Noontime in Yenisehir

by Sevgi Soysal

  “And then?”

  “The expected. No one had asked about my dad’s education or employment of course. And so when the governor moved away, my folks were left to fend for themselves.”

  “In a way, it’s kind of like your mom was deceived.”

  “Maybe. But wasn’t my dad deceived too? The way they celebrated his return with all that pomp, welcoming him with a musical band and flowers, hailing him champion of the Balkans. Later whenever they fought, my dad would try to rattle my mom by saying he’d got her in trade for a kilo of sugar. He was exactly twenty years older than her.”

  “Your mom must have been a real looker back in the day!”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Doğan regretted having said them. Ali might not be too happy about such a reference to his mother’s beauty … But Ali didn’t seem offended in the least.

  “Yes, she was. I could never get my fill of looking at her. And I was really jealous too. So much so that at one point, I became convinced that my mom was cheating on my dad. My mom used to take me out for a walk every day. We wouldn’t go anywhere in particular, just wander around. We’d sit on the bench at the square. There was this young lieutenant, he used to tag along after us whenever we went out. My mom pretended not to notice. But it drove me crazy. I really gave my mom a hard time about that. Yet those walks were my mom’s sole source of entertainment. She didn’t much care for going to other people’s houses, and we rarely had guests over. My mom turned a lot of heads whenever she walked down the street. And so I didn’t want to go out into the streets, and once we were out, I’d do everything in my power to resist. I’d kick my mom, she’d buy me a simit and I’d promptly throw it onto the ground. If my dad thought my mom looked pale when he arrived home in the evenings, he’d tell her to take the kid out and get some fresh air. My mom would look at me and laugh. I used to get so angry with my dad because he let my mom go out like that. Because there weren’t many rooms in our house, I slept with the two of them, and so I was a lot more aware than I should have been about certain things. You get what I mean?”

  “Yeah,” answered Doğan. As he did so, he looked at the tea glass he had just refilled, and thought about how he had never considered his mother in conjunction with the word “love,” let alone felt any kind of jealousy over her.

  “Right, you get it. So, I knew everything, but because I didn’t understand it, I would misinterpret it. I’ll never forget, it was right around when I started middle school; one afternoon I was sitting next to the window doing my lessons when someone threw a letter in through the window. I thought I would die right then and there. I couldn’t bring myself to open it right away. My entire body was shaking all over. Finally I worked up enough courage to open it. It was a love letter written to my mom. The truth is, it was obvious from the letter that the love in question was unrequited, that my mom had absolutely nothing to do with it, but what difference did that make to me? To me, my mom was a whore. I stopped talking with anyone at school; I’d watch the other kids playing, so carefree, all the while I was eating my heart out, thinking, Of course they’re going to play, they’ve got nothing to worry about, their mothers are honorable women. I hated my mom. At the time, we were in pretty bad shape financially. My dad kept changing jobs. He just couldn’t bring himself to put the whole Balkan championship thing behind him. He wanted to continue being that man greeted at the station by a cheering crowd. He couldn’t handle being scolded by his bosses. And so whenever he got ticked off, he’d hand in his resignation, just like that, regardless of the kids and the doctor bills. Then when he’d get home and see my mom, he’d understand that he’d made a mistake, but by then it would be too late … One other time, shortly after my mom had given birth, she had a fever and I had the measles, and we had neither medicine nor money for food; since it was the first of the month, my mom told my dad to buy us some fruit when he got paid that day. But my dad came home late. He’d been drinking. As soon as he saw us he started to cry. He’d gotten angry at his boss for something he’d said, and quit. Without taking that month’s salary, you see? And then he borrowed some money from a friend and went drinking. My mom couldn’t take it, she just kept screaming. My dad kept yelling at her to be quiet. He always knew when he was in the wrong. ‘I know, any man worth his salt would take his salary and come home with all the stuff we need. But that guy, he up and called me a jackass, out of nowhere, a jackass, that’s what he called me, and just at a moment when I was so burned out—a jackass! The dwarf, one punch and I would’ve sent him flying across the room, it’s because of him, Şükriye. I was thinking of you guys and how I’d bring two kilos of oranges home, and so I must have gotten lost in thought, when the bastard comes and plants himself in front of me and says ‘Get to work, jackass.’ And I just lost it, believe me, Şükriye, if I hadn’t quit right then, I would have killed the guy.’

  “‘If only you had, if only you’d gone and killed the guy and ended up in prison. And then I’d be a whore.’ I went ballistic. I leapt out of bed and started beating my mom. The poor sick woman, I was beating her like crazy. The word ‘whore’ echoed in my mind, thousands of mallets pounded at my temples. At first my mom just froze. And my dad was too shocked to react. My mom fixed her blue, bewildered eyes on me. I’ll never forget the deep sadness that I saw in those eyes. My dad, drunk as he was, just sat there in a chair. My mom shot straight out of her sickbed, put her coat on over her nightgown, grabbed the newborn, and left. My dad cried all night long. He sat me down in front of him. The first time he went to my mom’s house, my mom offered him coffee, which she carried on a tray. She was wearing a hand-knit woolen dress. ‘Below where her petticoat ended, her knees shined beneath that knit dress. Your mom’s skin, it was so smooth and shiny, your mom’s skin, why did you hit your mom, she always took such good care of you, I’m not worthy of Şükriye, I’ll never be a real man, oh, if only you’d hit me, knocked some sense into me, son. My dearest comrade, my son, why, why, why?’ he moaned, weeping that heartfelt weep all night long.

  “‘Don’t cry,’ I said. ‘What, are you supposed to let them call you a jackass? What business does she have out on the street anyway? She should stay at home, look after her baby. It’s a good thing she’s gone, good riddance to her.’ But even as I said spoke those words, I was thinking about my blue-eyed mom, outside in the middle of the night, already ill, and I was scared to death something bad would happen to her. My dad doused his head and then fixed himself up. We went out together and started searching for her. Finally, we found her at the station. She didn’t have any money. When she saw us she turned her head the other way, facing the wall.

  “‘I’m going to Konya,’ she said.

  “‘But you don’t have any money,’ my dad said. ‘I promise you, Şükriye, when I find some money tomorrow I’ll buy you a ticket and send you myself.’ ‘How are you going to find the money? You’ll have to go and be someone’s slave again. And as long as you’re willing to do that, then what was the point in spouting off to your boss today?’

  “Both my dad and I felt relieved. The fact that my mother was talking, complaining, was a good sign. It was when she was silent that she was at her most dangerous. She possesses the stubbornness typical of blondes, as we say; she had no intention of backing down. ‘I’m going to beg till I’ve gotten enough money for my bus ticket,’ she insisted. But in the end, she came along with us, silently. That night my dad made love to my mom. And then my mom cried, almost silent wails, calling my dad ‘crazy, you crazy, crazy man.’ That night, I understood that my mom loved my dad dearly, and that she hadn’t cheated on him. The next morning I told my mom I was going to work really hard and rescue us from our poverty.”

  “What did your mom say?”

  “She looked at me for a long time with those blue eyes of hers. ‘You silly fool,’ she said. ‘If you had any wits about you, you wouldn’t go beating up your mom, now would you? Silly fool, you think your dad’s lazy, do you?’ she asked. ‘No,’ I repl
ied. ‘Well then? What’ll change then if you work?’ she said. Her words really got to me. I mean, it meant there was no hope—no hope that my fear of my parents’ separation, which befell me at the end of each month, would ever subside. The fear would already set in at the beginning of the month. That’s when the debt collectors came by. My mom would put them off, telling them to come back around the following month. Because if we paid our debts, we’d go hungry. More than half of my childhood was spent trying to find a solution to this problem. There was something that made even people like me, my mom, and my dad, people who loved each other dearly, turn into monsters and lash out at one another, make criminals of out them, a kind of sickness maybe, something I didn’t know, that I couldn’t understand. I had to find a solution for it. But even with my child’s mind, I could sense that I wouldn’t be able to find a solution to something whose cause I didn’t know.”

  “And did you eventually find it, the solution?” Doğan asked. He was on his fifth glass of tea. Ali stood up. With bare feet he paced back and forth over the İsparta rug with flower designs. He looked at Doğan with gentle eyes and then, as if simply asking him, “Would you like some more tea?”, as if speaking of just any other everyday thing, he said, “Of course I did. Do you believe there’s anything for which there isn’t a solution?”

  Doğan didn’t get home until the break of dawn. He and Ali had talked all night long, without drinking alcohol, and without talking nonsense. When Doğan left, Ali’s mom was washing the stones at the entrance. He could hear the birds twittering in Bostan. He felt almost weightless. He and Ali had agreed to meet up again the next day. Doğan learned that Ali was studying law, and so he decided to enroll right away himself. He seemed to know now what he was going to do. Or even if he didn’t exactly know, he sensed that he would find out very soon, and he could tell at least what he wasn’t going to do.

  “Where have you been?”

  “I was at a friend’s.”

  “If you’re already staying out all night drinking at your age …”

  “We drank tea.”

  Mevhibe Hanım looked at her son with unbelieving eyes. Doğan always came home late like this on nights when he’d been out drinking.

  “What, daytime isn’t good enough for drinking tea anymore?”

  She looked at her son with suspicion. She sensed that he’d changed in some way. If Doğan had been out drinking, she would have complained a bit but then just taken the situation in stride. But here he was, her son, having returned home in the morning completely sober, looking her straight in the eye and saying that he’d only drank tea. As usual, Mevhibe Hanım was not happy with this change. It annoyed her.

  Doğan went to his room. The brochures they had printed for the film screening were scattered about here and there. He gathered them up, took them to the kitchen, and threw them away. Upon seeing Doğan himself finally trash all those pieces of paper she had been wanting to get rid of for how many days now, saying that they dirtied the room, Mevhibe Hanım became quite peeved.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “What do you mean you’re fine?”

  “Mother, for the first time in my life I’m saying that I’m fine, and you’re not even happy about it!”

  “No, dear, it’s just that till now, whenever I ask if you’re okay, you always say, ‘What’s there to be okay about?’”

  “That’s because I wasn’t okay.”

  “Why do you insist on confusing and upsetting me like this!”

  “Why not? It would do you some good to be a little upset. You know what, Mother, you need to make yourself really, really uncomfortable and forget all about that thing you call peace of mind.”

  “And just why should I be uncomfortable?”

  “You will be, there’s no other way. You will be uncomfortable!”

  “It’s always bothered you, my comfort, my ease.”

  “Of course it has, because it’s annoying. What’s more, it’s not even real. You’re not comfortable, nothing about you is at ease. You don’t even know the meaning of these concepts.”

  “Sending you to Paris was a huge mistake. The only thing you learned there was how to belittle your parents.”

  “No, I learned other things too. I learned about darkness. About twilight. It may not be complete darkness, but twilight is awful. You bump into all sorts of things. And now I’m learning about darkness, pitch-black darkness … Tonight someone told me, ‘Those who don’t know complete darkness cannot recognize a light that will illuminate the whole world, and they don’t search for it.’”

  By this point Mevhibe Hanim was thoroughly suspicious.

  “Were you with that movie bunch again? Nothing good will come of them.”

  “No, Mother, I was with someone from the university.”

  Mevhibe Hanım was completely taken by surprise. Doğan hadn’t said much about the university. All he’d said was that he had no intention of studying law.

  “I’m enrolling today. The friend I was with last night is studying law there too.”

  “Thank goodness for that.”

  Now instilled with the hope that her son was finally getting on the right track, the expression on Mevhibe Hanım’s face softened.

  “He must come from a good family, seeing as he doesn’t drink and he’s going to university.”

  “His parents are working class, they live in the slums.”

  “Is that so!”

  Mevhibe Hanım blurted out those last words. Then, thinking that her son had probably just said that to anger her, she shrugged her shoulders and walked away.

  Alone now, Doğan walked over to the window. He looked outside. It was the first day that he had paid any attention to the poplar in the yard. It was a very old poplar. It must have been planted there long before the apartment building had gone up. The front wall of the yard had divided the poplar’s thick, dry roots, which could be seen just above the earth. The tree’s leaves were dead. Its trunk was cracked here and there. Living sap seeped out of the cracks, and the dry, moldy, dead insides of the trunk were visible. Doğan wondered why they hadn’t cut down the poplar when they erected the apartment building. It must have been his mother, she wouldn’t have allowed it. “That way, there’ll already be a tree there in front of my home.” But it couldn’t be said that the tree had benefitted from this life that it had been allowed, or which had been bestowed upon it. With its sickly, ugly appearance, it was in perfect harmony with the facade of the apartment building, which was completely tasteless itself. Rather than a beautiful living being, one of the last remains of what had been a steppe, the tree was simply an extension of an ugly building. After gazing upon the poplar for a while, Doğan said to himself, That tree will dry up soon.

  The crowd rippled, first forwards and then backwards. Ali had his eyes set on the traffic police who were trying to keep the crowd of people away from the areas where the tree might land if it fell. Just then, he saw Güngör Bey get into his car and take off, completely ignoring the police. “Look at that swine,” he said. “He knows how to find a solution, but only for himself.”

  Doğan hadn’t seen Güngör.

  “The tree that’s falling down is the poplar in front of our apartment building.”

  Ali laughed.

  “The tree’s falling down, and the man’s flying the coop.”

  “Who, who’s flying the coop?”

  “Just another somebody, anybody. Like that poplar of yours. It’s just any old poplar, for now, any old poplar about to fall down!”

  Olcay and Ali

  After that day, Ali and Doğan became inseparable. They always went to university together, and whenever there was any political uproar, they would go to Ali’s place and drink tea and debate until morning. Ali didn’t much care for going to Doğan’s house. He thought it better that Doğan come over to his. Olcay too had been over to Ali’s a few times. Mevhibe Hanım didn’t approve of Doğan’s friendship with Ali. She he
ld Ali responsible for the unpalatable changes she saw in Doğan. And so she got really angry when she found out that Olcay had also been over to Ali’s. Olcay immediately took a liking to Ali. Doğan had found his sister’s fondness for Ali disturbing, but had avoided thinking about the reasons why. Perhaps it was some kind of extension of the jealousy of a child who didn’t want to hand his toy over to his sibling. But Ali quickly caught on, had understood that it made Doğan uneasy, and so he stopped telling him to bring the bacı along with him. Olcay was upset with both Doğan and Ali for leaving her out of their friendship and discussions, and frequently accused them of having “feudal” mindsets. Whenever Doğan would start to criticize Olcay, the latter would tell her brother that he had no right to do so, because just as he made no effort to further her progress, he completely left her out of everything that was going on.

  “You need to find your own way!” Doğan had told her.

  “Fine, if everyone’s to find their own way, and those who claim to know what’s happening and to try to change things bear no responsibility towards those who don’t know, then you’re right. But anyone who thinks that way hardly has the right to criticize others.”

  A short while later, Olcay too became part of Doğan and Ali’s friendship.

  Ali was fond of Olcay’s presence, but it also made him nervous. He felt that Olcay was in awe of him, unnecessarily so, and that she would never be able to evaluate him in a completely realistic way. One day, he shared this concern with Olcay: “You’re friends with me just so you can oppose the things around you which bother you, and which you oppose anyway, that much more. You think that just by liking people like me, you achieve some sort of change within yourself. All kinds of little behaviors of mine, which couldn’t possibly be otherwise anyway, inspire some sort of awe in you. It bothers me to have my natural behavior held in such high esteem, because these aren’t skills, they’re just the result of the conditions under which I’ve been raised. And you also make too much of the fact that I come from a working class family, whereas that too is no skill of mine. If we’re to have a healthy relationship, you need to stop seeing me in the light of your falsely acquired complexes. You need to judge me outside of that, just me, plain and simple, according to my qualities which I myself am responsible for.” Olcay hadn’t responded to Ali’s words. In a way, Ali was right, because no matter what Ali did or said, he appeared to be right, and because of some feeling of inferiority that she couldn’t explain, she decided before Ali even did anything that whatever he did was right. Sensing this, Ali was wary of his friendship with Olcay. He was wary that this friendship was something created by Olcay’s own personal issues, and so he was afraid that once Olcay had overcome her personal issues, their friendship would lose its meaning. Olcay meanwhile was of the opinion that Ali belittled her family, the way she had been brought up, her daily habits, the way she dressed and the way she talked. “He sees me as a degenerate extension of a degenerate system, that’s why he doesn’t trust me,” she said. This mutual discomfort cast a shadow on their friendship. Nevertheless, after some time they began meeting up, just the two of them, without Doğan. When they were together, they felt the crushing weight of something outside the two of them, something that bore enmity towards them and their relationship. Ali liked Olcay. He liked her tall healthy body, her dark honest eyes, her slim sentimental hands, and her sentimental words. He was aware of the fact that he was fond of her not only as a friend, but as a woman too. And this fondness bothered him. He thought that no matter what, Olcay would never be able to establish a real intimacy with him, and so he did his best to suppress his feelings for her. Olcay sensed Ali’s interest in her, but she couldn’t figure out how to overcome the distance that Ali insisted on planting between them. It had soon become clear to her that Ali would not grow close to her of his own accord. Olcay didn’t want to remain a bacı forever. She felt intensely close to Ali, and she wasn’t fond of any other man, not in that way. She realized that it was up to her to strengthen their relationship. But because she was afraid that Ali would disapprove, she couldn’t bring herself to take that step. What if he told her, “I thought you were a bacı, so what’s up with these feminine bourgeoisie pretenses?”