The Flea Palace

by Elif Shafak

  ‘My mother says the lice came from my father. He got it from his hookers and then when he cuddled me, I got it from him.’

  As if all the windows had been simultaneously opened wide and an unbridled wind rammed in, the women lined up in front of the wide mirror shuddered from top to toe. For it is awesome to hear the most private family secrets spill from the mouth of a child, pretty much like reaping the fruits of your neighbour’s garden without actually stealing them. Though there might be a crime, there is no criminal around. Since when is it considered a crime to softly pull aside and make way for the muddy waters that will flow anyhow? Likewise, the beauty parlour populace had backed aside, becoming entirely silent so as to let the child speak fully and freely. They writhed impatiently to hear more, as much as possible, without getting involved, mixed up or messed up. Even Cemal, despite his long-established inability to stay still for more than two seconds and his tendency to poke his nose into each and every conversation around him, managed to keep utterly quiet. Only Madam Auntie felt the need to take action to end this unpleasant topic, but since she could not quite figure out what to say, all she did was to warn Celal to finish his job as quickly as possible and then shrank back into her chair to stay stock-still. Lost in her thoughts, she pulled out the pendant inside her blouse and distractedly caressed the stern face of Saint Seraphim.

  Su twirled her chair around in a full circle and, as if to determine the impact of her words, took stock of everyone’s faces. When she completed the circle and returned to her former position, her pitch black eyes met in the mirror the navy blue-grey eyes of the old woman which were glittering like a bead. As Madam Auntie delicately let out from her small, sharp nose the air she had drawn in with melancholy, she smiled with an embarrassment that contained an apology somewhere within. It was difficult to tell if she was apologizing to certain people present on behalf of the child for what she had told or, just the opposite, if she apologized to the child for the curious listeners surrounding her. Though unable to decipher the meaning of this nebulous smile, Su could not help but smile back at her.

  Having now speeded up, Celal called both apprentices to his side for help. Within a few minutes, all three resumed work with apparent intensity and blow-dried the hair of both the old woman and the little girl. By having his two apprentices hold two oval mirrors to their necks, he enabled them to see how their hair looked from the back. Thus besieged with mirrors from both the front and back, the images of the child and the old woman multiplied while their similarities concomitantly increased and coalesced.

  Yet when they said goodbye to Celal, who saw them off all the way to the door, and started to climb the stairs of Bonbon Palace, the age difference between them became woefully apparent. The child stopped frequently to wait for the other, sometimes descending the stairs to accompany her up. When they reached the third floor in this manner, Madam Auntie stopped to catch her breath. As Su leaned against the door standing on one leg as if she were punished, she used this opportunity to share more with her new elderly friend that she had started to relax with.

  ‘Three girls in the class, they nicknamed me. Those name stickers on the notebooks, you know, they wrote “LICESU” in capital letters on mine. My real name is Bengisu, I just shorten it.’

  ‘You know, I too had lice when I was a little girl,’ muttered Madam Auntie, in spite of her discomfort about the girl’s laughter.

  ‘Really? Did they nickname you as well?’ said Su, while trying to figure out who the red-bearded, frowning ‘grandfather’ dangling from her necklace was.

  ‘No, they didn’t nickname me. We had a washer woman, she used to line all her children up and split their lice. She picked all my lice as well. My poor mother had a fit. She was a delicate woman, couldn’t handle such things. That was the way she was brought up. What could she do? If a rose in the garden withered, she would take to her bed with grief, if she saw a dead rat, she could not recover for days. I guess she was born in the wrong age…’

  The woman’s navy blue-grey eyes became lustreless, if only for a moment. With the intuition unique to those who have long prohibited themselves from remembering specific events and mentioning certain names, she sensed she was about to enter the forbidden garden of her memory and withdrew immediately. As if sharing a secret, she teasingly winked at the child whose head appeared even smaller after her haircut.

  ‘Don’t pay attention to their calling you “Licesu” or anything else. Everyone gets lice as a child and not only as a child. People get lice when they grow up as well. How can you know who has lice and who does not? Can you see lice with the naked eye? Everyone claims to be clean as a whistle but believe me they too have lice somewhere in them!’

  More convinced of the good intention behind the words than the words themselves, Su ran to ring her doorbell as soon as they reached the fourth floor. ‘I’m baaaaack!’ she yelled when the door opened. Though Hygiene Tijen looked worried that they were late, she seemed to have cleared away her earlier anxiety as she thanked her neighbour. ‘It looks good, both short and very chic,’ responded Madam Auntie. Then they looked at one another with the stress of feeling obliged to say a few more things but not quite knowing what those could be.

  ‘I would’ve invited you in but the cleaning is still not finished. Everything was interrupted when the cleaning lady took off,’ stuttered Hygiene Tijen. The stressed, skittish woman at the beauty parlour seemed to have disappeared, leaving a timid, reticent copy in her place.

  ‘Of course, of course, go ahead with your cleaning, but don’t tire yourself out too much. You were exhausted today; lie down and rest a little. Anyhow, I have things to do.’

  They had never visited each other’s houses until then. They sometimes ran into each other at the door and exchanged a few courtesies.

  ‘How can I possibly sleep!’ Tijen broke in. ‘I get headaches from this disgusting smell. My husband says I exaggerate. Do you think I do? You too get the same smell, don’t you? Tell me, Madam Auntie, do you get the garbage smell?’

  An indiscernible shadow crossed Madam Auntie’s face. When she started to speak again, her voice was rough and rugged, just like her faded hands with the protruding veins.

  ‘Years ago my brother travelled to Cairo. He said one heard a ‘hum’ as soon as one got off the plane. The hum of Cairo! Yet the airport was quite a way from the city. It turns out a city spreads its hum for miles. Just think, what kind of a city it must be, what kinds of people must live in it for them to overflow like that! Isn’t our Istanbul like that, Misses Tijen? Though Cairo hums, Istanbul smells. Strangers are aware of its smell before they even approach the city. We can’t smell it, of course. They say a snake likes milk a lot and finds milk through its sense of smell, but could it detect the smell of milk if it swam in the milk cauldron? Probably the Cairene wouldn’t hear the hum and the Istanbulite couldn’t spot the smell of his or her own cities – and these are such old cities. When I was young, I didn’t know Istanbul was so old. Naturally, as it ages, the garbage increases. I no longer get angry. Neither should you be angry, Misses Tijen.’

  Not knowing what to say Hygiene Tijen emptily blinked the round, long eye-lashed ebony eyes she had passed on to her daughter. Another prickly silence descended upon the two women. Such intermittently scattered silences are refrains in the conversations of those who are not used to talking to one another; they repeat themselves with set interludes. They uttered a few more words about garbage, a few more words about various other things and wished each other a nice day. The doors were carefully closed, with special attention being paid to not banging them loudly, but the women did not immediately get back to their own tasks. Both stood without a sound for about ten seconds becoming all ears to try to figure out from the noises what the other one was up to. No matter how hard they tried, however, neither could hear a thing.

  Flat Number 5: Hadji Hadji and His Son, Daughter-in-Law and Grandchildren

  ‘Once upon a time there lived a much venerated saint…�
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  ‘But you said it was gonna be a real story this time!’ yelled the seven and a half year old, ‘Why did you start it again like a fairytale?’

  Hadji Hadji pouted at the boy in anguish. Among his three grandchildren it was this child who upset him most, upset him like no other. He was not human, this boy, but a jinni disguised as human or, even worse, the mixed offspring of a jinni and a human being. That was why he had turned out to be so peculiar, with a head like a demijohn…but the moment the old man caught himself thinking of such things, he felt ashamed. He immediately repented and shooed such wicked thoughts away. Repentance had with time produced some sort of a spontaneous effect on him. Whenever ashamed, he would immediately repent, like a muscle spasm, with an urge almost as uncontrollable. He did so again, three times successively. First he repented for attempting to grasp and even question with his limited mind why Allah had created people as He had. After that he repented for having indirectly and inadvertently mistrusted his daughter-in-law’s chastity by tracing the bloodline of his grandson to the jinni. Finally, he repented for having such dreadful thoughts about a little sick child. This last one, however, he had uttered out loud. The seven and a half year old narrowed his moss green eyes into a line and, as if he had understood something had been said about him, observed the old man even more carefully. Hadji Hadji hastily averted his eyes. Even if not a jinni, who could deny that this child was jinn-like?

  Allah had conferred to his siblings all the beauty He had withheld from him, but then, to ensure justice, had bestowed upon him far more intelligence than his siblings, actually even more than the entire family line. What was he going to be like when he grew up? Not only his body, but the disproportion between his head and his body grew day by day. How much bigger could his head expand than the one and a half times its normal size it had already grown to? His hands could not bend back but twisted inside like a monkey’s. How much longer could he live with these clawed hands and with the ‘Ma-ro-te-aux-la-syn-drome’ that no one in the family had even been able to correctly pronounce? Suddenly feeling a tug at his heartstrings, he forced his face into a smile.

  ‘This isn’t a fairytale, it’s the plain truth,’ he said with a gentle expression. ‘The saint lived a very long time ago, that’s why it came out of my mouth sounding like a fairytale. These things really happened. He even has a tomb. If you don’t believe me, you can go and see it with your own eyes.’

  The moment he said this he recognized what a ‘gaffe’ he had made. His oldest grandchild could no longer leave the house. It was to his best interest that he did not. Unlike his peers and siblings the boy’s entire world consisted of this one hundred and five metres square house. With a compassion rolled up in mercy, the old man patted the child’s puny back.

  ‘This great saint, before he was a saint, used to be a dervish. When his Excellency Sultan Muhammed the Conqueror besieged the city of Istanbul, he immediately ran to help. They beat the city walls with cannons. They fought for days but weren’t able to get the Byzantine infidel to surrender. Then our dervish had an audience with the sultan. He said, “My sultan, give me permission to open a big breach in these walls so our soldiers can get in from that gap and snap off the infidel’s neck like that of a chicken.” The sultan looked at the ordinary, ragged dervish standing in front of him. What could such a meek man accomplish? He didn’t believe him and expelled him from his audience. Weeks passed by and they still weren’t able to take Istanbul. The great Ottoman army was exhausted from thirst and fatigue. Then the sultan remembered this dervish and beckoned him back to his presence. “Here is your permission, go ahead” he said. The delighted dervish kissed his Excellency Sultan Muhammed the Conqueror’s hand and sleeve. He said his goodbyes to all the other dervishes. Then he walked around the city walls to think about which point of attack to pick and finally decided on one particular spot. The walls were thicker there and there were more soldiers to boot. For behind that wall was the palace of the Byzantine king. Then the dervish said, “Now throw me to those walls.” They were of course surprised but still carried out his wish. They put the dervish in the cannon and hurled him.’

  ‘Come on. They killed the man,’ exclaimed the seven and a half year old.

  ‘No they didn’t! He is not like you and I, he didn’t become a saint for nothing.’ Hadji Hadji softened his voice for the sake of all he had repented a moment ago. ‘They threw the dervish. With that speed, he went and attached himself to the walls. He didn’t fall, that is. He opened wide his hands and feet and grabbed onto those thick walls like a spider. The Byzantine soldiers were teeming like ants there. When they saw the dervish, they threw poisoned arrows. Not one of them fell on the target. Next they showered flaming arrows. Wherever the arrows fell, fire erupted. They set the grass on fire, burned the trees, the whole place was in flames like doomsday, but nothing happened to the dervish. Not even a single thread of his hair caught on fire. He stood in the flames like a salamander. From afar he looked and smiled on the Conqueror’s soldiers. There he prayed until night fell, performing the ablutions at sunset.’

  ‘If he’s glued to the wall, how could he perform the ablutions?’ hollered the seven and a half year old in a shrill voice.

  ‘He performed them with his eyes,’ replied the Hadji Hadji now staring angrily. ‘Your deceased grandmother, may she rest in peace, also performed her ablutions with her eyes. Those who can’t bend down and up do so. Then when the dervish finished his ablutions he said, “My Allah, take my life and turn me into a void!” Allah accepted his prayer and lightning struck in the sky. Remember how the arrows of the Byzantines had been showered right onto him from up close and not even one had found its target? But now a faraway lightning came from the seventh heaven and hit him right on target. The dervish turned into ash. Then, where he had clung to the wall, a large hole appeared. The Conqueror’s fighters could not believe their eyes. The hole they could not open for days was all of a sudden created thanks to the dervish. They immediately plunged in through that hole, put the commander of the infidels to the sword and took the city. When his Excellency Sultan Muhammed the Conqueror settled in Istanbul, he didn’t forget the self-sacrifice of this dervish. He wanted to have a tomb built for him. Yet the dervish didn’t have a corpse. “If there is no corpse, how could there be a grave? What shall we bury?” grumbled the soldiers.’

  The five and a half year old, who was accustomed to suck till the last drop the privileges granted to her for being the only girl and the youngest child, looked at her grandfather with eyes glazed in fear. In her ornate ‘grammar bag’, where she put the new words she learned every day, she collected some other words in a place separate from the others, in a wallet with snaps, for instance: ‘spirit’, ‘doomsday’, or ‘ghost’; likewise: ‘demon’, ‘devil’, ‘deceased’, ‘ogre’ or ‘hellhound.’ She rolled in her little fingers the word ‘salamander’ she had just heard and placed it there as well. All these words had one meaning for her: jinn! As for what the jinn was, she did not fully know, but whenever she felt the need to know, she plunged her hand into the wallet with snaps, inside her smart ornate bag, randomly pulling out a word. Hence, somewhere in the recesses of her mind, the indistinct figure of a jinn that had so many different names though it did not exist, transparent like the gossamer wings of a fly, was nourished from all sides and constantly grew fatter, spreading every passing day like a shameless smokescreen to cover an ever larger terrain.

  ‘They performed ablutions for him in absentia and then they took the empty coffin onto their shoulders,’ continued Hadji Hadji after taking a small break to sip on his tea. ‘They started to walk, but where were they to go? They could never decide where to bury him. However, at this point the coffin suddenly took wings! It started to move by itself, right in front of them. They crossed many rivers and hills, coffin in the front, mourners in the back, up and down six of the seven hills of Istanbul. When they came to the seventh hill, they looked and saw in a distance an empty grave: a grave dug deep
and left open. The coffin immediately dashed in that direction, started to descend right onto the top of the grave and remained hanging in the air until one hand span from the bottom. Then a howling was heard from the grave…’

  The five and a half year old gulped loudly, but deep in his trance, Hadji Hadji did not notice that detail. Whatever attention he had left he reserved for his oldest grandchild.

  ‘They then lowered the coffin into this empty grave. After that they built a tomb over it. The saint’s name became Father Void. The passers-by always recited a prayer for his soul.’

  ‘But the man isn’t even there! Don’t they know the grave is empty? Who are they praying to?’

  ‘Women who can’t have children pay a visit to Father Void,’ muttered Hadji Hadji pretending not to hear the question. ‘If brides with empty wombs go to Father Void, pray, and then sit alone by his tomb all night long without falling asleep, their prayers will be granted at dawn. They’ll give birth to a healthy child within a year.’

  All three children reacted in their own way to these words. The five and a half year old reopened her wallet of snaps, gingerly placing ‘void’ among the words that corresponded to ‘jinn.’ The six and a half year old, who was particularly interested in all topics that could somehow be associated with sexuality, seemed more concerned with the brides’ part than the saints. As for the seven and a half year old, he in turn had questions to articulate, objections to raise. Still, however, he did not say a word. It was time for the noon nap, and that, the kid reckoned, was far more imperative than identifying the numerous mistakes in the rationale operating behind his grandfather’s tales.