The Time of Mute Swans

by Ece Temelkuran

  I clapped my hand on my mouth. To keep the sounds in. Dad looked at me.

  “Ayşe, who did your mother meet at the train station?”

  “What are you saying, Aydın?”

  “What do you think? I’m asking who the man is that you met at the train station. What’s been going on behind my back? What are you up to, Sevgi?”

  Grandma took me into her room. The light was burning bright in the hall. Mom got all small. Dad got bigger and bigger. I could see them through the keyhole, but Grandma pulled me away.

  —

  The sounds slowly came back. “Don’t be scared, Ali! Don’t be scared!” Mom was saying. They threw us both onto the cushions. Mom hugged me.

  “Do what you will to me. But let the boy go!”

  “Do to you? Why would we bother, you dirty bitch! Who do you think you are? Where’s Sinan? Tell us. Where’d he go?”

  “Who’s Sinan? I don’t know anyone named Sinan.”

  They grabbed Mom’s hair and banged her head against the wall. They threw her back on the cushions. The big man said, “Why bother with this peasant? Their husbands rough them up so much they don’t feel anything. String up the boy from the ceiling.”

  Mom screamed.

  “Leave him alone! I’m begging you, don’t hurt my boy.”

  I couldn’t hear anything again.

  —

  Dad yelled at Mom.

  “Look here, Sevgi! I’ve had it up to here. I’ve never been good enough for you, but I’m no fool. I’ve devoted my life to making you happy, and look what I get in return. Are you having an affair, Sevgi?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Aydın.”

  Something fell over.

  “Let go of my arm, Aydın!”

  “Enough, Sevgi. Tell me what’s going on. Who is he?”

  Grandma turned on the radio. I could still hear them. “I’ve squandered my whole life on you,” Dad yelled. “Stop the theatrics,” Mom yelled. Something else fell over.

  —

  “Then tell us where Sinan is.”

  “I swear I don’t anyone by that name.”

  They’re hitting Mom. But I can’t say it. I can’t tell them Hüseyin Abi’s other name is Sinan. They’ll find him if I do. But they’re hitting Mom, they’re hitting Mom because I can’t say.

  “Hang that kid up by his feet.”

  “Wait! I’m begging you. Spare my boy.”

  It won’t hurt. Not by the feet. I don’t care.

  The man holding the back of my neck turns my head so I can see him.

  “Where’s Sinan?”

  “He can’t talk,” Mom says.

  “What do you mean? If he can’t talk, we’ll get him to sing. An anthem would be nice.”

  “I’ll do anything you want, but leave the boy alone.”

  “I bet you know an anthem. Go on, give us a few lines.”

  Maybe they’ll let Mom go if I do.

  “Fear not, for this dawn shall not fade!”

  “Fuck off, you little bastard. You see what this runt’s doing? He’s monkeying around with us. Now sing us one of your revolutionary anthems!”

  They throw Mom on the floor again. I can’t hear again. I see Mom’s tongue, hanging out of her mouth. Maybe she’s saying something I can’t hear.

  —

  I looked through the keyhole again. Grandma said, “Shame on you!” I pushed her hand away, though.

  “Let go of me, Önder!”

  “Önder?”

  “Goddamn it. Let go of me, Aydın.”

  “Who’s Önder, Sevgi? Tell me!”

  Dad had Mom by the arm and when he pushed she hit the wall. She cried even more. She ran to their bedroom and locked the door. Dad was yelling in the hall.

  “Either come out and tell me everything or it’s over. Sevgi, do you hear me? Sevgi!”

  The doorbell rang. The door was still open, but the bell rang.

  —

  “Put that Alevi bastard in that sack. Look here, woman! We know you’ve been meeting with Sinan. Of course, you know him as Hüseyin. I want that son of a bitch and I want him now. Tell me where he is or I’ll throw this brat off the top of Almond Stream hill. You’ll hear his screams from here.”

  Mom couldn’t say anything she was crying so hard. She tried. Words came out.

  “What … I don’t know … my arm.”

  “So you’re not going to talk, huh? Okay then. We’ve got all the time in the world. Nobody move. We’ll sit here until Sinan comes.”

  They made me and Mom sit on the cushions. We stayed there. They got on their walkie-talkie and ordered food. None of our neighbors came. It got dark. Mom was still crying. The men smoked lots of cigarettes. They laughed a lot, too.

  “So, I hear you Alevis like to fuck each other all the time. Go on, tell us about it.”

  Mom didn’t say anything. One of the men yelled at me.

  “Do you even know who your dad is?”

  “Prrrt!” was all I could say.

  “What?”

  “Prrrt!”

  “Are you nuts, kid?”

  “Prrrt!”

  Mom got on top of me. They hit her. And when they kept hitting her, she got heavier and heavier. “Prrrt, prrrt!” I couldn’t stop.

  —

  Jale Hanım was at the door. She was talking a lot, and loud, too. And she was trying to look inside, past my father.

  “I hope this isn’t a bad time. Nejla Hanım left some fabric with my daughter Feride when I wasn’t home. She said she wasn’t going to make me a dress. Naturally, I was wondering why she changed her mind and thought I’d stop by to—”

  “Why don’t you come another time, Jale Hanım?”

  “I do apologize.”

  “That’s okay. Later.”

  Dad closed the door in Jale Hanım’s face. Mom was crying in the bedroom. I looked at Grandma. She was covering her mouth with her hand.

  —

  Later, much later, Mom said, “The boy’s hungry.” I was hanging from my feet. It scared them when I didn’t make a sound. “He’s retarded,” Mom said. “You won’t get anything out of him.” They let me down after a while. Mom rubbed my ankles. Then, later, she said I was hungry and she wanted to make some soup. They said she could. She went to the kitchen. She lit the stove and stirred flour into some water. Steam rose up and the soup bubbled and bubbled. The window got steamy. She wrote “police” on the glass. Someone yelled from the other room.

  “Where’s that soup? Why’s it taking so long?”

  Mom wiped the window with her hand. She turned off the stove.

  It was almost morning. I must have fallen asleep. The noise woke me up. Mom was saying, “Let me leave the boy with a neighbor. He can’t stay home alone.” But the man said, “Someone will come and find him.” They took Mom away.

  I found a candle. I lit it with my Ibelo. While it burned, it got darker everywhere. Nobody came.

  —

  I slept with Grandma that night. Mom didn’t come out of her room. Dad didn’t come home at all. I woke up in the middle of the night and went to my room. The laugh box was there. I threw it out the window.

  UNIT 13

  The Tenth Anniversary Anthem

  “We Wove a Web of Iron”

  “I swear it, Nejla Hanım. Cross my heart and hope to die, I swear I thought it was true. Why would I lie to you, dear? Am I crazy?”

  The keychain in Jale Hanım’s hand is swinging back and forth. She sits in the chair, legs crossed, shaking her leg and making her slipper slap-slap the bottom of her foot. She’s cross, ever so cross. Grandma can’t look at her. It’s Grandma who’s embarrassed, not Jale Hanım.

  “I was utterly bewildered, Jale Hanım. Words fail to convey the awkwardness of the situation. To have acted so impulsively, so rashly … on a false rumor, no less—and at my age!”

  “Nejla Hanım, don’t even try it! You can’t do this to me. A false rumor? I tell you, I’m not having it! You wrong me.”

&
nbsp; Grandma got even more embarrassed. She pulled a bit of thread out of the seam of her skirt and rolled it into a ball. Then she found another loose thread. Jale Hanım won’t be quiet.

  “We’re next-door neighbors, and yet you accuse me of … Who does Cavit Bey think he is, anyway? That randy old goat! How dare he try to come between us. I won’t stand for it, Nejla Hanım. I won’t! Are you really prepared to risk our friendship?”

  I don’t quite understand how it happened, but Grandma apologized a second time. Jale Hanım seemed to forgive her. She even laughed.

  “Never mind, dear. Even the best of friends can have their little misunderstandings. Don’t fret. Let’s get back to my dress, or it’ll be too late. I’m sure you’ll get it done in time, though. You’ve got the nimblest fingers in all of Ankara. The young women have nothing on you, my dear. Ha-hah!”

  Grandma tried to laugh, too. I didn’t want to watch it anymore, so I walked around the house to check my things.

  I found the bobby pin, still trapped under the carpet. But Mom doesn’t call out to Dad with the news anymore. They don’t talk about politics, even, because we don’t visit Samim Abla and Ayla Abla. If we did, maybe they’d talk again. You can’t be mad, not in front of other people, not when you’re a guest. So, no more bobby pins dropped out of Mom’s hair when she was calling out the news to Dad. That was the last one. There won’t be any more.

  Grandma’s pulling out the fabric as far as her arms will go, left and right. “One, two, three … There’s enough here for the skirt.” Jale Hanım won’t be quiet.

  “They’re pouring the first concrete for the metro on the ninth of September. If Prime Minister Demirel tries to stop them, a group of ‘young volunteers’ are apparently standing by to build the metro themselves. Our mayor’s out of control. If he had his way, Ankara would become another hotbed of communism, worse even than Fatsa. We all know what he means by ‘young volunteers.’ It’s code for ‘terrorists.’ Kızılay Square’s going to turn into a battlefield on Tuesday, the communists versus the government. I mean, really! Who cares about trains anymore? In the end, that’s what it’ll be, an underground train. The communists are such a bunch of reactionaries. They don’t want anyone to drive around in their own car, nice and comfy.”

  Dad’s button is still here on the windowsill, the one from his sleeve. There won’t be any more buttons, though. Dad won’t say, “Come quick, Sevgi!” They won’t watch the news and get sad together. I mean, they’re still getting sad, but not together. And they don’t want to be “nice and comfy” in their own cars.

  “Well, who did you think I was talking about? My Ferit. The bridegroom! Anyway, he made a fortune with Banker Kastelli. I’m telling you, the boy’s sharp as a tack. He doesn’t pay any mind to those leftists and their whining. Why, Demirel himself praised Kastelli to the skies, calling him a trailblazer in the transition to a market economy. And that’s even before the government has managed to pass its reforms. And he’s so generous, too. Nejla Hanım, don’t breathe a word of this to anyone, but Ferit’s taken a big chunk of the money he earned and gotten the most delightful wedding gift for my girl: a summer house in Bodrum! Isn’t he wonderful? Such a thoughtful boy. And he’s got ‘vision,’ which we can all agree is just what our country needs right now.”

  “If we drape the bodice, we won’t have an inch to spare, Jale Hanım. We might run out of fabric.” Grandma’s working fast to make Jale Hanım go home. “You might have to do without a draped bodice.”

  “What? No bodice? You’ll have to manage it, Nejla Hanım. I simply must have something that’s both sophisticated and flashy.”

  The pin’s still in the corner of the shelf, still tittering like fox whiskers. But Grandma’s not laughing much these days. And when she does laugh, it’s a Sue Ellen laugh. The house smelled happy and nice when she used to make börek. Now she hardly ever cooks. And when she does, she gets mixed up. She forgets. Her food smells wrong and tastes wrong.

  “Oh, before I forget: you’ll never believe the latest on Bülent Ersoy. After he flashed his boobs to the audience at the fair, the police marched him straight to the station. I can’t tell you how relieved I was, Nejla Hanım. That’s the end of that, finally. He’ll shape up now if he knows what’s good for him, and we’ll get to talk about something else, for a change.”

  “They’ve come down hard on the poor girl.”

  “Poor? Girl? God forbid! He’s got more money than he knows what to do with, which is why he went out and bought himself a pair of tits. Your fingers are nimble, Nejla Hanım, but if you think Bülent’s a woman your mind’s not what it what used to be. Well, you’re no spring chicken, I suppose.”

  Grandma froze. So did I. Jale Hanım doesn’t know how mad Grandma is. She doesn’t see the things I do. A hard look, a lifted eyebrow, lips pressed tight. When you see those things, you’re supposed to be quiet.

  “Enough! Jale Hanım, I think it’s time you and your fabric went home. I’ve had quite enough of you, your rich bridegroom, your gossip, and your Bülent Ersoy. Leave me in peace!”

  Grandma kind of rolled up the fabric, but in the air, so not really. She shoved it into a bag.

  “Hey, what are you getting so sore about? What did I say?”

  “You’ve said more than enough. I won’t be ridiculed, not at my age. Now off you go!”

  “Are you throwing me out? Is that how you treat your guests?”

  “Stop talking, Jale Hanım, and go.”

  “I should have known. What can you expect from a communist? That’s how they treat their guests. Just wait until I tell my husband.”

  “Tell the whole world. Go and file a complaint with the martial law commander, for all I care.”

  “Look here, Nejla Hanım! I’ve got connections. You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

  “Go! Get out!”

  “I’ll show you. And I’ll show that communist daughter and son-in-law of yours, too. You’ll be sorry then, but it’ll be too late.”

  Jale Hanım yelled all the way to her house, slippers slap-slapping on every stair. Grandma slammed the door.

  “Oh! What a relief! Sweetie, I felt like an ox was sitting right here, on my chest, and now it’s finally got up and gone.”

  Grandma undid her collar button and pulled her hair up and off the back of her neck. Her face was red. She switched on the fan. When she stood in front of the fan, it smelled like Grandma. The living room smelled like Grandma’s soap. She uses a little piece of it to mark the fabric, that’s why. Grandma closed her eyes. She forgot all about me. I went and looked in the drawer. The flattened box with the telephone number was gone. Dad must have taken it with him.

  Eyes closed, Grandma turned her throat to the fan. Nobody talks anymore. Maybe they will if me and Ali save the swans. We’ll be on the news, and Dad will say, “Sevgi, come here quick!” And Mom will say, “I don’t believe it!” Grandma will come up with a pair of tongs in her hand. “Turn up the volume so I can hear it,” she’ll say. “I can’t leave the kitchen. The börek will burn.” The house will smell like it should again. They’ll even go out on the balcony and call out: “Samim! Ayla! Turn on the TV. It’s Ayşe and Ali!”

  Grandma still hasn’t opened her eyes. She’s singing to herself.

  In the cellar, wine matures through the years

  In my heart, your love matures through the years

  And now, of a sudden, I drink of them both

  For believe me, believe me, believe me …

  I am aflame.

  We can’t save the swans without a wheelbarrow and a sack. The two things only Ali can get. Maybe he’ll bring them Thursday. Maybe I’ll die before then. If there’s a fight, I could die. We could all die. But there are the swans, and there’s Ali, so I’m not going to die. And I don’t have to die so they love me more. When we save the swans, that’s what they’ll do, anyway. I know it.

  “We Acquitted Ourselves Honorably”

  When the candle went out, it was g
etting light. I was down under the cushions. Then I picked up the sack, the one they were going to put me in, the one I was going to die in, maybe. I got into the sack. Is this what it’s like to be a silkworm in its cocoon?

  Things were happening, but it’s like they weren’t. And because of that, I wasn’t scared. I was in a cocoon. The world was outside the cocoon. And there was something else, too. I was in a book or on TV, but it wasn’t the real me. And those men didn’t take away my mom, not the real one. It was the mom in the book or the movie whose mouth the man covered when she begged him to let her take me to a neighbor. That’s what made me go down under the cushions and play with my strings. In the morning, I could hear sounds outside, but I wasn’t there, not the real me, so I couldn’t come out. Even if I tried to say something, nothing would come out. That’s how I felt. I heard sounds. Birgül Abla came and sat in our garden. She smoked a cigarette, because I heard a match. She drank tea, because I heard the clink of the spoon. There’s another big sister with her, because I hear her reading the news to Birgül Abla.

  “Our side can barely shoot straight, but five of them managed to break into a prison in Konya and free seven fascists. And I don’t know if you’ve heard about the fascists in Akdere. They’re leaving notes at all the houses saying, ‘You have one day to move out, or we’ll kill you.’”

  “I can’t believe Aliye Abla is still sleeping. I wish she’d get up.”

  “What do you want with her?”

  “Nothing. I was going to stop in. I like her a lot. And Ali’s such a cute kid.”

  “Birgül, what do you think about Vedat?”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “The neighborhood doesn’t think much of him. He’s a smart guy, but he’s not as friendly or as practical as Hüseyin. All he thinks about is the cooperative. He’s missing the big picture. We need to do something big. Don’t you think so?”

  “We’ll have to get used to him. It’s true, though, even Ali’s been different since Hüseyin left. I can’t believe that boy’s still in bed. Poor kid.”