by Sevgi Soysal
“Is there something that needs defending?”
“Yes, there are things we need to defend, to stand up for. Or there were, I guess. Isn’t that so, Doğan?”
Ali felt his heart sink as he spoke those words. Why was he saying these things to Doğan on the phone? Why haven’t I taken Doğan aside already and spoken with him frankly, face-to-face? Instead, here I am, attempting to solve some silly, emotional problems, which we could easily overcome in a single sleepover at my place, via a telephone call that is bound to be cold and inadequate. Am I genuine enough when accusing Doğan? If I really wanted to rescue Doğan from going “going astray,” shouldn’t I already be aware that the matter at hand is too serious to be addressed on the phone, and shouldn’t I behave accordingly? And if that’s the case, then what to do? Could it be that the distance Doğan has put between us actually means for me, in a way, the shedding of a ball and chain in my relationship with Olcay? As if intuiting Ali’s thoughts, Doğan exploded:
“Nobody’s forcing you to put up with me!”
Ali was shaken, like a child caught in a guilty act. He immediately pulled himself together.
“What do you mean ‘put up with,’ buddy? There’s no such thing as ‘putting up with’ for us. With us, it’s about pitching in. Striving towards what’s right, for more … Why are you making me repeat things you already know?”
It was a great misfortune, his use of the term “pitching in,” Ali thought. Calling up like this was a mistake, definitely. I need to have a proper talk with Doğan as soon as possible. I am the last person who should doubt my own sincerity. “Things you already know,” what a tactlessly tacked-on phrase. “Don’t make me repeat things we already know,” he mumbled into the phone this time.
“Go ahead, repeat it. You’ll derive great satisfaction from it.”
“Now look here Doğan, all of this reeks of evasion.”
“And just what is it I’m supposedly trying to evade?”
“I don’t know, but surely the reasons for you deserting us are as concrete as the reasons you had for joining.”
“Who said I’d deserted you?”
“Then how do you explain the fact that you never join us anymore?”
“Maybe I’m busy doing more useful activities.”
Doğan felt distressed by the lie he had just told. Moreover, his words were far from convincing. He’d forgotten how to lie, how to subtly and sweetly deceive like he used to. In the past, despite the throngs of idiots and bores around him, he’d believed that living was only possible by lying, that one couldn’t possibility feel ethical responsibility towards those who were stupid and ugly. Yet for some time now, ever since he’d come to believe that stupidity and ugliness were variable, he no longer felt the superiority he once felt when faced with either. The concepts of beauty and intellect didn’t mesh with such feelings of superiority. Still, he felt guilty towards Ali, a feeling that would perhaps stay with him for some time, and so spurred on by his guilt, he defended himself, going on the offensive as he did so.
“You still owe us an explanation.”
“Why?”
“Because … Wait, no, there is no ‘because,’ now is there, buddy? At the end of the day, aren’t we on the path we believe to be right?”
“So?”
“So, in that case, I mean, if we’re sincere in our intentions, then anyone who finds something better, something more right, has to tell the others about it. That is, if that person isn’t trying to make ‘what’s right’ his own personal property.”
Ali’s use of the word “property” angered Doğan. Why was he always harping on about property? Why was he always on Doğan’s case about his family, even at the most inappropriate times?
Yet that wasn’t the case. Doğan knew it too. How many times had Ali told Doğan that such issues could be overcome? The important thing was one’s ties to class. Anyone opposed to a class would eventually sever its ties with that class. It was he himself who felt an unnecessary feeling of inferiority because of the family and circles he came from. And it was Ali who had tried to get rid of this unnecessary feeling of guilt that he constantly harbored. The whole issue revolved around his love for Ali. He had loved Ali so much that he couldn’t bear for someone else to be at least as close to Ali as he had been, and so in avoiding the situation he sought refuge in various pretexts. He had gone back to being the same old suspicious Doğan. And it distressed him.
“I have no explanation to make. I’ve come up with a program for myself. I’m reading.”
“That’s great. So let us benefit from what you read too. We’ve really gotten behind on reading recently.”
Doğan, having the feeling that Ali was making fun of him, became enraged.
“But of course, we’re the petite bourgeois intellectuals, aren’t we?”
“Now where did that come from? Why shouldn’t we benefit from one another? Doğan, look, I’ve got things to tell you too. Wouldn’t you like to learn some things from me as well?”
By this point, Doğan had softened up. The fact that Ali had persevered, hadn’t stopped talking despite Doğan’s rebuffs, had alleviated his suspicions. Still, though he agreed to meet up with Ali, he said he could only do so two weeks later, because he was studying for exams. It wasn’t a convincing excuse. And Ali wasn’t convinced. As if talking with Ali would somehow keep him from studying. How had their getting together in the past, or rather not in the past, but up until recently ever kept him from studying, or doing anything? In short, what had it ever obstructed? Nothing. To the contrary, spending time with Ali had always invigorated Doğan. But these days, Doğan was confused. And he wanted to resolve this confusion on his own, before confronting Ali. Meanwhile Ali blamed himself for Doğan’s postponing their meeting for two weeks. Doğan was of two minds. But what about me? Ali wondered. I thought that by talking big like this on the phone I was giving my friend support. But no, he wasn’t. As soon as he was able to get away from all the work he was doing for the labor union strike, he intended to go straight to Doğan and pull the latter out of his shell. That was his final decision. And so he didn’t make a big deal out of Doğan’s avoidance.
A couple of days after their telephone conversation, Doğan found out that Ali had been taken into custody along with some of the workers who were on strike. He was suddenly overcome by a feeling of loneliness. Ali, who had spent night after night patiently listing to him talk about all the things that had happened to him, all the mistakes he made ever since childhood; Ali, who had helped him to recognize all of the dangerous twists and turns in his mind; Ali, who, by explaining that complicated labyrinths only existed in nightmares and that there was always a way out, had rendered Doğan’s boredom meaningless, had fallen prey to the police, or rather, he was doing things which had landed him in police detention while Doğan remained outside of it all. He didn’t even find out about it until long after the fact. It was at that moment that Doğan felt the great distance between himself and Ali, their alienation from one another. And next to this feeling, the situation with Olcay seemed so very insignificant. Doğan felt ashamed for having gotten so caught up on the issue. At the moment when friendship, when faith, is most important, we always get caught up on some insignificant detail and quibble, throwing the important stuff to the dogs in the process, he thought. In those days, Doğan did a lot of thinking, but that’s all he did was think.
Olcay enters the labyrinth too
The following week Doğan wanted to approach Olcay and ask for news about Ali. But he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was he who had introduced Olcay to Ali and he didn’t like the idea of having to ask Olcay for news about his best friend. The day before he and Ali were to meet, Olcay walked into his room and quenched his curiosity.
They had just finished dinner. Doğan was in his room struggling to write a letter to Giselle, but try as he might, he wasn’t able to write anything sincere. Suddenly he was struck by the realization that he had forgotten Giselle’s face
. Just as he was pondering whether he should be shocked or pleased by this, Olcay walked into his room, carrying a tray of tea.
As always, she took measured, calm steps and placed the tray on Doğan’s desk. And then she sat down on Doğan’s bed. With her head she motioned for Doğan to take his tea. Doğan noticed on his sister’s face, which was usually pale, a slight blush. She had pulled her hair back tightly into a ponytail. It made her slanted, dark eyes, and her Romanesque nose even more pronounced. Olcay was a pretty girl. Ali’s got good taste, I’ll give him that, Doğan thought. But Giselle was pretty too, and now he didn’t even remember what she looked like. There was something unusual about Olcay’s behavior. For some time now there was something unusual about everything. Doğan realized that Olcay wanted to talk. He decided not to push her with any questions.
“That’s my girl. And just when I’ve got a craving for tea. But it doesn’t look like you have any intention of pouring it.”
Olcay gave him a plaintive smile, and then rose, walked over to the tray, and filled the tea glasses.
“You don’t want any sugar, do you?”
Doğan looked at Olcay. Ever since they had met Ali, both of them had stopped taking sugar with their tea. Olcay knew good and well that Doğan had stopped taking sugar. By asking him if he wanted any now, was she trying to understand if he had reverted to his old habits since he’d stopped seeing Ali? He used to put no less than four lumps of sugar in his tea.
“What kind of question is that, you know I don’t.”
“I was just asking. It’s been a while since we drank tea together.”
There was no mockery, no reprimand, or any such thing in her voice. It was more as if she wanted to have a heart-to-heart, or a confession. Finally, she spit it out.
“Ali gets out tomorrow. They’re going to release him in the morning. His mother said so today.”
“Is that so!”
So that meant Ali would be able to make their appointment for the following day.
“How did you find out? Did you go their place?”
“No, I ran into his mother yesterday,” Olcay said, wearing a guilty expression. “I really should have gone over to see her while Ali was in prison, but, well, I just didn’t have the courage.”
“Why not? I thought you and Ali’s mother got on well.”
“We do, but I thought she might be angry with me, since Ali and I are on the outs.”
Doğan just sat there, giving Olcay a stunned look. He was in shock. Ali had been taken into police custody. He was on the outs with Olcay. And Doğan had been unaware of any of it.
“When did it happen?”
For a moment it occurred to Doğan that Ali may have called him in order to smooth things over with Olcay.
“It was wretched timing. The day before Ali was taken into custody.”
Doğan was relieved. Olcay burst into tears. Doğan silently watched his sister, and he realized that the more she cried, the more relieved he felt. And this bothered him. He picked up Olcay’s tea and handed it to her.
“C’mon, drink your tea now. You can tell me about it later. You want a cigarette?”
Olcay wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. She began to sip her tea. But it was useless trying to rein in her emotions. Her sobs grew increasingly louder. This annoyed Doğan to no end. He felt a kind of alienation between himself and his sister, and he found the way she was crying repulsive, vulgar even. Another idiotic bourgeois girl! he thought for a moment. Why put on the ‘deserted woman’ act? If you left him, then you left him. It’s not like anybody forced you, right? He grew more and more enraged. At that moment he likened Olcay to one of those temperamental children of the guests who used to come to their home when he was a child, the ones who weren’t content with wrenching his favorite toy from his hands but had to break it too. She’ll shut up once she’s found a new toy. He started drinking his tea, paying her no mind. He relit his cigarette. He thought that from now on, his sister would always feel like a stranger to him. Something had changed. Olcay, me, Ali, we’ve all changed. From now on, we won’t be able to be close, to know exactly what the others did and why, like we used to. We’ll reproach one another, wrongfully accuse one another, slip into side streets and lose each other in the labyrinth. Even if we grow close again, there will always remain these untold, misunderstood things between us. Doubt and mistrust will remain, because we failed to experience an important change, an important event together. Who knows which whim of hers led Olcay to leave Ali and withdraw back into her beloved shell. I took refuge in books. What about Ali? I don’t know. He ended up arrested though. He must have done something wrong. This thought scared him. He sensed that he was trying to erase the feelings of guilt he harbored with regard to Ali by claiming that Ali must have done something wrong. Why might Ali have done something wrong? What exactly was the wrong that he did? He forced his mind to come up with something. Well, first of all, it was a mistake to fall for this girl. Who knows what kind of silly, unnecessary lengths he’d gone to in order to make a good impression? His thoughts revealed a constant tendency to blame Ali and Olcay. He couldn’t help himself. He refilled his tea glass. Rediscovering the disinterested look he thought he had abandoned back in the Paris coffeehouses, he turned a half-mocking gaze to his sister.
“So what’s the big deal? It’s not like you’re the first girl who’s ever broken up with her boyfriend.”
Olcay grew quiet. She had sensed the change in Doğan’s voice and attitude. Why had she come into Doğan’s room anyway? As if it was Doğan she’d ever turned to for support whenever she was unable to bear the exhaustion, dejection and sadness that lingered in the wake of relationships that had made her feel as if she’d dived into a swamp and sunk headfirst, all in the name of standing up against this or that! From now on, she would be able to discuss only superficial problems with Doğan, like back in the day when they used to stand outside the kolej and talk about books. About books and music and the things they wanted to do. Would those days when they’d sit in Ali’s lowceilinged, stuffy room and drink tea till dawn, picking at their own wounds till they bled, offering their very souls up to one another, as if offering up a bowl of dried fruits and nuts, getting right to the heart of things without digression or embellishment, putting every aspect they possibly could into words—would those days never come back? Olcay felt an indescribable sense of melancholy. So much so that she found herself incapable of tears. She couldn’t stand that old familiar look in Doğan’s eyes, a look of disinterest, of indifference. Now if she told him that she broke up with Ali because she was afraid, he might make fun of her. At that moment, she was afraid of Doğan. Her former fears were raising their ugly heads once again. Who was this disparaging person sitting across from her? This person who, no matter what she said, twisted everything around until it sounded ridiculous. Am I like that too? Is this what Ali thought when he listened to me talk?
With Doğan sitting across from her now, the things that she wanted to tell him started to seem ridiculous, meaningless. How could she possibly tell Doğan right now that she was afraid of inviting Ali over for dinner, that she was loath to force her mother into it? How could she tell him something so meaningless, without embellishment, without evasion, but rather simply like it was? If only everything were so simple, so cut-and-dry. She’d been afraid to invite Ali over to their house. It suited her much better to go over to Ali’s instead. She didn’t have the strength to tell her mother about Ali, to try and convince her to accept him. Now Doğan would question her about the “getting their mother to accept Ali” bit—was it really necessary? As long as I continue to be a part of them, a compatible part of a harmonious whole, then getting my mother to accept Ali is pretty much equivalent to getting her to accept me. Or is it that I’m growing weary of leading a double life? Afraid of splitting into two increasingly divided, alienated parts, striving hopelessly and in vain to patch up the pieces. Perhaps it was because of this deception that she had felt it necessar
y to have her mother accept Ali. Because she was unable to propel her fractured self forward by disposing of unnecessary sandbags and then to piece it all back together again. To experience Ali’s system together with Ali. For a few hours. And then later, after parting ways, to go back home, to take a hot, bubbly bath, to go to the opera with her parents, to wear pants now and then. And then to have her hair done on her way to the opera. To go to the tailor’s together with her mother. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, to take a spontaneous trip to the salon for a pedicure just because she felt like it, because it already existed as a possibility in her mind; and then, to toss all of that to the wayside and pull her hair back in a ponytail. To be one instant here, the next instant there, behind the door, living the life of a broom. She wasn’t bored when she was with Ali, no, not all, she liked the daily habits she acquired as a result of the worldview and the thoughts she increasingly shared with Ali, as a result of Ali’s friendship, as a result of being with Ali; those habits became hers and she was happy to claim them. In fact, she took refuge in the simplicity, straightforwardness and warmth of his system. But then later, she would close the door with a thanks and a goodbye. She would return to the fakeness of the home that she grew up in, to the forced comforts created inside those walls of lovelessness, walls to whose existence she had long become accustomed. She went back to other clothes, other conversations, other relationships. When she was at Ali’s place, Ali’s mother would listen to their conversations, neither expressing surprise nor interrupting. Yet the very idea of Mevhibe Hanım ever listening to a conversation between herself and Ali was simply inconceivable. Mevhibe Hanım would instantly try to take things into her own hands, and no one would be able to convince her to do otherwise. And that wouldn’t be all she’d do. She would do everything in her power to obstruct a relationship containing such conversations. Still, Olcay wanted to invite Ali over. She wanted to be able to say to her mother, “Look, this is Ali, the person I’m closer to than anyone else. And this is what he and I think …” But she didn’t believe she possessed the strength to make that happen. The mere thought of the volley of questions she would be subjected to should she dare to say to her mother even, “I want to invite Ali over for dinner” was enough to overwhelm her. The responses to those questions would lead to a fight and, worst of all, that fight would not cause even the smallest change in her mother’s thoughts. She could invite Ali over in spite of her mother. But in that case, both she and Ali would feel ill at ease. Because everything, everything in this home, was a part of Mevhibe Hanım’s system. Mevhibe Hanım’s laws were in effect for everything, from water glasses to forks. In this home, it was considered improper to slurp one’s coffee, like Ali did. And as for belching after a particularly filling meal and then breaking out into joyful laugher, as Ali’s father often did, that too was unheard of. As was putting on your pyjamas and then curling one leg under you at the dinner table, for example. How many times had Ali, in Olcay’s presence, put on his pyjama bottoms and sat on his right foot, holding onto the foot with his left hand, while he ate? Olcay too had grown used to eating like this. But in this house, it was most definitely the left hand that held the fork. And meat was always cut immediately before being placed in the mouth. Yet Ali cut all of his meat up beforehand into tiny little pieces, and then taking the fork into his right hand he’d proceed to gobble away. So many details that seemed so unimportant! But Olcay knew that if Ali were to eat like that in their home, just what kinds of looks her mother would give him, and the kind of biting remarks she would make. Should she tell Ali, “At our house, do this, don’t do that,” to avoid any awkward situations? What a ridiculous thought. She couldn’t force Ali to become a compatible part of a system he despised just for the sake of having a meal in peace. And if she couldn’t force him, then it would be nothing short of ridiculous to even try; the dining room, with its forks and knives and its everything, would resist any and every attempt to destroy Mevhibe Hanım’s system of culinary consumption. Ali would sense this resistance and ask Olcay why she had brought him here into the enemy’s midst, why she had thought an attempt at compromise necessary. It would cause unnecessary exhaustion for the both of them. And so, it was best if Ali didn’t come over. It wasn’t necessary that he did. But what about the hours that Olcay spent apart from Ali inside a circle that was antagonistic to him? There was a part of Olcay that lived within that circle, that is, a part of her that was Ali’s enemy, that was alien to Ali. Whenever she parted company with Ali and went back home, she soon found herself brazenly perpetuating her old habits, her old behavior. She perpetuated her antagonism, her alienism. Olcay was gradually coming to understand that so long as she failed to rip this antagonistic alien piece out of herself and get rid of it, so long as she failed to rip out that piece of her that breathed inside that circle, that could not live without being in that circle, or dispose of the circle altogether, her love for Ali would be lacking in some way. Believing that such a relationship would inevitably be deficient somehow, irreconcilable in fact, she became afraid that this irreconcilability would gradually intensify. Her fear, her uneasiness, had increased over time. Especially since that day, or rather night, when Ali had shown up at their house unexpectedly, just like that. Ali’s sudden appearance had frightened Olcay. He never made sudden appearances like that, perhaps because he didn’t want to upset Olcay by prompting any unpleasant behavior on her family’s part. Ali hadn’t stayed over that night, he’d told her to stop by the party offices the next day and then left right away. Olcay sensed a feeling of relief at Ali’s rapid departure. The next morning, at the party offices, they didn’t talk about what had happened. They spent all day writing down the addresses for the magazines that were to be sent to Anatolia. That evening, Olcay was to go to the opera with her parents. Recently she and her mother were on the outs because of the work Olcay had been doing for the party. And so she had felt obliged to join them when they went to the opera. Her mother had also made an early evening appointment at the hairdresser’s. Olcay would have to abandon her work in the late afternoon in order to make it to the appointment on time. But did she really have to? Exhaustion! She and Ali had fixed stamps to the envelopes all day long, drinking tea after tea, and it was now nearly evening, but they still hadn’t finished. At one point Ali said to her, “If you want we can go have dinner at our place, and continue afterwards.”