Then it dawned on me. He was the archaeologist whom she hadn’t been able to marry. I felt something crumple inside me. As I was telling Yunus about those days from the past, I discovered yet another of my grandma’s secrets. On the sly, she would spend time on the sea with her ex-lover, who had been driven from her by fate. A cordial old man from Cihangir, whose dentures didn’t quite fit into his mouth: “Well, hi there,” he’d say. “I’ve got a granddaughter the same age as you.”
When her erstwhile fiancé spoke those words, she felt a need to correct him in that raspy voice of hers that grated on the ears. She did that as Marianne Faithfull, taking some fresh air on the Bosporus, puffing on a Samsun cigarette, her fingers permanently stained yellow with nicotine.
“Your granddaughter’s two years older than mine.”
“Yes, and she has the same name.”
What was I holding, an ice cream? Was I sassily licking a Cornetto with my impudent tongue as big as a shoe?
“But I have a middle name too.”
“So does she!”
“But my middle name is very rare.”
“As you kids say these days . . . exactamundo.”
That old archaeologist from Cihangir was surprisingly hip.
“So your granddaughter’s name is also . . .”
“Yes. Exactly the same as yours. This grandma of yours copied that rare middle name that means ‘beautiful view’ and gave it to you. Ha ha! And then there’s your aunt . . . She’s the namesake of one of my twins.”
Seriously, for real? It was like one of those mathematical logic problems you see on exams: How long will it take to fill a swimming pool with X number of buckets, how long will it take a car to travel from city A to city B, what percentage of money does person Y have compared with person Z, what is person C’s age based on the age of person D . . . ?
Grandma, you just sit there on the stern of the boat, smoke your cigarette, and gaze into the distance. You’ve done as you will, so look around as if you never sinned! You haven’t given up on that sweet man from the neighborhood you wanted to marry. Since fate kept you apart, you raised parallel families, giving your children and grandchildren identical names without an ounce of shame.
“The sea air is good for the kid. Her doctor said that she needed it. Last winter she came down with bronchitis.”
Sure, Grandma. The sea air is wonderful. So refreshing! There I was, sitting there like a foolish cherub, Cornetto in hand, unaware that I was an excuse that legitimized your rendezvous on the sea. And you, reader, back off! I’m not going to tell you what my name is. Not my first name or my middle name. Google it if you so desire. Grandma, what you did was wrong. This isn’t working at all. You didn’t choose us. Instead, you opted to stay in a marriage that was only possible in another universe. You made copies of us. Are we mere clones? We are, thanks to you. But when we were packing up your things after you died . . .
“Why did my mom hide this dress?” As my father’s sister held up that inauspicious dress on its hanger, it seemed to me my grandma’s ghost lingered within its folds.
“Can I have it? As a memento of my grandma?”
“Sure. It’s all torn up, but you can keep it if you want.”
She tossed the dress in my direction, and it seemed to fly across the space between us like a bird.
“I don’t remember her ever wearing that.”
I remember.
Grandma, I knew the things they didn’t know about, right? But I was so young! As Perihan’s little companion, her one and only friend, the child of her child, we’d glide past Dolmabahçe Mosque on that small motorboat that puttered us out onto the Bosporus Strait.
“What a beautiful mosque! The one we have in Cihangir is one thing, but this is something else altogether. I wish all the mosques in this country of ours were like this . . .”
Grandma, there’s no need to change the subject. My anger died down as quickly as it burst into flame. That’s how it goes with you. I forgive you with a kiss to your cheek.
“Let’s go under the bridge! Pretty please?”
“Sure, as you wish.”
May your one desire, your happiness, your consolation, be taking in the sea air on the stern of a boat on the Bosporus. In fact, your expectations of life and your desires were indeed that simple. They thought that was too much for you, for me. It’s such a shame, Grandma. Such a terrible shame.
There are so many memories, aren’t there?
I could wrap up that sentence with a bit of swearing. What do you say, Grandma? Shall we put your stamp on it?
The human mind is like a dairy farm. Those things we call “memories” are like flies: try with all your might to shoo one away, but it keeps buzzing around. A dairy farm without flies would go against the very law of nature. That’s why the mind cannot shake off traces of the past. That’s what I was thinking about when they were stitching my head up at the mosque and I was braying like a donkey. If I didn’t confess earlier that I was braying like a donkey, I’m saying it now. But don’t go off and sneer or judge me. My life’s screwed up enough already; show a little understanding.
Wait, where were we?
Ah yes, I was listening to Yunus.
“After I got hurt, my father started to worry. ‘Don’t go back there,’ he said. But I couldn’t think of being anywhere but the park. So I went back and started living in the park with the others, imagining that I’d spend the rest of my days there. After I got hit in the stomach with a tear gas canister, I started getting scared when the anti-riot trucks would start patrolling. I even had dreams about them.”
“I know exactly how you felt. When they started burning the tents, we were terrified. That was the morning of the thirtieth of May. I remember the date so clearly because it was Pembe’s birthday.”
“I met so many nice people and heard so many wonderful stories. I read a lot too.”
“If only the whole country was like the park in those days, because we had hope. And now? Is there still a country? Do we have a future? The horizon has been buried in darkness. We’re completely lost.”
“There’s nothing I can say to that except ‘exactly.’ The situation is exactly that.”
“We had hope in those times. I saw it with my own eyes. I saw things of such beauty that I’d never seen before. It was as if a circus of equality, freedom, and fraternity had been set up in the heart of the city.”
“A circus?! Are you on the government’s side or something?”
“I don’t mean ‘circus’ in a bad way. But I didn’t know how else to describe it. They had hung up that huge banner that read ‘DON’T BACK DOWN.’ And we didn’t. We didn’t back down.”
“A guy played the trumpet at the top of the building.”
“People were dancing.”
“Did you see them doing the fire dance?”
“We put on a play of sorts. The story was from a children’s book we found in the library that had been set up in Gezi. I suggested the story. It was very sad. It wasn’t what you’d expect of a children’s book. It was called Duck, Death and the Tulip.
“I played Death. I had a mask, and I was wearing striped pajamas. Pembe played the main character, Duck, who went around with her neck outstretched as if she was trying to touch the sky, and by doing so, giving the impression that she really was a duck.”
“What if I said that I watched the play?”
“I’d say that I don’t believe you. I’d say, ‘No way.’ ‘Get out of here.’ ‘You’re full of it.’”
“Good. Then dish it out and move on.”
“What do you remember of the play? People write, people draw, people act . . . But what do others really get out of those creations? I mean, to what extent do they truly interiorize them, trying to make sure that nothing is lost?”
“Readers are ingrates.”
My father’s sister said that once. I don’t want to misrepresent it—I’m not sure if she was specifically referring to readers of newspapers or readers
of literature. She said that to boost my confidence when I was working on my book and she was editing it. She went on to say, “But you should know that readers are finicky and meddlesome, often disliking what they read. Still, they’ll die one day, while a book goes on living forever.” She said that for me, as a means of clarification.
“Either that, or they’ll like it,” I said. We were in her apartment at the time, and she was stretched out on her mustard-yellow sofa. She was always so beautiful. Not at first glance, but after you gazed at her for a while. She was alluring. Charming. “I imagine that it’s so nice when a reader comes to like a writer . . . Something akin to feeling a motherly, fatherly, or sisterly love.”
“Don’t get carried away,” she said.
“I’m not. I just think that’s how it would be. How it should be.”
She didn’t try to dissuade me, deciding instead to let me go on thinking that way. It was an adolescent interregnum of sorts. If you opted to be stubborn with her, matters quickly hit a dead end. I’m lucky to have had her in my life. And my grandma too, until I was fifteen years old. Without them, I’m sure that everyone in my family would’ve tormented each other, including that shadow of a father of mine. As matters stand, I’m a lost child up in the treetops. If it hadn’t been for them, who knows what would’ve become of me. But wait, hang on a second! Were they the ones who lost me? Or was it our state or society, perhaps even our city planners? Weren’t they guilty as well? If you ask me, they were guiltier than all the rest. May God enact his punishment on them. In any case, they will be bound to their maker soon enough. It is always better to be bound to something you can’t see.
“You’re lost in thought again.”
I’d been picking at the skin flaking from my dry lips, thinking of bygone times, but when Yunus spoke, I found myself whisked from the past back to the present.
“I’m waiting for your answer.”
“One time, in your role as Death, you weren’t wearing striped pajamas. Instead, you had on a long plaid robe of sorts. And you were wearing a skull mask.”
“Sorry, Yunus, but for me that doesn’t count as an answer. What did you really take from the play?”
If he had visited me at my home in Cihangir, we would’ve sat across from each other in just the same way. The branch upon which we were perched would’ve been life itself—our lives. I was listening intently to what Yunus was saying. I’m always careful about listening to what others have to say.
“Death wanted to take Duck’s life and then carry her off to the realm of the dead.”
“Yes.”
“They became friends. But the sole purpose of that friendship was the taking of Duck’s life.”
“Yes, but what’s the point? You’re just summarizing the story.”
“I wept when I watched the play. But I didn’t want to cry in front of all those people, so I stood there with my head bowed, acting like I’d gotten something in my eye. Everyone was watching you. I mean, they were watching you and your friend playing Duck. The narrator . . .”
“Derin.”
“She was standing behind some trees. She would read from the book to fill us in on the story. As she read, her expressions were too exaggerated, and it seemed like she couldn’t catch her breath the whole time.”
“So tell me, why did you cry?”
“Because Duck realized that certain things would cease to exist for her when she died. She said things like, ‘The word “lake” will be bereft of me.’”
“Very good.”
I couldn’t stop myself—I started reciting lines from that play like I’d done two years earlier for a small audience among the trees that were still standing and thriving, bringing to life the dialogues that had moved Yunus so profoundly.
I looked up. Yunus was sitting there, just like he had sat under the trees that day. I went on a while, then paused, waiting for Yunus to snap out of his reverie, but he was still sitting there among the branches, gazing off into the distance as if he was watching something. I waved my hand in front of his face.
“Hello, is anyone home? Houston, please respond! Houston, we have a problem . . .”
Yunus suddenly leaned back a little as he awoke to the world around him.
“I have no further questions, Your Honor. The witness is all yours.”
I laughed. We laughed together. Even if he looked like his thoughts were elsewhere, Yunus was always fully in the present moment. No one is as they appear to be.
“Actually, Death is a really important character in both the book and the play we put on, but he has very few lines. Didn’t you get that impression?”
“No . . . Death is death. In my opinion, that is. Death paved the way for the expression of some very emotional statements.”
“What else? What else do you remember?”
My greed for more, which drove me to ask, “What else, what else,” was making Yunus tense, and I didn’t blame him. I could see with my own eyes that he was as taut as a wire.
“It’s such a shame that you’re so obsessive. It’s a shame for the sake of living, of staying alive. You never back down. Nor do you give in, or give up for that matter. You always want more. And in trying to get more, you go to pieces.”
Ah, how right he was.
Pained, I looked away. I’ve done that ever since I was a child, whenever I feel embarrassed, ashamed, or weighed down by sadness. I can’t bring myself to look anyone in the face at times like that.
“Try to relax a little,” Yunus said. “We’re all going to die in the end. It’s true, however, that we can’t go on living with such a mind-set. In that play, you had a line that went something like: ‘Delicate snowflakes were flitting through the air. Something had happened. Death looked at Duck. Duck wasn’t breathing. She was lying there, completely still.’”
I picked up where he left off: “‘Death reached down and smoothed out Duck’s ruffled feathers, and then carried her down to the large river.’”
Yunus said, “I cried a lot at that point in the play, toward the end.”
His eyes were full of tears as he spoke. I also started crying, but for very different reasons.
“Yunus . . . I’m not so innocent. I did something terrible. Because of me, people have died. I’m serious.”
He was taken aback. His jaw dropped, and I noticed that he gripped the branch he was holding on to even more tightly. When he did so, he seemed to take on an even greener hue, becoming immersed even more deeply in the verdancy. He was green itself. He shifted uneasily, as though what I’d told him was too much to bear. As he did so, he didn’t forget for a moment that he was in the treetops, and as he clutched a branch over his head, it bent, revealing the sky above. Clouds with tattered edges drifted aimlessly. Seeing the sky and those clouds offered a ray of hope. But did I myself have any hope?
25
STALKING
My mind is being torn apart. I’m going to pieces.
If I were writing that novel now, I’d write as if I was dreaming, because that’s the only time we don’t lie. I know, Özlem Hanım would say, “Now, where did you hear such a thing?”
As I lay in the stork’s nest, dozing off while I gazed into my mirror, I thought, Tomorrow’s Monday! But I no longer cared about Mondays, or any of the days of the week. I had propped Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees against the side of the nest like a painting. A decor of sorts. And I was creating a new world for myself with clouds of dust and gas. Slowly, the crowds started withdrawing from the park. All the same, few people had ventured to my side of the park. My side. The damned side. Cemetery of the nameless.
My mind is resisting.
After Yunus left, I went and took a crap. If I were an inconsiderate person, I would’ve just crapped on top of the wall. It would’ve been easier. Later, when it dried out, I could’ve kicked it to the ground. And, of course, I would’ve told Yunus so that he wouldn’t step on it. I no longer felt any shame around him. There was no need—he now knew all my dirty secrets.
When people found out about the huge lie my mother had been telling, she was devastated.
I was the inspiration for that lie. Or maybe it would be better to say that I served as a conduit for a certain discovery.
The year 2013 started off with a string of disasters. My grandma fell ill. My mother was in mourning because the doctor she’d loved had gotten married. I had started writing lyrics for rap songs, and although I sensed that I would suffer in the end, I refused to stay away from my co-conspirator.
At the time, I was keener on helping my mother than myself, as I feared that she would hit rock bottom again if I didn’t do something. One day, the television was on. Don’t think that’s an irrelevant detail, because it was something on TV that inspired me. A huge lie that would drag my mother into misery.
Britney Spears.
I can almost hear you muttering, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I’m not.
Yes, I said Britney Spears. The Britney we all know who sang “Womanizer.” I’m not sure what you know about her, but most likely you’ve never heard that she lost a lot of weight by working with a Turkish dietician. After she lost her children, came unglued, shaved her head, and was diagnosed as being bipolar, Madonna kissed her on the lips and she was reborn.
She appeared on our television singing “Scream and Shout” with will.i.am.
“She’s lost a lot of weight,” I said. I think I said that intentionally, as a way of getting my mother’s attention. “If you’d been the one who helped her get so thin, you’d be famous in no time.”
I had succeeded.
My mother was like a woeful grouper staring down the shaft of a spearfishing gun. Where did that come from? I don’t know—it just popped into my mind. When I was at prep school, they had us read an article about groupers. They live as males until a certain age, and then they become female. Or maybe it’s the other way around. In any case, they get to experience what it’s like to be both male and female. Apparently, they can only be caught via speargun, and there was this guy who explained that in the article. It all made me so sad that I couldn’t read it to the end. Since they’re not accustomed to being around people, they’ll often swim right up to you out of curiosity, as if they were thinking, “What is this big thing here?” The speargunner may even talk to them and stroke their heads before launching a spear straight through them. In short, groupers are easily fooled. When my mother came upon those images of Britney on the television and was taken in by what I said, she was very much like a grouper.
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