What is it with children that sometimes they will show the most joyful reaction when you ask them to carry out a simple task for you outdoors with one of their siblings or cousins? The excitement that overtakes them and the way they rush out of the house is a mystery. They usually would not be so willing if they were to go alone. They would make a face and sometimes even complain that they are always sent out to do one thing or another for you. The poor things are overworked to the point of exhaustion! Maybe the explanation is in the fact that doing something in twos or threes is more fun and especially if it is with someone they love or look up to.
This is why this photograph that I took a decade ago in the backstreets of Sur in Diyarbekir, is so precious to me. It could have been a photograph of my favorite cousin Dzovig and me some sixty years ago in Kamishly on our way back from the bakery. Our first of many such trips to get bread for lunch at my grandmother (babaanne) Vergine’s. It is a hot Summer day and I am maybe five or six. Dzovig is a year or so older than me. My grandmother gives us some money and says to quickly get some fresh bread. I am new to this errand, but Dzovig seems to know what to do. I mean, I have already some experience at that age as far as going to one of the neighborhood stores for cigarettes or a kilo of sugar. My father and uncles were all smokers, and they would give me an empty pack and some money and ask me to go get them fresh smokes. Or if there was no sample pack, they would tell you the name and you would rush to the store repeating the name over and over again loudly so you would not make a mistake and get the wrong brand. On returning, sometimes the remaining few cents change would be your present, depending on which uncle it was. They came in various moods and characters.
Dzovig grabs a big towel and signals to me to follow her. It seems she is very happy to go to the bakery. Her happiness gives me a sense of excitement anticipating an adventure. Dzovig was usually fun to be with because she was always full of ideas turning ordinary things into playful pleasure or games. She was usually spontaneous and careless, finding everything funny. She would say anything that came to her mind. She would laugh so much that her face would get red and tears would stream from her eyes. She would get in trouble often because of that careless attitude of hers. And you know? She never changed. I saw her many times after our move from Kamishly. Always the same: smart and innovative and still fun to be with. As a child, I adored her and she loved me too, like best friends.
So, off we go in a hurry as if a clock is ticking. As soon as we come out of the house, Dzovig exclaims, “Berjig, I am so hungry! I hope fresh bread has come out already”. We are running almost, she in the front and me trying to catch up with her. From time to time, she jokes around with the big towel, turning around to show me so that I laugh. Depending on how she wraps the towel around her head or waist, she impersonates a Madona, then a maharajah and then a belly dancer. She is being silly funny, and we are almost chocking with laughter. The funniest is the Maharajah impersonation as she pretends to be singing in Indian... the Indian gibberish we all had learned from Bollywood movies we all loved.
The bakery is just a couple of blocks away. We arrive and immediately Dzovig shouts to the baker, “Uncle, uncle! Three hot loaves please. Grandma Verjin is waiting”! Grandma’s name is like a pass code at the bakery. Immediately he pulls out three hot loaves from the oven and places them on the towel Dzovig has spread on the table. She wraps the towel around them and we start for my grandmother’s. The loaves must be so hot that Dzovig keeps balancing the pile from one hand to the other. But she manages to tear off a piece from one of the loaves and after taking a bite, she passes it to me. I almost burn my tongue, it is so hot. But it is delicious. Then she manages ripping off another chunk and another…she keeps saying, “ah, it’s so good”. By the time we arrive at my grandmother’s, half of one loaf had disappeared. Dzovig spreads the loaves on the sofa in the living room to cool off. She seems a bit edgy and soon enough I understand why. When my grandmother sees the surviving half loaf, she shouts at Dzovig, “açkit korna. Noren hatse halli haram eriris”(May you go blind. You have destroyed the bread again).
