“And now this! Perfect. To crown it all, you’ve added stealing to your list of skills.”
My father was shouting up a storm as we left the station. My mother didn’t say a word. She couldn’t. She didn’t have the strength. Zara decided to press charges. They had figured out everything that she’d stolen, which didn’t really matter because she confessed anyways. She paid for it all. Actually, that’s not true. My father paid for it all. I was wearing a pair of pants and a sweater that my mother had stolen. And let’s not forget the cashmere jacket. It felt like I was wearing the skins of carcasses. Or the clothes of a dead person. My mother was hunched over out of fear and regret, cowering. The only time my father was ever outside of the house with us was when there was trouble. I decided not to tell Pembe and Derin about what had happened. We’d left the police station and were walking down the street, so I guessed we were going to take the underground home. Just as we reached the corner of Valikonağı Street, we ran into Pembe and her mother. Speak of the devil. Let me tell you, friends: this is a fucked-up world! I stopped, but my parents walked right by without even saying hi. Then it was my turn to lie: “My mom wasn’t feeling well, so we went to the American hospital, and they put her on an IV. She wanted to come out to get some fresh air.” With her mascaraed eyelashes, Pembe’s mother’s eyes were like a doll’s as they widened in surprise. “What’s wrong?”
“Stress,” I said. It was the shortest answer I could think of that would stop her from asking more questions. She looked at me sadly. Compassion, consolation, respect for our private lives: all three in one. And then a bonus! Stroking my cheek, she said, “Ah, you poor thing . . .” Her fingertips smelled of Chanel No. 5. They said that they were out exchanging some birthday presents. Arm in arm, the mother and daughter walked off, their hands full of bags from Max Mara, Prada, Beymen, and Mapa. I guessed that, with the exception of Beymen, the other brands didn’t have stores on ritzy Bağdat Street. My mind full of such pointless thoughts, I’m sure I watched them walk off with a twinge of jealousy. Her mother walked as if she was still making her way between rows of airplane seats, ignoring the fact that all the passengers were gawking at her. But gawk they did. If a passenger asked for a blanket, a pillow, or some cold water, she’d stop if he had the right look. She always knew who was who. If the passenger asking for a pillow was some geezer from a village, she’d walk right past, but when the man wearing a Rolex who had been bumped up to business class asked for some tomato juice, she’d stop and ask, “Would you like some black pepper with that?”
And my mother? Unemployed and desperate. Defeated, despite all her skills. Two women of the same age, walking toward two different ends of the street. One of them had found what she was looking for, in some way or another. The other was programmed to fail. And me? I was exactly in the middle, but would most likely veer to my mother’s side of the street. I was madly jealous of Pembe. She was lucky from birth. Derin wasn’t like me. I mean, she wasn’t jealous of Pembe. Even though she was from the lower classes, she’d sharpened her tongue with swearing and didn’t give a damn about anything. Or maybe she did, but she didn’t show it. I couldn’t help but wonder: Why was I like that?
I pulled my cashmere jacket more tightly around me. When we were talking, Pembe had straightened my collar, trying to match her expression to my look of sadness. She pitied me. And that felt good. I thought I was playing my role well. There is so much that the people with whom we surround ourselves don’t know about us. I’d even say that everyone hides themselves away in a mysterious cocoon. How could they have known that my mother had been taken into custody for stealing? They couldn’t. It was cold that day. I wanted a North Face jacket like the one Pembe was wearing, a jacket that would keep you warm down to twenty-five degrees below zero. If I’d told my mother, maybe she would’ve swiped one for me. Using her own special technique, she’d cut out the alarm tag, leaving a hole from which the down feathers hiding inside could escape. Patch it up as much as you want, but the genie is out of the bottle. The voices, anger, and other emotions we keep trapped inside are like that too. When they find a hole through which they can slip out, you suddenly find yourself in the treetops like me. I’m here because I know myself; otherwise, I might’ve wound up in the loony bin or, perhaps, like Amy, in a dark grave, down in the pits of hell. They cremated her, right? What did they do with her ashes? Did they bury them? Or spread them over England’s broad, misty meadows? Maybe her father keeps the ashes of his daughter in an urn at home? So he can turn them into a handsome profit as the legend steeps over time?
I followed after my mother and my father, who had to walk by her side that day, shuffling my worn-out UGG boots. Now there was no way I’d be able to replace them. The real ones cost a small fortune. I remember that I stopped at one point so that I could think more clearly, or perhaps to gather my thoughts. The street was quiet. Was it the first day of the New Year or something? I’ve said that I’m against consumerism, like in the days when we rose up in protest. But my needs are important. Was I thinking of love, of being loved, as warm feet? Was it really so important for me to crown that warmth with a pair of real UGGs? I remember saying that I was feeling confused, like I said at the beginning of this adventure. The voids of youth, the voids of my soul. Still shuffling, I sped up a little. Something happened then that had never occurred before. Like in a dream, the faster I went, the farther away they became. And yet they were walking ever so slowly. I knew that I was going faster than them. It was like I was in a nightmare, but it was all the more frightening because it was real. As if that wasn’t enough, the shop window of the bookstore at the corner of Rumeli Street reminded me of my dreams, of that book I’d written in vain, because the writing competition had ended not long before: “You wrote everything that popped into your head. But all you’ve done is copy-paste the subject of a great novel in your attempt to write something like the books of today’s famous writers. And do you think dialogue is just swearing?”
I wanted to scream “Enough already!” at my literature teacher, who was bent on beating what I’d written to death. But she was insistent: “I will teach you how to write a novel. If you had that knowledge, no book could get in your way. You’d stomp all over every book that’s been written.”
As Özlem Hanım ranted on, the rest of the class seemed to be asleep, drifting into dreams and flights of imagination. The girl who’d won the competition didn’t object so as not to compromise her own position as the winner. What about Pembe and Derin? They were in a different world. If I were to ask, “Should we really fight about books?” or “Isn’t it enough to read? Why should everyone learn how to write?” it would have stirred up indignation. I kept my mouth shut. Not saying anything either encourages the other person to talk more or it’s a shortcut to getting them to shut up. It all depends on the person. Özlem Hanım got more and more worked up. Admittedly, she was a good speaker. The struggle to get through life must have left her deeply wounded, because the people who have been hurt the most are the best at hurting others. In order to feel compassion for herself, in order to love herself, she needed to see how hurt she’d been through someone else. And she was the agent of that suffering.
Then, Özlem Hanım wanted to go one “tick” further. In the center of my mind, as I lay propped up on all fours on the sidewalk, she wanted to kick me one more time in the side before fucking off: “On the one hand, your writing is quite mediocre and sloppy . . .”
Per the rules of our wondrous Turkish language, it was impossible for that sentence to be “a stick with shit on both ends,” as the saying goes for situations in which you’re screwed either way. When our philosophy teacher asked, “So, how do you pick up a stick that’s soiled on both ends?” I answered, “In the middle,” thereby revealing the endless well of hope I carry inside. Özlem Hanım herself was screwed. She was scrambling to find something to place in opposition to mediocre and sloppy, but in vain! My dear Pembe came to the rescue, finishing off our teacher’s awkward sen
tence: “On the other hand, it is profound.” That monument to perniciousness protested, “No, it’s not like that at all. What I was doing was giving an example of the carelessly written, incorrect sentences that your classmate used in her writing. On the one hand, your writing is quite mediocre and sloppy, and on the other hand, it is shallow.”
A brief hush fell over the room. The sidewalk on which I sprawled wasn’t even as silent as the classroom now lurking in the depths of my mind. Someone was running to come to my aid.
I told myself that all I needed to do was catch up with my parents. It was too much for me. It was too much of a burden to bear. I collapsed like a puppet whose strings have been cut. You could say that I kissed the dust. As if I’d fallen from high in the sky, as if I was falling. To slow myself down, I planted the palms of my hands on the sidewalk, but, just as in the tree, that didn’t stop me from getting a nasty scrape on my chin. My parents were still walking down the sidewalk, unaware that I’d fallen. I wanted to call out to them, but my voice caught in my throat.
I don’t remember them turning around and helping me to my feet.
At a pharmacy, they bandaged up my chin. The palms of my hands were scraped up too. Later, when she saw me at school with my hands bandaged, Pembe would ask, “Did that happen right after you left?” I’d given up on taking notes in class. I’d sit there, looking out the window, like I’m doing now. There was a high wall covered with ivy behind the school. Just like behind our apartment.
“That girl’s not right in the head.”
That was how Özlem Hanım, who was also our homeroom teacher, worded the school counselor’s diagnosis when she spoke with my parents. I was afraid my mother would say, “Who of us is right in the head!” The other faculty overheard Özlem Hanım talking on the phone. Monsieur Pierre told me that she was trying to convince everyone that I was mentally ill. He let it slip. I love it when people let things slip—it always leads to something exciting.
I thought to myself, I’m glad that Grandma isn’t here to see all this. Because I knew she would’ve felt bad. She would’ve felt bad for me. They were saying I was sick, I was telling myself that I was sick, and so on, and so on.
15
EDIT YOUR PROFILE
My grandma was insisting that she be remembered. It was impossible for me to swat away my memories of her like a fly. I turned my attention back to the room. “You can’t live in the moment because you’re always thinking about tomorrow.” If my grandma had risen from the grave and stood before me, that’s the advice she would’ve offered. Don’t worry, Grandma, I go through life remembering today when it becomes yesterday.
The room was clean, which pleased me. For some reason I thought it’d be messy, perhaps even a cigarette butt floating in the toilet. But there wasn’t. Bits of nuts from the chocolates I’d eaten were stuck between my teeth and idling around under my tongue. I thought about filching one of the disposable toothbrushes from the bathroom. After all, I was going to be back in the treetops again soon, as they were now my home. So, what business did I have being in that hotel room? Why didn’t I have the heart to let myself get filthy? Why was I so worried about brushing my teeth?
“You’re running away from something, is that it?”
That was one of the first questions that Yunus asked me.
I wished that the human mind was like a bathroom faucet. That it could be shut off with the turn of a knob. That memories wouldn’t rush in like a flood. Yes, I was up to my ankles in memories. My feet were now immersed in pleasantly warm water. It hadn’t even been a week since I’d last taken a shower. That was what I missed: hot water, suds, steam. When I was little, my grandma always bathed me. She and I would even go to the hammam. She’d had a falling-out with the scrubber woman at Galatasaray Hammam, so we’d go to Çemberlitaş. My grandma didn’t like bathing at home. She had bad memories about the tub at her place.
“I’d better finish up quickly and get out of here.”
That’s what my grandma said. Many, many years ago.
“The toilets and tubs in homes are breeding grounds for ghouls.” That’s what she’d say. But this wasn’t the tub of a home. It was the tub of a fancy boutique hotel. Not only that, but I was a fugitive there. A fugitive from life. I was using the place without permission. The treetops, however, were mine. At last I was free.
On September 6, 1955, a disaster befell my grandma. She was just eighteen years old at the time. She’d play the oud and sing in Beyoğlu’s tavernas, but only for select groups, special customers, gentlemen, ladies, connoisseurs of music. Most of the musicians were her Greek neighbors. Aside from my grandma, the only other Turkish member was the singer. They were a small, cheerful, unassuming group of musicians, ranging in age from eighteen to fifty-eight, both men and women. They mostly performed for foreigners, sometimes at two venues in a single night. And since they started late, my grandma would always sleep in. When she got up, she’d rush off to the small chocolate factory owned by her Greek neighbors, because that’s where her mother worked along with Madam Eleni, the wife of the owner, and their one and only daughter, Efrosa, who played violin in the same group as my grandma. Do you remember Madam Eleni? In those years, she didn’t use a cane or wear glasses—so how could you remember?
If there was a gig, Monsieur Hariapulos would call and say, “Send the girls to the taverna tonight.”
They would all rush out of the chocolate factory and go to their homes in Cihangir, where they’d eat a quick dinner, get cleaned up, and put on their best clothes, adding a bit of flair. The shows would start at around nine or ten o’clock. Efrosa’s fiancé, Niko, who was a music teacher, would join them as well. He could play every instrument, so if someone was sick that night, he’d take their place. Niko and Efrosa were set to get married on September 30. “That’s the best time of the year for a wedding,” my grandma said to one of her friends.
“The heat of Istanbul dies down, the rains haven’t come yet, the weather is cool and breezy, the families who were on the islands for the summer come back, the church isn’t so busy, the tailors and dressmakers have time on their hands, the fathers have saved up some money, new shipments of cacao arrive, the chocolate of the wedding cake is as fresh as can be, the engagement chocolates are exquisite, and the liqueurs have reached the peak of perfection.”
“It’ll be your turn next, Perihan, dear.”
My grandma was in love too, with the son of a family from the neighborhood. They lived on Matara Street. To top it off, he was educated.
“Educated or not, he’s a grave robber.”
That’s how my grandma’s mother would belittle the potential groom-to-be. What she meant by “grave robber” was “archaeologist.” Just like my father. Isn’t it strange how fate weaves its web? His family also belittled my grandma: “Son, why don’t you marry someone with a better education?”
But he was in love with my grandma: “Father’s a dentist, and you’re a housewife. So, Mother, why don’t you tell me how that marriage came about?”
“It was different back in those days.”
My grandma spoke of everything on her deathbed, all her memories gushing forth. Including memories of her potential mother-in-law, who didn’t want her in the family.
Together with Niko and Efrosa, they secretly went to the islands, and to the cinema once. And then my grandma’s sweetheart went to France to continue his studies. She waited for him. He promised her, “As soon as I return, we’ll make our relationship official. You’ll breathe a sigh of relief, and so will I.”
Letters shuttled back and forth between France and Istanbul. He even had a friend of his deliver a gift to my grandma: a dress made of printed fabric. My grandma was ecstatic because she’d never seen such a beautiful dress. There was a note in the box:
“My Peri, my Perihan, I wonder how this silk dress will look on you? You are silkier than silk itself. I send you embraces filled with longing. When we meet upon my return, I would like you to wear this dress. But i
f, out of excitement, you wear it before that time, I won’t be upset, my sweet.”
So there you have it, letters filled with a love, a yearning that we can’t wrap our minds around. A romanticism that’s always beyond our reach. Echoes from the past that emerge from the depths of my grandma’s crocodile-skin purse.
My grandma was waiting for the archaeologist who went to France. Efrosa was enjoying her engagement with Niko to the utmost. They were fine; they were splendid. When my grandma’s mother saw the dress from Paris, she realized how serious matters had become. She made do with lamenting, “If only he’d been a doctor, or an engineer.” As for the mother of my grandma’s beau, she pulled herself together when she heard the story of a young man who killed himself because his family tried to prevent him from marrying the woman he loved. She even stopped on the street to chat with the women from our family.
My grandma was happy. She was happy, not knowing that would be the first and last happiness in her life. Because if you experience something that makes you say you’d rather die than live through the likes of it again, all subsequent promises of happiness ring hollow.
When I found out about that painful memory, I wondered how my grandma had gone on living. Then I imagined her in those happy days: Overcome by excitement, Perihan put on the dress. As she looked at herself in the mirror, she said, “My love, when you come back, it will be as new as the day you sent it.” One night, as she was playing onstage at the taverna, there was a customer—a famous opera singer—who declared she had the very same dress from Paris that my grandma was wearing. They got far more tips than usual that night. Monsieur Hariapulos was grinning from ear to ear: “They probably thought if one of our musicians was wearing the same dress that opera singer has, they’d better tip well to show that they’re the ones with the money.”
The Girl in the Tree Page 17