The Flea Palace

by Elif Shafak

  Though he was hardly experiencing a tidal wave of courage, after guzzling three large beers, Cemal was more than ready to give any thief a black eye. Grabbing a broken hanger godknowswho had thrown in the garbage he rushed into the garden, passed by the rose acacia and managed to land on the balcony on his first try. As predicted, the door was slightly ajar. He rushed inside toward the shadow of a man standing by the candle…and instantly dropped his weapon of a broken hanger…

  Meanwhile, the other, faced with such an aggressive silhouette plunging in from the balcony, had scampered to his feet, taking cover behind a hair-removal machine. Celal was hardly experiencing a tidal wave of courage. Had it been any other time, he would have been scared to death but he too had left three large, emptied beer mugs behind. Nonetheless, probably because compared to his twin, he was either less impervious to alcohol or simply less agile, even though he had indeed unravelled the identity of the encroaching silhouette at the very last moment, he could not withhold his arm quickly enough. By the time Celal’s right arm had processed the ‘Retreat!’ command coming from the brain, it was already too late. In a flash, the hair-removal machine smashed onto Cemal’s shoulder, leaving its heat control button there.

  The twins were ten years old when their father had returned from Australia where he had emigrated many years previously. In united awe they had listened to the stories the man they so much admired told them. He had worked hard, made heaps of money, and had now returned to take his family back with him to that land of prosperity. Awaiting them there was a house, vivid yellow like boiled corn, with a tyre swing in the backyard. While the twins had listened to their father with bated breath, their mother had been busy packing, bidding farewell to the neighbours and doling out all their belongings, since they weren’t going to take any of these things with them.

  The day before their departure, while Celal and Cemal tossed and turned in their beds on the floor, their father had sneaked into their room. Patting their heads, he had taken out from his chest-pocket one photograph. There was a house in the photograph which indeed looked huge and corn yellow; and the backyard was just as he had described. There was a swing there as well and on that swing sat a plump woman with a smile blooming on her face. She had ginger hair with a strand curled, thickly braided and loosely fastened into a bun at the nape of the neck. ‘What do you think of her? Beautiful, isn’t she?’ their father had asked. The twins had nodded shyly. She did not at all look like the women they had hitherto seen, especially not like their mother. Putting the photograph back, their father had once again patted them on their heads. ‘Tomorrow, we three are gonna leave,’ he had whispered. ‘Let your mother stay here for the time being. Once we get to Australia and settle down there, we can come pick her up.’

  Though their age was small and their admiration of their father only too deep, both boys had instantly grasped that this was a lie. When left alone in the room they had shunned any further word on this matter. Both had feigned ignorance, as if by doing so they could manage to somehow unlearn what they had learned. When they had finally fallen asleep that night, both had beckoned to the ginger-haired woman in their dreams. The following morning, however, neither could tell for sure if she had come or not.

  ‘I was so thrilled to hear the things daddy had told us then…’ Cemal murmured to his twin whilst still on his knees and searching for the heat control button.

  ‘That vast country, that pretty woman,’ Cemal droned on broodingly. ‘I sold my mother in exchange for those. That’s what a despicable person I am. In return for these, I peddled the woman who had given birth to me, suckled and raised me. God damn it, one can become a materialist in time, so you’d think life made a person one, but how on earth could one be a materialist when still a child, at that age?!’

  The following day, once having sent their mother away on a pretext, the three of them had loaded the suitcases into the car.

  ‘But you? You did not peddle our mother for these things!’ Cemal sighed, as he watched his brother crawl under a swivel chair to dig out the heat control button. ‘You didn’t put your soul up for sale or your very humanity! Fuck the money, fuck the luxury, you decided, and jumped off the car. You chose to stay with our mother and you tried to persuade me too. You were running so hard behind the car as dad and I drove away from the village. That poignant scene was seared forever in my mind. You were yelling so hard: “Stop! Stop!” You ran after us all the way to the end of the village.’

  As Cemal folded a handkerchief into two, four, eight, sixteen folds, blowing his nose on the last fold, the power came back. Celal ran to the kitchen to fetch his twin a glass of water. Before handing him the glass, he put in five drops of lemon cologne.

  ‘Thank you,’ Cemal said.

  ‘I had lost my shoe,’ Celal replied.

  Staring with lustreless eyes at the candle flame, which looked so rickety and flimsy now that the electricity had come, Cemal tried to make sense of what he had just heard.

  ‘I had lost my shoe,’ Celal repeated. He would rather have remained silent but his mouth talked without consulting him. How he wished he had not had that third beer. ‘Just as I was getting into the car, one of my shoes fell off. That’s why I got off the car, to put on my shoe. However, before I had the chance, mother showed up. As soon as father spotted her coming, he started the engine. I ran after you with one shoe on but the car careered away. I kept yelling at the top of my voice. I ran after you all the way to the end of the village.’

  Celal, bruised all through his life from being the child his father had abandoned and Cemal, bruised all through his life from being the child who had abandoned his mother, stood staring at one another, half-dejected, half-confused, their respective identities turned inside out in the mirror that each provided for the other…and whatever it was that they saw there led each to believe that his situation had been graver than the other’s…

  ‘There’s one more thing I need to tell you,’ Celal bumbled. ‘You know ma was an uneducated woman. After your departure, she fell ill with sorrow. People urged her to seek help from this famous spell-caster. She took me there with her. A young man with eyes like glass, turns out he was blind. He must have taken pity on my mother. “To this day I have never prepared a bad spell,” he said, “and I never will hereafter, but this husband of yours deserves the worst so I’ll make an exception and help you. Let’s block their way, capsize their car, sink their ship if need be, let’s make sure they never make it to Australia. Do you want me to do that? Do tell, is this what you really want?” he asked. Poor ma stood still, cried, moaned and then unable to take it any longer she said: “Yes!” ’

  As that night it was taking Cemal longer than usual to comprehend his twin’s words, he was lagging behind, his mind functioning no quicker than an icicle feigning ignorance of the sun. He would have liked to intervene and put in a few words himself but not only did he not know what to say, at that moment even the idea of moving his jaw tired him. How he wished he had not finished off that third beer…

  ‘Poor ma, she was so exhausted she couldn’t even follow what was said. So it was me who had to get the instructions on how to cast the spell. The sorcerer gave me a corn husk, filled a bottle with blessed water and wrote who knows what on a piece of paper. “Separate the corn husk into two pinches and tie them tight. Put them in the paper and roll the paper up lengthwise like a cigarette. Then burn it all up” he instructed. “Right then, you’ll hear a voice. A sound will speak out of the fire. When you hear that sound, rest assured you’re doing the right thing. Do not ever touch the fire. Let it burn away its course. When the flames are entirely out, sprinkle the ashes over the blessed water and then pour the water at the bottom of a red rose tree. The rest will come by itself,” he concluded.’

  The power went out once again. The puny flame of the candle visibly heartened, appreciating the sudden darkness.

  ‘ “As soon as we reach home, get to it,” said ma, “Do exactly what the sorcerer told you!” So I tie
d the cornhusks, making two bunches (one small, the other big), put them in the paper, wrapped it up nicely and then kindled it. You should have seen ma, her eyes were wide as saucers! God, that hope in her stare, she expected so much from me. The paper really went up in flames. I tried to convince myself, “Nothing will happen,” but suddenly I heard, just like the sorcerer said I would, a scream…as if someone was crying…then another scream. I thought I heard your voice. Shaken up I took the blessed water and poured it right onto the burning fire. It went out with a hiss. I felt so relieved. Of course, I didn’t tell my mother what I had done. She thought I’d poured it all out at the bottom of the red rose tree. Next we went to bed. At dawn a noise woke me up, I get out of bed and what do I see? Ma is out in the garden weeping on her knees! “Celal, what have I done? How could I have murdered my sweetheart son,” she moaned, “I wish to God not a single stroke of harm happens to them on the way”. “You mean both?” I asked. “Yes, I mean both,” she said. I noticed her hands were covered with scratches. She had uprooted the rose tree to break the spell. “Nothing bad will happen, right, Celal?” she begged. “Nothing,” I consoled. “You didn’t do everything you were told, right” she asked. “Right,” I replied. She was so relieved. “Good for you, my smart boy,” she smiled. Then hugged me with such gratitude that I understood right then. I understood she loved you more than me. The son who had left was the one she loved the most.’

  Cemal shivered. He struggled to get up to close the balcony door but was so dizzy he had to squat right back down.

  ‘From that day on Cemal, whenever someone mentions saints, sorcerers and the like, I get scared. Not that I believe it or anything. If you ask my opinion, I believe none of it. If the truth be told, after all these years, I even doubt those corn husks had really made a sound. I was so frightened I must have imagined it. However, the doubt is always with me. Were it not for that doubt my poor mother would spin in her grave. That’s how I feel.’

  The silence that ensued lasted two minutes. The lights came back right in the middle, leaving one minute in the darkness and the other in the light.

  ‘So that’s why you got so mad at my making fun of the saint in the garden! But I promise you, I’ll never ever open my mouth again!’

  Celal sighed. His twin set the gage of his temperament to either excess or dearth.

  ‘Let’s close down this parlour if you’d like. That is, if you’re worried about this idea that cutting hair is against the holy saint’s wishes. We can get a parlour somewhere else.’

  ‘Oh, come on!’ Celal said laughing. ‘I think you are confusing me with the brush with the bone handle.’

  Flat Number 9: Su

  ‘At the fatsos with the headscarves! The fatsos with the headscarves!’ yelled Su, her head popping in and out of the rear window like the wound up bird of a clock. In the front seat two boys with chickpea guns in their hands were waiting, taking turns sliding into the window seat where they would shoot at the targets she pointed out.

  The women with the headscarves Su had her eyes on had been caught in the middle of a two-lane road struggling to cross. They did not notice the school minibus hurtling along behind, never mind being aware of the chickpeas whizzing past them. Before the boy who missed his goal turned his seat over to his friend with a long face, Su had already designated the new target: ‘At the chap with the dog! The chap with the dog!’

  One of the chickpeas made it into the hood of the casually dressed man but his terrier was not as lucky. It took a couple of barks and tail-chases to figure out what was raining on it. It could only chase the minibus the length of its leash, at the end of which it stopped with a painful whine waiting for its owner to catch up. One of the chickpeas must have hit the dog in the eye for it constantly winked after them. ‘Awesome!!!’ exclaimed the sniper commending himself – ‘awesome’ being more in fashion in their circles these days than ‘cool’.

  The three pony-tailed girls, who always sat in front and treated the driver as their buddy of many years, goading him to play their pop cassettes over and over, turned back simultaneously to throw daggers-of-looks at the perpetrators of the incident. Su paid no attention to them. Ever since the day her hair was cropped short she had abandoned the world of girls from which she had already been banished the moment the news of her having lice had spread out and which she had had difficulty in joining in the first place. She only ever got together with the other girls before and after gym, in the changing room. At those moments Su simply pretended they did not exist. What she asked for in return was to be treated likewise, as if she did not exist. But whenever they lined up on the benches, stinking-out the squat, narrow changing room with their flowery, syrupy deodorants and putting on their pantyhose while exchanging meaningful looks, speaking in some sort of a cryptic code, they wanted to make Su feel how unpopular and unwanted she was. However, boys were different. Getting lice was deemed so ordinary in their circles it was scarcely news.

  Su leaned out of the window up to her waist, tweaking her thumb at the terrier left behind, but just as she was about to draw back, she caught sight of a man a few metres ahead, with an unkempt beard and hair long unwashed, digging around in the garbage. The man was busily stuffing the sacks on his shoulders with tin cans he fished from the thrash. Now and then he scratched his head pensively as if some mysterious voice was addressing him with taxing questions from within the trash container. He had a burgundy beret and petroleum green overalls which were worn to shreds. From the rips on the overalls one could see his kneecaps covered with dirt.

  ‘At the hobo! At the hobo!’ Su shouted.

  The sniper boy on duty by the window loaded the paper roll with new chickpeas and blew with all his might. Exactly at the same moment, however, the targeted vagabond stopped doing what he was doing, turned around with an animal-like intuition and, like victims smiling at their murderers before taking the bullet, opened his mouth wide and caught the chickpea in one move while it was still in the air, gulping it down without even caring to chew. Pressing his hand on his heart he subtly tilted his head forward as if to thank them in return and opened his mouth once again for the second bullet. When no chickpea was fired, he impatiently rattled his yellowed teeth. The sniper boy flinched in horror. Su stared flabbergasted at this weirdest man she had ever seen, a man who did not at all look like anyone she knew.

  Flat Number 2: Sidar and Gaba

  As soon as the girl left, banging the door behind her, Sidar felt like shit. He waited until midnight, hoping she would forgive him and return. It was only when he had to accept the fact that he was waiting to no avail, that he put the leash on Gaba and threw himself out of the house.

  The Armenian Catholic Cemetery was twenty-five minutes by foot. This was the one he liked the most among all the cemeteries in Istanbul. To help Gaba pass through he pushed all the way back the humongous ornate door that did not give even the slightest hint about what a luminous space was hidden behind. Upon seeing him coming, the guard grumbled as usual. Though suspicious of Sidar’s every move the first time around, he had gotten used to him over time and must have finally deemed this wiry, scruffy young guy batty but harmless; for he didn’t object to his presence anymore.

  When Sidar showed up on the wide stone road intersecting each and every path in the cemetery, an old man sitting alone on a bench waved at him. They had run into each other a couple of times. Though they had been exchanging greetings, they had never conversed before.

  ‘So you’ve come again,’ smiled the old man, patting the seat next to him. ‘But you’re still too young. Why the hurry?’

  Sidar perched on the other end of the bench. Before responding, he inspected the old man. He must have been at least seventy-five years old, maybe even eighty. Small and round were his eyes, a deep bluish-grey.

  ‘But I’ve seen lots of children’s graves here,’ Sidar replied obstinately.

  ‘I didn’t say you were too young to die, I said you are too young to think about death.’

&nb
sp; Gaba’s bark was heard from a distance, probably nothing to be worried about. Some stranger must be giving him something to eat. He barked like that when he was about to get a treat from a stranger. It was the ‘Thank you for the simit, you are very kind!’ bark.

  ‘I too was thinking about death today,’ muttered the man, apparently interested in a chat. ‘This morning my sister called, she’d had a bad dream last night. We were children with milk bottles in our hands. Yet the milk was kind of strange; it wouldn’t flow but came out in lumps. White mice the size of my little finger scurried from within. My mother grabbed our hands and took us away, but my sister went back. In spite of knowing too well that the milk was contaminated, she drank. My mother was furious at her. “Why did you do that? You sinned!” she yelled, but she couldn’t bear my sister’s tears and seated her on her lap to console her. “Don’t you worry,” she soothed her, “God will certainly forgive you.” ’

  Gaba started barking once again, probably because some stranger had attempted to pat him. Both Sidar and the old man turned around inadvertently, looking at the entrance of the cemetery though they knew they could not see him from this angle. No problem. It was probably just the ‘I will let you pat me if you give me one more simit!’ bark.

  ‘I haven’t dreamt in years, wouldn’t even remember it if I did, but my sister does and her dreams always come true. She is a cultured woman. If you had just seen her as a young girl, she wasn’t interested in anyone. All she thought about were books! My mother, the poor thing, was distressed; she forbid my sister to read too much for it made her nose bleed, but my sister still kept reading secretly, novels mostly…from the French originals… In my mind’s eye I can still picture her bent double over a book, lost in another world. I always knew when her nose was going to start bleeding again. I could have warned her but, I don’t know why, I could not even get near her while she was reading. I just watched, waiting soundlessly for that drop of blood to fall. There were many such red stains on the pages of the novels she read back then. You couldn’t wipe them off or tear them out, so what could you do? They remained like that. She also had a diary, wouldn’t talk to us, but she did to her diary. Then one day my sister and I returned from school to find all the books and the diary gone. “I threw them all away!” mother snapped. My sister turned white. She loved ma, she did, but I don’t think she ever forgave her.’