Dear Shameless Death

by Latife Tekin

  When Atiye had despaired of Huvat, she began to hover about Halit and Seyit, waiting for whatever handouts they had to offer. Seyit said, ‘I’m red-blooded, aren’t I, girl? I won’t let you starve,’ and set off on his way before the morning call to prayer. Halit, however, kept shirking work and returning home. Unfazed by Atiye’s shouts or insinuations, he planted himself in front of the mirror, either boasting, ‘Just look at my beautiful eyes,’ or lamenting, ‘I should’ve been an engineer.’ At such times Atiye lifted up her hands and begged Allah to pound some sense into her son’s head. Meanwhile Zekiye fluttered about Halit, swaying her hips, making eyes, opening and pursing her lips, but he no longer even glanced at her. He departed, leaving her standing in the doorway with her hand pressed over her heart to wander ashen-faced through the house and peer out often to see if he was on his way back. When Halit did return, he gazed at himself in the mirror, trying out various poses, twisting his moustache or winking an eye. He forgot he had a wife and wouldn’t even touch her hand for days on end.

  To try and warm up the relationship between her son and her daughter-in-law, Atiye stripped the scarf from Zekiye’s head, plucked out half of her eyebrows, applied mascara to her eyes and painted red polish on her fingernails. She also got her to take off her socks and wear nylon stockings instead, as she prepared her for Halit’s bed. At night she put her ear to their door, and in the mornings she questioned Zekiye, who blushed like a beet as she looked down at the floor and frowned. Atiye persisted, devising a thousand and one ways to change Zekiye’s looks. She took her to get a haircut and prevailed upon her to wear nylon nighties and pinafore skirts. She kept Zekiye hidden away from Huvat when he came home and then brought her out for Halit. She also started to practise witchcraft. After blowing prayers on forty peppercorns, she roasted them on a brazier and shut Halit up in the room with them as they smoked. Bolting the doors on him, she forced him to eat a donkey’s tongue that she herself had salted and boiled. At last Halit came dashing home one day in a feverish fit of passion. Signalling Zekiye to bed down with Halit, Atiye thus won back her daughter-in-law’s conjugal rights from her son. Zekiye was soon with child.

  When Zekiye became pregnant, Atiye heaved a great sigh of relief. But now Halit wouldn’t budge from the house. He sat with his back resting on Zekiye, put his ear to her belly, singing türküs, and didn’t bother about going to work. Atiye was so elated at having turned her son’s attention to Zekiye that she didn’t grumble upon seeing Halit sing and wander about the house with his hands on his wife’s belly. But the Almighty found a way to deprive Atiye of her pleasure and replace it with worries over having made her son eat donkey’s tongue. Nuǧber, who continued to embroider for her dowry all day long by the window, fell in love with the neighbour’s son across the street. She now leant her head against the window-pane and sobbed.

  Nothing Atiye did could distract her daughter from the window. So, forgetting her daughter-in-law, she now began to fret over Nuǧber. If Nuǧber gazed out of one window, Atiye ran to look out of the other. All night long she whispered in her daughter’s ear, listened to her and sought out the young fellow. Putting herself in charge, she began taking Nuǧber for walks in the park. Nuǧber laid aside her needle and embroidery and, casting off her headscarf, settled herself before the mirror to cut her hair into bangs that fell down over her eyes.

  When Atiye heard Huvat coughing his way up the stairs with his green books clasped under his arm, she desperately sought to keep her daughter out of his sight. However, while attempting to escape from Huvat, she was found out by Seyit, who spotted them in the park and hustled them home. ‘I’m red-blooded, aren’t I, girl?’ he said. ‘What’s got into her?’ Then he flung Nuǧber at his feet and tore at her hair. Two days later he guessed who the culprit was and accosted the neighbour’s son on the street. Everyone rushed to their windows. When Halit heard his brother fighting, he lifted his head from Zekiye’s belly and raced angrily to Seyit’s aid. The young fellow’s parents fainted dead away in the middle of the street. Nuǧber fled to the bathroom and locked herself in, but the lock couldn’t protect her for long. Atiye, Huvat and her brothers were soundly thrashing her when the police showed up in the middle of the beating and escorted them all to the station. All the former inhabitants of Akçalı, who saw Huvat following the police with his green books held under his arm, left the coffee-houses and fell in at his heels, some grasping Halit’s arm, others Seyit’s. On the other side of the street walked the young fellow and his parents, as the two parties traded oaths and flung insults at each other.

  When Huvat arrived home that night, he counted from three to nine and divorced Atiye. Next he called Dirmit, Mahmut and Seyit to his side, then disowned Nuǧber and Halit. That done, he went off to throw himself into the sea. In tears, Seyit rushed out after his father. Catching up with him, he stood before Huvat, blocking his way. Flinging Seyit aside by the arm, Huvat strode over and planted himself on the pier. ‘If you throw yourself in, so will I,’ Seyit declared as he sidled up to his father. Then he started to plead with him, all the while keeping his gaze fixed on the dark waters. Huvat became as hesitant as a fresh bride.

  While they were arguing ‘Yes, I will!’ ‘No, you won’t!’ those back home gathered around Nuǧber, now marked out as the cause of Huvat’s wish for death, and bestowed on her another beating. As a result, Nuǧber shut herself in the bathroom and ate some washing soda. A moment later she emerged, only to drop with a thud in the middle of the room. Huvat, having just come in followed by Seyit, fell to his knees at her side, lamenting, while Seyit huddled over her and moaned, ‘Sister! Sister!’ Weeping, he picked her up in his arms and carried her off to the doctor. Huvat collapsed face down on the divan and Atiye screamed, triggering another uproar out in the street.

  After she recovered, Nuǧber settled down on the divan behind the door to resume her needlework and never lift her head in the direction of the window again. But no matter what she did, or whatever else she tried to think about, she couldn’t expel the neighbour’s son from her mind. She could forget nothing. On the other hand, Huvat, forgetting all about the oaths he had sworn, took Atiye to the hodja and remarried her.

  After the ceremony Atiye was struck with fresh bride’s disease. Holding her head, she took to her bed. A certain pallor settled on her face, and her hands and feet shrivelled and curled up. Sitting beside her, Huvat spread the green books out on his knees and recited prayers for her hands and her feet individually. But Atiye’s illness progressed daily. Azrael, the Angel of Death, arrived to feel her heartbeat and pulse and talked with her for a long time. As soon as Azrael had left, Atiye beckoned her children, her husband and her daughter-in-law to come over to her bedside and announced that in two more days she would be dead. Then she signalled Dirmit to her side, made her write down every one of her last wishes and had her read them aloud three times over. She specified that three drops of holy zemzem water should be administered to her just before she passed away and that the same kind of irises as those on Nuǧber Dudu’s grave should be planted on her own – one for the head of each of her children. Two poplars should bend down over her grave, and at least three of her seven siblings, whom she hadn’t seen for years, should also be tracked down. Aside from these written wishes, she made some oral ones too. The first was that Huvat should shave the beard from the tip of his chin. The rest, in order of pronouncement, were that, after she died, Nuǧber should sit at the window every day, Zekiye’s baby, if it were a girl, should be given Atiye’s name, Dirmit and Mahmut should be taken out of mosque school and that Halit should find himself a job. When she finished announcing her wishes, Atiye fixed her wide-open eyes on the ceiling and began groaning and breathing in fits and starts. Then, suddenly, she sprang upright and grabbed Nuǧber by the collar. Pointing her finger first at Dirmit and then at Mahmut, she handed her young children over to their elder sister’s care, in effect appointing Nuǧber as their mother. After stating a number of other wishes, she finally fell asleep.r />
  While she slept Huvat went to shave off his beard, and Nuǧber, who was sitting by the window, started to cry. The rest looked in silence upon Atiye’s pale face and waited for the moment of their mother’s death. Then Atiye awoke smiling to announce the good news that she would be going to heaven and to warn them firmly not to grieve over her. Next she asked Nuǧber to cook some bulgur balls with yoghurt so she could taste them for the last time. She also asked for two cucumbers, two hot green peppers and some strawberries. Once they had fed her everything she had requested, they waited by her bedside until morning. That night Atiye sailed off on angels’ wings on a tour of the seven layers of heaven. In the morning she woke up with a smile and declared to her children that Azrael had spared her life. She had been granted a reprieve for three measures of time because she had sewn shirts and drawstring trousers for Akçalı’s orphans. She also announced, however, that if they did not comply with her wishes she would have to surrender her spirit immediately. Raising herself very slowly, she picked up her prayer beads and sat back against the wall, the quilt drawn up over her knees.

  After Atiye had recovered, Huvat regretted a thousand times that he had shaved off his beard. He had grown it after a special beard prayer, coupled with an oath that he would never remove it, so he blamed Atiye every single day for having induced him to shave it off and thereby commit a sin. He consulted a number of hodjas to see if growing another beard would absolve him. The deeper he investigated, however, the more frightened he became and the more he scowled at Atiye. Then one evening he came home early and sat beside her, pleading with her to cleanse him of his sin. She was to denounce him to their children thrice daily and utter curses against him behind his back. Reluctant to take on her husband’s sin, Atiye turned down his request. Moreover, she accused her husband of trying to shift his sins onto her because he was envious of her going to heaven. Incensed by these accusations, Huvat began to threaten Atiye, saying that he wouldn’t be complying with her last wishes, which meant that she would have to offer up her spirit to Azrael. Atiye had no other choice but to accept. Every day, as soon as he left, she grumbled maliciously and threw curses at him.

  That summer Dirmit rediscovered the sprawling birdie-bird plant that flourished beneath the horse chestnut tree in the park. She ran bounding over the rails and flying past the swings to sit beside it.

  ‘Birdie-bird plant, has the dark spotty boy been by here?’

  ‘No, he hasn’t.’

  ‘If he happens to come by, will you tell him I love him?’

  ‘Yes, I will.’

  ‘Oh no, don’t!’

  The birdie-bird plant told the dark spotty boy that Dirmit had fallen in love with him, and the dark boy conveyed a message through the birdie-bird plant that he would wait for Dirmit in front of the fountain in the park. Clasping her heart, Dirmit went over to the fountain and waited for him until dark. When the boy didn’t come, Dirmit was so angry that she went off and scolded the birdie-bird plant and couldn’t sleep at all that night. Slipping out early the next morning, she sat by the doorstep and waited for the dark spotty boy to come by. One by one the children came out on the street and started playing their games near the walls and doorsteps. Then the dark spotty boy arrived and sat down right in front of Dirmit. Laughing, he gathered the children around him, counted them up into two groups and, looking Dirmit straight in the eye, declared that he was ‘It’. But he didn’t invite her to join in the game. Dirmit jumped up angrily, grabbed a large stone and slashed the boy’s head with it. The boy started to cry and called out to his mother, whom he led by the hand to Dirmit’s door. Shouting, the boy’s mother informed Atiye that Dirmit had been sending messages to her son. Then she pointed at her son’s bleeding head and dragged him off. Forgetting her imminent death within three time-spans, Atiye lunged ferociously at Dirmit. ‘Girl,’ she cried, ‘how come you know so much about love?’ She then gave her daughter a sound thrashing. ‘Watch and see if I don’t tell your brother Seyit about this,’ Atiye added before locking Dirmit in the bathroom, where she wept quietly over the loss of her dark spotty boy. After a while, Dirmit shrugged her shoulders and dried her tears. Measuring herself against the wall, she marked a new notch half a finger’s length higher than the previous one. Then she began to pummel and kick the bathroom door. Atiye freed her only after making her promise never again to send messages to boys or to slash people’s heads. For a few days Dirmit steered clear of the birdie-bird plant, cross with it because she held it responsible for what had happened. But she couldn’t think her way out of her confusion. So early one morning she stopped beside the birdie-bird plant.

  ‘Birdie-bird plant, is it shameful for girls to send messages to boys?’

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  ‘Should I send more messages, then?’

  ‘Just to those boys you love.’

  Towards the end of that summer, Zekiye gave birth to a baby girl with a black mole under her chin, long hair and long fingernails. Atiye knew her daughter-in-law was in labour when she saw her turning first pale and then red in the face, clutching at her back with clenched fists and fidgeting about in her chair. She sent Mahmut off to the coffee-house to fetch Huvat and, blowing prayers about her, packed Zekiye’s overnight case. But Zekiye wouldn’t cross the threshold. She made signs with her eyes and her hands imploring her mother-in-law to keep her out of the hospital. This was too much for Atiye, who gave in and called Nuǧber and Dirmit to act as her assistants. She moved the tub into the bathroom and made her daughter-in-law sit in it while she wiped away her sweat and recited prayers. Towards evening, she delivered the baby girl and swaddled her. Then she gave her daughter-in-law a glass of sherbet and joyfully put her to bed. First hanging a pair of scissors by her bed, she wound a band of red cloth around Zekiye’s head. Then she sent Mahmut off to the market with some money to buy dried mint, kına kına seed, sweet basil, cloves and cinnamon bark, which would be necessary for the baby’s naming ceremony. She boiled some water in the kettle and threw in the ingredients, while Huvat declared that, ‘If you buy the stuff, it won’t work.’ Ignoring her husband, Atiye offered glasses of the concoction to everyone in the house. Huvat grumbled but downed it. Then he took the baby in his arms and shouted in her ear three times: ‘Your name is Atiye.’ When the time came to spit into baby Atiye’s mouth, Atiye asked that a change be made in the usual procedure. Snatching the baby out of Huvat’s arms, she declared that only Seyit had the right to spit in the baby’s mouth.

  In vain Huvat objected that men hadn’t the right to spit in the mouths of baby girls. Such a thing was not in accord with their customs. However, his words went unheeded yet again. Atiye wouldn’t spit in her granddaughter’s mouth because she didn’t want the baby to have a fate like hers, fearful that the baby would also lose her roots along with her brothers and sisters. Nor were the baby’s aunts granted permission since Nuǧber would most likely remain a spinster, and a big notch had been marked out on the pastry board for Dirmit, so no one could tell what might happen to her. Atiye argued that only Seyit, who worked diligently to provide for their livelihood and who was the brightest of her boys, could be allowed to spit in the baby’s mouth. After making absolutely certain that everyone heard how hard Seyit was working at his job, no matter how hot or cold it was, and that because of this he held the right to spit in the baby’s mouth, Atiye placed the baby in Seyit’s arms. Seyit pinched the baby’s nose, spat in her mouth and, bending proudly over her ear, said, ‘Hope you take after me, girl.’

  Jealous of Seyit for having spat in his daughter’s mouth, Halit slipped secretly out of bed one night and also spat in the baby’s mouth. Baby Atiye, peeping up as she was passed from one embrace to another, suddenly fell ill. The mole under her chin swelled up and turned red. Atiye chewed some dough to tie under the baby’s chin and spoonfed her with milk squeezed from Zekiye’s breasts. When the baby refused to open her mouth, she pinched her nose and force-fed her. Then, removing the piece of dough, she rubbed black salv
e on the sore, plastered it over with some crushed lokoum and bandaged it up. But baby Atiye grew smaller and smaller, and hair grew all over her back, hands, arms, legs and chest. She became almost invisible under the coat of hair, so Zekiye was afraid to pick her up in her arms, and Halit felt so desolate that he couldn’t even go near her. Only with difficulty could Huvat be restrained from lunging and cursing at Atiye. ‘I told you men shouldn’t spit in a girl’s mouth!’ he hissed.

  Baby Atiye died and was buried in a distant graveyard. After her death, Huvat gave up cursing his wife and began to preach how pleased they should be that an angel from their family had taken wing and flown off, and how an angel would be there to welcome them into the nether world. How helpful would baby Atiye be, as an angel who had flown like a bird to the netherworld, in securing forgiveness for all the family’s sins. But Zekiye’s tears streamed after her baby’s death as she cradled her aching, milk-filled breasts. Lowering her head, she gulped constantly. After sitting by the empty cradle for many days, she gradually settled down and began to speak with her eyes and hands again. The more she spoke the more relief she felt. Her milk dried up and, when her belly shrank, she found she was with child again.

  Mahmut didn’t go to school that year. Huvat said his son wasn’t interested in reading and, with Seyit’s permission, took him to be an apprentice to Monsieur Paul, the central-heating installer. Fooling around with his nose and his loose trousers, Mahmut went to work enthusiastically for a few days. But after a while he began to cling to his bed and became difficult in the morning, complaining to his mother that he still felt sleepy. On coming home from work, he would start weeping and shake his fingers, made red and swollen from beating on pipes, then press them to his mouth and blow on them, trying to make everyone feel sorry for him. But Huvat claimed that knowledge of his craft was entering his fingers and ignored Mahmut’s moanings. Moreover, he advised Monsieur Paul not to hesitate in thrashing his son the moment he lifted his head from his work. If Mahmut’s bones belonged to Huvat, his flesh was Monsieur Paul’s. When his boss hit him on one cheek, Mahmut turned the other but cursed him inwardly. He awoke screaming ‘— your mother, Monsieur Paul!’ but said nothing to his face. He held Monsieur Paul’s jacket for him and waited with a towel in his hand when Monsieur Paul washed his hands and face. Eventually he learnt how to cut, temper and bend pipes. Monsieur Paul wouldn’t allow Mahmut to whistle under his breath, but he listened in silence as he sang türküs and filled the pipes with sand. When Monsieur Paul congratulated him for his türküs, Mahmut made the most of it by singing out to high heaven as he hammered: