The Lamppost Diary

by Agop J. Hacikyan

  She stopped. ‘Tell all your friends how good I am.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Tell them all to come see me.’

  ‘I will.’

  She continued, ‘I’m a doctor.’

  Tomas wasn’t listening. He was just a dripping faucet, without words, without apologies. She went on saying as she got dressed: ‘I heal young boys. I call myself Panakeia, ‘cure-all’ in Greek. Did you like it?’

  ‘Yes, Panakeia.’

  ‘I don’t like to see boys run around jerking off whenever they see a pair of naked ankles.’

  ‘Do you think boys become idiots if they masturbate too much?’

  ‘What idiot told you that?’

  Tomas laughed. Another lie confirmed.

  She opened her dressing gown and touched herself between the legs. ‘Do you see this, my handsome lover?’ She assumed a serious face, ‘That’s where boys receive their first benediction.’ She brought her thumb and two fingers together and crossed herself three times. ‘When it’s done with Navsika, it’s a cure-all.’ She crossed herself once more. ‘I’ve turned my profession into a genuine vocation ... Do you understand?’

  Another silence.

  ‘Another piece of advice before you leave,’ she added. ‘What you just did was fuck. Next time I’ll teach you how to make love.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Tomas wondered if all the other women there were like her, spoke like her, or if she was something peculiar, special, sui generis. He didn’t realize that her goodness was deeply rooted in her very soul – some instinct told her that after intercourse ends and clients leave, even when dissatisfied or disappointed, a glow of affection should remain in their memories.

  *

  When Tomas came down, Aram and Haig were trying to persuade the madam to let them in.

  ‘Go home and come back in a couple of years,’ she shouted. She had no time to waste.

  Aram and Haig pointed at Tomas, ‘How come you let him in?’

  ‘It was Dursoun Bey who ...’ The woman was fed up. ‘All right, get in,’ she said out of desperation, ‘The nursery is upstairs.’

  ‘Amazing!’ Tomas whispered to them.

  Outside, the February dusk began to descend. It was raining. Tomas had no umbrella. The queue before the peephole had got much longer.

  14

  It had been a bad winter and an even worse spring for Tomas’s mother. Doctors diagnosed her horrendous abdominal pains and serious digestive problems as cholecystitis, gallstones. Despite many arduous cleansing treatments, with periodic apple diets, olive oil, lemon and carrot juice cocktails, peppermint colonic irrigations, and applying herbalist Jojo’s certified remedies, the pains continued to get worse. Surgery was the only alternative. At that time in Istanbul the removal of a gall bladder was a complicated operation, more complex than taking out the heart and keeping the patient alive. A surgeon by the name of Bension Chiprut, a Sephardic Jew, accepted the challenge. He made every effort to ensure that his patient would be well taken care of and swore by Aesculapius, the god of medicine, that he would do his best to heal Anton’s wife and Tomas’s mother, Digin Lucie.

  Tomas’s mother was taken to the Bulgarian Hospital in Hürriyet Tepesi (the Freedom Summit), not far from the Armenian and Jewish cemeteries. Dr Chiprut operated with two assisting doctors and the surgery was a success. But three days later she had a very high fever, breathing difficulties and palpitations, brought on by an infection. Dr Chiprut had forgotten to take out some pieces of cotton and dressing before sewing her up. Once more she was carried to the operating table, the forgotten pieces of gauze and cotton removed and long days of treatment ensued.

  Tomas’s father filed charges against the doctor, but it was rare in those days to sue medical people. The verdict was not in Anton’s favour. The judge decided that the surgeon also had to be paid for his second intervention.

  Tomas worried constantly about his mother’s health; she wasn’t recovering fast enough. To distract himself he started training more rigorously. Anya did her best to help him. She brought him books to read, suggested that they go to the movies, invited him home for lunch and supper, and even accompanied him to the abandoned stadium behind the military stables to watch him run and to keep time. But nothing she said got through to him.

  After each run she’d say, ‘You did better than last time.’

  ‘Not much, but better,’ would be his reply

  He knew she was lying but didn’t say anything. He had performed brilliantly at the last Rose Cup, one of the first important track events of the season. But the hot, humid weather made training all the more difficult. He had to improve his endurance and speed.

  *

  Despite the wind it was another sultry night. Mama was still in hospital. A strange nightmare woke Tomas. He couldn’t exactly remember the dream; something about a long train ride, rumbling slowly along a murky river. He could still hear the loud whistle and the panting of the engine. His heart beat louder than the deafening whistle. For no reason he recalled his grandmother’s wrinkled face, so wrinkled that the face was hidden behind cavernous folds. He also heard gunshots. But they weren’t gunshots; they were loud moans, ripping through the darkness. What he heard was not from outside; it was from the other end of the apartment. The moans turned into sobs – swelling, heaving, gasping – followed by a long silence. Another moan, and then another and another. They were coming from Papa’s bedroom. Tomas heard Papa’s voice. He checked the phosphorescent dial of the alarm clock on the bedside table. It was half past one in the morning. He got up, groped his way to the door in the dark, opened it and tiptoed to Papa’s bedroom. The door was ajar. The table lamp was on.

  Tomas was numb. Jolting shocks startled his brain, descended down to his chest, like a brusque collapsing decline. Before him was a pair of naked bodies. It was like peering through a brothel peephole. Papa was lying on his back with Noni on top of him, straddling, wobbling. They picked up speed, sighing and gasping loudly. Papa kissed her breasts. Tomas wished that Noni’s breasts were infected, filled with puss to canker the lust-crazed sucker. He wished to see no more, but his eyes were glued fast to the scene.

  The sound he heard was his own clattering mind. He was mortified, as if he were watching Mama and Papa conceive their first-born ... himself ... in a public square. Papa was touching alien flesh. Noni was rubbing herself against him. He tiptoed back to his own room.

  So Noni was Papa’s second wife. She was the understudy. That was why Papa didn’t sleep in the same bed, in the same room, as Mama. Tomas was enraged. Had he been spawned during, between, before, or after such polygamous lovemaking?

  *

  When Tomas was much younger he had asked Mama why she and Papa had separate rooms and she had told him that Papa snored so noisily she couldn’t sleep. Tomas had never heard Papa snore when he fell asleep in the red velvet armchair as he listened to the news, nor while he snoozed after lunch in the hammock at the summer house.

  ‘The deepest sleep is always in the middle of the night,’ she explained. ‘People usually snore when they’re fast asleep.’

  Tomas knew it was another lie. He had got up in the middle of the night – night after night – and stayed for hours in front of his father’s bedroom door to hear him snore. But the room remained quieter than the night itself.

  *

  Tomas thought he knew his father well, but apparently not. Poor Mama probably had no choice but to condone his sexual vagaries. She must have stayed with him only because she was concerned about what would happen to her if she left. Or did she love him so much she could accept the presence of a concubine under the same roof? The heart was a mysterious organ – pumping, thumping, intoxicating. Did Noni love him so much she was willing to jeopardize her future? Was Papa King Solomon or Anton the chorbajι? Who was Tomas’s mother? Mama, who wrote beautiful poems, or Noni, whose breasts were like two youthful twin roses? What exquisite taste. Tomas loved Noni too. But his was the love of an adolescent. Papa’s
was a licentious plunge into verboten territory.

  Did Papa remember that superb, lifelike black-and-white picture? Mama and Noni together in their long black winter coats, their faces ensconced within fur collars and hats with black half-veils covering their eyes, as if posing for Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar? They’re holding hands like a couple of loving sisters. They have such dreamy expressions – tender, kind and affectionate. It was such a beautiful picture, and yet pain seeped from it, perhaps invisible at first glance, but discernible after a minute or two. Tomas grabbed the picture and went to the mirror in the bathroom. He checked whether he resembled Mama or Noni. Everybody said he looked like father. How would he find out, then, who his true mother was? Anya said he was the image of his father, which he found flattering somehow.

  *

  Tomas told Anya all about it in great detail, which gradually began to arouse them and ignite their desire. They were in the living room of Anya’s apartment, reclining on the leather sofa. Her parents weren’t back yet. Grandfather Aleksandr Novotni and Grandmother Al’bina Sergeievna posed venerably on the wall. They watched them with admonishing eyes. Caresses turned to embraces and embraces to gentle fondling and piecemeal undressing. Their kisses led in turn to lovemaking.

  When it was over they remained still in each other’s arms. Their precipitous conduct had bewitched them. Tomas, totally enamoured, stared into her liquid-blue eyes. They were now the property of a full-grown woman he had never met before. He shut his eyes and held her tighter, as if to glue his entire being to Anya’s slim frame. Anya was far away. Only a tiny bit of delicious pain whispered her invisible presence.

  ‘Anya ...’

  ‘Shush!’

  *

  Tomas felt as feeble as water held between two hands. The very same evening he opened a book and read these lines written by an Armenian poet: ‘One day the paths of a poet of great genius and a soldier of great daring crossed each other. But only the soldier nodded, acknowledging that he was passing a genius.’8

  Tomas raised his eyes from the book and uttered out loud: ‘One day the paths of a young poet of prime inspiration and a delicious maiden of great genius crossed each other. But only the maiden opened her arms, proclaiming that she was passing a poet who was madly in love, and ... Anya, child of grace.’

  *

  Tomas’s heart leapt when he met Anya in the hallway of their apartment building the following morning. Anya slipped a letter into his coat pocket.

  ‘Read it.’

  They walked together speechless, shy and indecisive about embarking on the subject they both had in mind. When they reached the rusty green lamppost at the end of the street, Anya stopped. Tomas looked at her.

  ‘Why have you stopped?’

  ‘Do it.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Touch the lamppost and turn around it three times,’ she smiled.

  Tomas turned crimson. ‘How do you know about that?’

  ‘Because I’ve watched you do it many times.’

  ‘I don’t need to do it anymore.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because my good luck is finally here with me!’

  ‘Shall we dance then?’ she asked, in the sum of all smiles.

  *

  Tomas waited impatiently for the dragging algebra class to come to an end so that he could read Anya’s letter. She had placed it in a light blue greeting-card envelope.

  Moï dorogoy, my Darling Tomas,

  Yesterday, the moment you left, I was already missing you. Rest assured that you didn’t hurt me. I had been waiting for this ever since we kissed and touched in the basement shelter that night, and it had been a long wait.

  Papa and Mama have told me about the dangers of having sex before my wedding night, but I love you so much. I couldn’t have waited that long. Tomas, I want to ask you something, and please don’t lie to me. Have you ever had sex before? You didn’t seem to be uninitiated like me. Or is it a talent that you’ve inherited ... um ... from your Papa?

  Anya, your neighbour on the first floor!

  15

  The end of the war was followed by celebrations and suicides: Adolf Hitler’s for one, along with his mistress, Eva Braun.

  The post-war years also brought about changes on the home front. The minorities were back on their feet again, mending the economic, social and psychological damage caused by the war and racist government policies.

  The government kept a string of mines to safeguard the Dardanelle straits – the trade route to Istanbul, the Bosporus and the Black Sea. Certain groups of citizens protested strongly, as the mines endangered their recreational sailing. The protests were ignored and boats glided like shimmering dolphins through a complex maze of explosives.

  After the war, certain municipal brothels in Istanbul announced a twenty per cent price increase, with a ten per cent rebate for senior citizens. Swanky maisons de rendezvous multiplied and offered top-quality imports from North Africa and the Balkans. Madame Atina, who ran the most exclusive establishment in the city, catered for the rich and overactive diplomats and politicians.

  Bebo left the group after Haig claimed their friend couldn’t get it up. But he returned months later, owing mostly to Tomas and Aram’s relentless efforts and a heartfelt apology from Haig.

  In those months on his own Bebo had devised a bomb that could destroy a car in less than seventeen seconds. The others, at this stage, though, were more interested in women than bombs. Tomas’s love for Anya intensified, while Aram and Haig remained Navsika’s favourite clients. Tomas’s mother was deeply concerned about her son; such frequent sexual indulgence could weaken him physically and intellectually. Aram’s parents were afraid he might fall in love with a lovely Turkish Muslim girl. Haig, on the other hand, took full advantage of his parents’ liberal views regarding their son’s precocious womanizing. Bebo remained a mystery. The boys never saw him with a girl. Although they began to have doubts about their friend’s sexual orientation, they didn’t dare speculate openly.

  *

  Tomas and Anya’s love had grown with such intensity that, when they graduated from high school and were ready to go to the American College of Istanbul, the mere notion of not being able to live in the same building was anathema to them.

  ‘Why can’t we go to a college where they don’t separate the boys from the girls?’ asked Anya angrily.

  ‘Because there aren’t any in this damned city,’ Tomas replied.

  Tomas was delighted to leave behind his father Solomon, the king, and his two mothers. Anya was also happy to be away from her mother’s consistent warnings about not letting premature matrimonial commitments spoil her professional ambitions. Anya wanted to become a physician. Tomas wanted to be a writer, as well as a decent long distance runner.

  During their first year at college they had even entertained the idea that living on separate campuses would give each of them the opportunity to take lovers, thus testing their love for each other. But the year went by without any alien seductions. Tomas seduced Anya in Armenian and Anya courted Tomas in Russian. And they made love in English.

  16

  Between the Anatolian and the Rumelian ramparts on the banks of the Bosporus the breeze dissipated into a misty haze. The sun rose slowly behind the Asiatic shore and shone directly on Tomas’s face. He was out on the college track, ready for his daily run. He loved running, splitting the air with his chest. On a hot day, running was like a sexual sensation – an intensifying desire to push on longer and faster. On a cold day, he felt as if his sweat turned to tingling icicles, pricking his skin and spurring him to sprint at top speed. Every time he ran to the girls’ college, a scenic stretch of five miles, he had the feeling that he was racing through a narrative never written before.

  After three years his daily sprints between the American College and Constantinople College for Girls had turned him into a track star and a serious candidate for the Turkish national team, competing at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne. He was
in love, maturing intellectually, creatively productive, and physically already a star athlete.

  He checked his tracksuit pocket to make sure the letter was there and set out to run at a moderate pace.

  Among his college friends he spent a lot of time with Isam Ramazan, a third-year philosophy student. He came from a large family that owned sugar mills in the Thrace region. The boys called him Isa, just to annoy him. He reacted as if it were a capital offence to be called Jesus, especially with a family name like Ramazan, which was also the name of the ninth month of the Muslim year. He was good-looking, with blond hair and green eyes. Issam stood out among the boys, not so much for his tall frame and stout figure as for his superiority complex. With his permanent grin and Thracian Turkish accent, he lost no opportunity to speak about his distinguished ancestors who had served the Sultanate since the Ottoman occupation of Constantinople in 1453. He made them sound more celebrated than Fatih Sultan Mehmed, the great military leader who captured Byzantium. Years later, though, Tomas and the rest of his classmates were shocked to find out that Issam was a Chaldean Catholic; in other words, a fully-fledged gaiour. His tenacious claim to noble Ottoman ancestry had simply been an attempt to pass for a pure-bred Turk. At the time, many members of the minorities took drastic measures to conceal their non-Muslim origins, which for some carried a social stigma almost tantamount to that of syphilis.