Noontime in Yenisehir

by Sevgi Soysal

  He took a bottle of vinegar, its mouth stopped with a piece of rolled up newspaper, from the side of his shoeshine box, wet one of his rags with it, and began polishing the mirrors on the side of the box. Gypsy Necmi’s shoeshine box was extra fancy. It was decorated with carvings and mirrors. The carvings were painted in myriad colors and polished. The box Necmi had made himself, with his own hands; it had taken him a full three months. But there wasn’t another box like it in all of Kızılay. He took out a Harman cigarette and lit it. No matter what, Necmi liked fancy things. Like Harman cigarettes, for example. I’ll smoke whatever the hell I want, goddamn it. Even if it is expensive. What is life, after all? It’s just one day at a time. Any Gypsy worth his salt knows the worth, and the worthlessness, of money, whether he likes it or not. Money is the meat in the mouth of the lion. And it is a tough piece to seize. You have to be vicious like a lion, but once you’ve seized that meat, you gotta swallow it straight down, without even chewing, otherwise another lion will come and snatch it from you. Using his lighter, he lit his cigarette. He gazed at the lighter for a while. He’d bought the lighter six months ago from the smugglers in Diyarbakır’s Enayi market. He’d bought his wife silk in Diyarbakır too, before their wedding. They’d told him that in Diyarbakır they had shiny silk that was cheaper than water. He’d earned the money to buy the silk from gambling. Necmi could play cards with the best of them. That was another art of his. He was one hell of a cheater. Everyone pretty much knew more or less that he cheated. Because he always won. But he did such a masterful job of it that his opponent could never be quite sure, and so the latter would drag the game out, thinking he’d be able to catch on to Necmi’s tricks, and as a result lose over and over again. But even simply watching Necmi play cards was a pleasure. Some people went so far as to seek out opponents for him just so they could watch him play. He almost got into serious trouble a few times because of this card-playing business. In fact, once one of the taxi drivers on the corner of Sakarya became so enraged by his antics he nearly sent Necmi to kingdom come.

  After eleven at night, taxi driver Hasan would open his trunk and lay out dinner. During the summer, it was rakı, ice, melon and feta cheese. He’d cook some menemen on his little spirit burner. An evening of slow eating, drinking and card-playing would ensue. The games would be played tag-team. Whenever one of the driver’s shifts started, he’d turn his hand over to his partner. Hasan had heard of Necmi’s fame and invited him to play. That evening, hash was on the menu. Using a pocketknife, Hasan cut the brown hash, which resembled an apricot fruit roll, into small pieces, mixed it with tobacco and rolled it into joints. The drivers then took turns taking hits inside their taxicabs. In an effort to disguise the scent, Necmi mixed vanilla into his own. A sweet, pleasant smell filled the cab he happened to be in. Necmi took hit after hit as he played. And Hasan got more and more upset as Necmi won round after round, but then he didn’t want to ruin his reputation as a gracious host. Necmi was relaxed as could be. He was thinking about the silk he was going to buy from Enayi market. He imagined, in a state of ecstasy, the playing cards and lighter he’d buy there as well. Every now and then he’d take a hit inside one of the taxis, but he never went overboard. Whenever Hasan came over to rouse him, “C’mon, it’s time to play,” he’d feign resistance and pretend to be much higher than he actually was. Hasan meanwhile thought he’d surely be able to catch on to Necmi’s tricks, with the latter being as high as he was. At first Necmi would lose a couple of rounds on purpose, then he’d take Hasan for all he was worth. In the end, he ended up with every cent of Hasan’s thousand liras. Hasan hadn’t taken a single hit of dope that night. The sun was rising; the birds atop the trees on Sakarya Avenue had begun singing. When fishmonger Rıza, who’d come in early to open his shop, saw Necmi playing cards, he spouted off a few teasing words. He was a good friend of Necmi. Necmi sometimes stopped by his shop and bought a bonito, which he’d then garnish with some red onion, and tomatoes if they were in season, and then send it over to the baker in a nearby alley. And then he’d chat with the fishmonger until the fish was ready. Rıza got a kick out of chatting with Necmi. But then again, everyone did. Necmi ate his fish with his hands, the nails of which were stained black from shoe polish but never gave the impression of being dirty. For one, the black on his hands was not from dirt, and besides, he was very particular about his appearance. His mother tailored his dress shirts. Necmi would go to all sorts of lengths to find some colorful silk, and then he’d stand watching over his mother’s shoulder till the shirt was sewn. He always combed his dark, curly hair at least a dozen times, and in addition to his bottle of vinegar, he never failed to carry a bottle of lavender too. The latter he would occasionally sprinkle over his hair. He always wore pants the color of which contrasted with his shirt, and whenever he didn’t have any customers he would take the opportunity to shine his own shoes till they sparkled like mirrors. He was always shocked at how so many well-dressed men with so much money walked by wearing shoes that clearly needed a shine. And Necmi had a fine voice. Not a Gypsy wedding passed in the immigrant neighborhood in Konya at which Necmi didn’t sing and dance. Necmi would tell fishmonger Rıza about those weddings and about dalliances from his youth. “We, well, we learn everything, every little thing, when we’re still just kids,” Necmi would say. “For us Gypsies, there’s no such thing as keeping the sexes apart,” and then he’d tell about how he’d made love to his present wife when they were still kids, and how he tricked her, telling her, “Girl, I’m gonna teach you how to make a bear dance!” Necmi has a ton of bear stories. He’d tell about how his father, a true blue Gypsy, would wrestle bears, and then how he’d take his wife, who’d looked on with such admiration as he did so, right there on the floor mattress, in front of the kids. Rıza reveled in these stories that Necmi told, reenacting each scene. Necmi’s father was illiterate. But when he died, they found a notebook inside his mattress. Necmi told the story like this: “My father’s coffin was barely out of the house when she stopped her wailing and went and cut open the mattress and took out the notebook. My father had forbid her to touch it during his lifetime. It was a yellow shopkeeper’s notebook and on its pages were pasted our neighbors’ family photos. Our home in Konya looked out over a courtyard. And the photos, they were of the other Gypsy families whose one-room apartments looked onto the same courtyard. My mom recalled that my dad’s brother had been a street photographer who hung around the municipality gardens, and so my father had had him take the neighbors’ family photos on the cheap. At the time, my mom wondered why my father had been so insistent that the neighbors have their family photos taken, and when she finally saw the photos, she understood. My father had used an ink pen to draw horns on the heads of all the men.” Necmi would laugh when he said this, revealing his gold teeth. Rıza would ask, “Did your dad really cuckold all those guys?” “Of course he did, and those horns in the notebook document it! Stamps aren’t the only thing a man can collect, you know.” Necmi would also impersonate his father doing a bear dance. There would be a bear, and a bear-handler:

  “How does a woman faint in a Turkish bath?”

  “How does a Gypsy bride dance?”

  “How does Mehmet the Kurd wrestle?”

  That morning, fishmonger Rıza was simply looking to tease Necmi as he passed by:

  “You gettin’ a bear to dance again, are ya, Necmi?”

  Necmi looked at the money in front of him and then gave Rıza a wink: “Oh, and what a bear it is, a real, true bear!” But the words were barely out of his mouth before Hasan pulled a screwdriver on him. “What fucking bear, you’re the fucking bear, you Gypsy pimp you!” The other drivers, having leapt out their taxis, were barely able to rescue Necmi from Hasan’s wrath.

  It wasn’t hard for Necmi to forget all about this incident, because he was all about results. If a man didn’t risk something, then he was bound to lose. You only live once. But if you risk your life, then you’re bound to reap a reward. You could only die
once, but whoever risked his life always came out ahead. Either you possess wealth, or you put your life on the line without blinking an eye. The only other option was a life of servitude. Life, Necmi would proclaim, is just like gambling. You gotta lay your life out just like that too, and most of the time, life fell for the bluff. Because rarely does anyone put their life out there like that. And besides, if the bluff doesn’t work, well, dying is better than living the life of a dog. Rather than dying a slow death, you die the death of a pasha, with fame to boot. Like in the story of the bird of prey and the vulture. The bird of prey asked the vulture, “How many years will you live?” And the vulture replied: “I’ll live a long time.” Then the bird of prey asked, “So what do you eat?” The vulture responded: “I a eat shit, and I a eat carcasses, and I a eat rotten meat.” To this the bird of prey said: “’At’s great, just great, you go righta on and live a long life then, ’kay? I live a short life but I a eat quail, and I a eat partridge, and I a eat rabbit.” So you see, in this life, you have to be a bird of prey. You gotta aim for the heart every time. If you’ve got money, then put your money out there, but if you don’t have money, then you put your life out there. But you gotta keep your eye on the heart of your enemy. He’ll be so worried about his own life, he won’t even realize you’ve put your life on the line. Just when he believes he’s made his escape, he’ll fall into your trap. I’m a philosophizer, that’s what I am. Philosophizer Necmi. Once Necmi had rescued himself from Hasan’s screwdriver, he came out with a pretty profit and so he headed to Diyarbakır to put together a trousseau for his fiance, and bought exactly three kinds of silk: one, pomegranate flower; two, blood red orange, and three, rose pink. And he picked up a lighter and a set of cards for himself too.

  Necmi began making some noise, banging his brush against his dye box in the hopes that, perhaps, someone in the crowd, hearing him, would have his shoes shined. I’m not going to be able to scare up enough for rakı this evening. He found himself gazing at Olcay, who was standing on the sidewalk opposite. A pretty girl, pretty but cheerless. Those “refined” types, for whatever reason, always wearing the expression of an undertaker. The Gypsy girls that he grew up with and flirted with as a youngster, they were all cheerful. There wasn’t a one of them who didn’t laugh, who didn’t swear, who didn’t sing and dance at weddings and circumcisions. These Turkish girls though, that’s just the way, so somber you’d think they were carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. That’s what they consider desirable. Just tie one of those around your neck and jump into the sea. It’s the best way to get to the other side with a frown on your face. You’re a pretty girl, for goodness sake, would it really kill you to smile? I tell you what, if I were to find my woman wearing a face like that when I got home in the evening, I’d send her packing, put her right in the donkey’s saddle and say “Off ya go! You just take that face of yours and put it on when those women you wash for hand you a pile of menstrual cloths!” But that’s the kind of girl those folks like. Having spent so much time on the street corner watching the passersby, Necmi had come to ascertain certain things about human faces. He understood in a snap, just from the expression on a man’s face, whether or not he would have his shoes polished, and if he were the miserly type. For one, a man who smiled was guaranteed to be generous. The frowners, they were actually the stingy sort. And they made up the majority. I mean, any man who would begrudge you a simple smile was certain to begrudge you money. Most of these city types who pass down this street would never do anything for free. Not even smile. If they smile at all, it’s at their beau to get a snuggle, at the butcher to get a good slice of meat, at their boss to get a raise, or at the people to get a vote. They’re incapable of smiling for free, like this. And they get suspicious of anyone who does smile for no apparent reason. When they see that, they put on a frown, thinking, “Now that guy’s definitely going to want something from me.” Necmi loves a good laugh. Whenever Hüseyin, a taxi driver who works at the same corner as Necmi, is at the taxi stand, the two of them listen to the police radio on Hüseyin’s car radio. They sing songs together and laugh and laugh. If he laughs too much, potential customers are scared away. Necmi sees them scurrying and hurls a series of curses at them. You prick you, think I was taking the piss out of your ten cents, did you! Any rakı bought using your shitty money wouldn’t be worth swallowing anyway.

  The crowd was staring at the poplar. Necmi knew that poplar well. After all, it stood right across from him every God given day. These dumbasses on the other hand, they hadn’t once taken the time to look at that tree before now. They didn’t even know it existed. Now that it’s about to collapse, they all stand there staring straight at it. What the hell is there to look at? It’s a tree, collapsing is in its nature, so is drying out. It’s not like it’s going to ask you first, now is it? Is it not alive? Aren’t your foul-smelling bodies going to make their way to the boneyard, letting off a stench as they go? The tither these folks are in, it’s all about themselves. Now, that poplar is collapsing, right? Even if it’s just a poplar, they can’t bear to see something collapse, they can’t bring themselves to accept mortality. It wouldn’t suit them at all, because they’re going to die too. Every one of them would be more than willing to take the place of that poplar, become a prison bar staked onto this earth for eternity. But every single one of you is going to die, so take that, ha! he thought. These guys aren’t just depressing as hell, they’re enough to send the devil running. Man, the whole lot of us joyful Gypsies are going to have to lift these guys’ spirits in hell too. There’s no way this bunch of scarecrows is making it to heaven of course. Damn it brother, they’ll be dragging us down all the time on the other side too. Necmi laughed. He wasn’t one to let such thoughts get him down. He imagined the feet of the crowd surrounded by flames, how they’d hop, skip and jump trying not to get burnt. Now let’s see you not get those shoes shined.