My plan was to eat everything Yunus had brought. So, with my white napkin laid out before me, I went on with the feast, which I was pleased to find included a salad in a little plastic box that I discovered at the bottom of the bag. “This,” I murmured, “is what happiness should be. This and nothing more.” That’s what I was feeling, along with the sting of my wounds.
Suddenly, I remembered where I’d seen Yunus before. Or maybe I just made up the memory, I’m not sure. All the same, I was thinking that I’d had a similar feeling during the days of the protests, so that was probably when I’d seen him. After I’d been wounded and taken to the mosque, the doctors circled around me like white-winged angels, saying things like:
“She’s got a head wound.” “She might have a concussion.” “It was hard to get her here.” “The police wouldn’t let us through.” “Is she conscious?”
Had I been conscious?
There was an enormous sparkling chandelier hanging above me. Like the Little Match Girl who gave herself over to reveries as she tried to get warm by the flames of matchsticks, my mind started to drift. I was ready to slip into the other world. Just one step remained. One small step.
I knew that because, when I turned my head to the left, I saw my grandma, who had died two months earlier.
“Don’t be afraid. Death is a sweet slumber.”
Just to my right was a young man who was also wounded. He was lying there with his shirt cut open. As the doctors worked away, doing something to his stomach, he smiled at me. Drawing on his last strength, he reached out and stroked my fingers. That touch was something of this world. As I was on the verge of crossing over, something of this world reached out to me, and I too remained here. On this side.
10
DELETE
I resisted my urge to lick the dessert bowl, as I wanted to show myself that I was still a “civilized” person. Though it was tempting, I didn’t even wipe my mouth on my arm—I used the napkin. No, I hadn’t yet descended into savagery. Instead of clinging to the notion that I’d live out the rest of my days in that tree, I said to myself, “I’ll just take it day by day. Maybe I’ll go on staying here like this, who knows.” I cast off all hesitations. About staying put, I mean. Even though I’d only been there for a day, it felt right. I couldn’t have been in a better place. Just like during the days of Gezi. Being there and protesting had felt so good. And now I was protesting in the treetops, as I knew that in the world below I’d be harassed and harried to no end.
As I was cleaning up and putting all my trash into the plastic bag the food had come in, I found a toothpick. Sticking it into the corner of my mouth, I wondered how I was going to brush my teeth, given that I didn’t have a toothbrush. There was always the option of asking Yunus to bring me one. I knew that he’d bring me anything. A new life, if I wanted. Even a new name. It made me feel better to know that, like me, he had been among the protesters. I felt safe. And that was comforting, just like knowing that I had something to eat.
I’d decided that I would throw the plastic bag into a green trash can I’d spotted a ways up the path, but it seemed most logical for me to crap in it first. As the saying goes, I’d kill two birds with one stone. Luckily for me, my digestive system seemed to have slowed down up in the trees. I opened the bag in the middle of that nest where I’d taken shelter and created a new life for myself. My aim was perfect: three turds the size of Ping-Pong balls dropped right into the bag. After wiping my rear with a few laurel leaves, I tied the bag up. In the meantime, I noticed that the nest was making ominous crackling sounds. If I hadn’t clung to the trunk of the tree like it was my mother, I would’ve fallen to the ground as the nest wobbled beneath me.
The trees were starting to get fed up with my presence.
They were right to not trust people.
The stork’s nest was, in fact, strong enough to bear my weight. You know those wicker patio chairs, the ones that IKEA sells? Well, it was like that—tightly woven, as sturdy as an IKEA chair, ha ha! The only problem with the nest was its tendency to slide, so I pulled it back until it was resting securely on the branch and lashed it down with one of my slackline straps. I was no longer in danger. Looking up, I whispered to the trees: “You can trust me. I would never do anything to bring harm to you. So please, do what you can to keep me safe. From here on out, I’m going to be living among your branches. Never again will I set foot on the ground. I know that, wherever you are, your home is your inner realm, and you’ll go on living your inward life there. The world below is filled with danger and evil. That’s why I am looking to you for solace and refuge.”
The branches of the trees swayed in a gesture of comprehension. The wind whistled. When you’re afraid, every sound is a sinister rustling. A shiver of fear ran through me. Day had not yet descended into night. The afternoon was heavy with lethargy, but I no longer feared the advance of dusk.
I clambered onto the wall, because I figured that would be the easiest way to reach the garbage can. As I walked, I felt as though I was slacklining on the Great Wall of China. The world lay spread out beneath my feet, a realm unto itself. For a moment I felt lofty and sublime; as they say, if a peril turns out to not be very perilous, it enthralls you. Despite the smarting of my wounds, I felt content, and the ancient wall seemed to spring back with every step I took, probably because I’d grown accustomed over the years to the bounciness of a slackline. When I got close to the trash can, I tossed down the plastic bag. It sailed right in. I’d played basketball from sixth to eighth grade, so I was a decent shot. As a matter of fact, I was fairly good at all the games that children play. I just failed at life.
When I returned to my perch, I wondered if what I’d eaten was going to be my last meal up in the treetops. I decided that I’d better get used to eating less and sever all ties with life as I’d known it. I had a new life to live, and I knew that should be my only focus. As my grandma was fond of saying, “Never give up on your dreams. People can put up with hunger, but seeing their hopes dashed is a torment worse than any other.”
I was undaunted by the prospect of going hungry and determined to make my dreams a reality. The only problem was that I didn’t know exactly what they were. For that matter, I wasn’t sure if I even had any. The dreams of my friends had all come to nothing.
How despicable! What gave you the right to destroy the lives of those brilliant young people? How could you hurt them so? And for what? Take the whole country, if that’s what you want. It’s all yours. Tear it to pieces. You disgust me. And you become all the more disgusting by doing what you do. You killed my friends. You tore apart my family. Yes, you are responsible for that too. You created a flora that makes it impossible for people to live their lives. You heartless wretch, do you even know what “flora” means? Vegetation. Do you know what it means as a figure of speech? If you don’t, try to figure it out. I’d like to see you try to use that mind of yours for something other than cunning and deception. Take my aunt, for example. She had to stop working as a journalist because of the environment you created. And then what happened? She slipped into despondency. What is “despondency”? Looking at the world around you like a dead fish. And what of my friends? You bombed the hell out of them as if they were your worst enemies. Then again, good people are your enemies. Just like all those conscientious youths.
I took a deep breath. When we remember, we reinvigorate life. That’s what I’m trying to do here. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t know you, dear reader. And although I may not know who you are, please listen to me: Did you know that my friends volunteered to take toys to kids suffering from the ravages of war? We found out about the initiative from a couple of people we met at the park. Volunteers all around the country were working together on the project. There was only one condition: the toys weren’t supposed to have anything to do with weapons or violence. For two whole weeks, we worked to make the project a success.
Forgetting doesn’t alleviate the pain we feel—remembering does. That tho
ught just occurred to me, now that I am feeling calm and composed. There’s only one thing I can do for them.
They were so excited to go that they got highlights on the day that they were going to leave. It was a spontaneous decision.
“I just don’t want to stand out too much,” I said.
“You idiot! Didn’t you protest together with people like that at the park?”
“Sure, but—”
“But what? Stop being ridiculous.”
“Even being ridiculous implies a ‘but.’”
“If you ask me, this whole conversation is becoming word salad. Shepherd’s salad, at that.”
As we waited for the bus to leave, we smoked, the ends of our cigarettes crackling in the wind. Ferries came and went as we stood there. I was feeling sentimental, but maybe it was the beer we’d drunk. Derin went to the corner shop and bought another beer.
“You’ve had enough already,” Pembe told her. “You’re going to pass out on my shoulder.”
“So what? I’m feeling a bit nervous.”
“Why?”
Looking back now, I can’t help but wonder if she’d somehow sensed that they were heading toward death.
We’d already gone once to the underground public bathroom across from the entrance to the subway. Afraid that she’d have to go again, Derin handed me the can of beer. “Here, you drink this. It’s going to be a long trip.”
Seagulls swooped and soared over the silvery ripples of the sea. It was such a beautiful summer day. At one point, four young men walked up to us, along with a sweet-looking girl with braces.
“Are you waiting for the bus too?”
Derin looked more relaxed now as she fell into conversation with the newcomers. The girl, who had wavy hair and was wearing orange Converse high tops, gestured toward a car that was parked behind one of the buses. “Looks like we’ve got an escort.”
“You think they’re going to follow us?”
“Seems that way.”
There were two men in the car. One driving, the other in the passenger seat. Their faces were shrouded in shadow.
“Do you think they’re going to arrest us?”
“Like, when we get on the bus?”
“All because we’re donating toys to those Kurdish kids stuck in the war . . .”
“It’s not impossible. They beat people to death, you know.”
“Really, who are those guys?”
“Enough already, let’s talk about happier things.”
“I couldn’t agree more. My mom says that her generation might not have a shot at it, but we might when we reach her age.”
“A shot at what?”
“Happier things.”
A ferry blew its horn as I waved goodbye to my friends. Saying farewell always makes me feel melancholic.
I got a text message when I was on the ferry.
So, did you start crying when we left or what?
In my reply, I used some emoji that perfectly expressed how much I missed them already. I was sitting on the long bench that ran along the side of the ferry, and the water was so close that I could’ve dipped my feet into the sea. Luckily for me, as I sat there feeling pleasantly woozy from the beer, that side of the boat was in shadow.
When the ferry pulled up to the dock in Karaköy, I got a Snapchat message of them dancing the halay at a gas station.
“Seems the bus didn’t fill up before we left.”
They were leading the others in the dance, and Pembe was shaking a handkerchief as she danced.
“It’s in my genes as a Bursa girl!”
I laughed as I watched Derin missing all the steps.
“Even though I’m a villager, I dunno how to do this!”
By that point, Pembe had stopped dancing and was hopping up and down. That family from Bursa that had made a fortune from textiles had finally come into its own through her, even if her name was Pembe and she swore like a sailor.
Smiling, I watched the Snapchats to the end, laughing out loud once in a while. We’re used to seeing that kind of thing now: people who look like they’re talking to themselves as they walk down the street (they’re actually talking on the phone through their headphones) and people who laugh, get angry, or burst into tears as they look at their phones. Of course, there are also things to which we haven’t grown accustomed despite the passage of time, but let’s not go into those here.
I went into the Starbucks in Karaköy, but realized that I didn’t even have enough money to buy a Turkish coffee, much less a cup of real brew. A bottle of water seemed to be my only option.
“Just give me what you’ve got and the rest is on the house.”
Yes, there were still some good people in the world.
I trudged up the hill from Tophane to Cihangir. When I got home, I went straight to bed and slept like a rock. When I woke up, I checked my messages to see if Derin and Pembe had sent me anything. I felt like I was on the road with them thanks to their videos. After reading for a while and downloading some music, I started getting hungry, but there wasn’t much to eat at home, so I cooked up a few eggs and nibbled at a salad my mom had thrown together along with some boiled potatoes; to be honest, I was surprised that she’d made anything at all. Afterward, I went back to sleep.
Pembe and Derin had breakfast at a cultural center while I was sleeping in Istanbul. While they were there, they sent me a video. It was the last one I got from them. They said that they were going to hold a press conference of some sort as they stirred sugar into their glasses of tea, being as impish as always. But they were also as kind as people come. They didn’t have a selfish bone in their bodies, nor were they marred by the curse of conceit. In short, they had hearts of gold. In the video, they introduced me to some of the others. Others who would die like them.
I awoke to what I thought was the sound of an exploding bomb.
My mother burst into my room.
“There was a bombing!”
A bomb went off in my mind. Perhaps it would be better to say that it went off in my heart, in the very center of my life. I sat up in bed. It was hot in my room. I waved my arms frantically, trying to drive away the disaster with the back of my hand, trying to keep it far from us.
As I walked toward the living room, bleary eyed and still half-asleep, it all started coming together. The television was on and I was holding my phone. The Twitter app was still open, playing the video Pembe and Derin had sent me.
A list of the dead:
Pembe P. Yılmaz. But as far as I knew, Pembe didn’t have a middle name—her mother had insisted on that—or so I’d thought. There was no mysterious P in her name, right? So it wasn’t her. That’s what I told myself.
Emine D. Erdoğdu. I was certain that couldn’t be Derin Erdoğdu. The D could have stood for anything.
No, their names weren’t on the list. I tried to believe that.
And then I had the first of my nervous breakdowns. When my mother reached her wits’ end, she called over my grandma and Aunt Hülya.
“The poor girl’s been crying her eyes out.”
Murmuring a prayer, my aunt handed me a glass of water. I remember thinking, Miss Deep Throat sure became a believer on the quick! Those sinful lips had sworn to uphold her husband’s political future. “Shut up! You killed them. It was your people who did it.”
Her lips, which had been quivering like a leaf in the wind, stopped in mid-prayer. I knocked the glass out of her hand, sending water flying through the chasm between us. As my aunt reared back to slap me, my mother caught hold of her arm.
“Don’t you dare hit her!”
In doing so, my mother protected me from the evil of the powers that be.
Am I wrong? I had a sudden urge to ask her that question, as I felt emboldened by the fact that my aunt hadn’t slapped me. And I knew I wasn’t wrong.
The conscience may be blind, but it isn’t mute. While it may not offer up elegant laments, it speaks of its own faults and sins in whispers:
“We’re not killers.”
That’s what my aunt Hülya said. Her Céline sunglasses, the cat-eye type, were pulled up onto her headscarf, which was a lilac purple that matched the chiffon and silk blouse she was wearing under her long jacket, and she had on a pair of name-brand trousers and Jimmy Choo sandals. Needless to say, even though she wore a headscarf, she always dressed to the nines. I noticed that she was wearing a new perfume—a light summery scent, probably Tom Ford’s Jasmin Rouge—and that she had a French pedicure. Just like how some people feel the need to make nonsensical comments about how women dress, I couldn’t help but think: She just had to show some skin, huh? A diamond brooch was pinned to her headscarf. My mother had said of the brooch, which my aunt’s husband had bought her for their anniversary, “It’s gorgeous!”
After pulling that nuptial bed number on the night of her wedding, my aunt Hülya had truly become the virginal woman her husband had desired, and she was quite adept at pretending to be a scrupulous, understanding person. She was the one who paid for my plane ticket. I saw her put two banknotes on the table—400 lira in total—but my mom later insisted there had only been one.
The Girl in the Tree Page 10
