The Flea Palace

by Elif Shafak

  What upset me was more the perpetrator of the words than their content. Of course, Ethel the Cunt could go and talk about this bullshit with anyone she wanted, anywhere she wished, but of all the people in her life, she should not have acted like this to me. Not that I take it personally. The issue is not personal, but rather ‘linguistic.’ At dinner yesterday, for whatever reason, Ethel either decided to break our tradition or simply forgot the language we have been speaking when alone for as long as I can remember.

  ‘Language’ is one of the most nonsensical words in a language. It is by definition something more than the sum of all words but in the end it, too, is a word. Should there be the need for a connection with another word, you could say that the word ‘language’ is like the word ‘meal.’There is just as little sense in labelling everything a ‘meal’ – which totally overlooks very different food mixtures with differences in taste, nutritional value and calories – as there is in labelling as ‘language’ all the expressions that play totally different tunes, talk about different words at random and emerge in different styles. I should of course add that in making this observation, ‘linguistic’ differences such as the Chinese cuisine, Turkish cuisine, Spanish cuisine and so forth are not even taken into account. Otherwise, I would have to multiply all these with a global coefficient. In short, hundreds of ‘languages’ reign even within a single ‘language’. Just as we do not all eat the same ‘meal’ in a restaurant we also do not and can not speak the same ‘language’ with everyone all the time, and just as meals have residues, languages have remnants. A garbage dump language comprises words we not only do not use everyday but are reluctant to even pronounce, words we silently pass over, nonsensical words we keep to ourselves because they would not be proper, criticisms that come to the tip of our tongues but we lack the courage to voice, innuendos we slice into thin strips at the tip of our tongues to then gulp back, curses that blow up in our palate before we can take out the fuse and throw them away, expressions that are too loaded or jokes too light for our milieu. There might also be a remnant left over from the attention we pay, the tact we demonstrate and the care we take when we talk or write to others. We can call this a recyclable language of ‘Solid Accumulated Waste (SAW)’; accumulated, if not in the basement or the attic or under the pillow, then on the nasal passage, in between the palate and under the tongue; a language which, once adequately accumulated, we fill into a bag, tie up and throw away to stop the smell and the stink.

  I should say right out I never leave evidence of this language lying around and not only do I not use it in front of my students in class, I do not like to hear it from them either. Yet just like a teenager secretly smoking in a secluded spot without his parents’ knowledge, I too am occasionally thrilled to ‘sass’ – as Ethel and I call it – in this language as I open my caché in a dark and dingy corner, unbeknownst to my moral principles and conscience. It is exactly at this point that Ethel’s presence acquires significance. For ‘sassing’, just like making love or quarrelling, requires that someone else be there with you at the same time. You might smoke alone but to speak in this kind of garbage-language you definitely need a companion.

  For years, whenever left alone, Ethel and I would speak, or used to speak until yesterday, in SAWish. Whenever we got together, without stating that one needs to be serious to call the other silly, without making any claims to be just or equitable, we loved to recklessly and coarsely belittle everything and shower this or that person with insults. Just like a bully brushing off an attack to then plunge into a fight by randomly pruning the noses and ears of his adversaries, we attacked social life with our cutting tongues and did our best to prune the maladies and blunders of whomever chanced to appear in front of us.

  Who says you cannot make fun of other people’s defects? With spears in our hands and waterproof goggles on our eyes, we would dive headfirst into the seven depths of the sea of flaws-faults-failures and bring each defect captured to land, with the intent of examining it at great length and tearing it to shreds. Sometimes, not content with this, with an appetite befitting calamari-lovers we would lift our catch up in the air and hit him against this or that rock for hours on end. In the final instance, no one escaped our tongues but some received from our shower of generalizations more of their share than others. Peasants, the lumpen proletariat, advertisers and academics, housewives and lawyers…all were a target, albeit for different reasons. Yet the diameter of our net was rather wide, enough to easily contain all sorts of people. There was a place for everyone there.

  We pitilessly and coarsely belittled those we saw to be unsteady or those who attempted to look smart. We were irritated by those who cared about their appearance but totally drowned in derision those who dressed tastelessly as well; had no respect for the masculine heroes of the ‘have-nots’ but were beside ourselves with anger at the prima donnas of the ‘haves’. We turned up our noses at those who feared death to then merrily trample on those who had no concern about death. We could not bear to read a poorly written article, story or novel but also slung mud left and right on those well written ones. We did not even take note of those who turned religious in the aftermath of a serious surgery or trauma but also carelessly cast aside the ones who remained at exactly the same level of belief either with or without religion, all through their lives. We did not forgive the decent ones because of their decency but also took the crookedness of the crooked and danced around with it. We threw on the ground and trampled on those guilelessly naive secularists who thought Christianity was less interventionist or Judaism less patriarchal than Islam; gleefully gnawed on those who were unaware of the variations within Islam but also bruised with cannon salvoes those who imagined themselves privileged for happening upon mystical movements; and tore to pieces those who, in the name of the trinity of ‘Being, Becoming & Transcending Sainthood’, sought alternative Indian, Chinese, Tibetan messiahs for themselves. We rammed into those breeders married with kids but laughed our hearts out at those who regarded not getting married a form of political resistance. We also covered in tar and paraded naked before us both those who perceived their heterosexuality to be a socially given ‘for once-and-always’ yet craved to take at least a petite bite of the apple of sodomy, as well as those who regarded their homosexuality as entirely an individual choice to then sluggishly sit in the oases of isolation, closing themselves off to all. We did not like those we knew personally but also expended recklessly those we knew intimately.

  We did not feel the need to express all of these attitudes and beliefs at length and were content with using codes instead. With the meticulousness of the archivist, we one by one classified and filed everyone and everything. We were deliberately, recklessly unjust, to everyone and everything. In any case, if you combed through the section covering the letter ‘J’ of the basic illustrated dictionary of the SAW language, you would never come across either ‘just’ or ‘jurisprudence’, just as you would not be able to find under ‘S’, ‘sacred or sacredness’, or under ‘E’, ‘exalted’ or ‘exaltedness’. As for injustice, the definition given in this dictionary is as follows:

  To do wrong to that which is wrong (example: to take the fur coat off of someone in a desert or to take the wine glass in front of a pious person)

  Indirect attribution that produces no harm (example: to spit at someone’s photograph).

  Whenever Ethel and I spoke SAWish, we committed injustice against this or that person in the second meaning of the word. We’d never sugar-coat our words when alone. Yet last night at dinner while Ethel the Cunt talked about her grandiose goals in relation to this private university to be founded in Istanbul, it seemed as if she had checked our mutual language into the cloakroom at the entrance.

  ‘Don’t you realize? Your all-time dream is finally becoming a reality,’ she exclaimed as she held her jasmine cigarette-holder tightly between her teeth. No more political appointments from above, or the usual sterility and similarity that budgetary restrictions produce i
n state universities. Instead they will gather the highest calibre faculty in Turkey, recruit the most brilliant minds snatched away by the universities abroad, and bring to Istanbul lots of foreign experts from different corners of the world. ‘Just think, we’ll put a stopper on this chronic brain-drain, and within the first five years we will even reverse the current. Then Western minds will be at our service. We’ll cure the inferiority complex of the nation,’ she added with a giggle, as if she had made a witty, naughty remark.

  Why she giggled like this was no mystery to me. I am actually used to Ethel’s ascription of an erotic connotation to the word ‘brain.’ She was not much different back in our college years, harbouring a layered hatred of other women and a boundless passion for intelligent men… Now that I think about it, the large number of male students outnumbering the females and the ‘brains’ surrounding her must have played a considerable role in her decision to major, though she never intended to practice, in such a difficult field like civil engineering. In those days at Ethel’s house, there was the pick of dozens – if calculated over the years perhaps more than a hundred – of exceptionally intelligent male students from different departments. One could even argue that the Cunt made a substantial contribution to Turkish education if one considers the fact that this place operated like a kind of soup kitchen where these male students could feed themselves, or a kind of club where the members could utilize the library as they wished. Even though we may, as regular customers of this alms house, have appeared at first glance to be rather different from each other, we were very much alike concerning one matter: the way in which we invested in our intelligence. In those days, no matter which department or class they belonged to at Bosphorus University, all the male students who, in order to escape the complexes induced by the unjust distribution of life, successfully pushed their brains to the limits; would have definitely heard of Ethel’s name and most probably touched her body. The overwhelming majority were those who had devoted themselves to read, study and research, having put their demands from life away into the deepfreeze of their expectations, not to be thawed out until the arrival of ‘that big day.’ Some of Ethel’s aphorisms addressed this point: ‘Just as the blind man perfects his other senses, so too the ugly male who goes unnoticed develops his brain.’

  Among Ethel’s favourites, in so far as they succeeded in developing their brains, were those male students who were either unable to establish relationships with women or were rejected by all the women they were interested in, subsequently giving up on love, practicing love and even making love. After those who were broke in terms of looks, came the chronically shy whose relationships with the fair sex had soured for one reason or another and others… These others included: asexuals who composed panegyrics, praises and poems to a life without contact; avant-garde marginals; overt or closet homosexuals; highly dignified critics; asocials who hated exams but whose greatest thrill in that period of their lives consisted of taking exams; those who came from the provinces and lost their way in Istanbul; those who could not leave their shells let alone Istanbul; valedictorians who managed to get an education despite coming from the wrong families, as well as those ‘hidden talents’ getting an education in the wrong departments because of their families; the rare geniuses of the natural sciences; the passionate orators of the social sciences…all the hopeless, unhappy, maladjusted, extremely intelligent young men who struggled to cope with society for various physical, financial, psychological or incomprehensible reasons were within Ethel’s field of interest. If she had her way, she would not let any female brain enter her house…although somehow, sometimes, upon realizing that a male she cherished happened to have a girlfriend, she would not let on and invited them both. In spite of all this, for some reason, exempted from her notorious hatred for her sex were a few girlfriends left over from private school. One among these frequently stopped by the temple-house. She was so attractive that a comparison with Ethel could not even be considered: with long shapely legs, flawless milky skin, pearly teeth and breasts kneaded in accordance with the laws of dialectic: vibrant within the context of her large body yet tiny enough to fit into the palm… Yet she had one flaw. Like all women who lose their naturalness as soon as they become conscious of the admiration they arouse in others, she too assumed a forced toughness and made the common mistake of thinking that keeping a guy waiting in purgatory, neither too much at a distance nor needlessly close, would render permanent the attention she received. Even when telling people her name she sounded as if she thought she was doing a favour: ‘Ay-shin!’

  Oddly enough the other men in the house fell in love not with this arrogant fairy but instead with the hideously ugly Ethel. Actually many among them obviously liked Ayshin, yet ‘like’ is a flimsy verb. As expressed by a contestant in a highly-contrived contest, while listing his hobbies: ‘I like to read books, listen to music, take walks and also long-legged, tight-hipped Ayshin.’Yet when the name of Ethel, the ugliest one of all time, came up, they would go full throttle beyond the liking phase and, burning up with desire, fall in love headfirst: either with her or her house – or both.

  The temple-house belonged, not to Ethel’s mother and father or any other Jewish family member, but to her personally. Whereas the band of students around her stayed at either their parents’ insipid-looking homes, worn-out bachelor pads or in overcrowded dormitories where one could only be by oneself inside the wardrobes, the Cunt was the owner of a villa in which she lived all by herself. Though this alone sufficed to make the situation rather surreal, in addition her house was a dream world and just as dreams flirt shamelessly with the art of exaggeration, Ethel too was susceptible to overkill. With its garden overlooking the Bosphorus (every square of which was totally covered up with jonquils and jasmines, that in warm winds released delicately sweet smells at night overflowing with the scent of pleasure); its small but cute pool in which Ethel floated lanterns of all colours at night; its high quality drinks, tasty food and furnishings each more interesting than the next; its vast collection of records and rich library; not forgetting the premium quality cigars constantly being passed around; this place was almost like a miniature version of the world during the Tulip Period of the Ottoman Empire – the excess of which the contemporary historians had attacked with clubs and defaced with extravagant praise.

  However, if you ask my opinion, it was not only the wealth that stunned the guests who came here; not the ostentation or the luxury either. What was even more striking was the ‘endlessness’ of it all. The dwindling cigarette boxes were immediately replenished, the collection of records was so vast you could not count them all, the library did not lose its splendour even though the borrowed books were never returned, and in spite of our eating in hoards, the kitchen cupboards never emptied out, the stock of delicatessen never diminished. We liked to joke among us that when the ground was broken for the villa, the venerated Saint Hizir happened to be one of the workers and had blessed this place: ‘Let it multiply but never lessen, let it overflow but never spill.’ Even the magical cave of the forty thieves, with its jars of gold, chests brimming with jewellery, bolts of satin and barrels of honey and butter could not rival Ethel’s temple-house.

  As much as the house was prosperous, so was our host generous. Ethel watched closely the things her cherished guests enjoyed. Her offers increased in accordance with how much she valued someone. For instance, was there someone among us who liked whisky? As soon as she learned about it, Ethel would fill up the drink chest with the highest quality whiskies. If another person liked puzzles, Ethel would order an acquaintance going abroad to bring puzzles each more challenging. Most of our time, however, we dedicated ourselves not to such games but to wearing ourselves out with various gatherings or ‘get-togethers’. We would burrow ourselves in the comfortable sofas in the living room, eat, drink, smoke and ‘sass’ about this or that person, but mostly about each other. We would quickly free ourselves of our past, focus on who we were now, reveal our dreams and co
nstantly debate with each other. Our host did not at all care about the content of our conversations. In fact, as individuals, I don’t think she cared much about us at all. She liked the environment she provided for us…and she also liked fireworks. For each guest plunged into this place was like a firework speeding through the night’s darkness. He would first glide with shaky, staggering steps and, when convinced he had risen high enough and adjusted to the environment, would burst with a magnificent bang and light the place up by scattering the colourful rays he had hitherto hidden. As we found our voices, became encouraged and burst out with explosions of our own, Ethel provided every comfort by constantly serving us. The genie in the lamp, the houris of heaven, even Peter Pan’s fairy…none would have served their masters with as much devotion. Ultimately, sooner or later, all these guest-masters ended up falling in love with their host. Yet this also brought their downfall. Those who had the freedom to swim as they pleased in this vast sea, often moved so far away from land as to suddenly realize, upon looking back, that they had lost sight of the land. Ethel was no longer at their side; she had lost interest in them just when they had miserably fallen for her. The only drawback of being a guest at this house was the ease with which one overlooked the fact that both the guest status and also the visit were temporary. Hence each departing guest, just like the infinite replenishment of the materials of the temple-house, was quickly replaced with another. Saint Hizir’s prayer for abundance was valid for Ethel’s ‘brains’ as well: they constantly multiplied and never lessened.