Seven Houses

by Alev Lytle Croutier

  “I woke you up because my heart feels dark.”

  Amber touched Aida’s cheek. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Sure, I have fallen in love.”

  “With Nellie’s father?”

  “Oh, it’s a complicated story.”

  “Do we have anything better to do to pass the day?”

  “I don’t want to get all stirred up.”

  “Would you like another cup of tea?

  “No thanks.”

  “I’d bet you’d like some salep. Don’t get up.”

  Amber’s eyes scanned the room in distraction, fixing on the glass case containing the handkerchief monogrammed “KA,” the coronet of the beauty queen. A dried bouquet of faded roses emanated a vinegary scent. Inside the case was Aida’s wedding picture with the lieutenant, noticeable under her shimmering satin gown, her ripe belly. Camilla had told her that yes, Aida was pregnant when they got married but she miscarried when they went to Germany where the lieutenant was sent as the military attaché.

  Above the mirror, two uniformed men trapped in frames, her husband, the General, and Atatürk—granted the great man’s pictures adorned every good home in the country, and every office but rarely a bedroom.

  “Such intense eyes. Don’t you feel invaded with those guys staring at you day and night?” Amber asked as she sipped her cinnamon salep.

  “Not at all. Women reserve intimacy for mirrors. We talk to ourselves in our reflections. Maybe the only place where we tell the truth. But those men can’t see my reflection, how can they invade me? The consolation is they’re watching as I groom myself. Do you understand?”

  Amber nodded although she clearly was not sure what Aida meant.

  “You were young when you lost Nellie’s father. How come you never remarried, Amber?” Aida pursued. “We know so little of your life.”

  “You were pretty young yourself when the General died. How come you never did either?”

  “I couldn’t have. They’d stone widows who even dared smile at a man in those days—not like where you live where you can marry a hundred times if you want. Right? Look at Elizabeth Taylor.”

  The moiré skirts wrapped around the chair and the table of her vanity, a great assortment of old bottles of rancid perfume crowding the lacquered surface. Amber picked a blue glass one with a black cat. “Chat Noir. Genies in perfume bottles,” she smiled.

  “What do you mean?”

  “My first vanity lesson. Remember?”

  “Vaguely. Remind me.”

  “We were visiting Uncle Iskender’s plantation. Just before the fire. I was only seven. You found me in front of your vanity doused with perfume and makeup.”

  The instance had faded from Aida’s memory. She had no recollection. “Oh yes, I remember,” she lied.

  Amber reached inside her bag. “I never forgot,” she said as she slowly pulled out a box wrapped in used gift paper and ribboned. Aida’s eyes shifted from Amber’s hand to her eyes, and from eyes to hand; her smile stayed constant betraying her heart, pounding vigorously underneath her scarred cleavage—the crescent and the star vanished along with her right breast.

  “Just a little gift.”

  Aida ceremoniously placed the box on top of a tray, made up of iridescent butterfly wings of blue, green, and gold that the General had brought back from the Korean War. As she unwrapped the paper like a curious child opening a Christmas present, tiny vials of transparent liquids rolled onto the tray.

  She plucked each little bottle, holding them at an arm’s length from her eyes to read the labels. (Aida would never consider wearing reading-glasses): “Poison, Joy, Opium, Obsession, Shocking, Temptation,” she chanted. “And Shalimar!”

  “And this, Elizabeth Taylor’s perfume. Black Pearls.”

  “I’m not crazy about the smell but Shalimar was always my favorite. The General used to bring me huge bottles from Paris when he was a military adviser there. Used to be my perfume. Everyone knew I was coming before they saw me. Haven’t had a dab for eons though. Not available here, you know? Oh, Amber, you’re such an angel.”

  She dipped the tip of her index finger in the perfume and dabbed it behind her ears, on her inner wrists, then aimed at her Y-shaped vein. “This is where a man should always kiss a woman, where these two veins meet. This is where we like to be kissed, don’t we?”

  “Yes, don’t we?” Amber laughed. “Yes, I’ve heard that story many times, many versions. But never from you.”

  “That’s how the General seduced me—just a lieutenant, then. By kissing this very vein.”

  Laced porcelain ballerinas pirouetted around a revolving tray. A box of bird’s-eye maple, inlaid with vermilion and ebony flowers, played “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” Another box of Thai silk played “La Marseillaise.”

  Atatürk and the lesser General looked on under their bushy eyebrows—another thing they had in common. Amber picked up a picture of Aida, with Papatya and Sibel all in pubescent prime, dressed identically in sailor suits, lined up like chorus girls. Another, in classical folk costumes, harem pants, vests, scarves, the ever-unresolved duality.

  “The lovely silk princesses,” Amber mused. “And the gorgeous beauty queen . . .”

  “Yes. The glorious moment of the family. I’m sure you’ve heard it all. Come here and sit next to me. Tell me your version.”

  “Bir varmiş, bir yokmuş,” Amber began. “Once was a silkmaker with three daughters. One daughter was cold but cunning, the second could sing as lovely as a nightingale, and the third daughter was of such great beauty that not even the houris in the garden of Paradise could hold a candle to her. Lovelier even than the moon; that’s why they’d named her Aida, the Queen of the Moon. So exquisite was Aida as she came into womanhood that the family, enslaved by her beauty, devoted all their being to creating magnificent garments to display her.

  “The world and everything it promised was at Aida’s fingertips. Suitors came for her from all over the kingdom. She possessed the kind of magic that made people want to build palaces for her. To climb Mount Ararat. To kill a giant. Vanquish a dragon. To start a war. To go to the moon. Always the unattainable. She could have been a queen—not only a beauty queen but a real one. Many Arab princes and emirs left gifts at her doorstep. Many generals brought trophies. In fact, even the great leader Atatürk was so bewitched by her beauty that he himself offered her the crown.”

  Aida’s eyes were fixed on the two portraits as she listened, her pupils reduced to a pinpoint through which only her own memories could filter their way. “Our family was so insecure of their past without which they felt faceless, Amber. So they invented a good story to shine. To have something to pass on. So no one would know our mediocrity.”

  “So, you’re saying it never happened?”

  “Not the way everyone imagines.”

  “You never met Atatürk?”

  “Of course, I did. When he came to the beauty contest—I’ve never seen a man more powerful, more commanding, charismatic, handsome. I would have given anything to be his slave. But all he could do was to crown me. That’s all. Simple as that.”

  “That’s all? I don’t believe it.”

  “Believe what you will.”

  “You never went out with him?”

  She clicked her tongue, meaning “no.”

  “You never cruised in his Daimler?” (Amber had seen it in the museum in Anit Kabir, Atatürk’s mausoleum now completed, fantasized Atatürk and Aida tussling in the backseat.) “You never made love to him?”

  Aida clicked her tongue again.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Until I die, the only truth remains as is.”

  Amber pointed at the picture of Atatürk and the General. “You know, they’re listening and they know the truth.”

  “Yes, and I’m getting tired of performing for them. So, I’ll tell you as it happened. Sure, I danced with him. And went out in his Daimler lots of times but never with him. Always with your uncle, the General, since he
drove Atatürk around in those days, he had the use of his car.”

  “Well, this is really something. I just don’t know what to believe.”

  “Does it matter? No, it doesn’t. Everyone sees things with different eyes. Just make up any old story. Doesn’t have to match mine or theirs, does it? Anyway, forget all this nonsense, continue on with your story. Alright?”

  “So the years passed and kismet carried Aida to old age where her beauty was irretrievable. She lost her hair; she lost her skin; she even lost one of her breasts. She became obsessed about returning to her youth, seeking potions to smooth out her flesh, concoctions to get rid of her wrinkles, even handsome youths, young enough to be her grandsons, to flatter her charms.”

  “Aman, aman! What did you hear?”

  “That you have a lover.”

  This really set Aida off. She began to fire. “Those whores just can’t endure seeing light in people’s eyes; they delight in misery, resent another’s good fortune. May Allah choke them with their judgments. May Satan curse their tongues so they can never speak again.” Then, she broke into tears. “If they knew. If they only knew how much I suffered,” she cried. “Amber, my dream, you don’t know what we’re living through here. Happiness is a source of envy. Misfortune is cause for celebration. People behave as if they are put in this world to make others’ lives miserable, as if life itself is easy to begin with. Tell me. How can we survive without compassion? With the evil eye cast out of every window, we’re to wear these stupid charms. But they don’t seem to do much good, do they? You’re lucky you didn’t stay here to rot and stink like linen seed, like the rest of us. Allah was on your side. I wish I could’ve done what you did. I wish I too could’ve escaped.”

  This sudden Allah talk made Amber nervous. “Every place has its own challenges,” she said.

  “Not like this. Where you live, a woman my age and a young man are still allowed friendship. Aren’t they?”

  “Yeah, but people still think it’s a little . . . unusual.”

  “So? Who minds being unusual? Haven’t I always been unusual but wasted all my resources pretending otherwise? Haven’t you? Isn’t that why you left this place? To find somewhere where you can be unusual? You can’t really hide that kind of thing for very long, you know? Somehow, the truth leaks. Like it’s leaking now and I’m getting devastated trying to keep it all in. I don’t care anymore what they think—spider-brained people, their mouths should be stuffed with cayenne and sewn up. Their eyes poked for seeing evil in everything. Their cunts circumcised . . .”

  “Who is he, anyway?” Amber interrupted.

  “The sweetest boy in the world.”

  “Are you in love?”

  “In love? In love? People just wouldn’t understand this kind of thing. What do they know of love? You know those two old maids on the first floor? The sisters—I think they’re queer that way or something. I think their father fucked them and they did it to each other. Those evil bitches hide behind the shutters all day long, spying on everyone who goes by. Seeing but not being seen. They watch the young girls and boys flirting innocently, the same way they did when you were growing up. They set traps, make gossip. They ruin lives. I’ve heard they’ve been going around saying I’m running a rendezvous house here or something. That they’ve seen men come and go. All I want is some privacy. Hags. Allah’s going to rain stones from the sky to punish them. You’ll see. May their tongues have a stroke. May crows scoop out their eyes.”

  “Tell me what really is going on.”

  Aida sat at her vanity and began brushing her hair vigorously with the carved ivory set Iskender had brought back for her from the Silk Road.

  “People began to talk so we were forced to stop seeing each other—wrote letters instead, talked in whispers on the phone but out of the window, I could still see his place. I’d see him put things on his verandah, a different flower everyday to communicate. Flowers have a language, you know—pansies mean fond thoughts; purple columbine, resolution; red poppies, consolation; lilies of the valley, return of happiness; angelica, inspiration. But how long can one go on like this?”

  “Why do you care if they gossip. So what? You’re a grown woman for God’s sake.”

  “So we made a date for last Tuesday night. He refused to come in the front door to avoid the old-maid sisters, so what does he do? He climbs up the wisteria vine to my balcony like Romeo or something. He could have fallen off, broken his head, be paralyzed, you know? But instead, he risked his life, dear boy.

  “But the old maids saw him anyway. The next thing, I hear the police knocking at the door. I tell him to go hide in the wardrobe. And I ask the police what they want. They say they had a complaint that there was a man in here. So I tell them to help themselves, real nonchalant-like so they won’t suspect. It works like a dream. I think that wardrobe has some sort of a spell—used to belong to your grandmother Esma. How she would have adored you! Life is cruel. Anyway, without really checking around, they leave but I know they haven’t given up and will keep an eye on the house all night. How am I going to get him out?”

  “Can they search without a warrant?”

  “They can do whatever they damn please. So I keep him in the famous wardrobe all night and all next day, afraid to utter a word, to walk around so the floors creak, making the sisters suspicious. We sit with fear all this time, the fear of being shamed. The next day, just before dawn, he climbs down the vine again and this time gets away unseen.” She wiped her eyes. “After that, we had to swear not to see each other. What choice did we have?”

  “Maybe I can arrange something. Maybe you and I could go somewhere together and he could meet us.”

  “Yok. No point in playing with fire and getting you involved in all this. He’s in my heart and I’m in his. All that matters. I’ve lost so much already.” She pointed at her missing breast. “Sometimes I still feel its ghost. What’s left to nurture? Light me a cigarette, will you? I usually don’t smoke—not to avoid cancer but because the stuff makes you smell disgusting. But I want one now and don’t give a damn about the smell because no one’s coming close enough to smell me anyway.”

  Amber picked out a gold-filtered cigarette from a crystal container, lit it with a matching table lighter, and gave it to Aida.

  “Have you ever had plastic surgery, Amber?” Obviously she was trying to change the subject, jumping around like a butterfly.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Have you ever had your face done?”

  “No, why should I?”

  “There must be something about your looks that irritates you. We all have those features we cannot tolerate about ourselves.”

  “Well, I probably could use a straighter nose, a sharper chin. Maybe bigger boobs and thinner thighs, smaller ass. Sure, lots of things. But so what? We were talking about you and . . .”

  “You change them. If you don’t like something about yourself and can do something about it, you should. Otherwise, you make yourself miserable each morning you catch your reflection in the damn mirror as you wash your face. Some women think they have to persevere through life burdened by their imperfections, flaws, impediments. But why, why suffer? We are victims of our chemistry, after all, every day aging cell by cell. A woman past her prime has nothing left. Her glow gone, her scent, her desire.”

  “Old age can be the best time in your life if you accept it and do it gracefully,” Amber told her aunt.

  “Maybe so where you come from. Can’t say that about here, though. You’re either a young woman or an old hag. Nothing in-between. Anyway, I’ve made up my mind. Once, I used to cast spells to keep away Azrael, the death angel. He’s come around a few times, you know? Now, I wish sometimes he’d do it more often. Someone to bump against, you know? Anyway, I have some money saved up and I’m going to have a face lift and also one of those things where they suck the fat out of your arms and thighs. They say they can even take the lard from your ass and shoot it into your breasts.” A
ida pushed up her sleeve, flashed at Amber the sagging flesh under her upper arms. She exaggerated. “And this! Must be jelly ’cause jam don’t shake like this. This bag of mutton fat. This elephant skin. The sign of a crone.”

  “Where are you having this done?” Amber pursued.

  “In Bursa. This doctor has a house and he does you and you can stay there until you’re done. Very, very private. Zeki Müren the singer had his face stretched there. Tansu goes for her collagen shots or whatever. And the former president’s wife. Remember, how her legs used to look like an elephant’s? He tapered them and gave her ankles.”

  “But from what I hear, it doesn’t always work,” Amber argued. “Lots of horror stories. And once you do it, you have to do it again. And there comes a time when you are stretched to the max and can’t any more, you know?”

  “Who cares?” Aida shrugged. “By then, most likely I’ll be compost anyway. Who cares?”

  “I do and he must.”

  Aida’s eyes watered again. Amber stood up to get her a tissue. She was distracted by a sepia photograph of Iskender taken in Isphahan, his arm resting on the shoulder of a small dark man. In the back, in her father Cadri’s handwriting, it said, Iskender with Pierre Loti. Loti? The famous French author. Next to it was Iskender as a young man with his sisters Esma and Mihriban sitting in a field somewhere, smiling so innocently. How young their skin . . .

  Across from Aida’s bed stood the famous wardrobe in which Süleyman had arrived one night to court Esma, the night Aida was conceived. It also watched.

  “Did you know my grandmother Esma very well?” Amber asked.

  “I knew her well and I loved her. I loved her more than my own parents.”

  “Surely you must have sensed something.”

  Aida gave her a look to see if they were talking about the same thing. “Yes,” she said, “every child dreams that her parents are not her real parents. But mine turned out to be true . . . Cadri told me everything before he died.”

  “Did he tell you about your father?”

  “He said my father was their tutor. Killed in the war.”