by Sevgi Soysal
He looked at Olcay again. She was a pretty girl, no doubt about that, a little flat-chested, but there was no hurt in that, after all, it wasn’t like he was going to be getting it on with her. But the eyes, the brows, they were alright. He let his gaze linger on Olcay’s sad expression and smirked, thinking, Seems the girl’s got no one putting a smile on her face.
Necmi’s wife would spend half an hour giggling when they went to bed at night. If she didn’t, Necmi would get upset, thinking, You mean to say I don’t even have what it takes to make a woman laugh? He imagined what would happen that evening. Their one-room apartment next to Recep Usta’s gecekondu. His wife would fry a slew of long green peppers. Necmi wouldn’t sit down at a dinner table that didn’t have peppers on it. Add some rakı, and some watermelon, and he’d be in a fine mood in no time. You gotta look at this world through a cloud of smoke if you want it to have any flavor, otherwise it is unbearable; you gotta have smoke, you gotta know how to get to the right altitude. And then he’d strike his hand on the table and start playing the darbuka. Once he was really into it, he’d slap his wife on the butt. “Dance, girl.” At first his wife would play coy, until Necmi let out a whoop. Once Necmi let out that whoop, his wife would start dancing. He looked at Olcay once more. That one wouldn’t dance if her life depended on it. She’d sit straight across from you, looking you square in the eye, drudging up memories of every goddamn bad thing that’s ever happened to you. He looked in the direction Olcay was looking, and saw Ali.
“Well, if it isn’t our Ali! What business has he got in this part of town?”
He whistled to get Ali’s attention. But Ali was engaged in an animated conversation with one of the little patisserie bastards. Necmi called all of the well-dressed young men who were always busy “hanging out” patisserie bastards and believed that all of those boys idled the days away spending their daddies’ money taking girls to patisseries. He couldn’t wrap his head around this patisserie business though. If you’ve found a broad loose enough to go to a patisserie with you, what the hell business did you have going to a patisserie? There had to be four walls somewhere in this great big city where you could have some time to yourselves!
Necmi knew Ali well. Our boy Ali, he’s a swell kid. What business has he got with those sissies? He recalled his wedding. He’d invited Ali. He knew Ali from Konya. Ali’s grandmother lived in the same immigrants’ neighborhood as him, and Ali frequently stayed with her. On Necmi’s street. He and Ali would play pickpocket. Necmi could have been a first class pickpocket if he’d wanted. He’d learned all the tricks. From the trash pickers. Cart drivers were second class Gypsies. And that’s where most of the pickpockets came from. Necmi in turn had taught Ali all that he’d learned from the trash pickers. Their pickpocketing was all a game though. They’d bump into Ali’s grandmother and make her mad, just for fun, until the woman would finally drive them off wielding a pair of tongs. The grandmother, who was Circassian and had one heck of a temper, would say she was going to turn them both into the police and see to it that they rotted on the roof of the prison. The truth was, Ali and Necmi actually kind of sort of wanted to land in prison. For them prison was something very exciting. Especially the prison stories that Necmi heard from those around him … So many of Necmi’s fellow Gypsies had landed in prison, and the children who ended up behind bars with their mothers would go on and on bragging about it once they got out. Their “when I was in prison” stories were pretty much the equivalent of the “when I was in Europe” stories told in other neighborhoods. And so Necmi and Ali would imagine what they’d do when they landed in prison:
“We’ll pickpocket,” Necmi would say.
“They’d throw us in prison, man.”
“Can you get arrested in prison?”
“Ah, right, anything goes there.”
“There, anything goes.”
The stories they heard made them think that prison was the freest place on earth. And so they’d have a jolly time imagining themselves emerging from prison rich from pickpocketing. But there was no way they were going to land in prison, Grandma wasn’t turning them in and their pickpocketing schemes never went beyond teasing grandma. After all, Ali was a good kid. He knew the meaning of a bad deed.
When he was getting married the previous year, Necmi heard that Ali had gone to Konya to visit his grandmother, and so he’d invited him to the wedding. Ali showed up bearing a pressure cooker. They held the wedding in the courtyard of the building where the bride’s family lived. All their relatives and Gypsy pals had shown up for the wedding, Gypsy women decked out in colorful dresses sat in the chairs lined in rows in the courtyard, clapping their hands and singing. Everyone danced, the bride included. And then they brought out the henna. That’s when everyone really started to whoop it up. A five-year-old boy played the tambourine, while some of the men showed off their skills, some playing the lute, others the kanun. Most of the relatives played at weddings, and whenever Necmi was hard up he too would go to a wedding to play music or sing and dance for money. Any Gypsy worth his salt played music and danced; if nothing else, those Gypsy folk could get by with a shimmy and a shake. Necmi had unloaded a few bullets into the sky and then danced with gusto. He’d tried to get Ali to dance too but Ali, being shy, refused. That’s the way these guys are, they haven’t a clue how to have fun at their weddings when it’s time for the henna; instead, everybody stands around crying, it’s like they’re made of mourning from head to toe. Especially their womenfolk, they dance stealthily like they’re trying not to get caught in the act, as if they’re stealing bread from the cellar or something. Eating, loving, they do it all in secret. Even when they drink water they crouch down with their backs to you. They live their blessed lives that the sweet Lord bestowed upon us as if it were a crime. But as for us, we know the value of the only thing ever given to us for free, and that’s why with us, two things are a free-for-all: joy and commotion. We Gypsies abide by what we call the law of commotion. Anyone can yell and scream as they damn well please. Women belt out songs while they’re washing laundry in the courtyard. Our fights, everything we do is completely out in the open; we’ve got no possessions to hide, nor any savings. Gypsy girls don’t have trousseau chests. We sling our sacks of possessions over our shoulders and take off as we please. For us, there’s no such thing as pining after the homeland. A home, a table, a chair, we get attached to none of it. What’s a chest to us? Who wants to sling a chest over their shoulders, it’d be like hauling your own coffin around with you. We don’t like having too many possessions, but we do like donkeys. Because donkeys carry us, and our load, wherever we want, just like that. Is there something that’s made us upset, something that’s got us feeling strangled? Well, then we just hop on our donkey and off we go, brother. Our weddings are of the clean-slate sort too. Any man who takes off for some other part of the world ain’t coming back. And Gypsy womenfolk don’t sit around fretting after them, no siree. She gets herself knocked up, doesn’t want that womb to go to waste. A Gypsy woman is the mother of the child she gives birth to, the child she nurses. Once she’s unleashed the child onto the world, she forgets all about it. The only person you gotta carry in this life is your own good self. Your belly full, your head held high. But take your talent and your joy with you. Your talent keeps your tummy filled, and your joy keeps you heart happy. Talent’s important to us. We don’t have anything to do with that studying business. You can graduate from thirty schools if you like, what difference does it make if you don’t have talent? We don’t belong to those types that lug around a bag full of books yet fail to put food on the table. A Gypsy is someone who knows how to use his hands. He has the hands of an artist, he’s skillful, and handsome too. A Gypsy is good-looking because he has learned to use his hands, every part of his body; we own our bodies, not a bunch of stuff. He recalled his wife’s narrow waist, the way she danced in that orange silk blouse at their wedding, and he laughed heartily. Even if he’s going hungry, a Gypsy will find a way to
get his hands on some olive oil to put the shine in his hair. That’s just how it is. This mass of misers who can’t be bothered to shine their shoes doesn’t have the first clue about how to live. He looked at Ali again. He doesn’t see me. He was very fond of Ali. Ali wasn’t like those other haughty bastards from their neighborhood, the ones who looked down on Gypsy kids. Actually, even as a child Ali was serious, and smart. The boy had tact—that’s the word, tact.
Ali saw Necmi. He waved, smiling. Then he made his way through the crowd and over to him. With Doğan at his side.
“What’re you up to, you good-for-nothing Gypsy, you?”
“Nothin’, just directing traffic.”
Ali laughed. “How’s business?”
“Good, real good. You just keep right on studying. You better become a statesman though and make it the law that you have to get your shoes shined. That way the government’ll do us some good for once.”
Ali laughed again.
“So you’re still studying, huh?”
“That’s right.”
“Ali, man, what a shame! What you’re doin’, it’s a real pity. How long does this thing called life last anyway? You gonna spend half of it studying? Just so you can make a few bucks in the end. If it’s all about making money in the end, why don’t you start from the end? Earning money is a different skill altogether, the earlier you get started, the better you get at it. You’re gonna step into the market with half your life already behind you and find that all the tykes out there are fiercer than you, all of them like vicious birds of prey. Ready to rip you to pieces.”
“C’mon Necmi, the world isn’t just full of people all looking to rip each other apart. The world can’t go on like this, it’s going to get better.”
Necmi looked Ali over from head to toe, displaying obvious displeasure with what he saw.
“Brother, you gotta get yourself into shape first. The world’ll get its turn later. What good can come of any person who denies himself everything?”
“Necmi, you big poser you, all you think about is appearances. But what we’re saying is: how about we pretty up the inside first.”
“Ali man, you’re talking like a greeting card. The plainer the clothes, the darker the heart. He who doesn’t see beauty can’t understand it. He who doesn’t understand beauty can’t make another soul happy, because he doesn’t know how a soul is made happy.”
“Maşallah, I see you still know how to run that mouth of yours.”
“Everything we got, we keep in tip-top shape, brother. We Gypsy folk don’t wear out, we die.”
“How’s your wife?”
“She’ll be glad you asked, brother. Come over some evening so she can fry you some vegetables. Not in that pressure cooker of yours though. I’m sorry but, man, we hawked that thing off straightaway. We’re not the sort that has delicate stomachs that can only handle boiled whatever. Real food’s got a sizzle to it. The whole room’s gotta smell like fried veggies. We’ll fry you a bunch of peppers. Some melon, some rakı, whaddya say?”
“I’d say that sounds just fine. But I don’t know where you live.”
“Ah, what kind of an excuse is that? You just stop by here again near evening. I’ll take you there. We’ll pick up some fish on our way.”
Doğan looked on, baffled by the conversation happening before him. Ali had so many different friends who were so different from one another. How was it that he got along with each of these different people who were so unalike? To Doğan it seemed symptomatic of a lack of character. You know, like when you have a certain character, you can only be friends with those who have kindred characters. Otherwise, you have to make concessions when it comes to your own character. If he were to explain this to Ali just now, Ali would respond with something like, “And just what is character, something superhuman, separate from humans? If it’s first and foremost something that makes humanity what it is, then it should be understandable to everyone,” he’d say. That’s how he is, his always holistic, embracing, open character has me standing next someone like Necmi, whom I would never take an interest in if it were purely up to me, whom, in fact, I would never even see. He changes me, makes me do things I wouldn’t otherwise do, opens me up to things I wouldn’t see, wouldn’t hear otherwise. Perhaps that’s why I need him. Like a blind person needs a dog. Doğan knew that he was mistaken in comparing Ali to the dog of a blind beggar. He knew it was unjust, both to himself and to Ali. But now, just a few moments ago, he felt the power to open doors that he himself would never be able to open on his own. This power wasn’t the power of guidance, it wasn’t his, and it wasn’t Ali’s either, it was another separate, immense power, something that came from a much larger circle, from people in situations similar to his own; Ali knew how to take from this power, and how to give it too.
But it completely rattled Doğan whenever Ali gave to others, like he was doing now. Doğan realized that he felt uncomfortable with how chummy Ali was behaving towards Necmi. He hated that feeling. Why am I so stingy, I can’t even share a friendship. No, Ali can’t change me; in fact, perhaps, in a way, he reinforces who I am. Ali and Necmi were still joking around.
“You watching that poplar collapse too?”
“Aren’t you?”
“So what if we do watch it, Ali? I’ve been shining shoes on this here corner for an eternity, and that there tree’s been standing right across from me the whole time. It’s not like its standing there has made any difference in my life, so why should its collapse mean anything to me?”
“Oh, c’mon, you some kind of fortuneteller now? Just look at all the people gathered around because something’s happening. This isn’t some chalkboard, it’s life—and it’s changing.”
“Don’t you pay any attention to those folks, Ali. The only thing they’re curious about is whose roots will go to pot when that poplar collapses. I’ve got a box, and it travels, and when I can no longer make a living on this street, I’ll go to another, doesn’t matter whether there’s a poplar tree or a fig tree or none at all.”
“That poplar’s in our yard …” Doğan said.
He had no idea why he had spoken these meaningless words. But he was ticked off by the fact that Necmi paid him no attention, that he behaved toward him with the same indifference he behaved towards the poplar. That’s right, perhaps he’d interjected in order to draw some of Necmi’s jubilant anger onto himself. With his dark eyes Necmi gave Doğan the once over.
“Well, in that case why are you just standing here? Why don’t you do something for the poplar yourself rather than making those poor workers run themselves ragged trying to prop the thing up?”
“I don’t care. Its roots are dried out anyway.”
“Then you should’ve cut the thing down. Then we wouldn’t have had to put up with this godforsaken crowd in the middle of the day.”
“I told you, I don’t care.”
“Then why do you say it’s yours? It’s either yours or it isn’t, the end. Are those shoes yours?”
“Yes, they are,” Doğan said, taken aback.
“Great, then take an interest in them. Just look at them, who knows when they last got shined.”
“True, so you think I should have them shined?”
“I do the shining, you pay the fee.”
Like a child Doğan immediately put his foot on the box to have his shoe shined. Ali looked on, smiling. He found it both entertaining and saddening the way Necmi took Doğan into his clutches and instantly had him doing his bidding. He sniffed out Doğan’s lack of self-confidence, he thought. The gambling Gypsy. He observes people with the shrewdness of a gambler. He can tell who’s going to lay it all on the table, who’s going to make a run for it. And he plays accordingly. You’d be hard pressed to explain to Necmi anything beyond gambling, anything beyond cutthroat existence or that the world is not static. Even if he were to lead Doğan away from this poplar, which in its present state caused so much doubt and unrest, it would be nearly impossible to keep new, simila
r plane trees from sprouting up. So why bother?
Necmi sang as he shined Doğan’s shoes:
“Your lovely face heaven-sent, did you I love to my heart’s content …”
Oh yes, love, true love, only possible to the heart’s content, Ali thought. In a mood of delight, infected by the joy that Necmi radiated, he continued to watch the poplar.
Aysel shows off for Ali
Aysel grumbled as she waded her way through the crowd blocking her path to the Ulus dolmuş stop. She’d had her hair cut short. Her large mouth, her far too darkly lined eyes, her bra which lent to her bosom the ridiculous appearance of sharply pointed projectiles, everything about her gave her away at first glance. She chomped much too loudly on her chewing gum while utilizing her handbag in an effort to part the sea of people before her. She bumped into men with her shoulder and then screeched at them, as if she herself had not incited their reaction to begin with:
“Watch yourself, asshole!”
There was something about her every movement that provoked, in one way or another, everyone she encountered. She owed her livelihood to her provocativeness. She had to provoke. If she were to get anything out of anyone, she had no choice but to prod and poke a bit. The truth was, if you didn’t press down hard enough on their bruises, most people couldn’t be bothered to react. If you wanna empty some pockets, you gotta shake the pants they belong to. Ever since she was a little girl, Aysel had either had to yank at her elders’ skirts or throw a temper tantrum in order to get anything. Sometimes for something as simple as a slice of bread, or a glass of water. Even as a young child she had come to grasp the fact that adults had no intention of taking an interest in anything, or giving anyone anything, unless you somehow managed to push their buttons.