“I didn’t get a chance this time. But next time I’m going to choose myself an apple tree and bring the seeds back to plant here,” she said.
A train pulled in to the station.
The waiting passengers moved towards the platform.
“How are you? What have you been up to?” asked Feruzeh.
“The usual stuff. The only thing that’s changed is that now I see more of Stella.”
“I went to see her too. I dropped by the antique shop before I came here,” she said.
I laughed. “She’s even more cheerful in that shop now than she was before,” I said.
“Stella showed me something,” she said.
“What?”
“Guess.”
“Has my camera arrived?”
“A friend of Stella’s brought it from London this morning.”
“Really? It must be my day today,” I said.
“It’s a sharp, sound machine,” she said.
“An Olympus Six, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“At last,” I said. “If I ever go home I won’t go to my mother empty-handed.”
“You told Stella the story about the camera.”
“I was going to tell you first but I never got the chance,” I said.
“Shall we both go and see Stella tomorrow?” she said.
“Yes, let’s.”
“Then you and I can have a little chat,” she said.
“What about?” I said.
Feruzeh swallowed.
“Sins …” she said.
“I couldn’t fit all my sins into just tomorrow,” I said.
She looked at me with a sad, weary expression.
“I’m being serious,” she said.
“So am I,” I said.
The buzz in the station got louder.
Feruzeh started coughing.
I passed her the bottle of water from my bag.
“You seem to have everything in that bag,” she said.
I opened the bag and looked inside.
“I’ve given you everything that was inside, the only thing left is a book,” I said.
“Which book?”
“A novel.”
I took it out.
“Is it in Turkish?” she asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“What’s it called?”
“A Mind at Peace.”
“Is it good?”
“That doesn’t matter,” I said.
Feruzeh stopped. She waited for the buzzing on the platform to stop.
“Why are you reading it then?” she said.
“Do you know what the difference is between how I felt before you left and how I feel now?” I said.
“What?”
“The answer is in this book. Do you want to find out what it is?”
“I most certainly do,” she said.
I passed her the book.
“Open any page,” I said.
Feruzeh opened a page. She scrutinized the words, as though they would mean something to her, then she passed it to me.
“There’s a folk-song here for you,” I said.
Feruzeh looked at me.
“Would I have got the same folk-song no matter which page I opened?” she said.
“Yes,” I said. “It’s not just your family that plays this kind of game.”
She laughed.
“What sort of folk-song?”
“When I was telling you about my grandmother Kewê’s life I mentioned a folk-song she sang, do you remember?”
“The folk-song she heard in the fields one night, and that she then sang to your mother, isn’t that the one?”
“You haven’t forgotten,” I said.
“Why would I forget …?”
“You wanted to hear the song that day, but I didn’t sing it to you. All in good time they say. I had a very hard time while you were away and now the time has come for that song.”
Feruzeh picked up the bag separating us, put it on the ground and moved closer to me.
“I told you I had never sung that song to anyone before,” I said.
“Yes.”
She looked into my eyes.
“After the song will you tell me a story too? I’ve missed your stories,” she said.
“Do you want a radio story?”
“Yes Brani Tawo,” she said. “Tell me one of the stories you used to listen to on the radio when you were a little boy.”
“Okay,” I said.
Feruzeh’s knee touched my knee, and her breath touched my breath.
She waited in silence.
I closed my eyes and started singing the song. I tilted my head to the side, just as Kewê used to do when she was singing it to my mother and my mother used to do when she was singing it to me.
A red breeze blew. The branches rustled.
Then time stood still.
Brani Tawo: “I have always hesitated to put the feelings in my heart into words Feruzeh.”
Feruzeh: “Why?”
Brani Tawo: “I was afraid of us both getting hurt.”
Feruzeh: “Why would we get hurt?”
Brani Tawo: “Perhaps my fears were unfounded, I don’t know.”
The hum of the station crowd. The rumble of a train.
Feruzeh: “Brani Tawo, when I was telling your poetry fortune in my book of secrets I saw our shared future.”
Brani Tawo: “You didn’t tell me that.”
Feruzeh: “I was going to tell you when the time was right.”
Brani Tawo: “There’s a novel I read many years ago, I feel as though I’m a character in that novel.”
Feruzeh: “What kind of a novel?”
Brani Tawo: “A man is in love with a woman but he can’t tell her of his feelings.”
Feruzeh: “Does he never put his feelings into words?”
Brani Tawo: “One day the man plucks up the courage and tells the woman what his mind fears but his heart desires.”
Feruzeh: “What does the woman do?”
Brani Tawo: “That doesn’t matter, what matters is the end.”
The noise in the station grows louder. A train whistles.
Feruzeh: “What happens at the end of the novel?”
Brani Tawo: “The woman commits suicide.”
Feruzeh: “That means she loves him.”
Brani Tawo: “If everyone who loves dies I want to spare you that fate, Feruzeh.”
Feruzeh: “And the only way of doing that is by remaining silent?”
Brani Tawo: “What my mind fears but my heart desires is …”
Feruzeh: “Be quiet and kiss me.”
Silence.
Feruzeh: “I’ve waited so long for this moment. Kiss me again.”
Silence.
The silence continues.
The rumble of a train grows more and more distant.
The End
Glossary
Agha: an identifying title signifying status. Literally lord.
Bayram: religious festival, holiday or feast day.
Börek: a sweet or savoury pastry typically but not exclusively made with meat or cheese, and which can be baked, griddled or fried.
Deniz (Gezmiş): a Turkish socialist revolutionary and political activist. He was executed in 1972, aged twenty-five, by a military tribunal for “attempting to overthrow constitutional order”. Today he is a national hero in left-wing circles. (The word Deniz means “sea” in Turkish.)
Gecekondu: literally “sprung up overnight”. A cheap, illegal dwelling constructed very quickly by people migrating from rural areas to the outskirts of large cities.
Hut: an ogre-like giant in Kurdish folk-tales.
Leyla and Mecnun: a classic Arab story based on the story of a real man called Mecnun who fell in love with Leyla and went mad when her father prevented him from marrying her. The word mecnun means “madman”.
Lokum: traditional Turkish confectionery known as Turkish delight, often flavoured with almonds,
pistachios, rosewater or lemon.
Mukhtar: the head of a village or neighbourhood.
Zamzam water: according to Muslims, miraculously generated water from the well of Zamzam in Mecca. It is visited by millions of pilgrims each year, who drink its water for its healing properties.
Translator’s Biography
Ümit Hussein is a British translator and interpreter of Turkish Cypriot origin. She was born and raised in London. She made her debut in the world of translation and interpretation at the age of five, when she would accompany her mother and grandmother to the consulting rooms of medical, legal and other professionals as their interpreter. Having acquired a taste for words and languages, she studied Italian and European Literature before going on to get an MA in Literary Translation from the University of East Anglia. During the course of her career she has translated well-known names such as Nevin Halıcı, Mehmet Yashin and Ahmet Altan into English. Today she lives between Seville and London and combines her literary pursuits with interpreting.
Sins & Innocents Page 14