Serenade for Nadia

by Zülfü Livaneli

  After a while I decided to give up. I called to Kerem that it was time for him to go to bed, knowing that he wouldn’t pay any attention to me, and then went to bed myself. I often spent an hour or so just lying in the dark, thinking, before going to sleep. I would daydream; imagine different, better lives; imagine that I was someone other than who I was—all the people I might and could have been.

  That night, though, the escape and freedom the daydreams offered didn’t come, and I found myself worrying about Kerem, and what I was going to do with him. Was I a bad mother? Had I made him like this? Or was it just a phase he would grow out of? I wondered if I should try to find one of those programs that would shut off his computer automatically. It couldn’t be good for him to spend this much time in virtual worlds. He didn’t speak to me at all anymore. He didn’t speak to anyone. The only relationships he had were with people he never saw, people he met online. Was he afraid to live a real life, to interact with real people?

  Once when he was out with his father I turned on his computer and looked at the history of the sites he’d visited. I just wanted to know what it was that absorbed him so much, what interested him. To catch a glimpse of the world in which he spent so much of his life. And I was horrified to discover that a large part of this world consisted of pornography. I was also very concerned to think that this was what he was learning about life and human relationships. Concerned that this would warp him somehow, make him incapable of having a real, warm, intimate relationship. That this was what was making him so cold and distant, so self-absorbed, and, perhaps, cruel.

  When I tried to talk to Ahmet about it he just laughed and told me not to worry, that “boys will be boys.” All Ahmet cared about was his new girlfriend. He didn’t want to be bothered with the son he’d practically abandoned.

  I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew it was almost morning. And the first thing that came to my mind was the white Renault. What was that about? What, if anything, did it mean? I couldn’t keep from getting out of bed and going to the window. The street was completely deserted, but there was a white Renault parked just across from my door. I couldn’t see if there was anyone in the car, couldn’t even be sure that it was the same car, but I felt deeply unsettled.

  Then, suddenly, the alarm clock was ringing, and with a sense of dread I realized that once again it was time for my hellish morning routine. It was bad enough to have to rush to get myself ready, but most of the time I had to struggle with Kerem too, to try to force him to get out of bed, eat some breakfast, and be on his way to school before I left. I knew that if I left before him he wouldn’t go to school at all, that he’d just spend all day on the computer. Sometimes he refused to get out of bed, and once I got so exasperated that I called his father. But of course Ahmet just said he was late for a meeting and didn’t have time to deal with it.

  That morning was a little better. Not easy, but at least I was able to get him out of bed and out the door in time for me to catch a bus that would get me to work less than half an hour late.

  As I made my way down the hall to my office, I saw Süleyman waiting at the door.

  “Good morning, ma’am. Do you have a moment? There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

  “OK, but I don’t have much time, I have a meeting with the rector in a few minutes.”

  “Well, that’s just it, I mean, you see the rector every day. The thing is, my cousin Hüseyin, he’s been out of work for a while. I was wondering if you could talk to the rector about him, maybe talk him into giving him a job as a janitor or something. Anything.”

  “I’m sorry, but first of all the rector doesn’t hire janitors, you’d have to go to the head of the maintenance department, and even if he did, I’m not really in a position to ask him that kind of favor.”

  He gave me an angry look, and I realized I’d handled the situation badly, and perhaps even made an enemy of him. I should at least have said I would help. I could even have had a word with the head of maintenance. It wouldn’t have cost me anything and I might have made an ally, or at least got a ride home whenever I needed one.

  “What time do we need to leave to get to the hotel by eleven?”

  “If we leave at ten fifteen we’ll have plenty of time.”

  His tone was politely neutral, but I could tell he was angry. He left, and I started gathering together the files, papers, and memos I had to bring to the rector for our daily public relations meeting. Among the memos was one about a talk that Professor Wagner would be giving that afternoon.

  * * *

  —

  I look up when the flight attendant asks in a whisper if there’s anything else I would like. I was so absorbed I didn’t even notice her take the glass from my tray table. I consider having another drink, but decide against it. She smiles and tells me not to hesitate to ask if I want anything. I think it’s time to take a short break, take a little walk up and down the aisle, go to the toilet, and maybe have a glass of water.

  CHAPTER 2

  When we pulled up in front of the hotel I instinctively looked around for the white Renault. It wasn’t there, but somehow I didn’t feel reassured.

  I went to the front desk and asked for the professor. The young receptionist looked at the key rack behind him.

  “His key is here. I’m not sure, but I think he may have gone out,” he said.

  It was five to eleven. I waited in the lobby, thinking he must have got up early and gone for a walk. Nearby, an elderly American couple were looking at a map, planning their day’s sightseeing. A few minutes later the professor strode in, looking refreshed and alert. He was wearing a gray flannel jacket under his black coat and had put on a pale blue tie. Again he greeted me by doffing his hat.

  I smiled and was surprised to realize that I was actually happy to see him.

  “Have I kept you waiting?” he asked. He sounded much more cheerful than he had the last time I saw him.

  “No, professor, I just got here. It isn’t even eleven yet.”

  “I was just taking a stroll around the neighborhood.”

  “I’m sure you found that things have changed a great deal.”

  “Ah yes, of course. So many of the places I knew are gone now, though I’m sure you don’t remember any of them.”

  “Probably not, but it’s changed even in my time. It’s a shame, really.”

  “A shame? I don’t see it that way. I expected things to have changed. Places change. In a sense, to exist is to change, and places that don’t change become sad and stagnant. I also remember that in my time I used to hear people talk about the good old days, and I’m sure that when they were young they heard the same thing. I’m sure there’ll be a time when people feel nostalgic about the way it is today.”

  “Yes, I suppose so, I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

  He gave Süleyman a small tip as he got into the car, and Süleyman was genuinely pleased, both by the money and the gesture.

  It had stopped raining an hour or so earlier, and as we crossed the Galata Bridge there were shafts of sunlight piercing the clouds, illuminating the domes and minarets of the mosques and reflected here and there on the water. The professor peered out the window at the skyline of the old city, with flocks of seagulls spiraling slowly above it, the Golden Horn and the Galata Tower, ferry boats and motor launches coming and going, the crowds surging across the bridge, and the people fishing over the railing. I crossed this bridge several times a week but had long since stopped admiring the view. It had become ordinary for me, something I hardly noticed, but the professor’s enchantment was so palpable, so infectious, that I looked at the scene with new eyes and felt its magic again.

  “Ah yes,” he said, “This is it, this is the Istanbul I remember. I used to love to come here. There was a coffee house on the lower level, I used to spend hours there, just gazing out across the water and taking it all
in. It’s changed of course, but in some essential way it’s the same. The bridge itself, though, it’s not the same bridge.”

  “No, this one was built in the 1980s, I think.”

  “Ah, and there’s the Süleymaniye Mosque. That was another of my favorite places. I used to go sit in the courtyard, there was such a sense of peace and tranquility there. Yes, this is still such a beautiful, bewitching city.”

  “The ugliest beautiful city in the world,” I said, and he laughed.

  It struck me that even though the Süleymaniye Mosque was only a short walk from the university, it would never occur to me to seek peace and tranquility there. I only ever went when I was showing people around, and although I’d memorized everything there was to know about it, it was not in any way a part of my life. Everyone always assumed I was Muslim; it said so on my identity card, and if I was asked I usually said I was. But I didn’t really know anything about the religion; I derived no strength or guidance or hope from it, none of the things faith is supposed to give you. In fact I’d never actually prayed in a mosque, I’d only ever been to mosques for funerals.

  My parents were just old enough to have been part of the generation who wholeheartedly embraced the Republic, and who devoted their lives to building a new and modern nation. Before she married, my mother was one of the young teachers who went to remote villages to teach not just the children but also many of the adults how to read and write. She also organized the villagers to build a sewage system and taught them hygiene and basic facts about health and nutrition. Would I have had the courage to do that? She was barely eighteen when she went off to this village all by herself. At the time it was the thing to do, it was what all her friends were doing, it was what had to be done.

  During his student years my father dedicated himself to helping establish People’s Houses, cultural centers that offered adult education and a wide variety of cultural and artistic activities. He saw himself almost as a missionary, and believed that the people’s freedom could only be achieved through their education and the broadening of their cultural horizons. He also saw the People’s Houses as a way to break the power of the mosque. It gave the people someplace besides the mosque where they could gather, an alternative center of the community.

  They took their strength from an ideal, and an essential part of this ideal involved rejecting what was seen as backwards and feudal. They believed in “revolutionary ethics” and “secular morality.” They wanted to be free of the “tyranny of tradition” and believed in the establishment of a “perfect democracy.” And in a sense they were at war, because there were constant rebellions by those who wanted to restore the Caliphate or by feudal tribal leaders who felt their power and way of life threatened.

  I don’t think either of my parents was against religion as such. They saw it as a private matter, a matter of conscience, and believed that religious authorities had no business dictating public policy. Yet somehow being Muslim remained part of their cultural identity. The republican elite was made up almost entirely of people who considered themselves Muslim. Why did this regime, which proclaimed itself to be egalitarian and secular, insist that our religion be listed on our identity cards? If your identity card listed you as Christian, you were regarded as a potential enemy, assigned to construction brigades during your military service, and subject to the ruinous “wealth tax.”

  “But all of this,” I said, “The Golden Horn and the mosques and all that. This is what tourists come to see, but it has nothing to do with the city I live in. That city has no magic, no beauty, nothing at all to recommend it. It’s just a machine that grinds people up.”

  “You forget that I wasn’t a tourist when I was here. I lived here and worked here.”

  “Yes. I’m sure the city was much nicer then, though.”

  “Every age had its own problems, and I appreciate the many difficulties you must face. But the war years were very hard. I sincerely hope that you never have to live through a war.”

  As we were approaching Beyazit Square, he asked if he could get out and walk the rest of the way, so I sent Süleyman on ahead and joined him. He stood for a while on the edge of the square, just looking around and taking it in, and then we started strolling slowly toward the university’s monumental front gate.

  “So many memories are flooding back to me. It’s almost overwhelming.”

  We passed through the gate and crossed the large yard through the crowds of boisterous students.

  “Why are there policemen at the entrance?” he asked.

  “They’re protecting the university from the students.”

  He smiled, and I continued, “A lot of the female students come from conservative religious backgrounds, but they’re not allowed to wear the traditional head covering inside the university. The police are here to make sure they don’t.”

  “So what do these girls do?”

  “They either take off their headscarves and wear hats or wigs, or refuse to enter and end up dropping out.”

  “This wasn’t a problem in my time. None of the girls wanted to wear headscarves. Indeed, they found it very liberating not to have to cover their heads.”

  “Yes, well, things have changed. Maybe we’re going backwards.”

  The rector was waiting for us at the entrance to the building, and addressed the professor warmly in German.

  I left them and headed back to my office. On the way I checked my phone and saw that I’d missed two calls from Tarık. I hesitated for a moment, realizing that I didn’t really want to talk to him, and then called him back anyway.

  “What’s your visiting professor like?”

  “He’s actually quite nice, I like him. He’s very handsome and gallant and charming, and he has such a broad perspective on things.”

  “Should I be jealous?”

  “Don’t be silly. He’s eighty-seven.”

  “Listen, I was wondering if we could get together this evening.”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t think I’m going to be able to get away at all while this professor is here.”

  “Well, give me a call if you can escape. There’s something I want to talk to you about. I might have some good news.”

  Once again, I thought about whether it was time to end this relationship. It was clear that it wasn’t going anywhere, and I had to admit to myself that I didn’t really even like him. But it was nice to have someone, and I didn’t want to be alone again. It was difficult to make the decision to take such a drastic step. I told myself that I’d put a lot of effort into the relationship, that even though he could be annoying he was a decent man at heart, that things could work out. But I knew deep down that he just wasn’t right for me, and that I probably wasn’t right for him either.

  Just then the rector’s assistant popped her head in the door and told me we were leaving for lunch. A group of us filed out of the building. The rector and Wagner and another professor got into the black car, and I got into another car with a couple of other faculty members.

  Lunch was at the Konyalı Restaurant in the gardens of Topkapı Palace, at a long table looking out over Seraglio Point, with a view of the mouth of the Bosporus, and the islands and the Asian shore. There was a fairly large group, and I sat as far as I could from Wagner and the rector. They were talking in German, so I wouldn’t be able to take part in the conversation anyway.

  Unfortunately, Professor Erdoğan seized the chance to sit next to me. Erdoğan had somehow deluded himself into thinking that he was a ladies’ man, and also had the notion that all divorced women were available and just waiting to fall into his arms. He started flirting with me right away, with his usual lack of sophistication and tact. Fortunately, the first course arrived, and I was able to give my attention to my food. He kept at me, though, and it took all my strength to keep from snapping at him and putting him in his place. I already had something of a reputation for being
a bitch, and I didn’t want to make life at work any more difficult than it was. I felt a deep sense of relief when the meal came to an end and coffee was served. I hadn’t been able to enjoy my food, but the coffee seemed like the best I’d ever had.

  When we got back to the university we went straight to a large lecture hall that was already full of students and faculty. The rector went up to the rostrum and gave Wagner a glowing introduction, and then invited Professor Hakkı, who’d been Wagner’s student, to say a few words. Hakkı spoke at rather too much length about the work Wagner had done, how he had helped lay the foundations for modern university education in Turkey and about the rigorous standards he had established at the law school. Then, finally, Wagner himself was invited to speak.

  He strode confidently up to the rostrum, and then, with a warm smile, looked around at the audience. Right away, he had everyone under his spell, and the hall fell completely silent.

  I can’t, of course, remember his entire speech. I can only paraphrase what he said. At first he addressed the crowd in Turkish, glancing at his notes. His sentences were well phrased and grammatical, though he stumbled over his words a bit and occasionally had some trouble with pronunciation. He also used some words that were no longer in general use, for instance he used the word talebe rather than öğrenci for “student.” He spoke of what an honor it was to be invited back to the university after fifty-nine years, what fond memories he had of the place and how happy it made him to see his former student and to know that the people he had taught had made such a great contribution to the nation. The audience was touched, and broke into applause.

  He continued in English, praising the early leaders of the Republic for their courage and vision in establishing modern standards in university education. He also praised the Turkish colleagues whose hard work against great odds had inspired him. Then he continued with a few anecdotes about what the city and the university were like when he was here. They were mostly amusing anecdotes, and he got a few laughs from the audience, but of what he said at this point only one phrase remains with me.