The Black Rose of Halfeti

by Nazli Eray

  “No, I wasn’t asleep.”

  “If you’d like, King Darius is expecting you at the palace. He said for me to bring you to him if you agreed.”

  “Wait, let me get ready,” I said.

  I took Alop into the entry area with the archway.

  “Wait here for me.”

  I brushed my hair in front of the mirror. I freshened my makeup, and put on some deep red lipstick.

  I looked at my watch. It was ten o’clock. A rather late hour to be invited to the palace. But I had gotten ready.

  WORLDS STILL THOUGHT TO EXIST

  “It’s become pitch-black dark,” said Mustafa Bey.

  The two old men were sitting at a table in the rear section of the Mado Café in Tunalı.

  “It’s dark. My wife will be waiting. But I’m not going home,” said Mustafa Bey.

  “They’ll be looking for me,” said the old doctor.

  “We’ll go to some corner of a coffeehouse and spend the night there.”

  “Right, nobody would be able to find us in the corner of a coffeehouse.”

  Mustafa Bey asked:

  “What’s your name?”

  “Ayhan.”

  “Right, you said it this afternoon. Let me go to the bathroom and then we’ll leave.”

  “Let’s go,” said the doctor. “There’s nobody left here.”

  The café had emptied out. A warm light rain had started to sprinkle outside.

  Mustafa Bey returned.

  “They were just about to put me in diapers,” he said. “My wife’s idea . . . because I’m wetting my pants.”

  The doctor said:

  “Oh wait. Don’t do that. The second you put diapers on, you’re finished. You can’t go outside. Then you’re in their hands. You put on diapers, it’s over!”

  “Really? Well, I guess I was lucky to get away.”

  “What are you saying? I’m a doctor,” said the old doctor. “I know about these things. Once you put on diapers, it’s a different world.”

  “God forbid . . .”

  The two old men left the café.

  They were walking down the street side by side.

  “Where’s the coffeehouse?” asked Mustafa Bey.

  “We’ll find one.”

  “Where is there one, some kind of okay place?”

  “There are a lot in Kızılay. But I don’t know which way Kızılay is.”

  “Cebeci,” said Mustafa Bey. “There was a coffeehouse I used to go to in Cebeci that was open until the morning.”

  “If we just find our way to Cebeci,” said the old doctor. “Cebeci, Cebeci, which way is it from here? I think maybe you go from over there . . .”

  “No, no, it’s from here,” said Mustafa Bey.

  The two men seemed as though they were in a labyrinth.

  “If we turn there . . .”

  The old doctor responded:

  “We’ll get lost. It could be dangerous. I’m going to ask someone the way.”

  He asked a young man who was passing by:

  “Which way is Cebeci?”

  “It’ll be hard for you to get there from here.”

  “Why?”

  “You have to go to Kızılay and take something.”

  “I understand.”

  The old doctor turned to Mustafa Bey.

  “Cebeci’s difficult,” he said. “It’s not going to be easy for us to make it to Cebeci. We’ll have to find a coffeehouse somewhere else . . .”

  “Kurtuluş,” said Mustafa Bey. “There’s a coffeehouse in Kurtuluş.”

  “Kurtuluş . . . how can we get to Kurtuluş?”

  “I have no idea . . .”

  “Let’s spend the night someplace nearby. That’s the easiest,” said the old doctor.

  The nighttime labyrinth of the city had enveloped them.

  “Cebeci, Kurtuluş, Kızılay,” muttered the old doctor. “I used to walk there. Now in this night it’s like each one is a separate country.”

  “Really,” said Mustafa Bey. “If we turn onto that road . . . I think it goes to Cebeci.”

  “I don’t think that goes to Cebeci. Let’s walk this way.”

  “There’s some old-time music playing. Do you hear it, Doctor?”

  “I do,” said the doctor. “It’s an old song. Where is it coming from?”

  “The music is coming from the open window in the first floor of that apartment building.”

  “Where’s the door of the building?”

  “It’s that green iron door.”

  “Let’s go see what’s up.”

  The two old men, pushing the iron door, entered into the dim entryway of the building.

  “Something smells bad here,” Mustafa noticed.

  “It’s a cat smell. Let’s go upstairs,” the doctor replied.

  The automatic light went on. The faint light illuminated the faded yellow walls and black steps of an old dilapidated Ankara apartment building. They started to climb the stairs. There was a door on the first floor. The sound of music came from there.

  “It’s an old 78,” said the doctor.

  There was an overweight woman past her prime standing at the door.

  “Please,” she said. “Come inside.”

  “What is this place?” asked Mustafa Bey. “We don’t want to disturb you.”

  “Come in, come in,” said the woman. “Come inside. This is a house for the Night People.”

  KING DARIUS AND THE MARDIN NIGHT

  I had arrived with Alop the slave at the ruins of Dara. The ruins looked mysterious and eerie in the moonlight.

  A dog barked in the distance. The air had grown cool. We slowly entered the ruins of Dara.

  “There may be holes,” I said to Alop the slave. “My eyes don’t see well in the darkness. Is this the king’s palace? It’s pitch-black here, these are ancient ruins . . . thousands of years old. A wild animal could be hiding in those mausoleums over there.”

  I was anxious. King Darius could not possibly be around here. We were walking over the lifeless stones of a world that had lived and died. It was dark everywhere. I could make out the tall mausoleums on either side in the moonlight.

  “Here we are,” said Alop the slave. “Can you climb up there?”

  He respectfully held out his hand to me.

  “But there’s a hole there. Terrifying! This is a tomb!” I cried out.

  “No, it’s not. Don’t be afraid. Trust me,” said Alop the slave.

  I took the hand he held out to me. He gently pulled me up.

  “Step on that stone.”

  I stepped on it. We moved a few paces forward in the darkness.

  Alop touched the earthen wall.

  All of a sudden we entered a world illuminated with thousands of torches burning on its walls. Delicate flames played on the tops of the walls. A deep red carpet covered the floor of the hallway we were walking in.

  “Very beautiful!” I murmured. “A world of enchantment!”

  “King Darius’s world!” said Alop. “We’re here now.”

  King Darius was standing at the end of the hallway.

  “Please,” he said. “I trust you weren’t frightened as you were coming in. The ruins are a little off-putting in the darkness.”

  “It’s very beautiful here!” I said.

  I was looking around in admiration.

  “Come,” said King Darius. “Let’s sit on the terrace. Let’s look at Mardin. There’s a full moon tonight. I thought you might like it.”

  We went out onto a marble terrace. Mardin spread out in front of us like an island of light.

  “I had them extinguish the torches,” said King Darius. “So that you could see the city better in the darkness.”

  “It’s an enchanting view,” I said. “I can’t see this from my hotel.”

  “This is a very high and special place,” said King Darius.

  We sat down on stone seats. Alop brought cushions to us.

  “Let’s look at Mardin,” s
aid King Darius.

  “Let’s look at Mardin,” I said.

  For a while I looked at the display of light before me.

  “It’s so unusual,” I murmured. “The whole area and Mesopotamia are dark at night, but Mardin is so bright. As though . . . as though Mardin was like a space ship,” I said. “A space ship landed on top of a hill . . . All its lights are on, and I can see its little portholes . . .”

  “What did you say?” asked King Darius.

  “Mardin looks like a space ship.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Nothing, actually. There may not really be anything like that. But sometimes on starry nights you can see a ship that comes from space, filled with other creatures . . . It looks like that.”

  King Darius asked with curiosity, “Have you ever seen a ship like that? A space ship . . . a heavenly ship?”

  “I never have,” I said. “Maybe there really are no space ships. It’s just an idea. Some people believe they exist . . .”

  King Darius was listening to me attentively.

  “How beautiful,” he said. “Magical . . . A space ship. People inside it.”

  “People who came from another planet,” I said.

  “Where did they come from?” asked the king.

  “From another star.”

  “Oh, how beautiful . . . When you said ‘star’ I remembered something. I entertained Miss Silvia Pinal here on this terrace tonight as well. She also talked to me about completely different worlds. About film sets, scenarios, film festivals . . . She talked about a city called Venice where the streets are made of water. It’s like a fairy tale, isn’t it?”

  “She probably told you about the Venice Film Festival,” I said. “The film Viridiana, in which she played the lead role, won the Golden Palm award in 1961 at the Cannes Film Festival. Buñuel has won a lot of awards at the Venice Film Festival. He won the Golden Lion with Belle de Jour.”

  “Yes, things like that,” said King Darius. “I just remembered Venice. A magic city. Now you’re telling me about a space ship.”

  He called Alop the slave, and said something into his ear.

  At this juncture two beautiful girls, who I guessed were slaves, brought us fruit and sherbet.

  “This is mulberry juice!” I said.

  “Yes, mulberry juice,” said King Darius.

  “Whenever I go down to Kadiköy Square in Istanbul, I always have them squeeze a glass of this for me at the place that sells fruit juice there and I drink it,” I said. “Mulberry juice . . . In an instant it reminded me of Istanbul, the crowds in the market square in Kadiköy, the bookstores I went in and out of, the famous sweet shop on the corner, and the coffee cups with roses on them that I got from Ce-zi-ne. I recalled a part of my life that I enjoyed living so much, the bookstores there selling old books, the little fountain inside the Yanyalı Fehmi Restaurant on the corner down below, the home cooking on display in the windows, the fish shops, and the enormous polished apples in the greengrocers.”

  Mardin in front of me was like a flying saucer. I couldn’t take my eyes off this mass of light.

  King Darius said:

  “What beautiful things you said. A world . . . Kadiköy, the market square.”

  Alop the slave came with a huge bouquet of perfectly black roses in his hand. King Darius took the roses and gave them to me.

  “These are the black roses of Halfeti,” he said. “They don’t grow anywhere else.”

  I looked at the roses.

  They were like velvet. So beautiful.

  The king took a purple jewel out from the silver folds of his cape. It was transparent, as large as a chicken egg. He held it out to me.

  “This is yours,” he said. “In its depths, you’ll be able to see those worlds and the space ship you described to me anytime you want.”

  I took the stone from his hand in astonishment. “What is this?”

  “It’s a seer stone,” said the king.

  “What does ‘seer stone’ mean?”

  “It’s like a crystal ball, a stone that’s connected to your heart and mind. You can see the things you want and desire in this stone.”

  “How fascinating!” I said. “Are the images just for me?”

  The king thought for a minute.

  “Yes,” he said. “You could say that they’re just for you, private images. You can see whatever you want!”

  “Will I see real things?”

  “Your thoughts, your dreams,” said the king. “The seer stone . . . When a person has this he’ll never be bored.”

  “Like television,” I murmured.

  “What’s that?” asked King Darius.

  “There’s a thing called television,” I said. “Images, conversations, discussions, news . . . it shows them. But it’s not mysterious like the seer stone. In fact, television’s become a little boring. It has one-sided programs. And the programs are awful. There are serials . . .”

  “Sounds interesting,” said King Darius. “Could we get one of them here?”

  “We can get one right away tomorrow,” I said. “When the shops open in the morning. We’ll get you a large screen LCD for here.”

  “Wonderful!” said King Darius.

  “Look at the seer stone tonight and try it out. Tomorrow we’ll go to the shops together.”

  My visit was over.

  Thanking King Darius, I stood up. Alop the slave accompanied me down the red-carpeted corridor and brought me out from the palace.

  It was pitch-dark outside. We walked through the ruins and emerged outside the remains of Dara.

  Alop the slave was carrying the black roses in his hand. I had the seer stone. I gripped it tightly, excited.

  A little later we came to the hotel. I entered the brightly lit stone lobby. I took the roses from the slave. We said goodbye and I went up to my room.

  When I put the card in the slot, I found the room lit up. My bed had been turned down. I put the black roses in a glass vase I found on the tabletop. They were incomparably beautiful. It was like there was a Hollywood star wearing a black velvet gown in the room now. The roses were that beautiful, their scent was that beautiful, that overpowering. I sat on my bed. I started to turn the seer stone over and over in my hand.

  WORLDS STILL THOUGHT TO EXIST (ŞEVKI BEY GETTING FED UP)

  The short, plump woman was wandering around in the room, wearing a black jersey skirt with ruffles and a sleeveless blouse the color of moonlight. She had short hair with tight curls that made one think of a bird’s nest, and fuzzy slippers on her feet. Occasionally she patted the silk cushions on the couch or straightened the edges of the lace doilies on the side tables in the room. The gramophone in the corner was playing a 78 rpm record, and the voice of a woman from the distant past filled the room with waves of sound.

  In this room that reminded one of an old-fashioned reception room for guests, there were velvet armchairs with wooden arms, frosted glass sconces in the shape of grape bunches, dark green walls, and in the corner, an old varnished console table. Everything was perfectly arranged, as though it had been this way for years and would continue to be forever. In the crystal candy bowl on the low table in the middle were a few pieces of Turkish delight with coconut on top. This was the room of an aged aunt or a grandmother. Everything was a little old and worn here, and it gave the room a unique feeling and loveliness. There was an almanac calendar hung on the wall next to the door. The only painting decorating the walls was the painting of a grave-looking pasha. The pasha seemed to be continuously surveying the room with his close-set eyes and bristling moustache . . . The old doctor and Mustafa Bey came into the room.

  The woman again spoke:

  “Come in, make yourself comfortable. Should I turn down the gramophone a little? Ephtalia the Mermaid is singing.”

  “Oh, how wonderful!” said the doctor. “Don’t turn it down. It’s wonderful.”

  The two old men who had entered this Night Salon didn’t feel in the least like stran
gers. They sat down in armchairs.

  “Isn’t there anyone else?” Mustafa Bey asked.

  The woman said:

  “They’re still on the way. The night’s still young.”

  The old doctor said:

  “My house is like this. Actually it looks a lot like it. Almost the same side tables.”

  Mustafa Bey said:

  “My salon is more or less the same. My wife keeps it shut up when we don’t have guests. We put the television somewhere else.”

  “I had them put the television in the salon,” said the doctor. “But I don’t watch it very much. My real television is the window. When the morning comes, I open the two sides of the curtains and sit down in front of it. Life outside . . .”

  “Well, we’re in life now,” said Mustafa Bey. “And night life at that.”

  The old telephone in the corner with a doily over it rang.

  “Hello? Şevki Bey, how are you? I’m expecting you. I’ve been worried. You’re never this late. Come on over . . .”

  She listened to the voice coming from the other end of the receiver for a while.

  “You don’t say! How did it happen? I can’t believe it. Oh my God! What are we going to do now?”

  The voice on the other end was quickly relating something.

  The woman nodded her head in disappointment.

  “Oh, Şevki Bey, oh! But still give it a try. Come like that. There are friends here. We’re waiting for you.”

  She put down the telephone.

  She turned to the old doctor and Mustafa Bey, who were sitting side by side.

  “What a shame!” she said. “Just look at the way of the world. Life is pitiless. Şevki Bey . . . he’s old, a former civil servant. He comes here every night and stays for a while, then I put him in a taxi downstairs. He goes home. He found happiness here in his old age. Freedom, you know . . .”

  “What happened to him?” asked the old doctor with curiosity.

  “They diapered him,” said the woman. “They diapered him just early this evening. They put his pajamas on. He can’t go outside anymore. With some kind of monster as a caretaker . . . The poor man. He was so refined. A complete gentleman. Now he’s become an infirm old man with one foot in senile land.”

  After pausing a minute, she added, “He may not be able to leave the house now.”

  “This is a terrible thing!” shouted Mustafa Bey. “Why did they diaper him?”