The Bastard of Istanbul

by Elif Shafak

  They laughed together for the first time since they'd met. "There's a place I want to take you to sometime," Asya said. "It

  is this little cafe where we regularly meet. Cafe Kundera." "Really? He's one of my favorite authors!" Armanoush ex

  claimed in delight. "Why is it called that?"

  "Well, that's an endless debate. Actually, every day we develop

  a new theory."

  On the way back to the konak, Armanoush grabbed Asya's hand and squeezed it as she said, "You remind me of a friend of mine."

  For a while she looked at Asya like she knew something but couldn't tell. But then she remarked, "I have never seen anyone so perceptive and so… so empathetic be so stringent and so… so confrontational at the same time. Except one person! You remind me of my most unusual friend: Baron Baghdassarian. You two are so alike in many ways, you could well be soul mates."

  "Oh yeah?" Asya asked, the name intriguing her. "What is it? Tell me why you're laughing."

  "I'm sorry, I couldn't help laughing at the twist of fate," Armanoush said. "It's just that among all my acquaintances Baron Baghdassarian happens to be the most-most anti-Turk!

  That night when all the Kazanci women had gone to sleep, Armanoush slipped out of her bed in pajamas, turned on the frail desk lamp, and doing her very best not to make any noise, turned on her laptop. Never before had she realized how distressingly noisy it could be to get online. She dialed the telephone number, found the network node, and typed in her password to log on to Cafe Constantinopolis.

  Where have U been? We were so sick worried! 'How R U?

  Questions began to come in from everyone.

  I'm okay, wrote Madame My-Exiled-Soul. But I've not been able to find grandma's house. In its place there is an ugly modern building. It's gone. No traces left behind… There are no traces, no records, no reminiscences of the Armenian family who lived in that building at the beginning of the century.

  I am so sorry dear, Lady Peacock/Siramark wrote. When R U coming back?

  I'll stay till the end of the week, Madame My-Exiled-Soul replied. It is quite an adventure here. The city is beautiful. It resembles San Francisco in some ways, the hilly streets, the constant fog and sea breeze, and the bohemian faces in places least expected. It is an urban maze here. More than one single city, it is like cities within a city. By the way, the cuisine is fantastic. Every Armenian would be in heaven here.

  Armanoush halted, realizing in panic what she had just written. I mean, in terms of food, she added quickly.

  Yo Madame My-Exiled-Soul, you were our war reporter and now you sound like a Turk! You have not been Turkified, have you? It was AntiKhavurma.

  Armanoush took a deep breath.

  The opposite. I have never felt more Armenian in my life. You see, for me to fully experience my Armenianness, I had to come to Turkey and meet the Turks.

  — The family I am living with is quite interesting, a bit crazy but perhaps all families are. But there is something surreal here. Irrationality is part of the everyday rationale. I feel like I am in a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel. One of the sisters is a tattoo artist; another sister is a clairvoyant; one other is a national history teacher; and the fourth is an eccentric wallflower, or a full-time cuckoo, as Asya would say.

  Who is Asya? Lady Peacock/Siramark typed instantly.

  She is the daughter of the household. A young woman with four mothers and no father. Quite a character-full of rage, satire, and wit. She'd make a good Dostoyevski character.

  Armanoush wondered where on earth Baron Baghdassarian was.

  Madame My-Exiled-Soul, have you talked about the genocide with anyone? Miserable-Coexistence wanted to know.

  Yes, several times, but it is so difficult. The women in the house listened to my family's history with sincere interest and sorrow but that is as far as they could get. The past is another country for the Turks.

  If even the women stop there, I cannot possibly be hopeful about their men…. the Daughter of Sappho cut in.

  Actually, I haven't yet found the chance to talk to any Turkish men, Madame My-Exiled-Soul wrote back, only just now realizing this. But one of these days Asya will take me to this cafe where they meet regularly. There I will get to know at least some men, I guess.

  Be careful if you drink with them. Alcohol brings out the worst in people, you know. That was Alex the Stoic.

  I don't think Asya drinks. They're Muslims! But she sure smokes like a chimney.

  Lady Peacock/Siramark wrote, In Armenia people smoke a lot too. I revisited Yerevan recently. Cigarettes are killing the nation.

  Armanoush fidgeted in her chair.Where was he? Why wasn't he writing? Was he angry or cross at her? Had he been thinking about her at all?… She would have gone on torturing herself with questions, if it hadn't been for the next line that appeared on the shimmering screen.

  Tell us, Madame My-Exiled-Soul, since you have been to Turkey, have you pondered the Janissary's Paradox?

  It was him! Him! Him! Armanoush reread the two lines, after which she typed: Yes, I have. But then she didn't know what else to write. As if he had sensed her hesitation, Baron Baghdassarian continued.

  It's very nice of you to get along with that family so well. And I believe you when you say they are good-hearted people, interesting in their own way. But don't you see? You are their friend only insofar as you deny your own identity. That's how it has been with the Turks all through history.

  Armanoush pursed her lips, saddened. At the other end of the room, Asya tossed and turned in her bed, in the throes of what looked like a nightmare, and murmured something incomprehensible.Whatever she was saying, she repeated it many times.

  All we Armenians ask for is the recognition of our loss and pain, which is the most fundamental requirement for genuine human relationships to flourish. This is what we say to the Turks: Look, we are mourning, we have been mourning for almost a century now, because we lost our loved ones, we were driven out of our homes, banished from our land; we were treated like animals and butchered like sheep. We have been denied even a decent death. Even the pain inflicted on our grandparents is not as agonizing as the systematic denial that followed.

  If you say this, what will be the Turks' response? Nothing! There is only one single way of becoming friends with the Turks: to be just as uninformed and forgetful.

  Since they won't join us in our recognition of the past, we are expected to join them in their ignorance of the past.

  All of a sudden there was a light knock on the door, and then there were too many knocks. Armanoush slumped in her chair, her heart leaped into her throat. She impulsively turned off the computer screen. "Yes," she whispered.

  The door opened gently and Auntie Banu's head popped in. She had a rosy, loosely tied scarf on her head now and a long, pasty nightgown. Awake at this hour for prayer, she had noticed the light coming from the girls' room.

  With the discomfort of all the words she lacked in English etched on her face, Auntie Banu made a series of gestures, as if she too were playing charades. She shook her head, furrowed her brows, and then smilingly wagged a finger-all of which Armanoush interpreted as: "You study a lot. Don't tire yourself too much."

  After that Auntie Banu shoved forward the plate in her hand and mimicked an eating effect, both too obvious to need any interpretation. She smiled, patted Armanoush's shoulder, put the plate next to the laptop, and then left, closing the door softly behind her. On the plate were two oranges, peeled and sliced.

  Turning on the screen again, Armanoush bit into a slice of orange, as she contemplated what to write back to Baron Baghdassarian.

  TEN

  Almonds

  By the fifth day of her stay, Armanoush had discovered the morning routine of the Kazanci konak. Every weekday the breakfast was laid out as early as six and stayed on the table until nine thirty. During that time, the samovar continuously boiled and a new pot of tea was made every hour. Instead of everyone sitting at the table at once, different membe
rs of the family came at different intervals, depending on their work or mood or schedule. Thus, unlike dinner, which was an entirely synchronized event, breakfast on weekdays resembled a morning train that stopped at sundry stations, each time with new passengers getting on and others getting off.

  Almost always it was Auntie Banu who set the table, the first to wake up, ready for the dawn prayer. She slipped out of her bed, muttering, "Indeed, it is," while the muezzin from the nearest mosque blared for the second time: "Prayer is better than sleep." Auntie Banu then went to the bathroom to prepare herself for prayer, washing her face, washing her arms to the elbows and feetto the ankles. The water would be chilly sometimes, but she didn't mind. The soul needs to shiver to wake up, she said to herself. The soul needs to shiver. Neither did she mind the rest of her family being fast asleep. She prayed twice as hard so that they too would be pardoned.Thus, this morning when the muezzin echoed, "Allah is most great, Allah is most great," Auntie Banu, in bed, had already opened her eyes and was reaching out for her nightgown and head scarf. But unlike any other day, her body felt heavy, very heavy. The muezzin called: "I bear witness that there is no god but Allah." Still Auntie Banu couldn't stand up. Even when she heard, "Come to prayer," and then, "Come to the good," she could not pull half of her body out of bed. It felt as if the blood had been drained out of that part of her body, leaving behind a weighty, sluggish sack.

  Prayer is better than sleep. Prayer is better than sleep. _

  "What is wrong with you guys, why don't you let me move?" Auntie Banu asked in a tone tinged with frustration.

  The two djinn sitting one on each shoulder glanced at each other. "Don't ask me, ask him. He is the one who is causing mischief," said Mrs. Sweet from her right shoulder.

  As the name suggests, Mrs. Sweet was a good djinni-one of the righteous ones. She had a kind, gleaming face, a corona around her head in the hues of plum, pink, and purple, a thin, elegant neck, and nothing other than a wisp of smoke where her neck ended and, technically, her torso had to start. Having no body, she looked like a head on a pedestal, which was perfectly all right with her. Unlike female human beings, the djinn women were not expected to have proportionate features.

  Auntie Banu trusted Mrs. Sweet enormously, for she was not one of those renegades but a kindhearted, devout djinni who had converted to Islam from atheism-a malady which ran rampant among many a djinni. Mrs. Sweet visited mosques and shrines frequently, and was highly knowledgeable in the Holy Qur'an. Over the years she and Auntie Banu had grown very close. That, however, was not the case at all with Mr. Bitter, who was created from an entirely different mold and had come from places where the wind never stopped howling. Mr. Bitter was very old, even in terms of djinn years. Consequently, he was far more powerful than he often made it sound, for as everybody knows too well, the older they are the more potent the djinn become.

  The only reason Mr. Bitter was staying at the Kazanci domicile was because Auntie Banu had bound him years ago, on the last morning of her forty days of penitence. Ever since then she had had him under her control, having never taken off the talisman that held him captive. To tie up a djinni was no easy thing. It first and foremost required knowing his name, guessing it right-a lethal game indeed, given that if the djinni figured out your name before you discovered his, he would become the master and you the slave. Even when you guessed the name right and had the djinni under your control, you couldn't take your authority for granted, since that would be a most foolish delusion. Throughout human history, only the great Solomon had been able to surely defeat the djinn, armies of them, but even he had needed an extra hand from a magic iron ring. Since no one else could match the great Solomon, only a narcissistic fool could take pride in capturing a djinni, and Auntie Banu was anything but. Though Mr. Bitter had been serving her for more than six years now, she regarded their rapport as a temporary contract that had to be renewed every so often. Never had she treated him callously or condescendingly, for she knew that djinn, unlike human beings, had everlasting memories of wrong done to them. They would never forget any injustice. Like a dedicated clerk jotting down every incident to the most infinitesimal aspect, the memories of the djinn recorded everything, only to be evoked someday. Accordingly, Auntie Banu had always respected her captive's rights and never exploited her power.

  Still, she could have used her authority in an entirely different way, asking for material gains, such as money, jewels, or fame. She hadn't. All these, she knew, were nothing but illusions, and the djinn happened to be particularly good in creating illusions. Besides, every sudden wealth one acquired was necessarily a wealth stolen from someone else, since there is no such thing in nature as a pure vacuum and the fates of human beings are interrelated like stitches in a latticework. Hence, all these years Auntie Banu had prudently refrained from asking for any material gains. Instead there was only one thing she had demanded from Mr. Bitter: knowledge.

  Knowledge about forgotten events, unidentified individuals, property disputes, family conflicts, unburied secrets, unsolved mysteries-the basics she needed to be able to help her many clients. If a certain family had a valuable document long lost, they would come to Auntie Banu to learn its whereabouts. Or a woman who suspected being put under a vicious spell would come to her to inquire about the perpetrator of the wrongdoing. Once they had brought in a pregnant woman who had suddenly fallen ill and was getting frighteningly worse by the day. After consulting with her djinn, Auntie Banu told the pregnant woman to go to the fruitless lemon tree in her own garden, where she would find, in a black velvet purse, a bar of olive soap with her own fingernails jabbed into it-a spell cast by a jealous neighbor. Auntie Banu did not tell her the name of that neighbor, though, so that there would be no further grudge. In a few days news arrived that the pregnant woman had quickly recovered and was doing well. Subsequently, it was along these lines that Auntie Banu used Mr. Bitter's service to this day. Except on one occasion. Only once had she asked him a personal favor, just for herself, a most confidential question: Who was Asya's father?

  Mr. Bitter gave her an answer, the answer, but she had indignantly, indefatigably refused to believe him, although she knew perfectly well that an enslaved djinni could never lie to his master. She refused to believe until her heart one day simply stopped defying what her mind had long recognized. After that Auntie Banu had never been the same. Time and again she still wondered if it would have been better for her not to know, since knowledge in this case had only brought her suffering and sorrow, the curse of the sage. And today, years after that incident, Auntie Banu was reconsidering asking another personal favor from Mr. Bitter. That was why she was so debilitated this morning; the contradictory thoughts churning inside her mind had weakened her vis-a-vis her slave, who, with each dilemma of his master, weighed heavier and heavier on her left shoulder.

  Should she ask Mr. Bitter another personal question now, though she had so much regretted doing it that last time? Or perhaps it was time to end this game and take off the talisman, thus releasing the djinni once and for all? She could go on performing her duties as a clairvoyant with the help of Mrs. Sweet. Her powers would be somewhat lessened but so be it. Was this much not enough? One side of her warned Auntie Banu against the curse of the sage, recoiling from the harrowing agony that comes with too much knowledge. The other side of her, however, was dying to know more, ever curious, conscientious. Mr. Bitter was well aware of her dilemma and he seemed to be enjoying it, pressing her left shoulder harder with each doubt, doubling the weight of her ruminations.

  "Get down from my shoulder," Auntie Banu decreed and uttered a prayer that the Qur'an advised to voice every time one had to face a dodgy djinni. All of a sudden compliant, Mr. Bitter jumped aside and let her stand up.

  "Are you going to release me?" Mr. Bitter asked, having read her mind. "Or are you going to use my powers for some specific information?"

  A whispered word escaped Auntie Banu's slightly parted lips but rather than a "yes" or "no," it soun
ded like a moan. She felt so small amid the cavernous vastness of earth, sky, and stars and the quandary that pulverized her soul.

  "You can ask me the question you have been dying to find out ever since the American girl told you all those sad things about her family. Don't you want to learn if it is true or not? Don't you want to help her find out the truth? Or do you reserve your powers for your clients alone?" Mr. Bitter challenged, his charcoal, bulging eyes feverishly triumphant. Then he added, suddenly placid, "I can tell you, I am old enough to know. I was there."

  "Stop it!" Auntie Banu exclaimed, almost shrieking. She felt her stomach lurch and the burn of sour bile in her throat as she snapped, "I don't want to learn. I am not curious. I regret the day I asked you about Asya's father. Oh God, I wish I hadn't. What is knowledge good for if you cannot change anything? It is venom that handicaps you forever. You can't vomit it up and you can't die. I don't want that to happen again…. Besides, what do you know?"

  Why she had blurted out that last question, she couldn't fathom. For she knew too well that if she wanted to learn about Armanoush's past, Mr. Bitter would be the right one to ask, since he was a gulyabani, the most treacherous among all the djinn, yet also the most knowledgeable when it came to traumatic ends.

  Ill-omened soldiers, ambushed and massacred miles away from their home, wanderers frozen to death in the mountains, plague victims exiled deep into the desert, travelers robbed and slaughtered by bandits, explorers lost in the middle of nowhere, convicted felons shipped to meet their death on some remote island… the gulyabani had seen them all. They were there when entire battalions were exterminated in bloody battlefields, villages were doomed to starve or caravans reduced to ashes by enemy fire. Likewise, they were there when the Byzantine emperor Heraclius's huge army was crushed by the Muslims at the Battle of Yarmuk; or when Berber Tank thundered to his soldiers, "Behind you is the sea, before you, the enemy! Oh my warriors, whither would you flee?" and with that they invaded Visigothic Spain, killing everyone on their way; or when Charles, thereafter named Martel, slew 300,000 Arabs in the Battle of Tours; or when the Assassins, intoxicated with hashish, killed the illustrious vizier Nizam-al-Mulk and spawned terror until the Mongolian Hulagu destroyed their fortress, along with everything else. The gulyabani had witnessed firsthand each and every one of these calamities. They were particularly notorious for stalking those lost in the desert with no food and water. Whenever, wherever someone died leaving no gravestone behind, they appeared beside the corpse. Should they feel the need, they could disguise themselves as plants, rocks, or animals, particularly vultures. They would spy on calamities, observing the scene from the side or above, though it is also known that occasionally they would haunt caravans, steal whatever food the destitute might need to survive, scare the pilgrims on their holy journey, attack processions, or whisper a terrifying tune of death into the ears of those sentenced to the galleys or those forced to walk a death march. They were the spectators of those moments in time in which humans had no testimony, no written record left behind.