Motherland Hotel

by Yusuf Atilgan

  “Pardon my asking, son, but would you happen to have a cigarette? I’ve left mine at home.”

  Zeberjet held out the pack and took one himself, then lit both with one match.

  “Thank you. Are you a stranger here?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Are you a stranger? It’s a weekday is why I ask.”

  “No, I’m on holiday. Till Sunday.”

  “Where do you work?”

  “At Vital Statistics.”

  “Excellent. My children have no education. We kept the older boy out so he could carry on with my trade, but I did everything for his younger brother. He simply wouldn’t study. Now they both sell roast chickpeas. While you were lighting the cigarette I noticed that wart on your finger. Take it to Hikmet the Cobbler, he’ll cure it overnight. Have a sprig of monk’s pepper with you when you go. He’s in the Cobblers’ Bazaar, anyone will point the way. His father Ramazan Usta used to cure warts too. Good friend of mine. What’s your family?”

  He could make something up, say he’d been transferred from Adana. Would this man recognize the name?

  “The Kechejis.”

  “You don’t say. I heard they had all moved to Izmir after the Fire. The manor house was supposed to be a hotel now. So you’re…Faruk Bey…pardon my saying this, it was such a shock when they said he had hanged himself. We were in school together. He sat near me in class but we were never friends. He was on poor terms with the rest of the class, too. Used to come to school in a carriage, like Jevdet, Kerim the Perfumer’s son. We’d all collect in the yard mornings and wait. I can still see him behind the window of that one-horse coach, and the driver in a fez with gold fringe. When the carriage left he’d come into the yard all bashful, with his head down. Some of the bigger boys would jeer. ‘Look at him strut,’ ‘Fancy-pants,’ and so on. He’d stand apart. Sometimes they’d shove or trip him at recess. He never complained to the teacher. Then one day a big kid pushed him from behind. He whirled on that boy and grabbed his neck. It took …”

  “Grabbed his neck? How do you mean?”

  “He whirled and jumped him. They went down and Faruk’s hands were around the boy’s neck. They had to drag him off.”

  “Would he have killed him?”

  “It’s hard to tell. Pardon my asking, but how were you and Faruk Bey related?”

  “I’m his nephew. Hashim Bey’s second daughter was my mother.”

  “Girls didn’t get much by way of inheritance in those days. I never saw Hashim Bey, but Rüstem Bey—now there was a handsome man. People talked about him and Doctor Stavro’s young wife. He’d come to the shop himself on occasion, for special treats. Never liked his chickpeas double roasted. (Zeberjet dropped and mashed out his cigarette. A slender boy and a girl in a brown coat sat down on the opposite bench with their school bags beside them. The boy put his arm around the girl’s neck.) He’s dead, I believe.”

  “Excuse me? Who’s dead?”

  “I said I believe Rüstem Bey is dead.”

  “Yes, he died in Izmir. His son is a doctor in Istanbul.”

  “Most of them left after the Fire. Our house burned down too but I stayed. The villagers would bring in cartloads of bread. We took refuge wherever we could—in mosques, khans, public baths, houses that had survived, houses of Greeks who had fled or been killed, vineyard cabins, tents, anywhere. Jerrybuilt shacks went up on the burned-out lots. The shock of the Fire was still with us, but we were alive and well. We had come through. (A woman went by with a squalling, kicking child in her arms. The boy on the bench opposite reached back to pick a yellow chrysanthemum from beside the myrtles. He gave it to the girl.) Our old place had two floors and a good-size yard. We were a large family back then. My parents and grandparents, an aunt, two brothers, and then my two sisters. It was my mother’s home. My father’s father sold roast chickpeas. Hers was a butcher. Full of terrible jealousy in his youth. He’d be chopping meat on the block and suddenly think of her. ‘Back in a minute,’ he’d tell his apprentice and out he’d rush, aproned as he was and waving a meat cleaver. He’d burst into the yard chest heaving from the run. One day my grandmother was just coming out of the kitchen with a big pan of food when, boom, the gate flew open and there he was. Startled her so badly she walked into the outhouse and left the pan there. He cried about it afterwards, but swore he couldn’t help himself. She said it would scare her to death someday. Later they agreed to a divorce but went on living in the same house together, with their daughters. I remember my grandmother always coming down to meals with her head covered. We children ate at a separate table. (Three students went by laughing, shoving and running. The park keeper shouted in the distance.) My oldest brother loved to eat. When there was a favorite dish or dessert of his and it was running low, he would occasionally—pardon my language—spit in the pan. The rest of us would rear back gagging and yelling, and the grown-ups would scold him from the other table, while he just gobbled away. He always told war stories about going hungry, or how they would steal chickens, sheep and goats. And what they ate. After mobilization he had been sent to Hijaz, which earned him respect later as if he’d been to Mecca, so they called him Sherif the hadji—the pilgrim. Pilgrim he may have been, but all the same he took to drink and gambling, if you’ll pardon my language. Kept pretty much away from the shop. Not long after the Greeks occupied he was stabbed in the back playing cards. Now my brother Hasan died at Sarikamish in Enver Pasha’s charge. We were all three of us married when the call came up. Two years’ age difference from brother to brother. I was born in thirteen eight but two soldiers in one family was enough, and then I was kind of scrawny so they left me behind. (The girl on the bench crossed her legs. She was wearing flats.) Ran the store by myself. Every other day you roast a new batch of chickpeas on this big charcoal brazier. Have to stir them steadily in the broad copper pan. Summers it’s harder. You’ve got a cloth there to wipe with, but still the sweat will sometimes drip off the end of your nose—pardon my language—hiss, right in the hot pan. (A young, olive-skinned woman sat down on a bench across the path near the monument. Pulling the hem of her skirt well down, she set a large black purse on her knees. She reminded him of someone, but the hair on this one was black with a reddish cast.) You can’t trust it to the apprentice, he’s likely to scorch them. My father had been dead for some years, and my mother died not long after they called up Hasan. Both of them are buried here (he pointed to the right with his cane) side by side. You see those flowers? A little better cared for, don’t you think? I tend them myself. The keeper knows me. Rain or shine, I never miss a day. That young fellow there with his girl—now why do you think their bench isn’t right opposite ours? See, all the other benches are paired off exactly. So were these. After they made a park here and the benches were brought in, this one we’re sitting on was right over my mother and father’s grave, with all four legs bolted down. I rushed to the keeper, but he had no say. The bank manager sent me to City Hall. ‘We gave them the benches,’ he said, ‘it’s their problem now.’ City Hall told me to ask the Bureau of Parks, but the director was out when I got there. The next day I went back. ‘No,’ he said, ‘the benches were put in facing each other. We can’t upset the arrangement.’ ‘Move it five paces over,’ I said; ‘Pardon my saying so, but wouldn’t that be a compromise?’ I pleaded with them. Four paces, I said. But he wouldn’t budge. (Now he remembered the woman on the bench to the left opposite. She brought men to the hotel now and then. The young boy and girl got up with their satchels and walked off arm in arm toward the east entrance.) I knew a relative of the Mayor’s and two days later he went to see about it. They needed a petition. I had it typed and took it in. Next day I was waiting by the door when this old office worker came up, around noon it was, with a scrap of paper. He said it was for the keeper, and we went together. The paper ordered that the fourth bench on the left, counting from the northern entrance toward the Monument to the Liberation, be transferred three meters toward said Monument, all expenses to be
defrayed by petitioner. The keeper and I dug out the bolts and fastened the bench down here. (From somewhere overhead a slimy dropping fell on Zeberjet’s right leg, spreading. He looked up to see a dove. The old man was very concerned, as if it had been his fault. He apologized and wagged his cane at the bird, and when it had flown away produced a handkerchief. But Zeberjet declined, wiping the stuff off with his own. A well-built, mustached man walked by and sat across from the woman with the reddish black hair.) And your people? Faruk Bey….”

  “He’s buried here. Did anyone in your family ever hang himself?”

  “Oh! No, no one did.”

  “Or kill someone?”

  “No, never.”

  “I had a relative who strangled his bride on their wedding night.”

  “Their wedding night? But why?”

  “He kept that to himself. At the trial they pressed him hard to explain, but he wouldn’t. Maybe there was no motive at all, or many that he himself didn’t know. They hanged him.”

  The old man sneezed. He again produced the handkerchief, blew his nose, settled his scarf. From the mosque at the edge of the park came the wailing call to prayers. He stood up with the aid of his cane.

  “That’s afternoon prayers. Pardon my going on so, I’m afraid I’ve bored you. Perhaps we’ll be seeing each other. Mornings I generally look in on the shop and then go to the checkers players’ cafe. Come and join me sometime. It’s on the same street as the post office. You know, where the buggies are parked. Well, good day to you.”

  “Good day, sir.”

  The old man walked off slowly toward the north entrance, his back somewhat bent. The lilies, eleven-month roses and chrysanthemums under the myrtles to Zeberjet’s right were noticeably lusher, light seeping down on them through the pine branches. When he turned to look at the woman their eyes met. Immediately she turned her head away. Her lips and eyes were made up, and she was watching the east entrance. She might be expecting some man. Or on the lookout. Zeberjet felt weak in his arms and legs. There was still a faint white smudge on the crease of his right pants leg near the knee, which he rubbed and wiped at again. Two laughing schoolgirls went by in black stockings and white collars. The mustached man on the bench to his left watched them recede. The woman’s maroon shoes had high heels. Her legs were fleshly. She opened the purse on her knees, rummaged briefly, closed it back up. Whatever she was searching for (‘Handkerchief? Gum? Mirror? Watch?’) she apparently hadn’t found. How could he approach her? What should he say? ‘Hello Miss…? Miss? No. Hello, long time no see. Hello, how’ve you been lately? Hello, nice day isn’t it? Hello, is that you? It’s a long time since…. Good day, where have you been all this time? Hello, recognize me? Good day, recognize me? Say, is that you? Wonderful. Hello, I see you’re alone. Good day…. No end to this. Have to decide before she leaves, or someone else….’

  He rose, straightened his sweater, buttoned his jacket. The woman had turned, and watched him as he came up, her face pale. He stopped near her.

  “Hello, recognize me?”

  “No, why should I?”

  “I run a hotel near the station. You know, every so often you come there…with a friend.”

  “Oh, sure. You’ve changed a lot.”

  “It’s the mustache. I shaved it off.”

  “What’s with the hotel? I came one night last week and you were closed.”

  “We’ve retiled the roof. And the painters will be in.” He gulped. “Will you come with me?”

  “Not today. I can’t.”

  “Please. You can name….”

  “I said not today.”

  “Why don’t you leave the lady alone, buster?”

  He stiffened and turned, his heart pounding. The mustached customer had gotten up from his bench and was standing next to him with a glare. The woman’s voice rose then, shrill but quiet.

  “What’s it to you. Mind your own damn business.”

  It threw him. He groped for words.

  “But…I thought…Wasn’t…?”

  “You’ve been giving me a pain for the last half hour anyway. Eyeing me like a….”

  “Just a minute now, I only….”

  “Two people can talk, right? Now beat it, or I’ll get the gendarme over here.”

  The man turned and walked away.

  “Bro-ther. A hero in every camp,” her voice was back to normal.

  Zeberjet shifted. He flexed his fingers, and coughed.

  “Don’t sit here. Come with me. To the hotel.”

  “Not right now. I’m expecting someone and he’ll be along any minute. You go ahead. I’ll come in half an hour.”

  “You will? Half an hour?”

  “Half an hour. Forty-five minutes at most. Don’t stand there now, go.”

  Back at the hotel he dragged the kerosene stove out from under the stairs and into the room. The building was warm, but in case she wanted they could have the extra heat. Behind the small door to the right of the window was a private bathroom, installed years ago for this room alone. He opened the door and wrinkled his nose. No one had been here since the woman off the Ankara train, so it was she who hadn’t flushed. ‘Well. The scent that morning, then.’ He pissed and tugged the chain, opening the window afterwards to air the room. Did the woman in the park remind him (‘the nose, perhaps; the lips’) of this one? He took the towel from the foot of the bed and folded it away in the drawer of the bedside table. Since that night he hadn’t used it. Last night, with his imagination focused on the couple there in the room below the body, he had sat up once in bed but lay down again without reaching for the towel. He shut the window and curtain, turned on the reading lamp, and went out into the lobby to sit in the corner chair. A car sped by rattling the windows as he lit his cigarette. The ashtray was nearly full. This was where he had sat most of the last five days? Would he start in again? He gave his head a shake, ran a finger along the surface of the table. Dust. Getting up he emptied the ashtray in the wastebasket, then wiped the table. The alarm clock was on the safe and he turned it to face him. On the way back he had neglected to go downtown to a watch shop. The lobby wasn’t at all dark yet, but he turned the lights on before going back to his chair. Now and again the footsteps of a pedestrian tapped by outside. There was a dry bitterness in his mouth. He belched. ‘With these boiled cabbage fumes….’ He swallowed, stubbed out his cigarette. Did she drink? Her voice had that huskiness. Half an hour, or forty-…. The clock showed quarter past five. She could easily stand him up. If her date had shown, if they were off someplace, if he wouldn’t let her go. Her knees were pudgy. She’d sit on one edge of the bed, the front of her black sweater full. ‘Would you like some tea? Shall I fix some tea? Do you think we should have some tea? How about some….’ As a car’s motor faded he heard footsteps stop at the door. Gripping the chair he made to rise. No one came in. When he ran to the door and looked out a woman in a headscarf was walking up the street to the right, while down the sidewalk came a boy with soft curls, eyes kept firmly forward as he passed. She wouldn’t be coming. What did he expect from this woman; from women? “She can go straight to hell,” he said aloud.

  When he turned the lights off and stepped out it was dark. He followed the tree-lined street that led downtown from the bakery, walking the same square paving-stones that had brought him back Wednesday night after leaving that boy, the wrought-iron apprentice. He stuck his right hand in his pocket. The two chestnuts from that night were still there, cold and hard in his palm when he squeezed. He threw them away. Across the brightly lit avenue, on the sidewalk in front of the office building—the boy had stopped and smiled here, possibly waiting for an invitation—the vendors were lined up again with their nuts, syrupy cakes, and chestnuts. Crossing over and heading for the capped, round-faced, bulldoggish chestnut vendor he hesitated. The man had raised his head to look at him. A neat ring of roasted, split chestnuts lay along the rim of the brazier. A spark flew out. Not that he really wanted any, but maybe if he had them hulled a few w
ould…. The vendor hollered.

  “Hey, what’re you looking at, buddy? Planted there like a jew-yard tombstone. Beat it!”

  Someone laughed. Zeberjet turned abruptly and walked off down the sidewalk.‘ …jew-yard tombstone.’ He shook his arms, rubbed his cheeks. ‘Was I really stone-still?’ It wasn’t the figure of speech that mattered, it was the scorn. Such rudeness could prompt a hundred retorts. And what had he done? Left. Chose the easy way out without thinking. Sometimes leaving—running—was pointless though. They’d come after you no matter what. Even in Corporal Halil’s village. What would he do with himself there? Hadn’t the past five days—today above all—narrowed his choices? He wasn’t going to run. He wasn’t going to let others pass judgment. But there were still alternatives. Even with that vendor. Now, even. ‘You’re the jew-yard tombstone