Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale

by Levi, Mario

  She had laid aside everything, work, friends, etc.: anything that would occupy her in her daily life. She began to go on long walks and tried to have a better insight into her mother’s paintings. İncila who knew how to exercise self-restraint was liable to be swept by a wind that suddenly rose when her deep buried feelings surged to the surface. This was a trait apparently inherited from her mother . . . A time came when this caused her to take the most important step of her life. She met Hugo at a party. They had talks and went on walks. Then they decided to merge their paths. Before she went away she had cast a last glance at her mother’s paintings. She had stood for hours gazing at her self-portrait. She perceived a smile on her sad countenance which she had not noticed before. This smile was embedded in the pupils of her eyes. It was as though she told her: “Do not hesitate to go to the bitter end, that’s the best thing you can do.” Her looks had facilitated İncila to make her resolution to depart. She had perceived in her eyes the traces of a story that nobody could decipher. The attempts at deterring her from her resolution by her father; by her paternal uncle, an undersecretary in a government ministry; her uncle’s wife whose sole concern in life was to roll out dough, stuff vegetables, embroider and who had prejudices regarding raising children; her two maternal aunts who had specialized in keeping up appearances to persuade people that they enjoyed a perfect harmony in their marital relations; and especially her teachers who thought she was highly talented; in other words all her next-of-kin and everybody who tried to show himself or herself as a family member in those days had failed.

  They had difficult times. İncila Hanım gave piano lessons in London. She sang nothing, however. Those songs, which had been left in another city, were henceforth laid to rest deep within her. As the days went by, she began sharing those old songs with the people of her immediate circle. He had heard that beautiful voice only then. This voice assumed meaning with the recollections of things abandoned in a remote life and carried over to a new one. That voice was not the voice of a person who sang beautifully, it was a voice that affected one deeply; the voice had the stain of a call. İncila Hanım was a good cook at the same time. To tell the truth she was a cordon bleu cook. A meal implied for her a culture, a joy of life. There were people in her circle who had lost the privilege of enjoying their hot dishes at a certain point of their lives; she was aware of this. This was one of the reasons why she lent affection to the meals she cooked . . . If only she could go now and sit together with him for a glass of wine and try to resume their relationship from where they had left off; if only she could go there for the sake of those bygone days, if only they could converse as in the old days . . . No doubt she would attire herself, wearing neat attractive clothes, as though she was dressing up for a festive occasion. It hadn’t occurred to her to have her hair dyed; she had allowed her hair to grow long. She had her hair in a bun which she thought was becoming. She was meticulous about her appearance, fastidious about her accessories ranging from an insignificant hair clip to bejeweled rings that she wore to suit every occasion, each of which represented one aspect of her identity . . . for occasions lived and to be lived to the full . . . for those insignificant vainglorious occasions and concerns, not perceptible by any chance person, concerns that are beyond the grasp and understanding of ordinary people. She had many rings, both precious and cheap, each of which concealed a souvenir, a meaning of its own. Why so many rings? Why had they been of such great importance in her life? He had never asked the reason for it; he had not dared to. Every one of us has the need to furtively evade our hidden secrets, in order to be able to look on people from different angles. However, she was resolved. Despite all sorts of understandable evasions, during mealtime, however, they were sure to offer each other pleasant moments of small celebration. The poetry of a small celebration, of preparations for celebrations that lent a different meaning to our experiences mingled to a certain extent with the human requirement to take refuge in human beings . . . İncila Hanım’s perpetuation of Jewish traditions after Hugo’s death had enabled her to experience special moments which she had difficulty in defining properly. It seemed as though this was another form of sincere loyalty to the man she had loved all her life. At a time when she missed him terribly, she felt like having absolute conviction in this reality. As she was making preparations for that Passover evening, she had described the importance she had attached to those celebrations generated by the touch of this immortal love. She had searched and found the unleavened bread, which was a must, and prepared the leek pastry. She had asked Robert to bring along a bottle of champagne . . . Everything had happened just like in the past . . . Just to make sure that he did not forget to behave like a gentleman. She hadn’t refused his gift. He had brought a French vintage wine although he was short of money. She had richly deserved it. She had the ability to appreciate this tact. He was glad that he had not been mistaken by the expression her countenance displayed at the sight of it . . . Once again they had met in a refined manner beyond the grasp of many plebeians.

  Monsieur Tahar’s Casablanca

  Monsieur Tahar, who had been a confirmed boarder in that small apartment of İncila Hanım for years and who had always been reticent about his past, happened to be there that evening. He had also taken part in that small celebration with heartfelt sincerity; that small celebration whose true meaning lay deep in one’s soul. Although they did not converse very often, they had understood each other despite their differing tastes; if one considers the relations that determined those lives, one should acknowledge the fact that they had had an insight into the meaning of friendship in their own way. They were two adventurers who had had divergent fates and polar views. Strange, but they felt this during the long hours when they sat for a game of bezique. There was no need for any clarification. Certain things had eventually found their places reserved for them even though they were not commented on. Certain feelings had been exchanged and experienced naturally. This was more than enough for those who appreciated the virtue of acknowledging their feelings, of being resigned to one’s lot, of stopping in the right place on the road that led to someone else without trying to change them, and of accepting them in their true colors. Looked at from this angle, Monsieur Tahar’s problem was not a complex one. One should be fair about it. What he told about his past during the time they shared together was no more than what an introvert would be disposed to disclose. He figured as a one-time Moroccan newspaperman. This past, of which a part had been preferred to be left in the dark, in the small room at Edgeware Road; a one-time Moroccan newspaperman . . . This identity was not enough in itself. She had wanted to introduce the people she lived with to his identity as a Moroccan; as a matter of fact, his trendy attire and his demeanor were deemed too fastidious when compared to many people’s, the dark eyeglasses he wore when he went outside and the cane he always carried gave him the aspect of a spy exiled to a metropolis. These particularities and features were enough to make him appear a citizen of Casablanca; the legend of Casablanca was embodied in him. The wearing of dark eyeglasses might have been due to an allergy against sunlight, the use of a cane might have been the consequence of an undetectable limp; however, such unwarranted presumptions were based on mere appearances that enabled people to formulate judgments. These appearances had a backstory, as is the case with everybody. The adage that exact timings led to exact touches hadn’t been hopelessly pronounced in other people’s stories elsewhere. To come face-to-face with an expression which tried to appear veiled, which was unconsciously premeditated . . . You cannot possibly immediately recognize that face at such a moment . . . nor can you tell from that face whose expression had been passed to whom. All that you are able to do is to try and understand the meaning of the disguise in question a little better. After that encounter, it may take you some time before—in the company of that man whom you had assumed to be your man—you take cognizance of the fact that you discovered a new tunnel. In that new tunnel, which you have never set eyes o
n up to that point, and which may take you to where you want to go, you may recollect those you had lost and of whom you had been robbed. The rest of the journey would be toward the darkness . . . Monsieur Tahar’s face was one of those faces that one could perceive in that darkness. Were you to ask him about it, you would be told that there had not been many people who had caught sight of it; very few people had lived with him in the days of which this consideration had been effectively paid off. This also held true for people he had left in the remote past, in a remote land. The inhabitants of distant lands . . . What images had surged in one’s imagination when one took a look at that land remote from London? What individual had the city invited, London where light and darkness intermingled, where sounds and deep silences alternated almost unwittingly? Answers to these questions were not difficult to find if one took into consideration what was already known and learned. Monsieur Tahar had been the London correspondent for a newspaper, a newspaper with a high circulation according to his judgment, and had returned home upon his retirement. He had discovered the virtues of living with a modest income in a foreign city, of leading a life whose responsibility lay entirely with him . . . Meaningful coincidences difficult to explain arranged his chance encounters . . . After Hugo’s departure from this world, İncila Hanım had decided to let one of her rooms, located in a quarter that gradually yielded itself to the inflow of people from whom she was being estranged more and more with every passing day, in consideration of a modest rent which would contribute to her living expenses and allow her to meet incidental costs, and to alleviate, to a certain extent, her sense of loneliness. She fastidiously selected her tenants. Not anybody could venture to occupy her premises. The woman, whose past now determined the course she was to take in the future, was obliged to follow that direction. Her first tenant had been a Brazilian anthropologist. She was an attractive, dark-skinned lady who had told her that she had received her education in a dancing school where she had specialized in the samba, but was now conducting studies on folkloric dances of other lands. She expected to obtain a scholarship from Oxford University, pending which, she pursued her studies in London. She appeared to have no regular hours as she chose to return home at any hour of the night. Dinah was her name. They had long conversations at the breakfast table during which they exchanged information about their respective countries. Almost a year after she had rented the room, she fell in love with her teacher and left for Liverpool. In a letter İncila Hanım received from her, she intimated that she had got hitched and had to interrupt her studies for the time being. She was thanking her for the talks she had had with her at the breakfast table during which she had learned a great many things which had shed light over her subsequent actions. İncila Hanım, however, could not divine what exactly she had meant by that remark. She couldn’t, but that had inspired her. This was meant to be an experience congruous with her past, with her indelible past, a sheer experience. She distinctly remembered that she had corresponded with Dinah, although not very frequently. Their letters contained news about the lives they were leading . . . Two people between whom a genuine affection had developed like a mother and daughter . . . The next occupant of that room had been a reformist rabbi from New York whose name was Isaac Jacobi. She had learned the funniest Jewish jokes and humorous anecdotes from him. İncila Hanım was going to have a better insight into the philosophy that those anecdotes contained. Isaac Jacobi had come to London to settle a problem of his paternal uncle’s. For him the details were not so important; what was of significance to him was the action itself, the venture to go to another land. His dream was to be able to go to Sweden and appear in a film as a character similar to himself. He was determined to go to Stockholm one day to realize his dream. He was to stay in that room for just over a year, just like Dinah . . . “I must listen to what my father had said and start receiving lessons on the violin,” he said before leaving. He was about forty years old at the time. Years later, he had imparted to her in a letter the news that he had indeed acted in a film to be distributed to a great many countries. Thus, he had fulfilled his dream. One thing he could not bring himself to do was to be married. He needed time, much time to spare for reading . . . Well, these had been the first guests of İncila Hanım.