Missing Rose (9781101603864)

by Ozkan, Serdar

  I love you, my precious one . . .

  And I am always with you.

  Your Mother

  Part Three

  44

  19 September

  My beloved Mother,

  The possibility of being reunited with you after so many months fills me with indescribable happiness. In exactly one month’s time, I am coming to Ephesus so that I can stand with my mother in the October Rains!

  For the past four months, I have been working on my first novel. I wish I could read my story to you, but unfortunately, it isn’t quite ready yet. However, I’d still like to give you the feel of it.

  The story is about a rose, Mom—the Rose of Ephesus—a rose that has been created with a divine scent. This scent has a voice of its own. A voice of happiness. It speaks of dreams. It speaks of angels, and it speaks of meeting God in this world.

  But as the rose grows, she begins to hear another voice, a voice which she mistakes for her own, a voice which says “me” all the time. It is loud. So loud that the rose can no longer hear her original voice.

  The rose needs to take care of her scent in order to hear this voice again. But she is planted in a place where people don’t love her for her scent. They are only concerned with her color, her stem and her petals . . .

  So, in the hope of earning their love, she fashions herself into what others want her to be. People say, “grow higher,” so she grows higher. People say, “shine up your petals,” so she does it in a silent rush. And before long, out of neglect, her scent begins to fade away.

  Having shaped her, people shower praises on her as if she were a goddess, and soon the rose starts believing that she is one. She doesn’t realize that the only thing she needs to feel special is to recall that she is a rose. Nothing great. Just a rose . . .

  With each passing day, she finds herself becoming more and more unhappy. There remains only one happiness in her life: her mother. But, at a time she begins to discover her, at a time she needs her the most, she loses her mother forever. Or so she thinks . . .

  Actually, Mom, this story is not about the rose. It is about a mother. It is about a mother who has proven that real roses never die, that they continue to release their perfume even after they fade. It is about a mother who had to shake the pot of the rose so that she could recall.

  Will this be possible? Will she recall what she has forgotten, or forget all she has been taught? Will she be able to reclaim her scent? And, above all, will she be able to hear her original voice?

  I certainly hope so . . .

  Well, Mom, this is more or less the story of my novel. I’m not sure if I was able to tell it properly, though. I feel it’s more of a story that one has to live. I couldn’t even describe the taste of an olive to Zeynep Hanim, so how could I possibly describe the magic of the rose garden?

  But even if I’ve failed, it’s okay. It’s okay if I couldn’t tell it well, it’s okay if others don’t like it. The story is meaningful to me. Because it is about you. I am glad I told it. Actually no, I didn’t. You told it to me. You told it to me at a time when I thought you could never tell me another story.

  Thank you, Mom . . .

  I sense your perfume in the air. Each time I breathe it in, it smells different.

  Rose scent. Everywhere.

  Diana

  45

  AS I AM ABOUT to finish my novel, I catch sight of blue balloons in bunches of five or six flying past the window. Where can they be coming from?

  I open the window to see what is happening. Something is going on in the park. With difficulty, I make out the words written on the large cloth banner:

  The Changing Seas of Brazil

  Street Art Exhibition

  24–27 September

  After adding to my novel this chapter in which I see the blue balloons, I leave the house to attend the opening of the exhibition.

  46

  WHEN I ARRIVE at the exhibition, I see about twenty paintings ranged side by side. My eyes search for Mathias, but I can’t see him. I examine the paintings, looking for the one he did while he was here. Just then, I notice my fortune-teller waving at me.

  “You’re in luck, little lady. See who’s here?”

  I smile. “Hey, we don’t even know why he’s here.”

  “Let’s live and see,” he says.

  “Yes, let’s live and see,” I say. “Oh, by the way, yesterday I talked with Senhora Alves. She says ‘Hi’ to you. But she’s still wondering why you didn’t accept her gift.”

  “Why should I accept her gift? I’m a man of honor and I respect my job. If I didn’t tell you any fortune, I don’t accept any gift or bucks for it.”

  “Well, maybe you didn’t really tell my fortune, but you did get me to start reading those letters somehow. Couldn’t you have accepted Senhora Alves’s gift as a small token in return for helping her and my mother, a small appreciation for your kindness?”

  “Gift in return for kindness, hey? Sounds more like trading to me, little lady. Kindness is . . .”

  He stops, and points to the other beggars.

  “You see the beggars over there? They used to be the luckiest beggars in town, their bellies full from morning till night. You ever opened your eyes and seen what they ate? We all ate off silver dishes. Every morning, some kid would bring us delicious food, then take off. We all ate for free, long time till the food stop coming. We all wondered who sent the dishes, but that kid, he too tight-assed to tell! The others, they still don’t know to this day who that good-hearted person was who sent our food. But me, I know because it’s been just six months when the food stopped coming. Now you tell me, little lady, who do you think sent all that grand food?”

  “I don’t know—some kind of charity organization maybe?”

  He smiles. “You see, little lady, real kindness means that even your daughter doesn’t know about the good deed you do.”

  I don’t know what to say. But once again, I feel special to be my mother’s daughter.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I’ll inform the kitchen services as soon as I get back to the hotel; I’ll make sure the food will come and—”

  “No need,” he says. “Just wanted to tell why I turned down that sweet Alves lady’s gift. Now don’t you worry your pretty head about these things, you just go and see the pictures.”

  “Thanks,” I say, patting his shoulder.

  Leaving him, I walk toward the group standing ahead of me. They are studying the picture Mathias painted when he was here. When I inspect the painting carefully, I realize that Mathias hasn’t come back for me. He’d said he would hold his exhibition where he painted the best picture. And indeed, this painting really is the best of all. The rage of the waves has increased even more and there is still only one seagull in the top corner. Doesn’t this bird ever get tired of flying alone?

  Suddenly, I notice Mathias. He is standing in the middle of the group with his back turned toward me. Next to him is a man with a price list in his hand. Coming closer, I overhear the man say, “We like this picture the most, especially my wife, if you could reduce the price a bit—”

  “That’s my favorite one, too,” Mathias says. “I’d be more than happy to make a reduction and—”

  He stops when he notices I am standing right beside him. Staring at me, he doesn’t say a word, not even “Hello.” His eyes are fixed on my forehead as though he has just seen the strangest thing in the world.

  Fifteen or twenty seconds pass before he turns to the customer again. “But, unfortunately, I can’t sell a painting which isn’t finished yet.”

  “If it isn’t finished, then why did you include it in the price list?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. But I only realized that just now.” He points to the sea. “I painted the sea at exact
ly this time of day, looking at that exact spot. Look, don’t you think there’s more light on the face of the water? Somehow I missed seeing how bright it is.”

  Mathias’s eyes keep glancing at me as he apologizes to the man. This seems to annoy the man. Grumbling something in his wife’s ear, he takes her by the arm and walks away.

  Mathias turns to me. “I don’t know what to say, Diana. I’m really—”

  “Don’t say anything.”

  “I won’t ask you how you are because I see you look exceptionally well. I can’t help wondering what’s happened since I—”

  “Long story,” I say. “In fact, one could even write a novel about it.”

  “I’d love to hear it.”

  47

  AFTER A SHORT walk during which none of his questions are answered, we arrive home.

  “Please sit wherever you like. But promise me you won’t get up until I’m done. I have to write something for a while.”

  “Okay, I promise,” he says and sits down in the armchair by the window, placing the unfinished painting on his lap.

  I hit the key to print the first few pages of my novel. As I continue typing my story, he busies himself with his painting.

  Just as I finish writing up to the part where we return home from the park, Mathias puts down his brush and begins to look at me. He has the expression of a happy child. Hmm, I wonder if I should invite him to Ephesus . . .

  But how would I do that? Especially since I don’t even know what we’ll be doing in Ephesus. Zeynep Hanim has turned out to be as firm as my mother and Senhora Alves in not revealing a secret. The only thing I know for certain is that I’m going there to get to know Mary better. Now how am I supposed to explain this to Mathias?

  Will the little information I have about it make this small town on the other side of the world appeal to him? What is there for Mathias at Ephesus? The ruins of an ancient city . . . The temple of Artemis . . . The house of Mother Mary . . . Will all this be enough to persuade him to come?

  Of course, I will be there, too! That should be enough to convince him to come.

  “I see you’ve got your nose in the air again,” says Mary, interrupting my thought. This happens often now. Whenever the Artemis inside me rears her head, I hear Miriam objecting to her. Sometimes Diana is louder, sometimes Mary . . . It seems it’ll take a while before they become one rose. But I’m glad that now I can at least distinguish between their voices.

  So, would Mathias really come to Ephesus?

  And if he did . . .

  Perhaps one October evening, we’d be sitting on the banks of the river Meles with Mount Bulbul in front of us, watching the sunset.

  Perhaps I’d be telling Mathias about the things which took place in Ephesus nearly two thousand years ago. Things I know from what I’ve read, or perhaps after hearing the sounds rising from ancient Ephesus myself.

  Maybe I’d tell him something about the human condition, too. “We are all like the city of Ephesus,” I’d say to him, “home to both Artemis and Mother Mary.”

  And to confuse him even more, I’d also tell him about Artemis’s twin brother, Apollo. Then, I’d frown at him and say, “Don’t mind Apollo. You, too, search for your missing twin!”

  IF, ON AN October evening, everything turns out just the way I imagine, I myself may witness the truth of Zeynep Hanim’s words:

  “Dreams are the leaven of reality.”

  48

  JUST AS I BEGIN writing the last chapter, I see Mathias holding out the painting to me. Finished by the addition of one small touch: a third wing shining in between the wings of the lone seagull reveals a second seagull hidden behind it.

  I can’t take my eyes off the painting, but I continue to write. A few sentences more and then . . . I’ll take the first pages of my novel from the printer and hold them out to Mathias.

  I’ll look into his eyes for a moment, thinking of the two wine bottles in the first chapter . . . I’ll think of the beginning and the end . . . The two waves in Mathias’s little story . . . Artemis and Miriam . . . The two seagulls in the painting . . . Mary and me . . . And, most important of all, I’ll think of Mom and me.

  My heart will tell me the very same thing about all of these. So that Mathias, too, may know what my heart says, I’ll read out the first words of my novel to him:

  “Two are One.”

  Epilogue

  Ephesus! City of duality. Home to both the Temple of Artemis and the holy House of Mother Mary. The city that embodies both the ego and the soul. The epitome of vanity and humility; the personification of enslavement and yet of freedom. Ephesus! The city in which opposites intertwine. The city that is as human as every living soul.

  ONE OCTOBER EVENING, two people were sitting on the banks of the river Meles near that city—the ancient city of Ephesus. The sun was about to hide itself behind Mount Bulbul, dyed crimson by its rays. Those who understood the language of the skies had brought them the glad tidings of the approaching rain.

  “Saint Paul is preaching to the people about Mother Mary,” Diana said. “Can you hear the crowd yelling, protesting and cursing him in anger? Thousands are rebelling against the new religion, which forbids them to worship their own goddess. Listen to them stamping their feet and shouting, ‘We don’t want Mary! We worship Artemis!’”

  “Artemis?” Mathias asked. “The goddess who the Romans call Diana?”

  “Yes, but don’t worry about her,” Diana said. “She’s nothing but an illusion, shaped and worshipped by others.”

  “You seem to know a lot about her.”

  “I know her like I know myself.”

  “Well, then, why don’t you tell me about her?”

  “She is the goddess of the hunt,” Diana began. “A true huntress who uses her arrow to offer a sudden sweet death to her enemy. Free-spirited yet enslaved, dependent yet proud. Supported by an olive tree, her mother Leto gave birth to her and to, to . . .”

  After taking a deep breath, Diana added, “And to her twin . . .”

  Touching Mathias’s hand, “I’ll come to her twin, Apollo, later,” she said. “I’ll tell you about his temple and the most significant words ‘Gnoti Seavton’ carved on its façade. I’ll also tell you about the great philosopher, Socrates, who couldn’t take his eyes off these two words when he saw them as he was passing by the Temple of Apollo one day. Gnoti Seavton, the two words which reveal the reason why the whole universe was created, the reason why we exist. But first, I’d like to tell you about the rose twin of Artemis, the twin that neither Artemis nor Homer knew of.

  “According to legend,” continued Diana, “one day Artemis learns from her mother that she has a twin of a completely different kind. She leaves home to search for her, crosses an ocean and enters a rose garden where she is asked to offer herself to a sudden, sweet death. It is said that she would have to listen to the voice of roses in order to find her twin.

  “After spending some time in the garden, Artemis returns home and finds a key which would lead her to her twin. She’s overjoyed to find it, yet her joy is not unclouded. She can’t help asking herself, ‘Was the art of hearing roses only a myth?’ But then she remembers what the gardener had told her on her first day in the garden, and so her heart finds comfort. ‘A print placed in your heart,’ the gardener had said. ‘It may not be apparent now, but when the right time comes, it’ll be manifest.’”

  Gazing at the rain clouds on the horizon, “Perhaps that time is this time, Jon,” added Diana. “Look, the October Rains are approaching . . .”

  Serdar Ozkan

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Born in August 1975, Serdar Ozkan attended high school at Robert College in Istanbul. He completed his university education in the United States, where he earned his B.A. in Business Administration and Psychology
at Lehigh University. Ozkan has been a full-time novelist since 2002, dedicated to writing books that unravel the deeper meaning of life’s journey.

  His debut novel, The Missing Rose, has been published in forty-four languages in over sixty-five countries worldwide. Greatly cherished by readers from different cultures throughout the world from Canada to Japan, from Brazil to China, it has entered best-seller lists in many countries.

  Staying at number one for weeks in Turkey, The Missing Rose remained on the best-seller list for eighty-four weeks and became the most read novel in Turkey in 2010.

  In the world press, The Missing Rose received great praise, and was likened to all-time favorites like Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist and Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

  The Missing Rose was also likened to Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince by Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA), one of the world’s most important news agencies, as well as by Helsingin Sanomat, the most widely read newspaper in Finland, and was acclaimed as “the Turks’ Little Prince.”

  Published internationally by the world’s most prestigious and distinguished houses—Penguin, Random House, Hachette, Bertelsmann, and Bompiani, for example—Serdar Ozkan’s The Missing Rose has so far been translated into the following languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Greek, Hungarian, Romanian, Czech, Croatian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Slovenian, Serbian, Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, Bulgarian, Italian, Icelandic, Russian, Finnish, Polish, Indonesian, Arabic, Swedish, Marathi, Chinese, Telugu, Norwegian, Indian, Estonian, Taiwanese, Thai, Urdu, Malaysian, Macedonian, Persian, Albanian, Danish, Uyghur, and Vietnamese.

  For more information, visit: www.serdarozkan.com.