The Bastard of Istanbul

by Elif Shafak

  The gulyabani were the ugly witnesses of the ugliness human beings were capable of inflicting on one another. Consequently, Auntie Banu reasoned, if Armanoush's family had really been forced on a death march in 1915, as she claimed, Mr. Bitter would surely know about it.

  "Aren't you going to ask me anything?" Mr. Bitter mouthed as he sat on the edge of the bed, fully enjoying Auntie Banu's quandary. "I was a vulture," he continued bitterly, the only tone in which he knew to talk. "I saw it all. I watched them as they walked and walked and walked, women and children. I flew over them, drawing circles in the blue sky, waiting for them to fall on their knees."

  "Shut up!" Auntie Banu bawled. "Shut up! I don't want to know. Don't forget who the master is."

  "Yes, master." Mr. Bitter shrank back. "Your wish is my command and thus it shall be as long as you wear that talisman. But should you want to learn what happened to that girl's family in 1915, just let me know. My memory can be yours, master."

  Auntie Banu sat straight up in her bed, biting her lips hard to look adamant, having no intentions of showing weakness to Mr. Bitter. As she tried to be resilient, the air started to reek of dust and mold, as if the room had fallen into a state of putrefaction. Either the present moment was quickly decaying into a residue of time or the decay of the past was seeping into the present. The inner gates of time awaited being unbolted. To preserve them locked and everything in its place, Auntie Banu took out the Holy Qur'an, which she kept inside a pearly cover in a drawer in her bedside table. She opened a page randomly and read: "I am closer to you than your jugular vein" (50:16).

  "Allah." She sighed. "You are closer to me than my jugular vein. Help me out of this dilemma. Either grant me the bliss of the ignorant or give me the strength to bear the knowledge. Whichever you choose shall make me grateful, but please don't make me powerless and knowledgeable at the same time."

  On that prayer Auntie Banu slipped out of bed, put on, her nightgown, and with soft, swift steps tiptoed to the bathroom to get ready for her morning prayer. She checked the clock on the buffet inside, seven forty-five. Had she been in bed so long, arguing with Mr. Bitter, arguing with her conscience? Hurriedly she washed her face, hands, and feet, walked back to her room wearing her gauzy prayer head scarf, spread her little rug, and stood to pray.

  If Auntie Banu had been late to set the breakfast table this morning, Armanoush would be one of the last to realize it. Having remained online till late, she had overslept, and would have liked to have slept in more. She tossed, turned, pulled the blanket up and down over her chest, doing her best to sink back into sleep. She opened one droopy eye and saw Asya at her desk reading a book and listening to music with her headphones on.

  "What are you listening to?" Armanoush asked loudly.

  "Huh?" Asya shouted, "Johnny Cash!"

  "Oh, sure! What are you reading?"

  "Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy, " the same loud, steady voice replied.

  "Isn't that a bit irrational too? How can you listen to music and concentrate on existential philosophy at the same time?"

  "They square perfectly," Asya remarked. "Johnny Cash and existential philosophy, they both probe the human soul to see what's inside, and unhappy with their findings, they both leave it open!"

  Before Armanoush could ruminate on that, someone knocked on the door calling both girls to catch the last train to breakfast.

  They found the table set just for the two of them, everyone else having already finished their breakfast. Grandma and Petite-Ma had gone to visit a relative, Auntie Cevriye to school, Auntie Zeliha to the tattoo parlor, and Auntie Feride was in the bathroom dyeing her hair ginger. And the only auntie in the living room now looked strangely grumpy.

  "What's the problem, have your djinn dumped you?" Asya asked.

  Instead of answering, Auntie Banu headed to the kitchen.. In the following two hours, she reorganized the cereal jars lined on the shelves, mopped the floors, baked raisin-walnut cookies, washed the plastic fruits on the counter, and painstakingly sponged an ossified mustard stain at the corner of the stove. When she finally came back to the living room, she found the two girls still at the breakfast table, scoffing at every single scene in The Malediction of f the Ivy of Infatuation-the longest-running soap opera in Turkish TV history. But instead of feeling resentful for seeing them mock something she valued, Auntie Banu was only surprised-surprised to realize that she had completely forgotten about it, missing her favorite program for the first time in years. The only other time she had missed it was years ago during her period of penitence. Even then, may Allah forgive her, she had thought about The Malediction of the Ivy of Infatuation, wondering what was happening in the show while she repented. But now that there was no reason to miss it, how could she? Was her mind so preoccupied? Wouldn't she know if she were so confused?

  Suddenly, Auntie Banu noticed the two girls eyeing her from their chairs, and felt uncomfortable, perhaps because she also realized that with the soap opera now over, they could be rummaging around for some new targets of ridicule.

  But Asya seemed to have something else in mind. "Armanoush was wondering if you could read the tarot cards for her?"

  "Why would she want that?" Auntie Banu said quietly. "Tell her she is a beautiful, intelligent young woman with a bright future. Only those who don't have a future need to learn about their future."

  "Then read some roasted hazelnuts for her," Asya insisted, skipping the translation.

  "I don't do that anymore," said Auntie Banu, contritely. "It didn't prove such a good method after all."

  "You see, my aunt is a positivistic psychic. She scientifically measures the margin of error in each divination," Asya said to Armanoush in English but then switched back to a serious tone in Turkish. "Well then, read our coffee cups."

  "Now that's another thing," Auntie Banu agreed, incapable of saying no to coffee cups. "Those I can read anytime."

  Coffees were made, Armanoush's with no sugar and Asya's with plenty, although the latter did not want to have her cup read. It was caffeine that she was after, not her fate. When Armanoush finished her coffee, the saucer was placed on top of the coffee cup, held tight, and moved around in three horizontal circles; the coffee cup was then turned upside down over the saucer, letting the coffee grinds slowly descend to form patterns. When the bottom of the cup had cooled off, it was flipped over and Auntie Banu started to read the patterns left in the coffee cup, moving her gaze clockwise.

  "I can see a very worried woman here."

  "It must be my mother." Armanoush sighed.

  "She is deeply worried. She thinks about you all the time, loves you very much, but her soul is stressed. Then- there is a city with red bridges. There is water, sea, wind, and… mist. There I see a family, many heads-look at this, lots of people, lots of love and caring, lots of food too…."

  Armanoush nodded, a little embarrassed at being found out like this.

  "Then.." Auntie Banu said, skipping the bad news settled at the bottom of the cup flowers soon to be scattered on a grave, far far away. She rotated the coffee cup between her plump fingers. Her next words came out louder than she intended, startling them all. "Oh, there is a young man who cares deeply for you. But why is he behind a veil?… Something like a veil."

  Armanoush's heart skipped a beat.

  "Can that be a computer screen?" Asya asked mischievously as Sultan the Fifth hopped onto her lap.

  "I don't see computers in my coffee grounds," Auntie Banu objected. She didn't like to incorporate technology in her psychic universe.

  Auntie Banu solemnly paused, turned the cup an inch, and then paused again. Her face looked troubled now. "I see a girl your age. She has curly hair, black, pure black… an ample bosom…."

  "Thanks, auntie, I got the message." Asya chuckled. "But you don't have to place your relatives in every cup you read, that's called nepotism."

  Auntie Banu blinked, completely deadpan.

  "There is a rope here, a thick, s
trong rope with a noose at one end, like a lasso. You two girls are going to be attached to each other with a strong bond…. I see a spiritual bond…."

  To the girls' disappointment Auntie Banu said nothing further. She stopped reading, put the coffee cup on the saucer, and filled it with cold water so that the patterns jumbled and vanished before anyone else, good or bad, had a chance to peek inside. That was the one good thing about coffee-cup reading: Unlike the fate written by Allah, that written by coffee could always be washed away.

  On the way to Cafe Kundera, they took the ferry so that Armanoush could see the city in all its vastness and splendor. Like the ferry itself, its passengers too had an air of lassitude, which was quickly swept away by the sudden wind when the huge vessel veered into the azure sea. The hum of the crowd inside amplified for a full minute, and then it dwindled to a monotonous drone to accompany other sounds: the clatter of the outboard motor, the splash of the waves, the shrieks of the seagulls. Armanoush noticed with delight that the lazy seagulls on the shore were coming with them. Almost everyone on the ferry was feeding them with morsels of simit-sesame-seed ring breads being a treat these carnivorous birds found irresistible.

  A classically dressed, portly woman and her teenage son sat on the bench across from them, side by side but worlds apart. From her face Armanoush could tell the woman was no big fan of public transportation, despising the masses, and if possible would have thrown all of the poorly dressed passengers into the sea. Hidden behind thick-rimmed glasses, the son looked half embarrassed by his mother's standoffish ways. They are like Flannery O'Connor characters, Armanoush thought to herself

  "Tell me more about this Baron," Asya said out of the blue. "What does he look like? How old is he?"

  Armanoush blushed. Within the vivid light of the winter sun glowing from among thick clouds, her face was that of an enamored young woman. "I don't know. I've never met him in person. We're cyber friends, you see. I admire his intellect and passion, I guess.

  "Don't you want to meet him someday?"

  "Yes and no," Armanoush confessed after purchasing a simit from the small but crowded buffet inside. She ripped a piece off and with the morsel in her hand leaned against the rail surrounding the deck, waiting for a seagull to approach.

  "You don't have to wait for them to appear." Asya smiled. "Just toss a piece up in the air and a seagull will catch it instantly."

  Armanoush did as told. A seagull materialized from the empty sky and bolted the treat down.

  "I am dying to learn more about him, and yet deep down, I don't want to meet him ever. When you date someone the magic perishes. I couldn't bear for that to happen with him. He's too important to me. Dating and sex are just another story, so knotty…."

  Now they were entering that murky zone guarded by the three untouchables. A good sign indeed, indicating that they were drawing closer to each other.

  "Magic!" Asya said. "Who needs magic? The tales of Layla and Majnun, Yusuf and Zulaykha, the Moth and the Candle, or the Nightingale and the Rose…. Ways of loving from a distance, mating without even touching-Amor platonicus! The ladder of love one is expected to climb higher and higher, elating the Self and the Other. Plato clearly regards any actual physical contact as corrupt and ignoble because he thinks the true goal of Eros is beauty. Is there no beauty in sex? Not according to Plato. He is after `more sublime pursuits.' But if you ask me, I think Plato's problem, like those of many others, was that he never got splendidly laid."

  Armanoush looked at her friend, amazed. "I thought you liked philosophy.. " she stammered without quite knowing why she'd said it.

  "I admire philosophy," Asya conceded. "But that doesn't necessarily mean I agree with the philosophers."

  "So should I assume you are not a big fan 'of Amor platonicus?!"

  Now that was a piece of information Asya preferred to keep to herself, not because the question itself was unanswerable, but because she was afraid of the implications of her answer. Armanoush being so polite and proper, Asya did not want to intimidate her. How on earth could she now tell Armanoush that, though only nineteen, she had known many men's hands and did not feel a speck of guilt for it? Besides, how could she ever reveal the truth without giving the wrong impression to an outsider about "the chastity of Turkish girls"?

  This kind of "national responsibility" was utterly foreign to Asya Kazanci. Never before had she felt part of a collectivity and she had no intention of being so now or in the future. Yet here she was accomplishing a pretty good impersonation of someone else, someone who had gotten patriotic overnight. How could she now step outside her national identity and be her pure, sinning self? Could she tell Armanoush that deep in her heart she believed only when you had sex with a man, could you really be sure that he was the right person for you; that only in bed did people's most imperceptible, innate complexes surface; and that no matter what people assumed all the time, sex was in fact far more sensual than physical. How could she reveal she had had numerous relations in the past, way too many, as if to take revenge on men, but the revenge of what, she still couldn't tell. She had had many boyfriends, sometimes simultaneously, polygamous affairs that had always ended in heartbreak, accumulating a heap of secrets she had neatly kept away from the frontiers of the Kazanci domicile. Could she divulge these? Would Armanoush understand without being judgmental; could she really, truly see into Asya's soul from the echelons of that sterile tower of hers?

  Could Asya confess to her that once she had tried to commit suicide, a nasty experience from which she had derived two basic lessons: that swallowing your lunatic aunt's pills was. not the right way to go about doing this and that if you wanted to kill yourself you'd better have a rationale ready in hand in case you survived, since "WHY?" would be the one question you would hear from all sides. Could she further confess that to this day she hadn't been able to fathom the answer to that question, other than recalling being too young too foolish too furious too intense for the universe in which she lived? Would any of this make sense to Armanoush?

  Could she then disclose that recently she had made some progress toward stability and tranquillity, since she now had a monogamous relationship, except that it was with a married man twice her age whom she met every now and then to share sex, a joint, and refuge from loneliness? How could she tell Armanoush that, if truth be told, she was a bit of a disaster?

  Thus, instead of replying, Asya pulled a Walkman out of her knapsack and asked permission to listen to a song, just one song. A dose of Cash was what she needed right now. She offered one of the headphones to Armanoush. Armanoush accepted the headphone warily and asked: "Which Johnny Cash song are we going to listen to?"

  11 'Dirty Old Egg-Suckin' Dog!"'

  "Is that the name of the song? I don't know that one." "Yup," Asya said gravely. "Here it comes. Listen.."

  And the song started, first a listless prelude, then country melo

  dies fusing with seagull shrieks and Turkish vocalizations in the

  background.

  As she listened, Armanoush was too stunned by the dissonance between the lyrics and the surrounding setting to enjoy the song. It dawned on her that this song was just like Asya-full of contradictions and temper, utterly disharmonious with her surroundings; sensitive, reactive, and ready to explode at any time. As she leaned back, the murmur in the background dwindled into a tedious humming, pieces of simit disappeared in the air, a touch of enchantment wafted with the breeze, the ferry glided smoothly, and the ghosts of all the fish that had once lived in these waters swam with them in a sea of dense, viscous azure.

  When the song was over they had already reached the shore. Some of the passengers jumped off before the ferry reached the dock. Armanoush watched this acrobatic performance with amazement, admiring the many talents the Istanbulites had acquired to cope with the pace of the city.

  Fifteen minutes later the shaky, wooden door of Cafe Kundera opened with a strident tinkle and in walked Asya Kazancl, wearing a mauve hippie dress, with he
r guest, in a pair of jeans and a plain sweater. Asya found the usual group sitting in its usual place with its usual attitude.

  "Hello, everyone!" Asya chirped. "This is Amy, a friend from America."

  "Hello, Amy!" they greeted in unison. "Welcome to Istanbul!"

  "Is this your first time here?" someone asked. And then the others started to inquire: "Do you like the city? Do you like the food? How long will you stay? Are you planning to come back?…"

  Though they welcomed her warmly, they were also quick to go back to their standard posture of unremitting languor, since nothing could upset the sluggish rhythm that prevailed in Cafe Kundera. Those in need of speed and variation could simply go out, for there was plenty of that on the streets. Here it was about mandatory indolence and eternal recurrence. This place was about fixations, repetitions, and obsessions; it was for those who didn't want to have anything to do with the bigger picture, if there indeed was such a thing.