Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale

by Levi, Mario

  Monsieur Jacques, in that world that had been presented to him, whose doors had been opened wide and gifted to him, had done his utmost, according to some, to pay his debt—his wergild. He had assumed all the responsibility, maintenance and care that Olga had been in need of, when she was left alone and impecunious after her father’s death, in a way more generous and magnanimous than others of his ilk. What drew them to each other at the beginning was this generosity; she was a woman who knew how to listen to her feelings and knew how to convey them to others. Certain particularities had not been omitted; nothing had been spared from her. Monsieur Jacques had always acted as a gentleman when he presented her with gifts he had bought on the occasions of her birthdays, accompanied by the gentle and kind words he pronounced as he tended them to her. He had never adopted such a manner in all his life to any woman in this way, he had never looked nor could he ever look at other women like he looked at her. His was not a transitory affair; far from being transient, he looked at this affair in a different vein. There were things that were out of the ordinary in this relationship, things that had their roots in daily life. I myself had been the witness of many things that had served me to make inroads into this story. Olga, who took care of all the clients at the shop and knew all the dealings of the business, open or secret, was the only true friend and confidante Monsieur Jacques had. Among those who had had an inkling of this circumstance was Uncle Kirkor. It occurs to me sometimes that when considering his star-crossed relationship with Olga, one should take stock of the implications of such a fact. For, Uncle Kirkor knew all too well the extent to which he had confidence in her. I attribute the impression Olga had on him to her womanhood and the special role she played, and surmise that, as I had good knowledge of her, that it deserved consideration. There was, however, a corner into which she could never have access, as it constituted a source of jealousy, the point where one had the impression that the companionship had been usurped from another. When one thinks of the potential contributions of this little defeat to the unattainability of that woman and her preference for the person in question, the problem is liable to assume a more intricate character. This confidentiality might have been generated perhaps by the inevitable preferences related to backgrounds to which Uncle Kirkor may have been blind. The fact that Olga had learned to speak Spanish and that she had succeeded in this, even though she acquired a somewhat funny accent, was noteworthy. Yet, despite all these probabilities, this confidence appears to have had another meaning, difficult to share and to express. Berti had been spared this confidence—yes, even Berti. A confidence discovered in the forbidden zone of Monsieur Jacques, a confidence loath to be deprived of and related to ‘that thing’ . . . Olga also had certainly taken cognizance of it. Her putting up with such a life of hardships despite all her destitution and unrealized fancies could have been possible only by such an unshakable conviction. This conviction had also led her to accept those furtive nights, those concrete nights which revived in her the hope that she could go on living her former life in Odessa separately and continue to tread a path strewn with different sentiments. The hours of separation during those nights were charged with new faces, for many years ahead . . . up until those interminable days and nights during which Madame Roza had suffered the intense agonies caused by cancer . . . “That my mother-in-law was doomed to die was as known to her as to everybody else. He had wanted to be near her in her last days. Not because of a pang of conscience, though. I think that he had understood how much he loved her, how difficult it would be to separate from her,” said Juliet . . . There was some effort to protect her, I believe; an attempt at shelter and preservation; one of those stories ever recurrent, having inevitable parallels. Monsieur Jacques regarded Madame Roza on her deathbed with a sense of gratitude beyond what had been experienced in the said tripartite relationship, beyond the things that had been occasioned, the things that caused the opportunity to slip, with a sense of gratitude in a place quite different from that which one would have guessed. Experiencing such a feeling was not easy. Madame Roza, according to the information we had been imparted with, had, by her resoluteness, a guarded speech and mastery in keeping silent, having succeeded in thwarting that love, preventing it being fostered and consummated to the very end by a self-sacrifice that not many women (who had been aware of it) could bear the brunt thereafter. This had most probably been interpreted as a game, a game that both women had been privy to, but had refrained from speaking of, or alluding to, during their confidential talks. It all boiled down to a conflict of interests. A conflict that also necessitated some reserve . . . In the end, everybody had paid their share of the cost of this forbidden love in his or her own way. This situation could not possibly have brought about and nourished that feeling. This sentiment of Monsieur Jacques was one that was in the offing, at a distance from what had been experienced. His wife had looked after his mother during the last five years of her life; his mother who had to live with eyes closed to the world, not like a daughter-in-law, but like a daughter. Yes, like her own daughter; it’s true, like the progeny of one’s own family. By self-sacrifice, endurance, willful deprivation and joining Nesim’s game wholeheartedly, careful not to let her take wind of the deceptions she had been subjected to. By that stratagem, Madame Roza had also spent some effort to come to the rescue of the house, notwithstanding her solitude, reticence and lack of means. For the sake of stories which found their repeated depths through acquired meaning in their echoes . . . Monsieur Jacques was the sort of person who believed that debts, regardless of their origin, good or bad, had to be settled in this world. Had he ever thought about this philosophy of his which so profoundly affected his life during the days he had been looking after his wife? I don’t know. As far as I can remember, the frequency of visits to Olga had been reduced to a minimum. If my memory does not fail me, this had lasted for about six months. Madame Roza had died while holding the hand of Monsieur Jacques, clasping it tightly . . . her last breath, the last curtain . . . saying: “It has been difficult, hasn’t it?” Monsieur Jacques was sitting by her bed not saying a word. He closed her eyelids and recited a last prayer. He continued to sit there for a long while, thinking of their life together; the very first days of their marriage; Jerry; the night of the blaze in which their house at Halıcıoğlu had burned down; his father and the first dinner they had before their nuptials. He remembered the celery in oil dressed with too little sugar and too much salt. It was not that good, yet they had eaten it. As he was telling about that moment of separation, Monsieur Jacques was especially moved when he shared the recollection of that celery. He felt as though he was re-experiencing it, a joy mingled with pain. This was a feeling to which affection and yearning added seasoning, a tragic moment turned into a nice and delightful memory after the lapse of many years. Such recollections only return to the integral part of one’s life. They may even arouse in one a sort of pride. For they represent one’s own true moments. For instance that recollection of the celery dish, that surmised the moment of eternity which had severed Monsieur Jacques from the woman with whom he had spent an entire life. Monsieur Jacques had long gazed at Madame Roza. He had wanted to speak a few words to her. Certain words that he expected might alleviate the burden of this separation. However, he had failed to do so. He could not bring himself to do that. It was too late. He then took up her comb from the night table and began to comb her thinning hair, comparing it to her hair when he had first seen her. He combed it meticulously and gently, in order that she might go decently to her last refuge . . . Then he had stopped. For it seemed that this sense of absurdity encapsulated the moment. Certain things, certain things that delineate your life graze past without having been experienced. “It has been difficult, hasn’t it?” Madame Roza said before closing her eyes, just before her husband started combing her hair. The one that had remained behind had no choice other than to remember, while the other experienced an intense journey through time and space. A long time had been spent; lives, plac
es, seasons heavy with different meanings and little stories had passed. These were the years that would gladden neither Monsieur Jacques nor Olga for reasons easily guessed, the years missed so to speak; what was interesting, and, if one may confess, distressing, was, Olga’s sudden death one night, after having gone through a dreadful ordeal, all alone, in her bed, about six months after Madame Roza. Indeed, Olga had died about six months after Madame Roza, all alone, without a word to anybody! Yes, all alone! In the company of her tales; befitting the life she had lived . . . All of a sudden, lapsing into silence, without raising hue nor cry . . . Without having experienced that togetherness with the man she had been waiting for and to whom she had remained faithful to even in her older days, having been trespassed by no one. Was this a sort of vengeance taken by Madame Roza in such an unexpected manner, so difficult for anybody to imagine? Maybe. What was certain was Monsieur Jacques’ regression and withdrawal into the solitude of himself. Monsieur Jacques, whom I’d seen at the luncheon we had had at Juliet’s after the funeral service of Madame Estreya, fitted this caricature . . . Waiting was of no use, no doubt nobody would come, neither Olga, nor Roza, nor Kirkor, nor Jerry, nor any other soul . . . If so, why should one insist on looking at that old clock?

  Mimico’s marbles

  In everybody’s life there are days, nights and seasons that seem to have been left behind at different places far in the past. These are experiences and recollections that make you what you actually are, that at a least expected moment cause you in your depths to meet people whom you never expected to meet, that you remember occasionally not always with compunction but sometimes with joy, and that return to you having assumed different meanings. I would never have thought in the beginning that that photograph I chanced to see in an album tossed in a corner at Juliet’s would have paved the way to a story destined to be shared with certain people. It was a thick album with a green cover and black pages, an album heavy enough to befit the seriousness of certain situations. It happened to be in the cabinet of the LPs, played less and less at this stage. Lucho Gatica was there . . . Harry Bellafonte, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Elvis Presley were all present. Songs kept receding into the past, one-time hits that sounded less and less familiar, songs that people no longer wanted to listen to, to preserve; among them was an album whose contents received less and less attention . . . People sometimes try to evade certain memories and recollections, certain voices, sounds and words that may remind them of certain memories . . . I had, with some hesitation, taken up that album, since this approach might also bring people together through shared memories to which one was a stranger. Juliet had observed this. She had given me a hint by her looks that I shouldn’t be upset. This was not the first silent communication between us. There are more ways of exchanging information in life, through other jargons, than words and looks. Juliet’s wink was a sort of little present, a sort of laissez-passer. She knew that I liked to head for other people’s psyches, despite my uneasiness to be proceeding on and finding out the traces of other people’s mislaid consciousness. Actually, it was not possible to properly reach those people figuring in the photographs; I was conscious of this. These dashed hopes were not exclusive to people whom we traced as outsiders, but the same frustrated hope held true for people with whom we had lived with over a long period of time, for people we had had contact with for one reason or another. Nevertheless, I had my own fantasies and stories to concoct despite the lack of prospects, stories that seemed never to come to an end thanks to my fancies that engendered and obliterated them, stories that helped me to take refuge in my lies once again in the face of the attacks launched by the truth. Photographs were meticulously arranged on the first few pages while seeming to have been haphazardly laid out on the ones that followed. It seemed that after a given point they had wanted to give up the idea, to renounce certain things and places, as though they had had enough of them. It looked like something that one tried to carry out as if under coercion, something that one would have liked to let go and run its course . . . Photographs loosely distributed without having been glued properly in order; photographs haphazardly inserted by the dozen among the pages. The photograph that had directed me to that story happened to be among those clusters. Its size was somewhat larger than the rest. The dimensions made it easily distinct. It seemed that in it there was one of those calls that we preferred not to define but instead chose to remain contented with through simply sensing its presence. After the lapse of such a long time I can fit that call now in its proper place. It was a place between understanding and bewilderment; a zone between comprehension and perplexity . . . For, I know more or less the unforgettable moments of that story. Having covered some distance among certain impressions, one feels compelled to penetrate the body of a different being; otherwise you feel that you will not be in a position to tell of some of your experiences. At such moments, there are realities more important than the fact that you know you cannot always disclose your feelings as you would have liked. That is the place that you should be attaching importance, in particular to those things that have given birth to them within you. I think I can explain the difference between the moment when I first glanced at that photograph and this very moment, only in this way . . . Most of the details seem to have been obliterated from my memory. What I had been beholding was, to the best of my understanding, a revelry wherein wine occupied the place of honor. There may have been a musical performance as well; a musical performance whose echoes have by now receded to such a distance in the past that the figures in the photograph and their viewers can no longer hear them. That night, more than any other, future designs must have constituted the main topic of discussion. This was not a far-fetched supposition. A wish that had remained confined to the glasses stretched in the air, hopes nourished with succinct words. Will tomorrow be more beautiful than yesterday? Who knows? Given the fact that one had come so far . . . Only the goblets replete with wine could be noticed . . . What remained were the vestiges of other stories, and views that had accompanied them. Three men smartly dressed up in dinner suits and three women wearing low-cut dresses in the fashion of the day had fixed their looks at some place in this scene of bliss they had created in the name of progress within their lives. A place they wished to magnify, and, to a certain extent, to pause, having come from different worlds, carrying those different worlds within themselves . . . I was familiar with these photographs. I had been on either side of them. That was partly the reason why I had been so inquisitive about what remained concealed behind those glances. Was it a summer night? “It was a banquet. Jenny, a cousin of Berti with whom we had lost contact was getting engaged . . . She was a close friend of mine. Formerly, we would often see each other, even before we came to know Berti. We had so many things in common; our fantasies, you know . . . Like everybody . . . Then they parted . . . the day before the wedding. Jenny seemed happy that night. She believed she had found the man of her dreams . . . Look how she laughs!” said Juliet. She pointed to a fair woman who directed her languid look into the camera. She was holding a man with glossy hair by the hand. Were you to ask if there was more to see than what was presented in the photograph, you might call this attitude not holding but hanging on . . . to hold onto someone, to desire to hold on . . . When you think of those latent fears within you, of that man you want to shun at times, you want to have perfect confidence and belief in certain happiness . . . to believe in happiness to the very end, to feel such a need, especially if your experiences and efforts have not received the attention they deserved; as if they summon you to an ineluctable solitude against your will . . . There was in that photograph something that recalled one of the prohibitions, reminding one of who had been ostracized. Had the families, whose desire it had been to show their happiness at such nights, been left outside the frame of that photograph, or had they been outside the confines of the night that brought me that photograph? Would the failure reinforce a prohibition, preserve its strength and cause suc
h a separation? This was a probability not to be easily overlooked in the families of those involved. But I, in order to get an answer to my question, and in my hope to find another story, had chosen a new path and tried to learn if behind that smile there may have been a lover that wished to be forgotten, but with whom it had been impossible to part. How could I ever know if my question, whose origin might well have been a strange intuition, would have led me to that place I least expected it to . . . “Yes, but . . . It didn’t turn out as you expected. The man had kept up his facade until the last moment. He had stuck to his guns; he had had good will and desire for another life; although he had to give it up in the end and confess everything. He had his own sexual preferences . . . There had been quite a scandal at Büyükada during those days. Jenny had loved Morris . . . Once the truth was made public, she shut herself up at home. It took some time before she returned to normal. Then, we heard one day that she had decided to go to İzmir, to her aunt. Before she left, we sat one day at a patisserie . . . She said she was going to start a new life. She had decided to become a tour guide. She spoke English and French. Her intention might well have materialized. But not a year had gone by before she was back. She changed jobs every now and then; she slept with men. She felt restless and changed places all the time. She wanted to forget and seemed to wreak vengeance on fate . . . In time, we lost contact. Much later, I heard that she had married a widower with two children from İzmir, much older than herself. She had invited no one to her wedding. She seemed to be taking refuge in evasion, as though she were afraid of something. That was the last I saw of her. Eventually she had left for İzmir for good. She never returned to Istanbul. She may have, however, although unbeknownst to us. We received a letter from her.” Juliet penned in the said letter in which she spoke of her having found the happiness she had been looking for. However, she had left her sentence incomplete . . . There seemed to be something that she was shying away from, something between two people which might have changed the course of the story. She might have desired to keep a particular thing to herself she had suddenly remembered at the least expected moment. This must have been the reason for her preferring to keep silent and lending her ears to others. She had had a faint smile on her face afterward and said: “Jenny was a very beautiful girl; much more beautiful than she appears in this photograph. Sometimes she undid her hair; such flaxen hair was rarely seen. Her eyes were of amber. Her smile exposed all her teeth, which were replicas of pearls. This isn’t so apparent in this photograph. She was happy all right, but that night she looked somewhat different. Had you known her, you were sure to fall head over heels in love with her.” She loved to tease me now and then and to play the role of the elder sister. Despite our differing views on life and how it should be lived, this was what had endeared her to me. This approach had a dash of sex appeal seasoned with affection. On that Saturday, when we had gradually sneaked into that photograph, this affection, innate in her, was directed toward Jenny rather than toward me. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon . . . It might have occurred to Juliet to transpose Jenny for a short moment to another point in time and allow her to be shared with another person . . . “For what? For whom?” . . . Yes, for what and for whom? Was it in order to review once again, from another angle, the steps taken or not taken and the places reached over the years that had vanished in the meantime? Maybe so. Would you not be disposed now and then to retain some photographs for this purpose, to keep them in your own drawers? It had occurred to me to learn if there was somewhere else in that album Jenny had not put in an appearance with that smile of hers. I knew, however, that I couldn’t ask this of those people, from the heroes of those tales. I had to acknowledge the fact that certain people who had put in an appearance for a certain term in our lives and left their imprints on us were doomed to remain confined to those photographs. What was important was to just lightly touch on those facades, making sure not to impair anything, and to learn how to touch them in this way. A light touch . . . in order to be able to place that moment somewhere never to be forgotten . . . It looked as if this was the most critical, the most sensitive point of the story. The spell should be broken on no account. Barring all sentiments and contingencies, how much could you share the photograph of that moment with the person who had experienced it, especially when so many years had already gone by? I’d felt this uneasiness when I had taken the album in my hand, and when I’d tried to touch other photographs and had dared to proceed to other periods of that history. In my intention to abandon Jenny at that moment, in that photograph, and my attempt to reanimate her with what Juliet had provided me with, there was a reason, a need for a justifiable evasion. The other hero of the story—who had experienced another evasion, a true evasion, or who had had to go through it—seemed to have the intention of speaking to me about another adventure. I could not possibly ignore the drawbacks of listening to Juliet’s account—she who had stayed aloof of Morris, that eccentric man, because of his maltreatment of Jenny, who had experienced the communal spaces from which he could not tear himself away. Clues might have led me to a different aperture. Well, we could also try to overlook certain probabilities while we were trying to understand those men for the sake of the legacy of those pains left to us. I had tried to reveal this aspect of the story which gave me a thrill I tried to conceal partly because of this. Those feelings could not be disclosed easily in those places; for, from time to time you chose to hide yourself behind a different appearance. Juliet had felt that uneasiness I expected. As though caught unawares, she had taken a sip from her coffee with milk and cream and exhaled a few puffs from her cigarette. This behavior was important; for, she knew all too well how to benefit from such occasions. These were occasions when her breath smelled strongly of tobacco. This characteristic of hers excited me sexually . . . “Our contact had broken off for quite some time up until the moment I ran into her at Büyükada. We were at a café, in one of those lousy cafés. She had a man with her, a young man of fair complexion. They were at a distance of a few meters from me. I couldn’t hear their words; however, it was evident that they conversed in English. From the expressions on their faces one could infer that they were discussing something serious. Now and then they stopped talking and turned their heads towards the sea. I think I was the only one to recognize her. She had changed a lot. She had grown fat and her hair had grown sparse. However, she was well dressed. Our eyes met a couple of times. She did not seem to recognize me, or preferred not to. Had I approached her, would she be disposed to talk with me? I think she would. I mean she would have liked to. Anyway, I regret now not having tried. However, something within me thwarted my intended action, I don’t know exactly what; something that had to do with me, I should think. There was one other thing . . . I didn’t figure there, in the picture, I mean . . . I think I’d felt this then. We’d become strangers to each other . . . ” We were going through times when eccentricities recalled other eccentricities . . . “You happened to figure in other stories . . . She couldn’t have done likewise. As far as I could gather, she was not given enough space. She may have desired more than what was afforded her from that experience of deception for lack of being properly understood. I’m not very far from this feeling. The affection within me was not any different from the meaning we usually attach to the word ‘affection.’ I’m sure of this. I think that the problem was her inability to express this affection in a way satisfactory to her friends,” I said; whereupon, she said: “Yes, but she had on her countenance a sort of self-assurance which the indifference she had grown accustomed to provided her with. She seemed to have settled everything with the people who had abandoned her to her solitude, with those people of the world from which she had been estranged. Her indifference and alienation might have been partly due to this . . . Then we heard one day that she had killed herself . . . They said that she could not bear the fact that her lover had abandoned her and gone back to his own country. That day the subject they discussed might’ve been this . . . ” she sa
id. Speaking of avoidance, I think I had wanted to allude also to other types of evasions. I had felt it; Juliet had tried to evade not only Jenny but also Morris. To evade, feeling the need to run away from different lives to shelter in others for the sake of refuge . . . This was not being experienced for the first time, or for the last. There were so many people who based their existence on such evasions. This story would, over time, continue in a quite different fashion and pave the way to another tale. I already knew that this was going to be the case, at noon during our Saturday retreat. But I’d have to wait, or I’d have to learn how to wait. The hot toasts baked in the oven with cheese were as delicious as always. I had had a sip from the coffee with cream. She was a master in this; she knew how to create the right atmosphere. That was one of the two houses wherein I savored milk with delight. It would still take some time before I realized the importance of this characteristic. Some time . . . Once everybody had come and gone . . . I had gazed at her face in the photograph. I had thought the years had made her even more beautiful. She looked despondent, but her countenance had become more meaningful. She had grown old. Berti also had changed. Then, reverting to the couple opposite, and pointing to the man whose looks attracted attention and gave him an ostentatious appearance among the other six figures, I had remarked: “How everything eludes him; his dinner jacket, the woman beside him, you yourself, this banquet . . . ” And she had said in response with a mirthless smile: “He is Mimico, his real name was Hayim, but we used to call him Mimico . . . It’s a long story.” She had been one of the avid listeners to the stories I told, the stories I always wanted to tell. In this, her stage experience in the past had certainly had its part to play. However, what had particularly impressed me was that power of intuition that had made her a different woman in my view. In the course of time I was to get acquainted with many women who would impress me with their intuitive power for the sake of different relationships in different ways. What made Juliet different were the efforts she made to defend herself solely by her intuitions, although she had been fully equipped with all the necessary prerequisites. This seemed to be her distinguishing feature which could be considered both developed and underdeveloped, in a certain sense. As for her wide hips and full breasts, they tended to arouse sexual desire, especially for the latent dreams of an adolescent boy, avid to touch a woman’s body . . . I remember well, as we had been speaking of stories, she had cast meaningful attractive glances my way. This was one of the key moments of a storied relationship. I felt as though a closely guarded secret had been revealed. I had felt myself stark naked in front of her. As we had been sitting next to each other on the sofa, I had suddenly been conscious of that moment when her leg touched mine. This was of such a nature that it could never be experienced again, a moment intensely felt and reproduced to infinity. From the slit of her skirt one could see the entirety of her leg, a real treat . . . She leaned forward to shake out the ash of her cigarette, and trying to cover up the trembling in her voice, she had continued her story from where she had left off in order to redirect my attention to the photograph, and went on to tell the story in question that had introduced Mimico to me as a person who would always abide in me, as though I felt guilty about him. “Do not let those looks deceive you. Those were actually her happiest days. Her happiest days despite all the lies, deceptions and deceits . . . ” she began as a preamble. I had asked myself once again whether you needed key witnesses in order to be able to understand certain sentiments that had been experienced in a place very distant from you. I knew the story of the people who had hidden themselves behind those appearances. I was beginning to acknowledge that I belonged to the family that those people formed, and that I would be bound to acknowledge it, years later, when I came to realize that I had learned not to feel ashamed of those shortcomings. She had continued to speak: “You should ask Berti about Mimico’s youth. They had grown up together in the same district. He was a strange sort of a fellow. He was the laughingstock of the district, a timid boy,” she added. And I’d said in return that laughing at people was a sort of self-defense for the weak. “It expresses the restlessness one feels at the existence of a creature different from them, the easiest way to compensate for their own shortcomings.” She had smiled at my remark. She seemed to be approving of my observations. Nevertheless, it seemed that for her to speak about Mimico, to shift back to that time in the past was of greater importance. I believe this was the attempt of a person abandoned in some undesired place to free herself from her own shadow . . . To endeavor to free oneself from one’s past . . . By imparting one’s experiences and sharing them with others, a way of confessing things in a roundabout way . . . All I had to do was to lend an ear. Everything had assumed the air of a ritual enacted for commemorating someone . . . “Berti found the cause of it in his being orphaned. Mimico had lost his father six months after his birth; thus, he had not known paternal affection. Hard times had started for the family, who had until then made a decent living on the income derived from a small brewery and winery. Madame Victoria had to shoulder the burden of the family, acting both as mother and father to her children. The family was not that large, there were only the three of them, yet they formed a unit. She had to do something about them. A newborn infant of six months, an old mother in need of care, a new business, just like in the trash we occasionally take delight in reading in order to kill time . . . or in those cheap movies . . . these were Berti’s memories from childhood days, from the days when blocks of apartments were given female names . . . When I think of Mimico I cannot help asking myself the reason why certain stories are so tragic. After all, it was not so easy to imagine oneself living a detestable life you would never have dreamt of . . . with all the responsibilities and penury . . . Madame Victoria had immediately started to work at the brewery thanks to the practical knowledge she had acquired from her husband. Scratching a living, maintaining a family . . . Monsieur Dimitro, her husband’s business partner, had been of great assistance in tutoring her in the particulars of the job, just like an elder brother who had spared no effort to train her in the business. But this was at the beginning; for, later on he had harassed her. Madame Victoria, who refused to yield to his amorous inclinations, thinking that she should keep her chastity and not betray the memory of her husband, had to give in, in the end. Perhaps she had also been willing; we can never know. After all, she was a beautiful and attractive young woman. Business life, uncontrollable impulses . . . When I think of it, to be frank, there was nothing out of the ordinary in this relationship. I believe it was Mimico who had resented this and was injured at Monsieur Dimitro’s frequent and long-lasting visits on the pretext of discussing business. In his crankiness, lack of confidence in people and introversion, the influence of those long nights could not be denied. Monsieur Dimitro often invited Mimico to the dinner table prepared fastidiously by Madame Victoria with appetizers, and offered him raki, telling bawdy jokes which he did not understand, wishing him to grow up and be a man. Mimico was eight or nine years of age at the time. According to the account of Berti, he felt terrified in the presence of Monsieur Dimitro during those nights and detested him . . . ” As you try to imagine this scene, you might remember the age-old anecdotes in which virility is displayed in all its dimensions. In the fullness of time, I was to learn that Monsieur Dimitro, far from being an experienced gallant and an extreme dandy who had earned the admiration of women used to living with stereotyped standards, was a puny asthmatic valetudinarian who had had no extramarital affairs. Under these circumstances, Madame Victoria’s choice acquired a different value. However, despite all the hustle and bustle, apocryphal stories abounded in which a web of elaborate lies were worked out for fear of being cast away, and in order to be a member of the great majority in which so many fine feelings were smothered grievously. Juliet’s mindset in her stance toward those recollections had inestimable value for me. For, she happened to be one of those who had shown and taught me one of the many facets of lies . . . We had grown s
ilent. I distinctly remember that that silence was one of those contrapuntal silences. I had thought that we could conjure up these people into whose psychologies we had gained an insight, following different devious paths to different places and possibilities after all these years; doing so in more subtle, diverse ways. To tell the truth, we lived in so many forbidden zones, with so many shadows, our own shadows . . . “Mimico was a sensitive fellow,” said Juliet continuing her narrative. Acting had got her nearer to the voice that her past had given her, identifying her as a narrator. With her left hand she had stroked her hair, and after moving her hand along her neck, she diverted her looks from the photographs, assuming that feminine air I adored, casting a glance at me with a smile. Our legs touched. The timing was excellent. I felt once more as though I was stark naked . . . Then we had returned to the photograph . . . for that time, for our time, for our times . . . “The kid could not possibly understand everything by discourse or reason. Understanding aside, the fact remained that the mere sight of his mother being appropriated by another man would be enough to make him feel estranged. The boy’s hopelessness in the presence of his mother’s situation can easily be understood . . . Those nights must have deeply affected the boy’s future attitude toward women, inflating the risk of him being seen as a cast away. Madame Victoria was reported to have been a kindhearted, loving mother. Mimico had never forgotten this. I believe that he always wanted to remain faithful to her memory. However, this period did not last long, for Monsieur Dimitro died within a few years. The brewery was sold at auction. There remained little afterward. Madame Victoria was a resolute woman; she did not resign herself to her fate stoically. She turned another of her talents to good account and began working as a tailor. She went to houses to do her job; she took Mimico with her on the days there was no school or when he was reluctant to go to school. These days apparently affected not only his own world of imagination, but also that of his friends, of his peers. Such fancies are all the more potent during adolescence. Even more so with innocence . . . perhaps because the young are not left crushed under them . . . I know this not only from the impressions of my old friends, but also from Berti. Men are somehow more innocent in the beginning as regards sexual matters. Mimico used to relate to his friends the lascivious scenes to which he had been a witness at the houses of the clients he went to with his mother, describing the women stripping in his presence—who took little heed of him at the time. Such moments were the rare instances when he enjoyed supremacy among his friends. It occurred to him however, that at times he made himself the laughingstock of his companions through his exaggeration of events. Even so, he reigned supreme during such reports. “O the things I have seen! What hips, what breasts!” He went on describing how a woman had replaced one of her large breasts that had come out from her bra back to its nest; how another woman had adjusted her panties squeezed in between her buttocks, how still another woman tactlessly exposed the tuft of pubic hair that had jutted out from the slit of her slip. Most probably he described his adventures in glowing terms. All these cock-and-bull stories may have been of his own invention, but it was undeniable that they had a powerful effect on his companions. I know this from the way Berti told me years later with great relish. Here, I must draw your attention to something of considerable significance. I doubt if you have noticed it. Mimico was shrewdly taking revenge on his companions who had ostracized him during his narrations and demonstrations. It was unkind of him perhaps, although he may be thought of as justified . . . By tickling their fancies, by arousing their jealousy, and, probably by deceiving them . . . He had at the time been robbed of a valuable story . . . His school records were far from being satisfactory . . . He had studied at the High School of Commerce; his mother could not afford to finance his tuition at colleges where European languages were taught and in which his friends studied . . . They were to learn much later what destitution was. Mimico had been faced with another disadvantage at the High School of Commerce: the inconvenience of being a Jew; he was the only Jew in the school. His companions used to call him “Dirty Jew!” Those were the days when he had been separated from Berti. During his junior years, in his adolescence, the gap widened even more. In summer, while his peers met at the square under the clock tower at Büyükada with their girlfriends and went to Dil or made the tour of the island on bicycles, he, in whom no girl paid any attention, remained with his mother and took sea baths all alone. He had to take cognizance of his alienation and lead the life of a recluse. What happened afterward, you can guess . . . The ever-increasing pain of banishment resulting from seclusion . . . As though this was not enough, he developed a phobia for riding bicycles. This seems obstinate and makes one irate . . . ” She was right. It was a rather important characteristic, a very important one in fact, for a woman. In order to be acquainted with a woman, to be better acquainted with her, one need only exert extra special effort in satisfying her needs and wants. Was this characteristic a female trait? Time would tell. Yet, it was possible to lend meaning to this deception by finding room for it in those circumstances. To be obliged to go swimming all alone, to view those who journey to the beach in the company of others with envy, and, to be frank, with some jealousy, caused storms to rage within one’s soul, and on top of this, to put on an air as though everything was all right . . . The fact that one could ride a bicycle had a poetic meaning difficult to express in words. At such times, one felt that such a painful experience would fail to exude from you, forever leaking inside. Then you began learning certain tricks, mastering them out of necessity. And eventually you became attached to them, up until the moment you found your match. I distinctly remember this had been one of the moments that had drawn me closer to Mimico. “Berti once told me that he had made a mistake by having left Mimico alone and that he had bitterly regretted it afterward . . . But regret does not avail, since nothing can be retrieved . . . ” Juliet said at a time when I had been ruminating on the subject. She seemed to be defending Berti rather than accusing him. Her voice had the warmth of a doting mother keeping watch over her child. Her voice did not change when she spoke about Mimico. She said: “People thought that he was a borderline case, that he was retarded. I was the only one who thought differently,” adding, “What was wrong with him was that he was a person who didn’t know how to turn his intelligence and talent to good account, unlike his acquaintances. With a magic touch, a real woman might change everything for her man enabling him to reconnect to the world and to those who had denied him. On condition that this woman is a virtuous woman who would be willing to take care of him . . . ” She had spoken without taking her eyes off the photograph; after having stared at length at the appearance that had popped up before her at that unexpected moment, returning from a far distant past. That was what one did, what one always did, to imaginatively enter into the time of a photograph, to the time of its shooting; to stare, merely to stare at it; to stare at it in order to hold onto our history more tightly, to stare at it because we cannot entrust ourselves wholly to another person. Was the fact that the continuation of our conversation was carried on, even though on a different plane, with a long interval in between, due to our failure to take cognizance of this reality at the time? Maybe. On the other hand, even though we had known this reality, we had known that we knew it; we could not explain to each other those voices produced by the silences caused by our evasions. It was evident, however, that her last sentence tried to make way for another story. This was an interim period between disclosure and concealment. I believe that this was the reason why I had suggested to her to join me in keeping the story under our hat. Personally, I also had a hand in the matter in regard to the illusion that her feminine touch created. That was why I had asked her: “What about Madame Victoria?” I had felt it. My question had generated a spark in her. She seemed to express that I had touched upon a moot point. I knew her only that much. I still entertain the same opinion. “She cherished the same opinion. She was the one who wanted her son to find a decent job
and get married, during the days when his companions had either married, or were engaged to be married or had gone abroad, leaving him to live the life of a hermit. Madame Victoria had not received a proper education, but she was a clever and intelligent woman. She was honest and courageous enough to face the hard facts. Life had hardened her . . . A natural consequence of the plight of a person faced with difficulties, difficulties she had to cope with all alone, in deprivation . . . However, the fact that she was a mother was of towering importance. She could not naturally remain idle and watch her son build a wall around himself. That was why she had encouraged him to take part in the conferences and shows taking place in the Casa d’Italia and Union Française. Those were the days when he performed the said activities, especially on weekends when he dressed in the expectation of finding a girlfriend. Yet, his behavior was eccentric and ridiculous. Well, he couldn’t help it, could he? The only difference was that his circle was a community formed by individuals who were less cruel but more hypocritical. Was he conscious of having been a laughing stock? I really don’t know. Those were the times when Berti and I had recently been introduced to each other. While speaking of his friends, he had also mentioned Mimico with some reservations. I’d understood. He had a secret love and reserved a special place for him. This might have been the dynamism generated by remorse. Not long after, we met at Union Française just before the start of a lecture. Strange! I had the impression of déjà-vu. It was as though I had known him for eternity. He was like a friend whom I had not seen for a very long time, or a person I had created in my imagination. I had felt nothing odd as I shook his hand. The compliments he paid to me that evening I had received from no one up until then. He was stammering. Later, much later, I learned that this was a habit of his that occurred whenever he felt emotional. I know that this may astound you, but I’ve got to tell it all the same. This defective utterance made him all the more attractive. This had been my impression anyhow. You may go on and predicate that I was affectionate just because I’d been exalted at the least expected moment, or that I was struggling for supremacy by attributing positive qualities to someone who had experienced shortcomings in his life, which in turn enabled me to endure my own shortcomings. I cannot deny this. Nevertheless, I had more than one reason to love Mimico as Mimico; for reasons even Berti was unaware of, reasons relating to long forgotten memories of childhood. Man learns to acknowledge certain shortcomings, to understand them, to put up with them, to feel them as part of one’s being. To have to go through those experiences, both with those one loves and with those one considers alien to them, this happens to be shattering sometimes . . . Anyway . . . As the years went by, Mimico was to get rid of this shortcoming, without even being aware of it; otherwise he would have been deprived of his emotivity. Everybody had his own way of coping with problems. There were things that had to be experienced in those days. He, like everybody else, was going to experience a relationship he would never forget. Among all our relationships, a particular one is always the mark by which we determine and compare all others. Such was this relationship. His loss of emotive power came later, long after that evening . . . as a matter of fact, years later . . . when the day came and he became mute. Alas for Mimico . . . ” she said. That was an apposite interjection! Now that I am able to view the whole thing cooly, in the reflection of those words and exchanges, looking from a different perspective, I believe I can better understand what Juliet had been trying to communicate to me. She had missed Mimico, she must have been concealing him in her hidden depths, very far from other people; somewhere well protected, so much so that even Mimico might have difficulty in guessing that she had. “He had praised Berti, to the point of confusing him by saying: ‘She is a faithful and reliable friend and I should be extremely happy to be able to marry her and share my life with her,’” she added. A wry smile appeared on her face. There seemed to be things in her memory that she hadn’t disclosed; things whose origin were in a different dimension; things that returned to her from her past, and no sooner had they been touched upon, before they were dislodged, fully revealing themselves; things that one could not define exactly. The real meaning lay concealed in those indefinable things, those hidden places, who can tell . . . “It would take some time before I could understand his intention as I got to know him better; actually he wreaked vengeance on Berti for his betrayal and abandonment; stealthily he confused and humiliated him in front of someone he cherished. It was as though he knew beforehand that this would destroy Berti. The concealment of this fact must have served him well. He had expressed his admiration in a subdued tone. With a subtlety that those who had accused him of retardation would hardly understand. This was one of his artful treacheries that might be noticed only by those who knew him well. Everybody has the right to defend himself. Under the circumstances, I dare say that he was justified in his actions. I’m sure you’d be of the same opinion,” she said afterward as though waiting for my reaction. For some reason or other I had preferred not to give any answer. I don’t know why but her argument of self-defense had perturbed me. There are certain moments when you hesitated to let certain people into the restricted areas you are particularly sensitive about. When one takes steps toward certain individuals, one should earn the right to do so. This might have been the reason why I opted for silence and acted as if I had had reservations about what I had been told. With reference to whether she had or tried to have frequent contact with him afterward, I did not inquire, merely for the sake of covering up this uneasiness and to avoid creating a new tension through this restlessness. “We saw him one day at Şişli with a woman on his arm,” she said. It was not for nothing that certain allusions had been made and clues were given en passant. I had before me now a story that would likely lead me to brand new problems and create in me brand new visions. “He had married. He introduced us to his wife. She was heavily made up. We were both confused and felt out of sorts. He appeared to be happy as a lark. He made jokes. He said he was proud of his wife, of having married her and tried to prove that he was an ordinary person. They invited us to their house. We accepted the invitation and had dinner together after a few days. Mimico was in seventh heaven. The very fact of our acceptance of the invitation seemed to suggest to him that we approved of him in his new identity as a married man. He was resolute in acting as the perfect host. Lena wore a sleeveless, low-cut dress, a long emerald one. She used a cigarette-holder and interspersed her conversation with French expressions like chez nous la vie commence après minuit. Let me add the following remark which you may be curious about. She let Mimico light her cigarette without a second thought; she had a mink shawl around her shoulders which she took off later on. She had a beautiful body which she had wanted to exhibit. He was trying to give weight to what his wife was saying, without giving it a seal of approval, although somewhat covertly with a trembling voice. Mimico was all smiles. Lena and I had gone to the kitchen when he confessed to Berti in a subdued voice that he was ‘apprehensive, very apprehensive.’ The room had at that moment appeared too large for Berti; Mimico thought that even in a very small world, getting lost in the balance of probabilities was not contrary to reasonable expectation. He wanted to embrace his friend, but couldn’t. The time that passed between them prevented him crossing that line, despite the fact that they had never been closer to each other. What the years had failed to achieve, was realized through a few words, though without success. Lena had approached me in the kitchen, and touching, first my waist and then my hips with both hands, had said that I had a beautiful shape but should try to dress more elegantly, like a woman. I had felt a strange sensation that I’d never experienced before; I felt hot on my breasts first and then on my face. I remember having touched my forehead with my hand. That was strange. I had felt like a small, inexperienced girl. For a very brief moment, a quite different feature of mine had been titillated. I had perceived that the woman standing facing me was a terrible woman, that wherever she touched became hot. I told Berti about my impre
ssion that very night, without making clear the reason for it. I tried to avoid going to Lena’s house. Within me a different woman had been lingering, I was aware of that. A woman I’d never seen or known before, a woman for whom I’d had no inclination. Myself and Berti had been married three or four years. Why should I not experience a pleasure I had not tasted till then, just a brief encounter? I was conscious of course that this might be an invitation to an impending catastrophe. That is why I did not, could not risk it. Berti has not had an inkling of this, nor shall he ever. What was going on in that other room was more important than my experience. Just a few words, ‘I’m apprehensive, very apprehensive’ . . . Was this a call for help? Possibly. However, according to Berti, no matter where one happened to be in this relationship, there was no doubt that everybody was at a difficult pass. I think he felt too weak to challenge Lena. Were he to do so, he thought, Mimico’s suffering would likely increase. It might well be the case that his friend whom he loved and highly valued but had failed to endear himself to had made a wrong choice. A very wrong choice at that. Nevertheless, despite all the dissatisfaction that the said choice caused, he was now with a woman, with a true woman, and according to some people with an original woman. It may be that this woman aroused apprehensions in him and made him pay dearly for the privilege; she also contributed to the realization of a dream. This woman, with all her warmth, was alive in him, in his life, in his flesh and bone. Was this not far better than loneliness, than reverting, after such a relationship, back to the old days? Under the circumstances, everything should be left to run its natural course. Sometimes I think if this attitude of Berti’s, which, at first sight, appeared reasonable, might not be an attempt at disguising the fact that he wasn’t in a position to help his friend. Had he once again eluded his friend and left him in the lurch? We’ll never know. I think we’ll never have the heart to take no for an answer. Berti, had, apparently asked Mimico; ‘Is there anything that we can do for you?’ Mimico having replied: ‘Don’t bother!’ This was an important point, of course. Could it be that what he had meant by this remark was that there was no hope of return for him anymore, had he just wanted to tell me the tribulations he had undergone; and that I had better forget what he had told me? I can’t tell. All I know is that this question is to remain without an answer. All that I can recollect about that night was the look in Mimico’s eyes, the expression of apprehension in a boy who had lost his way, along with Lena’s looks, which were inviting. In the course of time everything found its rightful place; just like in every relationship . . . Then . . . then we came together at that aforementioned dinner. Almost a year had passed. I perceived in Lena’s glances at me remoteness and indifference. Could it be that she had forgotten what had happened, or wanted to insinuate that I’d lost my chance? Or was it that I had attached greater importance to certain probabilities than was necessary? I didn’t dwell on it, I thought that harping on about it would be of no use; particularly at that stage . . . Mimico seemed resigned, even jovial. He had either thrown in the towel or developed his theatrical manner. Lena had been, as usual, particular about her make-up and appeared classy. She held a cigarette-holder between her lips, as was her habit, and did not fail to intersperse her conversation with French idioms and expressions. She was displaying herself once more as an attractive woman with full lips, meaningful glances, and breasts still pointed. She was warm and did not spare the guests her cheerful and radiant smile. She must’ve preferred to add charm to her attraction that night and introduced a new trait to her display. She may have insinuated that I had committed a grave error for having refrained from the risk of paying her that visit. Nevertheless, whatever may have been expressed or desired to be disguised, everything was in keeping with the party: everybody had come duly prepared and spruced up. Jenny was partial to Mimico. Although she was younger than him, she behaved toward him as an elder sister, even though they weren’t in frequent contact. Did I tell you that they were cousins? Leaving aside this fact, they were good friends. I had that impression whenever I saw them together. Jenny was indeed a sympathetic elder sister. He had invited her to his engagement party for this reason, I think. They spoke less frequently because of Lena. I believe he tried to alleviate the qualms that lay deep within him. Everybody tried to give Mimico something sooner or later; they felt obliged to do so. Everybody was conscious of the mistake they had committed toward each other. The jokes cracked that evening were meaningful. They spoke of the good old days and glasses were raised in response to toasts proposed for the future. Everybody was hopeful that night; everybody had something to expect from life. But Lena—it must be said under the effect of the alcohol she had consumed—tried to remove herself from her surroundings, despite her endeavor to show in vain she was still present. She had drunk a lot and was still continuing to drink. However, although the effect of alcohol was apparent in her gestures, she didn’t talk gibberish. Yet, there was something the matter with her. That was plain to see. You know, under such circumstances it is often difficult to take the necessary steps. You grow apprehensive. To begin with, you cannot trust your own self; you are apprehensive about the steps to take and the consequences of those steps; you are perplexed and undecided about what to say and what not to say; you feel out of sorts because you cannot communicate to your addressee what you intend to give him. Years will go by and you will realize that this was pure egoism, a kind of self-protection, which boils down to the same thing. You will again realize that there is no other way but to try to go on living with your regrets . . .