The Bastard of Istanbul

by Elif Shafak

  Armanoush and Asya couldn't help but smile.

  "You must hold the most revered profession in this city," Asya proclaimed to the driver, who had been watching the whole scene with them. "Your shadow can terrify even the most hot-blooded rabid fan."

  "No," the driver said. "It pays so little, you have no coverage, no health insurance, no right to go on strike, no nothing. I used to drive large lorries in the past, long-distance transportation, you know. Coal, petroleum, butane gas, industrial water… you name it. I transported them all."

  "Was that better than this?"

  "Are you kidding? Of course it was better! You load the cargo in Istanbul and head to another city. No boss to butter up, no supervisor to bootlick! You are your own master. If you feel like it, you can linger on the road provided the boss does not ask you to deliver the cargo too fast. In that case, you gotta drive with no sleep. Other than that, it was a clean job. Clean and dignified. You didn't have to bow to anyone."

  The traffic began to accelerate and the driver shifted gears. Before long the soccer fleet veered right toward the stadium.

  "Then why did you quit that job?" Asya wanted to know.

  "I fell asleep at the wheel. One moment I am speeding down the road. The next moment there is a terrible blast, like it is judgment Day and Allah is summoning us all. When I open my eyes, I find myself inside the kitchen of this shanty house by the road."

  "What is he saying?" Armanoush whispered.

  "Believe me, you wouldn't want to know," Asya whispered back.

  "Well, ask him how many dead he carries in his hearse per day?"

  When the question was translated, the driver shook his head:

  "It depends on the season. Spring is the worst time of all; not many people die in spring. But then comes the summer, the busiest season. If it is above eighty degrees, it gets pretty hectic for us, especially the old…. They die like flies…. In the summer Istanbulites die in droves!"

  He paused broodingly, leaving Asya with the semantic burden of the very last sentence he had constructed. Then he glanced at a pedestrian in a tuxedo shouting orders into his cell phone and exclaimed:

  "All these rich people! Huh! They stockpile money all through their life, what for? How foolish! Do shrouds have pockets? It's a cotton shroud that we are all going to wear in the end. That's it. No chic clothes. No jewelry. Can you wear a tuxedo to the grave or a ball gown? Who holds the skies for these people?"

  Asya had no answer to offer, so she didn't attempt one.

  "If nobody's holding it how could we possibly live under this sky? I see no celestial columns, do you? How can one play soccer in these stadiums if Allah says `I am not holding the sky up anymore'? "

  With that question still hovering in the air, they turned the corner and finally reached the Kazanci domicile.

  Auntie Zeliha was waiting for them in front of the house. She exchanged a few words with the driver and tipped him.

  The Volkswagen, the silver metallic Alfa Romeo, and the Toyota Corolla were lined up in front of the house. It looked like everyone had arrived before them. The house was full of guests, all waiting for the coffin to be unloaded.

  Upon entering the house Asya and Armanoush encountered a jampacked, all-female space. Though the majority of the guests were clustered in the living room on the first floor, some were momentarily dispersed to the other rooms, either to change a baby's diapers or to scold a child, to gossip a bit or to pray, now that it was time for the afternoon prayer. With no bedroom to retreat into, the girls headed to the kitchen, only to find all the aunts there whispering about the tragedy that had befallen them, as prepared trays of ashure to be served.

  "Poor Mama is devastated. Who would have thought all the ashure she had cooked for Mustafa would be served to his mourners?" Auntie Cevriye said, standing near the stove.

  "Yeah, the American bride is devastated too," Auntie Feride remarked, without lifting her gaze from a mysterious stain on the floor. "Poor thing. She comes to Istanbul for the first time in her life and loses her husband. How creepy."

  Sitting at the table, listening to her sisters while smoking a cigarette, Auntie Zeliha said softly, "Well, I suppose she will go back to America now and remarry there. You know Allah's share is three. If she married for a second time, she has to marry for a third time. But I wonder, after one Armenian and one Turkish husband, what will her third choice be?"

  "The woman is mourning, how can you say such things?" asked Auntie Cevriye.

  "Mourning is like virginity." Auntie Zeliha heaved a sigh. "You should give it to the one who deserves it most."

  Aghast at what they had just heard, the two aunts flinched in stupefied amazement. It was in that instant Asya and Armanoush entered the room, followed by Sultan the Fifth, meowing in hunger.

  "Come on, sisters, let's give the cat something to eat before he devours all the ashure," Auntie Zeliha said.

  Just then Auntie Banu, who had for the last twenty minutes or so been working at the counter, brewing tea, slicing lemons, and listening to the ongoing debate without ever interjecting, turned toward her youngest sister and decreed: "We've got more urgent things to do."

  Auntie Banu opened a drawer, pulled out a huge, shiny knife, grabbed an onion lying on the counter, and cut it in half. She then cupped one half of the onion and pushed it toward Auntie Zeliha's nose.

  "What are you doing?" Auntie Zeliha jumped in her chair.

  "I am helping you to cry, my dear." Auntie Banu shook her head. "You wouldn't want the guests inside to see you like this, would you? As much of a free spirit as you might be, even you need to shed a tear or two in the house of the dead."

  With the onion under her nose, Auntie Zeliha closed her eyes, looking like an avant-garde statue that had no chance of being exhibited in a mainstream museum: The Woman Who Couldn't Cry and the Onion.

  Auntie Zeliha opened her jade green eyes and sniffed a tear. The onion had worked.

  "Good!" Auntie Banu nodded. "Come on, everyone, we need to go into the living room. The guests must be wondering where their hosts are, leaving their dead alone!"

  So said the sister who once used to play "mom" to Auntie Zeliha, singing her half-made-up lullabies, feeding her cookies on cardboard boxes turned into imaginary tables, narrating stories that always ended with the pretty girl getting married to the prince, cuddling and tickling her, the sister who made her laugh like no one else.

  "All right!" Auntie Zeliha agreed. "Let's go, then."

  So they ambled into the living room, the four aunts in the front, Armanoush and Asya following behind. In harmonized steps, they entered the room full of guests, the room where the body was.

  Sitting in the corner on a floor cushion, her light blond hair covered with a scarf, her eyes puffy from crying, her plump body squeezed in among strangers, was Rose. She instantly gestured to Armanoush, calling her to her side.

  "Amy, where were you?" Rose asked, but before waiting for the answer, she hurled other questions at her: "I have no idea what's going on here. Could you find out what they're going to do with his body? When are they planning to bury him?"

  Having barely any answers herself, Armanoush inched closer toward her mother and held her hand. "Mom, I'm sure they know what they're doing.""But I'm his wife," Rose faltered over the last word, as if she were starting to doubt that.

  They had laid him on the divan. His hands were placed with the two thumbs tied together on his chest, where a heavy blade of steel lay so that the corpse would not swell up. Two large coins of darkened silver were placed on his eyelids so that they wouldn't flip open. On his mouth they'd poured a few spoonfuls of water from Holy Mecca. Beside his head, in a copper plate, bits of sandalwood incense were burned. Though no windows were open, not even slightly ajar, the smoke in the room revived every few minutes as if fanned by an undetectable breeze sneaking in from somewhere behind the walls. When it perked up like that the smoke zigzagged around the divan, dissolving finally into a grayish whiff. But now and then
the smoke followed a distinct route, descending closer and closer to the corpse in circles within circles, like a marauder bird going after its prey down on earth. The smell of sandalwood, as sour and sharp as it was, became so intense that everyone's eyes watered. Most didn't mind; they were crying anyway.

  There was a crippled imam squeezed into a corner. In utter absorption he swayed the upper part of his body as he read the Qur'an aloud. There was a rhythm to his recitation, a beat that went up and up and then suddenly came to a halt. Armanoush tried not to pay any attention to the stark disparity between the imam's diminutive body and the stoutness of the women surrounding him. She tried equally hard not to eye the void where the man's fingers were supposed to be. On each hand the imam had only one and a half fingers. It was impossible not to wonder what had happened. Was he born like that, or had they been chopped off? Whatever the story, the incompleteness of his body was one reason why all these women were so at ease next to him. In his, imperfection resided the key to his perfection, in his lack of wholeness the secret of his holiness. He was a soul of thresholds, and like all souls of thresholds, had something eerie about him. He was both a man and yet so holy you could not possibly regard him as one. He was a holy man and yet so crippled you could not possibly disregard how mortal he was. No matter what, the crippled imam was in no need of fingers to turn the pages of the Holy Qur'an in his mind. He had it all stored in his memory, every verse of it.

  At the end of the specified verses, the imam halted for a split second or two, swallowing the taste left behind in his mouth from all those sacrosanct words. Then he started reciting again. It was precisely this undulating rhythm that touched the female mourners' hearts; none of them understood a word of Arabic. Even when they broke down and sobbed, the women were always careful not to cry loud enough to overpower the imam's voice. Never did they weep too softly either, by no means forgetting, not even for a moment, that this place they were all jammed in was an oliievi.

  Next to the imam, in the second most respected place, sat PetiteMa, her diminutive body looking like a dry prune left in the sun, shrunk and wrinkled. Every newcomer kissed her hand and expressed their condolences, but it was hard to know if she really heard them. For the most part, to every one who kissed her hand, Petite-Ma eyed them in return. But now and again, to this guest or that, she responded with a set of questions. "Who are you, my dear?" she inquired of relatives or lifelong friends. "Where have you been all this time?" "Don't go anywhere, you naughty girl!" she scolded complete strangers. And then, in between her remarkable silences and silencing remarks, her face retreated into complete blankness and she blinked in furtive panic. At those moments she failed to grasp why all these people were here in their living room and why they cried so much.

  The divan was still; the women were in constant motion. The divan was white; the women wore mostly black. The divan was soundless; the women were all voice-as if doing the exact opposite of the dead was a requisite of living. In a little while, each and every woman jumped to her feet and bowed her head obediently. Their faces alert with grief and reverence but also nosiness, they watched the crippled imam leave the room. As she walked him outside, Auntie Banu kissed his hands and thanked him many times, after which she tipped him.

  As soon as the imam left, a piercing shriek ripped the air apart. It was emitted by a chubby woman nobody had ever seen before. Her cry escalated in piercing decibels, and in next to no time her face was crimson, her voice grating, and her whole body shaking. So miserable was her state and so palpable her pain that the others watched her in awe. The woman was a performer, paid beforehand to come and cry at the house of the dead, wailing for people she'd not even seen once. Her wail was so touching that the other women couldn't help but break down.

  Thus finding herself surrounded by a swarm of mourning strangers (even her mother looked like a stranger at this point), Armanoush Tchakhmakhchian watched the swirl of women shift and part. In complete harmony and unfaltering shifts, guests exchanged seats with newcomers. Like birds of a feather they perched on the armchairs, the couch, and the floor cushions, so close that their shoulders touched. They wordlessly greeted and stridently cried; all these women who could be so quiet on their own yet so loud when they grieved collectively. By now Armanoush had detected some of the rules of the rite of mourning: There was no more cooking in the house, for instance. Instead, every guest came with a tray of food; the kitchen was jammed with casseroles and saucepans. There was no salt, no meat, no liquor in sight, and no appetizing smells of baked goods. Just like smells, sounds too were controlled. Music was not allowed; no TV, no radio. Thinking of Johnny Cash, Armanoush looked around for Asya.

  She spotted her sitting on the couch with a bunch of neighbors, her head held high, distractedly tugging at a curl while looking at the dead body. Just when she was going to make a move toward her, Armanoush saw Auntie Zeliha sit next to her daughter, and with an unreadable expression say something into her ear.

  So there was the dead body, lying on the divan.

  And among a group of ceaselessly wailing and weeping women, Asya was sitting quietly, the color draining from her face.

  "I don't believe you," Asya said without looking directly at her mother.

  "You don't have to," Auntie Zeliha muttered. "But I finally realized, I owed you an explanation. And if I don't make it now, there will be no other time. He's dead."

  Asya slowly rose to her feet and looked at the body. She looked hard and intently so as not to forget that this body washed with green daphne soap and wrapped in a three-piece cotton shroud, this body now lying motionless under a blade of steel and two coins of darkened silver, this body given holy water from Mecca and scented with sandalwood incense, was her father.

  Her uncle… her father… her uncle… her father….

  She lifted her gaze and combed the room until she saw Auntie Zeliha, now sitting at the back with an unresponsiveness that even freshly cut onions could not touch. As Asya gaped at her mother, it dawned on her why she hadn't objected to her daughter calling her "auntie."

  Her aunt… her mother… her aunt… her mother….

  Asya took a step toward her dead father. One step and then another, closer. The smoke intensified in tandem. Somewhere in the room Rose wailed in pain. So did all the women in an endless chain. All were interconnected in a sequence of reaction and rhythm, each and every story woven into those of others, whether their owners recognized it or not. There was a lull in every wailor perhaps, in every communal grief there was someone who could not mourn with others.

  "Baba.." Asya murmured.In the beginning there was the word, says Islam, preceding any and every existence. Be that as it may, with her father it was just the opposite. In the beginning was the absence of the word, preceding existence.

  Once there was; once there wasn't.

  A long, long time ago, in a land not so far away, when the sieve was inside the straw, the donkey was the town crier, and the camel was the barber… when I was older than my father so that I rocked his cradle upon hearing his cry… when the world was upside down and time was a cycle that turned around and around so that the future was older than the past and the past was as pristine as newly sowed fields…

  Once there was; once there wasn't. God's creatures were as plentiful as grains and talking too much was a sin, for you could tell what you shouldn't remember and you could remember what you shouldn't tell.

  Potassium cyanide is a colorless compound, the salt of potassium and hydrogen cyanide. It looks like sugar and is highly soluble in water. Unlike some other toxic compounds it has a noticeable smell.

  It smells like almonds. Bitter almonds.

  Should a bowl of ashure be decorated with pomegranate seeds and drops of potassium cyanide, it would be hard to detect the presence of the latter for almonds are among the many ingredients.

  "What have you done, master?" Mr. Bitter croaked as he broke into a sulky grin, as was expected of him. "You intervened in the way of the world!"


  Auntie Banu tightened her lips. "I did," she said, tears running down her cheeks. "True, I gave him the ashure, but he is the one who chose to eat it. We both decided it was better this way, far more dignified than to survive with the burden of the past. It was better than not to do anything with this knowledge. Allah will never forgive me. I am ostracized forever from the world of the virtuous. I will never go to heaven. I will be thrown directly into the flames of hell. But Allah knows there is little regret in my heart."

  "Perhaps purgatory will be your abode forever." Mrs. Sweet tried to offer some solace, feeling helpless as she witnessed the master cry. "How about the Armenian girl? Are you going to tell her about her grandmother's secret?"

  "I can't. It is too much. Besides, she wouldn't believe me."

  "Life is coincidence, master." It was Mr. Bitter again.

  "I cannot tell her the story. But I will give her this." Auntie Banu opened a drawer and took out a golden pomegranate brooch with seeds of rubies buried inside.

  Grandma Shushan, once the owner of this brooch, was one of those expatriate souls destined to adopt one name after another, only to abandon each at every new stage of her life. Born as Shushan Stamboulian, she then became Shermin 626. Next she was Shermin Kazanci, and after that, Shushan Tchakhmakhchian. With every name acquired something was also lost in her forever.

  Riza Selim Kazanci was a shrewd businessman, a dedicated citizen, and also a good husband in his own way. He had been astute enough to switch from cauldron making to flag making at the beginning of the Republican era, right at a time when the nation needed more and more flags to adorn the entire motherland. That is how he became one of the wealthiest businessmen in Istanbul. His visit to the orphanage took place sometime around then, as he intended to see the headmaster for potential business arrangements. There in the dimly lit corridor, he saw a converted Armenian girl, only fourteen. It wouldn't take him long to find out she was the niece of the man he most adored in this world: master Levon-the man who had taught him the art of cauldron making and who had taken care of the needy boy that he once was. Now it was his turn to help master Levon's family, he thought. And yet, when after numerous visits he would finally propose to her,' it wasn't kindness that guided him but love.