by Moris Farhi
The orphaned Mazal had been brought up by her great-aunt, the legendary matchmaker, Allegra. Groomed to follow in her guardian’s footsteps, Mazal had sought to emulate her. What better way to thank Allegra for all the years of nurturing? However, to achieve success, matchmakers needed to be unattached – like monks. That was the rule. Haydar, of course, had derided this perverse logic. If matchmakers really wanted to have an insight into their clients, he contended, they should do the opposite: throw themselves into the fray and experience the tribulations of connubiality. But Madam Ruj, forever intoning Allegra’s indoctrination, even years after the latter’s death, held that a knowledge of conjugality – be it in carnal matters or in the unabated monotony of cohabitation – distorted the matchmaker’s vision of the grand design, namely, a union made in heaven. Only celibacy perceived the original perfection. The fact that most marriages turned into wars of attrition was irrelevant. When unions made in heaven foundered on earth, the fault lay neither with heaven nor with the matchmaker; it lay with human frailty.
Yet, somehow, Haydar’s views on love and life had prevailed. Mazal had finally yielded to his ardour. But she had insisted not only on the secret ceremony in Las Vegas, but also on living apart – for some years, at least – and meeting clandestinely, as they had done since starting their affair.
Eventually, she had come to find even this arrangement a burden. Haydar’s growing desire for children, combined with her paranoia that someone would find out about her marriage, had compelled her, before a year had elapsed, to return to Las Vegas and divorce him.
However, despite that ‘unforgivable betrayal’ – so Haydar had remonstrated in numerous love letters – they had been unable to give each other up.
Naturally, at a great cost.
Haydar had grown increasingly desolate. Mazal’s unequivocal refusal to have children, in particular, had felt like an immutable sentence. Many of his letters had expressed the fantasy of running to some poor country and returning with a bunch of orphans. A short prison sentence, around this time, following his defence of Kurdish culture, had virtually broken him.
One letter, written shortly before the diagnosis of his cancer, had accused her, quite blatantly, of killing him – ‘slowly, but surely’.
I could not even begin to comprehend how Madam Ruj, who had loved Haydar so intensely – still did – could sacrifice their happiness in pursuit of an occupation that was not only parasitical, but anachronistic.
Dan, however, had no difficulty in understanding. The blame, he affirmed, lay with her great-aunt, Allegra. Why did this woman – by all accounts, a veritable beauty – take up a profession when, in her days, her contemporaries never even thought about working but waited to be snapped up for marriage? And why, of all pursuits, did she choose such a fatuous one as matchmaking? As for that evangelical rubbish about celibacy – what did it really signify? Matchmakers know better than anyone that reality lies in the opposite direction, that, in the main, marriages are made in hell! The reason they persevere valiantly is because they also know that living in solitude is worse than hell. So what prevented Allegra from electing the lesser evil? Why did she then go and infect Mazal with the same dread?
Well, obviously, Allegra had been quite disturbed. Maybe an abused child. Maybe simply a child who had suffered irreparable parental neglect. Maybe indoctrinated with hatred for men by a maltreated family member. Maybe even appointed the family breadwinner, therefore designated a male, therefore forbidden to marry.
A word here on the imprisonment – the fourth and last – that had virtually broken Haydar. By the mid-fifties, the Menderes government had plunged Turkey into political turmoil. Any criticism of its conduct – indeed, any controversial topic – incurred for the ‘offender’ immediate arrest, speedy trial and gaol. Under these circumstances, the dissemination of such liberal views as a world government or the advocacy of Kurdish rights was harshly repressed. Haydar had had the temerity to address both issues at a music festival after a Kurdish singer, trying to sing a song in Kurdish, had been bundled off the stage. Jumping on to the stage himself, Haydar had declared that as and when a world government came into being, all the suppressed languages, starting with Kurdish, would be resurrected as part of humanity’s cultural heritage.
Instantly thrown off the stage in his turn, he had been duly charged with accusing Turkey of oppressing its Kurdish minority when the whole world knew that no such minority existed since all who called themselves Kurds were in reality Turks who had forgotten their Turkishness and were now coming back into the fold.
Ironically, despite the fact that he had lost many members of his family during the Kurdish revolt of 1937, Haydar had chosen to renounce his Kurdishness – as demanded by the Turkification programmes – early on in his campaign for world government. He had done so, not because he had felt cowed by the authorities, but in the naive belief that the dream of Turkicizing the country had been a temporary aberration caused by the demise of the Ottoman empire and that, as and when Turkey recovered from that grief, it would duly reclaim the pluralism of the Ottomans – perhaps even serve as a prototype for world government. But he had soon realized that societies aspiring to be monolithic could not accommodate diversity and that, therefore, they would always set out to destroy heterogeneity. The corollary to that, he had further realized, was that should a society succeed in becoming a monolith, it would have sown the seeds of its own destruction. By renouncing intercourse with other racial, national and ethnic groups, it would have forbidden itself regeneration and new blood; it would have committed, as it were, suicide by collective onanism.
Thereafter Haydar had become an ardent supporter of Kurdish rights.
On one of those sunny autumn days when Büyükada, disburdened of summer folk and day-trippers, feels like a mythic realm, Dan and I, sitting on the balcony of Haydar’s shrine, were exploring the limits of raki’s milky way, a favourite pastime of the melancholic Turk. Madam Ruj, having donned her official mien – ‘the myrmidon look’, Haydar used to call it – had gone to meet a prospective client. I remember thinking, on starting our third bottle, that as long as she pursued her vacuous career, there would be no redemption for anybody, not even for me, the outsider who had soldered a wistful trio into an even more wistful quartet.
So we sat silently, bracing the wind in duffel coats, drinking, chain-smoking and watching sea and sky conceive that eternal cruel question: what if ...
As if on cue, Dan grew earnest. ‘Aslan, do you love Mazal?’
I nodded sentimentally. ‘I adore her!’
‘And desire her? As I do?’
‘Dan ...’
‘Answer me! Truthfully!’
‘She’s very attractive ... but ...’
‘That means you do. Good. Go for her!’
‘What?’
‘You’re somewhat younger, but that shouldn’t matter. She likes you. Admires you. Seduce her!’
‘Dan, you’re drunk ...’
‘I’m serious!’
I got angry. ‘What do you take me for? She’s your woman! Is that how you see me – someone who’d cuckold a friend?’
‘I could bear that. Besides, she’s not my woman ...’
‘She is – as far as I’m concerned!’
He held my hands. ‘You and I – we don’t count. She needs to be saved. You could save her ...’
‘Save her? From what?’
‘From herself. She wants to emulate Haydar. Only she wants to do it better. Disappear without trace.’
I scoffed. ‘What nonsense!’
‘I’m telling you!’
Suddenly I remembered my conversation with Mazal on the Büyükada boat. About going Haydar’s way. And the mention of inner demons. ‘How do you know?’
‘I know.’
I didn’t want to believe him. I wouldn’t. ‘How?’
‘I go through her things. I’m good at that. I leave no traces. I once served in Intelligence. She’s keeping a notebook, like Haydar d
id. Hides it in her bedroom. It’s all in there ...’
‘But why?’
‘Guilt, I imagine. You remember Haydar’s letter where he says she’s killing him?’
‘Yes ...’
‘Now she agrees with that.’
‘Rubbish! She told me several times: starting with VD, soldiers pick up all sorts of diseases overseas. Haydar was unlucky. He picked up cancer.’
‘She no longer believes that. It was a good palliative, she says. Now she’s convinced she caused his illness – broke his heart. She contends that if they’d stayed married, lived together like an ordinary couple and had children, he’d still be alive.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Sure, it is. But she’s come to believe it.’
‘And let’s not forget the treatment Haydar received in police stations and in gaol. People say it was the beatings that brought on his cancer.’
‘Yes, I heard that, too.’
‘Well, tell her that!’
‘I did. She won’t hear of it. She insists she killed Haydar. She wants to atone for it.’
‘Atone – how?’
‘Plans to swim out – also from Bodrum. A life for a life.’
I could no longer repudiate what deep down I knew was the truth.
My despondency reanimated him. ‘I’ve been thinking for months ... How to stop her? I’ve even consulted experts. But no one understands her as I do. There is a way – one only. She must love again. Must want a man again – sexually. I hoped to be that man. She won’t have me.’
‘And you think she’d have me?’
‘She might. Yes ...’
‘And if she does?’
‘We’d have saved her.’
‘And you? What would happen to you?’
‘Who cares?’
‘How would you feel towards me?’
‘Probably hate you for ever.’
‘Great!’
‘Fuck our sensitivities! Don’t you understand? This is our only chance to save her!’
‘It’s crazy ...’
‘Will you do it?’
‘I’m not convinced ...’
‘Will you do it?’
‘I’m writing a doctorate ... I’m away a lot ...’
‘Will you do it?’
I leaned back, too drunk to offer another objection.
He embraced me and wept, almost happily.
The year 1958 had trampled on intellectuals and writers; 1959, we knew, would be worse. So we hoped for miracles and watched the calendar.
It was rumoured that Madam Ruj loved New Year’s Eve parties. Socialites always put her first on their guest lists. She attended as many parties as she could, osmosed from one to the other, even breakfasted with the diehards, at a famous tripery in Beyoğlu. (In a letter to Haydar, she had revealed that she actually hated these parties, but attended them because the general frenzy served as a litmus test for assessing marriageable men and women.)
This year, however, she had decided to forego them. The decision had alarmed Dan, leading him to think that her ‘swim’ might be imminent, a New Year’s resolution. He begged me to seduce her without delay.
I contacted her immediately. Much of my New Year’s holiday, I claimed, would be hard grind; consequently, I was in need of a morale-boosting drink with a dear friend. Dan, whom I would have asked to join us, I lied, was involved with cousins and relatives.
Mazal, rejecting the usual haunts as too boisterous – a reaction both Dan and I had counted on – invited me instead to dinner at her house on the island. She even suggested I should stay the night as boat services from the islands to the city, on New Year’s Eve, were severely reduced.
And so, bearing flowers, I went.
She had prepared a feast.
I sensed she was tense. (If she gets tense, Dan had said, it’s a good sign; it’ll mean she’s tantalized.)
She must have sensed my tension, too. (If she senses you are tense, Dan had said, that’s also a good sign; she’ll know you want her.)
We ate leisurely, savouring every morsel, but drank abstemiously. (If you both drink temperately, Dan had said, that’ll be the best sign; it’ll mean you want to be sober in order to have sex.)
And we talked. Surprisingly, very little about Haydar. Some about Dan. Mostly about aspects of modern poetry, the subject of my doctorate. To my delight, she had kept abreast of Turkish literature.
Then it was midnight.
We kissed, formally, to welcome 1959.
I had prepared a surprise for her. ‘I’ve written you a song.’ (One of your sexy songs, especially composed for her, Dan had assured me, should prove the clincher.)
She clapped her hands, delighted like a little girl. ‘Wonderful! Please play it!’
I picked up Haydar’s saz and sang:
forget
romantic love
forget
traditions
principles
friends
family
beau monde
the sea is libidinous
there is madness in our blood
so come
on this carnal night
let us
lose ourselves
in
each other’s
light
I put the saz away, wondering whether I had been too audacious.
She came over and kissed me, this time with some passion.
I responded with greater passion.
‘How long have you wanted me?’
I dissembled. ‘From the day we met.’
‘Dan told me. I didn’t believe him.’ She pointed to her bedroom. ‘Undress. Get into bed.’ She went into the bathroom.
I did as told.
She returned, naked.
She lit the candle on the dresser and switched off the light.
She lined up her lipstick, cigarette case and lighter on the bedside table.
I noticed her hands were shaking and her smile was strained.
I threw off the covers.
She stared at my erection – quite sadly – then folded into herself and collapsed.
Later, we talked.
She tried to reassure me that the debacle had nothing to do with me, that she had frozen many times before. I was a very attractive man, immensely kind and gentle. Most women would walk through fire for me. But, alas, whenever she dared be with a man, she crumbled.
It wasn’t as if she disliked sex. She was very keen on it. But at a safe distance. It had been so even with Haydar. Very intense, for example, after they had divorced. Which might also explain her difficulties with matrimony. Best to enjoy through other people’s marriages, as her great-aunt used to say. Better still, to imagine that the marriages she had arranged were her children. Why not? Hadn’t she created them in the first place?
Then she apologized again. She had used me. But, horrendous as that was, she could not have done so had I not been very dear to her. She had grown to love Dan and wanted to marry him. But she had not had the heart to subject him to the sort of fiasco I had just experienced. Yet she had kept hoping that if she could only conquer her paralysis, if she could just enjoy a man’s body naturally, she could then live with Dan happily ever after.
Thereafter we sat silently and held hands.
Then morning came and she asked me to leave.
Dan had been waiting for me at the pier. We took the first boat to Istanbul.
Though he was obviously relieved that Mazal and I had not made love, my account of the night perturbed him.
It was time, he decided, he had a heart-to-heart talk with her. Time to expunge the past and start the future. They would certainly marry – even if they never ever touched. They would be together. Loving. That’s all that mattered.
He returned to Büyükada on the next boat.
But he was too late.
Mazal had left.
We spent days scouring the bay of Bodrum.
To no avail.
She h
ad disappeared without trace.
Then a rumour appeared – by all accounts, originating from the local fishermen ...
That every night from sunset until dawn, a mermaid with luminous black hair and a dolphin, rotund like a Buddha-figure, made love deliriously in the waters between Bodrum and the island of Kos.
12: Davut
He Who Returns Never Left
I couldn’t decide whether I should shout for help or fall on to my knees and beg for mercy. There were four of them. Two on either side of me. I tried to walk between them, intrepidly, like a film hero being led to his execution – Ronald Colman, was it? But my legs shook and I could barely hold my urine.
True, I wasn’t going to my execution; but they were going to beat the shit out of me – that’s what they’d said – which was not much of a consolation.
I turned to Faruk, the fellow holding my right arm, the tallest of the four and the one with the strip of plaster on his forehead. It was he who had accused me of causing the wound on his head – actually, not a wound, but the sort of boil that afflicts men who don’t have regular sex and won’t masturbate. Not to mention the fact that, even if I’d wanted to hurt the turd, there was no way I could have reached his forehead since he was twice my height. Not to mention also that I’d never met him before, though I’d sometimes seen him in my reaches of the Bosporus. On this occasion he had approached me at the tram stop in Arnavutköy and, thinking that he wanted to ask directions, I had stopped to talk to him. ‘You sure you’re not mistaking me for someone else?’
‘Positive.’
He looked at the others: Nuri, Salih and Hasan – ‘brothers’ who had answered his call to help him fight this superman – me – who had beaten him so mercilessly. Nothing less than family honour was at stake.
They answered in unison. ‘No. You’re the man.’
I turned to Faruk again. ‘Would you at least agree that you’re much bigger than I am? That there’s no way I could have punched you on the forehead?’
