by Moris Farhi
‘You needn’t worry about me.’
Mama Meryem forced a smile. ‘If you no can love her ... Spare her ... Please ...’
Then on 10 June – which happened to be his birthday – Adem asked Babacιk, Mama Meryem, Osman, Hatice and me to meet him in the Big Top.
He was standing by his trapeze. He had washed and ironed his vest and tights as if for a performance and looked illuminated. I was reminded of Mahmut the Simurg’s description of Eternity, the Beneficent Immortal whom the god Ahura Mazda baked from russet Samarkand clay.
He had rigged up the safety net. ‘I’m twenty-five today. I’ll try and start a new life.’
Babacιk ruffled his hair. ‘Good man!’
Adem put his arm on Osman’s shoulders. ‘Still want me as partner?’
Osman beamed. ‘Yes!’
‘Let’s have a go. A few passes first. Then maybe some twist-and-turns. I’ll signal – clap my hands! All right?’
‘Great!’ Osman ran to his rope ladder on the flyer’s side of the ring and climbed up to his trapeze.
Adem climbed on to his.
We sat down.
I was excited, but also nervous. Babacιk looked confident. Mama Meryem was expressionless. Hatice’s teeth clattered.
Adem and Osman started swinging. As they gathered speed, they settled into their positions: Adem, hanging upside down, arms and hands loose and ready to catch; Osman holding the trapeze like a gymnast on a fixed bar.
Minutes seemed to pass. We could have had our eyes closed but we would still have known by the swishing sound they made that they were swinging in perfect rhythm.
But no signal from Adem. We could see him rubbing his hands, trying to summon up courage.
We grew anxious, fearful.
Hatice shut her eyes and started mumbling a prayer.
Finally Adem clapped his hands.
We held our breath.
Osman let go of his trapeze just as Adem swung to meet him.
He floated down perfectly into Adem’s hands.
Adem caught him. And held him.
We clapped as they swung back.
Babacιk silenced us. ‘Sssshhhh!’
We looked up.
A terrible grimace distorted Adem’s face. Osman was slipping through his hands.
Adem managed to hold Osman until they were above the centre of the safety net. Then he dropped him. A moment later, he regained his perch, tied up his trapeze and scrambled down.
Osman ran to him. ‘Adem, it was perfect!’
Adem brushed him aside. ‘Sorry, can’t do it!’ He went up to Babacιk. ‘I tried, Grandad! You saw how hard I tried! I even believed I could do it. But I can’t!’
Babacιk held him to his chest. ‘Try again, son! Try again.’
Adem kissed Babacιk’s hands. ‘No!’ Then he broke free and ran out.
Babacιk shouted at Osman. ‘Take the safety net down! Immediately!’ He turned to me. ‘Girl, get him before he disappears! Tell him I need his help! Tell him it’s life or death! My life or my death!’
I ran out, so scared that my legs shook.
I heard Mama Meryem wail. ‘What you do, Baba? What you up to?’
I caught up with Adem at the gate. Osman joined us moments later. Adem refused to believe that Babacιk needed his help. Or that it was a matter of life or death. Not until Mama Meryem and Hatice came out screaming, calling everybody to come and save Babacιk.
We ran back to the Big Top.
Babacιk had taken Osman’s trapeze up to the highest perch and was now swinging from it.
The safety net was down. The drop beneath him was over twenty metres. If he fell he would be killed.
Some of the troupe had rushed to the safety net, but Babacιk had forbidden them to rig it up. If they refused to do as he asked, he had threatened, he would drop – head first.
Adem climbed the rope ladder to Babacιk’s height. ‘Grandad! What are you up to?’
‘I’m waiting. For you.’
‘For me?’
‘To catch me.’
Adem bellowed, ‘Grandad, I can’t catch! You’ve seen with your own eyes, I can’t!’
‘You caught Osman beautifully.’
‘I couldn’t hold him!’
‘Sure you could. But something inside you didn’t want to.’
‘What?’
‘Fear.’
‘Sure – I was afraid I’d kill Osman!’
‘And Yorgo? Were you afraid for him, too?’
‘No! I don’t know! I dropped him because ...’
‘You didn’t drop him. He mistimed ...’
‘No, Grandad, no! He ... He ...’
‘Unless you mean you dropped him because he touched you ...’
‘No!’
‘He loved you ...’
‘Grandad! Please!’
‘I love you, too. So does Girl! So does Osman! And Mama Meryem and Hatice! Everybody! So now you have to be afraid for all of us!’
‘No! To hell with you all! You mean nothing to me!’
‘We’ll see about that.’
Down from the ring Mama Meryem wailed. ‘Baba, I no love him! Nobody love him! He not lovable! He afraid of love! He run away from love! Please, please no do what you thinking doing!’
‘I won’t do anything, my Meryem. I’ll just hang here. Until Adem catches me.’
Mama Meryem screamed. ‘Kudret! Please!’
I screamed also. ‘Please, Babacιk!’
Everybody started pleading.
Babacιk thundered, ‘Quiet! All of you!’
Adem was near to tears. ‘Grandad, I can’t catch! Why won’t you understand?’
‘I’m quite strong, Adem. I can hang on, ten, twenty minutes, half an hour. Maybe even an hour. After that, I’ll drop. Sooner or later you’ll have to catch me.’
‘Why are you doing this, Grandad? What do you want from me?’
‘To beat your fear. Of the hands. Of the heart. I want you to fulfil your destiny. Become the great catcher you are!’
‘What for?”
‘For you. For Girl. For Osman. For me. For my Meryem. For everybody! Or for nothing! Must you measure everything?’
Adem looked desperate. ‘Grandad, I’m not worth it!’
Mama Meryem ran over to his rope ladder and started shaking it. ‘Go! Go! Catch him! What you wait for? You want him die? You want kill only angel in world?’
‘No, Mama Mer ...’
‘Save him! Save before he falls!’
Osman shouted at him, ‘Go on, brother. You can do it ...’
Tears started running down Adem’s cheeks. I could see: another moment – and he would run away.
I climbed up the rope ladder to his level. I grabbed his hands, kissed them. And then – even though my parents could see – I pulled his hands to my breasts. I whispered, ‘You have great hands. Hands born to catch. Hands that can hold the sky.’
He tried to pull his hands away.
But I wouldn’t let him. I held on to them, pressed them to my breasts. ‘Hands born to touch ...’
For the first time Adem looked at me as if I was a person and not a scrag-end in a circus. And I could see that the way he breathed, sighed, the way his eyes ran in every direction, he was fighting himself. Fighting not to run away.
I pressed his hands harder to my breasts, this time trying to tell him I was a woman and not a girl, that if he saved Babacιk, everything would be his, including me. I whispered again, ‘Catch him. You have great hands! Catch him! You can do it!’
His eyes sparked as if he had read my thoughts. ‘And if I can’t?’
I shouted at him with all the voice I could muster, ‘Then fall with him! Die with him!’
Suddenly he relaxed. He smiled. ‘Yes. I can always do that.’
He kissed my hand – gently – then slipped out of my grasp and scrambled down the rope ladder. ‘All right, Grandad! I’m coming! Do exactly what I tell you!’
Babacιk smiled. ‘Of course.�
�
Adem climbed the other rope ladder to the catcher’s perch.
We watched him in silence. Allah only knows how our legs managed to keep us upright.
Adem settled on his trapeze. ‘All right, Grandad?’
‘Yes.’
‘Now, start swinging. Higher and higher. You have to get to a point almost above me, then drop. You understand?’
‘Sure. I’ve seen many trapeze acts in my time.’
‘Right. Go!’
Babacιk started swinging.
Adem started swinging, too. Then as he gained speed, he took up the catcher’s position. ‘Keep swinging, Grandad.’
We watched, our hearts in our mouths.
Babacιk swung higher and higher.
Adem shook his arms, rubbed his hands together. ‘Grandad, when I clap, let go of the bar and drop. Exactly when I clap. Not a second before or after. Got it?’
‘Yes.’
Babacιk and Adem swung towards each other.
They swung for what felt like an age.
No one breathed.
Adem clapped his hands.
Babacιk dropped.
Mama Meryem buried her face on my chest.
Babacιk fell. He looked as if he would fall for ever.
Then a sound, like a thunderclap, rang in the ring.
I saw, barely, between my tears, Babacιk swinging with Adem. Safely – oh, so safely – held by his hands.
A huge shout rose in the ring.
Mama Meryem collapsed, laughing and crying and thanking the Virgin Mary.
Osman grabbed Hatice and started dancing with her.
And Adem and Babacιk yelled loud enough to wake the gods.
I was the first to return to reality. ‘Put up the safety net! Let’s get them down!’
Within seconds, Osman and several men had rigged up the safety net.
Adem dropped Babacιk on to the net; then, performing a somersault, he dropped down, too.
Babacιk, somehow able to stand up on the wobbling net, pulled Adem to his chest. As they hugged, they lost their balance. Entwined like that, they looked as if they were wrestling.
Adem and Osman are now a team. They call themselves The Twin Peacocks on Mahmut the Simurg’s suggestion. It’s the Arabic representation of the Gemini in the Zodiac.
They spend most of their time together, practising, talking, planning and day-dreaming. They raced through one, two and two-and-a-half somersaults in a few weeks. They are now perfecting the three – they have performed it regularly in practice. And they feel confident that soon they will be working on the three-and-a-half and, indeed, the four. I have even heard Adem tell Babacιk that, like Archimedes who could move the earth if he were given a long enough pole, he and Osman could perform five or even six somersaults if they were given a high enough Big Top.
Sometimes when I watch them practise, when I see how perfectly they lock hands, how lovingly they put their arms around each other, I get jealous. In that I have become like Hatice. But then what else can I do? – as soon as I reach my seventeenth birthday, I will be Adem’s wife.
I know Adem and Osman will love each other more than they will love us, their wives. But at least Osman will sleep with Hatice and Adem will sleep with me. And Babacιk says that there is nothing in the world that conjures paradise better than man and woman sleeping together. And every time he says that, Mama Meryem smiles knowingly.
Incidentally, I now have a proper name. I chose it myself as I said I would. It’s Havva. The name of the first woman. Adem, who is named after the first man, thinks I have chosen well. Osman likes it, too, but thinks it’s a bit too bold. I don’t care. It declares my right to Adem. It’s time we women had a say in our affairs, too.
8: Mustafa
Rose-Petal Jam
Our beloved ...
She gave us a taste of the Seventh Heaven. And because that taste is as rare as the Anka bird, reason insists it should last a lifetime. But reason has no sway below the umbilicus. And a taste is never enough when the hunger is insatiable.
Love goddess to thirteen boys ...
She never divulged her name. When she disappeared, we inquired about her. At first secretly, each boy on his own. Then, after we discovered that we had all been her lovers, collectively. We found out she was called Suna Azade.
Suna ...
She had rented her apartment in Bebek on a short lease. And she came there only at weekends. Her car’s number-plates indicated she was a resident of Edirne, the ancient Adrianople. That disconcerted us. What was a divinity doing in that dead-end city? (As elitist Istanbul citizens, we looked down on Edirne; yet it had been the Ottoman capital before the conquest of Istanbul and is a city with a rich heritage.) Takis, the Greek, claiming to know the Balkans well, decided that Suna was a spy assigned to keep Turkey safe from communism; her mission was to infiltrate the neighbouring countries – often risking her life as she slunk past dangerous borders – and seduce senior politicians and generals like a modern Catherine the Great. A ridiculous conjecture, without doubt. Yet it made us suicidal.
Our beautiful lady ...
I had my own name for her: ‘rose-petal jam’. When she had found out that that was my favourite preserve, she had promptly served it to me smeared on her clean-shaven vagina. Its nectarous taste as it blended with her prodigious love-dew was and is and will be one of life’s greatest gifts to me. Did any of the other boys enjoy the same treat? I don’t know. But I choose to believe that no one in the dormitory liked rose-petal jam as much as I did.
Our dormitory’s beloved ...
In later years, when her dalliance with us became part of college mythology, she acquired the sobriquet Aphrocirce. It described her perfectly: salvation in one breast; perdition in the other.
But we should have known. As the storyteller Mahmut the Simurg says, whenever divinities visit our world, their aura scorches the earth. And though our beloved, our Suna, our beautiful lady, our belladonna, did bestow salvation upon us, it can be said that she also destroyed our greatest achievement, our perfect society, our dormitory.
Our dormitory ...
The epitome of Turkishness as created by our teacher, şιk Ahmet ...
Our dormitory came to be known as ‘Gelibolu’. The name implied that we, its residents, were of the same mettle as Atatürk’s troops at Gallipoli. It was coined not by us, but by rival dormitories.
We deserved the sobriquet. Though we were a small band, both in numbers and in age, we had never been defeated in inter-dormitory battles during the two years we were together. This achievement still stands as a college record. Considering that, in those days, dormitories usually accommodated boys of diverse ages – even some over-twenties from the Anatolian hinterland, while ours housed, as customarily, only fourteen- and fifteen- year-olds – the record is unlikely to be broken.
In retrospect, I can say without hesitation that the quality that made us formidable was our multi-ethnic composition. In effect, we twenty-four boys represented almost the full spectrum of Turkey’s demographic cocktail: Abkhaz, Albanian, levi, Armenian, Azeri, Bosnian, Circassian, Dönme, Georgian, Greek Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Jewish, Karait, Kurd, Laz, Levantine, Nusairi Arab, Pomak, Pontos, Russian (White Russian, to give their preferred appellation), Süryâni (also known as Assyrians), Tatar, Turk and Yezidi. Thus no single millet – the Ottoman word for ‘ethnic peoples’ that our teacher had rescued from history – could form a majority in order to dominate or claim superiority, as had been the norm and was still the case with some of the other dormitories. (One incident that has been mothballed and hidden away depicts perfectly the extremes to which such divisions can lead. One year in the late twenties, the college governors, adopting the strategy of ‘divide and rule’, had split the dormitories into Muslim and Christian entities. Consequently, every time an issue affecting the two religions had arisen, these dormitories had found themselves in grave dispute. Such had been the ensuing attrition that, by the end of the semester, several
dormitories had been smashed up and numerous students injured.)
Admittedly, when our dormitory had first been assembled, there had been attempts by some of the boys to form cabals with co-religionists but these moves instantly expired in the wake of the first raid on our dormitory. As we fought our attackers, we quickly realized that had we splintered into factions, we would have met with swift defeat. And defeat meant performing the victors’ daily chores: making their beds, cleaning their lavatories, sorting out their laundry, laying their refectory tables, serving them meals and washing up their dishes. And so, when we had put our adversaries to flight and strode about savouring our victory, savouring particularly the bruises that provided proof of victory, we felt transformed. (I had someone’s tooth embedded in my knuckle; I still bear the scar.) Cengiz, the Tatar, was the first to shout the catechism with which Atatürk had sought to unite Turkey’s minorities: ‘Blessed is he who can say I am a Turk.’ Then Agop, the Armenian, a passionate romantic since reading The Three Musketeers, bellowed his favourite slogan, ‘All for one and one for all!’ At which Zeki, the Jew, clamoured, ‘No pasarán’, that famous Republican exhortation from the Spanish Civil War, in which one of his father’s French cousins had lost his life.
Thus, drunk with the joys of our plurality, we, the hybrids, bonded, seemingly for life. We never suffered a betrayal in our ranks. No matter how severe the teachers’ interrogation, not a single person snitched on such peccadilloes as who pissed on the radiator and stank the place out, or who dressed up in a sheet and frightened the night matron by pretending to be a ghost, or who opened the gate to Memduh when he came back from the brothels that he frequented at least twice a week. (Memduh, the Süryâni, a latecomer to education, was twenty-one, came from Diyarbakιr, slept in a rival dormitory and always tipped generously whosoever opened the gate for him. Hooked on sex, he refused to get involved in dormitory battles.) Since the college’s long-established punishment for betrayal was the insertion of chilli paste into the offender’s anus – an infliction that, burning the victims’ innards for days on end, all but drove him mad – our dormitory had the distinction of remaining ‘virgin in the arse’ throughout our years together. That, too, is a record unlikely to be beaten.
