—
Mom and Dad changed everything while we were sleeping. The books are gone. Grandma’s lace is where the books were. And on the lace, they put cups. The ones that were in the cupboard. We have a vase, too, a red one. They never put flowers in it. Now it’s on the shelf. And there’s a lamp, a colorful one, they put there, too. While we were sleeping, our house turned into Jale Hanım’s house. It’s different. I uncovered my tummy. Then I uncovered Ali’s. “Look, Ali,” I said. “We both have belly buttons.” Then we both had a bath. Mom kept yelling out to Grandma.
“Mother, why are you making so much soup?”
—
Ayşe’s mom forgot to dry our heads. We went out in the street with wet hair. Me and Ayşe sat on cushions in the very back of the car. Her grandma put the swan to sleep and then they put it in a sack. “Look, Ali. The swan’s bill is right here in the sack,” Ayşe’s grandma said. “Are you listening, Ayşe? When the swan wakes up, I’ll give you a bit of cotton. Hold it right here. Do you understand?” We nodded our heads “yes.” “Good for you, children,” Ayşe’s grandma said.
—
Grandma filled two pots with soup while we were having breakfast. She was running all around, so Mom said, “Okay, Mother. I give up. There’s no talking sense to you.” Grandma was laughing. Mom stuck pieces of honey-covered toast in our mouths, and so did Dad. Grandma kept laughing. When Mom and Dad went to the hall to put on their shoes, Grandma looked at us. Then she turned to the stove. We heard it, twice: plop plop.
Dad said to Mom, “We’ll just have to leave the guns here. We’ll take our chances.” Then he yelled, “Our IDs! Sevgi, did you get our ID cards? Okay, good.” Holding the two pots, one on top of the other, Grandma said to us, “Okay, children. Go on out to the car.” We went down the stairs, me and Ali, like we were sleeping, but we were waking up, too, sometimes. It was all mixed up. We got in the car.
—
Ayşe’s dad asked.
“What’s keeping your mother, Sevgi?”
“She’s coming. She’s a little slow on the stairs.”
“Sevgi, it’s seven o’clock. We have to get going.”
“Keep your voice down. You’ll wake up the neighbors.”
Ayşe’s grandma came. She was holding her bag over her belly. “Oh!” she said, getting in the car. She laughed.
“What’s taking you so long? Floor it, Captain!”
Ayşe’s mom and dad looked at each other. The car started. Ayşe’s grandma opened the window.
“Oh! Nice and cool!” she said. She laughed again. Then she put one hand on Ayşe’s mom’s shoulder and one hand on her dad’s.
“Children, I left two pots of soup in front of Jale Hanim’s door. And inside the soup are two parting gifts. Ha Ha! Let them explain that to the police!”
Ayşe’s mom and dad looked at each other. They looked back at us. They looked through the side window and laughed.
“What a day!” Grandma said. “You’ll never forget it.”
—
“ID cards!” said the soldier. Mom handed them over.
“There are only four cards. There are five of you.”
Grandma spoke in her nice, old lady voice.
“The little boy is our cleaning lady’s son. We’re going to drop him off on the way. The poor kids have come down with measles. Oh, such a botheration, my dear boy.”
Grandma’s laughing, and everyone’s looking at her. Nobody else is talking. The soldier looks at the ID cards. For a long time. He pokes his head inside the car again. He looks around. He looks at Dad. None of us are breathing.
“Continue!”
We all let our breath go. It was so exciting. We drove along, nobody talking, until we reached the sign with the red “X” over Ankara. That means we’re not in Ankara anymore. Dad turned on the radio. Children were singing.
How lovely you’ll find it
If you travel through Anatolia
Leaving your cares behind
As you travel through Anatolia
There are crystal streams …
Dad pointed to a little house, far up on a hilltop.
“Do you see that, Ayşe? You could have been born up there in that house. If you had, perhaps you wouldn’t go to school. You’d have had ten brothers and sisters to look after. You’d lead your herd of goats along mountain paths and never have any books.”
“Look, children!” Grandma yelled. “Seagulls, here, in the middle of the steppe.”
“Mother, they follow the trucks transporting fish to Ankara from the Black Sea. Then some of them lose their way. What else would a seagull be doing out here?”
Nobody spoke. The children kept singing on the radio.
There are wonderful places
If you travel through Anatolia.
Mom started crying, suddenly. Quietly at first. Then real loud. Dad stopped the car. He threw down his cigarette. They both got out. There wasn’t a sound out on the road.
—
We stopped by the poplars. Ayşe’s mom’s hair got messed up by the wind. The poplars all leaned to the same side, away from the wind. Ayşe’s mom and dad stopped in front of the poplars. He gave her a cigarette. He looked for his lighter. They stood there with cigarettes in their mouths. The one in her mouth was shaking. Her lips were crying, so she couldn’t close her mouth, not all the way. Ayşe’s dad squatted on the ground. When someone dies, they squat in front of the house. That’s how he squatted. He held his head in his hands. I climbed from the back of the station wagon into the second seat. I opened the door and went outside. I went up and looked at them. They were so scared. It was sad! Like they’d had a bad dream. I pulled it out of my pocket and held it in front of Ayşe’s dad’s nose. He lifted his head. He looked at me. He looked at my hand. He looked at me again. He held out his hand.
“Samim’s lighter …”
Ayşe’s mom was facing us, her dad the poplars. He threw his cigarette on the ground. He put the lighter in his pocket.
UNIT 18
The Master of the Nation Is the Villager
The People of Anatolia Are Forgiving
“Following the imposition of martial law, life has returned to normal throughout the nation. This morning, at Samsun Penitentiary, left- and right-wing inmates emerged from their respective prison wards and embraced each other in a gesture of reconciliation. The inmates declared that from now on they will happily share the same ward…. In response to calls for their surrender, the leaders of the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions lined up in front of the Selimiye Army Barracks today. Asserting that they have done nothing indefensible, the labor union officials stood in line awaiting their turn. They were sent home and told to return to the barracks tomorrow…. The generals seated on the National Security Council …”
Ayşe’s mom turned off the radio and rolled down the window. She stuck her hand outside, thumb pressed against her four fingers. She kept sticking her hand into the wind and pulling it out again. Sticking her hand into the wind and then—whee!—pulling it out, again and again. Fields passed by under her hand. Electric poles passed by. Her hand sometimes went up to the sky, with the birds, then down to the earth, floating over the yellow grasses. When it dove down, her hand was a dolphin; when it flew up, a swan. She turned around and looked at us with red eyes.
“Kids, why did you kidnap the swan from the park?”
It went quiet inside the car, the hush of waiting. Ayşe was waiting for me to say it.
“We didn’t kidnap it. We saved it.”
“Okay, then, you saved it! But why, Ali?”
We didn’t say a word. Ayşe’s mom smiled at us and asked, “Aren’t you going to tell me?” Ayşe got a little mad.
“What’s there not to understand! Goodness gracious!”
—
Mom and Dad laughed to themselves. Mom lit a cigarette. Then she squashed the packet in the palm of her hand. “Good for you, children!” Grandma said. “Well done! Bravo! Right, Sevgi?”
“What can I say? Bravo!”
“Children, that bird will be needing some water. Aydın, shall we stop at a fountain? Son?”
“Dad, it woke up! The swan’s awake.”
We stopped. When we opened the sack, the swan’s head came out, and out, and out. “How are we going to manage this?” Mom and Dad said. They didn’t do anything. It was Grandma who brought the swan some water cupped in her hand. We let it drink all it wanted. “Pet it like this, Ayşe,” Ali said. We pet it for a while. Mom and Dad didn’t even touch it. Mom sat over by the water, on the concrete. Dad sat down, too. While we were sitting with the swan, something rolled up to Mom’s foot. An apple! Then I saw a lot of apples. They must have rolled there. Ali got out of the car and picked up an apple. He hit it on a rock, and put the pieces in front of the swan.
—
When Ayşe’s grandma sat next to the swan, her mom called us over. She was smoking. Her eyes were still red. She put her hand on our foreheads. Then she looked at our bellies and our faces, up close. She looked at our red spots and laughed when Ayşe asked, “Mom, can swans get measles, too?” She hugged Ayşe. Then she saw me and hugged me, too. We sat next to the water. Me and Ayşe were so tired.
—
Dad went up ahead and peed. Mom stroked our foreheads as she talked.
“Ayşe … Ali … There’s something I want to tell you. It’s important. There are times … now, how do I put this? For instance, imagine a rare animal suddenly appears one day. Let’s say a seal comes ashore in a seaside town. Or a dolphin peeks out from the water. There could be a bird nobody’s ever seen before, or a tiger. When these rare creatures show up, people can sometimes be cruel. They instinctively seek to capture, to cage. But not always. Sometimes, it’s different; sometimes, it’s better. Ayşe, before you were born, before I’d even met your father, a pelican arrived out of the blue one day. It happened in Ankara, in a place called Öveçler. An old granny got the pelican and kept it with her chickens. Winter was coming, so she knit the pelican a pair of booties. It was such a strange and alien thing to her, this pelican far from its nest, all alone. Weird … But this strange pelican didn’t want to wear booties. Worried its feet would get cold, the granny kept struggling to get those booties on the pelican. She kept that pelican with her all the time, as though it were a pet dog. It was our pelican in booties, and me and my revolutionary friends loved it a lot….”
—
Ayşe’s mom’s eyes are red from crying, but she’s laughing now. She’s imitating the old granny, moving her arms and making funny faces. Ayşe’s laughing. When those two laugh together, they’re so beautiful. Ayşe’s mom strokes both our faces.
“Kids … on the radio and on the TV, they’re going to say that all the revolutionary big brothers and sisters were deceived, were fooled. That’s what they always do, and maybe they even believe it…. But now the kind of people who capture tigers and seals, pelicans and swans, are in charge. The ones who’d make fun of the granny knitting booties for a pelican. The ones who’d look at a seal and say, “I wonder where I can sell it? How much money would I get?” The ones who want everyone and everything to be exactly the same, even the birds and the fish and the horses. Do you understand, kids?”
Ayşe’s mom washed both our faces, and splashed water on the backs of our necks and on our ears. Her hand feels different now. It feels like my mom’s hand.
—
Dad yelled to us. He was standing alone under a tree.
“Sevgi! Look at all these apples. They’re falling from the tree.”
Mom took us by the hand and we walked over to the apple tree. She held out her skirt to make a big lap.
“Go on, kids. Gather them up.”
We laughed while we picked up the apples. Because they’re yellow, and little, and like bouncy puppies. Mom said to Dad, “Not everything’s rotten.” Dad said, “They’d have rotted if we hadn’t stopped.” After a little bit, Mom said something.
“Surely, someone would have stopped.”
Grandma came up, too, and made an apple lap with her skirt. Me and Ali filled it up. We laughed a lot. So much that Dad went to the car and got his camera.
“Wait, let me take a photo.”
Mom and Grandma showed the camera the apples in their skirts. We all turned into apples for the camera, and it was funny. Dad put the camera on the wall of the fountain. While it was going beep beep, faster and faster, he ran over and put his arm around Mom. “Run, Aydın, run!” Grandma was saying as he ran up to us, all happy, to get in the photo he was taking. We were waiting for the clack when noise came from the road. A whole line of trucks, army trucks. Mom’s hand shook. An apple fell from her skirt. Slowly, Mom and Dad weren’t laughing anymore. Ali wasn’t laughing, either. The clack came. The apple that fell from Mom’s skirt rolled over to the fountain.
—
I got the fallen apple from the fountain. I put it in front of the swan. We fell asleep in the back seat.
—
The car woke me and Ali up, chick chack. I had my head in Grandma’s lap. Ali was sleeping on my rear end. Mom’s voice seemed far away.
“Kids, wake up. We’re going to stop for lunch and I’ll give you some aspirin. Then we’ll—”
“Sevgi, the car’s making a strange noise. And it doesn’t accelerate like it should. I’d better get it checked at the next gas station.”
“Sevgi, my girl, I need to get some mints and cologne. I’m getting carsick.”
—
Ayşe’s grandma went to the restroom. There was this old man when me and Ayşe were getting out of the car. He had one of those hats for praying on his head. There was a fountain, and he was behind it, praying. When he was done, he rubbed his hands on his face and yelled.
“Praise be to God! They kept talking about a revolution. But what did they want to overthrow? Huh? May God watch over our army.”
There were lots of soldiers in jeeps. They laughed at the old man. One of them said, “That’s enough, hadji. Get back to work.” The old man kept yelling. “Tell me, what were they revolting against?” Another soldier said, “Okay, calm down, uncle. Bless you.”
Ali’s mouth stayed open when he was looking at the old man. I was looking at the soldiers. They were holding loaves of bread. The cheese in the bread was so little. They were showing each other the cheese, not even enough to fill a roll. One of them looked at me. He smiled. Then he looked at the others to check if they’d seen.
—
Ayşe’s mom took us inside. There were lots of things in there. Little things. Plastic dolls with eyes painted blue, but the paint leaking outside the eyes. Their terrible eyes. There were skeleton keychains. And lighters saying “Turkey.” There were little rugs for doing prayers, and on them, compasses showing Mecca. There were wooden things showing the Turkish flag, to put on a table or hang on the wall. There were three books: Peace of Mind Is in Islam, 100 Reasons to Take Pride in Turkishness, and Dishes of Anatolia. There were bags and bags of candy. Shiny mints. Sweets shaped like white stones in boxes saying MEVLANA CANDY and COME, WHOEVER YOU ARE. Eggs made of marble. Lots of them. Pencils made of wood, but too big to get your hand around. Wooden sugar bowls, all splintery. Giant prayer beads, one after another, made of wood. A bunch of toy guns, in different colors. Houses made of matchsticks, glue dripping down. Colorful lamps with the Kaaba inside. On the floor, little statues of cats and dogs, but nothing else. They all had messy paint. Everything was ugly, very ugly.
—
The old man came inside and went behind the counter. It was his shop, and it smelled like roasted chickpeas. He started yelling again.
“If only they’d just come out and said it. What they were revolting against?”
The man seemed to be asking Mom, but she didn’t answer. He asked another question.
“Peace be upon you, sister. What can I get you?”
“Cigarettes.”
“I can’t get my head around it. What about the, you kno
w, state? Let’s say, you know, they had brought down the state? Well, then what? Right, sister? I mean, if they, you know, knew what they wanted and then they did it, well then, maybe I could understand. But it was nothing like that, and the state hits right back with a heavy hand, you know. Serves them right!”
Mom whispered.
“The voice of the people. In all its tongue-tied glory.”
“What’s that, sister?” the man asked. “And some—you know—mints,” Mom said. But he didn’t hear her, because he was yelling.
“Let’s say they did get their revolution. What then? You can’t live off the fat of the land and then turn on your own state. Now, can you?”
—
Maybe because I was looking at the man too much, Ayşe pulled my pinkie. But it was the poster in the window I was looking at. The one the man had stuck there.
“Spreadable cheese! Spread it on thick! Eat it up!”
There was this boy in the poster, with cheese all over his mouth, smiling, but a nasty smile. The man wasn’t done yelling.
“They don’t know their own people! But the real people of this country know who’s, you know, looking out for them. Those anarchists don’t know nothing!”
The man was yelling, but he was scared, I think. He was afraid of the revolution, but now he’s yelling because he’s not afraid anymore. I let out a kick. A kick at the ugly dog and cat statues. The man didn’t see. One of them fell over. Ayşe’s mom saw, but she didn’t say anything. “Come on, kids,” she said. “Let’s go.”
The Time of Mute Swans Page 37