Motherland Hotel

by Yusuf Atilgan

  Zeberjet

  Of not quite average height, but not particularly short either. In the army they had him listed at 5'4" and 119 pounds. Now, at the age of thirty-three, he could strip and weigh in at 124 or 5. For the past two years his stomach muscles have been going flabby. Head too large for his body, high forehead. Hair, eyebrows, eyes and mustache are brown. A pinched face, somewhat downturned but not, after all, as much as he found its reflection that morning, when the woman off the Ankara train had left. Small hands, stubby fingernails. Narrow shoulders and chest. He was born at seven months. Toward evening of November 28th, 1930, his mother had felt the pangs. After a while she saw there was no point trying to wait them out and put a scarf on to go down to the head of the stairs. “Ahmet Efendi,” she called out, “go for the midwife.” Who happened to be home so Ahmet Efendi reappeared shortly, midwife in tow. They had the mother lie in the righthand room. “Two months to go, midwife. Will I lose this one as well?” The midwife had turned to the expectant father. “You go boil some water.” “So I locked the front door and put the water on. Your mother cried out maybe twice while it was heating, then the door opened a crack and the midwife asked for the water. ‘It’s a boy,’ she said. Called me in soon after. She’d got you all swaddled and lying there in the palm of her hand. That’s how small you were. ‘You could wrap this one in cotton and lay him in a jewel-box,’ she said. ‘Call him Zeberjet—peridot.’ So I leaned and whispered the name in your ear.” A very rare name. There were four men from one of the provinces staying at the hotel that night, come to town because some relative was on trial. Returning from their supper out they had shaken Ahmet Efendi’s hand and given the child their blessing.

  During his mother and father’s lifetime, Zeberjet had had this premature birth rubbed in on various occasions.

  1. Morning. Ready for school, comes down to the lobby. His father there scooping clinkers out of the coal stove, which at that time they used for heat.

  Zeberjet: Father, can you let me have twenty-five qurush?

  Father: Any special reason?

  Zeberjet: I have to buy a notebook.

  His father loads clinkers into the bucket, then pokes the shovel back into the grate.

  Zeberjet: Come on, Father, I’m late.

  Father: Keep your pants on, son. Let me get these clinkers. How you managed waiting seven months to come out I’ll never fathom.

  2. Home from school one noon. Goes upstairs. His mother chopping lettuce onto a plate. There’s a pot on the kerosene stove.

  Zeberjet: I’m hungry.

  Mother: It’s almost ready, be patient. What a boy! Couldn’t wait nine months to be born, even.

  (If impatience did figure in this birth it could just as well have been on the part of the mother as the fetus in her womb. The former probability seems stronger. Expecting adult behavior from a fetus would be harsh. But a woman pregnant at forty-four might well be in a hurry, particularly if she has had three miscarriages; one at two months, another at two and a half, a third at three. Nevertheless, and whether the boy deserved these accusations or not, they had a positive effect on him. As he grew up, Zeberjet became progressively more serious and patient.)

  The summer he graduated from elementary school brought his circumcision. Before that summer was over his mother died. His father didn’t send him to secondary school, and for the next eight years, until he did his military service, the two of them ran the hotel together. Two months after Zeberjet’s discharge his father died; put off dying until his son came back from the army, seemingly, to keep the hotel in family hands. Sixty-three years old, he died in his chair behind the tall half-moon desk one spring morning. Undertakers were found and they washed him in the back yard. After the burial the imam asked Zeberjet his grandmother’s name. Not knowing, and declining to fabricate one (in view of possible complications above or here below) he simply lowered his gaze and blushed. “It’s all right, my son,” the imam had said, “a mother is a mother.” Rüstem Bey got the telegram that night and arrived the next morning. He offered condolences, collected on arrears, and turned the hotel over to Zeberjet. “It’s all yours,” he said as he was leaving. “Make sure you get a woman in.” “Did my father ever mention his mother’s name?” “Not that I heard. Check his birth-certificate why don’t you.” “I’ve looked through his pockets and in the safe. There isn’t any.”

  The Maid

  Chestnut hair, deep blue eyes. A long face with a turned-up nose and toothy, full-lipped mouth. Medium height, firm and smooth-fleshed—what they call being “firm as a fish.” Thirty-five years old and slightly bow-legged. Two years ago a man claiming to be an uncle showed up with her from a distant village. “Rejep Agha says you need a woman here.” After some haggling over wages they sent her, bundle under one arm, upstairs. He asked the man to sit down for a glass of tea and as they sipped he listened to the woman’s story. It seemed her mother and father were dead and that his family, the uncle’s, had taken her in. At seventeen they had married her off but toward dawn of the wedding night the groom sent her back saying he wanted a virgin. “Well, then, little slut, who’s been in at you? Dunno, she says, and won’t tell. I beat her and so forth. I dunno, honest, is all she’ll say. Lay off, says the missus, what’s the difference anyhow?” Five years later they had given her to a widower with three children in a nearby village, and before three months were out he had brought her back because she slept too much. “She sleeps, she does sleep, but then she’s hard working. Off in the village there’s no peace for a divorced girl. No peace at all if she happens to be barren. Bachelors, married men, they all strut the mustache at her and watch for a chance. We heard from Rejep Agha the other day, so here we are. Now then, if you’ll excuse me….” He went and called up the stairs. “Zeeyy-nep! I’m leaving, you ill-bred goose, aren’t you going to kiss my hand?” No answer. He shook his head. “All the best, then,” and left. Zeberjet went up to the attic but didn’t find her there. He searched the other floors. She had dropped her bundle in the middle of Room 2 and was sound asleep on the bed. He’d woken her up the next morning. She quickly got the hang of the routine. Always with her scarf on, she would make beds, swab floors, dust, cook every other day, launder on Sundays, and call Zeberjet “agha.” But she didn’t talk much. One day near the beginning as she was swabbing the stairs an old peasant came down from the third floor and she looked up. “Do you know the village of Sindelli, uncle?” “Sure do.” “Pocked Ali is my uncle there.” This uncle would come several times a year bringing a sack of milk curds, converse for a while, pocket her savings, and go away. “Should I give it to him—all your savings?” “Sure. Sure, it’s okay.” An accounting would always be demanded down to the last qurush. “Five meters cotton flannel, money for seamstress, woolen vest…” “What’s that? A woolen vest? She had a cotton one when she got here.” It had been six years now since the uncle last appeared. (One early afternoon of the first week she’d been down on her knees swabbing the lobby floor. Zeberjet was in his chair reading the paper and at some point he looked up. She was leaning forward, bloomers stretched over her copious backside. Swabbing that way while slowly backing up gave it a motion, a certain rise and fall. He’d gone back to his paper, but from that moment on he’d seen her as a young female, up and about by day, asleep in the next room at night. On his way to bed he would pause outside her door and then have trouble sleeping. In dreams it would be army days again, the house in town with that tall woman. Often the two women would merge. Mornings when he went to wake her the room with its low, slanted ceiling always smelled. After opening the window he would stand at her bedside, shake her shoulders, and touch the breasts as if by mistake. One night he’d gotten up after going to bed and crossed to her room where he switched on the light. It was hot, and she was sleeping with no covers, and her shift was hiked up. He closed the door and went over, undid her buttons, took a breast in each hand, firm and full. He shook her. Not stirring she spoke in her sleep. “That you, uncle?” He shook her a
gain. “Wake up girl, would you?” Her eyes opened and she rose in bed. “I’m getting up, agha.” “Don’t get up, just make room.” Sliding over toward the wall, she saw Zeberjet’s naked chest and jutting shorts. She turned her back and lay there. When he climbed in and rolled her over face up she closed her eyes. With some effort he took her bloomers off disclosing a thick patch. He lay on her and went ahead, panting and groaning. A short while later when he straightened up she looked very long, lying there, and he bent to listen. Her breathing was undisturbed.

  The Woman Off The Delayed Train From Ankara

  Twenty-six years of age, fairly tall. Chesty, with black hair and eyes, long lashes, eyebrows plucked somewhat. Sharp-nosed, thin-lipped, her face dark and taut.

  The Man Claiming To Be A Retired Officer

  Of medium height and stocky. Hair mostly gone to gray. Green eyes and bushy brows, a fleshy, thin-lipped face. The birth-certificate left on the register the morning of his arrival, and which was picked up again that same noon, gave his name as Görgün, Mahmut; his father’s name as Abdullah, his mother’s Fatma. It says he was born in Erzinjan, 1327 (1910 or 1911 by the modern calendar).

  The Cat

  Male, black. The second cat since Zeberjet took over. A tall girl in town with her father to see the ancient ruins, who stayed two nights and always carried a few horse-chestnuts in her purse, had christened the cat Lampblack. But nobody uses this name.

  The Two Towels In The Room

  1. The hotel towel. Hanging to the right of the mirror. Small, solid green. One slightly crooked ‘M’ and one straight ‘H’ are sewn in white thread into one corner, with a vague dot between them. Added by Zeberjet to prevent theft after three other towels had been taken. Only a single towel had been taken during his father’s time (thirty years), whereas the ten years that Zeberjet has been in charge have seen a total of nine towels and two pairs of slippers carried off. His father had made that one incident the basis for a fulminating indictment of mankind, which he maintained was made up entirely of thieves. Actually, the possible causes for increased theft at the hotel may be ranged by a tranquil mind as follows:

  a) There may be more thieves around.

  b) More people may enjoy rebelling against traditional values—honor, decency, etc.

  c) Something about Zeberjet’s father may have intimidated potential filchers. (This is the weakest likelihood. When Zeberjet was sixteen and still waiting for a mustache, Rüstem Bey, who used to come in from Izmir every month to collect the hotel proceeds, had stroked his hair once and called him a “drop off the old cock.”)

  2. The towel forgotten by the woman off the Ankara train. Tossed over the foot of the iron bedstead, half trailing onto the quilt. The towel has broad red and yellow stripes, narrow black ones.

  MONDAY

  He woke to a dim room. From on top of the chest of drawers at his bedside he took a heavy Omega pocket watch that had been given to his father (while still a clerk at Vital Statistics) by a friend as collateral against the loan of two gold pieces. He held it to the window—quarter of six—wound it, put it down. The front of his underwear was jutting and he pushed it down with his left hand, then sat up, sniffed his undershirt, and got out of bed. Before going to the john he set some water on the kerosene stove and when he was out he bathed, dried off, wrapped a towel around himself and went back to the room. He took some clean things from the chest of drawers, put them on, combed his hair in a small mirror on the wall. Mustache per usual. Tucking the watch into his vest pocket he opened the window, made his bed, and dropped his socks and towel in the bathroom. Then to the maid’s room. Opened the window, woke her up.

  Downstairs he lowered the iron bar from across the front door, took the key out of his lefthand pocket, undid the lock. In the pantry he boiled water in the two-serving pot, brewed himself some tea, and laid out breakfast on a tray. Toward seven he was at the desk eating. Tea with his normal one lump. There were knockings and creakings upstairs, and a middle-aged peasant with a bushy mustache came down. Zeberjet had asked the night before. He was not from that village.

  “Enjoy your breakfast.”

  “Join me?”

  “Thanks anyway. What do I owe?”

  He paid up and left. Zeberjet was picking at his food. After one more glass of tea he cleared the tray, brushed his teeth, and went back to his chair where he lit a cigarette. For the last three days he’d been smoking occasionally without inhaling. Had he smoked on Friday as well? Friday was muddled. While the man who called himself a retired officer read the papers after lunch Zeberjet had dozed off for a spell and woken to a tap on the desk. He had looked up to see a young couple all smiles. Had he been snoring? These were the married teachers newly assigned to the high school who had checked in on Tuesday. They planned to stay until they could rent a place of their own. “Feeling unwell?” “No, just a headache.”

  He laid his cigarette in the ashtray, opened the register in front of him, and began making entries from yesterday’s forms in a hand that was legible, if cramped. The register had two days per page, each day with numbers from 1 to 9 and laid out according to beds per room. He turned back to Thursday. Twelve names, but nothing for the room where the woman off the delayed train from Ankara had stayed. It didn’t really matter, seeing that he gave the room to only a few guests each year, and that every other week he would show a bed or two unoccupied to account for the lira-per-day that went—each morning when he availed himself of a lull to stow the drawer cash in the safe—from the hotel funds into his own. But he wanted to establish her having been there, in that room, that night. Still, he couldn’t just put down a name.

  He closed the register. His cigarette had gone out. Side by side, two men were coming down the stairs. They were livestock dealers who stayed at the hotel now and then. They paid and were on their way out when he all but asked them. No. Better go to the barber. In putting away the cash he banged the wart on his left middle finger against the drawer. He had made it bleed the morning before, trying to pick it off with his nail. He pushed the drawer closed. The clock on the safe showed a quarter to eight. That fellow had said eight fifteen. He wound the clock and put it back. Down the stairs came the maid on her way out to shop. He made a list. Four eggs, two packs of Yenijé brand cigarettes, four boxes of matches. From his pocket he drew the broad leather wallet left him by his father and removed a fifty-lira bill. This, together with the list, he handed across.

  “Add that to the groceries.”

  Her hands were purple from yesterday’s laundry. Had she noticed? He couldn’t tell. As she left, the trio of young men came down from Room 3, wooden suitcases in hand. Two of them had trim mustaches, the other was clean-shaven. Zeberjet had learned the night before that they were headed for their hitch in the army. They laughed and wisecracked over who should pay, then settled separately and left.

  The maid, back from the grocer’s, laid out his change along with the cigarettes and matches. Her string bag held two loaves, and before going upstairs she deposited one of these in the pantry. Zeberjet got out of his chair. He stretched his legs in the lobby for a while. At eight fifteen he went up to the third floor and stopped at Room 6. He could hear movement inside. This was the teachers’ room. He knocked.

  “That’s fine, we’re awake.”

  “That’s fine, I’m getting up,” she’d said that morning. This evening was too soon to expect her back. He went down and sat in his chair. People generally didn’t come in for rooms during the morning. Any large vehicle passing outside on the avenue rattled the panes and shook the building. When the diesel thrum of the Izmir-Ankara train reached him the high school teachers were on the stairs hurrying down. They rushed out with a “Good morning.” Only the self-styled Retired Officer was left upstairs. He always came down toward noon. For some reason Zeberjet felt that he’d be leaving today.

  The front door opened. It was the newsboy, who left a paper. Every Monday Zeberjet gave him the week’s check-in forms for delivery to the police s
tation. He opened the righthand drawer now and rummaged a bit.

  “Couldn’t you pick them up tomorrow?”

  “Okay. See you.”