of Allah too. She committed a sin, disgraced our family before the entire village. We cannot look anyone in the eye no more. As her brother, dealing with this is your responsibility. Come on, don't stand like that. Wipe off this black stain that has sullied our name".

"I will", says her brother. "I will."

He comes closer, raises the knife. Their eyes meet at that moment. His determination breaks when he sees his elder sister's hazel eyes on her swollen face looking at him without fear. He cannot lower the knife that he raised. The murder weapon remains like that, suspended in the air.

He gets angrier for not being able to deal the blow, kicks his elder sister.

"Turn around girl...", he shouts. "I tell you to turn around, turn your back..."

He thinks that if he doesn't see her face, if their eyes don't meet, he will kill more easily.

The girl tries to make things easier for her brother. Hasn't it always been like that throughout her life? Wasn't it the reason for her existence to serve this boy? "This way I too will be saved from this suffering", she muses. This torture will be over. But her father's venomous words stop her.

"Do not call her 'girl'" yells the man, his voice swimming in rage, "Her name is bitch..."

This word hurts her more than the kick of her brother. More than the punches, slaps and kicks that she has been dealt since yesterday...

"Bitch," repeats her brother, "You bitch, I am telling you, turn around..."

The girl does not turn around, summoning all her remaining strength she stands up. Just like that, at a most unforeseen, most unexpected moment. All of a sudden she stands tall against them. She feels neither pain, nor fear anymore.

"My name is Hatun", she says courageously. "My name is not bitch."

Two men step back bewildered. Her brother continues grumbling in a hesitant voice.

"You, you are a bitch, a bitch is what you are..."

She walks up to her brother.

"I am not a bitch, my name is Hatun."

Her brother shrinks before her, he crumbles. Her father tries to pull him together.

"Just stick the knife into her, stab, do not let this bitch speak."

"Do not call me bitch", yells Hatun. Surprised at what she is doing herself, she reaches out and snatches the knife from her brother's hand. "Do not call me bitch."

"Bitch..." her brother opens his mouth to speak. "Bit..."

Their eyes meet, Hatun is so close to stabbing him. She remembers that fair-haired boy. A child who is always feeble, always sick, always crying. She feels mercy, she does not stab him. Her brother is already trembling with fear in front of her.

But her father is about to boil with rage.

"I thought you were a man," he scolds her brother. He charges at his daughter himself. "Give me that knife. Give it to me, you dirty bitch."

The girl looks at her father. She does not remember the last time he said a sweet word to her, when he last touched her with love.

"Give me that knife, bitch," roars the man. "Give that to me now."

"Take it!" says the girl. "Take!"

With all her strength, with all her rage, she stabs her father in the chest. The man's mouth falls open, more with surprise than with pain. He looks with bewilderment as if he cannot comprehend how his daughter could do such a thing. But the rage of the girl does not subside, she keeps stabbing her father until he falls to the ground, until she can make the hate in his eyes disappear.

"Take it, take, take, take..."

When she finally stands up over her father, she feels a great relief. She throws the knife from her hand. Without bothering about her brother, who is aghast watching what has been happening from the dark corner where he is hiding, she looks at the daylight that can no longer be stained by the two shadows.

The wind outside calls her; like a sweet whisper, like a compassionate touch. Hatun walks to the wind calling her. She comes across her mother at the door of the house. The poor woman utters a scream and falls to the ground. The village wakes up with her scream. Doors, windows open one by one. She goes to the village square paying no mind to the curious glances of the people leaning out of the opening doors and windows. She stops when she reaches the mosque.

"My name is not bitch", she screams. "My name is Hatun! My name is Hatun!"

Whispers turn to voices, voices turn to outcries, but it does not make any difference anymore. Hatun. She walks, she walks towards the source of the wind, towards a new possibility, she walks until the point where the village ends and the cliff begins.

The wind rises where the cliff begins. It brings the scent of dried herbs and wildflowers from the mountains. Then comes such a moment that Hatun wants to become a wind herself. She wants to blend in with the flowers and dried herbs whose scents she smells and with the insects and mountains. She now wants to be a part of this endless wilderness, not a part of humans. She steps off the cliff with her hands spread. She doesn't even remember hitting the hard ground, because while she is falling, she thinks that compassionate wind is embracing her and taking her to another world, to a peaceful place. (AÜ/APA/SD/TK/IG)

* Images: Kemal Gökhan Gürses

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