When he got out of prison he didn’t set foot in Istanbul, but wandered from one impoverished village of Haymana Plain to another taking photographs. A photograph seized a person’s soul in its grip, no one could hide their true face from it. One drop contained a thousand teardrops, one smile a thousand meanings. Tatar the photographer sometimes imagined that someone would come and throw her arms around him declaring, “I’m the woman you’re looking for.” Then, remembering that the truth lay in photographs, he spread out the images he had taken on the floor every morning, searching for a child with his brother’s gaze and a woman who looked like the commander. He roamed for many seasons, unaware that Saadet had had not one but two children and that since the grizzly bear’s attack she had become known as the Claw-faced woman.
On one of the days when Tatar the photographer concealed his secret like a hidden treasure he came across Uncle Hatip in a Haymana coffeehouse. Tatar perceived that the patience in his voice was in fact weariness, and that he was running in breathless pursuit of a lost destiny. He ordered tea and offered him tobacco. When he learned that Uncle Hatip was looking for his wife and child he showed him the photographs in his bag. “The people you’re looking for may be here,” he said.
The two men’s friendship began there on that day, but Tatar the photographer did not reveal his own secret to my uncle, he didn’t tell him why he went from village to village taking photographs. Their paths separated and they followed the trail of their own stories. They met every season and chatted about the places, caravans and people they had left behind. They could not catch up with the pace of that horse called time. One day they mentioned their childhood and their relatives who were now dead. They talked of their memories. Tatar the photographer showed Uncle Hatip photographs of his family and said that his brother had died in the war. Uncle Hatip looked at the photographs one by one, pausing when he came to one in particular. He squinted. In the photograph the sergeant from Istanbul was standing, the hatless commander sitting on the ground. A red breeze was blowing. Uncle Hatip sipped his tea and took a drag from his cigarette. “This man looks like the Claw-faced woman,” he said.
“Who does?” said Tatar.
“This commander.”
14 O’Hara
The Art of Poetry
The phone rang.
It was a friend from London.
“You weren’t at the rally yesterday …”
“I couldn’t make it.”
“Was it your insomnia again?”
“Yes.”
“Have you heard about what’s happened in Istanbul?”
“They called me last night. Some of our comrades have been arrested.”
“I think we should bring the meeting forward, what do you say?”
“Good idea, let me know when you’ve set the date.”
“Have you finished the article?”
“Nearly. I’m studying the files from Istanbul.”
I put the phone on the floor.
I stayed in bed for another hour.
I tried to guess the weather by looking through the skylight.
I got up and switched on the television.
I called the interpreting agency and asked if they had any work for the following week.
I went out and breathed in the fresh air.
There were a couple of rowing boats on the river.
I strolled past whitewashed houses in silent streets.
Inside the underpass by the shopping centre the writing on the wall caught my eye. The teenagers had finished the “The Art of Poetry is” graffiti that they had abandoned halfway through when they ran out of paint. They had climbed up and written “The Art of Poetry is Dying”.
I stood before the graffiti. The passers-by looked, not at the death of poetry, but at me.
I went to the city centre.
I listened to the buskers.
In the market I browsed among the brightly coloured dresses, the beaded jewellery and the fresh fruit.
I bought a coffee from the refreshments van and I sat beside the fountain in the market square.
A number of students from different countries were showing each other their purchases. An Indian T-shirt, an orange scarf and a leather bracelet passed from one hand to another.
I finished my coffee and resumed my perusal of the stalls.
I flicked through the second-hand books.
The man on the bread stall caught my eye. I asked him where he was from.
“Ireland …” said a voice behind me.
I turned to look, and recognized the owner of the voice. He was the man with the black-framed glasses that I had met at Azita’s birthday party.
“Hello O’Hara,” I said.
He came and shook my hand.
“Hello Brani Tawo,” he said.
“You remember my name,” I said.
“Of course,” he said. “Meet my father.”
I greeted the elderly man on the stall.
“I thought he looked like you, that’s why I asked where he was from.”
“You thought he looked like me even though I have glasses?” asked O’Hara.
“Yes.”
His father asked me where I was from, what I did and how long I had been here. He told me to try and bear life in England.
He pointed at the old man on the next stall. “This place would be all right if it wasn’t for the damn English,” he said.
“If it wasn’t for us you’d all still be rotting in your villages,” retorted the old stallholder.
“It’s a damn good job we came to your cities, or your women would never have got to see any real men.”
Both old men cackled with laughter.
“They’re off again,” said O’Hara.
“It looks like it could go on forever,” I said.
A toddler ran past us with her small uncertain steps; her mother caught her.
O’Hara said, “I asked Feruzeh for your phone number.”
“Really?”
“I was going to phone you this week.”
“Have you seen Tina lately?” I asked.
“No, I’ve been at a conference in Paris, I got back this morning.”
“A conference?”
“A philosophy conference.”
“Aren’t you a baker?”
“This is my dad’s stall, I give him a hand occasionally.”
I hesitated.
“Do you have Tina’s telephone number?” I said.
“Yes. What’s up?”
I told him what had happened last week. About Feruzeh going to Iran and Azita not being at home.
O’Hara called. He couldn’t get through to Tina.
“Do you have a moment? Let’s go for a walk,” I said.
His father and the neighbour were still bickering with each other and laughing.
We each got a cup of coffee from the van.
We went down the side street by the church.
We sat on the wall of King’s College in the street behind it.
“Feruzeh has told me about you and your political activities,” I said.
“She’s told me about you too,” he said.
We laughed.
“She’s taken it upon herself to act as the go-between for our organizations.”
“Sometimes these things work by instinct.”
An elderly couple came and stood in front of us. They looked at the plaque on the second floor of the house opposite.
“Our comrades are trying to organize a meeting with your people in London,” I said.
“Do you have connections?” asked O’Hara.
“We did. They broke down when the peace talks between your organization and the British government got serious.”
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help,” he said.
“I will, thank you.”
O’Hara raised his coffee cup. “To better days,” he said.
I also raised my coffee cup.
“To better days.”
<
br /> We looked at the passers-by.
“Feruzeh can travel to Iran. But Tina and Azita can’t legally,” he said.
“They must have taken a risk,” I said.
“They can’t go without a fake passport.”
“They must have got one.”
“No, they can’t. Not without me.”
“Were you going to get them a passport?”
“Yes, Tina knows that I can pull a few strings.”
A few feet away a girl was playing the violin and another girl was dancing.
“Do you think she’ll come back?” I asked.
“Who, Feruzeh?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think she’ll come back?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Two weeks ago you were at the re-enactment of the slave Olaudah’s wedding …”
“I met Feruzeh there …”
“Tina couldn’t make it because she had the flu, so Feruzeh used her invitation.”
“Were you there?” I asked.
“I gave a speech.”
“Was it you who gave the speech on destiny?”
“It was.”
“You weren’t wearing your glasses,” I said.
“I had my contact lenses in,” he said.
“You said that although he was a slave abducted from Africa Olaudah managed to forge his own destiny.”
“He couldn’t go back to Africa but he created his own Africa.”
“How can I create Africa without Feruzeh,” I said.
“Isn’t Feruzeh your Africa?”
I nodded.
“Either you wait for your Africa to come to you, or you go off in search of your own Africa,” he said.
“Then I’ll go after her,” I said.
“To Iran.”
“Yes, but …”
I hesitated.
I took a sip of my coffee.
O’Hara looked at me.
“But ...?” he repeated.
“I need a passport,” I said.
A young couple asked me to take a photograph of them. They posed arm in arm in front of the house opposite.
“You want me to sort you out with a passport,” said O’Hara.
“If possible,” I said.
“It’s possible but it will take time,” he said.
“How long?”
“A few weeks,” he said.
“I couldn’t ask my own friends to help me with something so personal,” I said.
“I understand,” he said.
“Thank you so much,” I said. “For Africa.”
He laughed.
He raised his coffee cup.
“For all the Africas,” he said.
“For all the Africas.”
The street had become crowded and the noise drowned out the tunes of the girl playing the violin.
“We think you and Feruzeh make a good couple.”
“Who does?”
“Tina, Azita and me.”
“Did Azita say that?”
“Not in so many words. But I know the way Iranian women’s minds work.”
“Iranian women’s? Is their character so uniform?”
“All right then, the women in this family. Is that better?”
“Will you teach me too?”
“What?”
“Teach me how you understand them.”
“You can’t teach it,” he said. “You can only learn by being with them.”
He looked at me and smiled.
O’Hara and I agreed not to speak by phone. I would contact him by going to the bread stall and giving his father a photo of myself.
We said our goodbyes and I set off for home.
As I was walking through the underpass I saw a woman standing before the sign announcing: “The Art of Poetry is Dying”. She had a little girl with her and they were looking at the graffiti.
When I arrived home my hands were shaking.
I was exhausted, even though I hadn’t done anything.
I figured a bath would do me good.
I filled the bathtub and lay in the hot water with my eyes shut. I daydreamed that I was back at home with my family. I wandered through the fields. I sat down in a pavement coffeehouse.
Whenever I was suddenly overcome with exhaustion I felt dizzy and my muscles grew weak.
My hands were still shaking when I got out of the bath.
I hadn’t felt faint for months but I could feel that I was about to pass out.
I lay on the bed.
I drifted into a dream. I watched the crowd around me and I saw soldiers running towards me. The sun suddenly vanished, time became eternal. The soldiers roared as they beat me. I heard the sound the bones in my face made as they broke. My whole body was soaked in blood. My eyes met those of a small girl. She held out her hand to help me. I smiled. She smiled back. I turned and looked behind me. I saw a large field of crops. My blood flowed heavier. The ears of wheat turned red. I heard a voice say, “Okay, he’s dead.” My nostrils filled with the smell of blood. The whole world turned black. In the distance a woman sang the same song over and over again and a telephone rang insistently.
The wide-winged bird of time hung suspended in the void.
Slowly I opened my eyes.
I looked at my watch. It had been three hours since I had gone to bed.
This was the first time I had dreamt in a long time. Fainting was good for my mental exhaustion.
The telephone rang again.
The woman on the other end said, “Brani Tawo.”
I would have known that voice in a thousand.
“Azita,” I said.
“Have I called at a bad time? You’re out of breath …”
“No, no, no …”
My neck, my back, my stomach were all soaked in sweat.
I took a deep breath.
Azita was at Tina’s house. They had gone to London after she had seen Feruzeh off. They had received O’Hara’s message late because she had gone to the hospital for a check-up.
I told her I had left a note at their house, that I had called our common acquaintances, that Stella had had a heart attack and that I had seen O’Hara at the market.
“Everything happened so quickly, we didn’t think to ask Feruzeh for your telephone number,” she said.
“I can’t get through to Feruzeh,” I said.
“Her phone doesn’t work abroad. She only realized after she got there,” she said.
“Have you been in touch?”
“She’s phoned once,” she said.
“Do you have a number where I can call her?”
“Unfortunately not,” she said.
“How is Roya, is she okay?”
“She’s in hospital,” she said.
I could feel her voice breaking.
“She recovered last time, and she’ll recover this time too,” I said.
“There was I fearing I would die far away from Iran, and now my daughter is there fighting death.”
I didn’t tell Azita I was going to Iran. There was still time.
“Have you told any book fortunes recently?” I asked.
She remained silent.
After a pause she said, “No I haven’t. After they imprisoned my husband I was afraid of telling book fortunes; I thought I would never feel fear like that again.”
“Try the book I gave you for your birthday,” I said.
“I’m glad you reminded me; I want to thank you again for your present.”
“You’re welcome. Do you like it?”
“I don’t just like it, I’m overwhelmed.”
“Why?”
“I can see you’ve gone to great pains to decorate it. You’ve put a different flower on each page.”
“It’s the first poetry book I bought in England. I dried the small flowers I picked from parks and stuck them on the edge of each page.”
“I’m not sure I’m the person who should have this book,” she said.
“I just obeyed the voice inside me,” I said. “It doesn’t matter which page you open when you’re telling a fortune, with that book you will always come across a flower.”
We both paused.
We listened to the humming of the telephone.
“Where did you get that song?” she asked.
“Which song?” I said.
“ ‘Hejrat’. I can hear it from my end of the phone,” she said.
I stopped for a moment. I didn’t remember when I had put the CD player on. “Feruzeh gave it to me,” I said.
“Brani Tawo …”
“Yes …”
“You shouldn’t listen to melancholy songs,” she said.
“Okay, I won’t,” I said.
I bowed my head, the phone still in my hand.
“Are you patient?” she asked.
“If I know how things will turn out, then I’m patient. But uncertainty weighs heavier than time,” I said.
“Brani Tawo …”
My heart relaxed as Azita pronounced my name.
“Do you realize how much you’ve changed Feruzeh?” she said.
“No,” I said.
“After her sister left, Feruzeh didn’t touch her book of secrets again. She lost faith in poetry. But two weeks ago she met you, and she took her book with the rose design out of the cupboard again and started carrying it around with her every day.”
I raised my head and gazed up at the sky through the skylight. The stars were shining.
15 Haco
People are People’s Refuge
On the day that Tatar the photographer came to the village the people who had gathered in Kewê and Haco’s house left in the middle of the night. Some went off in search of the Claw-faced woman’s daughters while others went to the south peak as soon as they heard that my father had been struck by lightning. All the houses were suddenly deserted; no one but young girls, children and the elderly remained in the village.
Having seen his guests to the door, Haco rolled a cigarette and sat down in front of the door. Once again, a solitary bird that had perched on the apple tree was chirping in the darkness. The spring water flowed cheerfully, like a child with boundless energy. Once she had spread out the beds Kewê went to the door. Seeing Haco slumped on the ground she panicked, and called out to my ten-year-old mother. They carried Haco to bed and sprinkled water on his face. He opened his eyes and looked at Kewê. “I wanted to die after you,” he said, “so you wouldn’t be left alone all over again.”
Sins & Innocents Page 12