By Hannah Katerina
“Iskenderiye’nin Yarıkkaya Rüzgari” or “The Yarıkkaya wind of Alexandria.” Refers to a famous wind which sweeps through the town of Iskenderun, Türkiye.
The ancient city of Alexandria. Not Alexandria of Egypt, that’s the new one. No, this all happened in the ancient city of Alexandria, in modern Türkiye. There’s almost nothing left of its antiquity. It isn’t even called Alexandria anymore, it’s Iskenderun these days. It looks like any other unremarkable city that you might pass through in any unremarkable country, all roads and medium sized grey apartment blocks, gas stations with bad tempered women behind the counter. But looks can be deceiving. The countryside contains large areas of fruit groves, oranges, tangerines and lemons, even tropical fruits like mangoes. See, you wouldn’t expect that from grey suburbia, would you?
But it’s true.
At certain times of the year the town is swept by a strong wind called ‘Yarıkkaya’. It was a Tuesday when it all happened. When Nazlı woke up, she could hear the rain hitting hard against the window, beaded up with droplets of water. The sky was dark and grey, keeping the daybreak under a cloak. When she looked out of the window, Nazlı saw gusts of leaves fluttering and flying down the street. She didn’t think much of it then, but it really was very strange because there are very few trees in Iskenderun, but so many leaves! Birds darted about in the wind at extreme speed, battling against the gusts, chopping, and changing direction.
See, winds have different personalities. The Sirocco was an elegant old woman, the Shamal a common thief; a master of disguise and deception, the Mistral an old friend that you haven’t seen for a while, and with whom you share unspoken words. The Yarıkkaya was like a small child. Determined in all directions, chaotic, knocking over street vendors carts on its way through the street. People had long since been fascinated by it. Poets had written odes; a novelist had included the wind as a character in their story. One German film maker had even come to make a movie about it, but it was rather post-modernist for general consumptive tastes. They screened it in the city centre, but none of the locals took very kindly to it. Nazlı described it to me then, “It was a silent, black, and white, surrealist montage of flying debris and disoriented pedestrians. Long, stationary shots of the same fallen over thing.” Yes, they really did not take very kindly to it, but they were flattered all the same that someone wanted to come and make a movie about them.
Well, at one time, Yarıkkaya could be relied upon to arrive from the mountains and sweep away whatever unpleasantness was pestering the city, but all the wretched tower blocks had changed that. Nazlı remembered some environmental groups who protested when the development of luxury sea-side villas was proposed. They warned that the buildings would block the route of the wind to the sea, but truth be told, no one really understood what they had meant, or saw the relevance of it. They only understood when hot summer air sat stagnant in the street, when winter storms lingered over the city, entrapped in a concrete cage. She had thought of those young protestors frequently in the years that followed.
Like last year, when wildfires spread down the mountains above Iskenderun. At first, Nazlı was not concerned, fires happen frequently in this part of southwestern Türkiye, and rarely become cataclysmic. Usually they extinguish themselves, re-fertilising the land in a cycle of destruction and regrowth. But the Yarıkkaya wanted destruction that day. Pinecones exploded as if the trees were lobbing hand grenades. Small birds caught fire and flew off in a panic, spreading flames with their burning wings before they immolated. The hills crackled. By the time the fires finally died out, more than 14,000 acres of pine forest were a blackened wound.
So, yes, there Nazlı was, lying in her bed, watching the rain and the leaves and the birds on this particularly windy Yarıkkaya day, thinking about the movie, the apartment block, the fire, the heatwave. She almost willed it to continue; Tear it all down! Let us start afresh! Let us destroy everything, start with nothing.
Oh, but why, why, must we always go too far? She flopped her head back in her pillow, staring at the ceiling with wide eyes as the wind howled outside.
Her baby stirred in the adjacent cot, half gurgling, half protesting. Nazlı exhaled through flared nostrils, as if you say, ‘not you as well’, but reluctantly hauled herself to her feet and plucked baby out of its cot.
Lips fastened to nipple; she rocked in her chair.
As if on cue, a Swallow flew into the window, splat, and dropped down, deflated onto the balcony below. Milk seeped through her pyjama top like an open wound as she hurriedly lay baby in cot and slid open the balcony door, rushing to rescue the helpless bird. The wind hit her forcefully, blowing back her eyelashes, disrupting a pile of papers in the room, slamming a door in another room of the house. Her long, dark hair blocked her vision and filled her mouth as she reached for the swallow, gently scooping it up with both hands.
Delicate feather, breathing shallow, laboured breaths.
Baby cried out, disturbed by the sudden gust which had overtaken the house and made it momentarily wild. How fragile, how useless that baby was. It could do nothing for itself, except to wail, and soil itself.
Baby swallows on the other hand, they fly all the way to Africa in their first year. Nazlı gently stroked the feathers on the swallow’s head, smoothing them down with her littlest finger. Baby is too comfortable, too comfortable! Look how it cries in the wind! What kind of adult will baby become? An apartment person, indoor habitat, subspecies all on its own.
Baby wailed insistently while Nazlı busied herself with the swallow.
“How to save a bird if it has flown into your window” Nazlı quickly googled on her phone. 103,000,000 results (0.57 seconds). Place the bird in a small, dark space, a box, or a paper bag.
Nazlı rummaged through her wardrobe and spotted an old shoe box at the back. Lifting the lid, she was suddenly transported to a different time, a different Nazlı, who would have, at one point, worn black stilettos. When she bought them, she had justified the price to herself; they were shoes for a special occasion, and they would last her for life, and maybe even be passed down to her children. How foolish that all seemed now, dressing gown and worn-through slippers. She tipped them out on the floor with contempt and pulled out a scarf from her wardrobe to line the box; a knitting hobby that she had picked up and promptly abandoned when she had finished her first, wonky disappointment.
She placed the swallow inside, as though she were laying it down for its final rest and closed the lid.
Babies cry in a pitch that human brains find utterly un-ignorable. Her friend had once told her that, as though the interesting piece of trivia would be a comfort during the long, sleepless nights of early motherhood. It seemed her friend was well informed, because baby’s wails had become so violent, so frantic, that something within Nazlı was unable ignore it any longer.
“What could possibly be so wrong? What could possibly merit such a reaction?” Nazlı thought as she stomped toward baby, scooping it up in one arm, grabbing the cot with the other. She marched toward the balcony, baby gargling in confusion, and flung open the door with the wind’s encouragement. Nazlı stepped out into the weather, wild and wet, and braced herself against the gust.
She set down the cot, and lay baby down inside. Leaves blustered violently, settling next to baby’s head. Little raindrops fell, gathering irregularly on her skin. The entire city, usually visible from the 9th floor, was consumed by cloud, as though it were being smothered. The cot rocked in the wind, baby’s small whip of hair flying left and then right.
Nazlı looked back just once before sliding the balcony door closed with both hands, fighting against the wind as she clicked the lock, finally getting back into bed.
Hannah Katerina is a writer based between Palermo and Istanbul.
Academy of the Heart And Mind 