Sins & Innocents

by Sonmez, Burhan;

  “I can hardly hear you,” said Feruzeh.

  “We should shout like our neighbours at the next table.”

  “Let’s go to the library together some time. You might be able to find some other references.”

  “I’d like to. Did you think of my grandmother’s tree in the library as well?” I asked.

  “Not me, my mother. When I was telling her your stories yesterday she said the apple tree reminded her of Newton’s apple tree. I phoned you straight away.”

  “Did you tell your mother my stories?”

  “Yes.”

  The barman brought the food and put it on the table.

  Without waiting Feruzeh took a bite out of her hot toasted sandwich. Then she asked, “Do you mind my telling my mother?”

  “That’s not what I meant…”

  I put sugar in my tea and stirred it slowly.

  Feruzeh stared.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  “I thought you drank your tea without sugar?”

  I paused.

  “This is what happens when I haven’t slept,” I said. “Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  “Didn’t you sleep last night?”

  “I don’t sleep much. But I don’t let it get to me anymore,” I said, and took a sip of my sugary tea.

  “You should see the doctor if you have insomnia.”

  “I’ve been taking every pill in the world for the last ten years.”

  “And nothing’s helped? Ten years is a long time.”

  “Time is a better healer than medicine.”

  “My mother had insomnia for a while too, but she recovered. What do the doctors say?”

  “They say don’t strain your mind, relax. Before, they were worried I might take the final medicine.”

  “What medicine?” asked Feruzeh, cup in hand.

  “One day while I was waiting for the doctor, a patient suffering from the same problem said suicide was the final medicine.”

  “Was it that bad?”

  “When crying doesn’t help you bang your head against the wall.”

  Feruzeh put her cup down without drinking.

  “Did it start suddenly?” she asked.

  “You could say that …”

  “Just like that?”

  “After an accident.”

  “A car accident?”

  “An accident with the police. In my country if you’re politically active you could end up like your father did.”

  “You mean they tried to kill you?”

  We fell silent.

  I touched Feruzeh’s cup.

  “Your tea is cold,” I said.

  “It’s fine,” she said.

  Just then her telephone rang. I seized the chance to get up. When I returned carrying a tea tray she had finished talking.

  “You shouldn’t have, I’m quite happy with cold tea.”

  “I didn’t like my tea with sugar.”

  “That was my mother. She asked me to get her a couple of things,” she said. “I have to go shopping in a bit. She’s having a birthday party tonight and she’s invited you too.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be there, unless the sleep fairy comes to visit.”

  I took a sip from my tea.

  “We were talking about your insomnia,” she said.

  “Your mother’s birthday is more important,” I said. “What can I get her?”

  “You don’t have to get her anything. But she likes jewellery and antique books,” she said.

  “Is that the same as you?” I asked.

  “When it comes to jewellery, yes …” she said.

  I looked at her earrings. Two stones the colour of clotted blood swung on the end of copper filigree. Her necklace was also copper and, like the other day, it had a rose in the centre.

  “I’ve decided what my present is going to be,” I said.

  “So quickly?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s been years since my mother last celebrated her birthday, but two weeks ago she fell down the stairs and broke her ankle. She wants to get together with her friends.”

  “What’s your mother’s name?” I asked.

  “Azita.”

  I tried to pronounce it the way she did, by extending the middle syllable.

  “What does she do?”

  “She translates books from English into Farsi.”

  “She must have had plenty of time to translate these past couple of weeks,” I said.

  “My aunt from London is here looking after my mother. They don’t have time for anything except watching television and gossiping.”

  “Idleness is a delightful sin,” I said.

  “What are your favourite sins?” she asked.

  I pondered the question as I sipped my tea; slowly I put my cup down on the table.

  “I can’t think of any,” I said.

  “Are you sinless?”

  “No. But I haven’t committed as many sins as Tolstoy yet either.”

  “All right, but are you as determined as he was to purge them?”

  “That’s an even more difficult question,” I said.

  “If you answer the easy questions there’ll be no need to ask the difficult ones,” she said.

  “In that case, let me ask is there any one sin that really attracts you?”

  “Do you want me to lie?” she replied.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll tell you when I’ve found out what your sin is,” she said.

  She sipped her tea.

  The drone of all the other tables blended into the racket from the next table.

  We left the pub and did Feruzeh’s shopping. Then I walked home along the river.

  I tried lying down. The sleep fairy didn’t arrive.

  I left to go to Feruzeh’s house as the sun was setting. On the way I met some teenagers painting graffiti. In the underpass beside the shopping centre a thin boy stood on two people’s shoulders to reach the top of the wall.

  “Do you need any help?” I said, laughing.

  “Cheers mate, we’re all right,” they said.

  I wondered if they had painted all the graffiti in the city.

  When Feruzeh opened the door I handed her the inexpensive but deep red roses I got from the Co-op. She was wearing her hair loose.

  I greeted the first two people I saw in the sitting room. Feruzeh took me to meet her mother who was sitting by the window. I could see the plaster on her left foot under her long dress.

  Her mother said my name before Feruzeh had introduced me.

  “Brani Tawo … I believe?” she said.

  She hugged me affectionately. My eyes misted over.

  I felt as though I were in the home I had left years ago. I had forgotten how that felt.

  “Happy birthday,” I said.

  “Thank you for coming. I know you from the stories you’ve told Feruzeh,” she said.

  I blushed. I hadn’t expected such warmth.

  Azita introduced me to a woman who joined us. “This is Brani Tawo,” she said.

  Her pronunciation of my name was so charming I could have phoned her every day, just to hear it.

  “You’re Feruzeh’s friend, aren’t you?” asked the woman.

  “Yes,” said Azita. Then, turning to me, she said, “This is my sister Tina.”

  Tina kissed my cheek gently.

  “Just call me aunty like Feruzeh does,” she said.

  “Okay aunty, I will,” I said. We all smiled.

  “Has Feruzeh ever played ‘Three Word’ with you?” asked Tina.

  “No,” I said.

  “Good. We’ll play tonight,” she said.

  Feruzeh had wandered off. I had given her the roses but my gift to Azita was still in my hand.

  “This is for your birthday,” I said.

  “Thank you dear,” said Azita, kissing my cheek.

  Amalia Rodrigues was playing on the stereo. I went to the buffet table and served myself humus, dolma, cacık, salad, ch
icken and chips.

  Holding my full plate, I met Feruzeh in the kitchen a few moments later.

  “What’s the ‘Three Word’ game?” I asked.

  Feruzeh laughed. “I see you’ve met my aunt,” she said.

  “She seems very sweet.”

  “Don’t forget that word,” she said.

  “Which word?”

  “Sweet.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “What did you buy my mother?” she asked.

  “You’ll never guess,” I said.

  “I saw the size of the parcel it can’t be jewellery. Is it a book?”

  “I’m not telling you,” I said.

  There were two other women in the kitchen. I greeted them and introduced myself. They were preparing more dishes of fresh fruit. Feruzeh finished cutting the melon she was holding. She put the knife on the edge of the counter.

  “I want to know what your present is. I’m going to go and peep.”

  “Isn’t peeping a sin?”

  She laughed. “You’ve still got that on the brain. Clearly you’re a great sinner,” she said.

  Her hand brushed against the knife on the counter. It clattered to the ground, lodging itself between our feet.

  One of the women came and picked up the knife and spoke to Feruzeh in Farsi.

  “Are you all right?” I said.

  “Yes,” said Feruzeh.

  I could feel her breath.

  I put my plate on the counter. “I nearly dropped it,” I said.

  Feruzeh took a sip from her glass of wine on the counter. Then she passed it to me. “Have some, it will do you good.”

  “Okay,” I said, and shared her drink.

  I wasn’t really a drinker. But if I had been, I, too, would have preferred red wine.

  “Isn’t Stella here?” I asked.

  “She’ll be here soon,” she said. “Now go and meet everyone in the living room.”

  I picked up my plate and went into the living room. I met an English couple who lived on Feruzeh’s street. The man worked for the council, the woman was an editor at a London publisher and talked about the Cambridge Word Fest that was due to start in a week’s time. A young woman who overheard joined us. She was one of the festival’s organizers. While we were discussing literature the subject of writers’ eccentricities came up and we were joined by a man with a white beard. Enunciating each word perfectly, like a BBC news reader, he said that in a world where even God demands people’s love and attention we shouldn’t read too much into this little weakness of writers. We agreed, laughing.

  The lights went out and the birthday cake arrived from the kitchen. Azita blew out the candles. We all said “Happy birthday.” Then the Iranians sang a song in their own language in chorus. The lights came back on.

  I took my plate back to the kitchen. The water in the kettle was hot and I made myself a cup of tea.

  Except for a few people, everyone was gathered around the large table. Feruzeh beckoned to me, I went and sat beside her on the large sofa. She had cut me a piece of cake.

  Tina’s voice was the loudest. It was obvious that she knew everyone there. She had something to say to each guest.

  “Let’s have a little look at the presents,” she said, as though it were her birthday.

  Inside the first parcel was a summer shirt. The second gift was an envelope containing a membership card for two people at the Picturehouse cinema.

  Azita opened a third parcel at random. Inside was a folder and she read the note on it.

  “When did this arrive?” she asked.

  “Last week,” said Feruzeh. “Aunty and I decided to save it till today.”

  It was a draft translation into Farsi of Marquez’s latest novel. A publisher in Tehran had had it translated from Spanish and, to make sure it didn’t get banned, they were asking Azita to compare it with the English translation and, if necessary, make certain inoffensive changes.

  We discovered that Azita’s excitement was because she had once had the honour of meeting and chatting to Marquez at a gathering and had later exchanged a couple of letters with him.

  “I’d like to read this novel in Spanish,” she said.

  “What’s Marquez’s English like?” asked the man who worked for the council.

  “When I first met him I thought his words were poetry,” replied Azita.

  Everyone laughed.

  “And I still think so,” she added.

  “Would a Nobel laureate’s novel have problems in Iran?” asked the council man.

  “I very much doubt that these people who pick bones in Sa’di’s Gulistan will make any exceptions for Marquez.”

  “What will you do?” asked the festival organizer.

  Azita opened the first page of the file on the table.

  “To fit through a small space a cat can squeeze its body until it’s as narrow as its head,” she said. “Look, the publisher has started out by changing the title: Memories of My Sad Beauties.”

  “A great alternative for Memories of My Melancholy Whores,” said a man with black-framed glasses.

  I had either heard him speak at a conference or seen him working at the market.

  “How would you translate it?” asked the editor.

  “An Old Man’s Misguided Life,” replied Azita.

  “Really?”

  “I’ll tell you my gut feeling. I’ll allow the publisher to have any title they want, but I don’t want to change a single word of the story.”

  The people around the table voiced their approval.

  “I haven’t read it,” said Tina. “Have you got it?”

  “Yes,” said Azita, and she asked Feruzeh to go and get the book.

  Feruzeh put her glass down on the table and went into the next room. I could see through the open door that the walls were lined with bookshelves.

  “Before we carry on with the rest of the presents, how about warming up a bit? Let’s play the ‘Three Word’ game,” said Tina.

  This was the moment I had been waiting for.

  The man with the white beard asked, “Who are you going to nominate first?”

  I knew Tina would turn sideways and look at me.

  “Brani Tawo,” she said, “will you describe me in three words?”

  “But I’ve only just met you,” I said.

  “First impressions are important. They liven the game up,” she replied.

  Everyone was looking at me. Feruzeh was in the other room looking for the book.

  “Sweet,” I said.

  There were murmurs of approval. I thought about the next two words.

  “Sociable and sensitive.”

  “Where did you get sensitive from?” asked the man with the black-framed glasses. I think he had a stall in the market.

  Everyone laughed.

  “He’s right. I could tell immediately that he was intelligent,” said Tina.

  I thought I had got off lightly.

  “Now describe yourself in three words,” commanded Tina.

  “Melancholy,” I said immediately.

  “Are you really?” she asked.

  “Yes he is,” replied Azita instead of me.

  “Sleepless,” I said for the second word.

  “Objection,” chorused the people around the table on the grounds that that wasn’t part of my personality but an everyday problem. If we had played this game yesterday I couldn’t have given that response. I didn’t tell them that sleep deprivation had become a fundamental part of my being, that it had changed my whole life, my relationships, even my character.

  Feruzeh returned. Handing the book to her mother she said, “It’s true, he has insomnia.”

  The table fell silent. No one protested.

  “Go on,” said Tina.

  I thought. I couldn’t think of the last word.

  “Sinless,” said Feruzeh.

  I was about to object, but then realized I would have to accept it if I wanted to get the game over with. “Sinless,” I repeate
d.

  The man with the black-framed glasses said, “We can’t prove he’s not.”

  He may have been the man who gave a speech in the church where I met Feruzeh. He might not have been wearing his glasses that day.

  After debating a few ideas the committee around the table declared my answers to be acceptable.

  Just as I was about to breathe a sigh of relief Feruzeh whispered, “Ask someone else straight away.”

  But the festival organizer beat me to it.

  “What three words would you use to describe me?” she asked.

  As if sleep deprivation wasn’t punishment enough.

  Azita suddenly told the man beside her, very loudly, “This isn’t the book that Marquez wrote.”

  I realized it was a ploy to save my skin.

  “How so?”

  She stepped in to answer the inquisitive questions, thus putting an end to the game.

  Azita told us what had happened during the publication of Memories of My Melancholy Whores three years previously. Apparently, while the book was still at the printers it fell into the hands of pirate publishers, who released it onto the market. The whole world was awaiting the book with great anticipation as it was Marquez’s only novel in the past ten years and possibly his last. Furious with the publishers, Marquez stopped the publication, made some changes to the end of the novel and published the amended version.

  “Interesting,” said the man with the white beard. “So the real version is the one the pirates have?”

  “Of course not, the real book is always the writer’s final version,” said Azita.

  “The changes weren’t in the true spirit of the book; he made them to get the pirates back. The real version was the one the pirates published. That’s the one I would have liked to read,” said the man with the white beard.

  “If this isn’t the real version I’d better not read it,” said Tina.

  “Don’t be silly …” protested Azita.

  The table turned into the ten-minute pause at conferences. Everyone started talking at once.

  Seeing as the pirates had got hold of the real version then they owned the true one. No, the pirates’ stealing the book was like the Devil meddling with the truth. The writer’s subsequent changes to the book were necessary for its own good. But no, the Devil had defended God in spite of God, warning that God – who should have no equal – would undermine Himself by creating people in His own likeness. The pirates were now defending the book against the writer.