The Time of Mute Swans

by Ece Temelkuran

  “Hang on! Something is burning. Let me have a look. Children!”

  Ali stuck his lighter in his pocket before Grandma could open the door. I stood right on the ashy spot. There was a little bit of smoke, though. We stood in the smoke, looking at Grandma and Birgül Abla. Without a word. “What have you two been up to!” Grandma said, but not really. She looked at Ali and went quiet. Then she said, “Oh dear! Oh dear!” ever so many times. She rubbed her hands together. Birgül Abla untied her hair and gave a piece of string to Ali. She shook out her hair, and smiled.

  When Birgül Abla left, Ali and I went out onto the balcony. We saw Birgül Abla going into Samim and Ayla’s apartment building. “Look, Ali!” I said. “Shhh!” he said, his eyes wide.

  When Mom and Dad came home and Grandma told them about Birgül Abla and Auntie Aliye, they lit cigarettes and talked for a bit. Then Dad patted Ali on the head. He didn’t say anything, though. They looked at him with pity, that’s all. Dad and Mom didn’t say a word until the evening news. When the speaker started talking, then they talked. But Dad doesn’t say “would you mind” and “please” to Mom, and she doesn’t get mad at him like before. Mom’s been grounded, I think.

  “… main opposition leader Bülent Ecevit emphasized that the price of basic foodstuffs has skyrocketed more than one hundred percent in the past year …”

  “Were you able to get Friday off? What happened with the investigation?”

  “Aydın, let’s not talk about it right now.”

  “Just tell me what happened, Sevgi. Have they launched it?”

  “Yes.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “Let’s talk about it later.”

  “Just tell me!”

  “Immorality.”

  “… rampant tax evasion. Ecevit also criticized Prime Minister Demirel for …”

  Dad lit another cigarette. The smoke covered his face.

  “What did you expect, Aydın? They weren’t going to cite my political views or Ayşe’s moths.”

  “A charge of immorality suggests that they’ve read those letters from Önder. Doesn’t it, Sevgi?”

  Mom said nothing.

  “… nine people, four of them children, died in political clashes and terrorist incidents yesterday. We now bring you the weather …”

  “Ayşe, why don’t you and Ali go and play in your room. Your father and I are talking.”

  I took Ali’s hand as we went down the hallway. “Shhh!” I said. But Ali doesn’t talk, anyway. I listened to Mom and Dad.

  “Aydın, if you’re unable to let it go …”

  “What do you expect, Sevgi? For me to act as though nothing happened? I’m not even allowed to ask who Önder is, yet he’s the reason you’re under investigation.”

  “Aydın, I’m the kind of woman who always wears long underwear to protests in case I get arrested and tortured. They know how to hit me where it hurts. Immorality! What else? Don’t come for me. Please, not you, too.”

  Mom said nothing. Dad said nothing. Mom had said, “Please,” so Dad stopped talking.

  When the weather forecast ended, Mom was ready to talk again.

  “I got both Friday and Monday off. We can go to Ordu. First thing in the morning, the day after tomorrow, if that’s what you want.”

  And that’s when the phone rang.

  “Ah, Hasan Bey. How are things? Your wife’s fallen ill, I heard. If there’s anything we can do … Which hospital? … We can come at once. I mean it. Okay. No, no. He’s fine. He’s playing with Ayşe right now. Don’t worry, he’s fine. Listen, we’re ready to do whatever we can. Okay … Okay … Oh, Hasan Bey, before I forget. We’re going to Ordu this Friday morning, the 12th. My father’s not well. I’m sorry about that. What? … Okay then … Call me at once if there’s anything we can do. And tell your wife we wish her a speedy recovery—It went dead!”

  Ali ran down the hallway when he heard his father’s name, and stood in front of my dad. He kept his eyes on Dad the whole time he was talking. Ali got a light in his eye. His mouth was open. The light went out, though, when Dad said, “It went dead!” Ali closed his mouth, tight, like it was locked. Dad patted him on the head again. Dad thinks Ali will talk if you pat him on the head.

  “Don’t worry, Ali. Your mom’s fine. But she’ll be staying in the hospital for a couple of days. We’re leaving for Ordu on Friday and they’ll get you before then. In the meantime, you and Ayşe … Right, Ayşe? You and your friend can spend lots of time together until then.”

  “Why’d you say that, Aydın?” Mom said. “You more or less told him he has to get Ali before Friday.” I took Ali out onto the balcony. A light went on in the dark room in Samim and Ayla’s house, and then it went off. We both saw it, but we didn’t say anything. Sounds came from the police station, terrible sounds, but we didn’t say anything. There were other sounds, too, like the happy song coming from Jale Hanım’s apartment. And there were the big brothers and sisters racing through the street. The mulberry tree whispered, and still we didn’t say anything. Finally, Ali talked.

  “I saw your shoes by the door. They’re dirty.”

  “Do you want some Şokella?”

  “Birgül Abla always takes off her shoes, but she thought rich people didn’t.”

  “She has nice hair.”

  Then we had some Şokella on bread. Ali didn’t eat all of his, though. He left half of it, because his mom is sick and she can’t have any. If my mom was sick, I’d leave half, too.

  When we went to bed in my room, Ali said, “Tell me about the butterflies and how they got into Parliament.” I told him everything. “They were orange,” I said. I’m mad at Mom. And Dad, too. They wanted butterflies in Parliament, but then they got scared when we did it. “Did Auntie Aliye bleed,” I asked, “all over the floor?” Ali was asleep, though.

  —

  “He’s with us, watchman! Let him go!”

  Ayşe begged a lot for her grandma to take us to the park. I didn’t say anything when she asked if I wanted to go, so her grandma said, “All right, it’ll do the boy good.” I want to “scout out” the park. That’s what you do before you “take action,” and that’s why Ayşe begged her grandma so much.

  Ayşe’s grandma was sitting on a bench in Swan Park, reading the newspaper with another woman and talking about Bülent Ersoy. That’s all they ever talk about now.

  “You can’t go mincing around like that and then cry your eyes out when they throw you in jail.”

  “Nobody should be thrown in jail.”

  “Enough is enough. It’s time the state flexed its muscles. Our very survival depends on it.”

  “And what would you have the state do?”

  “They say the army’s going to seize control. And I say, let them. Somebody’s got to impose some order on this country. Then we’ll all know where we stand.”

  Ayşe was sitting on a swing, and I was looking at the swans. Then those kids came to the park, the ones from the shantytowns. They were yelling and carrying on so everyone would look at them.

  They climbed on top of the swing set and stood on the edge of the slide. They made the seesaw go all the way up and they crashed it to the ground with a thud. The watchman came running over, blowing his whistle. The kids were running away when the watchman caught one of them. The other kids stopped running and started cursing, so the watchman hit the one he’d grabbed. I walked over there. Slowly, right up to the watchman. He grabbed me, too. I didn’t make a sound, just stood there.

  “Stop disturbing the peace, you little bastards. Get the hell out of the park!”

  The other kids yelled and cursed so he’d let me go. The watchman was from a shantytown, too. I could tell from his shoes. Ayşe got off the swing. She looked over at her grandma, but her grandma didn’t see, didn’t hear. Ayşe took a step closer to me and looked at her grandma again. The other kids didn’t run away. Ayşe didn’t come over to me. Finally, her grandma yelled.

  “He’s with us, watchman! Le
t him go!”

  That’s when Ayşe ran up to me. She held my hand and tugged. The watchman was pulling me by the scruff of the neck, and Ayşe was tugging my hand.

  “Uncle Watchman! He’s one of us. He’s not with them. Let him go!”

  The other kids went quiet and stared at me. Ayşe didn’t see how they looked at me, but I did. They laughed at me, and left.

  Me and Ayşe sat on the swings. The woman talking to Ayşe’s grandma got up and went, so it was just the three of us. Ayşe’s grandmother didn’t know how to talk to me, not with my mom in the hospital. Ayşe didn’t know how to talk to me, because she didn’t yell at the watchman. Nobody was talking. So I did.

  “I can’t save the swans without you, Ayşe.”

  Ayşe got happy again.

  “Really?”

  Me and Ayşe went over and looked at the swans. You can always see their eyes, but just one of them. I can see and so can Ayşe. She took my hand. “I wish I was one of you,” she said. I shook my head. No. The swans looked at us for a while with one eye, and then they turned and looked at us with the other eye. I wonder if they see the same thing with both eyes?

  Ayşe was happy to talk now.

  “When we save the swans, I’ll be one of you, won’t I?”

  “Nope!”

  “Why not? I won’t be like Mom and Dad anymore. I’ll be like you.”

  “It won’t make any difference. But let’s save the swans. In a way, everyone will be saved if the swans are.”

  The back of my neck burned all the way home. I was running a temperature. That’s what Ayşe’s grandma said. I stayed in bed until dinner, when that detective came. Ayşe sat next to me and held my hand. I didn’t like it, but I let her so she wouldn’t be scared. Ayşe’s grandma said it three times: “Here it is, September the 10th, but this Ankara heat is still so oppressive.”

  Uncle Detective yelled down the stairs from our front door.

  “Shut your door, ma’am. And keep it closed.”

  He laughed, but the angry kind of laugh.

  “Is that the neighbor you were talking about, Aydın Abi? What’s her problem, anyway?”

  “What did she do now?”

  “You won’t believe this. She must have called the police. As I came up the stairs, I heard her yakking about how her upstairs neighbors were communists and so were the tenants in the next building. Anyway, I sent the officer back to the station and told her to mind her own business.”

  Dad turned to Grandma.

  “Did you hear that, Nejla Hanım? So much for ‘meaning well.’ What do you think of your Jale Hanım now?

  “She’s taken umbrage over my refusal to make her dress. Perhaps I should go down and talk to her. What do you think, Sevgi? We have to do something. It’s shameful what she’s done.”

  “Everybody’s gone crazy, Mother. How do you reason with a woman who just called the police on us?”

  Uncle Detective spoke to Grandma as he was pulling off his shoe.

  “I’d stay out of it, Nejla Hanım. Sevgi’s right. Everybody’s gone crazy. Just the other day, in Amasya, a group of fascists and revolutionaries got into a fight over a cat. Two people were killed. And they cut off the mukhtar’s head.”

  “What next!” Dad said. Mom pointed to me.

  “Not in front of …”

  Grandma shut her open mouth.

  Dad took the detective by the arm.

  “Let’s go to the living room, Nahit.”

  Uncle Detective gave Dad some keys.

  “Here you go, Aydın Abi. Bring it back whenever you want. I can always use the patrol car in the meantime. I might even sell it to you if you’re interested. We’ll talk after you’ve given the clunker a test run to Ordu and back. What I was really wondering about was that investigation. Sevgi, has anything happened with that?”

  “Sevgi can handle it, Detective. Don’t worry about it. They’ve concocted some trumped-up charges—immorality, or what have you. Typical Koran thumpers. They think they can intimidate women by attacking their so-called virtue. Sevgi’s laughing it off as best she can.”

  Even though Mom’s mad at Dad, I thought I saw her smile when she walked to the kitchen. Dad poured Uncle Detective a glass of rakı in the living room.

  Uncle Detective tossed some papers onto the coffee table.

  “Huh? How’d I end up with that?”

  “With what?”

  “You remember Timur, the journalist? Well, I was trying to relax with a drink at the meyhane and he came up, mad as hell, and gave me an earful. Apparently, tomorrow’s the anniversary of the Chilean coup, and he’d been planning to publish a transcript of Allende’s last speech. At the last minute, the Istanbul office refused. Timur was furious; it was all he could talk about. Anyway, he was waving that transcript in my face and I grabbed it. Then I must have stuck it in my pocket.”

  “You’re up to your neck in transcripts and letters, Detective.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Nothing. Let me see that. It’s been years since I read it.”

  Mom made Ali rice soup. Sick soup. Bits of parsley floated in it, all green. Me and Ali were catching the lemon seeds. Ali’s “traumatized,” that’s what Mom said, and that’s why he’s “running a temperature.” He’s better now, and he can eat. Dad gave us a happy-sad look while we were having our soup. He pounded his fist on the table so hard the seeds jumped off the spoon.

  “Kids, Allende was an amazing man. He was the president of Chile, a nice country in South America. The poor people loved him, and the rich people hated him. And that’s why the rich people had him killed.”

  When Dad said “Allende,” I pictured a spoon of soft, sweet pudding. Chocolate.

  Dad put little squares of cheese on a plate. Mom turned up the TV. When terrible things happen, the TV is always turned up.

  “… the warden allegedly opened fire on political prisoners and other inmates at Mamak Penitentiary. Democratic organizations have condemned the …”

  Dad began reading out loud because he wanted me and Ali to hear it, too. Ali put his hand over his ear.

  “…I will pay for loyalty to the people with my life. And I say to them that I am certain that the seed which we have planted in the good conscience of thousands and thousands of Chileans will not be shriveled forever…. History is ours, and people make history.”

  The lady on TV put down a piece of paper and picked up another one.

  “Referring to Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel’s description of the state treasury as ‘completely depleted,’ a spokesman for the main opposition asserted that the prime minister’s statement was a tacit admission that ‘wild capitalism’ can only be successfully implemented under a Latin American–style military dictatorship …”

  Dad was reading the chocolate pudding paper in the voice of a student reciting a poem on National Sovereignty and Children’s Day.

  “The people must defend themselves, but they must not sacrifice themselves. The people must not let themselves be destroyed or riddled with bullets, but they cannot be humiliated either.”

  There were men with bushy beards on TV. They had big wooden prayer beads hanging from their necks.

  “Reactions continue to the ‘Liberating Jerusalem’ demonstration staged by the National Salvation Party in Konya. Organizers are facing charges for the event, during which protesters sat on the ground during the National Anthem and shouted Islamist slogans such as ‘The Koran is our Constitution!’ and ‘We want Sharia!’”

  Ali put his other hand over his other ear. Now he can’t hear the pudding paper or the TV. He put down his spoon.

  “Go forward knowing that, sooner rather than later, the great avenues will open again where free men will walk to build a better society…. These are my last words, and I am certain that my sacrifice will not be in vain.”

  On TV, fat men in ties are having a nice dinner somewhere.

  “Referring to the ongoing nationwide labor union strikes, Halit Narin, the chairma
n of the Turkish Confederation of Employer Associations, warned that production would stagnate unless State Security Courts were established …”

  When Dad was finished, he nodded his head “yes” a couple of times. Then he turned to me.

  “How much of that did you understand, Ayşe?”

  I didn’t answer. Ali’s not talking, so I didn’t answer.

  “What about you, Ali?”

  Ali looked at Dad. Looked like crazy, and it scared Dad and Mom and Grandma. I’m the only one who can look Ali in the eye. I didn’t help him in the park today, though, so I can’t really say anything. We didn’t answer Dad.

  Mom cleared the dinner plates.

  “Okay, kids, off you go to your room.” She said something to Dad, too, but real quiet, when we were in the hallway.

  “Aydın, the boy’s feeling overwhelmed as it is. Reading out that entire speech …”

  Me and Ali went out onto the balcony, where it’s dark and windy. The light went on again in Samim Abi’s secret room. But this time there were three people in the room! I could tell, even behind the curtains. A man and two women. The light went out. “Oh!” I said. Ali said nothing. The streetlight was shining yellow on Ali’s face. He smiled. He finally smiled. He pointed at Samim Abi’s house and laughed.

  “When we save the swans, they’ll come out of there. Hüseyin Abi and Birgül Abla. Do you understand?”

  “But what will happen if we go to Ordu and don’t save the swans?”

  “That won’t happen. We’ll do it.”

  Then we stuck our feet through the gaps in the iron rail. Ali put his mouth against the metal.

  “There has to be a sacrifice!”

  There was that speech by the chocolate pudding man, that’s why Ali is sad. And he has a hole in his sock. Two reasons. We fell asleep.

  In the evening, there was a bang bang on the door. I was making curlicues in the margins of my notebook. I felt bad. Ever since that phone call this morning …

  “Aydın, run! The phone’s ringing. The operator must have got through to Ordu.”

  “I’m coming, Nejla Hanım. There’s no need to panic.”

  Grandma’s scared of the phone, but not a lot. She thinks it’s going to break, or go quiet, or that we’ll miss whoever’s on the other end. Mom and Dad were getting ready for work. Ali and I were in the kitchen. Ali was putting his olive pits right on the table and I was picking them up and putting them on his plate. He doesn’t know it’s shameful.