The Bastard of Istanbul

by Elif Shafak

  On the way back home they stopped the car and walked a little bit along Columbus Avenue, both pensive and silent. The breeze shifted then, and for a fleeting moment Armanoush caught the sharp, salty whiff of the sea, longing to be by the seaside now, aching to run away from this very moment. Once in front of the City Lights bookstore, however, she couldn't help perking up with interest as she spotted one of her favorite books behind the window: A Tomb for Boris Davidovich.

  "Oh, have you read that book? It's awesome!" she blurted out, and upon hearing a definite "no," she started describing the:;first story of the book, and then all seven of them. Since she sincerely believed the book could not be fully grasped without mapping the bumpy terrain of Eastern European literature first, during the ensuing ten minutes that was more or less what Armanoush Tchakhmakhchian did, thus breaking the promise she had made to her mother that very morning about not uttering a word about books, at least for just the first date.

  Once back in Russian Hill, in front of Grandma Shushan's condo, they stood face to face, aware that the night was over and eager to make the ending better than the preceding evening in the only way they could think of. It was meant to be a real kiss, longawaited and fantasized. Instead it turned out to be a gentle kiss, sealed with compassion on the part of Armanoush and admiration on the part of Matt, as both were miles away from feeling any passion.

  "You know I meant to tell you this all night long," Matt stammered, as if saddled with the uncomfortable truth he was about to confess. "You have this incredible smell…. It's unusual and exotic…. Just like-" "Like what?" Armanoush's face went pale, as the sight of a plate of steaming manta popped into her mind.

  Matt Hassinger put his arm around her and whispered: "Pistachios… yes, you smell just like pistachios."

  At a quarter past eleven Armanoush fished out a bunch of keys to open the many locks of Grandma Shushan's door, fearing in the meantime encountering the whole family in the living room, talking politics, drinking tea, and eating fruit, awaiting her return.

  But inside it was dark and empty. Her dad and grandma had gone to sleep and everyone else had left. On the table there was a plate of two apples and two oranges, all carefully peeled and apparently left for her to eat. Armanoush grabbed one of the apples, now darkened on the outside. Her heart sank. In the eerie serenity of the night she nibbled the apple, feeling sad and tired. Soon she would have to go back to Arizona, but she wasn't sure she could put up with her mother's encapsulating universe. Though she liked it here in San Francisco and perhaps could take a semester off to stay with her father and Grandma Shushan, she also couldn't help feeling that something was absent here, that a part of her identity was missing and without it she couldn't start living her own life. The lackluster date with Matt Hassinger had only served to reinforce this feeling. Now she felt wiser, more cognizant of her situation, but saddened at the cost of this knowledge.

  She kicked off her shoes and hurried to her room, taking the fruit with her. There she bundled her hair into a ponytail, stripped off the turquoise dress, and slipped into the silk pajamas she had bought in Chinatown. When she was ready, she closed the door of her room and immediately turned on the computer. It took just a few minutes to reach the only safe haven she could escape into at times like this: Cafe Constantinopolis.

  Cafe Constantinopolis was a chat room, or as the regulars called it, a cybercafe, initially designed by a bunch of Greek Americans, Sephardim Americans, and Armenian Americans who, other than being New Yorkers, had one fundamental thing in common: They all were the grandchildren of families once based in Istanbul. The Web site opened with a familiar tune: Istanbul was Constantinople/ Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople…

  With that melody appeared the silhouette of the city canopied under the flickering shades of sunset, veils upon veils of amethyst and black and yellow. In the middle of the screen there was a flashing arrow to indicate where to click to enter the chat room. You had to sign in with a password to be able to proceed further. Just like many real cafes this one was in theory open to everyone but in practice reserved for regular customers. Accordingly, although numerous off-the-cuff chatters showed up day in and day out, the core group remained more or less the same. Once you successfully signed in, the silhouette faded at the bottom and pulled apart, the way a velvet theater curtain opens before the act begins. As you entered the cybercafe, you heard bells chiming and then the same melody, only this time distant in the background.

  Once inside, Armanoush disregarded the Armeniansingles, Greeksingles, Weareallsingles forums and clicked on Anoush Tree-a forum where only the regulars and those with intellectual interests met. Armanoush had discovered the group ten months ago and ever since she had been a regular member, joining the discussion on an almost daily basis. Although some members occasionally posted during the daytime, the real discussions always took place at night when the fuss of the daily routine was over. Armanoush liked to imagine this forum as a dingy, smoky bar she habitually stopped by on her way home. Just like that, Cafe Constantinopolis was a sanctuary where you could forgo your true, humdrum Self at the entrance, like leaving a sopping raincoat in need of drying in the vestibule.

  The Anoush Tree section of Cafe Constantinopolis consisted of seven permanent members, five Armenians and two Greeks. They had not met in person and had never felt the need to. All of them came from different cities and had dissimilar professions and lives. All of them had nicknames. Armanoush's nickname was Madame My-Exiled-Soul. She had chosen this name as a tribute to Zabel Yessaian, the only woman novelist the Young Turks put on their death list in 1915. Zabel was a fascinating personality. Born in Constantinople, she lived much of her life in exile.'She had enjoyed a tumultuous life as a novelist and columnist. Armanoush kept a picture of her on her desk, in which Zabel broodingly peered out from under the brim of her hat at some unknown spot beyond the frame.

  The others in the Anoush Tree had different nicknames for reasons unasked. Every week they would choose a specific discussion topic. Though the themes varied greatly, they all tended to revolve around their common history and culture-" common" oftentimes meaning "common enemy": the Turks. Nothing brought people together more swiftly and strongly-though transiently and shakilythan a shared enemy.

  This week the subject was "The Janissaries." As she scanned through some of the most recent postings Armanoush was happy to see Baron Baghdassarian was online. She didn't know much about him, other than that he was the grandchild of survivors, just like her, and resplendent with rage, unlike her. Sometimes he could be extremely harsh and skeptical. Throughout the last few months, despite the elusiveness of cyberspace or perhaps thanks to it, Armanoush had unknowingly developed a liking for him. A day would be incomplete if she couldn't read his messages. Whatever this thing she felt for him-friendship, fondness, or sheer curiosity-Armanoush knew it was mutual.

  People who believe the Ottoman rule was righteous don't

  know anything about the Janissary's Paradox. The Janissaries were Christian children captured and converted by the Ottoman state with a chance to climb the social ladder at the expense of despising their own people and forgetting their own past. The Janissary's Paradox is as relevant today for every minority as it was yesterday. You the child of expatriates! You need to ask yourself this age-old question time and again: What will your position be with regards to this paradox; are you going to accept the role of the Janissary? Will you abandon your community to make peace with the Turks and let them whitewash the past so that, as they say, we can all move forward?

  Glued to the screen, Armanoush took a bite of the remaining apple and chewed nervously. Never before had she felt such admiration for a man-other than her dad, of course, but that was different. There was something in Baron Baghdassarian that both enthralled and scared her; she wasn't afraid of him exactly or the things he so boldly claimed-if anything, she was scared of herself. His words had a far-reaching effect, capable of digging out this other Armanoush that resided inside her but as o
f yet had not come out, a cryptic being in deep slumber. Somehow Baron Baghdassarian poked that creature with the spear of his words, prodding it until it woke up with a roar and came to light.

  Armanoush was still running her brain over this frightening outcome when she glimpsed a long message posted by Lady Peacock/ Siramark-an Armenian American wine expert who worked for a California-based winery, frequently traveled to Yerevan, and was known for her amusingly smart comparisons between the United States and Armenia. Today, she had posted a self-scoring test that measured the degree of one's "Armenianness."

  1. If you grew up sleeping under handwoven blankets or wearing

  handwoven cardigans to school

  2. If you have been given an Armenian alphabet book on each

  birthday until the age of six or seven

  3. If you have a picture of Mount Ararat hanging in your house,

  garage, or office

  4. If you are used to being loved and cooed at in Armenian, scolded

  and disciplined in English, and avoided in Turkish

  5. If you serve your guests hummus with nacho chips and eggplant

  dip with rice cakes

  6. If you are familiar with the taste of manta, the smell of sudzuk,

  and the curse of bastirma

  7. If you easily get pestered and aggravated over remarkably trivial

  things but manage to stay composed when there is something

  really grave to worry or panic about

  8. If you have had (or are planning to have) a nose job

  9. If you have a jar of Nutella in your refrigerator and a tav/a board

  somewhere in your storeroom

  10. If you have a cherished rug on the floor of your living room

  11. If you can't help feeling sad when you dance to "Lorke Lorke,"

  even if the melody is bouncy and you don't understand the lyrics 12. If gathering to eat fruit after each dinner is a deeply rooted habit

  at your house and if your dad still peels oranges for you, no

  matter what age you might have reached

  13. If your relatives keep shoveling food into your mouth and do not

  accept "I am full" as an answer

  14. If the sound of duduk sends shivers down your spine and you

  cannot help wondering how a flute made from an apricot tree

  can cry so sadly

  15. If deep inside you feel like there is always more about your past than you will ever be allowed to learn

  Having given a "yes" to every single one of the questions, Armanoush scrolled down to learn her score:

  0-3 points: Sorry dude, you must be an outsider.

  4-8 points: You sound like an inside-outsider. Chances are you are

  married to an Armenian.

  9-12 points: Almost certainly you are an Armenian.

  13-15 points: There's no doubt, you are a proud Armenian.

  Armanoush smiled at the screen. And in that moment she grasped what she already knew. It was as if a secret gate had been unlatched in the depths of her brain, and before her mind could accommodate the thoughts gushing in, a wave of introspection rolled over her. She had to go there. That was what she sorely needed: a journey.

  Because of her fragmented childhood, she had still not been able to find a sense of continuity and identity. She had to make a journey to her past to be able to start living her own life. As the weight of this new revelation dawned on her, it also motivated her to type a message, seemingly to everyone but in particular to Baron Baghdassarian:

  The Janissary's Paradox is being torn between two clashing states of existence. On the one hand, the remnants of the past pile up-a womb of tenderness and sorrow, a sense of injustice and discrimination. On the other hand glimmers the promised future-a shelter decorated with the trimmings and trappings of success, a sense of safety like you have never had before, the comfort of joining the majority and finally being deemed normal.

  Hello there Madame My-Exiled-Soul! Glad you are back. So nice to hear the poetess in you.

  That was Baron Baghdassarian. Armanoush couldn't help rereading the last part aloud: so nice to hear the poetess in you. She lost her train of thought but only momentarily.

  I think I can relate to the Janissary's Paradox. As the only child of resentfully divorced parents coming from different cultural backgrounds,

  She paused with the discomfort of revealing her personal story, but the urge to carry on was too strong.

  Being the only daughter of an Armenian father, he himself a child of survivors, and of a mother from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, I do know how it feels to be torn between opposite sides, unable to fully belong anywhere, constantly fluctuating between two states of existence.

  To this day she had never written anything so personal and so direct to anyone in the group. Her heart pumping hard, she took a breather. What was Baron Baghdassarian going'to think about her now and would he write his true thoughts?

  That must be hard. For most Armenians in the diaspora, Hai Dat is the sole psychological anchor that we have in order to sustain an identity. Your situation is different but ultimately we are all Americans and Armenians, that plurality is good as long as we do not lose our anchor.

  That was Miserable-Coexistence, a housewife unhappily married to the editor-in-chief of a prominent literary journal in the Bay Area.

  Plurality means the state of being more than one. But that was not the case with me. I've never been able to become an Armenian in the first place, Armanoush wrote, realizing she was on the brink of making a confession. I need to find my identity. You know what I've been secretly contemplating? Going to visit my family's house in Turkey. Grandma always talks about this gorgeous house in Istanbul. I'll go and see it with my own eyes. This is a journey into my family's past, as well as into my future. The Janissary's Paradox will haunt me unless I do something to discover my past.

  Wait, wait, wait, Lady Peacock/Siramark typed in panic. What the hell do you think you are doing? Are you planning to go to Turkey on your own, did you take leave of your senses?

  I can find connections. It's not that difficult.

  How so Madame My-Exiled-Soul? Lady Peacock/Siramark insisted. How far do you think you can go with that name on your passport?

  Why don't you instead directly walk into a police headquarters in Istanbul and get yourself nicely arrested! broke in Anti-Khavurma, a grad student in Near Eastern Studies at Columbia University.

  Armanoush felt this could be the right moment to confess another fundamental truth of her life. Finding the right connections might not be that difficult for me since my mother is now married to a Turk.

  There was an unsettling lull. For a full minute no one wrote anything back, so Armanoush continued.

  His name is Mustafa, he is a geologist who works for a company in Arizona. He's a nice man, but he is completely disinterested in history and ever since he arrived in the USA, which is like twenty years ago, he has never been back home. He didn't even invite his family to the wedding. Something's fishy there but I don't know what. He just doesn't talk about that. But I know he has a large family in Istanbul. I asked him once what kind of people they were and he said: Oh, they are just ordinary people, like you and me.

  He doesn't sound like the most sensitive man on earth-that-is, of course, if men can ever have feelings, barged in the Daughter of Sappho, a lesbian bartender who had recently found a job in a shabby reggae bar in Brooklyn.

  He sure doesn't, Miserable-Coexistence added. Does he have a heart?

  Oh, he does. He loves my mom, and my mom loves him, Armanoush replied. She realized she had for the first time recognized the love between her mother and stepfather, as if seeing them through a stranger's eyes. Anyway, I can stay with his family; after all I am his stepdaughter, I guess they will have to accept me as a guest. It's a puzzle to me how t will be received by ordinary Turks. A real Turkish family, not one of those Americanized academics.

  What are you going to talk about with ordin
ary Turks? asked Lady Peacock/Siramark. Look, even the well-educated are either nationalist or ignorant. Do you think ordinary people will be interested in accepting historical truths? Do you think they are going to say: Oh yeah, we are sorry we massacred and deported you guys and then contentedly denied it all. Why do you want to get yourself in trouble?

  I understand that. But you should try to understand me as well.

  Armanoush felt a sudden surge of despondency. Disclosing one secret after another had triggered the feeling of being lonely in this huge world-something she always knew about but waited for the right moment to face. You guys were all born into the Armenian community and never had to prove you were one of them. Whereas I have been stuck on this threshold since the day I was born, constantly fluctuating between a proud but traumatized Armenian family and a hysterically antiArmenian mom. For me to be able to become an Armenian American the way you guys are, I need to find my Armenianness first. If this requires a voyage into the past, so be it, I am going to do that, no matter what the Turks will say or do.

  But how will your father and his family let you go to Turkey? That was Alex the Stoic, a Bostonian Greek American who was content with life as long as he was surrounded by sunny weather, tasty food, and pretty women. As a loyal follower of Zeno, he believed that people should do their best not to push their limits and be happy with what they had. Don't you think your family in San Francisco will be worried?

  Worried? Armanoush grimaced as the faces of her aunts and grandmother crossed her mind. She knew they would be worried sick.

  They should not know anything about this, for their own good. Spring break is coming and I can spend the whole ten days in Istanbul. Dad will think I am in Arizona with my mom. And mom will think l am still here in San Francisco. They never talk to each other. And my stepfather never talks with his family in Istanbul. There's no way this can be revealed. It'll be a secret. Armanoush squinted at the screen as if she were perplexed by the statement she had typed there. If I keep calling my mom on a daily basis and my dad every two or three days, I can keep everything under control.