by Selcuk Altun
I leapt up with the morning ezan and after a long thoughtful shower I dressed in my darkest suit and made for the seaside cemetery. At every step my heart beat faster. It was startling not to see Seydo’s body on the slope down to the police box; if I hadn’t seen my own vomit strewn with apricot skins, I could have sworn that I had dreamt last night. I shivered with relief and walked towards the market, tracing the bare tombstones of those Ottoman soldiers, doctors and higher civil servants who died young. I knew I’d come on our neighbourhood pretzel seller at the lonely park gate, reading a tabloid aloud.
‘If you don’t ask me anything about dervishes, I’ll buy two pretzel-rolls.’
But I was a bit ashamed when he replied, as he arranged his wares, ‘Did they send you to America to end up talking like that after ten years? Who can we ask, Mr Arda, if not you?’
I went to my office with unusual zeal. While I’d been fighting for my life my unmonitored email address was contacted at least twice. The first was from the repulsive Selçuk Altun:
Dear Arda,
I hope it’s a good sign, but last night I dreamt you were lying face-down by a graveyard, crying for help. Before I could reach you, you got up and thanked a shadow, ran off and jumped into the Bosphorus ... I send you my best wishes and hope we can meet soon to talk. Love to İz ...
Then my irrepressible uncle:
Arda, Arda, Arda,
I wish I’d never found Sylvie’s imaginary sister! Demi is a bisexual transvestite who’s had the operation, but is still a friend to Turks. (She’ll be my guest next summer.) You’d probably be angry if you read in one of my stories that her boyfriend and girlfriend were each other’s cousins. I found Cornell Woolrich’s 1930 book, A Young Man’s Heart, in the secondhand bookshop run by her man Vin. I’m flying to San Francisco to follow up Helen M. Grady, owner of the book in 1931. An experimental novel in which Demi and Helen’s paths will cross ...
he went on bullshitting. The unruly Salvador’s attempts to carry out research for his writings were always unsuccessful, while I, unbeknownst to him, lived real detective stories.
In the restful restaurant of the mysterious Four Seasons Hotel, where I was meeting a babbling banker for dinner, I heard news that turned my blood to ice. İz had been in some kind of a traffic accident and had been taken to the intensive care unit of a private hospital on the Asiatic side of the city. Was this the staging of the bloody final act in which I would lose her? (My whole being rose in torment.) I rushed to the Lokman Hospital. What if I were to lose İz? Could I ever connect with life again?
I found Zuhâl in the soulless waiting room of the intensive care unit. She was still in shock. ‘We had just seen a Nicole Kidman film and were on our way home in İz’s Suzuki. We noticed that a shop in İcadiye Street was open and we stopped for a soft drink. I got out first. Suddenly a Land Cruiser the size of a tank crashed into the jeep from the rear and threw her down just as she was loosening her safety belt. It was awful. I think I saw İz’s head coming through the windscreen and then the giant jeep tore away with arabesque music pouring from the open windows. İz has had a cerebral haemorrhage and there are hundreds of tiny glass fragments stuck in her face ...’ and she burst into tears again.
The doctor on duty, of the gold Rolex watch, then spoke, ‘Your friend has had a concussion of medium intensity. Once we’ve checked the level of blood-accumulation in the head we can operate, though we’ll have to wait forty-eight hours before we do so. The operation should be a success, all being well. Unfortunately, though, her face is severely damaged. I know a lot of lacerated women who have seen their faces, and even though they’ve survived the haemorrhage, they scream, “Why did you save me?”’
My head was spinning. I was permitted to go in for just ten minutes. I hoped the room number in the intensive care unit wasn’t a message. (285. The unlucky number on my middle-school certificate!) As soon as I saw İz under the respirator I shut my eyes and began to cry. Her face was covered by a mask of minced meat over her forehead and cheeks. Bits of glass protruded from every pore, and as though that wasn’t enough, her nose and lips were torn, the fragments glittering on and off like a mocking smile. I thought I’d never seen such a terrifying face even in my worst nightmares. I looked at Dr Rolex, who was completing an inventory of the damage, ‘three teeth broken’, and he immediately left the room. Was that the hint of a smile I saw as I tried to pull myself together and focus on İz? I remembered the traffic accident I had years ago; the bed where I lay limp as a scarecrow, how I had felt my pain stop at last and my body grow light as a caique floating on a whitish-grey river. Hoping the path of desolation would end in a moment of peace, I too might have tried to smile. During the convalescence I had described a dream to my mother, and she had interpreted the meaning behind it: ‘You seem to flirt with death, Arda; but I’m not going to hand over your life, not even to the Angel of Death, my fine son, before he takes mine.’
Apart from her bruised fingernails, painted yellow and blue in honour of the Fenerbahçe football team, my Beloved’s hands were bandaged. As I pressed my lips to her right index finger I couldn’t help noticing my heart warming and I was no longer disturbed by her tragic face. I remembered what Graham Greene had said to his old mistress Yvonne Cloetta, on the eve of his death, ‘I’ve just realized that true love emerges between two people when there’s no longer any sex drive.’ I bent close to her ear, ‘Listen, funny girl,’ I said, ‘you’ll come out of this hospital safe and sound. The best plastic surgeons on the planet are going to restore your face to its former self, God willing. Whatever happens I’ll never leave you! Perhaps we’ll marry, I really don’t care if you can’t go out amongst people for a while, or even ever. I could even be happy because you’ll have more time for me. Anyway I don’t like crowds, and you will discover the secret of silence ...’
I took to the doctor who was to perform the operation. He looked just like Woody Allen when he frowned. I was surprised when he didn’t ask for two thirds of his fee in dollars. The owner of the shop had been giving hell to his assistant on the pavement at the time of the accident, and had given the police the licence number of the runaway car. But when the young owner of the Land Cruiser, Kutsi Serhamza, turned out to be the nephew of some minister or other and the son of a building contractor, a prominent member of a religious sect, his testimony ‘disappeared’. Both İz’s and Zuhâl’s bosses were heavily in debt to public banks and the department for privatization, and had managed to prevent news of the accident appearing in the tabloid press. I was concentrating on İz’s condition so couldn’t react to the disgusting developments, but I recalled part of a poem by Küçük İskender called ‘Dulcinia’s Journal’.3
İz’s friendly father, who had left with his wife for the US to welcome the birth of their grandchild, came back alone for the operation. When he saw I had taken charge of the arrangements he slipped into the background. The operation was a success. As İz’s health insurance only covered 20 per cent of the hospital expenses, I paid the rest.
When, in spite of my warnings, İz looked at her face in the mirror she was overcome by screaming and tears. She was to be in the hospital another seventy-two hours, to prevent the risk of chronic bleeding. I took her mother, who made it to the hospital the next day, to İz’s room while she was asleep and I was glad when she fainted without screaming. Whatever the repulsive Selçuk Altun said when he phoned her to send his best wishes, her eyes tried to laugh. Later, he gave me the London address of a skilled surgeon, an expert in such cases, but upset me by saying, ‘This arrogant man will perhaps accept a patient only in four months’ time, but if your mother had been in charge she would have had İz on the operating table at the first opportunity.’
İz, the daughter of a retired and honest civil servant, hadn’t even enough money to go on holiday. She objected when I proposed to pay for the plastic surgery, and I replied, ‘Listen, funny girl. I propose we get married as soon as your face is healed, with God’s help. If you become my wi
fe, I’ll deduct what you owe me from your allowances, and if you end up with someone else, I’ll invoice your moronic husband ...’
İz was immensely touched by my sensitivity during this time of strife. (So was I.) But now that she no longer looked at me lovingly, as if I was her little brother, I felt a lot less confident. The surgeon recommended two weeks’ rest before travelling to London. The morning of her discharge from hospital, İz let her exhausted family know she would be staying with me until we left together for the UK. She scolded her mother when she reacted as if she were going to work in a brothel. While the tiresome woman was running from the room in tears, I remembered once again that I had never been able to say ‘no’ to my mother, not even once.
İz was trembling when she walked out into the light of day, her face wrapped in a turquoise scarf that Zuhâl had brought. On the way home I realized stupid Hayrullah was staring at her through the rearview mirror and I cheerfully banged him on the neck with my bag. İfakat turned out to be more resilient than I thought. When she embraced İz and said, ‘May God swiftly take the life of whoever left your lovely face in this state,’ was this a divine message? (Wouldn’t any servant of God take this Kutsi demon’s life for $50,000, or a chosen servant like Cahid, for $100,000? But first I had to soothe the pain of my İz of the beautiful soul ...)
One evening after the ezan İz had another fit of crying. Sending her to sleep with the aid of sleeping pills, I remained sleepless, and as though under a spell I began to read the first novel Selçuk Altun had signed for my mother. I thought the title Loneliness Comes from the Road You Go Down, borrowed from the poet Oktay Rifat, was a manoeuvre to increase the sales of the book. I didn’t go to sleep until I had finished it. The following day I read his other two novels, both of them at one go. I knew now why my mother hadn’t steered me towards these works which, I had to admit, were absorbing. Unfortunately this unattractive man, whom I had known since childhood, had – when in trouble – used me as a model for the protagonist and narrator in his novels. (I really can’t say I have any more sympathy for him than for my father’s murderer.)
My uncle, who came back empty-handed from San Francisco, announced, ‘The city was too humid even for masturbating.’ (I knew he would ignore the pain İz was suffering.) The next day we took off for London with high hopes. Of her group, İz had allowed only Zuhâl to come to the airport and, wrapped in her scarf, she was tense as if all eyes were on her. We collected our boarding cards and settled in the most out-of-the-way café we could find. While she was engrossed in a feminist comic book, Zuhâl leaned over and whispered, ‘Don’t let her know, but I’m convinced that lout Kutsi Serhamza is sitting three tables behind.’ I turned round with a shudder of loathing as if a rattlesnake was behind me. The stocky, mongoloid-looking rascal in a Versace shirt was on his feet putting out his cigarette with clumsy fingers. The gorilla on steroids who was attentively holding his case and mobile phone must have been his personal bodyguard. He lurched away towards his hell, his waddling walk imitating ex-president Turgut Özal. I cursed this swaggering hypocrite behind his back as he strutted off. Inspired like an elephant who remembers forty years later who shot down his mate, I committed every inch of him to memory.
Following a series of delay announcements at half-hourly intervals, we eventually boarded the plane. The stewardess in business class peered at İz to a most annoying degree.
As soon as İz swallowed her pill, she sank into a deep sleep. I covered her entire face with the scarf, except for her nostrils and mouth, and wrapped her closely in a blanket. (I notice I’m getting used to such things.) Before I started to read Haruki Murakami’s Sputnik Sweetheart, just like one of Selçuk Altun’s odd heroes, I looked at sublime Istanbul; those who failed to win her soul have now raped her body stone by stone.
This was İz’s first visit to London, and she was intently examining everything around her. We settled down in the Ritz Hotel next to Le Meridien where Dalga had staged her confessional. I had a premonition that we would be shown to the gloomy room 423, where Graham Greene and Selçuk Altun’s paranoid character Sina had stayed.
Next day, around noon, we went fearfully to Dr Rohatgi’s private office in Harley Street. The receptionist, who looked like a retired model, immediately ushered us into a claustrophobic room. There were eight cell-like cubicles into which the patients retreated to prevent them alarming one other. Pam almost had a fit when she realized that we had turned up without an appointment.
Apparently at that moment the doctor was phoning his assistant in Boston. I covertly slipped a £50 note into Pam’s pocket. ‘I take all the responsibility, please don’t try to stop me,’ I said and dived into the doctor’s room. I was startled when the Indian, who faced the wall behind him, and spoke on the phone with an accented but poetic English, suddenly turned round at the sound of the door opening. I don’t ever recall seeing such an ugly man before in my life. (I couldn’t help wondering which part of his body didn’t require plastic surgery.) I prepared to be kicked out of the room when he started to scan me with his bulging eyes, but with a smile he signalled to me to sit in the armchair closest to his table and turned back to the wall to continue his conversation. According to his business card on the table, he had graduated from Oxford University Medical School in 1979. I sighed, wondering whether my mother, if she had seen the degrees after his name, BMBch, BA (Hons), FRCS (Eng), DM, FRCS (Plast) while I was in high school, would have wanted me to become a plastic surgeon. I counted the busts of fourteen sulky-faced composers standing on mahogany pedestals dotted around his office.
He finished his conversation, and a familiar piano tune gradually filled the room.
‘Are you Eidur Gudjohnsen or his twin brother?’ he asked.
I wondered uncomfortably if I should feel happy to end up with a Chelsea-supporter surgeon, immediately emphasizing that I was a Harvard graduate. I summarized dramatically the events of the previous week.
‘I still can’t believe that I’m looking at a Turk with the physique of a Viking prince,’ he laughed, and I assured him that my grandmother was a pure Swede.
‘I’ve had many Turkish patients, Mr Harvard, but all of them ignorant of your world-class pianist İdil Biret. If you know who composed the piece we’re listening to and who the pianist is, perhaps you can erase my negative impression of Turks.’
(Horowitz was my father’s favourite pianist!) ‘With your permission I’ll reply to both questions. It’s Chopin’s Op. 55, Nocturne No. 2, and Vladimir Horowitz is playing.’
I recall his nervous laugh as he said, ‘I must rush off to an important meal; bring your princess in right away.’
İz came in, head bent, timid as an inexperienced concubine, but when he put his hand on her shoulder and declared, ‘I will give you your face back, Turkish Delight,’ I felt like kissing his hands like they do in corny Turkish films.
İz could be operated on in four days. Ideally we should stay in London for five months afterwards. I was keenly aware that a long period of psychological adjustment would be inevitable. The doctor had warned us of the possibility.
The surgery, performed at the ‘Let’s Face It’ clinic next to Chelsea’s football arena, lasted three and a half hours. The Cypriot nurse, who embellished her Turkish with ‘merci very’ at every opportunity, would come with the ‘good news’. During the clinical examination I rented a furnished flat in Park Lane. I was planning to go to Istanbul once a month for board meetings. My irrepressible uncle had gone on a ‘live masturbation’ tour of Egon Schiele’s paintings in European galleries so I would have to supervise the daily business by telephone.
For the next four weeks İz went around with a gauze-like protective mask. She was sick from the continuous medication. She would tremble when the protective cream was being applied and sob with anger as she resisted the urge to scratch her face. I hit the streets after putting her to sleep, renewing my vow for revenge. Waiting by her dimly lit bedside to give her the necessary medication at two o’clock
in the morning, I read through the complete works of Thomas Bernhard and Paul Auster.
The doctor was happy with his first examination, and he ended the mask application. Decreasing her doses he began the massage period which was to last for three months. When Gediz, İz’s twin brother who thinks the Beatles killed pop music, came with their mother to visit, I went back to Istanbul for four days. The first night, after the board meetings, I met with the usual crowd at Hünkâr’s for a meal. I knew that the ungrateful Güfte with her Byzantine tricks had taken over İz’s job, and wouldn’t turn up for the meal.
Superintendent Kasnak, whom I visited on the last day, thought I should abandon this girl, who would be overwhelmed by depression even if she did recover, and find a way to marry a European princess from the Ottoman dynasty. I knew I would find Cahid Hodja in the stockroom memorizing the dictionary on his makeshift table. I wasn’t surprised he looked guilty and embarrassed when he saw me, but he was moved when I conveyed in great detail what had happened to us. I began my pre-prepared spiel with a prayer:
‘... In the old days some joined religious sects to acquire “a visa for paradise” or “because of a herd mentality”. They say that the unscrupulous Kutsi’s father, a phony pilgrim, joined the sect to gain influence over trade, but he has won few contract tenders and has never worked in a public department. The hypocrite who uses all the loopholes in the financial system to pay less tax than a high-school teacher aspires to cultivate the state like his own farm through the contacts he has made with key people. While his mean-spirited son enjoys a life of pleasure and squanders the money they snatched out of people’s mouths, my girlfriend, whom he almost killed, cries continuously with pain. The fact that this man is not sitting in some corner of a prison cell awaiting punishment, and the fact that the publishers to whom she gave her life ignore her situation out of fear, makes my blood boil, Cahid Hodja. If he doesn’t serve his sentence my conscience will never rest! I’m ready to pay a fortune to anyone who will help me ...’