Noontime in Yenisehir

by Sevgi Soysal

  After exiting the cinema, they had walked together in the cool air of the Ankara night. Doğan didn’t want to part from Ali. He was afraid he might never see him again. Ever since he’d returned from Paris, a feeling of distress which had started in Paris but which there amongst coffeehouse humor had day by day gradually been rendered numb and unable to break out of its shell was unfurling within him. And along with it, his failure, his meaninglessness. He’d wanted to study film, but he hadn’t been able to. Maybe he hadn’t wanted it badly enough. Maybe there wasn’t anything that he wanted badly enough. The truth was, the numerous books he’d read had only served to confuse him, or rather, to cause the things which plagued him to multiply. He hadn’t been able to become a link in any chain. He was neither a student, nor an artist, nor a real bourgeois. The things he had written for the brochure now seemed ridiculous to him. In the first few months after he’d returned from Paris, he’d gone to Yeşilçam. There he’d met famous directors and producers. He’d tried to impress them by relaying all the things he’d heard in Paris. They’d listened to him a few times, without taking him very seriously, and then they’d started making fun of him. None of them had given Doğan a chance. As if they’d made a secret pact to conspire against him, all of them told him one had to have experience, to rack up hours as an apprentice, and they claimed to have already been privy to approximately the exact same words that Doğan so beautifully expressed, but insisted that the market itself was something different, and that that “something” had to be taken into account. And now, with Ali walking next to him, Doğan thought that those men were right not to give him a chance. What, were they supposed to grant him unlimited freedom, when they themselves were hemmed in by strict laws? He had this indecipherable feeling that Ali was going to open one of the doors he thought closed, and with his everyday simplicity, his lack of pretense, show Doğan how to get out. Because Ali was someone who would definitely do what was possible. He looked at Ali’s hands. They were hands which, should the lights go out, would immediately repair the blown fuse; he wouldn’t allow the darkness to get to him.

  Doğan once again feared that he might never encounter Ali again. Did Ali sense this fear of his?

  “We can go to our place if you like, buddy. My ma’ll still be up waiting for me. She’ll fix us some tea.”

  This made Doğan happy. He was just as delighted at Ali’s invitation as he had been the first time Giselle had invited him to her room.

  “Your mom won’t mind?”

  “Not at all. What mom minds her son coming home?”

  Doğan was about to say something, but then changed his mind. His own mother would get very upset whenever he brought guests over out of the blue. “A real man doesn’t go to someone else’s house without a proper invitation,” she’d always say. Because a home might be in any state at any given moment, and it wasn’t proper for a stranger to be privy to just any state of the house. She couldn’t possibly conceive of the idea that a person might have a friend so close that one could share anything with him. Therefore, she wrote off any of Doğan’s friends who happened to come over at an inappropriate time, and once she had done so, that was her final judgment and there was no looking back. Consequently, whenever such a friend would call Doğan, his mother would inevitably be rude to them, and do everything in her power to wreck the relationship. A little while earlier, when Ali turned down his invitation to go out for a drink, he considered taking him home with him, but then, recalling his mother’s disposition, had quickly changed his mind.

  “Alright then, let’s go to your place,” he said to Ali.

  They walked in silence, first to Ulus, and from there to Dışkapı. Ali turned onto one of the back streets in Dışkapı. It had grown very quiet. They could hear the rustling of the trees on either side of them. “There are lots of gardens around here,” Ali said. “They call them the Kazıkiçi Gardens. That’s where they grow cantaloupes and melons. Cucumbers, tomatoes … Shit Creek runs through it. That’s the reason for the smell. We’re used to it though. Besides, it’s good for the cucumbers and tomatoes.” He laughed. It was the first time he’d laughed since they met. It was a warm, natural laugh. They arrived at a one-story home. The stone paving at the entrance was wet. Seeing Doğan look to the skies to discern whether or not it had rained, Ali explained. “It’s my ma, she’s in the habit of washing the entrance every hour. Until the whole family is in for the night. Whenever I come home and see that it hasn’t been washed, I immediately get depressed. I think my mom must’ve run away, that the house has been abandoned. Like when I was a kid. Anyway, I’ll tell you about that later.” Ali lifted the doorknocker, sounding their arrival, and the door opened. Ali’s mother, who must have been in her forties, had the typical look of an immigrant woman, blond with prominent cheekbones. She wasn’t wearing a headscarf. With her round, blue eyes she gave her son a fond but censorious look. She was wearing a loose-fitting entari. This woman must have been a knockout when she was young, Doğan thought. A wholesome-looking woman with her feet on the ground.

  “So you finally found your way home I see.”

  The woman’s reproach did not have the same sting of cold needles that his mother’s did. This was a game familiar to both mother and son.

  “And? Now if you don’t go on and make us some tea, and I mean good tea, I’ll head right back out. I told this guy we’ve got tea at home, so don’t you dare disgrace us.”

  “At my age, I’m in no condition to be disgracing anyone, it’s up to you now to disgrace this family,” she replied, letting out a laugh just as heartfelt as Ali’s had been.

  “Is Dad asleep?”

  “Of course he is, the poor guy. He has to work for a living, early to rise …”

  “Right, right.”

  “We’d best not disturb your father.” The words were barely out of Doğan’s mouth when Ali’s mother replied:

  “Now what kind of thing is that to say? Who’d be disturbed by decent young men like you? Our home is always open to them, be they one or one thousand. We do get a little worried when this nutcase here is out and about though …” Then she began doing those little things a hostess does to make a guest feel at home. She put a pillow behind Doğan’s back. She took out a cigarette, and then from a cheap glass cabinet she took out a crystal tray, one of the household’s most luxurious possessions, and placed it in front of Doğan before going to make tea. Doğan looked around him. It was an immaculately clean room with whitewashed walls. Handmade white doilies on the divan and pillows edged in lace with violets embroidered on them. Doğan thought that, despite his mother’s fastidiousness, their own home did not appear as clean or heartwarming as this one. The floor consisted of wooden boards that were a shiny yellow; it was obvious that they were frequently scrubbed down using soft soap. Cheap, ugly baubles here and there. Three coffee tables. Four yellow chairs lined up against the wall like soldiers. On the walls a clock, a Saatli Maarif calendar, and next to it, a catchpenny carpet made of fake silk depicting lions. The most visible spot in the room was occupied by a cheap cupboard with a mirror in the back, clearly purchased from one of the furniture dealers in Samanpazarı. Inside the cupboard a few coffee cups, a wedding candy tin, and a few gilded lemonade glasses. All of these items, taken individually, thought Doğan, are cheap, ugly, common things. Yet there is something about this home as a whole that is heartwarming, comforting. His own home, filled as it was with antiques passed down from his grandfather, was like a grim, suffocating museum in comparison. He never had liked his home, even as a child. In elementary school he had drawn a picture of a home that was pitch black and written on it, “Our home, black home.”

  He settled into the divan. Overcome by a sudden but gradually growing sense of ease, he looked at Ali. It was as if he’d been coming to this house ever since he was a child, as if he’d spent many a night sleeping on the divan he was sitting on now.

  Ali walked into one of the side rooms, whistling all the while. He returned wearing pajama b
ottoms instead of pants, and slippers on his feet. He did as he did every night, as if there weren’t a guest in the house. Doğan assumed that when someone of a different class came to their home, people like Ali and his family would grow tense and flustered, unsure of what to do. Like the university janitors or building attendants who came to his family’s home. Whenever Doğan went to the building attendant’s apartment to let him know that the heating wasn’t working properly, the attendant would be baffled as to how to behave and, clearly feeling ill at ease, would make Doğan feel ill at ease too. An unscaleable wall would rise between them. Yet Ali wasn’t like that at all. You could tell from his actions that he felt much more at ease than Doğan did. Doğan wondered as to the source of this ease. Ali lit a cigarette and looked at Doğan.

  “So, welcome to our villa!” As he said this his eyes wandered over the room, with a gaze that somehow said, “I know how tasteless all this is, but I don’t care, in fact, I embrace it.”

  “It’s all according to my ma’s taste. All bought by sucking the lifeblood out of my dad …” he said with a laugh. “And despite how ugly it all is, my dad had a hard time paying it off. He nearly got fired from the atelier he was working at because of that cupboard right there. Oh, right, I forgot to tell you: My dad works at a turnery. He was always asking for a raise at the most inconvenient times. But he had no other choice. Because of the stones, of course …”

  Seeing the bewildered expression on Doğan’s face, he explained: “I mean the stone pavement in front of the house, buddy. Whenever my mom gets something in her head, like for example she got obsessed with that cupboard there once, she’d go running off to her mother’s in Konya. She’s a strange woman, my ma. She could go hungry for a week and not whine a bit, she can wash a mountain of laundry without a peep, but for some goddamn cupboard she’ll dig her heels in and hold out for as long as it takes. And so when she got upset about not being able to get that there cupboard, she took off. And so of course the stone pavement in front of our house was abandoned to the mud. Anyone who came by could tell from the filthy entrance that my mom wasn’t here, you didn’t even have to knock. It’s horribly dismal that way. Must be why my mom got into the habit of washing the stones all the time.”

  “So your mom used to run off, huh? Just because of the cupboard, or were there other reasons?”

  “No, because we were broke. They’d fight over it. For days. My dad was a hard worker, but he was a bit too generous with his money. I’ll never forget this one time they fought over milk. Back then my dad worked at a factory. And so he was entitled to one liter of milk each day. During one holiday one of my dad’s friends from work came over to our place. He was a worker with five kids, and all five of them were sick. The man kissed my dad’s hand and thanked him for the milk, right there in front of my mom. So it turned out that my dad had given the man his own share of milk, though of course my mom didn’t know about it. Once the man had left, all hell broke loose. In those days we spent three days hungry for every day we were full. My mom was crying, ‘How can you give away your share of milk when my children are going hungry?’ And then their fighting got so intense my mom up and ran off to her mom in Konya.”

  “Your mom was in the right, if you ask me.”

  “But my dad was in the right too. He was right not to ignore a man he had to stand next to every day, a man who was constantly moaning about his sick children. So both of them were right. They were both doing the best they could do. My day worked all day and my mom kept us kids and the house clean. Whenever they’d be up all night fighting, I’d cry in bed, afraid that my mom would run off to Konya again. But I couldn’t bring myself to be angry with either of them. I’d feel bad for both, and pray that God would give these two good, hardworking people more. As time went by and my prayers weren’t answered, it was as if, inside, I grew dark with gloom, full of frustration and desperation. I’d get enraged and just blow up at everybody. And when my mom ran off, my dad and I would sit together and weep. It was so sweet, the way my dad wept. And so then I’d get angry at my mom and start cursing her. But then my dad would get mad at me and tell me to stop it, that my mom had put up with so much, and that it wasn’t her fault. And so I’d ask whose fault it was then. My dad would just make a tight fist and remain silent. He didn’t have an answer for me.”

  Ali told all of this in an unembellished manner, as if it were all par for the course. Doğan felt awful. It was as if someone was choking him. Just then Ali’s mom entered the room, her blue eyes twinkling. The blue of her eyes reflected off the tray, making it shine all that much more. The copper tray had been scrubbed spotless. She brought the tea in a spotlessly scrubbed teapot. The tea glasses too were clean as could be. There were spoons inside them, and beneath them plastic saucers with a flower pattern. The sugar bowl was made of yellow plastic. The lace doily on the tray, and everything else, conveyed tremendous love and care.

  “In the Caucasus we bring the teapot out when we serve tea. That way everyone can have it as strong as they like, and as much of it as they like. And we don’t use sugar either. Like they say, if the tea’s any good, no need for sugar …”

  “Oh, come on now, you’re just saying that so we’ll use less sugar.”

  “Well, would you listen to that … As if you aren’t the one who refuses to drink tea with sugar in it!”

  “That’s another topic … But there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for sugar, now is there!”

  Doğan sensed that this was some kind of inside joke between Ali and his mom.

  “You see this mom of mine? She was once sold for exactly one kilo of sugar. One kilo of sugar.”

  “Oh, c’mon now. I took a liking to your father as soon as I set my eyes on him at the Konya bus station, and that was that.”

  They both laughed. Ali took the tray from his mother and placed it on the coffee table. He poured the tea into the glasses. The blood red, boiling tea warmed Doğan’s insides. He breathed in the scent of the steeped tea. He recalled his own mother’s watered down, tasteless tea that she forced the family to drink, claiming that anything stronger was “bad for the stomach, and makes one irritable.” But this tea filled him with a sense of contentment.

  “How were you able to steep the tea so perfectly in such a short amount of time?”

  “There’s always tea brewing in our house, son. The whole family has a weakness for tea. The truth is, we should all like the best of everything. All of us humans should consider ourselves worthy of the best we can do.”

  “That’s right,” Ali said. “Mom thinks us worthy of the cleanest sheets, that’s why she does the wash every single day.”

  Ali’s mother gave him a hurt look.

  “Poverty doesn’t equal filth,” she said. “It doesn’t cost you to wash the laundry now, does it!”

  “Soap isn’t free though. And if you get ill from all that work, they don’t take care of you for free.”

  “It’s my back though now, isn’t it? It’s my pain to bear, and my wash to do,” his mom said, feigning anger. She filled a glass of tea for herself, picked it up, and left the room.

  Doğan reveled in every sip of his tea. He hadn’t put any sugar in it. For some reason, he hadn’t wanted to. Though he assumed it would be bitter, he quickly grew used to it.

  “You don’t want any sugar?”

  “No.”

  “Because I don’t take sugar?”

  “No man, I wanted to try it like this.”

  “Because of the way my mom and I joked just now?”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “I don’t. I’m just asking. Asking questions is a good thing. That way you avoid mistakes. I’ll tell you the story that the joke comes from, if you like.”

  Doğan was downing his tea in big gulps now. He nodded.

  “So my dad, he’s just a common laborer, right? Actually, no. You see, at some point, somehow, he became the running champion of the Balkans. And when he got back to Konya, the governor and all the big wig
s, all the schools, they all welcomed him with flowers. At the time, my mom was a student at the Konya school for teachers.”

  “Your mother’s a teacher?”

  “No, she didn’t graduate. But that’s another story. My mom’s family are immigrants from the Caucasus. They lived in Konya’s immigrant neighborhood. It’s full of immigrants and Gypsies living together. You ever been?”

  “No.”

  “Oh right, of course not. Why would you? Maybe we’ll go together one day.”

  Doğan was pleased by this suggestion. So it seemed Ali wanted to establish a real, constant friendship with him. There was something, some things they would be doing together after this. Doğan felt the feeling of failure inside him ebb.

  “So my mom’s family was living in the immigrant neighborhood. My mom had gotten into the Konya School for Teachers. It’s real cold in Konya in the winter. My grandma knit my mom a pair of mohair socks. Then she boiled them with onion to bleach them. Yet one of the socks ended up a light color and the other dark. They made fun of her at school because of those socks. And so my mom never set foot in that school again.”

  “Because of a pair of socks?”

  “Yes, because of a pair of socks. Sometimes what they call fate all depends on a pair of socks. How much does a pair of socks cost? Not much perhaps. But even that much can be important for a person. Anyway, before my mom dropped out, hers was one of the schools that went to welcome my dad. The Champion of the Balkans! And it was my mom who handed him his flowers. Now, our Balkan champ was a distant relative of the man who was governor at the time. The governor hosted his relative, the champion, in his home. My dad saw my mom at the station and couldn’t get her out of his head. He begged and pleaded with the governor, who finally tracked her down for him. At the time, you couldn’t get sugar anywhere. And so again making use of the governor’s influence, he found a kilo of sugar and took it to my mom’s. My mom’s family was so impressed by that kilo of sugar that they immediately agreed to give my mom’s hand in marriage …”