At 21, my husband took me to a field and cut off both my hands… But what happened next made an entire country remember my name.
I was twenty-one when I learned that the man who sleeps next to you can be more dangerous than any stranger.
My
name was Ayşe, and I had only been married for eight months. In our village, they still called me “the newlywed.” I was still learning to live in my husband’s house, to speak in hushed tones, to wake up before dawn, and to hide my fear before it appeared on my face.
My husband, Mehmet Ali, was not a kind man. At first, I didn’t call it cruelty. I called it a bad temper. I called it marriage, because that’s what many women around me had learned to call it.
If the food was late, I blamed myself. If his voice turned cold, I spoke even less. If he looked at me as if I belonged to him, I told myself that perhaps all husbands were like that when no one was watching.
Then came the wedding of the daughter of some neighbors.
In our village, weddings were a celebration
for everyone. The women brought food, blankets, flowers, and fabrics to decorate the bride’s room. Even poor families wanted their daughters to begin married life surrounded by color and hope.
That morning, my mother-in-law opened a trunk and handed me two pieces of fabric.
“Take this to the bride’s house,” he told me. “They can use it for decoration.”
I didn’t steal them. I didn’t hide them. I took them with her permission, thinking only that I was helping another young woman prepare for the happiest day of her life.
At the bride’s house, the women laughed, arranged pillows, hung fabrics on the walls, and teased the nervous bride affectionately. For a while, I forgot the heaviness of my own home. I laughed with them and felt like I belonged somewhere.
In the afternoon, Mehmet Ali found out about the fabrics.
When he got home, he didn’t scream. That scared me even more. He stood in the doorway and stared at me with a silence that chilled my hands.
Anatomy
—Where are the fabrics? —he asked.
“Your mother gave them to me,” I replied. “For the bride’s room.”
Her face changed.
—My mother doesn’t decide what comes out of my house.
My mother-in-law tried to intervene.
—I told him to take them.
He looked at her only once, and she remained silent.
That’s when I realized it had nothing to do with the fabrics. He was furious because I had done something without fearing him first.
A few minutes later, he ordered me to go with him.
“Where to?” I asked.
