The Bastard of Istanbul

by Elif Shafak

That was that. Never again did they talk about the limitations of the good and the necessity of the unscrupulous.

  At or around that time Auntie Banu once again remodeled her clairvoyant reading techniques, and switched to hazelnuts, roasted hazelnuts more often than not. Her family suspected that the origin of this novelty, as with most other novelties, might have been pure coincidence. Most likely Auntie Banu had been caught gobbling hazelnuts by a client and offered the best explanation that had come to her mind: that she could read them. This was the belief shared by all in the family. Everyone else had a different interpretation. Being the holy lady that she was, rumor had it in Istanbul, she did not demand any money from her needy customers and instead asked them to bring her only a handful of hazelnuts. The hazelnut became a symbol of her bigheartedness. In any case, the oddity of her technique only served to further augment her already bloated fame. "Mother Hazelnut" they started to call her, or even "Sheikh Hazelnut," oblivious to the fact that women in their limitedness could not assume this respected title.

  Bad djinni, roasted hazelnuts… though Asya Kazanci had in time gotten used to these and other eccentricities, there was one thing about her eldest aunt she seemed to be having a hard time accepting: her name. It was just impossible to accept that "Auntie Banu" could metamorphose into one "Sheikh Hazelnut," so whenever there were customers inside the house or tarot cards opened on the table, she simply avoided her. That is why, although Asya had perfectly heard the last words uttered by her aunt, she pretended not to. And she would have remained blissfully ignorant had Auntie Feride not walked into the living room at that moment, carrying a huge, flat plate upon which glistened the birthday cake.

  "What are you doing here?" Auntie Feride frowned at Asya. "You are not supposed to be here; you've got a ballet class now."

  Now that was another shackle around Asya's ankles. Like numerous middle-class Turkish mothers aspiring to see their children excel in all the things the children of upper classes supposedly did, her upper-middle class family compelled her to perform activities she had absolutely no interest in.

  "This is a nuthouse," Asya muttered to herself. These four words had become her mantra these days and she repeated it freely. Then she raised her voice a notch, and said, "Don't worry. Actually, I was about to leave."

  "What's the use of it now?" Auntie Feride snapped, pointing at the plate. "This was supposed to be a surprise!"

  "She doesn't want a cake this year," Auntie Banu intervened from her corner as she flipped the first of the three waiting tarot cards. It was The High Priestess. The symbol of unconscious awarenessan opening to imagination and hidden talents but also to the unknown. She pursed her lips and turned the next card: The Tower. A symbol of tumultuous changes, emotional eruptions, and sudden downfall. Auntie Banu looked pensive for a minute. Then she flipped the third card. It looked like they were going to have a visitor soon, a most unexpected visitor from beyond the ocean.

  "What do you mean she doesn't want a cake? It's her birthday for heaven's sake!" Auntie Feride exclaimed with her lips puckered and an irate glimmer in her eyes. But then another thought must have come to her because she turned toward Asya and squinted. "Are you afraid that someone poisoned the cake?"

  Asya looked at her in astonishment. After all this time and so much direct experience, she had still not been able to develop a strategy, that golden strategy, to stay calm and cool in the face of Auntie Feride's outbreaks. After faithfully sojourning in "hebephrenic schizophrenia" for years, Auntie Feride had recently moved into paranoia. The harder they tried to bring her back to reality, the more she became paranoid and suspicious of them.

  "Is she afraid of someone poisoning the cake? Of course she is not, you harmless eccentric!"

  All the heads in the room turned toward the door where Auntie Zeliha stood, corduroy jacket over her shoulders, high heels on her feet, with a quizzical expression that made her look heartbreakingly beautiful. She must have sneaked into the room and then stood silently listening to the conversation, unless she had developed a talent for materializing at will. Unlike most Turkish women who might have enjoyed short skirts and high heels in their youth, Zeliha had not lengthened the former and shortened the latter as she got older. Her style of dress was as flamboyant as it had ever been. The years had only added to her beauty while taking their toll on each of her sisters. As if she knew the effect of her presence, Auntie Zeliha remained in the doorway, eyeing her manicured fingernails. She cared deeply about herr hands because she used them in her work. Having no liking for bureaucratic institutions or any chain of command, and possessing too much exasperation and anger inside, she had realized at an early age that she would have to choose a profession where she could be both independent and inventive-and also, if possible, inflict a bit of pain.

  Ten years ago Auntie Zeliha had opened a tattoo parlor, where she had started to develop a collection of original designs. In addition to the classics of the art-crimson roses, iridescent butterflies, hearts pumped with love-and the usual compilation of hairy insects, fierce wolves, and giant spiders, she had introduced her own designs inspired by one basic principle: contradiction. There were faces half-masculine half-feminine, bodies half-animal half-human, trees half-blossomed half-dry…. However, her designs were not popular. The customers wanted to make a statement through their tattoos, not to add yet another ambiguity to their already uncertain lives. Their tattoos had to express a simple emotion, not an abstract thought. Learning her lesson well, Zeliha had then launched a new series, a compound collection of images, which she entitled "the management of abiding heartache."

  Every tattoo in this special collection was designed to address one person only: the ex-love. The dumped and the despondent, the hurt and the irate brought a picture of the ex-love they wanted to banish from their lives forever but somehow could not stop loving. Auntie Zeliha then studied the picture and ransacked her brain until she found which particular animal that person resembled. The rest was relatively easy. She would draw that animal and then tattoo the design on the desolate customer's body. The whole practice adhered to the ancient shamanistic practice of simultaneously internalizing and externalizing one's totems. To strengthen vis-a-vis your antagonist you had to accept, welcome, and then transform it. The ex-love was interiorized-injected into the body, and yet at the same time exteriorized-left outside the skin. Once the ex-lover was located in this threshold between inside and outside, and deftly transformed into an animal, the power structure between the dumped and the dumper changed. Now the tattooed lover felt superior, as if the key to the ex-love's soul was in his or her hands. As soon as this stage was reached and the ex-love lost his or her appeal, those suffering from abiding heartache could finally let go of their obsession, for love loves power. That is why we can suicidally fall in love with others but can rarely reciprocate the love of those suicidally in love with us.

  Istanbul being a city of broken hearts, it didn't take Auntie Zeliha long to expand the business, becoming legendary particularly among bohemian circles.

  Now Asya averted her eyes so as not to have to stare any longer at her mother, the mother whom she had never called "mom" and had perhaps hoped to keep at a distance by "auntifying." A surge of self-pity engulfed her. What an unpardonable injustice on the part of Allah to create a daughter far less beautiful than her own mother.

  "Don't you understand why Asya doesn't want any cake this year?" Auntie Zeliha said when she had finished with the inspection of her manicure. "She's just afraid of gaining weight!"

  Though she knew too well what a big mistake it was to display her temper in front of her mother, Asya yelled furiously: "That's not true!"

  Auntie Zeliha surrendered with a puckish twinkle in her eyes, "All right, sweetie, if you say so."

  Only then did Asya notice the tray Auntie Feride was carrying. There was a big ball of meat and a bigger ball of dough. They were going to have 7nantli for dinner tonight.

  "How many times do I need to tell you I do not like m
anta?" Asya bellowed. "You know I've stopped eating meat." Her voice sounded strange to her, hoarse and alien.

  "I told you she was afraid of gaining weight." Auntie Zeliha shook her head and brushed away a strand of black hair that had fallen across her face.

  "Haven't you ever heard of the word vegetarian?" Asya shook her head too but resisted brushing away a strand of hair, for fear of imitating her mother's gestures.

  "Of course I have," Auntie Zeliha said, squaring her shoulders. "But do not forget, my dear," she continued in a softer voice that she knew would prove more persuasive, "that you are a Kazanci, not a vegetarian!"

  Asya swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly dry.

  "And we Kazancis love red meat! The redder, the greasier, the better! If you don't believe me, ask Sultan the Fifth, isn't that so, Sultan?" Auntie Zeliha tilted her head toward the overweight cat lying on his velvet cushion by the balcony door. He turned toward Auntie Zeliha with squinted, misty eyes as if he had fully understood and approved the statement.

  Reshuffling the deck of tarot cards, Auntie Banu chided from her corner, "There are people in this country so desperately poor that they wouldn't even know what red meat tastes like, if it weren't for the alms benevolent Muslims give them during the Feast of Sacrifice. That is the only time they can have a decent meal. Go and ask those destitute souls what it really means to be vegetarian. You should be grateful for every morsel of meat put on your plate, because it is a symbol of opulence."

  "This is a nuthouse! We are all nuts, each and every one of us." Asya repeated her mantra, only this time her voice was drenched in defeat. "I am going out, ladies. You can eat whatever you want. I am already late for my ballet class!"

  No one noticed that she had snorted the word ballet as if it were some sputum she had to spit out but was simultaneously disgusted at not being able to control the urge to do so.

  FIVE

  Vanilla

  Cafe Kundera was a small coffee shop on a narrow, snaky street on the European side of Istanbul. It was the only bistro in the city where you wasted no energy on conversation and tipped the waiters to be treated badly. How and why it was named after the famous author, nobody knew for sure — a lack of knowledge magnified by the fact that there was nothing, literally nothing, inside the place reminiscent of either Milan Kundera or any one of his novels.

  On four sides there were hundreds of frames that came in all sizes and shapes, a myriad of photographs, paintings, and sketches, so many that one could easily doubt if there really were walls behind them. The whole place gave the impression of being erected on frames instead of bricks. In all the frames without exception shone the image of a road. Wide motorways in America, endless highways in Australia, busy autobahns in Germany, glitzy boulevards in Paris, crammed side streets in Rome, narrow paths in Machu Picchu, forgotten caravan routes in North Africa, and maps of the ancient trade routes along the Silk Road, following the footsteps of Marco Polo-there were road pictures from all around the world. The customers were perfectly happy with the decor. They thought it was a useful alternative to useless chats that led nowhere. Whenever they didn't feel like chatting, they would pick a frame, depending on the angle of the table where they sat and on where exactly they wished to be zoomed on that specific day. Then they would fasten a bleary gaze on the chosen picture, little by little taking off to that faraway land, craving to be somewhere in there, anywhere but here. The next day they could travel elsewhere.

  No matter how far away the pictures could take you, one thing was certain: None of them had anything to do with Milan Kundera. When the place was newly opened, one theory ran, the author had happened to be in Istanbul, and on his way to elsewhere he had fortuitously stopped by for a cappuccino. The cappuccino wasn't so good and he hated the vanilla biscuit they brought with it, but he had soon ordered another one and even done some writing, since nobody had disturbed or even recognized him. On that day, the place was baptized under his name. Yet another theory claimed that the owner of the cafe was an avid reader of Kundera; having devoured all his books and had each one autographed, he had decided to dedicate the place to his favorite author. This could have been the more plausible contention had the owner of the cafe not been a middle-aged musician and singer who always looked tanned and athletic, and who had such deep dislike for the printed word that he did not even bother to read the lyrics of the songs his band played on Friday nights.

  The real reason why the bistro was named after Kundera, ran the counterargument, was because this spot in space was nothing but a figment of his flawed imagination. The cafe was a fictive place with fictive people as the regulars. Sometime ago Kundera had, as part of a new book project, started to write about this place, thus breathing life and chaos into it, but before long he had gotten distracted by far more important projects-invitations, panels, and literary prizes-and amid the hectic pace he had eventually forgotten this dingy hole in Istanbul, the existence of which he was solely responsible for. Ever since then, the customers and waiters in Cafe Kundera had been struggling with a sense of void, digging away at disconsolate futuristic scenarios, grimacing over Turkish coffee served in espresso cups, waiting for a purpose in some highbrow drama wherein they would play the leading role. Among all the theories on the genesis of the cafe's name, this last explanation was the most widely championed. Still, every now and then, someone new to the place or in need of drawing attention would come forward with another theory, and for an ephemeral lull the other customers would believe him, toying with the new theory, until they got bored and sunk back to their marshes of moroseness.

  Today, when the Dipsomaniac Cartoonist started toying with a new theory on the cafe's name, all of his friends-even his wifefelt obliged to listen to him attentively, as a sign of their support for his finally summoning the courage to do what everyone had forever been begging him to do: join Alcoholics Anonymous.

  There was, however, a second reason why everyone at the table was more sympathetic toward him than usual. Today he had for the second time been indicted for insulting the prime minister in his cartoons, and if on the day of the hearing the judge agreed with the charge, he could get up to three years in prison. The Dipsomaniac Cartoonist was famous for a series of political cartoons in which he depicted the entire cabinet as a flock of sheep and the prime minister as a wolf in sheep's clothing. Now that he had been forbidden from using this metaphor, he was planning to draw the cabinet as a pack of wolves and the prime minister as a jackal in wolf s clothing. Should this caricature too be taken away from him, he had thought of an exit strategy: penguins! He was determined to sketch all the members of the parliament as penguins in tuxedos.

  "Here is my new theory!" the Dipsomaniac Cartoonist said, unaware of the compassion he had evoked and a bit surprised to see this much interest on the part of his audience-and even his wife.

  He was a large man with a patrician nose, high cheekbones, intense blue eyes, and a grim set to his mouth. He had long been familiar to misery and melancholy. However, after secretly falling in love with a most unattainable woman, his gloom had doubled.

  Looking at him, it was hard to imagine that he made a living from humor, and that behind that sullen face of his streamed the funniest jokes. Though he was always a notorious drinker, lately his problems with alcohol had skyrocketed. He started waking up in questionable places he'd never been before. But the final straw came when early one morning he found himself in the courtyard of a mosque lying on the flat stone where the dead were washed, apparently having passed out there while trying to mastermind his own funeral. When he managed to open his eyes at dawn, a young imam, on his way to recite the morning prayer, was standing next to him, shocked to encounter a stranger snoring on the stone of the dead. After that, the Dipsomaniac Cartoonist's friends-and even his wife-were so alarmed they urged him to get professional help and to make something more of his life. Finally today he had attended a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and pledged to stop imbibing. Hence, everybody at the table-even his wif
e-considerately leaned back to listen to whatever his theory might be.

  "This cafe is called what it is called because the word Kundera is a code. The gist of the issue is not what the name is but what the name is symptomatic of?"

  "And what would that be?" asked the Nonnationalist Scenarist of Ultranationalist Movies, a short, gaunt man with a beard dyed ash gray ever since the day he concluded young women preferred mature men. He was the writer and creator of a popular TV series, Timur the Lionheart, which featured a hefty, robust national hero capable of mashing entire battalions of enemies into a bloody puree. When asked about his tacky TV show and movies, he would defend himself by arguing that he was a nationalist by profession but a true nihilist by choice. Today he showed up with another girlfriends comely, eye-catching woman but without much depth. This he didn't confess to her, but within male circles they had a specific name for shallow females like her: "appetizers"-not the main course, of course, but good to snack on. Bolting cashews from the bowl on the table, he guffawed as he put his arm around his new girlfriend: "Come on, tell us what that code is!"

  "Boredom," the Dipsomaniac Cartoonist said with a puff of smoke. Coils of smoke ascended from all sides as people smoked like chimneys all around, and his wispy puff lazily joined the thick, gray cloud hovering over the table.

  The only one who didn't smoke at the table was the ClosetedGay Columnist. He detested the smell of smoke. Every day when he went home he immediately took off his clothes to get rid of the stinky odors of Cafe Kundera. Still, he did not object when others smoked. Neither did he stop going to the cafe. He came here regularly both because he enjoyed being part of this motley group_ and also because he was secretly attracted to the Dipsomaniac Cartoonist.

  Not that the Closeted-Gay Columnist wanted to have anything physical with the cartoonist. Even the thought of him naked was enough to send shivers down his spine. This wasn't about sex, he assured himself, but about kindred spirits. Besides, there were two big obstacles that blocked his way. First, the Dipsomaniac Cartoonist was strictly heterosexual and the chances of him changing seemed slim. Second, he had a crush on that morose girl Asya a fact that everyone but she had noticed by this time.