Sins & Innocents

by Sonmez, Burhan;

  “How long are you going to be in here?”

  “Who knows.”

  “Don’t rush to leave,” I said.

  She smiled.

  “These past few days I’ve been thinking about my first encounter with death …”

  “Where was that?”

  “On the deck of a ship.”

  “Was it a very long time ago?”

  “I was a teenager during the Second World War. They drafted me into a nursing unit One day they told us we were going abroad. We boarded a ship one stormy night and it wasn’t long before the Germans attacked us and our ship sank. They only managed to pull four of us out of the waves alive. I was like a skinny boy with short hair. We were covered in petrol. They undressed us on the deck and hosed us down. That night I thought I would die in the war like my grandfather. My grandfather was one of those million soldiers who died in the Battle of the Somme in the previous war.”

  She stopped.

  “Would you like some water?” I said.

  “I just need to get my breath,” she said.

  She waited.

  “When he saw I was a woman the German officer said, ‘What’s this little girl doing on this ship?’ He separated me from the others and sent me back to England. The feeling of death soon went away, but it came back again at the end of the war. The boy I loved never returned; he hasn’t even got a grave …”

  Without asking I passed her a glass of water.

  She took a sip.

  “I remember that rainy, windy night on that ship’s deck like it was yesterday,” she said.

  “It sounds like a scene from a war movie,” I said.

  “War movies take me right back to that time,” she replied. “You’re lucky, you didn’t have to go to war like us.”

  I said nothing. I paused.

  I took the glass out of her hand.

  “Do you need anything?” I said.

  “That’s very kind of you. A friend came this morning; I asked her to bring me a few things.”

  “Does your son know you’re in hospital?” I asked.

  “No. There’s no point in worrying him.”

  “I’m sure he would want to come if he knew you were ill,” I said.

  “He lives in Canada. He’s got a very demanding job.”

  “Maybe he could just come for a day …”

  “He was only here last month.”

  I didn’t think of the loneliness of sons living in far-off countries, but of the mothers they left all alone.

  My mother didn’t tell me everything when I telephoned either. I listened to what she said, but tried to gauge what she wasn’t telling me.

  “Did you come alone?” asked Stella.

  She didn’t know about Feruzeh.

  I updated her.

  “So Feruzeh went to Iran on the day I came into hospital; that would explain why her phone’s switched off. I asked the nurses to phone her yesterday,” she said.

  “I thought you’d know.”

  “Feruzeh must have phoned the antique shop and the house before she went,” she said thoughtfully. “I don’t have a mobile phone.”

  I remembered that mobile phones had to be switched off in hospitals.

  I hesitated for a moment.

  I took my phone out of my pocket. I pressed the off key. I didn’t take my eyes off the screen until the light went off.

  “Have you got Feruzeh’s mother’s mobile number?” I asked.

  “I’ve only got their landline,” she replied.

  “They’re not at home,” I said.

  The visitors of the patient on the other side of the curtain were talking about their summer holidays. We listened to them for a while.

  Stella asked me the time.

  I told her.

  “I’ve found out the make of the camera you’re looking for,” she said.

  “Really?”

  She smiled.

  “Olympus Six,” she said.

  “Is it a well-known camera?” I asked.

  “Yes. It came out during the Second World War,” she said. “The moment I saw it in the photo it looked familiar.”

  “Do you think we’ll be able to find it?”

  “It’ll be easier than finding Einstein’s camera. I’ve asked a friend of mine in London to look for it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Is it very important to you?”

  “I’m going to give it to my mother.”

  “Feruzeh has told me some of your mother’s and uncle’s stories.”

  “Actually he was my mother’s uncle. We used to call him uncle too.”

  “If you’d stayed in the village you would have ended up looking like your uncle in that sun.”

  “That’s what my mother says,” I said.

  Stella stopped, as though tired. She took a deep breath.

  “Are you all right? Shall I call the nurse?” I said.

  “I’m always like this. Sometimes I need to take a deep breath.”

  “Would you like some water?” I said.

  “No, thank you,” she said.

  She paused a moment.

  “You were talking about your uncle …” she said.

  “When I was a child I used to ask ‘where did I come from?’ My mother and the neighbours, the ‘aunties’, would laugh. I didn’t believe their answers. Sometimes I used to wake up in the middle of the night and listen to the silence. I used to think I disappeared in the darkness. I was as curious about how I had come into the world as I was about death.”

  “Do you know the answer now?” asked Stella.

  The lines in her face got deeper when she smiled.

  “My Uncle Hatip left his camera with my mother the last time he came to the village. I used to think that if I could find out how that machine made people I would discover the answer to the question about myself too. One day when there was no one at home I took the camera out from its hiding place amongst all the colourful headscarves in the chest. I went to the stream bed. I was so excited my heart was about to split in two. I smashed the machine open with a stone. There was nothing inside except screws and small pieces of metal. The question in my heart had become too oppressive for my feeble mind to bear. I cried hysterically.”

  I paused for a moment.

  I breathed heavily, like an old man, then continued.

  “I picked up the broken pieces from amongst the weeds. I took them home and put them back in the chest. My mother didn’t find out for months. One rainy day we heard that my uncle had died. My mother wailed in lament. She took my uncle’s things out of the chest. She stopped dead when she saw the camera smashed to pieces amongst the colourful headscarves. She held her breath and I burst into tears and flung my arms around her. Through her tears my mother kissed my hair and never brought it up again.”

  I fell silent.

  Stella looked at me with maternal tenderness.

  “Feruzeh and I came up with all sorts of theories about your camera,” she said.

  “What sort of theories?” I said.

  “The first day you came we talked about why you might be looking for that camera. But all our guesses were wrong.”

  “You should have asked me.”

  “Haven’t you told Feruzeh yet?”

  “No.”

  “You can tell her when she gets back.”

  “When she gets back …”

  “Don’t worry, she’ll be back,” she said.

  “I hope so …” I said.

  Her face broke into a smile that filled me with hope.

  She looked out of half-closed eyes.

  “She must have made up with her sister after this,” she said.

  “Weren’t they talking?” I asked.

  “Didn’t you know?” she said.

  “No,” I replied.

  She paused. She closed her eyes.

  The visitors of the patient in the next bed were complaining about how awful last year’s holiday had been.

  Stella opened
her eyes and looked at me.

  “That white shirt suits you,” she said.

  “I like wearing white in spring,” I said.

  I didn’t tell her I had gone to the cemetery.

  We paused for a moment.

  “Feruzeh was going to tell you. Do you think I should tell you instead?”

  “I think you have to,” I said.

  “I’ve already let the cat out of the bag. I can’t leave you hanging like this.”

  “No, you can’t,” I said.

  She asked for some water.

  I filled her glass from the jug.

  She took just two sips to wet her lips.

  “What’s the time?” she asked.

  I told her.

  Then, very slowly, she spoke.

  “Feruzeh met an Iranian. He was a tall young man, I don’t remember his name, he had big black eyes like yours. They were planning to get married and go back to Iran. But for some reason unknown to any of us the young Iranian went back to Iran alone. Roya was studying in London at that time.”

  “Roya?”

  “Feruzeh’s twin.”

  “I didn’t know her name.”

  “Everyone thought Roya was in London, but one day Feruzeh got a letter from her from Iran. It said she was in love with the Iranian, that she had tried to resist it, that she had even taken an overdose, but her flatmates had found her and rushed her to hospital. She had no more strength left after that, either to resist or to die. She spoke to the Iranian and left with him.”

  Stella was whispering so the people on the other side of the curtain wouldn’t hear.

  “Roya blamed Feruzeh. She said the young Iranian had been her friend, that she had been attracted to him. She introduced Feruzeh to him but never imagined they would get together. Then she kept quiet and for a long time she just accepted the situation.”

  My breath slowed down until I thought it would stop.

  I took my water bottle out of my bag.

  I took a sip.

  I waited.

  I took another sip.

  Stella took up where she had left off: “Feruzeh said that wasn’t true, that she didn’t know Roya loved him.”

  I dropped the bottle.

  The curtains opened.

  “Is everything all right?” asked the nurse.

  I picked up the plastic bottle from the floor.

  “It’s nothing, I just dropped this,” I said.

  “Everything’s fine,” added Stella.

  The nurse went out, smiling.

  “What’s more dangerous: a woman whose pride has been injured or a wounded tiger?” asked Stella.

  “I know that one,” I said.

  “Feruzeh and Roya were both hurt, and they hurt each other.”

  I needed to get out of there and go back to Wittgenstein’s grave.

  There I would meet other people dressed in white.

  Stella asked me to write my name on a piece of paper.

  “I’m going to try and pronounce your name,” she said.

  I wrote it down and gave it to her.

  She read it, spelling out the sounds.

  “Bre-ni Te-wo.”

  I said it, and she repeated.

  “Bra-ni Ta-wo …” Her gaze was like a glittering mirror.

  She held out her hand and touched my fingers.

  I bowed my head to avoid her eyes.

  13 Tatar the Photographer

  War Spoils

  The war had not yet started. During the old man Os’ first and only visit to Ankara in search of a treasure he was hunting, he had his photograph taken with two friends. He posed before the camera still as a corpse, wondering what was inside it, then set out on his return journey. His two friends were supposed to collect the photograph but the following day the photographer told them the film had been ruined and that he had to redo the photos. “Our third friend isn’t here,” they said.

  “Don’t worry,” said the photographer, “I’ll take care of everything.” He stopped a passer-by who had a beard like the old man Os’. He put a jacket on him, sat him down and handed him a long string of prayer beads.

  When the old man Os saw the photograph that his friends brought him a week later, he said, “It looks like me, but it’s as though I’m not me.” For several nights he couldn’t sleep, he wandered around in the dark, he stopped praying. His soul had been snatched out of his chest, at every call to prayer he turned his head and stared at the photo hanging on the wall. Snow fell, flowers bloomed and the years flew by like a harvest wind. One summer day, seeing that a photographer had come to the village, the old man Os knocked on every door one by one. “Photographers try to imitate God by creating humans, but they leave them as soulless as dry soil,” he said.

  Tatar the photographer had been a photographer with his brother in Istanbul, and after the war he had set up in business on his own. His brother, who became known as the sergeant from Istanbul during the war, chose a different path by marrying Saadet and settling in Ankara. The soldiers who had returned from the war had left it in the hands of time to heal their invisible scars and ease the pain in their memories. The sergeant from Istanbul had laudable dreams, he loved his wife, he put bread on his table. He exerted himself, until the screaming and the corpses he had taken away as war spoils dragged him into the darkness.

  The fate of some soldiers was to die in the war; those who happened to survive did not recover but tumbled headlong into life’s pit of torment. The sergeant from Istanbul stumbled, became dazed, and eventually, like a rejected child, spent his nights in dens of iniquity. Heedless of his wife waiting at the window every night, he waved his knife menacingly at anyone who crossed his path in the dark. His fame spread as the number of corpses mounted, and his mind became more and more hazy. On one of those nights the sergeant from Istanbul entered the house of his old commander, meaning to claim his wife back. The commander ordered him out of there as though ordering him out of a shelter during the war, but he, believing it was enemy soldiers shouting at him, drew his gun and riddled everyone there with bullet holes.

  The news didn’t reach Istanbul until several days later. Tatar the photographer was sipping coffee in front of his shop one evening, chatting to his neighbour. There was no one at home waiting for him and one day passed pretty much like another. An acquaintance dropped by to say hello. “Do they call your brother the sergeant from Istanbul?” he asked, and told him what he had heard from a teacher from Ankara. Tatar the photographer gave the key of the shop to his neighbour and set off without so much as stopping by his house.

  At that time, the city of Ankara was the black and white version of colour cities. Everyone was like everyone else, a stranger stood out there immediately. Tatar the photographer searched for both Saadet, whom he knew was pregnant, and for his brother. He enquired at hospitals and police stations. He collected old newspapers and read about the murders his brother had committed. He went to Saadet’s parents’ graves and waited there for several nights. One day an old man who came to the grave told him what he had heard, which was that Saadet, left with no family, had heeded her father’s words and gone to Haymana Plain and that she now lived in a village there. No one knew anything about the whereabouts of the sergeant from Istanbul; he might be spotted in any tavern or emerge from any dark street.

  Tatar the photographer chatted to drunks and became the confidant of vagrants who were ready not to die but to kill. He tried to grasp how his brother, once a placid son of Istanbul, had turned into one of these men. One night he got wind of three vagabonds picking a fight with the sergeant from Istanbul in a downtown tavern. Tatar ran as fast his legs would carry him, and joined the crowd at the back of the tavern. His brother was standing alone a few feet away. The knife in his hand glinted in the light of the full moon, the blood of the three vagabonds lying at his feet flowed black and white into the soil.

  Tatar wriggled free of the throng and pushed his way to the front. The crowd tensed and took a step back. The sergeant
from Istanbul stared at the man before him like a peasant seeing a statue for the first time. He did not step forwards or backwards but took several steps to the side. Tatar held out his arms and the crowd retreated another step.

  Fear on people’s faces was the same in this city as anywhere else. The sergeant from Istanbul, who knew that, turned around and walked slowly away. He walked down the street and Tatar followed him. They roamed the back streets until daybreak, one in front, the other behind, pursued by a crowd. Patiently, they continued on their way without uttering a sound, as though they had embarked on a sacred voyage, until they found themselves before an enormous grey building. As the sky grew light behind the enormous grey building the sergeant from Istanbul stopped and waited, his head bowed. Tatar approached gently, embraced him and called him, “My brother.” The vagabonds and vagrants stared wide-eyed, as though sobering up from the wine they had imbibed for so many years. They did not understand why the sergeant from Istanbul was embracing his older brother now. The two brothers remained locked in their embrace for some time. Then the sergeant from Istanbul suddenly thrust the knife he was holding into his brother’s hand and plunged it into his own stomach. “I’ve killed all my enemies, the honour of killing me will go to none but my brother,” he said. Like a child desperate to be held he cast his body into his brother’s arms. As the poet said:

  He who forgets to count the days,

  Is wildly happy or sadly beckons death.

  A single raindrop can save him,

  Or a friend’s hand may free him from life’s somnolence.

  “He killed the sergeant from Istanbul!” they cried. They led Tatar away from the spot where he was kneeling. In jail one day passed pretty much like another. As Tatar the photographer counted the years, he added his brother’s blood to his own destiny. He wove kilims during the day and read books through the night. He learned Kurdish by listening to stories of bandits from prisoners that came from Haymana Plain. He memorized the names of the villages in the plain and the peaks stretching out into the distance. He knew that Saadet had gone to Haymana Plain but couldn’t find out which village she was in. Every day he studied the photographs the sergeant from Istanbul had had taken with his commander on the front and prepared himself to search for a woman who looked like the commander. The years did not remind him that he had aged and that the people he needed to find were growing further away.