In the Shadow of the Yali

by Suat Dervis

  The same held true for his standing in the ruling party. Soon he would be taking his place in the National Assembly. In due course, he could expect to become a minister.

  He had been on this path all his life.

  Step by step, heading for the summit.

  And now he was almost there, ready to enjoy the fruits of all his labors.

  As he made the final climb, he could not afford to have Celile walking alongside him. This woman who had once been Ahmet’s wife.

  He wanted his moment of glory to dazzle his enemies. No stain could spoil its luster. He was an important man. A man before whom others bowed.

  He had his honor. His esteem. His fortune. And he wished to keep them all.

  Everything was in place. He was not prepared to make sacrifices. To keep possession of all that was his due, he had to play by the rules.

  And Celile—Celile did not need to break her heart over this. Celile needed to understand him. Celile had no interest in a public role. It would be enough to enjoy the sort of life his elevation would bring them.

  It was unthinkable that he should take Ahmet’s discard into these august circles and introduce her as his wife.

  If he ever did walk into a room with a wife, it would not be to show the world he loved her, but to show the world a woman who could command its respect.

  He would never leave Celile. He knew he never could.

  He wanted Celile to know this and accept it.

  If she loved him, she would understand.

  He just needed to find a way to reach her.

  But to do that, she needed to give him an opening.

  Four days had now passed since they’d come to this hotel.

  And still Muhsin was waiting for that opening.

  * * *

  —

  And now it was their fifth night in the hotel.

  Celile was leaning against a window, gazing down at the sea.

  Night had fallen. But the clouds still weighed down on them. Not a star in the sky. In the black waters below, not a glint of light.

  Little waves splashed against the foundations. Little lights here and there on the opposite shore, flickering like yellow eyes. Celile was wearing a white dress.

  A shoulderless white dress. Her red curls tumbled down over her neck.

  Through heavy, lidded eyes, she watched the sea.

  So many nights she had spent like this in the old yalı as a young girl.

  This night took her back to them.

  She was looking into the night.

  Inside her, a night just as dark.

  As a child, as a young woman, she had also felt this listless and hopeless. Then, too, she had leaned on the windowsill to gaze out into the black night.

  Seeing nothing…

  Hearing only the water washing in and out of the foundations beneath her, and the occasional cry of warning from the sea. Breathing in the damp sea air, as she gazed into the dark night.

  “Celile!”

  “Yes?”

  She shuddered. It was almost as if she’d forgotten there was someone else in the room.

  She turned her head.

  A bright chandelier bathed the hall in a strong light. On the large table in the corner were the plates from the supper they’d just eaten, and a crystal carafe of vodka and ice.

  Muhsin was standing before her, dressed in a white shirt and white trousers. His collar was open and his sleeves rolled up. It took her back to that day on his cruiser.

  “Look what I’ve brought you!” Muhsin reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small box wrapped in paper.

  He’d gone into the city that day. Hoping to bring her a little happiness, and hoping to soften her anger, he’d brought her a precious gift.

  She opened the box, and said, “Oh, that’s beautiful. Thank you.”

  “Do you genuinely like it?

  “I like it a lot!”

  “Let me put it on you.”

  “That would be lovely. Thanks.”

  She extended her left arm. After fastening the bracelet, he kissed her on the back of her wrist.

  “I’m so very pleased to have made you happy.”

  “You always do, Muhsin!”

  “No, that’s not true. For some time now, I’ve sensed you are unhappy with me.”

  “You must have been mistaken.”

  “Would you ever tell me a lie?”

  “No, Muhsin, never.”

  “Then why are you lying to me now?”

  “Because I can’t tell you the truth!”

  “Why couldn’t you?”

  “I don’t like to talk.”

  “What I have done to make you so unhappy? How did I offend you?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this!”

  “But tonight, I do. Do you understand? Tonight I want us to talk and come to an understanding. Celile, I am not happy.”

  Celile had her back to the black night now. She leaned against the windowsill, the better to see his face.

  Looking straight into her eyes, he continued.

  “I am not happy, Celile. You aren’t happy either. But this has happened for no apparent reason. I love you, Celile. I am madly in love with you. Why are you laughing?”

  “I’m not!”

  “If you laugh like that again, I’ll lose the courage to speak.”

  “All I did was smile, Muhsin!”

  “But what a cynical smile it was. Don’t you believe I love you?”

  “No!”

  Muhsin was shocked.

  “So do you love me?”

  “…”

  “Answer my question!”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Has your love for me died?”

  “I loved you very much, Muhsin. I truly did. You were my everything!”

  “And now?”

  “…”

  “Say something!”

  “Without your love, I have nothing left.”

  “That is not the same as saying you love me.”

  “I might still love you. What else is there for me?”

  “You say you might still love me. Do you not know your own heart?”

  “No, Muhsin. I don’t. If I can explain it truthfully—I cannot understand my own feelings.”

  “So let us explore your feelings together, Celile. Let’s try and examine ourselves, bring things out into the light.”

  And now Celile spoke.

  “Do I love you? This I cannot say. You are the only one in my life. You still are. But when I saw that you no longer loved me…when I felt that…it felt to me as if the old you had died. As if you were now someone else. I can’t explain…”

  “Celile! Can’t you see that I am madly in love with you?”

  “I know full well that you don’t love me. Full well.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “I’m not wrong, Muhsin. I don’t need someone to read my coffee grounds to know that.”

  “Celile, can you tell me why you’re angry at me?”

  “Angry? Am I angry at you? It never occurred to me to be angry at you.”

  “No one gets angry for no reason. If you don’t love me anymore—that cannot be your fault. What did I do to make you so angry? Tell me, please. Why are you so angry?”

  “Yes, you’re right, Muhsin. I am angry with you. Now that you’ve used the word, I have a name for what I feel in my heart. I am angry with you. But I’m sure it’s not because you don’t love me anymore. Perhaps…It could be that I was angry about the way you told me. Couldn’t you have said so openly? You could have said that you couldn’t help it. That you didn’t want to lie to me. You could have said that, don’t you think?”

  Celile could feel her voice trembling, so she fell si
lent.

  Muhsin could see tears welling in her eyes.

  “Celile,” he said. “Listen to me. Try and understand what I’m saying. I am obliged to you in a number of ways, and in a number of other ways I have wronged you. I know them all. You have been very generous to me, while I may appear less giving. But if you only knew how I feel about you in my heart! I love you more than you can imagine. I need your love. I need you at my side. I’ve grown accustomed to your company. Addicted to it. Like opium. Like cocaine. You are the poison that keeps me alive. Dear Celile, I know for sure now that I shall want you at my side for the rest of my life. You are my woman. My partner in life. I want no one except you. This will never change. I have made up my mind to grow old loving you. Don’t you believe what I say? Why don’t you believe me?”

  Celile said nothing.

  Her lips were sealed. Her eyes, too.

  Impossible to read them.

  “I upset you over that child business, didn’t I?”

  Celile felt her lips begin to tremble. Her tear ducts were burning.

  Why did she feel the need to cry? Why did she wish to stop herself from crying?

  Never in her life had she wished for a child. She’d always feared it would lead to disaster.

  But from the moment she felt that child’s existence she knew that she did not wish to leave this world without first giving life.

  It was as if this child had always been meant to be. From the moment of her birth it had been waiting at the end of the road, as she wandered through the old yalı as a child, always daydreaming, as she grew into womanhood, to cross paths with Muhsin, and thereafter to see new beauty, new meaning, in the sea and the sky, and finally to come to his side, to love him, as her true self.

  Everything she had done in this life she had done to reach the moment when this child came into being. And that was why, when she first felt the child moving inside her, she embraced it as her fate.

  She had never had anything she could call her own. Every time she had tried to hold on to something it had flowed through her fingers like water.

  On the day she knew herself a mother, she felt certain of life’s essence.

  But her joy had been short-lived. Like all the other precious things she had ever tried to hold, it had slipped through her fingers.

  When she realized that this child was not to be, she did not suffer regret that it would never see the world.

  But from that moment on, life itself left a bad taste in her mouth. She looked at herself and saw a woman without purpose. A woman who had no business bringing a child into the world.

  Why then did she want to cry?

  It was because Muhsin had been so repelled by the idea that he might be the father of her child.

  She couldn’t understand this. She was left feeling bereft. She had no one in the world, and no one had her.

  So now here she was. Holding nothing with an empty heart. Standing before the man with whom she’d once been madly in love.

  Seeing that she was not going to speak, Muhsin continued.

  “Yes, I know. I broke your heart by refusing that child. But please, just think. What do we need a child for? If you say it’s to forge a bond between us—well, that bond already exists. What child, what marriage certificate, could bind me to you more than I am already? You must believe in my love. You’re not a child. You are a grown woman, and a woman of experience. Our problem is not a lack of love. You must understand this.”

  Celile seemed startled and confused by his words. Her heavily lidded eyes had suddenly opened wide.

  Muhsin went on.

  “Do you honestly give marriage that much importance? Is it really necessary? Are you telling me that to find happiness together, to love each other, we must let everyone know? If we’d been married all this year, could we have been any happier?”

  “Muhsin,” she stammered. “Please. That’s enough. Please, you’ve said enough.”

  “Darling,” he said. “Don’t interrupt me. Let me speak. I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about myself. Yes, it’s true. You left your husband and your home for me. You ceased to be a respectable married woman. You burned your bridges and left your life behind. In return, I undertook to set you up in a new life, with a new future. On the surface it might look as if you made great sacrifices to come and live with me, but if you and I are to come to a proper understanding, we need to go back and look at all this again, to decide what really happened. And in fact, you did not give up so very much to come to me. In no way was it a sacrifice. It was a liberation. When you came to me, you rid yourself of a man who wished to make ill use of you and your beauty, a man who was willing to throw you hither and thither into other men’s arms, just to advance his career.”

  Celile lacked the strength to object to his sudden outburst. She struggled to catch her breath. So this was what Muhsin thought of her?

  This man she had loved so madly—he’d thought this all along?

  She lifted her hands to her face. Her cheeks were burning.

  She could feel the veins in her neck and forehead throbbing.

  Muhsin, meanwhile, read her gesture as her shame at being found out. This made him all the more confident that this conversation had been necessary. Celile might suffer in the short term, but their love would be saved from death.

  “Celile, my darling, I know I’ve upset you. But just because we have until now avoided speaking of these problems, it doesn’t mean that they do not exist. We’re not children, you and I. We have enough experience in life to look things squarely in the face. So listen to me, and understand what I am saying. I don’t care to know what you and Ahmet got up to. The past is the past, and I love you. Today’s Celile is my Celile. I love you enough to forget you ever were his wife. I love you for your flaws as much as for your virtues. I’m not in the least interested in knowing what you did or did not do for this man. If he used you as bait, I have no interest in knowing the details. I love you. As far as I’m concerned, on the day you became mine and mine alone, you were reborn. That’s how I see it. And that’s how much I love you. I love you so very much. But as for others…Celile, do you ever think how they might see you? Do you really think that everyone else is going to love and appreciate you as I do? Who got hurt when you came to me? No one! When you left a man who so degraded you, when you came to live with a man who loves and worships you, and cherishes you like the apple of his eye, and guards you jealously, your standard of living went way up, I imagine! My money is your money. What’s mine is yours. I shall hold nothing back. That’s how much I love you…When you came to me, your fortunes rose. And you did not have to leave behind a father who had stained his honor, or a brother fallen on hard times, or a ridiculous, disreputable family. You had no one left to carry a stain. All you left behind was a husband for whom no disgrace was too great. You had no name to soil. No family to dishonor.”

  “Muhsin…I beg you.”

  “And I am begging you. Hear me out. It’s been months since we’ve spoken properly, and during that time a misunderstanding has grown between us. A chasm. To bridge that chasm, we need to come to a new understanding, speak honestly and openly, and settle this for good.”

  Celile’s head was swaying now. Her head still hidden behind her hands.

  “I am happy to have you at my side. Very happy. I know you to be honest and honorable. But everyone else…How would they know?…In their eyes, you are Ahmet’s wife. You are a woman who was not shy to leave him to go and live with her lover out of wedlock. A woman undeterred by scandal and disgrace. This is how the outside world sees you. Are you really insisting that we marry? If you continue to press me, I just don’t know what I would make of it.”

  “Muhsin,” she moaned. “I assure you. I don’t want anything from you. I never had a plan. You must understand this.”

  Her voice was muffled. She was talking through her
hands.

  “I know everything,” Muhsin insisted. “I want you to understand that, and accept it, without rancor.”

  Muhsin wiped the perspiration off his brow. It had really taken it out of him, to speak to her this openly.

  Celile felt shame on Muhsin’s behalf for the things he had said and done.

  There was so much she hadn’t expected.

  Muhsin, meanwhile, was just hitting his stride. He wished to convince her of one thing, and one thing only: his love!

  Certainly Celile understood by now. It would not overly affect her to hear these truths spoken.

  But in the weeks she’d spent thinking that he didn’t love her, Celile had come to feel so very distant from him.

  “That man named Ahmet—that rogue—it wasn’t just while you were still married to him that he dragged your name in the dirt. Even now, he’s busy scandalizing all of Turkey. Have you heard his latest?”

  No, she hadn’t!

  And she had no wish to know. Ahmet was a very unhappy man. An unhappy little man!

  Little men were prepared to go to any length to defend their reputations.

  Men of Ahmet’s rank did not meet disaster with courage or dignity.

  She knew that Ahmet had behaved very badly, and done terrible things. Hadn’t he done so from the moment she’d left him? Celile hadn’t forgotten what they’d already endured on account of Ahmet’s pettiness.

  “If I told you Ahmet’s latest, you’d understand what we’re up against,” Muhsin continued. “This ridiculous man has plucked a woman from a brothel and married her, and now he’s taken her out into the world on his arm. And when he introduces her, he says, ‘I found her in a whorehouse. She was a prostitute. Now she’s repented. She’s a very honorable woman. She’s my second wife. Not so different from the first. I found her in a pasha’s mansion! She left me to become a prostitute. Now she’s working in a whorehouse—I don’t know which one.’ He tells people all that, and then…”

  Celile took her hands from her face and cried out, “Enough! Enough! Be quiet. I don’t want to know!”

  What was Muhsin saying? What was he telling her? What sort of man was he? Had he gone mad? Was he blind?