by Ahmet Altan
He said, “Let’s have tea.”
He ordered tea and when it came, while Dilevser pretended she didn’t notice and turned her head away, he added cognac to his tea and asked the girl if she would like some.
Dilevser smiled and nodded her head.
“How do you manage it,” asked Hikmet Bey, “how can you carry on with your life without having any interest at all in the lives of others, without ever touching those lives?”
“I don’t know, perhaps people don’t seem very relevant to me.”
“People don’t seem relevant to you, but I notice that you always prefer books that are about people.”
Dilevser paused, she thought about Hikmet Bey’s question and smiled.
“Yes, I probably expressed it wrong. I am interested in people, but I can only understand people in novels, I can’t say I understand people in real life.”
It was only after he’d asked the question that Hikmet Bey realized that he’d asked it in a reproachful manner.
“Why don’t you ever try to understand them?”
Dilevser came and sat in one of the armchairs, holding a book in the fingers that seemed so innocent to Hikmet Bey.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to understand. When you asked now, I thought about it, I think I like someone to explain people to me, when someone explains I can see more clearly, I can understand the reason for any behavior, but it’s not like that when you’re living it.”
Hikmet Bey didn’t hesitate to say something that revealed his feelings, probably because of the courage that came from the shock he’d experienced that morning.
“I would like someone to explain you to me.”
“I don’t think there’s anything about me that’s worth explaining.”
Dilevser had a kind of terrifying, self-abnegating modesty, it seemed impossible for anyone to get past it and reach the girl, she concealed herself behind a kind of modesty that surprised people, she put off anyone who wanted to learn what was behind this modesty by saying, “There’s nothing there.” Hikmet Bey couldn’t understand why the girl behaved like this, why she erected a castle between herself and life with literature, why she concealed herself, why she never revealed her feelings, why she didn’t have a connection with anyone, he thought the reason was hidden in an old wound that no one would ever talk about.
He stood and walked toward the girl.
“That’s what you think,” he said, “if I were a literary man you’d be the first person I’d want to explain; you’re full of mystery, you don’t give anyone the chance to discover even the smallest clue about you, it’s impossible to find out what your feelings are, you’re like shiny glass, it’s as if there’s nothing hidden, but whoever looks through the glass is faced with darkness, an impenetrable secret.”
Dilevser shook her head.
“If only that were the case, but I’m afraid you consider nothingness to be a secret.”
In the course of his life, Hikmet Bey had encountered all kinds of women, those who were very beautiful, volatile women who stirred up jealousy, sardonic women who used their intelligence like a merciless weapon, those who brought playing with men to the level of a pleasure-inducing addiction, coquettes who tried to render themselves unapproachable to increase their value, aristocratic women who shielded themselves behind an unsurmountable fence of nobility; with none of them had he felt the helplessness and disparagement he felt in the face of this girl’s simplicity. Dilevser did nothing to make herself attractive, she said nothing to attract a man’s attention. Hikmet Bey sensed that not making herself attractive was her way of telling people that she didn’t find them attractive. When Dilevser rejected her own attractiveness she was in fact rejecting Hikmet Bey’s attractiveness, and this added an irresistible attraction and allure for him.
Perhaps she was right, perhaps beyond that simplicity there was a void that came from lack of experience, a nothingness created by immature feelings, but Hikmet Bey could not endure how debasing it was that she made no effort to conceal this, that she ignored the person she was with.
It wasn’t that there was a lovelessness in the way she treated Hikmet Bey, it wasn’t indifference; she came to his library every day, leafed through his books, spoke about novels, when Hikmet Bey was disquieted or anxious or something was bothering him, she was interested in his concerns, listened to what he said, she shared his sadness, when he made a joke she laughed in a way that made him incredibly happy, but she never acted like a woman when she did these things. When they talked there was none of the exciting warmth, the unnamed but agreeable animallike presence, that occurs between a man and a woman. The only climate in which this warmth could exist was created by the rugged sea cliffs and shadowy nooks of the feminine soul, but Dilevser stubbornly remained straight and open; Hikmet Bey was afraid that their relationship would turn into an unhappy friendship.
He knew now that he wasn’t going to be able to get past this girl, as long as this girl didn’t accept his existence he would not feel that he existed with another woman in another place, that he was alive. This girl’s innocence made him want to catch it, tear it apart, possess it, but even as he struggled to do so he became a prisoner of that innocence; it was easy to catch sinfulness, but innocence was too soft and indistinct to be captured. Later when Mihrişah Sultan learned about this and made fun of her son, “You’re a fool, Hikmet,” she said, “what man who knows himself wouldn’t flee when he saw innocence.”
“Dilevser, why are you so insistent on acting as if you’re nothing, doesn’t it make people who value you a bunch of nothings?”
It seemed to Hikmet Bey as if a small, playful light flashed for a moment in the girl’s eyes. She immediately grasped what Hikmet Bey wanted to say and replied with a melancholy smile, “Sorry, I’ve never thought that.”
In any case, this was what surprised Hikmet Bey, that Dilevser’s mind had a quickness and agility that was out of step with the weight of her innocence, she immediately grasped even the most complex subjects that she’d never heard of, she immediately found the hidden meanings concealed in the very depths of the most complex sentences, but she answered them bluntly and without insinuation. When all of the words he uttered, words that seemed to carry all of the heaviness of life and that could scatter at any moment, plays on words that could mean almost anything, touched her fine-boned, innocent face, her dovelike eyes, her hands, whose index fingers were slightly splayed, they became so plain it felt as if life, with all its sounds, noises, colors, fights, loves had departed, leaving him alone in the midst of desolation, and he believed that in order for the accustomed sounds to be restored to life, Dilevser had to speak, had to participate in life.
She rejected life and people in such a calm, strong manner it seemed to Hikmet Bey as if she was lying completely still on the bottom of a glittering lake, looking out of the water without ever taking a breath; you could pass the lake without even noticing Dilevser was there, indeed many people continued on their way without ever noticing her, but once he’d seen her there, lying at the bottom of the lake with her innocent eyes wide open, to move on, that is, it was impossible for him to move on.
Moreover, despite her appearance of clarity and simplicity, her soul was full of conflicts that were reflected in her actions; she had a pale but healthy face; she was innocent, but she was intelligent enough to give the impression that she was using this innocence as a means of entertainment; she wasn’t interested in people but she talked about characters in novels as if they were real people and shared their feelings; she seemed indifferent to passion, yet she was passionate about literature; she didn’t respond to what was going on, but she wept for Anna Karenina; she seemed indifferent to the blessings of life, but she was fond of clothes and food, she always dressed elegantly, she carefully chose dishes and asked her mother to have them prepared, but if these dishes were even slightly off she would complain that the cook was ge
tting worse and worse lately.
As Hikmet Bey told Osman, “Innocence is a mystery, my good man.”
He was soon wrapped in this mystery like a kitten wrapped in yarn while playing with a ball of wool, he was unable to unravel himself, to cut the strings, to escape.
But what unnerved Hikmet Bey most was her brief answers and long silences; this was like the games women with a lot of experience played to inflame men more, to make them talk more, this girl made this play naturally without even knowing the game; her brief answers and long silences left a man in such a large and empty space, the man felt obliged to fill this space with his own words; as there were no words that could fill a woman’s silence he was dragged as if by a current toward the extreme, toward that which shouldn’t be said, sometimes he even said things he didn’t feel, made promises he didn’t want to make.
When he spoke to Dilevser, he struggled with himself, put up an incredible fight, to not be drawn into that current, to not cross the line and say what should remain unsaid, to not fill the long silences with his words.
That’s what happened this time as well; when she said, “Sorry, I’ve never thought that,” and silenced Hikmet Bey, he wanted to walk toward the young girl and say, “I love you,” to at least rouse her and force her to join the conversation, just so they would have something to talk about, he might even have said it if he wasn’t afraid of a scandal or an embarrassing situation, but he bit his lip and remained quiet.
Even though he was so willing to say these words, he didn’t in fact know whether or not he loved Dilevser. If this young girl were to open her soul to him, tell him she loved him, if she talked, told him her feelings, he might show no interest, might turn his back and leave. The girl’s body didn’t arouse in him a desire to make love, a passion, a fiery lust, but strangely it created a desire to embrace her. A soft embrace accepting that Hikmet Bey and the world existed was perhaps the greatest gift he expected from Dilevser, still, he also recognized that he wanted this soft embrace more passionately than he wanted all other types of lustful lovemaking.
A desire that was almost completely separated from the body and the skin, that was freed from the intense, magnetic, but confined passion of the flesh, that spread and grew in a restless manner without encountering any obstacles, it even surpassed Dilevser, it never encountered the opportunity to stop, to be satisfied, to calm itself down, it diffused itself into every particle of Hikmet Bey’s soul like a cloud, a fog, like incense, its smell seeped into every part of his soul without giving his body any chance to give any comfort or satisfaction to the poor soul that had surrendered itself to this desire; it was as if even if he did embrace Dilevser, this embrace would not ease the longing he had in him to embrace her.
The April sun, fragmented as it struck the leaves of the trees in the garden, filtered through the large windows and spread through the room like shimmering yellow silk with black, leaf-shaped designs on it; the reddish brown of the cognac in the balloon glass was thinned and clarified by this yellow light’s brazen assault and sat in Hikmet Bey’s palm like fiery light that smelled of dried apricots.
Despite the tension Hikmet Bey felt, in this warm and well-lit room there was a somewhat acrid peace, a saddening calm that tasted like cognac; he sipped his cognac as if it was burning light, enjoyed feeling the warmth spread to his nasal cavity and his body.
In a strange and incomprehensible way, despite the tormenting questions it led to, Dilevser’s presence intensified the peace, the soft warmth, and the light that also brought inner warmth to this room, it turned them all into real and concrete pieces of happiness. Either because he truly felt this at that moment or because he couldn’t resist the urge to break the silence in a way that would get Dilevser’s attention, Hikmet Bey said, “I believe in the existence of happiness.” Then, waiting for the young girl’s answer like a curious child, he added:
“But I suppose you don’t believe in it?”
Suddenly a very meek and friendly smile that Hikmet Bey had never seen before appeared on her face.
“Yes, I do . . . I can even confess to you that I’m curious about that feeling, if one day I’m happy, will I know that I am?”
That little word, “confess,” which might seem insignificant to someone else at another time, echoed in Hikmet Bey’s ears, it was as if, after a long wait, the heavy, rusty iron gate behind which lay vast dream gardens had finally opened slightly, it was the acknowledgement of closeness and sharing that he’d awaited so long.
When he heard the word “confess” he really felt the happiness to which he’d just referred to in a somewhat forced manner. He stood and paced with a joy he couldn’t resist; without being sure if this had come to mind at that moment or if he’d read it somewhere, he said:
“Whatever it is for nature to make diamonds from fossils, dried branches, and leftover bones, happiness is the same for people, to create something valuable from things that have no value, to create priceless jewelry from the sweepings of our souls. It’s difficult and painstaking work, just as we can’t find diamonds in every terrain, we might not find happiness in each person’s soul . . . Still, even though it is rare, happiness does exist, just as diamonds exist.”
With a tender smile, Dilevser watched this grown-up man, who to her seemed quite old, stroll around the room cheerfully like a little colt, drinking cognac from his glass from time to time. She was not impressed by the strange and almost laughable words Hikmet Bey was uttering in such a serious manner, but she was impressed by something else when she saw how childish and bewildered the man was, in his presence she felt like an adult, an intelligent woman, at that moment, for the first time, she glimpsed womanhood, from which she’d always felt distant, for the first time she looked at a man as a woman. While Hikmet Bey was busy trying to impress the young girl with his intelligent words, what opened a space, albeit a small one, for him in Dilevser’s heart was how silly he looked.
Dilevser watched Hikmet Bey pace about the room and, with a gratitude and tenderness she couldn’t fully comprehend, for a moment it occurred to her to go up to Hikmet Bey, hold his face between her hands, and say, “Stop for a moment, stop, calm down.” At that moment she didn’t understand what a dangerous feeling that urge was, but the young girl was learning to love without realizing that she was doing so.
Osman, who over time became more disrespectful and scornful toward his dead, stood before Hikmet Bey, of whom Mihrişah Sultan had said, “He’s the most innocent of the innocent,” and imitating his voice and manner when he’d said, “Innocence is a mystery, my good man,” said, “Women are a mystery, my good man,” then added with the snobbish pedantry that came from knowing both the past and the future of the dead, “What man can know that he is capable of impressing women with his silliness and weakness, my good man?”
Dilevser experienced the dizziness of the inwardly joyful but at the same time alarming lightheadedness that comes from the sudden breaking out of emotions that change form, from unnamed moods that are alien even to those who experience them, she didn’t know what to do and how to control the warmth that was spreading through her, and, as women usually do when they first feel love, she wanted to run away at once, to be alone and think.
She stood hurriedly.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have to go now.”
And then she added immediately:
“I’ll come back later, if that won’t be an imposition.”
“Please, Dilevser, what imposition . . . You’ve made this library rejoice, I haven’t been interested in it for some time, I noticed the books again when you arrived.”
“With your permission, I’d like to take this book with me.”
When she saw Hikmet Bey looking at the book she explained:
“The Demons by Dostoevsky, I found a German translation here.”
Hikmet Bey smiled.
“You’ve found a book appropriate for the
frenzy our society is in, read what he has to say about insanity. Though I don’t know if this book can tell you more about insanity than what’s been going on in this city lately, but read it anyway, we can talk about it later if you like.”
Hikmet Bey too, like Dilevser, wanted to be alone for a time; he knew that he couldn’t feel more joy than he’d already felt that day, and he didn’t want the young girl to cast a shadow on his joy by saying anything inappropriate.
After Dilevser left he continued pacing the room with the same enthusiasm, he whistled a French chanson, then looked out at the garden, at the newly sprouting leaves whose veins were swelling under the whiteish blue of the sky, the trees coming to life, the swelling buds that were reminiscent of nipples; he put his glass down on the coffee table and felt a deep and sudden weariness that stood in contrast to the cheery scenery he was looking at.
He realized how pathetic it was to be so delighted by a single word uttered by a young girl; in the same exaggerated manner in which he’d just experienced this joy, he felt suddenly emptied of thoughts and feelings; at that moment he wanted neither Dilevser nor anyone else, he didn’t long for anyone, and this made him even more melancholy. As he thought about what a pathetic man he was, he remembered how his father had referred to him in his letter, as “an honorable man,” these words now seemed like mockery, dark purple circles that looked like pansies appeared around his eyes.
His handsome face flushed with shame.
He stood abruptly, walked as rigidly and decisively as a landowner or a master, opened the heavy wooden door, and went into the hallway that was paved with unpolished diamond-shaped black and white stones and in the corners of which Louis Quinze chairs had been placed, looked around, and found what he sought leaning against the wall just outside the door he’d emerged from. Hediye, in a lilac-colored dress that swathed her body in such a way as to reveal her tall, thin figure and full breasts and that was decorated with small buttons from her neck to her waist and that had shiny lilac-colored flower designs, with her glistening hair gathered behind her neck, looked at Hikmet Bey with a sulking expression.