here is everything i know about the man -- his name was fatih -- who rescued me last week from olympos after i missed the last shuttle bus out of the fardown valley and tried to walk out up a dark forest road under a full moon, with bats flying around my head, screeching birds and howling dogs echoing, and the sound of power saws tearing through firewood or maybe tearing through the arms and legs of victims like me, found lost and wandering and taken back to dark, wooded cabins with dirt floor basements.
fatih did rescue me. i wouldn't have made it out otherwise, though i intended to try.
he had to be rescued himself.
he drove a little honda motorbike whose headlight went brighter or dimmer depending on the engine speed. he would drive me up to the highway provided we could stop for him to get warmer clothing first.
zooming back down the gravel road we hit one pothole straight on and the bike shuddered. then we went around a tight corner and the back wheel gave a little bit and the bike chain came off and became caught in the metal frame and bent the gears of his bike and mangled everything. the chain was totally jammed, and two of its links had split, and the little tools fatih carried in his saddlebags could do nothing.
he phoned for a friend to bring other tools and we waited. luckily i'd brought more layers because i could feel the cold air pouring into the valley, moving past me and down, as the night settled in.
we moved the bike off the deserted road. every car that passed -- about one per ten minutes -- slowed down to see if we were alright. we waited about an hour for fatih's friends to arrive, another hour and a half for them to effect the repairs.
one old man with glasses on a string around his neck and a tiny little cell phone parked his car in the shoulder and waited with us the whole time. he let us wait in his car that had plywood seats with thin ratty cushions overtop. when fatih's friends arrived he produced a ratty set of rusted iron tools from his car and offered advice. only when he saw that fatih could start the bike and that it worked was the man satisfied that we were set to go.
by this time it was nearing midnight. by this time i'd long missed the last highway bus to get me back to sundance. luckily mehmet was just an hour from where i was and was heading to sundance the next day, so he came and got me and we went together that night. fatih gave him directions. in the meantime he took me to his house. he would have let me stay there overnight if i needed to.
"do you like eggs?" he asked once we'd gotten his kitchen warmed up. "and pepperoni?" they were organic eggs, the yolks very yellow, given to him by a neighbour, and that hard dry sausage that stays out on the counter.
his house was tiny but it sat on a big stone patio and overlooked six thousand square metres of fruit trees and vegetable gardens stretching down the hillside. he used to work for a pharmaceutical company, he told me, but he'd had it with city life and he moved out to the country. hard to give up many things but he said he'd gotten used to it. the only thing, he said, was that he missed his son, who stayed in ankara for university. but when we got to his house there was no one waiting for him and you could tell no woman lived there.
the stove was in the centre of the room. the tv was off to one side. there was a radio. there was a backgammon board. no oven, just a gas range on top of his washing machine. his laundry was spread out on the sofa and the desk to dry. there were bottles of cleaning supplies behind the sink. on top of the microwave, there was a plastic container of perfume.
his bedroom door stayed closed. the floor was tile. he offered me his own slippers.
we ate on a plastic table he brought in from outside and covered with a cloth -- omelet with pepperoni and lots of butter, yoghourt, a salad made with red peppers and hot peppers, bread which he toasted whole loaf on an electric griddle, honey.
he drinks a turkish kind of tea with bergamot. mo had a cup too when he came to get me. then it was off to sundance and safety.
this is all i know about the man who rescued me -- that, and that he rescued me.
