Little Ayşe got up from the high loom where she had been weaving cloth since morning, shuttling back and forth. She stretched wearily. Today she was all alone at home. Her father and brothers had gone to town, to the market, early yesterday. Her mother and older sister were also at the neighbors’; perhaps at the Zaims’… She rubbed her eyes. She slowly approached the yellow-framed mirror on the wall of the veranda. She looked at herself. Her coal-black eyes with whitening whites were drowsy as if just woken from sleep. Her cheeks became even redder. And her thick black hair was disheveled. She stretched again. While stretching, she was astonished as if seeing for the first time her completely narrowing eyes, her trembling, stretching thin lips, her white and crystal neck.
“How beautiful I am, oh my…” she laughed… She lowered her head. From her blue homespun slippers to where her neck could see, she carefully surveyed her entire body. She threw her eyes back to the mirror. She turned. She waved her hair with her hands. Even when she wasn’t yet ten years old, she was big like a grown girl. Two days ago at the Zaims’ wedding, those who came from other villages were astonished to see her grown so much. And she was so strong… She would lift her male peers in one hold and throw them to the ground. They called her “Wrestler Ayşe.” Like boys, she loved riding horses, shooting guns, wrestling, playing Capture the Flag, playing Prisoner. But…
But as she grew up, she would have to say goodbye to these games she loved so much. In fact, the other day on her way back from the fountain, she had run into the village imam, Kurt Hoca. While kissing his dry hand, this grumpy old man whom she didn’t like at all had said to her, “Girl Ayşe, tell your mother to put you under the veil. It’s no longer permissible for you to walk around uncovered.” Tomorrow or the day after, she too, like every girl who grows up, would enter the veil… And that meant she would remain imprisoned in this house that suffocated her, at the head of this loom, until she died… Goodbye to horses, to rifles, to wrestling, to slides, to everything… She threw her hair back with her hand. She looked carefully at the mirror again. How beautiful she was! But this beauty, this thick hair, these coal-black eyes, these red cheeks had no importance to her at all. She sighed:
“Ah, if only I were a boy…” she said. Ah, if only she were a boy… She began to think with the illogical strangeness of an innocent child fantasy that immediately flared up. What wouldn’t she do? First of all, she would become not only the first wrestler of Bozkaya, but even of the entire district. Then… A famous bandit… And she would definitely take the Zaim family’s little girl. She would enter battles, her chest would be filled with medals, she would cross mountains, like brave village young men, she would spend weeks hunting bears. She withdrew from in front of the mirror. Again with slow steps she walked toward the window. She leaned her elbow on the edge. The weather was both clear and cloudy. A hundred steps away, roosters were crowing from Kurt Hoca’s garden. Although noon was approaching, there was a sweet quality everywhere as if morning had just broken. Occasionally a light rain was sprinkling. Ayşe completely immersed herself in her dreams. Like a lifeless statue, she wasn’t moving at all.
But… suddenly her heart started beating.
She turned pale. Her breath was catching. Could that saying be true? But was there any possibility of it being false? She blushed. She took her head in her hands. Yes… She had never seen a rainbow so close in her life. From among the scrublands, camel thorns around the road going to the dry creek behind the village, a thick, very thick rainbow of pink, blue, green, yellow, purple, red, orange had risen, stretching into the air like a crooked pillar of light. Its end was right in the scrublands… Ayşe’s heart began to beat faster. If she ran and passed once under this rainbow that had descended so close to the village…
She would become a boy!
There was no doubt about this. She thought no further. She left the window. She went down the stairs. She passed through the garden. She threw herself into the street. She started running like crazy. She wasn’t seeing her surroundings. She ran. She ran. She ran with all her strength, thinking “Let me reach it before the rainbow fades.” She ran. She jumped over ditches to take shortcuts. She trampled fields. She climbed hills. She plunged into scrublands. The rain kept falling. She ran. She ran. She ran. Her skirts were catching on bushes, her hands, face, eyes were being torn. Finally she came within about fifty steps of the rainbow. She was completely exhausted. One more effort… One more effort…
Out of breath, she passed under the rainbow.
“Oh!” she said. The rain was still falling, the sun was appearing through the clouds. While running, she had thrown off her slippers. Her socks were torn, her feet hitting thorns and stones were bruised. “Let me rest a bit…” she lay down in the scrublands. The rain sometimes quickened, sometimes slowed.
When she got up, she was astonished. Her height had grown, her vest was torn, her shortened skirts remained at her waist. She brought her hand to her wet face. Her mustache touched her fingers. She looked at herself. A big young man! But what she was wearing wasn’t men’s clothes.
“Let me go home and change these,” she said. She walked. She had become so strong… The places she had covered in half an hour running, she crossed in three steps. A warm sun was illuminating everywhere. She was very thirsty. She entered through the door she had left open. First she drank water until she was satisfied. Then she went upstairs. She broke open a locked chest. She took out her brother’s holiday clothes. She put them on. They were very tight on her body. She also took the rifle from the wall. She slung it over her shoulder. She went outside. A heavy fog had covered everywhere. From the head of the street she heard the sounds of drums and zurna. She went in that direction. She asked the children playing in the road what was happening.
“There’s wrestling at the Zaims’ wedding,” they said.
“Wasn’t their wedding three days ago?”
“Now they’re marrying off their little daughter…”
Their little daughter, Gülsüm… Suddenly she became angry. Now she was a boy. She would take this tiny grape-eyed girl herself. She ran, passed through the mosque square. Those coming out of the afternoon prayer were looking at her, they didn’t recognize who she was. As she entered the courtyard of the wedding house, she shouted a cry like bandits newly descended to the plain: “Let real men come to the arena! Make way!”
Everyone looked at her. They didn’t recognize her. Drums and zurnas were playing, wrestlers were wrestling in pairs in the middle. At first she didn’t say who she was.
She was laughing at those who said “Welcome, bandit, who are you from?” saying, “You’ll understand later…” She shouted at the wrestlers: “If there’s anyone who’ll wrestle with me two by two, let them come to the arena!…”
All the village people, women and men, were astonished. A whisper went through. Even Kurt Hoca, rising from his place, was hunching his robe behind him, putting on his glasses to see her better. Wrestling with two people at once had never been heard of. Ayşe oiled herself. She put on wrestling pants. She lifted and threw to the ground the wrestlers who came against her in pairs. When she took the huge buffalo given as first prize in her arms like a lamb, people started shouting in amazement:
“Where are you from, young man?”
“Who are you from, bandit?…”
“Live long, live long.”
Drums and zurnas fell silent. Everyone in the courtyard gathered around her. Ayşe shouted, “I’m from Bozkaya…” Everyone looked at each other. All the village people were there. None of them recognized her.
“No, you’re not from Bozkaya.”
“Wouldn’t we know our own village?”
“You’re joking!”
She couldn’t hold back. She laughed: “I’m Ayşe…”
The people murmured: “Which Ayşe, which Ayşe?”
“Hacı Mehmet’s Ayşe…”
The village people couldn’t believe it at all. Ayşe, shouting and shouting, told how she ran, how she passed under the rainbow, how she became a boy. Finally she asked: “Who is taking Gülsüm?”
“The headman’s son Hasan…” they said.
“Quickly, let him come before me…”
They found Hasan in the crowd. They stood him before Ayşe Efe.
“Who performed the marriage?”
“Kurt Hoca…”
“Kurt Hoca, eh… Bring him too, let me see.”
They brought Kurt Hoca too. Kurt Hoca, who commanded everyone, always frowned, gave no one a friendly face, had now softened, was standing at attention. Ayşe said: “Hey Hasan, divorce Gülsüm!”
“I won’t divorce her.”
“I said divorce her.”
And suddenly she grabbed him by his red sash. She lifted him into the air.
“Ow, ow, ow… mercy, bandit…”
“I said divorce her, or I’ll throw you to the ground now and smash your brain.”
“Let her be divorced! Let her be divorced!…”
Poor Hasan was shouting in the air. Ayşe gently set him down on the ground. Then she turned to Kurt Hoca, “Perform my marriage with Gülsüm!” she said.
“I won’t perform it.”
“Don’t do this, Hoca!”
“I won’t perform it…”
“I said perform it.”
“I won’t perform it.”
“Why won’t you perform it?”
“It’s not permissible. It’s not permissible.”
“I don’t recognize permissible or not, you will perform it.”
“I won’t perform it.”
Ayşe attacked. Just as she had made Hasan divorce, she grabbed Kurt Hoca by his sash to make him perform the marriage in the air. She lifted him up: “Perform it quickly, or I’ll throw you to the ground now.”
“I won’t perform it.”
“I said perform it. Or it will be bad.”
“I won’t perform it, I won’t perform it.”
Ayşe became terribly angry. She shook this cruel man whom she didn’t like at all. She shook, shook, shook. She flung him so hard…
But Kurt Hoca didn’t fall to the ground! He stayed in the air. And he began to shout in the air: “Hey villagers… Be informed, this is not a boy. This is a girl. She must be put under the veil. It is not permissible for her to go around like this.”
The people in the courtyard were suddenly multiplying like an anthill, seething, and with Kurt Hoca’s voice creating a terrible roar of “Not permissible, not permissible…” And all of them had thick, black veils, red aprons in their hands, attacking her to cover her, to bind her under the veils. Ayşe shook herself. She gave a cry. She grabbed her rifle. She started swinging the butt. She mowed everyone down before her. She was bringing it down on whoever she reached, rolling them to the ground. Only Kurt Hoca was floating in the air with his robe spread like wings. She was chasing villagers with veils and aprons in their hands through the village streets. When passing through the mosque square, she saw Kurt Hoca perch on the minaret like a kite. She immediately plunged into the courtyard of the mosque. She was slowly climbing the stairs of the minaret, saying to herself, “Ah, if I could just catch this scoundrel…”
When she came to the balcony, she suddenly grabbed Kurt Hoca, “Is it not permissible, let me see?” she said, grabbing him by the throat. She was squeezing. As his life was leaving him, the hoca struggled terribly. With a boom, the balcony collapsed. Ayşe fell down. Her head hit the ground with a thud.
When she opened her eyes, she saw her father punching her head:
“Pig’s daughter, what were you doing here?”
She was in the green and thick scrublands, soaked from the rain. Her mother, her brother, the headman’s son Guard Hasan, and several other neighbors were standing around her.
“What were you doing here, making us search for you, pig!”
Hasan, whom she had just grabbed by the sash and lifted into the air, was trying to save her, saying, “She won’t do it again, master, she won’t do it again…” They had been looking for her since noon, her sudden disappearance had left the whole village in worry. Men, guards had gone out everywhere. Her father, who had been wandering in the mud for three or four hours, couldn’t contain his anger, was landing kicks half on those who held on to save Ayşe.
“Angry pig, what were you doing here…” he was roaring. Her mother was also repeating her father’s curses, saying she would show her at home, opening her eyes wide, shaking her head.
“What were you doing here?…”
Ayşe had become dumbfounded, couldn’t answer at all, was only crying. She followed behind her mother, her father, the villagers. She returned to the village meekly from the places she had run through earlier. As they approached their houses, a voice came from the air: “Did you find her, Mehmet Ağa?”
“We found her, hoca efendi…”
Ayşe raised her eyes upward. Kurt Hoca, his head bald, barefoot, his sleeves rolled up, was refreshing his ablution with a tin pitcher on the high terrace of his house.
“Where was she?”
“In the scrublands. She had fallen asleep…”
“What was she doing there in this rain…”
“The pig won’t say.”
“Put her under the veil, under the veil… It’s no longer permissible for her to walk around uncovered…”
Poor Ayşe couldn’t make a sound, was sinking into the ground from shame, looking at the mud she was stepping in, was crying bitterly with deep sobs that shook her entire chest.
