Hüseyin Abi dipped his finger in the yoghurty stuff on his plate and licked it off.
“This is really good! Isn’t it, Ali?
“I bet you didn’t know my mom and dad are engineers. Do you know where my home is, the one I grew up in? In Istanbul. On the Bosphorus. In a neighborhood called Bebek. There was this man who looked after our apartment building. I guess I was about your age. One day, while he was out working in the garden, I decided to pitch in. It didn’t feel right for me to be playing while he was working. Me and my family were going to visit friends that day, and I was wearing a white shirt and a white pair of trousers. Well, I completely threw myself into it. A part of me wanted to work so hard he wouldn’t have to lift a finger. It wasn’t until I stopped to catch my breath that I realized I was covered in mud. And that’s when I noticed that the man was smoking a cigarette and chuckling to himself. He’d figured he might as well take it easy since I was doing all the work. Just then my mom came out and saw me. Boy, did she ever yell. She was tugging and tugging at my ear! I looked over at the man. He didn’t say a word. He just turned around and started working, as though he’d been working the whole time. Can you believe it, Ali? Sometimes, especially lately, I wonder if it’ll be like that when this is all over. I mean, like that day my ear was being tugged and I realized I was all alone.”
It popped into my head, and I said it without thinking.
“You’ve got me, Hüseyin Abi!”
Hüseyin Abi laughed. And he shouted, so loud everyone looked at us.
“Yes, I do, Ali! I’ve got you. And that’s what this is all about. That’s what makes us go on. Ali, there’s something I wanted to tell you today. I’m leaving, and you might not see me again. I didn’t want you to have any hard feelings when I left.”
I didn’t like that Ankara Sarması one bit. It’s like yoghurt, like choking.
“I need to be somewhere else, Ali. Some new big brothers will come to the neighborhood, and you’ll like them a lot. They’re brave as can be. But as for me … well, I’ve got to go, Ali. Do you understand, little lion?”
That’s when I heard the men yelling outside. The waiter knew Hüseyin Abi was a revolutionary, I guess. Because the waiter was dark, too.
“You might want to get out of here, brother. Nihat Erim was killed today. The Grey Wolf commandos are marching this way, from Liberation. Don’t worry about paying.”
Hüseyin Abi grabbed my hand and we ran outside. We began walking really fast toward Swan Park. I’d never seen Hüseyin Abi like that. His hand got sweaty and they were shaking.
“Don’t be scared, Ali. We’ll walk toward Cinnah and decide what to do when we get there. Okay, little lion?”
But he’s not looking at me. He’s talking to himself. The fascists are behind us. As they get closer, everyone runs into the shops. We walk faster and faster. As we pass the park, I can’t say anything, not a word about the swans, because we’re running now. Hüseyin Abi picks me up, and I hold on tight to his neck. The blue veins in his neck are going pit-a-pat. We go through a door, up some stairs, through another door. It’s dark everywhere. But there are purple lights, spinning round, people dancing. But they dance like Americans, and the song isn’t Turkish.
“One way ticket. One way ticket. One way ticket to the moon!”
Hüseyin Abi puts me down. He’s looking for something, but he can’t see. It’s too dark. Purple lights blink and blink on Hüseyin Abi’s face. Purple and black, purple and black. Someone comes up and talks to Hüseyin Abi.
“Sinan! What are you doing here?”
Sinan? Hüseyin Abi looks at me. He knows I heard, but he doesn’t say anything.
“Hide the boy!”
Hüseyin Abi goes over to the shiny place where everyone is dancing. My eyes are on him the whole time the other big brother is carrying me away. Hüseyin Abi is dancing just like the Americans. How does he know how to make like an American? Like an opportunist!
I got taken to the kitchen. I waited there, but not for long. Why did that big brother call Hüseyin Abi Sinan? Doesn’t he know Hüseyin Abi’s name? Maybe he doesn’t. Hüseyin Abi came and took me away. We got in a shared taxi and went home. As we were walking up the hill to the house, he said it.
“Ali, not a word of this to anyone.”
“Why did he call you Sinan?”
Hüseyin Abi stopped and looked at me. He was going to say something, but he didn’t. He thought I’d tell someone if he did. I understood. And that’s when I let go of his hand. I didn’t give him his Ibelo lighter, either.
Where are you, Ayşe?
A Sense of Trust Binds the Citizenry
“Samim, has a tree ever come crashing down, right in front of your eyes? You know, split right down the middle and toppled over? If you did see something like that, happening right in front of you, you’d probably think, for a moment, that your eyes were playing tricks on you. Trees don’t just topple over, in the blink of an eye, for no reason. That’s not what trees do. It wouldn’t register. Well, these days, it feels like we’re watching as a mighty tree comes crashing to the ground in slow motion. It’s happening in front of our eyes, but we can’t process it. The whole thing’s crashing down, Samim.”
Mom told me to stay home with my dad. Grandma’s still “out of sorts,” so she and Mom went out together. That’s why Dad invited Samim Abi over. He said he wants to have a couple of drinks and some meze, just the two of them. Ayla Abla’s out at a union meeting, you see.
They sat in the kitchen, on stools. Since Mom wasn’t home, the table was a mess. The food to go with the rakı wasn’t in serving dishes and the glasses didn’t match either. That’s what happens when mothers aren’t home. Things get ugly. There weren’t any paper napkins. There were small forks, but in the evening we use big forks. Dad and Samim Abi dripped melon juice all over the table and sliced the cheese still in the package. I watched Train Theater on TV for a while, but then, because of Ramadan, TV got boring. So I went over by the kitchen door and listened. That’s when I heard Dad say, “The whole thing’s crashing down, Samim.” He had his elbows on the table. Samim Abi was sitting like a hunchback, looking at him, holding Gırgır magazine, all rolled up in his hand.
“Have you seen that interview in Hürriyet? The provincial chairman of the Nationalist Action Party claims they’ve got five thousand people monitoring everyone. I used to think it was paranoia, but we really are being followed. There’s no way of knowing who’s an informant. What a joke!”
Dad laughed.
“Well, I’m not an informant, Samim. That much I know.”
They laughed, but not really. They had to drink some more rakı before they could talk again.
“Samim, have you heard that wiretap story?”
“No.”
“I think it was a journalist or something. He was on the phone with a friend and he heard a cough. ‘Brother,’ he said to whoever was listening, ‘You’ve been working too hard. Let me suggest a nice hot cup of lime tea with honey. It’ll do wonders for that bad throat.’”
“Now that’s funny!”
“And the guy listening in thanked him!”
“Aydın Abi, that’s the one thing they can’t take away from us.”
“What?”
“Our sense of humor. We’re still able to laugh.”
“You call that laughing, Samim? It’s more like a nervous reaction. We love to claim we Turks have this unique sense of humor and our satirical magazines are the best in the world. People will laugh at anything when their nerves are shot to hell!”
“They wrote in Gırgır this week that the Japanese are deeply troubled by the Çorum Massacre.”
“If the Japanese really did have to accept responsibility for every disgrace in our country, hara-kiri would lead to the extinction of their entire race.”
They both laughed again. Then Dad got serious.
“How’s Ayla doing? I mean, how are the two of you?”
“Good. We’re thrilled every ti
me one of us makes it back home in one piece. We hug each other and all that. Everything’s fine.”
Dad had half a glass of rakı left. He finished it in one swallow.
“And how’s Sevgi Abla?”
“Angry, Samim. Always angry.”
“Is anything the matter?”
“Let me give you some brotherly advice: Never let a woman lose her respect for you. And if she does, don’t make a fool of yourself trying to regain it.”
Samim Abi looked at the table, and Dad looked at him. Then Samim Abi lifted his head, and Dad looked at the table. Nobody laughed. Nobody talked.
When Dad did talk again, it was in a loud voice.
“That detective friend of mine asked me to attend a deposition yesterday. I was real close friends with one of the guys killed in the Bahçelievler Bloodbath.”
“Brother, you’re kidding!”
“They’d identified a possible witness. I was allowed to sit in as the detective questioned her.”
“How’d it go?”
“She was petrified. Who can you trust these days? Certainly, not the state. If you decide to talk to a cop sympathetic to the revolutionaries, you could find a cop sympathetic to the Grey Wolves waiting on your doorstep. And she was elderly, too. It was awful.”
“Did she say anything useful?”
“I don’t know. I left early.”
“What? How could you leave, Aydın Abi?”
Dad looked at Samim Abi with a sad smile.
“You sounded like Sevgi just then: ‘How could you, Aydın? Why didn’t you do anything? Why didn’t you fight back? Why didn’t you go to prison?’”
“Hey, that’s not what I meant, Aydın Abi. It’s just that you … I wondered if … anyway, I’ve got a brother who—”
“Samim, I’ve got another piece of brotherly advice for you: Live bold. Don’t be afraid to take risks. Yes, you’ll probably end up paying for it. You might get tortured. You might get imprisoned. You might lose your job. You might even go out of your mind. But it’s better than living like rabbit shit. If you’ve played it safe, but those you love haven’t, you’ll find it’s too late and—”
“Rabbit shit? Aydın Abi, my brother says—”
“They’ll make you pay the heaviest price of all, and that is—”
“I’ve got a brother who—”
“Please hear me out, Samim. I need to get some things off my chest.”
Dad poured another glass of rakı. Samim stuck his hands between his legs and listened.
“I don’t know if you know this, but Sevgi was imprisoned in the military intervention of ’71. I was studying the history of language. While my sympathies lay with the Left, even chanting slogans made me feel a little silly. I was completely engrossed in my studies and literature, off in my own little world. We didn’t have much in common, she and I. If Sevgi hadn’t ended up in prison, and if she hadn’t been so terrified when she got out, she’d never have given me another look. She was beautiful, tough and fearless, always spoke her mind. But that was before prison. She came out of there too scared to cross the street on her own. One day, me and Sevgi ran into each other again in Yenişehir. She was holding her books against her body like a shield, her shoulders drooped, her face pale. She’d tried to cover it with her hair, but I could see the burn mark on her cheek. Right about here. They’d stubbed out a cigarette on her face! I didn’t ask about it, of course. She’d hadn’t met up with anyone or seen any of her old friends. Some were missing, some scattered, others were broken in body and spirit. And yet … I should have realized. There was a strange light in her eyes. ‘Let’s have some tea,’ I told her. It was the tea that did it. She’d made up her mind long before that, though. She might even have decided to play a game with fate. You know, she might have told herself, ‘I’m going to marry the first man who talks to me in Yenişehir.’ At first, she was happy to nestle under my arm. And there she stayed. We never went out together, always stayed in. But I was so puffed up with pride. Sevgi loves me. I’d become a man. And then one day, much later, while she was nursing Ayşe, she turned to me with tears in her eyes and said, “How did you manage to stay out of prison, Aydın?” I could tell from her voice that I’d let her down and that there was nothing I could do about it. Samim, you can never know the dreams you’ve inspired in a woman and how badly you’ve let her down, but I could tell from the fury in her voice that she’d had such high hopes for me. That day, I sensed that Sevgi’s dreams were big. And she made me feel small. I’ve felt that way ever since…. Why the hell are you letting me jabber like this! I wish you’d stopped me, told me to stop being such a bore. But you just sat there and listened! I wonder what Ayşe’s up to? I’d better go and check on her.”
“Aydın Abi, you can tell me anything. You know that. We’ve got nothing to hide from each other.”
“I don’t know about that, Samim. Now that you mention it, I’ve been wondering about that extra bedroom of yours. Are you hiding something in there? Why do you always keep the door locked?”
“Aydın Abi, look! If it isn’t little miss Ayşeyevich, sitting there in the hallway, all bug-eyed, listening to every word we’re saying.”
“Ayşe! What are you doing out there? Get in here.”
Dad pulled me onto his lap. His eyes are all red. And he smells like rakı. It feels like we lost. It feels like there’s nothing we can do about it, either. Mom’s always weird, and now Dad’s being weird too. I’m sitting in his lap, but my dad forgot all about me. I wish Ali was here.
Faith Binds the Citizenry
“Religious movies have become all the rage. Currently, the top actresses in the land are vying for the plum role of Rabia Hatun, the Muslim saint and Sufi mystic whose life and times are to be portrayed in a Yeşilçam production—Sorry about that. I keep yawning my head off—Our sources tell us that the top contender for the title role is none other than a curvaceous beauty best known for her steamy scenes and bared skin.—I wonder who they’re talking about?—Throughout the month of Ramadan, our readers can look forward to multiple airings of two faith-based epics—Oh, there I go again!—We particularly recommend the critically acclaimed His Holiness, Ömer.”
Jale Hanım’s daughter, Feride, was reading out loud from a magazine, yawning and yawning. Then she tossed the magazine onto the middle coffee table. If I did that, Mom would get mad. You’re not supposed to toss things. It’s wrong. But here at Jale Hanım’s house it’s fine. It’s okay to yell here, too, and to call each other “idiot.” They think it’s funny. Here, they play Okey out on the balcony, and they don’t care if the tiles go click on the table and clack on the racks. Sometimes they even dance out on the balcony, snap-snapping their fingers and smack-smacking their feet. Jale Hanım has a housecoat made out of lace, and she chews gum, just like her daughter Feride. I’m not allowed to chew gum because it goes smack smack. Jale Hanım’s house slippers go clippety-clappety, and she doesn’t care how much noise she makes when she stirs her tea. We don’t do that in my house. We rest our teaspoons on the bottom of the glass and stir extra slow and careful. And we don’t laugh hah hah hah with our heads back and our teeth showing. But they’re “not that bad, actually,” are Jale Hanım and Feride Abla. When Jale Hanım kisses me on the cheek and I rub the mark she leaves, it looks like I’m wearing rouge. It’s not that bad, actually.
Me and Grandma are at Jale Hanım’s house for iftar because they invited us over. “We don’t fast,” Grandma whispered to me, “but don’t eat anything until they do.” Grandma feels like she’s “going downhill” these days, so we have to be extra nice to her. That’s what Mom said. I can’t be naughty, not when I’m with Grandma. Mom and Dad laughed when Jale Hanım invited us all over to iftar, but me and Grandma came, and they didn’t. İftar means starting dinner with an olive. I just learned that. “Well, what do you expect? She hasn’t had any religious instruction,” Jale Hanım said, screwing up her mouth and raising her eyebrows. She’s “bad-tempered” right now because she’
s “fasting.” While we’re waiting for iftar, Jale Hanım showed us Janin Cosmetic Products.
“It’s a new system, Nejla Hanım. You invite a group of housewives over to pitch the product. Then, not only do you get a commission if you make a sale, you get a cut of their commissions, too, if they become Janin Ladies. You just sit there and make money! What could be better?”
Grandma was confused.
“One doesn’t sell skin cream to one’s guests, Jale Hanım!”
“What’s the big deal? It’s called free enterprise. Besides, it’s my life, and I’ll do what I want.”
Grandma put down the jar of skin cream, wrinkled her forehead and tilted her head to one side. That’s the “it didn’t turn out right” look she gets when somebody cooks a dish wrong. Jale Hanım handed me something that looked like a camera. One of her “chums” brought it back from “the hajj.” When you look inside, you see a whole bunch of people dressed all in white walking around a big black box. “Have a look at the Kaaba. Not that anybody ever taught you what it is,” Jale Hanım said. And the “chum” also brought Feride Abla green lipstick that turns pink on her lips, which doesn’t make any sense. Grandma shook her head at the plastic bottle of Zamzam water and said, “It’s full of germs.” She didn’t drink any.
Then it was time for iftar. They fired the cannon! When it goes boom, you can eat. They’ve made so much food. And there’s this thing called cornflakes. It’s American, and you’re supposed to eat it with milk. The “foreigners” have it for breakfast, but, because it’s “easily digestible,” you can eat it at sahur, too, before the sun comes up. I tried some. It’s like paper. But the box, now that’s nice. All red, and there are smiling people on it. They’re Americans. They all have yellow hair. I guess if you eat enough cornflakes your hair turns yellow. Just like Lucy, in Dallas! I pop a handful into my mouth. The crunch crunch is fun, but the smell, well, there isn’t one. Well, maybe a little bit, I guess, but like paper.
There’s so much food at Jale Hanım’s. Slurp slurp, stuffed vegetables and stuffed vine leaves, chomp chomp, meatballs and fried potatoes. They haven’t eaten anything since sahur. They’re so hungry I can’t watch them. Especially when lettuce hangs from their mouths. And then there’s a horrible cough, like choking, that Jale Hanım’s husband makes before he has a big drink of water. “Ah!” he says, “that was delicious.” He laughs and says, “Fasting makes everything taste better, Nejla Hanım.” Jale Hanım says, “Fasting purifies the body.” Feride Abla says, “But it’s tough to do in the summertime.” Grandma doesn’t say anything. She’s not looking at them. She’s listening to the TV, because that man with the deep voice is telling her the news. Grandma drops her fork and says, “They’ve killed Nihat Erim!”
The Time of Mute Swans Page 17