The Time of Mute Swans

by Ece Temelkuran

  Also by Ece Temelkuran

  Deep Mountain: Across the Turkish-Armenian Divide

  Turkey: The Insane and the Melancholy

  Copyright © 2015 by Ece Temelkuran / Kalem Agency

  English-language translation copyright © 2017 by Ece Temelkuran

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Arcade Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  First English-language Edition

  First published in Turkish in 2015 by Can Publishing under the title Devir

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017952974

  Cover design by Erin Seaward-Hiatt

  Cover photo credit: iStockphoto

  ISBN: 978-1-62872-814-9

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62872-816-3

  Printed in the United States of America

  To my nephews, Max Ali and Can Luka,

  who lived through

  the July 16, 2016 coup attempt

  at the same age I lived through

  the September 12, 1980 coup.

  I wonder what you will not forget

  and what you will remember.

  The swan sighed, stretched his neck and, with a wave of his wings, rose and flew off, touching the water with his wings. He rose higher and higher and flew alone over the mysteriously rocking waves.

  —Leo Tolstoy, “Swans”

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Unit I

  This Is My Family

  Unit II

  This Is My Neighborhood

  Unit III

  Early to Bed, Early to Rise

  Unit IV

  This Is Our City

  Unit V

  Our Friends the Animals

  Unit VI

  The Attractions of Our Fair City

  Unit VII

  Moral Values

  Unit VIII

  Music Is Food for the Soul

  Unit IX

  The Republic of Turkey Is a Parliamentary Democracy

  Unit X

  How We Liberated Our Country from the Enemy

  Unit XI

  The Great Turkish Nation

  Unit XII

  A Lie Never Lives to Be Old

  Unit XIII

  The Tenth Anniversary Anthem

  Unit XIV

  Neighborly Relations

  Unit XV

  Civics

  Unit XVI

  Cleanliness Is Next to Godliness

  Unit XVII

  Our Natural Riches

  Unit XVIII

  The Master of the Nation Is the Villager

  Unit XIX

  What Did You Do on Your Summer Vacation?

  Glossary

  Author’s Note

  To the uninitiated, Turks across the socioeconomic strata appear to be not only on a first-name basis but one enormous family. Surnames were not widely adopted until 1934, and even today they are rarely used in social settings. Instead, appended to first names are respectful terms of address such as bey (for men) and hanım (for women). Less formally, one’s elders can be addressed as uncle, aunt, elder brother (abi), or elder sister (abla), among others, depending on their gender and age. Finally, it is not unusual to refer to someone by combining their occupation with their first name. In this novel, we have retained the honorifics bey, hanım, abi, and abla.

  Some of the characters’ names include letters with diacritical marks used in Turkish. The following is a simple guide to pronouncing the letters with those marks:

  Ayşe

  eye-sheh

  Önder

  urn-dair

  Hüseyin

  hoo-sayn

  İlyas

  illy-ahs

  Prologue

  Straddling the continents of Europe and Asia, the Republic of Turkey is the realization of a centuries-old dream, for better or worse. In the middle of secular Turkey is its modern capital, Ankara, and in the middle of that city, a park. Mute swans swim in circles in a small pond in the park. They never leave. Every day, at least a few of the people strolling through the park stop and stare at the swans, as though the swans might know something they themselves cannot remember having forgotten.

  In the summer of 1980, Turkey was a hot spot in the Cold War. The restless spring of ’68 had bequeathed to our country armed revolutionaries on university campuses, and far-right militias clandestinely supported by the state. Just like today, Turkey was going through a period in which the lines between good and bad, between beautiful and ugly, and between right and wrong were blurred with blood. As civil unrest raged in the cities, everyone did their best to cope. The country had become ungovernable, but life went on, as though the coup everyone expected would continue to march closer yet somehow never arrive. This story, which starts at the beginning of the summer and ends with the September 12, 1980 coup, describes Ankara, the heart of Turkey, during that summer so many have tried to forget.

  A strange coincidence … Swans began migrating from Siberia to the Turkish coast of the Black Sea for the first time in 1980, the year of September 12 coup, one the bloodiest in modern history. The swans continued to visit Turkey every year after that. Then, in the summer of 2013, a summer in which the people rose up against an authoritarian regime for the first time since 1980, the swans suddenly stopped coming.

  UNIT 1

  This Is My Family

  The Bakar Family

  LIBERATION NEIGHBORHOOD, ANKARA

  If I were dead, would they love me more?

  That’s what I said inside. I was hanging in the air between our balcony and the one next door. All the lights in the neighborhood came in through my eyes and went down to my belly, filling me up. A song was playing in Jale Hanım’s apartment on the floor below: “This can’t be! Am I dreaming?” Somewhere, potatoes were frying golden. Down in the darkness, the big brothers raced through the streets, bang bang! The mulberry tree in front of the police station whispered whoosh whoosh. A car horn went a-hooga! over on the avenue. It was all perfect, just perfect. Everyone was so happy. But there was something in their voices. Something like fear. And they were shouting:

  Mom said, “Aydın, be careful! We’d better not do this, Aydın!”

  Dad said, “Sevgi, they might start shooting again … Don’t make me talk about it in front of her!”

  Grandma said, “Son, don’t talk while you’re holding her. You’ll end up dropping her, God forbid!”

  Samim Abi said, “I’ve got her. You can let go now. I’ve got her. Tonight, Ayşe’s going to watch the Olympics! You’re going to see Mischa the Bear too, aren’t you, Ayşeyevich? We’re bringing Moscow right to your feet tonight! We’re having a movie night and a vodka night, too. You’ve turned eight, h
aven’t you, little miss? I think you’re old enough now. Ha-hah!”

  Ayla Abla said, “Samim, put down that cigarette at least! And stop shouting, or they’ll hear you!”

  And it was right then, with everything so perfect—and the song from Jale Hanım’s apartment asking, “If I die of misery, will your heart not ache, even a little?”—that the power went off. No one said a word. The mulberry tree kept whispering. I closed my eyes and said to myself:

  If I were dead, would they love me more?

  With my eyes shut tight, everything came to a stop. And I felt like I could keep it all inside me forever, a picture.

  My Name Is Ayşe Bakar

  So, noontime came today and it was hot. It’s summer, the hottest summer ever, Grandma says. And there’s no water again. At naptime, like always, Grandma falls asleep reading to me. When she starts going tsss tsss—the book, 1001 Peaches, rising and falling on her belly—I know I can finally get up. I’m bored. So bored! I’d better be careful as I peel my cheek off Grandma’s sweaty arm. Slowly. Slowly. There’s a sticky sound. I stop and wait. Tsss tsss, goes Grandma. Good! She didn’t wake up! I can see the police station as I kneel on the bed. But they aren’t playing any games there today. It’s empty. I get up and walk through the house. It’s all mine and it’s exciting.

  I’m the only person who knows where some stuff is. There’s a bobby pin trapped under the carpet in the living room. A pin in a corner of the bookshelf. A button standing on end on the windowsill. There’s a flattened lightbulb box in the back of the coat stand drawer. They’re all hiding. “Hush,” they say. “Don’t tell anyone.” I check one by one to make sure everyone’s there.

  The button came off Dad’s shirt while he was watching the news, something about the “left-wing militants of the Revolutionary Path.” His eyes stayed on the TV the whole time as he put the button on the windowsill. It rolled and slowed like a little wheel, then came to a stop, still on end. “Oh!” I said, clapping my hands. But Dad didn’t notice. He was talking to the TV: “They’ve executed those boys. God damn them!” We had a good laugh, me and the button.

  But the bobby pin got hurt. Mom opened the newspaper in the morning and she was going to make eggs for breakfast. She bent down over the paper, her face close, like a pigeon eating corn, and that’s when the bobby pin fell out of her hair. With a tinny little scream, it hit the floor. It was going to stay there, but Mom was feeling around for her slipper and her foot gave the pin such a push that it went right under the carpet. “Aydın! Aydın! Get up! They’ve taken in İrfan!” Mom yelled. Yes, the bobby pin had slipped under the carpet. I checked, but it wanted to stay there. Hush!

  The pin that settled in a corner of the bookshelf is sneaky. It titters like the whiskered fox who stole the crow’s cheese. It’s making fun of Grandma. I was on my way out the door when I got a tear in the skirt of my school uniform—and at that exact moment the school bell started ringing! Grandma came up with two pins.

  “Come over into the light. I can’t see.”

  When one pin was enough to do the job, she put the other pin on the shelf. It rolled into the corner without a sound, and there it stayed.

  “Be careful you don’t prick your knee, sweetie.”

  That’s when the pin first tittered. Tee-hee, tee-hee.

  “Grandma! The pin’s tittering.”

  “My goodness, the things you say, Ayşe.”

  Grandma has these blue and red threads under the skin of her cheeks that show up when she bends over.

  “That’s what pins do, sweetie. Just ignore it.”

  It made me laugh so hard. But Grandma wouldn’t remember any of that now. She forgets things. Just like the way she forgot all about the flattened lightbulb box in the back of the coat stand drawer.

  The phone rang. “Yes, how can I help you?” Grandma answered. “What did you say your name was? Önder? I’m sorry, Sevgi isn’t home right now. Just a moment, let me write your number down. You did say the Ankara Hotel, didn’t you?”

  Grandma squashed a lightbulb box, found a pencil stub in the drawer, and scribbled a “seven” with a long crook, a “two” with a curlicue, and a “one” with a fat line underneath. Grandma whispered something and handed Mom the box with the number as soon as she got home. But Mom tossed the box into the back of the drawer when Dad stepped in right behind her.

  “It’s nothing important. Leyla called. Mother took down her number.”

  Mom seemed scared. But why?

  I checked the box later. It didn’t say Leyla! It didn’t say Önder either. There was a number and nothing else. Maybe Grandma forgot to write down the name. Or maybe she doesn’t know how to write “Önder.” The lightbulb box went hush!

  I’m also the only person who knows how things really smell. Grandma doesn’t know how nice she smells and that her room smells just like her. The muslin scarf hanging on the back of her door smells like, “Oh, that was such a long time ago. I can barely remember.” The guest slippers smell like, “My goodness! Bless your heart!” The dresser drawers smell like talcum powder, and her nightgown smells like butter cookies. It makes you giggle if you close your eyes and sniff. The sewing machine smells like a ticking clock and an afternoon nap. It’s a Zetina, and it has a brown smell, too, like sugary oil.

  The smell of sleep in Mom and Dad’s room is gone now. It happens every morning. I slip under the covers of the unmade bed hoping to catch that smell, but it always gets away.

  So I go to the living room next. When I’m home all alone things happen to the furniture. They don’t have any eyes or mouths, but if you look carefully, without blinking, things happen. That’s when the table starts grumbling inside. It keeps quiet in the evening when everyone’s home, but in the daytime, when Grandma’s sleeping, you can hear it. The table smells shiny. The backs of the chairs ache sometimes, and so do the sides. They smell like ointment then, like Grandma’s make-it-well ointment.

  The living room is always sad and silent, and so is our house. It’s not like Jale Hanım’s house. Oh, Jale Hanım’s our neighbor. Because she always paints her nails red and wears high-heeled slippers and plays music night and day, her house smells like scented erasers. Fruity, but fake. The news on TV doesn’t make Jale Hanım and her family sad. Her husband doesn’t have a mustache, so nothing bothers them. Jale Hanım reads bright magazines about movie stars and singers. About happy things. Mom and Dad don’t like our neighbors much. I can tell. We’re different. We get sad when we read the newspaper, and Dad’s mustache is just like the ones on the dead men on TV.

  When I grow up, I’m going to be like the women we see in the news—which is a little scary, but I can’t help it—and then Mom will see me in the newspaper. Dad will look at my photo. They’ll start yelling. “Sevgi!” Dad will say; “Aydın!” Mom will say. That’s the only time they talk to each other. When somebody is suddenly gone.

  “My goodness, Ayşe! Haven’t you slept at all? Ayşe, what’s wrong, sweetie? Why are you crying? Did you have a bad dream? It was just a dream, dear. Now come along and help your old grandma. Let’s make some Russian salad before your mom and dad come home, for when you go over to Samim Abi’s house tonight. Remember? You can help peel the boiled potatoes, and then we’ll drizzle some olive oil, nice and slow, and watch it turn into mayonnaise. You always love that part. Come along, dear.”

  The sweat in the crack between Grandma’s boobs is nice and shiny.

  Meet My Mom, Sevgi İzmirli Akalın

  “Here we are, meeting like this, years later, completely out of the blue, and we still go through the pleasantries. ‘How are you, Önder?’ ‘Fine, and you?’ It’s a scene straight out of a movie, but our lives … so much of our lives has ended up on the cutting room floor where it belongs, Önder.”

  The sun breaks out from behind a cloud, lighting up the white tablecloths of the Captain’s Restaurant. Önder is trying out his old smile, the one from back in ’71.

  “Don’t talk like that, Sevgi! You sound so mour
nful. Anyone watching us would think we were here not to eat the sea bass but to attend its funeral.”

  I was unable to force a laugh. I kept my hands in my lap and tried to get a straight answer.

  “Önder, why have you turned up after all these years?”

  I covered my mouth, as though that’s where the tears flow from. Önder started reaching for my hand but ended up grabbing his glass of rakı instead. He blinked at the sun. He opened and shut his mouth. He picked up the manila envelope resting on the next chair.

  “Would you hide this for me, Sevgi?”

  Now the envelope is resting next to the sea bass.

  Anybody else would have asked, “What’s in it?” Anybody but me.

  “What do you want me to do with it?”

  “Hide it in the national archives.”

  That’s when I looked him directly in the eye for the first time since we’d sat down. It’s at times like this, when there is serious and clandestine work to be done, that I know how to look at Önder. We were both arrested before we learned to gaze at each other like lovers.

  “For how long?”

  “Until better days, Sevgi.”

  Now it was my turn to reach for a glass of rakı, to blink at the sun and gaze into the distance.

  “If by ‘better days’ you mean until the troubles pass, they won’t pass, Önder. We’ll pass before the troubles do.”

  “No, that’s not true. Listen. I’ll tell you what’s going to happen.”

  Önder laughed knowingly as he turned his attention to the grilled fish. He lifted the top fillet off, exposing the white flesh below. Expertly. So, Önder knows how to fillet a fish. I know how he cursed as they beat the soles of his feet, how he lectured the other students at meetings, how he got everyone to chant slogans, how he shouted himself hoarse selling revolutionary magazines on street corners. I even know how he breaks down and cries. But I had no idea Önder could fillet a fish.