A Useless Man

by Sait Faik Abasiyanik

  “I was really beginning to worry about you. Where have you been, my friend? You just disappeared.”

  “Just a little cold, but it kept me in bed for the week, beyefendi!”

  “You’re feeling better now, I hope?”

  Then he told me how he once caught a cold that simply wouldn’t go away. But even so, he couldn’t keep himself out of the sea, and so he’d spent the entire summer sniffling. Here was this man, who’d told his own dog he never laughed. But today he couldn’t stop! It seemed to me the dog was flashing him a funny look: no doubt the result of a long chat with the postman!

  I suppose it’s time I told you more about the postman. As I’ve already said, I found few failings in him, beyond his habit of ferreting out other people’s secrets – tidbits about their little failings and predilections, the sorts of things that should never go beyond four walls.

  Is the postman a good man or is he not? What do I care, either way? All that matters is that I can’t help liking him, even though he gets on my nerves. He has this infuriating habit of planting himself three paces behind me, and staying put. No chance of talking to anyone else after that. There is little I have to say to the world that I can’t say loud and clear, but when I see this postman sitting there, drinking in my every word, I can’t help myself. I fly into a rage. I forget whatever it was I wanted to say. Whatever it was, I just wanted to say it slowly. And then I remind myself: “The bastard can take two words out of a sentence and add twenty new ones, and come up with a whole story, so watch out!”

  This is, in fact, what happened: We have a mutual friend named Ahmet. He rents a room for the summer season from Mademoiselle Katina. The other night he went for a swim. Two friends of his were speaking about it just a couple of feet away from the postman:

  “You know Ahmet from Katina’s house, well he went for a swim in the sea last night despite all that wind. He told us to come in too but …”

  From this the postman extracted three things exactly: “Katina, Ahmet, last night …” And this is what he said to his barber:

  “Now hello there, barber! How about helping me get rid of this rubble? But listen to what I have to tell you. You know Ahmet, who stays in one of those houses on the hill? Last night he took off in a rowboat with none other than Katinaki, the daughter of the famous chocolatier. They rowed all the way over to Heybeliada. Then they hopped into a phaeton and it was off to Çamlimanı! I watched them from that promontory. First I saw them rowing across the channel. Then, a little later, I watched them make their way along the lengthy shore road in a lit carriage. I swear I saw that phaeton with my own two eyes. The driver was waiting for them in Abbaspaşa. Oh! How sweet it must have been, Barba. You’ll remember it rained yesterday. You know how sweet it smells in that pine forest after it rains! But who will ever know the scent of lavender in Katinaki’s hair? Oh lord! Barba, it’s enough to drive a man mad! As for this Ahmet Efendi, he’s not bad looking himself, is he? What eyes he has! Thin as a whip, too! Let’s hope he wasn’t too hard on that delicate Katinaki!”

  So that was the story that the postman spun. I can only admire his knack for making a story out of nothing because serious writers like me can only dream of it.

  Let me say what I think is underneath it all:

  On the surface, it might look as if he is divulging great secrets in exchange for small favors – a tea here and a soda there. A shave, a small glass of rakı, a bunch of grapes … But if you ask me, these trifles are not what keep him serving up secrets. I figured this out when I noticed that if he could find no one else to confide in, he would go to Zafiri, who is a quiet soul and hates gossip and cannot afford a coffee for himself, let alone anyone else, and can barely speak Turkish. Or he’ll go and sit with Zeynel Efendi, the retired ticket salesman, who is as quiet as Zafiri and just as disdainful of gossip.

  The postman hungers after secrets because he longs to grasp the world he can see only in his imagination.

  And there are times, many times, when I think he goes too far. First he strings up the dirty laundry, and then comes the laundry that he’s soiled himself. The innocent truth is never enough for him. Never – but then what are we to do? He’s the one who has to pay the price. It’s a risky business, building a house of lies, even if it sits on a foundation of facts … I’d end up forgetting what the postman’s said about whom, and soon I’d even forget what he’s said, and at that point, I’d move on. As we all do, eventually. Some days, we believe what people tell us, and the next day, we don’t.

  I do not hide the fact that I am a writer. It’s nothing to be ashamed of! But I don’t like to announce it. Now if I choose to sit and write in the corner of a gazino every morning, that is why. In the old days I would go and write under a pine tree. Now I have my own table! And they bring me a coffee. Girls stroll past. I can write whatever I wish …

  What I am trying to say is that the postman has proved very helpful!

  “He sits under the pines and writes letters … Who knows who he’s writing to … or what he’s saying?”

  But oh, the things he has inferred from stories I have written and then torn up! It shames me just to think of them. Once I nearly got into a fight over it. They all descended on me, saying, “This brute has the gall to write about our lives! Who does the bastard think he is?”

  I have gone on far too long about the postman. Let’s just accept him as he is. Let’s leave it to the others to decide if he is good or bad. But let’s not smear him, since he has proven useful.

  He caught up with me one morning, when I was going out for a swim:

  “Look,” he said, “the man with the dog! He is sending letters to his newspaper.”

  I looked and saw that it was indeed an envelope addressed to an assistant editor named X at a paper named Y.

  Without looking up, I cried:

  “Indeed it is!”

  Then our eyes met. Something strange passed between us.

  Turning my eyes back to the envelope, I said:

  “Well it is indeed. Perhaps it’s a complaint. Or a letter to the editor.”

  Again, our eyes met. There isn’t a judge on this earth who could say who was the offender and who the accomplice, or who was provoking whom.

  We ripped open the envelope. We didn’t hurry to read it. First we went and got an envelope. We addressed it to the same editor, at the same paper. Then we went to the beach and settled ourselves beside a lone boulder.

  On a sheet of paper folded in four, we found the following lines:

  Esteemed Sir:

  I am sending you this humble story as a contribution to your short story competition. Please feel free to publish it if you like it. With all my respect.

  On another piece of paper folded in two there was this story:

  (The name was lyrical, even sensual!)

  Moonlight

  Once upon a time I was in love. I am counting on you to understand why! How could anyone not fall in love with her! (There followed a torrid description, which we passed over quickly.) I was living in a village on the other side of the Sea of Marmara. Every evening, we’d travel back together. I won’t lie to you. My feelings for her were not entirely normal. By which I mean to say they were not as they should have been. When we fall in love, we should feel as if we’ve been struck by lightning. We should resolve to do whatever it takes, to win our beloved’s heart. A love like this has its charms, but it’s not for me. First I need a little bit of encouragement. After that, things are easier. Until I am again encouraged, and then I feel as if I’ve been caught in a trap, and from then on, I am trying to escape. Until there is a third bit of encouragement. Then it’s all over. I’m madly in love.

  And now it had happened once again. The second time I saw her, I knew I was heading for parts unknown. Never again would I see the place of my birth or the beloved country where I had made my life. A great sadness fell over me. I almost said an “indescribable sadness,” but here I am, describing it.

  Everyone and everythin
g I loved was falling away: my language, my homeland, my mother, my father, my house, my garden, and my friends. And oh, the tears I shed as they gathered round me, saying, “You’re leaving us! How can you do this to us? Shame on you! Can it be true? Are you really going to abandon us, just like this? We never expected this of you … Are you really leaving us? Are you never coming back? Are you actually leaving us for … her? For this woman? Take a good look at her now. Take a good, long look. You won’t regret it!”

  The ferry cuts through the calm waters, the stars trail behind. The passengers become their own shadows. And on we sail. I want the journey to go on forever. I pay no heed to the warnings my loved ones keep whispering in my ears.

  Who first introduced us, I cannot say. Neither can I say how this came about, or on what pretext. I’ve forgotten everything and everyone but her. Were there stars in the sky above her? Ships in the sea? … Even the sun did not exist, because it wasn’t there that night. Even the moon! This pale slip of a shadow, hardly visible by day had only been with us for fifteen days – and how could we be sure that it existed at all? There were moments when I forgot even this. How beautiful the face of this earth! Such lies it conjures up! Lies can be made of all the things we know to be true – the moon, the stars, and birds, and whistles, and violins, and ships! Oh, such beauties we can find on the face of the earth! And oh, my beloved! And oh, the things I could do, if she and the world were both mine! The third time, I sought her out. She half recognized me, half didn’t. I was crushed. The fourth time, I gave her a casual wave, in passing. But inside I was churning, like a river joining the sea. “Let it go,” I told myself. “Just keep your distance.” The fifth time our paths crossed, I didn’t even say hello.

  I went up to sit at the bow. The moon that night was lovely. Was it full? I’m not sure. All I can remember is that there was the moon, and my beloved. How flat those two words are. But what a history they carry. It could only have been a moonlit night when Adam first fell in love with Eve. There were many more to come in the centuries that followed! But there is no one on this earth who could have been unhappier than I was on that moonlit night. Not even the lover caught in the midday sun. Not even the man standing at his window, puffing miserably at his cigarette. The word itself does not begin to describe it. But never mind. There’s no need to look for a better one. A man in the moonlight is a man walking the thin line between misery and bliss. Did you know, for instance, that love has two sides, like the moon itself? Think, perchance, of the lover who commits suicide on a moonlit night. He’s a happy man! Miserable enough to find the joy in death, but happy in the knowledge of the joy that death will bring! (“This part’s awful!” I said to the postman.) On the night in question, that was precisely my line of thinking. In my mind, I could feel death’s cold lips pressing down on me. But here, before me, was a woman with warm lips, and a body smooth as marble. “Hello,” she said. She sat down beside me. “How are you doing?”

  “Terrible,” I said.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Honestly, nothing at all. Oh, who knows. Who can say?”

  We fell silent.

  When she finally spoke, she seemed to have come closer.

  “What’s there, on the surface of the moon?” she asked.

  “On the moon?” I said.

  I gave it some thought. Then I told her whatever I could remember from school.

  “There’s nothing on the moon … It’s empty, meaningless, dead … There is no atmosphere, nothing that can support life. Even the light we see up there is false. It doesn’t radiate its own light … What you see is a reflection of the sun’s light … No, there’s nothing there … Nothing … It’s cold, or maybe it’s not even that … Where there is no atmosphere, can there even be such a thing as heat, or cold?”

  “So there’s no life on the moon?”

  “There’s no air, as I just said!”

  “Fine. But how about if you took your own oxygen?”

  “Look, that part I don’t know. Maybe you could last for a few hours, or a few days … It might be possible to stay there long enough to see a bit of the place, and satisfy your curiosity …”

  She looked up at the moon. It felt as if she were resting her head on my shoulder. Or maybe it was the moonlight that made me believe this was so.

  I succumbed to the light:

  “My lovely,” I said. “Have you taken leave of your senses? How could there be anyone up there living on the moon? The only ones who can live there are lovers. They meet for an evening, and two become one. And then they fly up to the moon together. And most of them get there. If I were to take hold of you, if you and I were to fall to the bottom of the sea, never to return, a host of other creatures would come to our rescue and fly us straight up.”

  What a lovely laugh she had. I had taken everything I’d learned in geography class and turned it on its head. And that was how I came to find the courage to hold my beloved’s hand.

  I managed not to laugh. The postman laughed a great deal. But something in his face had changed. He was no longer curious. He no longer wished to know what secrets lurked in people’s hearts. He put it like this:

  “They’re all alike. But I used to think that the man with the dog was different. There were things about him that seemed unique. Oh, the tragedies I dreamed up for him! He certainly kept me guessing. When all it was was love. But I just couldn’t see it – how a man who kept his own company and talked only to his dog could be like you or me. Now I can read the letters I carry without even opening them. I already know them all by heart.”

  And off he went up the hill.

  The Last Birds

  Winter came with the winds – the poyraz and the yıldız poyraz, the maestro, and the dramaduna, the gündoğusu, the karayel, and the batı karayel. It took up residence on one side of the island while summer lingered on the other, a wistful nomad who had yet to gather up her things. I have no wish to sing my own praises, but I do believe I am the only man on the island who fully appreciates this fresh-faced beauty as she wavers (passport in one hand, a pouch of gold pieces in the other) between staying and going.

  All around me, they were making their preparations for six or seven months of cold. But I, in my idleness, was playing hide and seek with my nomad. Whenever I caught up with her, I held her in my arms. Sometimes she hid in the shade of a pine. Sometimes I would find her in the grass, next to a bush – as radiant as if she had never left.

  On this side of the island, where summer is so slow to close her tattered bundles, the only structure standing is a little coffeehouse.

  It is no larger than a small balcony, just five or ten meters above a quiet bay. Ants still wander over its wooden tables. Flies perch on the edges of coffee cups. There isn’t a sound. Then from somewhere in the sky comes the humming of a plane. I only imagine the passengers as I write these lines now. There were other planes, earlier on. But this is the first time I’ve stopped to think about the passengers who are soon to disembark at Yeşilköy, who may already have done so by the time I finish these two lines.

  The proprietor is a surly man, more like a cantankerous civil servant than the proprietor of a coffeehouse. It’s the last job in the world he would have chosen, but he was in poor health and his doctors told him to take it easy. I have very different reasons: I stayed away from the job because I couldn’t find the right coffeehouse. What I had in mind was a coffeehouse in the country, or a village. With only three or four regulars … I can’t think of a more beautiful life. What could be more beautiful than a life spanning fifty or sixty years, if it began and ended in such a place?

  The underwear strung up between two trees will never dry in this warm weather. It’s overcast and still. A cat is up on the tabletop. Will it keep grumbling at my dog? Those holey socks draped over the chairs are as dark as cherry stones … The vine leaves are greener than ever. The ones in our garden are already dry.

  The sea is racing off to the Bozburun Peninsula. What part of
Istanbul is that, hovering in the distance? Why is there no sound?

  Another plane flies overhead. Our island must be underneath a flight path – they are always going right over us, or just to the left. The cat’s stopped grumbling. My dog’s eyes are closed. Now I can hear the crows. Time was when birds would flock to the island at this time of year. They’d fill the air with their chirping. They’d swarm in flocks from tree to tree.

  For two years now, we haven’t seen them.

  Or have they come and gone without my knowing?

  Toward autumn I’d see families – all sorts – heading toward the highest hill on the island with cages in their hands. I’d shudder at the sight.

  The older ones carried strange, shit-colored clubs.

  When they reached the edge of a green meadow, they’d set down their cage. Inside was a decoy bird. Placing the cage beneath a little tree, they’d smear birdlime all over its branches. The wild birds would hear the decoy’s lonely cry – for friendship, for company – and swoop down to help, while that bunch of bruisers kept watch from the shade of a neighboring tree. Then slowly they’d come back out into the open to walk toward the cage, the decoy, and the swarms of wild birds. Four or five would manage to break free of the birdlime and while they were flying off to be caught on yet another patch of lime, these men would gather up their quarry. Each bird a miracle of nature. Each yielding no more than a drop of flesh. Then and there, they’d break their necks with their teeth. And then pluck them alive.