Dear Shameless Death

by Latife Tekin

  Huvat was always infuriated whenever he came home loaded down with his green books and saw Atiye with a coffee cup cradled in her hands. On some days, no sooner had he walked in the door than he was off again and, on others, he sat back in a corner and stared at the floor. When Atiye made signs for him to leave, he refused. ‘No, I’m not going.’ Then he started glowering at the visitors or cursing at them. But the fiercer he grew, the more Atiye developed her fortune-telling skills. She had some of her clients make a wish, then she blew her prayers. Going to sleep during the day to obtain dreams, she awoke sometimes with a smile and at others with a scream. Then she began to claim that she would soon attain spiritual perfection and go on to join the Holy Seven-and-Forty.

  Finally she encountered the saintly Hızır Aleyhisselam, her guardian spirit who had come to her aid during her first days in the village, when he had never left her side while she was in the stable. One morning, before sunrise, there came a knock on the door. Upon opening the door, Atiye beheld an old man with a bright countenance and a beard that touched his waist, begging for bread. Atiye fetched the bread, invited the old man in and offered him olives and cheese as well. After he had finished eating, the old man kissed Atiye’s hand. When she could feel no bones in the old man’s thumb, Atiye understood. Realizing that he was Hızır, she knelt down before him, took his hands in her own and kissed them. After stroking her back, Hızır disappeared before Atiye had a chance to make a wish. With a prayer on her lips, Atiye rushed over to Huvat’s side, woke him up and told him about Hızır’s visitation and how he had stroked her back. She also announced that this was a good omen and that he would be returning soon to take her away. Huvat couldn’t understand why Hızır should not choose to make himself visible to him, who prayed continually, but to his wife, a fortune-teller and a dreamer for others. All the same, he made Atiye describe the old man with the bright countenance. He ordered Atiye not to let slip a word to anyone about her vision of Hızır, otherwise he would never again appear to her. ‘I must consult with someone who knows about these things,’ he confided as he dressed, picked up his green books and left. However, Atiye ignored Huvat’s warnings and proclaimed to all those who came that day to have their fortunes told that Hızır had come to her door and kissed her hand. In the evening Huvat bore good news, announcing to her that if she stopped her fortune-telling and dreaming for others, she would attain spiritual perfection and pass on to join the Holy Seven-and-Forty. Although at first Atiye didn’t quite believe this, once Huvat swore that he had consulted with three different hodjas, she took her prayer beads and retreated happily into her corner. However, shortly afterwards she was overwhelmed by anxiety and regretted a thousand times that she had told everyone how Hızır had kissed her hand. But thirteen days later, Hızır once more came in the morning to visit her. Once more he asked for bread, cheese and olives. Then he displayed to her his worn and tattered jacket and asked her if she had a new one for him. Rushing back inside, Atiye snatched up Huvat’s jacket and, after first emptying the pockets, she offered it to Hızır. Hızır donned the jacket and ate his bread, cheese and olives. Then he took Atiye’s hands in his and kissed them, after which Atiye kissed his and held them to her forehead. This time, as Hızır was leaving, he stroked her legs from her ankles upwards. Then he tucked his old jacket under his arm and vanished. Atiye kept Hızır’s visitation a secret, quit telling people’s fortunes and withdrew to her prayer beads.

  Although for days and days Atiye waited, hand on heart, Hızır never knocked on her door again. At last she grew tired of waiting and stopped talking about the Holy Seven-and-Forty. Once more she forgot about herself and started worrying about her children, their livelihood and household affairs. She took Mahmut in hand and secured him a job at the hairdresser’s. At first Mahmut lay on her lap and cried that he wanted to go to school, but Atiye tricked him, saying, ‘Work during the summer and I wont send you there in the winter.’ So Mahmut picked up a towel, stuck a comb in his hip pocket, and began his apprenticeship at Rose Hairdresser’s.

  ‘What’s this about the hairdresser’s?’ Huvat asked crossly. ‘If you’re in a dirty business, you end up dirty yourself’. But Atiye paid her husband no mind, and despite Huvat’s opposition, Mahmut arrived home each day with a different kind of hairbrush. He styled his hair in all sorts of fancy ways, made Atiye sit down, brushed her hair and formed curls for Zekiye with his fingers. He progressed quickly and, with his mounting tips, bought a curling iron. He stole rollers and hairpins from the shop and, looking straight into Huvat’s eyes, set Atiye’s hair every night. Plugging in the curling iron, he did Nuǧber’s, Zekiye’s and Dirmit’s hair and also styled Halit’s sideburns for him. When Halit’s sideburns had grown all the way down his chin, Mahmut came home with a jar in his hand, stuck it under his father’s nose and said, ‘This is what they call Oreal. How about that!’ Huvat’s djinns rushed furiously to his head. Mahmut directed Halit to sit on a chair before him, then smeared Oreal on his sideburns, taking his time to massage it in with his fingers. From his hip pocket he produced a mirror and handed it to his elder brother. Holding the mirror, Halit swaggered about, waiting impatiently for his sideburns to turn hoary grey and give him a sober and mature air. ‘Man, everybody in the coffee-house will be laughing behind your back,’ Seyit remarked gruffly as he sat up in bed. But Halit held the mirror up to Seyit’s face, and, dazzled by the light, Seyit blinked and dropped his head back onto the pillow. That night Halit’s sideburns turned bright yellow at first, then red. He stood in front of the mirror gaping at his reddening sideburns and then fiercely nudged Mahmut awake. With sleepy eyes Mahmut gazed at Halit’s red sideburns and burst out laughing. ‘What’re you laughing at, man?’ said Halit and gave him a beating. Then, with trembling hands, he shaved off his sideburns.

  That very night Dirmit wet her bed. ‘Just go stark raving mad, why don’t you?’ Atiye shouted before applying the cupping glass to Dirmit’s lower back. Three days later Dirmit wet the bed again and, this time, as well as the cupping glass treatment, she also received a spanking. Two nights after that, she had no sooner sat up in bed to go to the toilet than she pulled the quilt back over her head. From under her cover she could hear Huvat mumbling, ‘Stop kicking about, woman!’ Atiye was panting when she came creeping over to Dirmit on the divan. Huvat came crawling after her. ‘I said come on, girl,’ he implored, lifting the quilt over Atiye. As Atiye retreated to the middle of the divan, she shoved Dirmit towards the wall. Then Huvat caught hold of Atiye’s leg and dragged her off the divan. ‘What strength have I got left, man?’ Atiye groaned. After all her moaning had ceased, Atiye came back to lie beside Dirmit with tear-like drops trickling down through her hair. Dirmit clasped her hands between her legs and clenched her teeth to hold herself in as she waited for her mother to fall asleep so she could go to the toilet. Atiye soon stopped shivering and began breathing more naturally, while Huvat snored, holding his breath then releasing it. Dirmit slipped quietly out from under the quilt and sat up. At first her eye settled on the faint light from the street lamp that fell through the part in the curtain. Then she gaped at Zekiye and Halit’s bed. Humped on the floor at the foot of her bed like a molehill, it was rising and falling sporadically. Slipping back under the quilt, Dirmit clasped her hands tightly between her legs but couldn’t keep from wetting the bed once again.

  After her spanking the next morning, she went and told the birdie-bird plant about what had happened. Swaying its fine leaves this way and that, the birdie-bird plant laughed and tried to sound Dirmit out.

  ‘Could it be that you feel scared at night?’

  ‘When I hear them?’

  ‘Both when you see them and hear them.’

  ‘Not scared, but I feel sorry for my mother.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just because.’

  The birdie-bird plant warned Dirmit not to drink any water in the evenings and advised her that if she cupped her hands over her ears and pulled the quilt up over her hea
d, she could go to sleep without hearing the sounds. Dirmit followed the birdie-bird plant’s advice and never wet her bed again, but she became so curious that she couldn’t sleep a wink. Every night, hiding away from the street lamp’s pale light, she listened to the sounds. She waited for her mother to slip out quietly and then slip back into bed, water droplets falling from the ends of her hair. ‘Did the dog drag in these feet from the ash heap?’ she remembered her mother used to say to her on those evenings when she came in from gathering icicles from the eaves of the village houses. But she knew she couldn’t take her mother’s feet between her hands and ask her, ‘From what place did the dog drag your feet?’ Breathing deeply, she pretended to be fast asleep, although she kept a watchful eye on the humped molehill on the floor at the foot of her bed.

  In the mornings Dirmit observed her mother and father with sleepless eyes. Then she shifted her gaze onto Zekiye and her elder brother Halit, and, each time their eyes met, she bowed her head, embarrassed. The same Huvat who during the night implored, ‘Girl, come on, I say!’ took up his green books in the mornings and started off to the mosque. As for Halit, he spruced himself up and took off down the stairs, while Mahmut made his way to the hairdresser’s. While Atiye got Seyit up from his mattress and made him lie down on the divan, Zekiye rolled up his quilt and put it away for the day, shook and plumped up his pillow and bent down to gather up the bedsheet. Then she held her hand to a spot in the middle of the sheet, wet from a large teardrop. Brushing her fingers lightly over it, she raised her head, glanced about for Atiye and laughed. When Dirmit saw the white stain that was the source of Zekiye’s laughter, she turned at once to Seyit, who, upon meeting his youngest sister’s look, covered his eyes with one hand, quickly grabbed the quilt with the other and stuck his head beneath it.

  Dirmit quietly left, flew down the stairs and sat on the doorstep. The street was filled with the noise of the children who lived in the single-room houses. Voices resounded, ‘Open up the gates…’ The voices formed a circle as the games began, changing from nine-stones to hide-and-seek. Girls and boys took their turns, first to be ‘It’ and then to hide. Gradually, however, the game took a brand new turn as, behind the doors and by the cisterns in the stone hallways, the children from the one-room houses stripped naked from the waist down. Except for the carvings that peered down from the ceilings of the wooden houses, the crosses lined up from one end to the other and the peeling paint, no one saw them as they mounted each other, rolled over on the stone slabs and pressed one another against the walls. The carvings crossed themselves, and fine flakes of paint drifted down onto the children.

  That autumn Halit put on his shirt with the stand-up collar and set off to do his term of military service. A short while later a photograph came in the mail showing him standing to attention with a rifle over his shoulder. On the back were the words, ‘My money’s been stolen. Quick, send me some more.’ Atiye had no sooner picked up the picture than she started weeping, ‘Oh, that a mother could die for her son.’ Then she cut off weeping and began to pace about. ‘But I’d sewed a pocket into his underpants. How would it have been stolen from there?’ she wondered. Huvat withdrew to his corner in a sulk, mumbling every now and again that Halit must’ve thrown it away. Zekiye secretly slipped the photo into her bosom, crept out of the room and held the picture up for a long time, gazing at Halit’s face and rifle.

  Meanwhile, Seyit threw back his quilt and leapt out of bed. ‘I’m well now,’ he exclaimed as he dressed and set off for the coffee-house to look for a job. After he had left, Atiye took up her prayer beads and begged Allah that he would soon find work. Huvat was pleased to see his son heading off in his feverish state to the coffee-house to look for work. ‘In the long run, we’ll have to rely on this boy,’ he opined. ‘There’s no one else but him to look after us.’

  However, when Seyit returned home in the evening, all he’d managed to do was run up a bill with the coffee-shop’s proprietor, Blind Yusuf, for ten glasses of tea. The next day he owed for ten more and just as many more for the day after that. However, reducing his intake to five at last, he assured the owner after every sip, ‘Sure, that’s quite a bill, Yusuf Agha, but it’ll get settled up all at once.’ Nonetheless, Seyit was unable to find work. Since all his tools had been sold off, he couldn’t bid for any contracts. ‘You may be a wizard at your trade, but you’re not a well man,’ the contractors said, pointing to the rolling beads of sweat on his brow. Then they added, ‘Seeing as we know you, we’ll manage something for you at an apprentices wage, if you like.’ But Seyit was too proud to accept such a condition and stubbornly waited in Blind Yusuf’s coffee-house for an offer at a master’s wage. And as he waited, letters and photos from Halit came in the mail, asking persistently for more money. Lowering her eyes, Zekiye unclasped the pair of gold earrings given her by her father, Rızgo Agha, and handed them over to Huvat, who sold them and posted the money to Halit.

  That evening Huvat arrived home with joyful news. Lame Aygaz from Gigi village had started up a carpet-weaving workshop in town and was setting up looms in houses. They came to a decision that very night, and two days later Lame Aygaz emerged from his van in front of their doorstep. He and Huvat bore the side beams, the shuttle and the central beam in on their backs and set up the loom against one wall. Taking her seat in front of it, Zekiye slipped the pattern of white-on-deep-cherry-red in through the warps. She hung it up before her face like a mirror and kept glancing at it as she beat down the weft. Groups of neighbours stopped in to watch Zekiye weave, and some tried their hand at it, while others only studied the pattern. However, they all marvelled at Zekiye’s skill, and, winking towards her, enquired why she used signs to communicate. Atiye recounted to them the story of Sarıkız and explained at length her deeds, as the visitors shot glances at one another. Then, one by one, they took their leave, until finally Zekiye was left alone with her knots, Atiye with her prayer beads and Huvat with his green books. The carpet inched its way along, a finger-span a day, creeping up towards the central beam. Once every hand-span, Lame Aygaz came and knelt by the loom to pop a purple chalk line on the knots and to check with the back of his hand whether they had been properly cut. After pressing a few times with his thumb on the narrow border of the piece, he hung up some money on the middle wire of the partly done carpet.

  After Aygaz hobbled out of the house, Zekiye immediately pulled off the money and thrust it towards Atiye. ‘I would like a pair of gold earrings,’ she said, articulating each word. Atiye was so frightened and confused at hearing Zekiye speak that she let the money fall to the floor. Zekiye bent over, picked it up and handed it back to her mother-in-law, once more articulating each syllable, ‘I would like a pair of gold earrings.’ Wary of her daughter-in-law’s insistent speech, Atiye fixed her eyes on Zekiye’s mouth and commanded: ‘Come on girl, speak up!’ When Zekiye once again said that she would like a pair of gold earrings, Atiye stood agape before her daughter-in-law and retorted: ‘Just go stark raving mad, will you?’ So Zekiye did have a voice after all, but nobody could pry any more words out of her than ‘I would like a pair of gold earrings.’ Huvat took his daughter-in-law to the hodja, and Atiye consulted anyone who happened to come along. Some were simply bewildered, while others counselled, ‘Get her the gold earrings, and the rest will follow. She’ll say other things too.’ Finally Atiye and Huvat accepted the advice. They procured for her a pair of earrings and waited curiously to hear what she would say. For a few days Zekiye only fondled her earrings, waggled her head and kept leaving her seat in front of the carpet to pick up a mirror and gaze at her earrings. She spoke not a word. ‘Tell me your name, girl,’ Atiye pleaded, trailing after her. ‘Just tell me where your husband is, and I’ll die for you.’ One morning, as she was putting the bed away, she finally got something out of Zekiye. Because Seyit’s mattress was so heavy, she called in her daughter-in-law to help. Zekiye walked in and, planting herself before her mother-in-law, announced, ‘I can’t weave the carpet and put awa
y the beds at the same time.’ Atiye collapsed in the middle of the room with the mattress hoisted halfway up her back.

  From then on, Zekiye not only spoke but also sang whenever she was of a mind to. She ignored the stern looks cast by her father-in-law with his green books laid open before him. First she came up with a türkü for her husband Halit and sang that for a while. Then, when she grew weary of weaving, she composed an invective against Lame Aygaz:

  ‘It’s a carpet I’m weaving, a carpet.

  I’m as tall as the beam where the warp’s set.

  The heathen’s work is only a part yet.’

  She took all her years of silence out on everyone, pleasing herself at the top of her voice. No one could shut her up. She didn’t care where she was, asleep, in the toilet, or sitting down to eat. She talked while everyone else had to listen, and no one could get a word in edgewise. Huvat had a letter posted to Halit, relaying to him the joyful news that Zekiye was now talking all day and all night long. Halit slipped away from his regiment and showed up for a visit. His eyes were as wide as saucers as he observed his wife, who talked on and on like clockwork, and it was only the next day that he awoke fully and begged her: ‘Just shut up for a minute!’ In his vexation he wept, and when he stopped weeping he pounced on her. Zekiye extricated herself from her husband’s grip with difficulty and no sooner had she jumped up on the divan than she started talking again. Halit flew at her in a rage, clapped his hand over her mouth and pinched her nose until Zekiye’s face turned deep red. Atiye rushed over and pulled Halit off the divan. After struggling and gasping for breath, Zekiye revived and in a trice was talking away again. With his head held helplessly in his hands and his palms clapped over his ears, Halit returned to his regiment.