Auntie Seher grabbed Nuran Abla by the arm.
“It’ll be taken care of. I just talked with the one of the revolutionary girls. They’ll arrange a doctor and we’ll take your daughter there together.”
Nuran Abla started crying.
“God bless you.”
“Nuran, God doesn’t bless revolutionaries.”
“Never mind, sister. Never mind.”
Later, the funeral began. Everyone lined up. The dede leading the service was there. His bushy mustache was white, but with yellow tips. The lines in his face were many and deep, as though carved with a knife. His eyes were always watery. I felt like crying when he talked. Be quiet! Be quiet!
“Bismishah, Bismishah! Our friend alighted in this world. He ate, he drank, he laughed, he cried, he departed. Our friend, who sided with the oppressed and opposed the cruel, has returned to God. He has taken on a new form. When he is reborn, it may be in the form of a pigeon, of a lion, of a swan …”
Birgül Abla whispered in my mother’s ear, loud enough for me to hear.
“Your dede must have visited Swan Park today.”
Mom didn’t laugh. She was a bit put out. The dede kept talking in a voice that sounded like he was crying.
“Only the Shah of Shahs knows the form in which our departed friend shall return to the world. What kind of person did you know the departed to be? Do you freely renounce any claims you might have on him?”
Nuran Abla shouted it the loudest.
“I do!”
“May God-Muhammed-Ali be content with those tongues that gave their blessings. May the cycle continue for all time!”
I can hear Nuran Abla saying, “Allah, Allah,” with the others, but then she hides her mouth behind her scarf and says, “Amen.”
“Pain is lesser if shared; love is greater if shared. May suffering decrease and love increase. May God grant a long life to the living. May God grant favor to Haji Bektash Veli, Pir Sultan. Attention to the truth; Hû! Ya Ali!”
Now they are chanting “hû,” I wish they’d stop. Please stop!
Dad came. Mom held her handbag close to her belly and frowned.
“What are you doing here? Did they let you leave work?”
“Never mind about that. He came and helped us when we were fighting for water. I wanted to pay my last respects. Hüseyin got a new rifle. Have they taken the pieces in our coal cellar?”
“I’ll tell you about that later. Tomorrow’s a Thursday. I’ve got work. I’ll take the boy with me.”
“What are we having for dinner tonight?”
“If we get out of here alive, flour soup. Don’t look at me like that. The money ran out yesterday. We’ll eat either stones or flour soup.”
“Is that Nuran over there? Well, good for her! I asked her husband to come, but he didn’t.”
“You must not have asked him the right way. Why are you looking at me like that?”
Then the police attacked us. The police always attack us. They want to kill us. Nuran Abla fought back the hardest. My mom and Auntie Seher and all the other aunties kept patting her on the back when we were back on the bus. “Good for you,” they said. Everyone seemed extra happy. Even the ones who’d got hurt were laughing and joking. It was exciting, and they couldn’t stop talking about it.
“Nuran, you’re the lion of Rambling Gardens!” Auntie Seher said.
Nuran Abla got embarrassed. She covered her mouth with her scarf, but her eyes were smiling.
There was a meeting in our house that night, so I went out into the garden and looked at the silkworms. Gökhan got them from the market, lots of them. He gave me some. My dad and Gökhan’s dad came out into the garden. Dad laughed.
“I’m surprised they’re still alive. Silkworms usually die about May.”
I’m going to take Ayşe some silkworms. She’ll love it. She loves everything. Then I heard Gökhan’s father—he works for the municipality—say that they were going to catch all the swans in the park, and that they were going to do something to their wings so they couldn’t fly anymore. Ayşe might get scared when I tell her. But I don’t want to scare her.
UNIT 6
The Attractions of Our Fair City
Visiting Museums Is Fun
Ayşe took my hand. In the garden of the museum. She put a daisy in her hair and spun around in the sunlight. Arms open wide, she sang a song I didn’t know: You’re slender and white as a daisy.
She twirled her skirt. “Now you look just like beautiful Birgül Abla,” I said. Because … because … Her hair stuck to her cheek while she was singing. She laughed. Then she came up and took my hand. My mom would love it here. There’s a climbing rose, just like the one in our house before it burned down. The one that used to be next to the photo of my Uncle Sait.
—
When Ali looked at me I wanted to twirl my skirt. He doesn’t say a word. He wanted to give me a daisy, but he didn’t. I took the daisy from his hand, but I’m sure he was going to give it to me. Ali gave me a daisy! That’s why I sang a song, because it makes you want to sing when Ali looks at you. He’d never been in a museum before, but he’s still smarter than all the kids in my class. He can read the tiny letters, not just the big ones, and he brought me silkworms. Baby worms. Eensy-weensy worms.
—
Mom asked me why I wanted to take Ayşe silkworms. She said a box of bugs was no kind of present.
My mom can be a real opportunist. I didn’t say anything, but she let me in the end. When I don’t say anything, I get what I want. I put the silkworms in a box with some mulberry leaves. Hüseyin Abi picked them straight from the tree. He asked me where I was taking them. I didn’t answer. I’ll tell him later. People think silkworms don’t make a sound, but if you listen carefully you can hear the crunch, crunch of their munching on the leaves. They don’t have any teeth, but they eat a lot. They’ll make a cocoon and sleep inside it. Then they’ll be quiet. Our neighborhood is so noisy they’d never fall asleep. It’s quiet where Ayşe lives.
—
When Ali came to my house and gave me the box of silkworms, I gave him Ulduz and the Crows. Mom already read it out loud to me. It’s about a boy and a girl who rescue a baby crow. The grown-ups don’t like the boy and the girl, and they never talk to them. So the boy and the girl fly away with all the crows. The box of silkworms is on the bookshelf now. Ali put it right in front of the Wonderland of Knowledge because he loves that encyclopedia and he says everything we don’t understand is inside it. Everything! I told him everything is in the archive in Parliament, but then he said everything is deep in the ground under Ankara. Then I told him about the butterflies. They were orange and they couldn’t get into Parliament. When we got home, Mom told me more about the butterflies. She said they weren’t allowed in Parliament because nothing nice is allowed in this country, especially in Parliament. I wish the butterflies could get into Parliament. They wanted to. Wouldn’t it be great?
Then I told Ali about the swan. How they were going to take it away. I heard Dad telling Mom that a swan trying to get back to the park from the commander’s yard flew into a building and died. Now they’re going to get another swan from the park, and they’re going to do something to its wings so it can’t fly anymore.
It was when I told him about the swan that Ali spoke for the first time that day.
—
Ayşe knows about the swan. How did she find out? I told her about the dede and how he said people can come back to this world as a swan. She said you go to heaven after you die and never come back. She’s so stupid sometimes. I told her the fascists were going to do something to the swans. Ayşe doesn’t even know what a fascist is. She’s never had to get water from the well and fight fascists. She wears white stockings and has a scented eraser. When I told her that butterflies were going to come out of the silkworm cocoons she screamed, “Orange!” I wish she wouldn’t yell. And I don’t think she understands about the swan.
—
Grandma was so hap
py this morning.
First, she told my mom that we were “cooped up all the time” and she wanted “to take the children on an outing” since she needed to stop by the pharmacy anyway.
Grandma has only one stick of lipstick. It was almost gone, so she had to reach inside with her fingertip. She spread some red on her lips. I sat next to her in front of the mirror and sniffed the drawer of her “vanity table.” It smells like the theater in there. Mom never wears lipstick, but Grandma wears it to go to the pharmacy. She let me try it.
“Ayşe, just a little bit. Like this. That’s right. Now pucker up. That’s it. Okay, press your lips together. No, not like that! Now you’ve got some on your chin. Silly goose!”
Grandma says I’m pretty as a princess, but Mom and Dad better not see me. I bet Ali would like me with red lips, smelling like the theater.
Grandma was surprised to see the silkworms.
“Ayşe, you know that mulberry tree in the garden of the police station? We can go and ask the police for some fresh leaves. Then the silkworms will make themselves cocoons until they’re ready to become moths.”
“But Ali said they’d become butterflies!”
“Well, Ayşe, moths and butterflies are nearly the same thing.”
When Grandma said “police,” Ali pulled out his string. He didn’t say another word until we got into the shared taxi.
—
Ayşe wants us to get mulberry leaves from the police station. This isn’t a game! When Hüseyin Abi was picking mulberry leaves this morning, he made his eyes into slits because of the sun. He looked like he was going to cry.
I remember that day he came home crying when I was real little. He’d been at the police station. Dad had to help him stand. He had a broken arm and no shoes because they’d beaten the undersides of his feet. Hüseyin Abi didn’t want to talk about it in front of me, but Mom said, “We all live here together. We’ve got nothing to hide from each other. This isn’t a game!” Hüseyin Abi’s lip got fat and his eyes were slits, like he was looking at the sun.
He didn’t smile even once when he was talking with me this morning.
“Hüseyin Abi, what does it mean to come back in the form of a swan?”
He took out a cigarette and whistled, long and low. Then he looked for his lighter. He couldn’t find it. He cursed and pulled out a box of matches. Hüseyin Abi lost his Ibelo lighter. It was a nice lighter. I sat down under the mulberry tree with him. He hugged me, squeezing my arms against my sides. I felt like the letter “I.” Hüseyin Abi sounded so sad.
“To be reborn in the form of a swan … means dialectical materialism. One day, we die … No, let me put it another way. We stop living one day, but we don’t stop existing. Ali, everything in existence lasts forever. But sometimes things continue in a new form. So a dead person—a person who is no longer living—might come back to the world one day as a swan. Now, say it with me: di-a-lec-ti-cal ma-ter-i-al-ism. It’s the continuous cycle of life.”
Hüseyin Abi started looking at his cigarette, not me. He put the burning end of it near his finger. Like he wanted to burn himself.
“What did they do to the swans, Hüseyin Abi? The ones in the park.”
“Let me give you an example. Let’s say I have a friend who’s no longer living. He might have become a swan. He’s alive, he’s just not Turgay anymore.”
“What did they do the swans, Hüseyin Abi?”
“Huh? Oh, the swans. They’re doing to the swans what they do to us. Those fascists have even found the time to oppress the swans. Never forget, Ali. Fascists always have plenty of time. They lie in wait, ready to strike again and again.”
I won’t forget, Hüseyin Abi. I remember everything. I picked up the mulberry leaves, put them in a box, and set the silkworms on top of the leaves, one by one. I put my ear close to the silkworms and listened.
“Ali, are you really going to give your silkworms to that rich girl? What makes you think she’d want them? We’ll buy a sandwich wafer and you can take it to her.”
I walked away. I was mad at Hüseyin Abi. He doesn’t know Ayşe. She’s not that kind of girl. I gave her one of my strings last time. She’s silly sometimes, but she’s not that kind of girl. Hüseyin Abi gave a sandwich wafer to beautiful Birgül, not me. I remember.
—
Ali doesn’t know anything about downtown Ankara, so I keep telling him: “This is Red Crescent Square, Ali…. Look! That’s Soysal Marketplace…. Right now, we’re passing Yeni Karamürsel department store.”
Ali pulls a piece of string out of his pocket. He pulled out a folded-up piece of paper, too, but he put it back. I wonder what it is? He just sat there staring at his string. I tugged at it. At first, he wouldn’t let go, but then he let me have it. I made a ring out of the string and showed it to him. I laughed. He didn’t. “You can’t get mulberry leaves from the police,” he said. “The fascists might do something to the silkworms, too.” He looked so scared. “They’re doing something to the swans. You don’t know.” Ali is trying to scare me. I hugged him, but he pulled back. I decided never to talk to him again. After a while he said, “I can’t get you a sandwich wafer.” I couldn’t help but smile. He smiled too. “The silkworms are so cute,” I said. “Eensy-weensy worms.” I wiggled like a worm and he smiled again. The taxi went over a bump and Grandma cried, “Oh my, oh my.” Then we both laughed and laughed. Everyone stared at us. It was the first time I heard Ali laugh.
—
When I laughed, it came out really loud, like the kids I see on TV. Then I called that girl by her name.
“Look, Ayşe. That’s Youth Park.”
Ay-şe. It doesn’t scare her when I talk, and it doesn’t scare her when I don’t talk. I’m going to tell her. She should know that they’re not playing games at the police station. If she goes there, and she doesn’t know, they might break her arm. And we need to find out what they’re doing to the swans. Hüseyin’s friend might be one of those swans. It’s possible. That’s what he said. He’s been so cross lately, like he’s looking into the sun. I know Hüseyin Abi won’t help me with the swans. He’s busy.
—
Ali’s never been to the Citadel, but he knows everything because he looks it up in the encyclopedia. Just before we left home he ran over to our bookshelf and, under D, found “dialectical materialism.” He said it was too hard to explain to me. Then he went to S and found “silkworm.” He said the silkworms will come back to life as moths. I asked him if they’d try to fly into Parliament, but he told me not to go to the police station. He looked all scared again, so I said, “Look, Ali! That’s my grandma’s favorite pharmacy. That’s where we’re going.”
—
“Good morning, Cavit Bey.”
“Good morning, Nejla Hanım. Welcome. Come in, come in. Let me order you a lemonade. Soda for the little ones? Welcome, young lady. Welcome, young man.”
Pharmacist Cavit Bey always wears a white coat and stands up very straight. The only time Grandma wears lipstick is when she goes to his shop. That’s because she puckers her lips when she talks to him and she laughs a funny laugh.
“I’ve run out of vanishing cream again. I thought I’d stop by and pick up another jar. It’s so nice for the children to get some air.”
“Who is the young man?”
“He’s the cleaning la— I mean, the helper’s son. He and Ayşe have become great friends. Ali’s always got his nose in a book. He’s sharp as a tack.”
“Wonderful!”
Pharmacist Cavit Bey ordered two orange sodas for us and a lemonade for Grandma. She holds the glass like she holds her almond liqueur, with her fingertips. Ali is looking at Uncle Cavit Bey’s bottles of medicine. Grandma calls out like she’s singing a song.
“Children! You can look, but don’t touch!”
“Do you have medicine for girls?”
Grandma and Uncle Cavit Bey can’t understand why Ali would ask that.
“Why would you want medicine for girls, young man?�
��
“I know someone who’s stuck down there.”
Nobody said a word, but when Uncle Cavit Bey started laughing, Grandma did too. I think Ali said something shameful, because after they laughed they didn’t say anything. Like they hadn’t heard him. Ali got mad again. He pulled the strings out of his pocket.
“It’s terribly hot this summer, isn’t it, Cavit Bey?”
“They say another heat wave is heading in from Africa, Nejla Hanım. Still, Ankara summers are always hot. I’ve never understood why everyone acts so surprised, year after year.”
“How true, Cavit Bey. Ah, but wouldn’t it be lovely if we could go somewhere cool together. The Beer Garden in Atatürk Forest, perhaps, or a picnic on Mt. Elma.”
Cavit Bey stopped what he was doing. Then he laughed. I wonder if Grandma said something shameful?
—
I need some medicine for Nuran’s daughter. She’d never be able come here. They don’t have enough money. I need to get it for them! I have to! Ayşe puts her hand on her hip. Her soda bottle is on the floor. She’s pushing it with the tip of her shoe. She’s going to spill it. She’s looking at her grandma, but her grandma isn’t looking back. She’s doing it to make her grandma angry. I don’t want her grandma to get angry. I don’t want her to yell. “Don’t do that!” I say to Ayşe. She shrugs her shoulders at me. I know what to say to make her look at me:
“I think I know a way to get the butterflies into Parliament.”
It works. Ayşe looks at me. When she looks at me like that, I get taller or something. Nejla Hanım is looking at the pharmacist the same way Ayşe is looking at me.
“I suppose every lady in Ankara visits your shop, Cavit Bey. There’s nothing like your vanishing cream anywhere else.”
“You’re the fairest lady of them all, Nejla Hanım! Your lemonade must be getting warm. Shall I order you another one?”
“No, thank you. I was wondering, Cavit Bey, if you ever went to the CSO concert hall? Perhaps you and your wife—”
“If you’re free, let’s go together next Sunday.”
“Oh! I’ve spilled my lemonade. What a mess I’ve made!”
The Time of Mute Swans Page 11