Bliss: A Novel

by O. Z. Livaneli

  Seher’s brother, Ali Rıza, and his friends were sacrificing themselves for men like the government official. She did not approve of the hunger strikes, because she did not want her brother to die and his enemies to be pleased. When a young man killed himself behind the silent prison walls, people like Ekrem rejoiced to think that another of them was done for. Was it ever possible to harm an enemy by hurting oneself?

  On visiting days, when her brother was still strong enough to talk, Seher had tried to make him understand her point. She had pleaded with him to stop his fast. “They want you to die, and you’re doing them a favor by killing yourself.”

  Unfortunately, Ali Rıza and his friends believed that they were engaged in a winning battle. “By sacrificing our bodies, we are struggling on behalf of democracy for our people,” he replied. “As we die one by one, those outside these walls will rouse themselves to put pressure on the government. This is a political struggle. We fight by destroying our bodies. The price we pay is nothing compared to that paid by our people.”

  “Oh, Ali Rıza,” Seher had wept, “the public doesn’t care one bit about you! Outside these walls, people laugh and get on with their lives. The only things they’re interested in are television shows that report who’s with whom or which model has been seen at which bar with which soccer player.”

  Seher would have said more, but she did not want to upset her brother. She was not able to ask him, “Don’t you read the newspapers and look at the television? The papers are full of photographs of models with naked breasts, of transvestite singers, and grinning prostitutes posing on water skis. ‘Your people’ are not individuals but an enslaved herd. Nobody has any personality, honor, or virtue.”

  Seher’s brother and his friends believed that through the media their slow deaths were creating an impact. But it was not so; few people knew about them. It was a ridiculous, bloody game, yet Seher was not able to convey this to her brother. He was in a different world as if bewitched. His mother was now on her way to try to convince him to give up his hunger strike, but Seher was sure that Ali Rıza would not do so. If efforts at mediation did not succeed at this point, Ali Rıza would become like a living corpse, with no memory, unable to walk, see, or take care of himself. And society pretended not to recognize this as a tragedy. Some people, like the government official, were hostile, while others, like the girl sleeping in the compartment, were completely unaware of what was going on.

  Seher understood why the Alawites did not trust anyone and why they married among themselves. This was not an attitude born of ignorance, but the result of hundreds of years of massacre and oppression. Nowadays, Alawite youths like Ali Rıza chose to commit suicide, with red bands wrapped around their heads.

  When they were young, Seher and Ali Rıza used to perform the semah dance. Men and women, young and old, would whirl together in their red and green clothes to the rhythm of the saz, like cranes revolving around and around. The best part of the cem ritual was when the adults, approaching on their knees, would confess their sins to the dede, or sheikh, and receive their penance.

  One rite was engraved into Seher’s memory. Smeared with henna, about to be sacrificed and have its flesh distributed to the poor, a sheep had been brought before the dede and held there by one bound foot. The dede played his saz and sang three songs for the sheep. All three were apologies, asking the sheep for forgiveness and praising it for its good attributes. After the dede finished singing, he ordered the sheep to be untied. The animal then walked freely among people before being sacrificed. No one was allowed to disturb the sheep as it wandered about, sniffing the food set on trays on the ground and pricking up its ears to the music.

  Ali Rıza was being sacrificed, but no one apologized to him. He was seen as a hated political activist. Had the feeling of being unfairly treated for centuries, which lay coiled in the Alawites like a venomous serpent, caused Ali Rıza to join an illegal organization at the university? These groups had sympathizers, like Ali Rıza, who distributed literature without being aware of its other activities. Most of the time, such young people were the real victims. Ali Rıza was so tenderhearted that he could not even watch a hen being slaughtered. How could he be a terrorist?

  Since there were no mosques in Alawite villages and their women did not cover themselves, many Muslims did not accept Alawites as true believers. For such Muslims, it was unacceptable to drink alcohol or pray while music was being played, as the Alawites were accustomed to doing. Seher had cried many times when her friends criticized her for not fasting during Ramadan. She was fed up with being insulted for being an Alawite.

  A woman, an Alawite, and poor—what could be worse than that? As if her problems were not enough, now she had a “terrorist” brother. She had little hope of finding a good job or marrying someone who was not from her community.

  “Oh Ali, my Ali,” she said to herself, “why weren’t you stronger? Why did you let yourself be murdered? Even though you were the lion of God and the son-in-law of the Prophet, you endured so much cruelty and left your children forlorn. After hundreds of years, we still suffer because of you!”

  She was able to reproach Ali through the courage derived from listening to ancient folk songs. In Alawite sayings, Ali was praised to the heavens, but in the old songs, both he and the Prophet, even God himself, were not beyond blame.

  Once Seher had recited to her friends at school a poem by the fifteenth-century poet, Kaygusuz Abdal. When she came to the part “God, loftier than the loftiest / God, more like the night than the day / You have a name but not a body / God, you resemble nothing,” her friends had screamed “God forbid!” and had run off. Later, they complained about her to the school authorities. Seher soon learned, not by disciplinary punishment, but by the way her friends began to avoid her, that such songs and poems, which had been orally transmitted from generation to generation for centuries, had to be kept secret. Alawite children were often confused by the contrast between the religious tolerance in their homes and the Sunnite pressures outside.

  The poor girl sleeping in their compartment was obviously not Alawite. She covered her head and was not comfortable in the presence of men. She must have faced a lot of trouble, Seher thought. Meryem was one of the millions of girls who became old without really enjoying life. They never had the chance to change their fate. Should Seher tell Meryem about the old sayings, in which her name was mentioned—the words of mystic poets from hundreds of years ago who considered themselves to be at one with God. Even toward the end of the twentieth century, it was still not possible to recite their verses openly. “When Adam and Eve were not yet present in the universe / We were faithful to God in the incomprehensible secret / We were guests within Mary for a single night / And we are the true father of the Prophet Jesus.”

  If the girl sleeping in the compartment heard this, she would probably never talk to Seher again.

  When Seher returned to her compartment, Meryem suddenly opened her eyes, and asked, “Have you ever seen a miracle?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she dozed off again. What did she mean? Why did she ask such a question in her sleep? “Strange girl,” thought Seher. “Perhaps she needs a miracle.”

  * * *

  Cemal woke up when the train stopped at a station. Since he knew that they still had a long way to travel, he paid little attention to the names of the places the train stopped at. He stretched and looked around. Meryem was gone! She must have gone to the restroom, he thought.

  Cemal opened the door to the compartment and looked into the corridor. Surmising that Cemal was searching for the girl, Ekrem said, “She left while you were sleeping. She took her bag.”

  Cemal was shocked. Had Meryem escaped? No, that was not possible. Where could she go? She had no money and no idea where she was.

  Cemal ran down the corridor, opened the carriage door, and jumped down onto the platform. Desperately, he ran among the vendors, station workers, and the passengers getting on and off the train. He looked every
where, but Meryem had vanished. What would he tell his father? How could he look the old man in the face again? He would rather die than confess that he had lost the girl.

  The conductor gave the signal for departure, and the locomotive began to move. Cemal could not stay on the platform any longer, and he jumped back onto the train. He was overcome with anger and hopelessness. As the train left the station, he scanned the platform in the desperate hope of catching a glimpse of her. Suddenly, Ekrem appeared beside him. “Don’t worry!” he said. “The girl’s on the train.”

  Cemal felt like hugging the man.

  “I had a look around,” Ekrem continued, “and, just as I suspected, those damned communists have her in their compartment. Maybe they’re going to brainwash her into becoming one of them since she has such a hero for a relative.”

  “Where is she?” Cemal growled.

  Ekrem took Cemal to the next wagon and pointed out Seher’s compartment.

  Cemal burst inside, grabbed Meryem, and shook her violently. Everyone was stunned, including Seher, and they made no move to stop him. “What the hell are you doing here?” he screamed.

  Meryem was still groggy with sleep as she looked at Cemal with dawning fear, trying to utter an excuse, but before Cemal could strike her, Seher’s father grabbed his arm. Cemal turned and looked at him in disbelief. How could that weak old man dare to hold him back? Would the lunatic spit on him, too? Then Cemal noticed the look in the old man’s eyes, as if pleading with him to show mercy. Cemal pushed him back into his seat.

  Seher stood up and grasped Meryem, protectively. “Can’t you see she’s sick?” she cried at Cemal. “When I found her in the corridor, she was about to faint. I gave her some medicine and brought her here to rest!”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Seher’s mother added anxiously. “The girl’s been asleep since then.”

  Cemal looked at Meryem’s reddened eyes, nose, and pallid face. She really was ill. “Follow me!” he yelled.

  When they returned to their compartment, Ekrem was holding forth, saying, “The enemies of the Turks, who have destroyed our empire, are now fighting to seize our last piece of land.” According to him, the communists were not important; they had been beaten, the few that remained committed suicide when they found themselves in jail. The real fight was that of the Turks against the Kurds and the supporters of the Shari’a. These enemies should be given no quarter since they were threatening the last Turkish state in history. He ended by saying, “Whoever doesn’t consider himself a Turk should leave this blessed country immediately.”

  Cemal hardly heard a word Ekrem was saying. He was thinking desperately of how to get rid of the girl. With so many people around, there was nothing he could do on the train during the day. The landscape had changed; the mountains and the hills had given way to barren steppes. Not a single tree was visible. If he pushed the girl out of the train, his action would be seen for miles. Whether he liked it or not, he would have to wait until they got to Istanbul.

  The conductor was announcing the train’s arrival in Ankara. Ekrem and his wife prepared to leave. The ruddy-faced peasant nudged his sick wife, who had lain like the dead all through the journey, and the woman stirred slightly.

  The train switched tracks and soon came to a halt inside the station. Meryem glanced at the platform, noticing that there were many more stylishly dressed people in Ankara. Although there were village people among the crowd, no one was wearing baggy pants or tight-fitting headscarves. Most of the women left their hair loose, and there were even a number of blondes.

  At this point Seher entered the compartment and handed Meryem a small plastic bag. “Medicine,” she said simply, kissing Meryem on the cheek. “We’re getting off here.” She then turned and walked out of the compartment, without looking at Cemal. Ekrem and his wife followed her out of the compartment, and the peasant, having picked up his wife and slung her over his shoulder, also departed. Meryem noticed that some people were waiting for them on the platform. One of them was probably the sick woman’s brother. He had a wife and two children with him. Together they loaded the sick woman onto a wheelbarrow they had brought with them, treating her just as if she were a sack of cement, and walked away, chatting happily among themselves.

  Two men greeted Ekrem and his wife on the platform. Ekrem said something to them and pointed toward Seher and her parents, who were heading into the distance. One of the men began to follow the family.

  Meryem saw that Cemal had gotten off the train to smoke a cigarette. She was alone in the compartment. She opened the plastic bag and looked at the medicine Seher had given her: some pills that dissolved in water, a few aspirins, and a box with the name ORKID on it, like the one she had shown her in the corridor. She suddenly remembered what magic that little pad between her legs had worked, as she realized she felt no dampness there. In fact, she had forgotten about it, but she was sure that it was now time it was changed.

  NEW PASSENGERS

  In Ankara, the train filled up again. A young couple and their ten-year-old son took the seats opposite Meryem and Cemal, with a young woman and a blond man in a white coat next to them. Trying not to appear rude, the passengers cast furtive glances at each other, wondering what their companions for the long hours ahead would be like.

  Meryem’s headache had lessened, and she was not so worried about bloodstains on her dress anymore. She felt very grateful to Seher and glad that she had ventured out into the corridor. It was clear that Seher did not believe in God and, indeed, talked in a sinful way like a non-Muslim, but how helpful she had been. Meryem was confused.

  Soon, her nose started running again, and her throat began to hurt. The pain got worse when she tried to eat the sesame-seed roll and drink the buttermilk Cemal had brought her from the station buffet. Even so, she felt much better than before, and, eager to learn more about this new world, she examined the woman sitting across from her.

  The woman was slim and wore very tight pants and blue-and-white sports shoes. The thick belt around her waist was ornamented with the letters D and G. The thin white blouse she was wearing was so tight it emphasized her breasts. A colorful handkerchief was tied around her neck, and her light blond hair was strangely darker at the roots.

  She took a glossy magazine out of her handbag and began to read. Meryem could see that on the cover there was a picture of a naked woman. Her breasts, long legs, and buttocks were completely bare, and she was looking straight at Meryem as she leaned forward to apply scarlet lipstick to her pursed lips. Meryem shuddered. How could the woman read such a magazine?

  In the seat next to her, the woman’s husband, short-haired with glasses, wearing a blue sweater, was casually reading a newspaper. He didn’t seem at all worried about his wife’s choice of reading material.

  Their son was humming something between a melody and spoken words, as he played with what looked like a small black box. When he pressed a button, the box made strange noises. His shoes were similar to his mother’s, but one of the laces was untied.

  The blond man sitting next to Cemal was speaking to his companion in a language Meryem did not understand. Meryem knew Turkish and a little Kurdish, but she had never heard the language this couple was using.

  She looked at Cemal and saw that he was staring at the magazine cover. Every now and then, he lifted his eyes toward the ceiling, but could not refrain from taking another look at the naked woman. Meryem noticed that he was disturbed, and this gave her some satisfaction. For the first time since they had set out on their journey, Cemal’s hard shell of indifference was cracking. In fact, his hands were almost trembling.

  Meryem gazed out the window. Houses and factories had replaced the uncultivated and uninhabited terrain. Trains traveling in the opposite direction startled her as they rushed past, making a terrifying noise, an explosion followed by a mighty wind.

  She looked again at the family in the seats opposite and realized that the little boy was staring at her. He seemed to be studying her, running
his eyes over her dress, woolen socks, and muddy shoes.

  Showing her the box he held in his hand, he suddenly asked, “Do you know how to play this GameBoy?”

  Startled, Meryem shook her head.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know,” Meryem said.

  The boy did not give up. “We have a car, but my mom had an accident, you know. That’s why we’re going by train to my grandparents’ house in Istanbul. My mom’s afraid of airplanes.”

  Meryem listened to the boy and nodded.

  He started to hum again and began to play with his odd-looking toy. Then he thrust his shoe with the unfastened lace toward Meryem, and said, “Tie it up!”

  Meryem immediately bent forward, but the boy’s mother looked up and said, “Shame on you, son! Is that the way to talk to your elders? You’re a big boy now. You can tie your own shoes.”

  “But isn’t she a maid?” asked the boy.

  “No, she’s not.”

  “But she looks just like our maid.”

  The woman smiled at Meryem, and said, “Please forgive him.”

  “It’s all right,” Meryem replied. “I can tie his shoelace for him.”

  Yet she felt reluctant to do so in front of the others since she did not know how to tie a bow. She hesitated, and the boy tied his own shoelace, huffing and puffing indignantly as he did so.

  Meryem realized that, for the first time in her life, people were speaking to her politely. It seemed like a miracle to her that a woman who could so openly read a magazine with a naked woman on the cover as well as a woman who argued with men should treat her like a human being.