I was looking forward to having a baby in a country where motherhood is honoured and where breast-feeding has always been encouraged.  Turkey is, after all, the land of Cybele, the ancient multi-breasted mother goddess worshipped in Anatolia by the Phrygians in the 8th century B.C. 

Nonetheless, paying homage to the shamans of modern medicine and appeasing the gods of extended family, I travelled to New York for a sonogram, which showed in my second or third month that everything seemed normal.  Being thirty-six, I discussed with my American doctor the risks of pregnancy at my age and whether or not an amniocentesis was necessary.  Such procedures, routinely done in the States, were at that time not so routine in Ankara.  I decided to forgo it, ignoring the suggestion of a worried relative to remain in the States to have the baby.  Bearing a child is a natural, universal experience, I thought, my own mother successfully delivered all 13 of her children without benefit of sonogram or amniocentesis.  I was trusting fate. 

And I was trusting the many people around me in Ankara, who took such good care of me.  Among these were the kapici and his family.  Literally "doorman”, the kapici was more of a concierge or superintendent in charge of building maintenance, a person who performed daily grocery shopping for each tenant.   His wife helped out with housekeeping duties.  His youngest daughter, Zübeyde, a wide-eyed and energetic fifteen yearold, ran errands for us.

Zübeyde was a window into another way of life, of the Anatolian village and its earthy simplicity.  I wanted to paint rural scenes and soon was invited to Zübeyde’s village, about an hour’s drive outside Ankara.  But when we arrived, the car’s trunk packed with art supplies, I quickly forgot the landscape, riveted to scenes of village women:  making yoghurt in clay amphoras, stirring pots over an open hearth, kneading dough on a broad hand-carved board smooth from years of pressing flour and water together.   Female village life fascinated me.   Hardy women performed backbreaking farm work and housework, hoeing the fields, hauling water from the well, endlessly cleaning and preparing food.  Then as the sky grew dark their hands would move in the rhythmic, concentrated flutter of crocheting or tatting, looping and knotting thread and beads into graceful lace trim for linens and headscarves. 

When I had just begun to show my pregnancy around the fourth month I ran into Zübeyde, her mother and one of her aunts in the apartment hallway.   They smiled, tested my breasts and belly and conferred amongst themselves, laughing and shaking their heads.  When I asked Zübeyde to translate she held up two fingers and said, "Ikiz!  Ikiz gelecek... twins will come."   Twins?  No way. My New York doctor hadn’t mentioned twins.  I tried to explain, in broken Turkish, how I knew they were mistaken.  The women listened to me politely and then dismissed the results as they said goodbye. “Insallah, ikiz gelecek, insallah,” they said, twins are coming if God wills it. 

I was suddenly fed up with these charming villagers. Earlier that day I had been on the phone trying to convince my worried, over-protective older sister that I was going to be all right, that Ankara was a modern city with perfectly adequate hospitals, good doctors and medical facilities.  Perhaps I was trying to convince myself, too.  And then, any illusions I might have had about where I was evaporated.  These toothless women wearing village salvar, loosely gathered slacks under mismatched printed skirts, and the beaded veils that so enchanted me just a few months ago now worried me with nonsense.   Who were they to give me a prognosis, I pouted.  Feeling me up, predicting twins with their insallah and masallah - God willing, God protect me. 

A few months later I missed my prenatal appointment, having lost my balance since my belly was so huge, fallen and broken my ankle.  When I finally went to my local hospital for a sonogram, I was in my eighth month.  I understood the Turkish technician to say, “Here’s one head...  and here’s the other head.”  Fearing I might be bearing a monster, I asked her if the baby had two heads.   She looked at me very seriously, and said, “Twins. You don't know? You’re having twins.” 
.

NANCY LUNSFORD is an artist presently living in Brooklyn, New York.  Born and raised in Southern Appalachia, Nancy augmented her early education in mountain folklore with a degree in Art History and English Literature from New York University.  She lived in Ankara, Turkey, from 1986 to 1991, exhibiting her work at Urart Galeri.  Three years in Indonesia, six years in Turkey and an abiding interest in non-Western art forms have all contributed to her development as an artist and as a citizen of the world.  Article abridged and excerpted from 'Tales From The ExPat Harem''