“No,” I said. “That’s just how it looks to you. For me, and for him, money has no value, next to the beautiful things you’ll give him.”
“So what are you asking here? What do you want us to do?” they asked.
“If you listen to me,” I said, “you can have your money, and still deny him his pleasure.”
“How?” they asked.
“How? It’s easy. He’ll come in. Come over. The things he’s after are innocent enough: friendship, safety, intimacy, a bit of conversation … And you make as if you have all that to offer. The thing he wants more than anything, though – no doubt about it – he’ll save that for last. But because you already know, you can look like you might know, or might not. And he’ll think he has the trump card in his hand all this time, and just when he’s about to play it, he’ll see that he has no trump card, that the card in his hand is blank, while you hold a double trump in your hand. But you will have made every humanly possible sacrifice. There’s no harm in that.”
“What’s the point of all this?”
“The point of it is to get him to hate everything around him – you, himself, the world, money, the street, everything on earth – the moment he sees it, the moment he tastes it.”
“And then?”
“And then it’s over the rainbow … And then you …”
“All right. All right! You’ve said enough. We’ll do what you want,” they said.
He came home that evening, of his own accord. He threw himself into the same corner where I’d had him tied up earlier. He stretched out his legs, hid his head in his hands.
I caressed his graying hair, almost pulling on it.
“What went wrong? What put you into such a miserable state?”
“If only you had kept me in,” he said. “If only you had kept me right here, bound hand and foot.”
“What happened to you, darling? Come on now. Tell me what happened.”
What didn’t he tell me, the poor fool. They had taken my theoretical example literally, and put it into practice so well that even I was frightened by the pleasure I took from it.
“So what are you going to do now?” I said.
“You’ve got what you wanted. From here on in, there’s no need to tie me up. From now on, I’m just sitting here. I’m going nowhere. No more chasing after pleasure. No more of that for me!”
“So. At last you’ve come to your senses. Good for you!” I said that but I knew full well that before morning, before the next false dawn broke, the city would be calling to him, the streets with its bright and flashing lights. By morning he would be long gone from that corner he’d curled up in, so wretched and so sore. He’d be back on the street.
Until the day I found him in that same corner, staring up at me, wide-eyed and dead.
from
A Cloud in the Sky
I could say that everything I know about this man I have on good authority, but please, don’t take my word for it. There is, I think, no need to dwell on the rumors. Let me just confirm that he has a flat stomach and very long legs, with a head of golden hair, and shifty eyes. Let me also make it clear that I have no wish to imply that gossip is a wicked pastime, bringing us no joy. At the end of the day, it can enhance a reputation. We could, if we wished, imagine this man in an old-style photograph – a figure set against a background of shimmering fog. For we are not afraid.
So there he was, sitting on the low wall overlooking that vacant lot and the sea. And there, at his feet, was his dog, resting on its haunches, its front legs stretched out straight, still as a statue but for its cold, wet nose … Every now and then it looked up at its master and whimpered, as if to say, let’s go …
The man lit a cigarette and said:
“Sit. Stay still!”
The dog stretched out its front legs and put its nose between them. It closed its eyes. A gentle breeze rustled through its yellow fur, and the man’s wiry hair.
There was white mixed in with the gold. Beneath each line on his face were untold stories. Unrequited loves. Bitter heartaches. Lost looks. Lost books. Years wasted on drink and inner turmoil. Had I all the time in the world, there’s no telling what I could have found there. And what if I said that those crow’s feet around those blue eyes of his were not from laughing but from squinting at the sun? You’d just have to take my word for it! That said, I’m sure he utters those exact words whenever he happens to catch a glimpse of his reflection. I’m sure it’s what he tells his dog. But if you asked me how I can dare to make such a claim, when not a single neighbor has ever heard him utter these words, I would urge you to forget about neighbors and think instead about postmen – a nosy postman who can’t get this man out of his mind. And so there he is, in the middle of nowhere, passing the time of day with a man who has just offered him a cigarette, and saying:
“Aha! Oho! You mean that man who talks to his dog? Well, let me just tell you. The other day I took him a letter. The front door was ajar. I could hear all kinds of strange noises inside. Of course I pricked up my ears! I said to myself, ‘Now, there’s no one else inside but the man and his dog. Oh my God! What sort of dark business is this? Who could this man be talking to?’ So I peer inside to take a look. And wouldn’t you know it? He’s in there talking with his dog. A Rumeli Turk, chattering away with his dog – in Greek …”
The man who has given him the cigarette says:
“Good God, what was he saying? Or don’t you know Greek?”
“My good sir! How could I not? This is a Greek village. I’ve been the postman here for fifteen years. Of course I know Greek. Except … Forgive me, my good sir. But my throat’s a little dry. You wouldn’t mind stepping across there and fetching me a lemon soda? The good gentleman will be well aware that it’s no easy business traipsing all over town. Let me confirm that officially, my good sir. There are evenings when I pull off my shoes to find my feet aren’t the ones I left with in the morning. They’re twice the original size … Twice at least! Oh dear! All the same … Ah, what a pig! This soda’s ice cold! It’s not always like that … So where was I? Oh, so I peered inside and listened: ‘You,’ he said, ‘you think I’m old, don’t you?’ And then he says, ‘No, of course you don’t. I know you and you know me. So let me ask you … Do I ever tire of stomping over these hills and dales? You could try and tell me I’d had my fair share of laughter. You could point at all those wrinkles around my eyes … and around my lips … But you wouldn’t, my fine friend. Would you? I can’t say I never laughed, because I have. But I have never truly laughed. Not from the bottom of my heart. Whenever that urge comes to me, I recall something my mother liked to say: ‘Laugh from the bottom of your heart and you shall weep as many tears.’ I simply can’t laugh the way I want to. You know how people smile when they meet someone they know. Well, that’s the best I’ve ever managed, in my happiest moments. If I hold back my smiles when I greet people, it’s because I’m afraid they might lead me to cry. But I’m rambling, dear friend! All I meant to say was that those crow’s feet aren’t from tears or laughter. They’re from that sun up there … Up there in the sky. You know how I wander about all day under the sun. Now look closely right here. There are more wrinkles around my left eye, aren’t there? That’s because the squint in that eye is stronger. Because the eye itself is more sensitive to light. It’s been that way since the day I was born. The other eye’s fine, thank God. So I can get by. Otherwise I’d have to wear a monocle. Imagine that, my friend. A one-eyed dandy!”
Could we imagine the postman uttering the very words I have just set down on paper? I ask because he never did. But just imagine that he had. Imagine his voice, hissing like a serpent. Imagine the cold, jaundiced glint in his lying eyes. Imagine all that and you can see the listener bidding the postman goodbye, and going off to repeat the story, and not just the story, but the fidgeting. The hissing voice. The gaze. That much you would agree. So now that I am ready to write what remains of this story – beyond the episode that cost me a cigarette an
d a lemon soda – allow me to indulge in a modest preamble, in which I’ll reveal the secrets of my trade. From now on, I shall write in such a way as to stir you to ask, “And how do you know all this?” How I know such things I decline to say. But I can’t stop myself from saying this: maybe I live with this man. Though I won’t say that maybe he’s me. Say if I were to write, “Alone in his room, he scratched his head.” You might ask me how I knew that, or if I had seen him do it. Or if I were to say, “He wakes up in the morning with a heavy heart.” What a ridiculous line that would be! You might ask, “Are you this man? Stop playing games! Enough! How could you ever know how the bastard feels?” You have every right to lose patience … Please forgive me. I shall make the same mistake many times over in the story I am about to tell. I can no longer remember if I mentioned the remarkable affinity I feel for this man. But there is one last point I’d like to make before proceeding to the heart of the matter; though this man is a kindred spirit, I have no real connection to him. I am simply setting down what our inquisitive postman and others like him have told me. So if that much is clear …
Like the postman said, I don’t think he’s avoiding people. But surely there’s a reason he spends so much time alone … He himself might not know the reason why. As the postman pointed out, he doesn’t seem cut out for life on an island, surrounded by water on all sides. He belongs in the city, surrounded by throngs. No one here in this little place would ever talk to such a man, let alone drink rakı with him; people might befriend him early on, just to learn a bit about him, but then they would peel away, leaving him alone with his dog. No one bothers him. So let’s leave behind what the postman had to say and turn to the barber:
“It’s love that did this to him.”
So what’s this man’s problem? You cannot pretend he’s just like you or me. The fact of the matter is that this man talks to his dog! But then again, we hear of people speaking to walls, and their personal effects, to their dreams, beds, and mirrors. Some even talk to their neckties. Young girls speak to their hope chests. Young men speak to their own bodies as they make love. We know all this.
Then we have the poets speaking to women with no names, conversing with the stars and the winds, addressing lakes and distant lands and migrant birds and clouds drifting two thousand meters up in the sky. We have the fishermen, prattling away to their boats and rods and fish … but in these parts, when a man speaks with his dog, he becomes the object of ignominious gossip. Personally, I am not convinced that love made this man the way he is. For me, there’s nothing unnatural about him at all! But I am alone in this, I regret to say … No doubt the man’s not quite in his right mind … Here is my theory, for what it’s worth: people don’t much mind that he talks to his dog. What bothers them is his reluctance to speak to anyone else. And well, how shall I put this? These people spend their lives pouring their hearts out to each other. When anyone backs away from them, they thirst for answers …
Back to the rumors.
It seems that he owns two stores in the city and that he collects rent. He keeps the books for a tradesman involved in some mysterious business located who knows where. This tradesman is cut from the same cloth: he doesn’t speak much, shuns society; and he’s also a bachelor. They rarely say more than hello and goodbye.
Then there is this story:
They say that once upon a time there was a young woman he’d chat with on the ferry. There are even those who claim to have heard this eighteen-year-old girl speaking intimately with this man who was more than twice her age. They even heard him singing to her. Word finally reached the young girl’s father: he gave her a stern warning, and there the friendship stopped. Sometimes they would both end up on the last boat back to the islands, but now the poor girl goes straight back to sit with her two friends. After wandering along the decks for a spell, he heads to the prow, there to whistle a soft folk song. Though he was known for never greeting anyone, he would always greet this girl, and – strange as it might sound – she would greet him …
But the fact is, they never really exchanged more than a few words: “Hello,” and “How are you?” and, “I hope all is well with you.”
So that’s all the gossip I have on the man. That’s all anyone knows. But there is one creature on this earth who could reveal to us his deepest secrets. And that, my friends, is his little dog. A bright-eyed dog with a wet nose, and a golden coat that flutters in the wind … Now this dog belongs to him, not me. I mention him here only to make a point. Unless the dog is a figment of my imagination, at least in part? The fact is that the poor man will never manage to make the small creature understand how he lost his illusions, and let his fears get the better of him, to be left all alone. Dogs are not, and never will be, creatures of the word. If they want to show their owners some affection, they lick their hands and dash about wagging their tails. But here’s what I know from my imaginary dog:
“He got up early that morning. I heard a soft whistling, and I raced over to him …”
I suppose if I let the dog tell the rest of my story things would take a turn for the worse … The long and the short of it is that I decided one day to make friends with the man who sat on that low wall every evening, smoking his cigarettes, lost to his own thoughts. I walked over to him:
“Beyefendi,” I said. “If you don’t mind …”
“Oh, but of course, efendim, please sit down.”
I lit a cigarette. I sat down beside him. As I stroked his dog, he felt the need to speak first:
“You’re an animal lover?”
“Beyefendi, I adore them.”
“Truth is I was never very fond of them. But I’m quite used to them now. This one’s mother once belonged to an old lady who ran the little hotel I used to live in. Long before this one was ever born. The poor woman died. Her dog stayed with me from then on. I was very fond of that lady. Then some time passed. The dog died. It was a girl. This one here’s a boy. Back then someone wanted to take him away and I was going to give him up. But I kept him as a memory of his mother …”
That evening we didn’t share anything more interesting than this. Neither of us understood politics, nor did we have any interest in the subject. We could do little more than confirm each other’s beliefs: which is, of course, to say we talked politics. When I got home that evening, I couldn’t understand why the postman was so interested in this fellow. He was the most ordinary man in the world. Even the wealthy shopkeeper who lived across the road was more interesting than him. Wouldn’t you agree? His thoughts are mired in olive oil, green beans, flour, and garbanzo beans; he’s rolling in money, his children go to the famous schools and take dancing lessons and wear expensive clothes … And his daughter – she speaks such beautiful English! She graduated from a private college, no small feat! How pleased that’s made her father! How proud she’s made him! He’s more than happy to tell you the whole story: how he came here all the way from Chios to work as an errand boy at a corner shop, how in time he took over the business, how the owner continued to stop by to see him now and then, and how one day he offered his own daughter’s hand in marriage … His life, as he tells it, has been one long, thrilling ascent. Up and up he went, achieving one miracle after another. But how could people seeing only his tiny little shop in the fish market have any concept of the enormous storehouse just below? The Kurd at the door is impenetrable. The same could be said of the bleak iron shutters of the Byzantine warehouses beyond. Everything’s there in that tangled, medieval labyrinth where the carts pile up one on top of the other and porters walk along dark, oily conveyor belts, shouting as they go. The shopkeeper is fair-skinned. But his wife is olive-skinned. So, can that blond and honey-eyed son really be hers? He has a classic Grecian nose. And broad shoulders. He reminds his father of Alexander the Great. Yani Efendi is a well-educated man. He adores his son. His daughter, too. He’s so very proud of her English. But in Greece they are dying of hunger. In the coffeehouse he seems despondent. At home with his wife, he’s drive
n to tears. Sipping his coffee, he says, “Why not buy five, ten kilos more than we need and put them to one side, my sweet Eleni. You just never know!”
But that’s as far as I can take Yani Efendi’s life story … My fault entirely! As tired as I was, I still managed to retrace his steps. I was like Balzac, plotting the life of a perfumer. But you can’t really expect me to burst into the man’s home and compose a great novel, rattling off details of a place I’ve never seen.
But never mind. What I meant to say was that Yani Efendi had me so intrigued for a time that I forgot about the other one, the man with the dog, who once upon a time had kept everyone guessing – even me. Had I cared to do so, I could have joined him any evening on that little wall and drawn him into yet another tiresome conversation, from which I might have learned all manner of things. But no, I’ve had my fill of oddballs. No good can come of them! I’m saving myself for the ones who rejoice in life! This man hardly has a life … He has no one but his dog. He speaks to his dog and no one else. Bearing that in mind, let’s return to the postman’s observations:
“My good sir, this man has never once treated another man to a coffee. But please, let’s step into this gazino here and have a cup of coffee together. Oh, the things I could tell you about him … You could never imagine …”
“Some other time, some other time!”
I couldn’t be less interested. It’s Yani Efendi I want to know about now. I’ve just become friends with his son.
But five days on, he’s beginning to wear on me. He does have his charms, if only he’d stop talking! Now I can talk as much as any man about films and dances and poker games and women’s legs. But with this one, it’s the same every night! There’s no harm in it, I know. But one evening he takes it upon himself to mimic a matinee idol, a certain John Payne. Now I might enjoy speaking to the man himself, were I in America, but what business does this John Payne have, talking to me in Istanbul? That was our final conversation. These days, when we see each other, we just exchange a few laughs. In a few days, we won’t even do that … Meanwhile I’ve more or less given up on the idea of writing about the life of Yani Efendi. I’ve gone back to the man and his dog. Good that I took a long break from him. His shyness must have got the better of him that first time. But this time he even offered me a cigarette. And then, just for my sake, he scolded his dog:
A Useless Man Page 13