The Flea Palace

by Elif Shafak

  The following day, an unsigned editorial appeared in the leading opposition newspaper with the title, ‘Government’s Three-Piece-Suited Assassins of Saints’ – only this time the beginning and the end of the piece had been connected into a meaningful whole. It contended that the government, which had hitherto demonstrated at every opportunity what little respect it had for the Ottoman cultural heritage, had now taken upon itself to one by one raise to the ground all the saints’ tombs in Istanbul; that some politicians who feigned in public to uphold customs and tradition secretly belittled everything about the populace; that the faith bursting from within the nation was sacrificed for the sake of an abstract Western model; and that in the name of cleansing religion of superstition Islam was altogether opposed. Towards the end, an open call was placed to all Muslims to safeguard their saints.

  Despite the fact that the piece did not lead, as feared, to an upsurge of emotions, still like a signal rocket it triggered into action all sorts of individuals and organizations all around the country. It was as if all these people had suddenly assumed the discovery of what had happened to the two saints’ tombs in the vacated cemetery as their sole purpose in life, demanding an explanation from the authorities. The issue was not only extremely sensitive but also remarkably exploitable. The discussants started with ‘the negligence of modernization’ and concluded with a suggestion that instead ‘modernization itself be neglected’. Like a diving beetle that skids on water, they hopped and skipped on ostentatious notions, such as ‘the oblivion of the nation,’ ‘contemporary Bihruzes,’ ‘enforced Westernization,’ ‘sinister secularization’ and so forth, thereby traversing a whole lake of antagonisms, splashing water around all but themselves.

  A local newspaper that came out in the provinces but happened to be particularly interested in what was going on in Istanbul even though it had no distribution there, thus declared: ‘What is termed ‘Westernization’ is nothing but a loving marriage between the East and the West. Yet, one should never forget that in this matrimony the West is the woman and East the man. The latter is therefore naturally the head of the household. For that reason it should be those swanky streets built for a few overindulged ladies to gallivant on and for dressed up dandies to show off their cars that show respect to the saints, not the other way around.’

  With the detection of a crime necessitating the disclosure of the criminal, the time was ripe to get some people into trouble. After a brief consideration of possible options, trouble flew around to finally perch on the heads of the old and loyal cemetery guards. Having managed to hide all traces of nightly disturbances at the cemetery from people who visited in the morning, they were not able to hide themselves from the notice of their chief, and after being found guilty of trampling the tombs of saints, were laid off temporarily. Of the three guards, two were elderly men who believed there was a silver lining to every disaster. Of these two, one returned to his village and the other retired to his house to dedicate the rest of his life to his grandchildren. Yet the third one, relatively younger and not easily content with little, could not accept the injustice that had been committed. In the months to follow he penned reproachful letters to the directory of the cemeteries, the mayor, ministers, prime minister and high ranking members of the military, all the while complaining to each and every person he encountered. During this time, there was a change of government and the opposition assumed power, but all the same, his letters remained unanswered and the authorities indifferent. As they became increasingly deaf to his pleas, he became muter, drifting inward. Everyone expected him to eventually get over the past, but just when they thought he had, he did something utterly unexpected.

  Now this man had a wife whom he had not touched in years and whom he had banished from his bed for snoring till daylight like an elephant. One day out of the blue, it was this woman that he started to chase around the house utterly unconcerned about the blame neighbours would place on him for such lust at this age. He finally caught his wife after a long, scream-filled chase and, paying no attention to her excuses, objections, entreaties and curses, with total doggedness and the help of fortune impregnated her at the age of fifty.

  He did not waste a second to rush to the registrar’s office as soon as the baby was born. In order to make sure neither he himself, nor anyone else would ever forget the wrong done to him, in spite of all the protests of his wife and after giving fistfuls of bribe to the civil servant on duty, he officially named the son God had given him after all this time: ‘Injustice’.

  Long before Injustice had become implanted in his mother’s womb, however, the scandal of the saints started to fade away. Within two weeks after the removal of the tombs of Saint ‘Hewhopackedupandleft’, the political agenda had entirely altered and both the government and the opposition focused their full attention on the forthcoming elections. The municipal authorities who had meanwhile speeded-up the road construction project could thus assume the case closed and easily finish up the project without further trouble. What was done was done since the stone sarcophagi were removed during the excavation of the cemetery. Even so, during those prickly days when every event clustering more than ten people was bound to be crowned with a propaganda speech, the Third of the Three Consultant Buddies would have no difficulty in convincing his business partners not only that the saint’s file should not be closed, but also that it should be fully utilized for a public ceremony.

  A few weeks before the elections, a brief ceremony attended by a large number of spectators occurred on the southern slope of the old Muslim cemetery. Since the uneven ground next to the wall that once separated the orthodox Armenian cemetery was not suitable for the occasion, the question as to which tomb would be treated as genuine was automatically answered. Some among the spectators were people hired specifically for this purpose. As for the rest, they were either totally unaware but curious passers-by, or, on the contrary, conscientious citizens who wanted to see with their own eyes how the scandalous event they had followed from the newspapers would come to an end.

  The ceremony comprised of three main parts. In the first part, two men, one young with an aged voice and the other old with a youthful voice, recited verses from the Qur’an which they had committed to memory in its entirety. During the second part, an official dressed up to the nines delivered a rather indicting but essentially passionless speech in response to all the accusations so far voiced. The third part was the most complicated. Pieces of the saint’s stone sarcophagus and an empty coffin – brought along at the last minute so as not to confuse those with barely any knowledge of the situation – were carried on shoulders and loaded onto the hearse. Then everyone got on buses heading to an empty, rusty-soiled lot surrounded by dilapidated buildings. There, immersed in mud, orations and applause, the empty coffin of Saint ‘Hewhopackedupandleft’ was first buried, then the pieces of the stone sarcophagus joined and erected, appearing far more magnificent now surrounded by a tall ornate wood railing. The Third of the Three Consultant Buddies had prepared the text of the speech he was to deliver days in advance. Yet that morning, having finally mustered the courage to propose marriage to the daughter of his maternal aunt with whom he had been in love for years, he had been so badly rejected that he took to the streets wandering aimlessly, thus failing to get both himself and his speech to the ceremony on time.

  Upon arriving at the site of the ceremony with a delay of almost an hour, the Third of the Three Consultant Buddies could not find anyone around. Only scattered cigarette stubs and tangled footprints remained of that boisterous crowd. He sat down by the tomb in grief and, wiping his sweaty forehead, started to read the text that had consumed so much of his time aloud to himself. There was actually no need for the paper since he knew every single line by heart. In a voice that quivered at first but got stronger eventually, he declared how the person lying in the tomb was a most distinguished saint who had kept his appetite for worldly pleasures captive in the turquoise-covered ring on his finger. He declared also that
the saint had, in accordance with his convictions, refused to sleep under the same roof for more than one night or eat from the same bowl more than once; used a brick for a pillow in perpetual pain; never gotten married to leave behind any descendants, or any property or goods; wandered all year round deeming the earth his house and the skies his roof; in short, the name Saint ‘Hewhopackedupandleft’ had been bestowed upon him for spending his whole life with no roots nowhere. Hence it would not at all be contrary to tradition to move the tomb from one place to another and whomever argued otherwise should be mistrusted not only as to their intentions but also the depth of their religious knowledge. At the conclusion of his speech, turning pensive he distractedly caressed the words ‘baqiya hawas’ on the inscriptions of the stone sarcophagus. Then, as if responding to a distant call, he sprung up and hurried in the direction he had come from.

  It wasn’t until this point that the graveyard of Saint ‘Hewhopackedupandleft’ achieved the unspoiled calm and composure it had yearned for so long. Leaving aside the visitors occasionally praying by his grave who rubbed their bus, train, ferry or plane tickets on his tombstone, not a single event would occur for about thirty-six years to upset its turbulence-free peace. Probably because of the ad infinitum movement of the saint’s tomb from one location to another, it became a custom among travellers setting on a long journey to stop by this place a day before their departure to seek his blessing and to thumbprint a corner of their tickets, as if getting the approval of an imaginary customs officer, with the rust-coloured soil of the tomb. After the second half of the 1960s, these travellers were gradually replaced by ‘guest-workers’ off to Germany and their relatives. During those years, the most faithful visitors of the saint were the women left behind by the guest-workers going abroad. Since in their case there were no tickets to be had, they ended up rubbing the rust-coloured soil on their fingertips or palms, which resembled henna when dry. In time, most of these women went to join their husbands so the number of visitors gradually diminished. At the end of thirty-six years, first the wood railing, then the crimson-veined white marble and finally the rust-coloured soil of this imposing tomb were secretly swallowed-up by the stores, workshops and restaurants engulfing it in the ever-shrinking circle of a chase or hunt. Thus the tombs of Saint ‘Hewhopackedupandleft’ that once numbered two and then reduced to one, finally reached nil.

  As for the hilly land of the two old cemeteries, it was there that the fastest transformation occurred upon the completion of the avenue. Along the slope on the northwest side of the orthodox Armenian cemetery sprung up graceful apartment buildings, tailed by, like kites with multi-hued ribbons, stores with glittery windows, sidewalks to promenade with flair, new locales throbbing with rhythm. When the value of the buildings skyrocketed, those who had a house or land in this area pocketed large amounts of money in no time. Many of the flats facing the avenue were rented out to businesses; mostly to doctors or lawyers. Such offices mushroomed so far and wide that before long there would be at least one doctor or one lawyer in any shared taxi operating in the neighbourhood. So much so, that in each of these shared taxis, one frequently encountered people with plenty of health complaints or legal problems but no money, only there for a free consultation with the doctor sitting next to them or the lawyer behind. Some of the minibus drivers themselves, thanks to their eavesdropping on such conversations from dusk till dawn, accumulated an impressive amount of knowledge on both medical and legal matters. If truth be told, one highly fashionable general neurologist, whose constant use of a particular route meant he became the best of friends with one of the most astute of the drivers, had actually got into the habit of referring some of the queries he received to this driver. Though the elderly mischievous doctor had originally proceeded with this game out of boredom, he eventually got great enjoyment from it. The young driver was one of the few with a mind sharp as a razor and a tolerance unique to bohemians. Besides, having little regard for the physician’s rules of etiquette or for weighing each word, he blurted what he thought right out, utterly oblivious to the hopes he might shatter in doing so. As he drove the shared taxi, he would mimic the obsessions of neurotic ladies and angst-ridden gentlemen, even managing to get them to laugh at themselves. His performance so impressed the elderly doctor that after a while he offered him a job. In spite of their good intentions, however, the witty friendship of the two could not survive the rigorous formalities of the office environment, and the young driver ultimately returned to his minibus.

  In no more than fifteen years, the appearance of the vicinity was entirely transformed. Not a single person remembered that there had once been, and still were, hundreds of graves under these grandiose offices, stylish stores and fancy apartments shining along the avenue with the perfection of porcelain teeth. Most of the flats had narrow, double-door, carpeted elevators. Had these elevators operated not only between the ground and upper floors but also further down into the ground, one would have seen, like slices cut from a colossal cake, all the segments of life’s inner workings. At the very bottom, there would be layer upon layer of the earth’s crust, then rough, knobby soil; upon that a stratum of decimated graves, followed by a very thin line of tarmac road, a couple of flats piled up on one another, a layer of red-brick roof and, on top of it all, a sky of endless cerulean plastered and diffused all over. Occasionally, some people were heard to mutter softly as if to themselves, ‘Once upon a time there were graves all over this place…’ Yet these words had a somewhat surreal sound to them though the time referred to dated no further than fifteen or twenty years ago. It was reminiscent of saying, ‘Once upon a time, girls more beautiful than fairies took baths of light in the thousand room crystal palace of the sultan of the moon.’ That is how real it sounded, a past that had never been experienced or an ethereal silver setting somewhere outside the mundane flow of time.

  Bonbon Palace, its garbage cans knocked over by Injustice Pureturk on Wednesday 1st May 2002 while parking his van, was built in 1966 in this neighbourhood which had by then little left of its former splendor. As for the husband and wife who built the apartment house, though they were foreigners here, they had been to Istanbul previously.

  Even Before…

  WHEN AGRIPINA FYODOROVNA ANTIPOVA saw Istanbul for the first time in the fall of 1920 from the deck of a freight ship, she did so with one small swelling in her womb and a larger one on her back. With the help of her husband, she ploughed her way through the crowd of passengers, who had all stood up for the entire three days since they left the Crimea. She clung to the rails to see what the city that awaited them looked like. Ever since she was a little girl, she relished playing games with colours more than anything else. Wherever she went, she needed to discover the colour of the place first in order to feel at home there. The mansion in Grosny where she was born and had spent her childhood, for instance, was rhubarb, and the church they attended every Sunday parchment yellow. In her mind’s eye, the villa they lodged in during religious festivals was a sparkly emerald awash in dew; the house she lived in with her husband after their wedding was the orange of a winter sun. Not only places but also people, animals, even moments had colours each of which, she had no doubt she could see if focused fully. She did so once again. At first with curiosity, then with frustration, she stared and stared without a blink at the silhouette of the city in front of her until her eyes watered and the image became blurred.

  Istanbul was under a heavy fog that morning, and as all Istanbulites knew too well, during foggy days even the city herself could not tell what her colour was. However, Agripina Fyodorovna Antipova had always been pampered with great care since birth and had been subsequently led to presume that others were to blame whenever she could not obtain anything she desired. Hence she interpreted the persistence of Istanbul in withdrawing herself behind the veil of fog as a sign of intentional hostility and personal insult. She still, however, wanted to give the city a chance, as she firmly believed in the virtue of forgiveness. Lifting her small
silver Virgin Mary icon toward the city she smiled benevolently: ‘What you just did to me was not right, but I can still show tolerance and forgive you. For that would be the right thing to do.’

  ‘And I will give you water and bread in return,’ replied a voice.

  When she bent down the rails, Agripina Fyodorovna Antipova saw there in a boat at the side of the ship a wiry man gesturing at her with bread in one hand and water in the other. Before she could even fathom what was going on, a chubby, rosy-cheeked, blond woman with shorn hair pushed her aside, tied the gold ring she took off her finger onto the belt she released from her daughter’s waist and lowered it from the ship. The swarthy man in the boat grabbed the ring, lifted it in the air giving it a quick inspection with disgruntlement and relayed the belt back with a round, black loaf of bread tied in its stead. As the blonde, who had sheared her hair when a lice epidemic broke on the deck, and the scrawny daughter standing by her started devouring the bread, Agripina Fyodorovna Antipova looked at the sea with her eyes wide open in bewilderment and noticed that not only the ship they were in, but all the ships anchored in the harbour were surrounded with such boats. Cunning Turks, Greeks and Armenians waved foodstuff from these boats haggling with the White Russians who had been without food or water for days. Figuring out what was going on, Agripina Fyodorovna Antipova fretfully withdrew her silver Virgin Mary as if it too would be snatched away from her. Over the boats and sellers and waves she stared fretfully at the city in the background to grasp what sort of a place she had arrived at.

  Istanbul was in dire straits at that time and also under occupation. She therefore paid little attention to the half-baffled, half-haughty gaze of this nineteen year old woman on the deck of yet another newly anchored ship. Her tolerance for putting up with such selfish children having long run out, Istanbul returned to her own hubbub with a shrug of her shoulders. Agripina Fyodorovna Antipova was left standing there frozen in her smile. Though she had seen people behave coarsely, witnessing the insolence of a city was an utterly novel experience for her. Once she had managed to overcome her confusion, she closed down all the curtains, windows and shutters of her heart and instead got cross with the city. Such was her state of mind when she landed from the boat. Even after two months, when the swelling in her womb had grown in contrast to the one on her back which had shrunk in next to no time, she was still cross at Istanbul and Istanbul was still of an unknown colour and just as indifferent to boot.