Kara Toprak

Yüzün yırttım tırnağınan elinen,
Yine beni karşıladı gülünen.

I tore its face with my hands,
It again welcomed me with roses.

Âşık Veysel, Kara Toprak

‍

A family was finishing a meal on the broad rise of stone stairs ahead of us as we entered the Temple of Bacchus on the afternoon of Sunday 18th August, 2024. The children ran out ahead of the adults, and we were left in the vaulting high space alone. We had arrived in Baalbek fairly late in the day after a long drive through the Bekaa Valley and an hour spent cruising the back alleys around the town centre in search of a discreet place to sit in the car and smoke.

We parked within walking distance of the ruins, and on foot I made note of a stall selling T-shirts with the intention of buying one on the way out. They are a nostalgic tone of acid yellow bearing a scripted green logo with serifs styled variously into a book, a stem with 7 leaves and a hand holding a gun, all seeming to issue upwards from the earth.

The temple complex forms an ascending cascade of terraces rising above the valley floor, their height unrivaled until one reaches the mountains that range between the valley and the Mediterranean. A wedding band can be heard in the distance, the sun sets and in the heat I seek assurance that snow does indeed fall on the range in winter and that it will be visible from the valley.

Leaving the temple we pass a tree bearing small, tense green fruit. We are told we can break them open with a rock and eat the fresh walnuts inside. We do so and the fresh green outer pulp quickly oxidises and stains our fingers brown. We assume this is the origin of the ink of the same name, the stains refusing to wash off our hands.

This is the agricultural heartland. The drive back out follows the length of the valley, all of its towns stitched together without seam along this one road. Long stretches are rhythmically fringed by a procession of tall banners bearing the faces of martyrs or leaders of the resistance. They accompany the slow procession of daily life on either side of the road.

We arrive on the mountainside after nightfall. The valleys within the ranges are dark with only few lights. We watch the progress of the mist as it descends from the range summits and tend to a fire until sleep takes us over. Later we hear the cries of an animal known colloquially as or the Yelling One. Its cries sound human, pitched somewhere between grief and unfathomable fatigue.

We wake circled by young cedars. Our hands are still stained on returning to Beirut the next day and would remain so for several weeks. Later in the day Israeli jets would drop bombs over part of the Baalbek district.

‍

Yüzün yırttım tırnağınan elinen
Yine beni karşıladı gülünen
Benim sâdık yârim kara topraktır

I tore its face with my hands,
It again welcomed me with roses.
My faithful beloved is black soil.