by Moris Farhi
He further warned us that the patient rambled much of the time – with varying degrees of coherence. Continuous and dissociated monologues were symptomatic of his condition.
Saadet moved – shuffled – in that direction.
I followed – just as nervously.
I stared at the patient. He was talking solemnly, in Turkish, towards points ahead of him, as if giving a lecture. I tried to understand what he was saying. In vain. He kept jumbling up the words. Yet his body was completely still. But for the cacophony of his voice, he lay like an animal playing dead.
Saadet mumbled, ‘He’s so thin ...’
The doctor sighed. ‘He won’t eat. He hoards his food. We have to feed him intravenously.’
‘Hoards his food?’
‘Many from the camps do. A hidden crust meant surviving another day.’
Saadet faltered and held on to the doctor. ‘Oh, God ...’
The patient caught Saadet’s movement and cast a furtive look in our direction. About to avert his gaze, he stopped; then he turned to look at us again. This time, he focused – first on Saadet, then on me. I felt unsteady, thinking he had recognized her. Also, it suddenly occurred to me that he might think I was İshak. Then he blinked as if to brush our presence off his eyes and went back to his rambling.
Saadet reached his bed.
He did not look at her, but fixed his gaze on the window facing him. By doing so, he presented a full view of his face – as if he wanted her to recognize him.
I managed to catch something of his gibberish. He was listing the ingredients he needed for preparing Circassian chicken.
Saadet stifled a cry. ‘That’s his favourite dish.’
Inexplicably, I felt shocked. ‘What?’
Saadet turned to the doctor and nodded sorrowfully. ‘It’s him. It’s Efraim.’
The doctor was elated. ‘Are you sure?’
‘His mouth ...’
Whatever Efraim’s condition, she had said, while showing me some photographs she had brought along, she would recognize him by his mouth. Nothing could change the full lips gently curving towards the ears and seemingly about to laugh or say something loving.
She wept silently, as if directing the tears into her inner self. ‘The mouth – it’s him. Not the rest. The rest is not him at all.’
That was her anguish reacting. Because I could see, despite the flow of words, despite his opaque, unseeing eyes, that this Efraim still possessed something of the aura of the athletic, debonair Efraim of the photographs. Like an olive tree seen through a smudged lens, he was lustreless, but recognizable.
I felt miserable. I had hoped he would have proved to be someone else. Then Saadet could have gone back to Turkey less troubled. And I could have had a second mother, one less formal, more affectionate, more intimate.
Tentatively, Saadet embraced Efraim. ‘Dear heart ... It’s me! Saadet ...’
Efraim, still staring at the window, shuddered as if a current was going through him. He spoke faster, raising his voice; the words became lost within each other.
Saadet held on to him. ‘It’s me, Efraim ... It’s me, my heart ...’
Efraim’s words became an incomprehensible screech. He still lay inert with his fixed gaze. A lifeless Pinocchio except for wildly fluttering, fleshless cheeks.
Saadet turned to the doctor and me. ‘Leave me with him ...’
That evening, we ate at a small bistro near the hospital. We hardly touched our food and much of the time – except when she thanked me for ‘being family’, for ‘saving her sanity, indeed, her soul’ – Saadet remained silent. I kept wanting to engage her, ask what she intended to do, but managed to hold my tongue.
Then, on the way back to our pension, she stopped in front of a farm outhouse that had been converted into a cottage. ‘Pretty place, wouldn’t you say?’
I shrugged. ‘Yes.’
‘My new home. I rented it this afternoon.’
I was stunned. ‘What?’
‘I’m staying here.’
I yelped. ‘No! Why?!’
She held my hand. ‘Because Efraim is my husband.’
‘So is Abdülkerim.’
‘Not any more.’
‘Did you talk to him – to Abdülkerim? Did he say that?’
‘Abdülkerim is a good man. He will understand. Efraim is my life. My fate. I can live again.’ She took a small box from her pocket and handed it to me. ‘My wedding ring. Can you give it to Abdülkerim – when you get back?’
I took the box hesitantly. ‘But Efraim is ...’
Saadet caressed my cheek. ‘In some impenetrable world? Yes, he is ... Then again, maybe not – entirely ... Sometimes I can see him, behind his ramblings – playing hide-and-seek, as we used to ... So I’ll try and catch him ...’ She held my hands. ‘Also, sometimes, I feel my son is there with him – in his being ... Which strikes me as reasonable ... I mean, İshak is dead – killed during the death march. I made enough sense of Efraim’s monologues to know that. But he has kept İshak alive – inside his sunken world ... I imagine that’s how he survived ... That’s how I’d like to think he survived – by keeping our son alive. For himself as well as for me.’
I tried to respond like an adult, to look as if I understood her reasoning. Instead I wailed, ‘What about me?’
‘You, young Odysseus, believe it or not, put life into my son ... There he was, barely alive, inside Efraim ... I took him from Efraim. Put him inside me. But you, you breathed life into him. You gave İshak your face, your mind, your deep feelings ... I feel as if I’m betraying İshak by saying this, but every time I think of him, I’ll think of you. Every time I try to picture him, it will be your face I’ll see ...’
I wanted to cry, but controlled myself. ‘If you ever need me ...’
She embraced me. ‘I know, my Yusuf ... I know, my dear, dear Yusuf ...’
There was nothing more to say. Or rather there was, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it.
Saadet smiled, held my hand. ‘There’s something else on your mind.’
I nodded.
‘What is it?’
‘If ... If Efraim ...’
Saadet’s eyes clouded. ‘Dies?’
‘Or doesn’t recover?’
She looked at the night sky. ‘I’ll thank God for having given me such a man. Like you Jews at Passover, I’ll say, Dayyenu – it’s enough ...’
7: Havva
A Wrestling Man
Mahmut the Simurg knows everything. He is the storyteller who goes round the neighbourhoods during the day and performs as our fire-eater at night. He says every happening has a cause and a consequence and the cause always starts in the celestial bodies. If, for instance, a flea lands on the Dog Star, its weight, though minimal, still affects the star’s pull on us and alters the course of our lives.
I imagine that’s how my life and the lives of those around me changed when the comet that passed by recently breathed upon the earth.
I felt the beginnings of this change the night we went to Sulukule looking for the drunkard Babacιk, my father, had been asked to help. But no doubt, as Mahmut the Simurg would say, it had started before that with a death because there can be no beginning without Death.
Babacιk led the way. Mama Meryem and I followed.
Sulukule is one of Istanbul’s poorest neighbourhoods. A maze of narrow streets nuzzles the Byzantine ruins. Every pothole is a pool of sewage. In the rubbish heaps that are everywhere, anything edible – even rotting food – is instantly snatched by hungry mouths. The houses lean on each other for support and many doorways lead to cheap drinking houses. I overheard Hacι Turgut – he’s the one who asked Babacιk to help the mysterious drunkard – say that men come to these places to kill themselves – either with raki or by surrendering what little money they have to opium-smoking belly-dancers who pick up the coins with their privates.
Not a place for Mama Meryem, who looks and is as Italian as Anna Magnani, and a slip of a girl like me.
But not even a gang would dare molest us with Babacιk at our side.
Here and there Babacιk paused to scrutinize some drops of fluid on the cobblestones. When we looked puzzled, he explained. ‘Drunkards are like wounded animals. You can track them by their bleeding. Only they don’t bleed blood – they bleed the sap of their soul.’
We nodded. When Babacιk speaks, we all prick up our ears.
‘What colour is the soul’s sap, Babacιk? Red too?’
Mama Meryem smiled. She likes it when I ask questions because she never does. Babacιk is head of the family and Mama Meryem observes the conventions. Whereas I – I’m a foundling. I’m not expected to behave like everybody else. I can be the urchin I am.
‘Depends who’s bleeding.’
Babacιk likes me being an urchin because urchins, he thinks, are smart or they would have perished when their poor, misguided begetters abandoned them. So he always answers my questions. Yet he distrusts words. Words are mirages, he says. They delude people, particularly the young, and fog their minds. He believes people should be judged only by what they do.
I make him sound severe. But he’s as gentle as a butterfly. The only person in the world who takes people as they are. That’s why the whole troupe loves him. Why they come to relax around our tent before a performance. Sure, they also love him because he makes everybody laugh, but that’s because those who can make the world laugh have souls that glow. That’s a gift from Allah. We circus people know that. Babacιk – he’s the giant clown who tumbles all over the ring – can make even jinns piss in their pants. (You may think my nickname for him, ‘little father’, is funny, too. Well, when I was a toddler and couldn’t tell the difference between big and small, I once called him that. He found it very amusing. So I stuck to it.)
I looked around with greater determination. I was curious about the sap. I have perfect vision – essential for a juggler. That’s what I’m training to be. Juggling ten rings and six clubs, that’s my target.
Several men, holding on to each other, came out of a drinking house.
Babacιk stepped forward to shield us. He’s an old wrestler, Babacιk is. The greatest there’s ever been. Unbeaten in all official competitions. That makes him even better than Hacι Turgut, who won several gold medals in the Olympic Games and now coaches the national team. In fact, Hacι Turgut always defers to Babacιk as ‘master’ though they’re about the same age. That’s because, during the few years when they were on the mat together, Hacι Turgut never defeated Babacιk. Babacιk always won by a tuş – by pinning down Hacι Turgut’s shoulders. We heard that from Hacι Turgut himself; Babacιk never boasts.
The drunken men ignored us and staggered towards the ramparts. They tried to piss, but collapsed. As the urine trickled out of their trousers, they wept.
Babacιk looked as if he might weep, too. ‘These are men who can’t find work. That’s their sap, Girl: tears.’
Mama Meryem caressed Babacιk’s face. Allah’s compassionate servants have wives who suffer twice as much as they do.
The reason why Babacιk is not as famous as Hacι Turgut and won’t even be asked to coach our wrestlers is because one dark day he lost his amateur status. Amateur status is very important to sports people. Without it they can’t compete in the Olympic Games. Babacιk turned professional when he signed up with a Hungarian promoter for some exhibition contests in Europe. That was before the war. He was the oldest son in a large family and had to provide for them. Mama Meryem told me those years were a time of humiliation for him; occasionally, to draw in the crowds, he was ordered to lose to lesser wrestlers.
But Babacιk’s woes led to my happiness. When he was able to give up his ‘enslavement’, as he calls it, he joined the circus. And when Mama Meryem discovered me in the refectory tent, nameless, wrapped in bloody rags, a baby abandoned at birth, Babacιk took me instantly to his heart. And in no time at all he convinced the company that rather than hand me over to the police, who would put me in an orphanage, they would adopt me and, when I grew up, train me for an act.
I heard the sound of glass breaking. I turned round and saw a man leaning against some crates of empty bottles. He was grinning and squinting at his hands. A broken bottle lay by his feet. A strapping man, despite his condition. I knew instantly he was the one we had come to find. ‘Over there!’
Babacιk had seen him, too. ‘Yes, Girl.’
When I was a child, I used to be called ‘Emanet’, which means ‘held in trust’. Now that I’m older, they call me ‘Girl’ or ‘My Lamb’ or, when they get angry with me, ‘Kerata’, which is one of those vulgarities that means anything from ‘cuckold’ to ‘little devil’. In my case, it must mean ‘little devil’ because only men can be cuckolded; besides, I’m just sixteen and not married – and don’t intend to be since that means having children and I don’t want children. Anyway, Girl or Kerata are hardly names that light up people’s eyes. As for Emanet – held in trust for whom? For parents who didn’t want me? For one of Mahmut the Simurg’s heroes who just by looking at a girl makes her as beautiful as the moon? I can wait for ever for that, can’t I?
No, one day I will choose a name for myself, myself – a name that will take everybody’s breath away.
Babacιk addressed the man. ‘Good evening.’
The man ignored him. Maybe he hadn’t seen us. He picked up another bottle and threw it in the air. As it dropped he tried to catch it, but failed. The bottle smashed into pieces. The man glared at his hands – which were huge – and laughed bitterly.
Babacιk approached him. ‘What’s funny?’
The man snarled. ‘On your way, old man!’
Mama Meryem moved forward, ready to protect her husband. ‘He ask question: what’s funny?’
I managed to keep a straight face. Dear Mama Meryem – whenever she gets excited, her accent gets thicker and she sounds like our comedian, Kadir, imitating foreign politicians.
The man hesitated. I could see his temper rising, but obviously he was not someone who yelled at women. That earned him a good mark from me. ‘If you must know, Grandma, I can’t catch. Not a thing. Not even death – which is said to be the easiest thing to catch. That’s what’s funny.’
Babacιk nodded sympathetically. ‘Born like that, were you?’
The man snorted. ‘Now that’s even funnier! Actually, I was a catcher. A real-life catcher. The best, I’d like you to know! I could catch the sky if I had to.’
‘What’s changed?’
‘Piss off, you old fart! Get going!’
‘I’m Kudret. I’ll take you home. You’ll be my guest.’
‘What?’
‘My wife, Meryem. My daughter.’
I grimaced. No name. Just ‘daughter’. I must definitely choose a name for myself. Everybody should. That would be a truer way of describing a person. After all, who knows a person better than the person herself? Some mothers say they do, but I don’t believe it. And not because I was abandoned by my mother. I’ve really thought about it. We’re all as different as the knots on olive trees. Only the person herself sees her true self. Only she knows whether she’s a killer or a life-giver or a bit of both or many things in between. But then truth needs courage – which I have. Many don’t. So they keep the names of greatness or goodness chosen by their parents even though such names hang on them like the oversize coats of clowns. (But there are exceptions. Babacιk’s father got his own son’s name right: Kudret means ‘strength’.)
The man started laughing again. ‘Are you crazy?’
‘Come along ...’
The man lurched forward. ‘Get lost before ...’ Seized by a spasm, he sank to his knees and started throwing up.
Babacιk sighed. ‘That’s his sap, Girl – vomit. Lost soul’s sap.’
The man puked out his innards. Then, trying to straighten up, he passed out.
Babacιk picked him up.
I rushed forward. ‘Let me help.’
Babacιk nodded. ‘Carefully. Let him
know we care.’
Mama Meryem laughed. ‘He dead to world!’
Babacιk shook his head. ‘He’ll feel the touch. He’ll know.’
We carried the man as if he were made of ancient glass.
We took Adem to our tent. That’s his name, Adem. He slept all night and most of the next day. He moaned and wept a lot. Alcoholic poisoning, Babacιk declared.
When Hacι Turgut received word that Babacιk had found Adem, he immediately came over. And he brought with him his nephew, Osman, and Osman’s wife, Hatice.
Hacι Turgut didn’t stay long – just the prescribed time to pay his respects and kiss Babacιk’s feet for taking charge of Adem. But Osman and Hatice erected their tent within the circus campsite as if they had joined the troupe. Osman is a trapeze artist – what we call a flyer – and has been looking for a partner, a catcher. Hatice – who is a big woman – watches over him like Mahmut the Simurg’s creature with the hundred eyes; if she could, circus people say, she’d put a ring round Osman’s nose and rule him like a Gypsy’s bear.
All night and most of the next day, we watched over Adem. Or rather Osman watched over him and Hatice and I watched Osman watching him. We could see he was taking Adem into his heart, limb by limb, like an ant carrying a beetle to its nest bit by bit. And all that time, his eyes never strayed from Adem’s hands. I had sensed this would happen. For a flyer the sight of a good pair of hands, old-timers say, is like the vision that sends a dervish into a trance; he’s likely to whirl straight into the presence of the Godhead.
I felt jealous. Adem had captivated me, too. When he woke up, it would be Osman’s face he would see first. I know how it is with some men: one look and they become soul mates. I may be just sixteen and set on remaining unmarried, but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in men. Otherwise I wouldn’t bother about my appearance. People say I look and smell like orange blossom – not an easy feat in a place like a circus, where even make-up smells of animals.