A surly faced officer kept a watchful eye on us. I noticed that he fixed his eyes on me from time to time. Then I noticed this happening with frequent occurrence. I shifted in my seat and averted his gaze. This only caused him to stare harder. His eyes narrowed in suspicion and he started shooting daggers from black olive pit pupils. Even the French couple looked alarmed.
"You!" he pointed straight at me.
"Me?" I pointed back a finger at myself.
He said something in Turkish to a younger officer standing beside him, presumably an apprentice in training, who immediately translated in English.
"Please step out of the car."
I told myself to remain calm as I unlocked the door and passed a man with an automatic rifle. He stared through me with eyes frozen like a lake in winter. The commanding officer with the surly face motioned for me to follow him. His translator trailed behind us. Visions of humid underground cells infested with rats flashed across my mind. Instead, we stopped near a thick clump of trees in clear view of the detained car and surrounding gendarmes. The rain had cleared by now. Small patches of blue peaked through the cloud layer.
"Your identification papers?" the young apprentice translated.
I pulled out the black, sweat-stained travel pouch worn underneath my shirt, fastened with a nylon cord around my neck. The passport was buried deep inside and I handed it over with some satisfaction.
The officer grunted in surprise. He had not expected me to be an American. I fondly recalled the incident in Cairo's subway over my wrong ticket stub, but this situation appeared more mysterious and scarier. The officer barked another command followed with a curt angling of the head.
"We would like to search your bag."
I loosened the nylon cord causing the pouch to slump down to my waist.
"Here you go."
The officer opened the Velcro flap and fished out a few thousand Lire notes. Then his fingers pried deeper inside the bag and unearthed an old silver ring and some recent photographs.
"Who is he?" the apprentice demanded.
I stared at a pensive profile of Sharif at Ain Dara.
"Oh, that's my friend from Aleppo."
The officer grunted again. I was getting to understand his grunts. This one alerted his translator to probe deeper.
"He looks Kurdi."
"Why yes, I suppose that's because he is Kurdi."
Some more pictures emerged of Sharki and his kids playing in the fields on that day we had our picnic.
"These people are your friends as well?"
I nodded, slightly perplexed at what they were trying to say. A thought occurred to me, but I dismissed it as being too absurd.
"They also look Kurdi. You have many Kurdi friends?"
"A few."
"Where were you living before coming to Turkey?"
"Syria".
"Which city?"
"Aleppo."
"Many Kurdi people in Aleppo. You stay how long there?"
"Four weeks."
"And before that?"
"Lebanon."
"Very bad people there. Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad."
The apprentice stared at me hard, suddenly not looking so young anymore.
"You are Muslim?"
I nodded and swallowed some gulps.
"Your country of birth?"
"Pakistan."
"Pakistan very dangerous. But Musharraf good man. He love Turkey too much."
"Me, too," I said. "I love Turkey too. "Çok guzel," I added the only Turkish phrase in my vocabulary, meaning very nice.
They weren't put off so easily. More questions followed.
Why was I going to Nemrut in this horrible weather? Surely I couldn't be a tourist if the rain wasn't enough to deter me. Where was I really going to? Who were my local contacts?
The race was on to pin me down. My efforts to pass for a tourist faltered horribly on account of my recent residencies in Syria and Lebanon. When they scrutinized my passport in more detail and found entry stamps for Jordan and Egypt, going further back to Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Netherlands, and the Czech Republic, they were positive I couldn't possibly be a tourist. No tourist remained on the road through so many countries for such a long time. How long was it? Almost one and a half years? Impossible for a tourist. Highly out of order. I toyed with the idea of explaining the concept of travel as a means of self-discovery, a challenging quest for personal growth, but I had serious doubts they would have understood.
Surly faced officer issued a stern statement in Turkish and folded his arms in defiance. The translation floored me.
"We believe you are a spy for the PKK."
My emotions roller-coastered from frustration to anger to confusion to panic-stricken fear.
"But that's just crazy. You can't possibly be serious." I started to laugh.