first heard the voice of Axl Rose coming from the Aziziye Camii muezzin the week before the apartment collapse that killed 20 people. Maybe that’s why no one noticed, as we wept and searched and listened to analysis of concrete samples on NTV, that the call to prayer had changed. Even Baba, occupied as he was at that time with all things Allah, didn’t seem aware that our stanch minarets were suddenly singing a different song. But I knew. Hidden under my headscarf, my ears burned like the fire in that voice. Axl. They hadn’t taken him from me, after all. “Allahu akbar,” I whispered, smiling as I untied my shoes and headed into the mosque.

Murat looked at me sharply. “What did you say?” he asked, staring at my mouth as if traces of profanity could be detected on my lips. He had been listening like that since The Incident. Murat, unfortunately for Axl and me, speaks English.

“Hic bir sey,” I answered quickly. Nothing at all. My older brother watched with wary approval as I set my shoes on the rack and made my way to the back row, where shrouded forms had already amassed on the carpeted floor. It was Friday, which meant more women than usual, but men still dominated Azizye’s colorful interior.

“We’ll meet in front,” he said. “Then I’ll bring you back. I’m sure Baba will enjoy whatever you are planning to prepare for dinner.” Murat smirked at me one last time before walking towards the portico, but I barely noticed. It was Axl! How could it be? I sank to the floor and peered at the women around me, feeling like my heart was visible through my chest. He had returned, somehow, and here, of all places—Aziziye Camii, the scene of my crime.

My terrible, terrible crime. It had only been four weeks since I did it, but it felt like years ago that I knelt in this very row, occupied with the thought of who would be handling Pasha’s remains once the holiday was over. It was Kurban Bayram, the sacrifice festival, and Pasha was what I had named our sheep. Most families in Konya hire a butcher to do the sacrifice, but my father has insisted on doing it himself ever since mother died. Pasha had been in our backyard for three days now, and as usual I had grown attached, despite Murat’s lectures on befriending the sacrifice animal. Uncle Basar said it was poetic, that it mirrored Ibrahim’s love and sacrifice to Allah, but Baba said I was just like a woman and Uncle Basar was a simple-minded fool who ran a carpet shop.

I was dreaming about adopting little Pasha, taking him away from Konya into the Anatolian hinterland, where maybe he would find a sheep wife, when the yabanci entered the mosque. Like most young yabanci, he was dirty, with dark blonde greasy hair that hung down his back. He was wearing blue jeans caked with mud and a green jacket with American words sewn on the outside. I peered between the slats separating the women from the men and saw that his feet were covered in dirt, and little blonde hairs grew out of his toe knuckles. My mouth dropped open. He was wearing shower shoes inside the mosque!

“Tsk tsk tsk,” muttered the woman next to me, and the clucking sound, which you will always hear in Turkey, echoed throughout the room. Already men were streaming towards the yabanci, and I peeked over the ledge to see what would happen next.

The yabanci was oblivious. Maybe he didn’t know about the shoes rule, or the no strangers during prayer rule, or that Konya was the most conservative city in Turkey, or maybe he just couldn’t see the angry faces because his camera lens was pointed at the dome. Flash filled the mosque like lightning, and I saw Faik Bey, an assistant to the imam, grab the yabanci’s arm and begin to pull him away. The stranger became angry and moved back, saying something that I of course could not understand, but that Murat later told me was very, very bad.

Faik struggled with the foreigner, who did not want to leave. He yelled something about demokrasi and the Taliban and pointed to his T-shirt, which inexplicably had a picture of Rumi, the Sufi mystic buried in Mevlana Tekke down the street. What an amazing yabanci! I was horrified. They moved closer and closer until they were right in front of me, his grimy toes not touching the carpet and his shoulder bag drooping downward. I could scarcely breathe.

“You are leaving now, and you are never coming back to Konya!” Faik Bey thundered, and the angry yabanci responded in nonsense words as a group of men joined the effort to lead him out the door. But they pulled too hard—the foreigner’s shoulder bag opened, and yabanci things poured onto the carpet: a Turkey travel book, film, sunglasses, and a few colorful balloons wrapped in plastic wrappers which for some reason made all the women shriek. “Shut your eyes!” cried Ozge Bayan, an old friend of Mother’s, covering her daughter’s face with her hands. Objects continued to fall from the bag—a camera case, lotion, matches—and a portable CD player, which somehow managed to slide across the carpet, through the barrier, and under my floor-length skirt, finally coming to a halt at the toe of my striped kneesock.

I froze. My eyes were open, but it was as if I didn’t see what was ahead of me, didn’t see the yabanci grunt as he picked up his possessions off the ground, didn’t see Faik Bey close the mosque doors behind him with a satisfying slam, didn’t see Ozge Bayan collapse in a faint. I, Derya Demet, was now officially part of The Scene in the Mosque, and Baba was going to be furious with me.

But something astonishing had happened. As the crowd settled down and the angry murmuring halted, I realized that, unbelievably, no one was looking at me at all. No one had even noticed. I felt the cool case of the CD player under my skirt, and saw the black plastic edge of a headphone peeking out from under the hem. Staring straight ahead, I pulled it under with my right foot, and when it was time to kneel down in prayer, I reached into my skirt and tucked the whole device under the waistband of my gray tights.

My heart pounded all through prayer. What had I done? The yabanci was a filthy, awful man, a true barbarian, but this was stealing! In Aziziye Camii! During Kurban Bayram! What kind of Muslim girl was I? The kind that’s mercifully covered in layers of fabric, a wicked voice inside me said, and I felt the bulge of my new possession against my hip.

I kept waiting for it to drop all the way home. I toddled past the bazaar and carefully climbed the stairs of the bus that would bring Baba and Murat and me back to Coskun Sokak. I had forgotten about poor Pasha tied to the tree; I had even forgotten that it was Kurban Bayram and the relatives would be over for dinner. All I could think about whether Baba would just strike me when I gave birth to a yabanci stereo or send me away altogether. I looked nervously at Murat, who was munching on pistachios and spitting the shells out the window. He must know, I thought. At sixteen he was only two years older than me, but he had somehow managed to learn everything about everything I did wrong.

But Allah was smiling on me that day—despite everything, I still believe this—and my black-haired brother didn’t notice my secret. Neither did Baba, or Uncle Basar, or the other dozen relatives assembled in our little house that evening. I remained almost silent during the first night of celebration, thinking about the mystery hidden under my mattress. That was the good thing about being a girl in Konya, I thought. No one noticed when you faded into silence, because silence was where you belonged.

If Anné were here, she would notice, I thought suddenly. My mother had always listened to me, even when I hadn’t really wanted to be heard—and not just in the pesky way all mothers do, like when I broke Baba’s Ataturk head, or convinced cousin Gozde that only giving me all her Ramazan candy would release her from the evil eye. My Anné had a magical eye herself, one that knew my thoughts before they even were my own. I wiped away sudden tears and made my way to the kitchen. The relatives were leaving, and there was cleaning to do—Anné’s job, and now mine. I rinsed the endless teacups, vowing not to think of Anné tonight—an easy task, considering the sin I had buried upstairs.

After I had finished the dishes, I went to my room in the back of the house and lay in bed, planning to wait. If Murat could live his life unconscious, he would, but Baba never seemed to sleep anymore. Nearly every night after my lights were out he would stand in my doorway, stroking his mustache like he was waiting for something. Finally he would nod and close the door tightly, and then I could sleep as well.

But the yabanci stereo seemed to burn a hole through the mattress right into my back. What would such a dirty, awful man listen to, I wondered. Baba hated music—except for his beloved ut, the great bane of Murat’s existence—and wouldn’t even let me watch Popstar. Murat, perhaps due to the insufferable ut lessons and an insecurity complex regarding Tarkan, shunned most music as well, and my exposure to modern songs was largely limited to the arabesk played in the dolmus. Maybe that was what the yabanci liked—dirty, droning arabesk.

I could stand it no longer. I crept out of bed, my ponytail swaying behind me, and knelt next to my mattress, one eye on the door. Quickly I reached in and pulled out the stereo, which had grown warm in its secret spot. I jumped into bed and held it under the sheets, expecting Baba to storm into the room at any minute. I opened the cover and felt the thin metal sheet inside. Pulling around the edges, I tried to pluck it loose, and finally managed to pop it out through a hole in the center. I had never used a CD player before.

I pulled my blankets over me, and held the CD on the left side of my bed, leaving an opening in my covers so the moonlight from the window could shine through. The CD was silver with dark writing across the top. “Goons nay roh-sess” I read slowly. Guns N’ Roses. It was English, probably. I scanned the album for words I could understand. “Welcome.” “Child.” That was all. My mother had enabled Murat to learn English by convincing Baba it would help him find a good job, but this would of course never be possible for me.

I put the CD back in the stereo and pulled the headphones over my ears, then rearranged my long, dark hair so that everything would be hidden. Laying my head back on the pillow, I pulled the blanket tightly over me, and turned my eyes to slits, the eyes, hopefully, of a good daughter dreaming about studying and dishes and Allah. The hallway light trickled through the bottom of the door. Where was Baba? Why hadn’t he come in yet?

Trembling, I began to press the buttons, hoping one of them would make sound. What would Anné think of me now? What would Murat and Baba do if they saw me? I thought of Baba’s blank eyes and Murat’s stupid face and of the disgusting yabanci in his Rumi shirt and all those stupid tea cups in the sink, and braced myself for punishment. But I heard nothing, no music, no footsteps in the hall. Just Pasha pacing in the backyard, and the racing of my own heart.

Then, suddenly, music. At least, it seemed to be music—I had never heard anything like it in my life. Guitars were screaming in my ears like a siren—maybe there really was a siren?—and I heard a yabanci mutter something harsh. Panicked, I felt for the stop button. How could anything be so noisy! Surely everyone could hear this! But I couldn’t make it stop. The guitars grew louder and louder, and then I heard Him.

The voice. “WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE!” it bellowed incomprehensibly. The voice was high and deep at the same time; I didn’t know if it was a woman or a man. Perhaps it was an animal. The voice screeched, guttural, pure, singing one note in many voices, like a muezzin—a terrible, wonderful prayer. My eyes were wide now, but I wasn’t watching the door. I could hear everything, every awful thing, in that furious voice. The drums replaced my heart; the guitars sliced me in half.

“YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE?” it moaned in its foreign, forbidden, tongue. “YOU’RE IN THE JUNGLE, BABY. YOU GONNA DIIIEEEE!” The music changed, and suddenly I felt good, strong, like something was lifting me, and my body began to stir. Suddenly I was sitting straight up, blankets off, my hair whipping around my face, feeling like a fierce bright light was coursing all the way up in me. I rocked on the bed, savoring that Voice, and then suddenly, with a final yowl, the song was over, and the only sound I heard was Baba’s footsteps near my door.

“No!” I whispered and frantically groped at the headphones, pulling them off my ears. I stuffed the stereo under the blankets and was sliding back into bed when Baba saw me, turning the lights on my shaking, shrouded form.

“Ohhhh,” I moaned, flushed and terrified. I put my face into the pillow, unable to look at my father’s eyes. My nightclothes were soaked through the back. “Ohhhh, Baba…”

“Derya!” I could feel my father standing over me. “Derya, what are you doing awake? What’s wrong with you?” He knows! He knows! a voice screamed in my head, sounding strangely like Murat’s. “What is the matter?” he repeated. I opened one eye and peered at my father, expecting his black bushy eyebrows to be knotted in anger. But to my shock, he seemed concerned—almost gentle, for Baba. I was overwhelmed with guilt. What could I tell him that would not shame him forever?

“Oh, Baba, it’s-it’s…” My hands touched the tip of the headphones under my back. “It’s my stomach, Baba,” I babbled. “Oh, it hurts so much. I’m so sorry to bother you, Baba…”

“Your stomach!” His eyes were bright with concern, but he still flinched. Suddenly, I knew what to do.

“Oh yes, Baba. It’s…oh I can’t say.” I turned over and faced the pillow, real tears streaming down my face. Suddenly I was very tired. “I can’t tell you, Baba. It’s the sort of thing I could only tell…mother.” The lie pulled at my heart, surprising me. “You know, Baba…that thing. Once a month.”

That was enough for Baba, who took a step back. “Oh,” he said, and examined his daughter’s pained brown eyes, her long brown hair in a mess down her back. Our eyes met like strangers. “Maybe,” he said finally, “you should have some tea.”

Silence as my heart began to slow. He believed it. Of course he believed it. Men like Baba don’t question such things, because they don’t even want to think about them. My forbidden yabanci toy suddenly felt as safe with me as if it were my own child.

“I think tea would keep me awake too long,” I said finally. “Don’t worry, Baba—it’s not a problem for you. I’m okay.”

Baba was already backing towards the door, and he smiled at this. “Iyi geceler,” he said, motioning towards the light. I nodded, and he turned the switch, leaving me in the dark with the Voice.

Every night for the next week, I got to know the Voice. He—I felt now, instinctively, it was a He—talked to me under the covers, and eventually the rhythms of his anger became familiar. I knew when he would rage, when he would cry, when he would hate, when he would be so filled with love and loss that there was no way out but to carry the scream forever. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but I always knew what he meant.

Each song made me feel different. Their names were an enigma, though not as mercilessly unpronounceable as the CD title, “Appetite for Destruction.” “Nightrain” was a magical song that made my hips move even when I told them not to, while the end of Song Six, “Paradise City,” always made me feel as if I’d drunk too much tea. I liked to look at myself in the mirror during the last song, “Rocket Queen,” and “My Michelle” was so mystifying and true that I considered hiding my headphones under my headscarf so I could hear it on the way to school.

But the most special song was Song Nine, “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” This was My Song, I thought; as surely as the Koran was revealed to the Prophet Muhamet, so this song was revealed to me, was meant for me—I knew this, sinful as it was true. The music opened high and sweet, and His Voice soared and soared, something that swelled beneath me and above me at the same time. It got fast, then low, until finally it exploded like an angry muezzin— “AI YAI YAI YAI!!” I couldn’t even catch my breath. “Where do we go now?” the voice wailed. “Where do we go?” I knew this song before I heard it, and when it ended and the scenes of my life had left my mind, I was always filled with tears.

Outside my bedroom, life went on as usual. Kurban Bayram came and went, as did my poor dear Pasha, and school started again. Murat was too consumed with football and avoiding ut lessons to notice any change in me, not that there were really any to see. On the outside I was still the same Derya, Ahmet Demet’s petite brown-eyed daughter who always wore a flowered headscarf to the Fatima School for Girls. Baba assumed extra studying had made me so tired I needed to go to bed early, and, a bit to my dismay, seemed to regard me with new approval.

But everything had changed. Daylight passed like a dream. I heard drumbeats in my algebra and guitars in my Arabic. The cadences of my faith (La ilaha illa Allah) resembled nothing so much as His Voice, a fact as shameful as it was true. The streets of Konya seemed livelier and more interesting than before—the extent that my own secret had gone undetected made me question what others had to hide. What did the men do in those nargile cafés? I would wonder. What about that housewife in the window hanging clothes? Those boys grouped behind a tree on Allaaddin Hill? Was I as blank to them as they were to me? Could they not detect the treachery through my skirt and robe, could they not see the relief in my eyes as the final call to prayer announced night?

I was filled with questions, but the biggest mystery of all was, of course, the Voice itself. Part of me, the part that remembered the stinky yabanci in his shower shoes, did not want to know who was behind this mysterious sound. Often I would pretend that I had never stolen the CD player at all, that it had simply appeared under my pillow, and you certainly weren’t supposed to question the origins of such a gift. Another part of me, one fueled by traces of male conversation, wondered if this truly was something evil, a tool of the infidel, as Faik Bey would say. I didn’t belong to Konya as I had before, I realized. But had I ever belonged to begin with?

My curiosity was too strong. I alternated between listening to the songs and memorizing the titles, mastering the spelling of “Guns N’ Roses.” On the bus ride home from school I made my plan, choosing my timing carefully. On Thursdays Baba worked late at the factory, where he was manager, and Murat had his ut. The Fatima School for Girls mathematics club also met that day—a newly believable excuse, given my apparent exhaustive studiousness.

With “Welcome to the Jungle” rattling through my head, I entered the commercial district of Konya early one Thursday afternoon, and retied my headscarf so that it covered my face and not just my hair. Praise Allah I was a woman and could hide myself this way! Still, my heart was racing. I walked up a side street from where I had seen the sign from the bus window the week before. Men walked by me, shouting about the amazing qualities of their breads and spices. My eyes widened as a female yabanci, clad only in a small skirt and thin blouse, walked into where I was headed. Sechkin Internet Café. I had only seen yabanci like that on television. Was this the kind of girl I would become?

I waited for her to pass. Slowly I walked towards the entrance, checking to see if anyone was watching. I pushed the heavy red door open and stood in a dark concrete alley. The door slammed behind me. There was no café. I stared helplessly at the dark walls and reached for the door handle, but it wouldn’t open. Turning around, I took in at my dank new home, my new trap. This is it, I thought. This is the punishment for deceiving Baba. I was in some kind of hell. My headscarf felt hot, and I lowered it to my chin. Baba I’m so sorry, I thought, remembering my writhing hips below the blankets. I will stop. I will go to mosque tomorrow and beg to Allah—

“Pardon?” I jumped. A Turkish man stood behind me, confusion and bemusement in his eyes. “Are you looking for the café? It’s upstairs, you know.” He pointed at the wall to the right of me, where a railing was clearly visible.

I stared stupidly. What was wrong with me? “Cok tesekkur ederim,” I murmured in thanks, and fled up the stairs as the man stared after me. Wonderful, Derya, there surely wasn’t anything strange about that.

At the top of the stairs there was a door with a red sign. I pushed it open and was almost blinded by fluorescent light. Music and sounds blared from the computers, nearly all of which were being used, I realized, by teenage boys playing some kind of horrible game. I stared at the nearest computer in amazement as a figure in a car pulled out a gun, and shot another figure on the screen. Blood splattered everywhere. What was this mad world?

“Yes?” A young man was looking at me in disbelief.

“Yes, I would like one internet, please,” I said to the floor, trying to avoid the death and slaughter half a meter to my right.

“12,” he said, and gave me a slip of paper. I stared at it in bafflement. Sighing, he pointed to a machine towards the back of the room, facing the window outside. Hesitantly I moved towards the desk, conscious of my skirt touching the ground.

I sat in the chair and faced the screen. I had used a computer a few times in Baba’s office, but never the internet. It was strictly forbidden, although I know Murat had used it once or twice, to look up football statistics, mostly. After some confusion, I clicked on a button called ‘internet,’ and a white screen came up. “www.google.tr,” I read. A long bar lay in the middle of the screen. I racked my mind for the correct spelling. Please work. Please let me figure out this machine. Please tell me who He is and I’ll never, ever listen to Him again, I thought, and cringed at my own false prayer.

I pressed “g” and nothing happened. Frustrated, I clicked all around the screen, traitorous thoughts moving through my mind. Why shouldn’t you be here? a voice asked. If these stupid kids can play their death games, you can use the internet. What does it matter what Baba or Murat thinks? They don’t know you, they never bothered to know you, and the very fact that they haven’t found out your dumb secret means they’re not worth considering.

The computer is making me crazy, I told myself. I began to sweat. Finally, I clicked on the left side of the white bar and pressed “g.” To my relief, it appeared in the bar, and I slowly wrote out the name. “Guns N’ Roses.” I pressed one of the biggest buttons and the globe in the top right corner started to spin.

And then it appeared: Guns N’ Roses, Guns N’ Roses. A whole page! Amazed, I clicked on the top line, and the screen began to change again. Suddenly the computer went black, and then a photo of a man appeared. He had long, straight brown hair, and was as skinny as a minaret. He wore shiny black pants, a tight white shirt, and huge black boots. His arms were covered with pictures, and chains hung from his waist. I gaped—there was something horrifying about this man. But I looked at the face, and I knew it was Him. The mouth was contorted in rage and pain, his eyes were barely open, as if he couldn’t stand to look at the world. This was my Voice.

“Axl Rose, lead singer of defunct 1980s metal band Guns N’ Roses,” it said underneath the photo. I took out my school notebook and painstakingly copied this down. Axl Rose. “Ak-sel,” I said softly, grateful I had learned the foreign character “x” in math class. “Ak-sel Ro-seh.” Who are you, Axl Rose? And how is it you seem to know so much about me?

I jumped as one of the boys leapt into the air after some spectacular kill. “Yeah!” he yelled, and I saw my reflection in the window, a good Muslim girl in this fluorescent cesspool of boys and freedom. It had been too easy—you could find anything on those machines, I realized. I turned the computer off, throwing a million lira on the table and running out of the cafe down the darkened stairs. Turning right out the doorway, I began to head down the street. How long had I been there? I had to cook dinner for Baba! I began to walk faster, nearly tripping over the hem of my skirt. Where is the bus? Where do I catch the bus? Why does Uncle Basar look so confused?

Uncle Basar! It couldn’t be. Of all the awful luck—once again, I thought of my divine punishment. With dread, I watched as my mother’s brother, the simpleminded carpet salesman, made his way towards his shameful niece like a hunter towards prey.

“Derya!” he said brightly. “What are you doing here? And alone!” he added, his eyebrows rising, his eyes kind and quizzical.

“Uncle Basar, merhaba!” I grinned with false cheerfulness, my head swimming. “Oh, I was just, well, getting some baklava for Baba,” I continued. “I heard that—“ I looked around—“Savoy made the best baklava,” I said, pointing to a pastry shop. “And, you know, I make dinner now, so…”

“I see,” said Uncle Basar. “And here I already thought it lucky to see my favorite niece, and now I know it’s true, since she’s carrying cake! Can you spare a piece of baklava for your tired old uncle?” He grinned, showing his gold tooth. But there was something curious about that smile.

“I, um…” I paused. “I ate it! All of it! It was that good, Uncle Basar, really,” I said. “In fact, I need to buy more, right away. I’m going to Savoy right now and I have to be home before dark, so, like I said, I’m going. Right now. I’ll see you, Uncle Basar!” I began to walk across the street, but his hand was already on my shoulder.

“Derya,” he said. Uncle Basar usually talked like a magic carpet, high and light with nothing underneath. But now he was serious. “Derya, you are the woman of your house now. Soon you will be fifteen, then sixteen, then you will have a home of your own, with a man…” he trailed off.

“I don’t know what you are doing,” he continued. “I know you have always been a good girl, and you are a good girl.” My eyes filled with tears. “But I know when my niece isn’t telling the truth. If there’s something you want to tell your uncle, please do. I know there’s something you don’t want me to tell your baba. And I won’t,” he said, seeing my eyes fill with horror. “I won’t. But I don’t want to see you walking out in Konya alone again. Stay with your brother, or your school friends. Do you understand? This is not a place for you.”

His face was serious, but Uncle Basar’s smile was warm, and genuine. “My little niece,” he said. “You are a mystery today—now I know you are becoming a woman. Let’s go get some baklava, for real,” he added, rolling his eyes. “My treat.”

I nodded mutely and let my mother’s brother lead me across the street. My stupid lies, my stupid, stupid lies. Uncle Basar was no fool, I realized. He may not be a businessman like Baba, but he understood people, almost too much. He was right—what was I doing here? An internet café filled with murderous boys and yabanci girls practically in their underwear. My uncle’s hand felt strong and safe, and the baklava was almost as delicious as my relief.

But not even this could remove what I had seen just minutes before. Axl Rose Axl Rose Axl Rose. Uncle Basar knew me more than I’d thought he had, that was certain. But what he didn’t understand is that I had never been alone today at all. I thought of the English in my notebook, and the excitement I had felt walking through Konya’s unfamiliar streets. The fear had faded, replaced by contentment in my knowledge. I had found the voice, and I had done it myself. Axl Rose. His name was Axl Rose.

That night I thought of Axl as I listened to “Appetite for Destruction” yet again, picturing him moving to the music, his mouth forming words I still could not understand. Where was he from? I wondered. No one was born looking like that, I knew, as surely as I had not come from the womb in a headscarf and robe. I thought of the shiny pants and the picture-covered arms and the face contorted in rage. How could he be allowed to sing in that way? I wondered enviously. Humming very softly, I hugged my pillow against my knees, and smiled.

For a few days we were content like that, Axl and I, lost in our world of secrets and song, anger and release. He had become less a mysterious force and more a faithful friend, a secret sage who showed me things I never dared to imagine. We could have gone on like this forever, I suppose, if Baba hadn’t asked me to clean the carpets.

“But I don’t want to clean the carpets!” The childish answer flew from my mouth before I knew what was happening. Axl’s influence, I thought darkly.

“Derya!” Baba said. “I don’t care what you want—you are a child and you will do as you are told. This is your job,” he continued maddeningly as I watched Murat tiptoe out the door, football in hand. “Your mother always cleaned the carpets.”

I closed my eyes. There is no worse chore for a Turkish woman than to clean the carpets, which cover nearly every surface of the home. Kilims, weaves, mats of the finest silk—to the visitor they seem lovely, and even I was always aware of the softness under my feet. But to clean them! It would take hours, and my muscles would not forgive me for weeks. Baba was already angry at my initial outburst, however, and as he left the house for work, I felt resigned to my fate.

“Ohh,” I grunted, yanking open the windows to a blast of freezing air. Set high on the Anatolian plateau, Konya is always dry and chill in winter, but this day seemed particularly cold. Sighing, I began to move furniture off one of the smaller carpets, memorizing its exact location to avoid future confrontation with Baba later. Taking the edges of the carpet in my hands, I dragged it towards the window. Sunlight and cold poured into the room, and for a moment I paused, looking out at the city beyond me. What were people doing out there? Surely it must be more exciting than this.

“Anything would be more exciting than this,” I muttered, thinking of Murat and his football. To be a man and never have to clean the carpets! Women sew them by hand while men sell them for profit; women labor to clean them after men have stained them with their tea and their food, I thought, and began beating the heavy weave out the window, dust flying into my face. This would be endless. I am not a large girl, and my arms ached from the strain.

Breathing hard, I sat down on the divan to rest. The quiet of the room was broken only by the sound of birds and a nearby mosque announcing midday prayers. I’m alone, I realized. It had been the first time I had been home alone since the day I received the CD player. (I had long stopped thinking of it as stealing; it seemed more and more like some divine gift.) And if I’m alone, then…My feet padded against the unwashed carpets as I headed towards my bedroom.

After retrieving it from under the mattress, I attached the clip of the stereo so that it held to the waistband of my skirt, and a shiver ran up my back. I tiptoed into the hall. “This is my house,” I said. “That’s Murat’s room, and this is the hallway. That’s Ataturk on the wall, and that tile hanging next to him is a real Iznik tile. I bet you’ve never seen that before. Now I’ll show you the living room, where you can see Konya, the city where I live.” The CD player thumped against my hip as if in response, and I giggled.

“This is the living room, and that’s Konya,” I continued, pointing out the window. “A million people live here, but I’ll never get to meet them. Isn’t Konya ugly? I think so. All the stupid yabanci come to Konya because they want to see the Sufi dance like those dumb pictures they sell in the bazaar. They don’t know that no one dances here anymore. No one, that is, except me!”

Laughing, I pressed the play button, its shape so familiar to me I didn’t even need to look. Immediately my mind was filled with music, and I tilted my body, trying to imitate how Axl had looked in the picture. I shook and swayed to the music in my long skirt. This feels so good, I thought, picking up a carpet. I could clean carpets all day.

I flung the rug out the window, letting the dust and dirt fall to the ground below. I whipped it in my hands, hips moving all the while, feeling strong and free. I pounded the carpets to the wide beat of drums as Axl roared about a “Paradise City.” Holding the red and black Turkmen weave straight up, I kicked it, then threw it on the ledge and pounded it with my fists. This was going to be the freshest carpet in the world, I laughed as I picked it up again, turning and beating and grinding it clean.

“Take me down to a Paradise City,” I sang over the thump of the carpets. “Oh, won’t you please take me HOME!” The carpet suddenly felt light, and I tossed it in the corner and picked up a kilim. I held the woven fabric with one hand, beating it with my free fist and feeling Axl’s voice pouring out of my mouth. This feels so good, I thought wildly. This feels so right. I spun around with the kilim, singing and swaying, screeching as Axl’s voice went high, and then froze. My hand fumbled for the CD player, but the music, impossibly, played on.

I have no idea how long Murat had been standing there, watching this betrayal of my womanly virtue. All I remember now is that he was smiling. There was no look of outrage, just smug determination and something close to pleasure, as a dark, knowing look came over his face. I backed up, “Paradise City” still blaring as he mouthed something to me and held out his hand.

“No!” I cried, but it was too late. In my shock he was easily able to grab the earphones off my head. The rest of the CD player trailed on a wire, dangling towards the uncarpeted floor. I could still hear Axl, suddenly small and tinny and far away.

Murat placed the earphones on his own head and worked the CD player, navigating through the songs with ease. He’s used one of these before, I thought angrily. He stopped on one of the songs and his eyes widened, and then he turned to me with the most furious look I had ever seen.

“Where did you get this?” he exploded. “Where did you get this, Derya? Do you even know what it says? You stupid girl! He uses the worst words, Derya—this is profane, this is criminal! So did you steal it? Did you steal this trash or did someone just give it to you? Maybe a man, perhaps? Is that where you got it from? Maybe from a stranger?” He opened the case and took out the CD, staring at the cover.

“Guns N’ Roses!” he said, in clear, perfect English. The pronunciation startled me, and I reached for the CD. “What is this? Not that it matters,” and to my horror, he threw my CD on the ground. I moved to block him, screaming, but he already he was smashing it, the sole of his foot pounding it into the bare floor. Silver pieces flashed in the afternoon sun.

“Murat!” I screamed, tears pouring down my face. I knelt on the floor and picked up the small shards. It was gone. The voice was gone. Nothing mattered to me more then, not Murat’s anger or the realization that I’d been caught or the inevitable punishment looming in my future. I would never hear that voice again.

“How could you?” I wailed, then, in broken, nonsense syllables, added, “Why don’t you just fuck off?” I didn’t exactly know what this meant, but it was the nastiest thing I had heard on the CD, something Axl said in a flat voice so full of hate I almost didn’t recognize him.

Murat’s hand met my face with a resounding slap. “Baba is not going to be happy about this,” he said, his voice calm and still. “He’s not going to be happy with me, either—it’s my job to watch what you do. Things are going to be different for you now, Derya. They must be.” He turned and walked towards his room, CD player in hand.

I sank to the floor, my legs shaking. It was over, it was really over. I could still hear the strains of Axl’s voice in my mind, and tried feebly to block them out. It had only been a matter of time, I realized, taking a deep breath. There was no way a feeling so good could last, no way they would ever allow me to know such things. I remembered the day I first heard Axl’s cry, and now felt only a dark hollow pit. It was never meant to be. Was I supposed to just hold my secret forever, listening to Axl as I got older, as I married and a man took me from Baba’s house? What man would want me now? It’s profane, I heard Murat say, and shut my eyes.

Baba would be home in a few hours. I wept silently, and picked up the shards of my CD, throwing them into the wastebasket in the kitchen. Murat would surely unearth them as evidence of my crime. For that’s what it was, I realized, a crime. No one would understand. Except Axl, a voice whispered. The carpets were heavy again. I picked one up and began to clean, beating it to no particular rhythm at all.

I scarcely remember the details of Baba’s arrival. I was as much in a dream as the day I stole the stereo, only now there was no wonderful secret under my bed, only guilt and hollowness in my heart. I remember Murat, as predicted, holding pieces of the CD in his hand as Baba examined the CD player. I remember the way Baba shook when he asked where I had gotten this filth—the fear when he asked if I stole it—and the way he cursed the yabanci when the whole terrible story came out.

“I just spoke with your uncle,” Baba said finally. I stared at the floor, begging my tongue to keep still. “He tells me you were wandering around Konya by yourself last week.” The betrayal snapped me out of my dreamy misery. Uncle Basar too! I was completely alone after all.

According to Baba, I was not to be punished, and it was true. He had merely moved up an inevitable sentence. Rules of what I could and could not do—ones familiar to my more pious classmates—clamped over my life like bars of a cage. I could no longer leave the house without a man accompanying me, and even then I could only go to school and mosque. I was not to speak to anyone. Worst of all was the new look in Baba’s eyes, like I was a burden waiting to be shelved off on some more patient soul. Even in my numb guilt I felt some of the old rage coming back, newly explicable. My future was set. Now I knew why Axl screamed.

I had given up on every finding Him again, of ever hearing the shrieks and wails of “Appetite” or the pounding of drums and bass. Arabesk blared from store windows like a cruel retort, and even the innocuous sound of the muezzin seemed to pain me. Like all Muslims, I heard the muezzin so often that it seemed I would discern it only if it were absent—its cry was that of familiarity, of what time it was and what city I lived in and what religion I followed. It was a part of me so surely that I didn’t even notice it was there. Until, of course, the day it changed.

“ALLAHU AKBAR!” it cried, and this time the voice was unmistakable—this was truly my Axl! I grinned under my headscarf, tears in my eyes. “ALAAAA-III-AAAA-III—AAAA— -AHHHHH!” It dipped and curved like the end of “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and I prayed to Allah with something more than gratitude. My father had condemned me, my uncle had betrayed me, my mother had been taken from me, but Allah understood. He must, or he would not have brought Axl here, in Aziziye mosque! I thought of Axl’s body, whirling like a dervish. It was too clear, too perfect.

God had returned Axl to me. What could it mean? Did Allah forgive me, even if Baba did not? The mosque seemed strangely beautiful that day, sunlight filtering through the dome and shining on the worshippers below. For the first time, I felt a sense of belonging, a sense not only that Allah wanted me there but that perhaps these other people felt a similar kinship with God as well. I glanced at the women next to me, secure in our place. Had they received his messages as well? Is that what the CD player really was, a message?

The muezzin stopped, and prayer began. I felt like I was reliving the day I first got the CD player, only instead of nervousness and questions and deceit, there was a warm comfort inside. Once more I heard nothing of the service, but everything of the message. I did not know how Axl had come to Konya, or whether he had ever existed at all—maybe it was all meant to lead you back here, something whispered wildly—and it didn’t matter. This sort of miracle was not to questioned, only savored.

I began to attend mosque regularly. For the first time in my life, I prayed five times a day. At school I translated the Arabic of the Koran into Turkish with new seriousness, as if searching for clues. Most of all I sought out Aziziye, begging Baba to take me to the city center mosque with its otherworldly muezzin. (My father, thrilled at my sudden transformation, was only too happy to oblige.) And every day, five times a day if lucky, I heard him, growing fiercer and wilder all the time. I melted in his cry as it echoed through the city, feeling the same thrill, the same freedom and release. Life had reversed—I now slept peacefully through the night and greeted the days with a newfound passion for Allah.

Maybe it would have stayed that way, maybe right now I’d be lost in the nuances of Arabic instead of pouring out this sordid tale, if it hadn’t been for the tragedy that struck Konya later that week. But Allah has his ways, and if I have learned anything it is to respect them, even if his intentions remain unclear.

Friday prayers, again. I had just finished basking in the muezzin, whose summary cry —“ALL-AHA-AHA-AHA-AHAWZZA” — bore more than a passing resemblance to the end of “Mr. Brownstone”, when I felt the earth move under my knees, followed by what sounded like cannon fire. Half-expecting no one else to notice—the conversation between the muezzin and I had veiled nearly all life in privacy—I was almost surprised at the flutter of headscarfs bobbing up and down around me. I jumped to my feet as the whir of sirens drowned out the increasingly frenzied voices inside.

“Murat!” I screamed as my brother made his way across the portico. “What’s happening?”
“ There’s been an accident,” my brother said breathlessly. “A whole building collapsed near the meydan. Not terrorism—they think it might have been bad construction or something. Aytekin Bey says there are people trapped inside—it’s a disaster, it’s unbelievable.” He looked around the mosque, which was rapidly being emptied. I saw Uncle Basar and Baba making their way out the door. Murat’s eyes followed mine, and the emotion drained from his face.

“You are to go straight home,” he said. “Normally Baba would never leave allow it, but they need all the men they can get. I don’t know when we’ll be back, but I know you’ll be there when we get there.” He looked at me ominously. “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I whispered shakily. “Murat, are people…going to be okay?” I thought of the bus accident that took my mother—so random, so lacking in goodbyes or reason or poetry—and my heart seemed to bleed in my chest. Masallah, I thought desperately. God help us.

“I don’t know. It’s not your concern,” he said brusquely. “I’m leaving—now get home!”

Murat turned, shoes in hand, and walked briskly towards the door. I stood stock still as the mosque emptied out around me. Allah seemed far away in this building of beauty, whose warmth and color could not reflect the tragedy outside. My eyes absently followed the mosaic design, tracing their mathematical purity until my heartbeat began to diminish. I padded absently to where my shoes lay on their wooden rack, but I could not bring myself to go.

I was alone. The thought entered my mind like an invader. I was free again, free for the first time since Murat and Baba had sentenced me to Konya womanhood. I looked at the empty mosque around me and then, shamefully, thought of the people trapped underneath layers of rubble a few kilometers away. My eyes wandered across the room, and found their target. Finally, I would know.

Don’t do it, the voice warned me. Go home. But I couldn’t listen. The emptiness of the mosque was too much. I tiptoed into the portico where the men prayed and the tourists took photos, marveling at all the space. I passed the elaborately tiled mihrab, admiring its splendor, but what I wanted did not face Mecca. Carefully, tiptoeing unnecessarily across the carpeted floor, I arrived at the office of the muezzin, and peered through the window. And there, outlined against the glass screen, was Axl Rose.

It was him. It was really Axl! Allah had brought him to Aziziye, to Konya, to me. I walked towards the door, shaking, fixated on that long sandy hair hanging down his back, the tight leather pants clinging to his hips. Arabic fluttered from my lips as I prayed to the drumbeats and guitars in my head. Everything was falling into place. Would he take me away from Konya? Would he sing for me again? Would I finally see that voice coming from those lips…would his lips, maybe, meet mine? I tried to banish the thought, but decided that, perhaps, this time, it was allowed. Allah had made this possible, after all. “Kismet,” I said, and breathed deeply.

Axl turned around and smiled at me. And then it was happening—he was moving closer, closer to our heroine and her broken Konya dreams, his hand was on the doorknob, the door was beginning to open, bringing with it lightning and song and envy and reward…

…and a little old man emerged from the office, smiling timidly into the portico. I stopped, stunned, trying to peer around the gray hair that hung around the edges of his long beard. Where was Axl? Was this man protecting him?

“Why, hello!” he said. “Please come in.” I walked ahead, my heart sinking as I realized there was no one else in the small room at all.

“Please sit,” he said, pointing at one of two small chairs, both horribly empty. “I’m not sure we’ve met. I’m Bilal Umut Bayri, the muezzin of this mosque. And you are?” I didn’t answer, for something else had happened that shocked me even more than the disappearance of Axl from the doorway. Lying on the muezzin’s desk, lodged between a string of prayer beads and a copy of the Koran, was a CD with a bright red and yellow cover. “Use Your Illusion I” it said across the top.

And below it, in unmistakable white letters, GUNS N’ ROSES.

The muezzin followed my gaze to the table and laughed. “Ah, you notice my CD!” he said, picking up in his old, gnarled hands. “Yes, I found this right here on the floor of Aziziye Camii, if you can believe it. Sometime during Kurban Bayram—in fact, I believe it was three weeks ago today.”

I stared dully at the wall, color draining from my face.

“The singer has a very interesting voice. I don’t know where it came from, but it’s quite startling. So pure, so clear! I’ve found it truly inspirational,” he said amiably, handing me the CD. It felt like ice.

The muezzin stood up, taking his coat from a hook on the door. “Unfortunately, given the events of today, I must be going,” he said, placing the CD in his pocket and handing me the prayer beads instead.

“Use these,” he said. “They will bring you closer to Allah.” His brown eyes crinkled in a smile.

I stumbled out the door into the searing white light of the dome. With a small wave, the muezzin turned to say goodbye, and I watched his black-robed from as he strolled through the portico. “Ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai,” he sang softly under his breath, and then he was gone.

 

[END]

© 2004 Sarah Kendzior - Contributor's Bio

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