The frontier of the sun.
“Hayir.” After a month spent wandering around Anatolia, I have learnt enough Turkish to understand that the minibus driver wants me to abandon the relatively comfortable seat I have chosen, to move to a stool behind him. “No.”
Kars. Even in the middle of the summer the long, barren road connecting Erzurum to one of the most eastern part of Turkey seems painfully long. The three-hour journey on the dusty road, in a bumpy minibus surrounded by wonderfully imposing mountains awakens my senses and I find it impossible to fall asleep.
While I have been enjoying the infamous Turkish hospitality for the last weeks, I start feeling that things might be different in the former Russian town I am about to reach. As we arrive in Kars, I realize that I am the only woman in sight and am startled as a group of fierce-eyed kids start following me.
I refuse to let fear settle in but the devastating August sun is hitting hard, creating a surreal haze, enveloping buildings and adding to my feeling of despair. I have always wondered why most people fail to see how terribly isolating the strong, merciless summer sun can be. My feeling of loneliness increases while the extreme heat stifles all sounds but the one of blood pulsating in my ears. The colours disappear and walls seem to melt away, making me feel even more conscious of myself and of the sweat running down my neck.
I decide to shake an increasing torpor by drinking one of those glasses of black Turkish tea that have become part of my new daily routine. I enter the first tea-house I see and meet Kerwan, a young Kurd whose smile immediately appeases me. He is convinced that I have only come that far to discover the Lost City of Ani and I fail to explain that it’s the frontier with Armenia that I mainly came to see; that I long to embrace Turkey, to soak the country in. As if one could only get a sense of the reality of a place by caressing its borders with one's eyes and seeing its limits.
As we drive to Ani, I am overwhelmed by a feeling of excitement that is quite new to me. Contemplating Armenia behind the canyon separating it from its old enemy while the hundred-year-old orthodox churches surround us, I feel my unrest slide away and start laughing loudly as if I were alone, as if nothing really mattered but the Anatolian steppe and this moment.
As the sun disappears behind the familiar mountains on my way back to Erzurum, I have a look at the rear-view mirror and catch the driver’s eyes. He smiles at me to let me know that he has now completely forgiven my stubbornness. I rest my head on the back of the seat and, as the bus slows down, I close my eyes.
