Noontime in Yenisehir

by Sevgi Soysal

  In high school Olcay continued to feed her passion for reading, this time without obstruction. She was liked because of her silent, agreeable demeanor. She neither stood out nor angered anyone. She spent most of her time either reading or studying for class. She was a good student. Sitting at her desk, she declared a gradually escalating war against the whole of her unsound childhood. Wielding her will power, she battled first her cowardliness and then her sluggishness. By her senior year, she was no longer the same insular girl she had once been. She played sports. When she became ill, she didn’t go to the doctor, she didn’t take medicine. She gradually became sounder, and more at ease in her body. And she began taking part in social activities too. She spread herself unnecessarily thin. She was involved in everything, from theater to the school magazine. Meanwhile, her interest in books had waned a bit. At the time, Camus became her favorite author. Love of humanity and inevitable failure … She felt an affinity with this point of view. She read The Stranger with unabated passion. For her, the negative fate of unchosen relationships conjured up memories of her childhood and its unhealthiness. She read Sartre’s The Wall. The wall of lovelessness from her childhood loomed once again in her mind. The book spoke of completely different things, of course, but still it released a kind of pessimism within her, reawakening the fiends, demons and giants of her childhood. The shapes on the curtain came to life once again. Evil, invincible tendrils grew out of the curtains, reaching towards her. At that point, in order not to suffer defeat in the battle she had declared against unhealthiness, Olcay stopped reading.

  One day during her senior year, her brother, who had just returned from a trip to Paris, came to see her. It wasn’t his first visit. Since he’d gotten back from Paris, he sometimes came out to see her on Wednesdays, when he took trips to Istanbul with his friends. They’d go to the cinema, or sometimes to the theater. The two siblings hadn’t spoken much as children. They’d never opened up to one another. Growing up they were detached, separated by the wall of lovelessness. They’d watched the wall with sunken hearts. But their mutual participation in the same process had given birth to an affinity between them. Olcay knew that the kids in the neighborhood had made fun of Doğan too, that they called him a “sissy,” and that, despite all their efforts to spoil him, his parents had actually made life a virtual prison for him. His mother never allocated more than two meatballs per person. But she always gave the maid’s share to her son, so that he’d have enough. This aggravated Olcay to no end. When her brother got home from school, their mother would take from the refrigerator the dessert or fruit that she had saved for him—and which would have been usurped from the others’ share—and place it before him. Because her love for her son was incapable of conquering her stinginess, she made others pay for that love. One winter, she didn’t have a new coat sewn for her daughter, even though the latter’s coat was nearly in tatters; instead, she had her own old coat altered for Olcay. And then she went and coughed up the money for a bicycle for her son in the spring. It was tiny details like these which had created a rift between Olcay and her brother. Even if they did suffer the same pain, she did not feel as if she were on equal terms with him. That’s why when she lay in bed at night, heavy with the weight of her nightmares, crying and pulling her blanket over her head out of fear, not once did she ever go to his room, not once did she ever consider seeking refuge at his side. Still, seeing their mother’s pettiness and hearing their father’s dry, static, narrow-minded words was something they had in common, and it made them kin.

  When her brother showed up one Wednesday, he told her that they wouldn’t be able to go to the movies because he was meeting a friend. Did she need anything?

  “No,” Olcay had said, but then added, “Can’t you take me to meet your friend?” She was just as shocked by her own question as her brother was. It was the first time she’d reached out, trying to extend herself into Doğan’s circle. For a while Doğan didn’t respond, his silence accompanied by a serious expression on his face.

  “You still reading?”

  “Not for a while now.”

  “Why not?”

  “I read The Wall, and it really got me down and so, I don’t know, it just seemed like reading was bad for me.”

  “Read other books. One nail drives out another.”

  Olcay was stunned by Doğan’s response. The Doğan she knew didn’t express his thoughts directly; instead, he tried to explain them using long, complicated sentences. She generally listened to her brother with a mixed feeling of alienation and respect. Could it be that the change she sensed in Doğan but could not quite grasp might diffuse the alienation separating them?

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s easy. If The Wall scared you, or rather, confused you, it’s silly to give up reading because of it. Running away from the wall isn’t the only solution. A wall is something that can be scaled, overcome.”

  Olcay looked askance at Doğan. He had a thin face and closely set eyes. He was no longer the chubby, chunky boy he’d been as a child. If only I had a boyfriend like him, she thought. An old, familiar sense of melancholy fell over her.

  “Still, some don’t have the legs to scale the wall …” She liked this different sort of interest that Doğan was taking in her, and she wanted to make it continue.

  “Have you tried your legs out enough?”

  Doğan paused. Looking at his sister, he struggled to recognize her.

  “Wait, I don’t think I did a very good job explaining. I mean, Olcay, sweetheart, what I mean to say is …”

  Using his hand he drew a circle in the air.

  “The world isn’t all that complicated. And so, maybe the chaos that you refer to as ‘a wall’ isn’t really anything to be afraid of after all. It’s simple, completely understandable. And there are books that can help you to understand. You can read them. And then once you understand, you won’t be scared of some old wall anymore. Okay?”

  Olcay didn’t respond. The two of them remained quiet. They were walking along the Bosphorus. It was spring. Olcay was suddenly overcome by an urge to hop into one of the many caicques along the shore and paddle her way up the strait. Even the Bosphorus opened onto the sea, so why shouldn’t the wall be surmountable? Doğan was right. For a while she gazed upon the beauty of the opposite shore, which appeared to draw closer.

  “Look, I can’t tell you right now why, but your words, they seem right to me Doğan. I can feel it, here.”

  She pointed at her heart.

  “I mean, how can I put it, it’s just that, since just now, I love you even more.”

  Doğan lowered his head. He seemed embarrassed by his sister’s words.

  “I’ll introduce you to Ali, if you want.”

  Olcay nodded. Together they walked. In her mind she was paddling, using her arms, which she had always thought so weak, those arms which had always avoided struggle. The sun warmed her on the inside and illuminated the darkness that was pregnant with demons and nightmares. The sea was near.

  Olcay tries out her legs

  Mevhibe Hanım removed the glasses that Nurten Hanım had put in the wrong place and put them where they belonged. Once she had understood that her daughter was about to leave without a proper explanation, she asked, in the shrill voice she assumed in such situations:

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the party headquarters …”

  “What party? This is the first time I’m hearing anything about a party?”

  “Don’t worry, it’s not called The People’s Party, though it has a lot more to do with the people than that party does …”

  “What’s wrong with the People’s Party? It’s your grandfather’s party.”

  “Riiight … Well, that only reinforces my views.”

  “As if you could have any views! You’re a knee-high little girl. And my father was a brilliant man.”

  “True, it’s obvious from all the land he acquired.”

  “You think he didn’t des
erve it? Those men saved this country. A person who doesn’t care about their family can’t be expected to care about their homeland. You think people like you who haven’t a shred of respect for their parents are going to save this nation, do you?”

  “I have no such lofty notions. But I can see with my own eyes. And I don’t like to ignore what I see.”

  “Well, I hope with those eyes you can also see how messy your room is. You don’t even know how to run a household yet. I’ll be disgraced if you get married.”

  “Disgraced before whom?”

  “Who do you think, the mother of the dimwit silly enough to marry you.”

  “Oh, now that just brings tears to my eyes! But I’d rather not be a disgrace to myself … Why are you looking at me like that? Of course, it’s all my fault. I should have known better than to think you would ever understand me …”

  Mevhibe Hanım looked at her fingernails. They were dirty. She couldn’t possibly get her nails done before the hospital visit. They took care of all kinds of things there, including diapers. They didn’t wash the diapers themselves of course. They accompanied and assisted the personnel and nurses. She could have her nails done tomorrow. Oh, the stress of it all. She was sick and tired of having to deal with everything about this house. Wound taut with frustration, she turned to her daughter:

  “And just why wouldn’t I understand? My father always said I was smart. In fact, he regretted not sending me to university …”

  “‘Regret’ you say? If that man ever regretted anything it was that he got the deed for the vineyards of Küçükesat when he could have had the vineyards of Kavaklıdere.”

  “Of course he did. But to whose foresight do you owe your prestigious high school degree, little lady? My father’s ….”

  “I never asked to be sent to that private high school though, did I?”

  Now red in the face, Olcay looked at her mother’s misgendered body, the top half so thin, the bottom half so thick. Why do I get so angry at her? After all, she’s just another person. Besides that, she’s my mother. Perhaps, by being so contrary, she’s actually helps me to see the truth. If she treated me with the warmth and understanding I wished for, perhaps I’d go soft. I wouldn’t be on a quest for love. I wouldn’t be on a quest at all.

  She recalled the building attendant Rüstem Effendi, who often carried Olcay in his arms and took her for walks in the garden, and bought her things like candy and gum when she was little.

  One day when Rüstem showed up at the door, in a burst of excitement she ran to him, wrapped her arms around his legs, and kissed the knees of his pants. Why would she do such a thing? Her mother had been furious with her. “Aren’t you ashamed to kiss those filthy pants?” Later, she locked Olcay up in the storage room for half a day as punishment.

  She looked at her mother again. She recalled her mother’s directives, given after she’d completed her punishment in the storage room, on how to behave in front of attendants and other such people, sentences like: “You can’t understand them, they belong to a whole different world, and if you don’t behave accordingly, they’ll never respect you, they’ll ridicule you …” Spoken like she’s speaking now, with tautly drawn lips. After that, Olcay never sat on Rüstem’s lap again, and she quit accepting the gum. Later, a very short while later, her father fired Rüstem, claiming that he’d cheated them on the money for coal. Olcay considered whether or not her mother was right. Did she really not know these people? She thought of what Ali had said: “People of your class possess a kind of raw naivete. You view issues not from the perspective of class, but with a teary-eyed tenderheartedness. You don’t know the people, and you don’t try to. And in turn, they don’t trust you. Tears and feelings of guilt aren’t very important or, more precisely, useful for them. Neither do they feel guilty, nor are they tenderhearted. They’re suspicious and, when necessary, traitorous. For them, this has nothing to do with being kind-or evil-hearted; it has everything to do with survival. And that requires heft. They don’t care much for the weak. Neither good intentions nor a love of mankind are enough to secure their belief in you. Just the opposite. They’ll want proof that you’ve joined them. They’ll want you to break the bonds that divide you from them. That is, your bonds with the system. Because the object known as the heart can suddenly grow hard, and when it does, you can easily slip back into your old ways. And that’s precisely why they don’t trust you. The whole ‘sitting pretty’ spiel. And they’ll continue to be suspicious of you so long as they believe you could turn around and go back …” As he spoke these words, Ali had looked Olcay over from head to toe, eyeing the bag her father had brought her from Italy, her plain but stylish clothing.

  In a way, Ali had spoken like Olcay’s mother:

  “You’ll never understand them!”

  Olcay was overcome by a new feeling of loneliness. For a moment, she felt like not going to the party headquarters, like shutting herself up in her room and thinking. Would the shapes in the curtain turn into frightening demons again? Would nightmares besiege her once more?

  Olcay approached her mother. She understood that upsetting her did neither of them any good. What would it change? She kissed her mother on the cheek.

  “Alright, Mom, have a good day. See you this evening …”

  Mevhibe’s long face did not brighten up, not in the least. Whenever her children fell out of step, she would inevitably remain sour at them for some time.

  “If you like helping so much, why don’t you come to the hospital with me? Look, it’s not just talk, it’s real work. As my father would say, ‘Fine words butter no parsnips.’ There are so many children there in need of help. There aren’t enough nurses, and the ones they do have are ignorant. There are some who don’t even know how to feed a child. So, what do you say? Don’t just stand there, answer me. But of course, you look down on such work. You only listen if the words sound like they’re straight out of a book. My father was a man of the people. He understood the people. When he was an MP, all the attendants used to come and kiss his hand on holidays. He never begrudged them a helping hand and made sure he had their respect. ‘The people, as you call them, are like children,’ he used to say. They have to trust you, and know that you’re looking out for them. But if you don’t discipline them, if you let your iron fist go slack, they don’t know what to do. They become disconcerted, aggressive and useless.”

  “C’mon, Mother, you sound as if you’re talking about training a dog!”

  “Oh, you young folk, you haven’t an ounce of respect for your elders, do you? Call me ignorant if you like, but look, I don’t neglect my family, nor do I upset my friends or care only about myself and having a good time. I take part in the party’s philanthropic activities too. And that is part and parcel of being a true citizen. Look, I’m opposed to snobby high society types like your aunt too. She’s never once come to the hospital, no matter how many times I invited her.”

  “What difference does it make?” said Olcay.

  “Of course it makes a difference.”

  “I mean, there’s not much difference between her behavior and yours. One of you goes blowing your money on seamstresses and gambling, while the other kills time swaddling babies. But that doesn’t change anything.”

  “How does it not change anything?”

  “It doesn’t, because there are still children who aren’t taken care of in hospitals, or rather, who die without even making it to a hospital.”

  “And? What am I supposed to do about it? Is it up to me to change the world, huh?”

  Olcay remained silent. Her mother was right, it wasn’t up to her. Olcay was dragging this out. She was getting caught up in a useless debate with her mother. She’d do well to go back to her old ways of childhood and adolescence, when she preferred to keep her mouth shut. The more Ali criticizes me, the more aggressive I become as I try to prove myself, she thought. But acting this way with my mother is a huge mistake. If Ali could see me now, he’d just make fun of me.
r />   “What’s for dinner?”

  “Puff pastries. It’s what Doğan wanted.”

  “It’s what Doğan wanted.” She felt that old jealousy from childhood rise up within her. But then, understanding the futility of the emotion, she shrugged it off.

  “I have to go, I promised I’d be there.”

  Mevhibe Hanım was flustered by the discussion with her daughter, and it had exhausted her. She walked to the bedroom without even looking at Olcay. She locked the door behind her. It was her habit to lock herself up in the bedroom whenever she became upset. And when she did so, it meant that there would be a chilly wind blowing through the house for a week.

  Olcay gently pulled the door shut on her way out. But she hadn’t forgotten to take a look in the full-length mirror before she did so.

  Mevhibe Hanım is enraged

  Once in the bedroom, Mevhibe Hanım took off her robe. She was seething with anger. She grabbed a bottle from the dressing table and sprinkled some kolonya onto her hand, which she then dabbed on her arms and neck. She lay down on the bed. Her legs were killing her. Of course they are, I spend all day running myself ragged for those ungrateful … She felt used, misunderstood and underappreciated. She considered calling Nurten Hanım in to give her a leg massage. But then it wouldn’t be right for her to abandon the pastry dough just then. Any moment now that all too familiar pain would slice through her skull, piercing her brain. And it would remain with her for hours. But she absolutely had to go to the hospital today. Especially because, just the week before, she’d grumbled about Sevim Hanım as the latter left, “Half the time she never shows up.” She opened the bedside cabinet and took out a piece of muslin, then she took two pills from the drawer and swallowed them dry. She folded the muslin into a long strip, wound it around her head over her eyes and then tied it. She tried to dispel the drove of thoughts that descended upon her mind. Hopefully Salih wouldn’t go off and try to buy the first thing he laid his eyes upon. He doesn’t bother himself about such matters; his work, that’s all he cares about. I wish I’d gone with him. Like her father, Mevhibe Hanım didn’t trust anyone. She always sought, and found, mistakes in everything anyone else did. Mevhibe Hanım resembled her father in many ways. For example, she was authoritarian, just like him … She remembered how her daughter had talked back to her a short while earlier. The throbbing in her head increased. We never used to talk back to our father. We never even dreamed of talking back. To the contrary, our insides quaked with respect before him. Yet anyone who knew about Mevhibe Hanım’s childhood couldn’t possibly fathom why she held her father in such high esteem. Mevhibe Hanım had had an awful childhood. When her father left Trabzon for Ankara as a member of parliament, not once did he bring Mevhibe Hanım’s mother over to be with him. He only had his children sent over so he could enroll them in school. Her mother was a farmer’s daughter. She was ignorant. She doted neither on her children, nor on her husband, who appeared to have forgotten all about her once he was in Ankara. She lived her life as if it were some kind of fate to be endured. As soon as school started, the children would go to the city to be with their father. There they would move through the house like ghosts, scared shitless of their father’s constantly roaring voice. Their father had gotten remarried but, despite the Civil Code, he’d seen no need to divorce his old wife before doing so. Their new mother wasn’t a peasant like their old mother, who wore a headscarf. Their new mother strutted about with her head uncovered and attended Republican Balls with her husband. But that was pretty much the extent of her relevance. She, like her predecessor, had no say at home, and their father didn’t really give a damn about her either. Most nights he could be found hanging out with his buddies at Karpiç, or having a good time with a fresh-faced consommatrice. In turn, the stepmother took her rage out, insofar as possible, on the children, especially on Mevhibe. When she was little, Mevhibe often had the runs. Even back then her stepmother would torture her with unfathomably strict diets. One time, she wouldn’t let her eat anything but plain boiled rice until Mevhibe grew so hungry that she stole dry bread from the kitchen. Ever since, she’s never liked rice. Mevhibe’s skin was always yellow. A greenish yellow. And she had pimples. Her stepmother even objected to her wiping her face with kolonya as a cure for the acne, complaining of the cost of the kolonya and cotton. She objected to how Mevhibe dressed and how she wore her hair. She made her wear her hair neither long nor short, but rather at some abhorrent length, and then comb it backwards. Mevhibe did not stand up to this impeccably administered torture. It never even occurred to her to do so. Because, to Mevhibe, her stepmother wasn’t a separate person but rather the extension of their beybaba, now also an MP, in the home. For her, the act of standing up to “MP beybaba” would have been akin to treason, something completely irrational. Her father, a man from Trabzon whose word carried weight in the Black Sea region, was doing important things now, big things, they all agreed on that; his relatives and friends in Trabzon, all of them knew what an important man Doğan Bey was. Having forgotten that Doğan Bey used to be just like them, they started worshiping their fellow Trabzonite who had made it into parliament. What did it mean to get into parliament? For donkey’s years the mere mention of the word “government” had conjured up in their minds images of people at unreachable heights, like sultans, ministers and pashas, and so in their minds they similarly glorified Doğan Bey. That is to say, Doğan Bey had become a real big-timer, a genuine heavyweight. And for them, an important guy like that was, in brief, someone in whose presence you rose to your feet, whose hand you kissed, whose every word was a command to be followed. Both the wrath and the benevolence of great men was to be met with the same acquiescence as any act of God. His wrath should be considered no different from a natural disaster, a flood or a storm, while his benevolence counted as nothing less than an undeserved blessing. That’s what Doğan Bey’s relatives and fellow countrymen thought. And so Mevhibe, who spent her summers with those same relatives and countrymen, was naturally of the same mind. This being the case, how could one possibly oppose him? They were mere mortals. And in Mevhibe Hanım’s eyes, her stepmother too was just someone else responsible for carrying out orders. Didn’t she ever wonder why her father, being the great, important man that he was, didn’t give her a better life? No, she did not. For her, simply being the daughter of such a great, important man was enough.