Beside Myself

by Sasha Marianna Salzmann

  “You coming?”

  He stood leaning forward slightly, trying to relax the muscles in his right buttock, ready for the injection.

  “Don’t you ever do it yourself?” asked Ali, without taking her eyes off the curve of his silhouette. She stood with her head against the doorframe looking at Kato’s long legs that would soon be overgrown with black hair. Long feet flowed into calves, and calves into thighs that arched forward. His bum, with the right buttock sticking out, was the only blip in the line; his back and neck and almost naked head formed a single sweeping arc; his forehead pulled downward. A letter “C” held up to the light. He turned his head to her; she couldn’t make out his expression.

  “I hate injecting myself.”

  “Then how do you do it?”

  “I find people.”

  “I’ve never done this kind of thing.”

  “Don’t you want to?”

  “What if I get it wrong?”

  “Then I’ll die.”

  Ali went over to the table and looked at the filled syringe, the needle, the disinfectant spray, the cotton wool. She took the small plastic tube in her fingers and held it up to the light. Frowning, she thought: My mother could do this. And then: She’d kill me if she knew what I was doing. She’d ram this thing into my neck. Then: Maybe she wouldn’t. And thinking to herself: My mother was right; I should have been a doctor, she took the syringe, sprayed sour-smelling disinfectant on Kato’s buttock, somewhere between his hip bone and his dark brown mole—and, without warning, drove the thick needle into the flesh that she was grasping in her other hand.

  She waited for an “ow,” but none came. She pushed the vanilla-colored liquid slowly into the tissue; it was hard work. She forced her thumb down on the plunger. The more afraid she was that the needle would break, the more quickly she tried to inject. The liquid seemed to stick in the syringe like oil, refusing to budge. She knelt down behind Kato and looked up into his expressionless face.

  “Is this right?”

  “Just get on with it. But let me know before you pull the needle out.”

  Kato’s bare bum pushed slightly against Ali’s shoulder. As she squatted down to see if all the liquid was out of the syringe, the tip of her nose brushed Kato’s right hip bone and the tattoo of a bird in descending flight looked out at her—a greenfinch the size of her palm, wings back, claws out. Ali blinked.

  * * *

  —

  These last five days, since Kato had been staying with her, she’d intertwined her feet with his and fallen asleep in his smell, dreaming of redheaded mermaids with accordions. When she woke, she’d fling open the bedroom window and greedily breathe the cold air, then pull off the sweat-drenched sweater she slept in and stick her head into the flock of gulls outside. The gulls screeched, flew in loops and pecked her curls. Kato pulled Ali back in again and clutched her as if she were a pillow, his stubble scratching her skin.

  Ali lay there sweating, her eyes wide open, thinking that she’d like to tell Kato about Anton, or Anton about Kato—and both of them about Uncle Cemal. She wasn’t sure which stories she’d told whom, and she was no longer sure of her own story—what was she doing here in this city out of time? Was she really looking for her brother or did she just want to get away? She shivered and Kato pulled the sweater back over her body, swaddled her in blankets and told her about the wild-bird hunters and their symbol, the greenfinch.

  She lay there all bundled up, only her eyes peeping out, unblinking, and Kato told her about old men who threw nets over their shoulders—rust-colored nets that looked like tutus for overweight ballerinas—and set off through the city, sure-footed and noiseless, as if invisible. What they did was forbidden; you could go to jail for it—but they knew their moves and walked the streets as if nothing were up, rolled cigarette in one hand, cloth-covered cage in the other, careful not to let anyone see that beneath all those layers of cloth there were rare songbirds sleeping. They took them to places known only to a small circle of initiates, fixed the cages to the wall hooks in tea gardens and waited for the singing to begin. They didn’t rouse the birds or shake their cages; they waited patiently for them to wake, and then they listened—and everyone in the tea garden listened with them, as if there were some conspiracy.

  The cloths were never pulled off the cages; nobody but the owners ever got to see the birds—which weren’t all greenfinches; there were goldfinches too. Brightness was harmful to them; they never sang their songs in the harsh light of day. The birdmen combed the city looking for them, searching in places where nobody else went—under bridges that led to Europe, on hills dotted with Byzantine ruins, in districts full of empty houses that were slowly reverting to nature. They threw their nets over the birds, caught hold of them and pressed them to their chests; they petted them and cared for them, shut them in cages and put a lot of thought into choosing the cloth for their covers. They took photos of the birds, which they propped on their chests of drawers, and they had pictures of them tattooed on their arms and legs.

  Kato had read about the bird hunters in a travel magazine. Lying on the mattress at Pavlik’s in Odessa, he’d devoured reports from all over the world, projecting himself into the landscapes described, no matter what the country or continent. One photo in particular had stuck in his mind because he couldn’t work it out. It showed a night landscape on fire. Branches glowed orange, green grass fled into black shadows; it looked like an abstract painting, but the caption said it was the wild-bird hunters of Istanbul. On the next page was a man sitting cross-legged on a prayer mat, tugging at a tangle of rust-colored net. Here too, it was night. There was a photo of a hook screwed to rotten wooden boarding in the middle of nowhere, everything gray. There was someone’s retreating back, a road streaked with red-earthed skid marks, a square object covered in blue-and-white cloth hanging in a tree, a man’s parting zigzagging through the back of his black, greasy head over a yellow collar.

  When Kato reached Istanbul, he’d roamed the city in vain—walked from Kömürköy to Sanayi, trying to read the old men’s faces, staring at their dry hands. A lot of them carried square bags, but none of the bags looked like cages. Kato followed likely-looking suspects and examined tea-house walls for hooks. He interrogated café owners, but most of them didn’t know what he was talking about. He’d started walking as soon as he arrived, setting off on foot from the pier where the Odessa ferry docked—without a map, because he’d read that no map of Istanbul was accurate.

  Time stretched in the heat, sticking his eyes together. His dwindling cash reserves told him time was passing; his savings were getting thin; his arms too. He was picked up by men who didn’t pay him, but bought him food. One of them gave him a silver chain to wear around his waist; kneeling behind Kato, he fastened it for him, clinging tight to it and whispering in Kato’s ear with a grunt that he wanted to keep him forever. Kato ran away, sold the chain and used the money to have a greenfinch tattooed on his thigh. He’d had enough of looking for the wild-bird hunters; let them come and find him. The pricking didn’t hurt; over the sweaty head of the man painting his leg, Kato looked out at the hot street and saw veiled women passing. When the tattooist was done, he offered Kato a glass of tea and asked what he wanted to do in life. Kato said: “Dance.” They drank in silence. Kato looked about him, then the tattooist breathed out noisily and said there were bars in Lâleli—might be something for him—you could dance there.

  Dancing was Kato’s dream. He’d always wanted to get out of Odessa, and his plan had been to study dance in Moscow after reading economics in Kiev—but then he’d got to ruminating and it hadn’t happened. It was at about this time that his friends started to talk about their first paid work. They didn’t all mean the same thing by “paid work,” but the situation was clear enough to them—any job that helped make ends meet was a respectable one. And everyone with a womb was getting pregnant and the rest were growing beards, and since
Kato wasn’t in a position to do either and didn’t know how to explain this to his friends (who were starting to make jokes) or his mother (who was waiting for him to sort his life out), he thought maybe he’d go somewhere where nobody knew him—not any old place; it did have to be warm, and he wouldn’t mind learning a new language either. The kind of things you think when you’re desperate to get away.

  His brothers and sisters were shouting in the next room as usual; his mother was laying into his drunken father. Kato ran out of the door—first the door to the flat, then the in-between door, padded with green foam, then the door to the building. He ran out into the yard, to the others who couldn’t stand being at home, but they were already stoned and speaking very slowly. He kept running. He passed his old playground, dived through bushes, panted past spitting old women, arrived breathless at Pavlik’s door, rang the bell, dashed up the stairs, threw himself on the floor and clasped Pavlik’s knees. Pavlik was playing the guitar and his kiss tasted of aspic. He unbuttoned his trousers. Afterward Kato lay on the mattress. The light coming through the window was too harsh; he screwed up his eyes and felt a twinge between his eyebrows; every little hair stood on end. He turned onto his belly and there on the floor was this magazine with travel reports from all over the world.

  “Pavlik, shall we get out of here?”

  “What did you say, babe?”

  “Shall we go somewhere?”

  “Where?”

  “Dunno. Istanbul?”

  “Why?”

  Then Kato knew that Pavlik would never go with him and never understand. He projected himself into the photos in the magazine. He saw himself as a greenfinch in the burning bushes, saw himself being saved, caught, covered up and cared for—only then would he let out his song.

  When at last Pavlik fell asleep, Kato sneaked his wallet from his trousers on the floor, took out the contents, pocketed the travel magazine and went straight to the harbor.

  His search for the bird hunters ended in Lâleli where there were agencies for people like him, or rather, agencies for women; Kato hadn’t told anyone there he was a man. No one had asked; they’d examined him—his legs, his breasts—and everything had been in order; he was even pretty acrobatic. The men spoke his mother tongue and the women didn’t have to speak at all; they sang their songs. One of them, Aglaja, really did sing like a bird, shrill and frenetic, her short red curls quivering to her voice box, as if they were charged with electricity. She was more than twice Kato’s age, but didn’t have a line on her face. Her skin was taut and when she smiled, her mouth jerked open as if someone had pulled a string. They became lovers, then friends. Aglaja would stroke Kato’s hair when he clasped her knees, and when he told her he didn’t want to be called Katarina anymore, she shaved his head for him. She asked around to find out how to get hold of testosterone and then practiced injecting. She was terrible at it, but anything was better than doing it yourself.

  The first weeks after starting with the injections, Kato felt either sick and dizzy or else hyperaware, more aware of things than he’d ever been before. He could feel his bones growing and hear his own voice break. He opened his mouth and heard his vocal cords trying to get a purchase and failing. He cried a lot too—that was the testosterone, he told himself. Sometimes Aglaja laughed at him when he cried, but usually she let him climb on her lap without asking for explanation. They’d stopped sleeping together, but there was barely a night when they were apart. Until Gezi Park went up in smoke.

  * * *

  —

  Kato was staggering along İstiklal Caddesi when the call came. It was one of those nights when the lights on the European continent’s biggest shopping street irked him like lice. He turned off onto Mis Sokak and headed for the Bigudi Club, where women’s bodies wanting to watch women’s bodies dance could be sure they wouldn’t get a man’s cock pressed against their pelvises. He passed Kırmızı Bar filled with people whose sex varied depending on the time of day. In Bigudi, women in black jeans and baggy sweaters sat pressed up against three of the four walls like chickens on a roost, all of them, without exception, staring at their phones, as if they were playing games with each other online, or chatting, or fucking—there was certainly no action on the dance floor; it was empty. Only one woman glanced up from her phone when Kato entered the harshly lit room. She had dyed blond hair and was wearing green glittery eye shadow that glinted like broken glass when she blinked. Kato went to the bar, got himself a whisky and knocked it back in a few gulps. The blond with the glitter around her eyes had returned to her phone. Kato went and stood on the dance floor. He closed his eyes and raised his arms, his hips vibrating slightly. He imagined a hand slipping around his waist and holding him tight; he touched his own neck, ran a hand through his short hair, opened his eyes again. There didn’t seem to be anyone there; the chickens up against the wall were as two-dimensional as wallpaper. He let his arms drop and went out.

  It was warm, almost summer, and outside Kırmızı all the tables were full. An old man with a barrow full of vegetables stopped in front of them and swiftly peeled a cucumber for the streetwalkers teetering on their at least four-inch heels. He slashed a cross in the soft green flesh, down to his fingertips, and the cucumber in his hand opened out like a flower. He strewed it generously with salt. The women paid and strutted off to Tarlabaşı. Rakı glugged out of bottles. Giggling girls singed black stubble on their thighs, massaged each other’s calves and read each other’s coffee grounds. Kato elbowed his way to the bar, past strange-smelling bodies, cinnamony and earthy. In the men’s toilets, at the urinal, a woman in a long pale blue glittery dress, its train flowing over the floor tiles, held her cock in her hand and looked inquiringly at Kato. He went into the cubicle and locked the door behind him, sat down on the toilet lid and propped his head in his hands.

  His phone rang. It was Aglaja. He heard singing or shouting in the background; he couldn’t quite understand what was going on. One thing he did understand, though: “Come straight to Gezi.”

  * * *

  —

  Aglaja was wearing the black hat she always wore when she wasn’t working, a crumpled white shirt with a broad collar, and a pair of sharply creased suit trousers far too large for her slim body, held up only by wide suspenders. Even her shoes were too big—the general effect was of a clown in a black-and-white photograph. All about her, people were dancing in color. Someone was banging a darbuka; the others were holding hands, moving in a circle, cautiously throwing up their legs as if in slow motion. The rainbow flag was rammed into the ground next to a tractor; farther back, Kato saw a swarm of demolition vehicles, dozing silent and black as sleeping cockroaches.

  Aglaja came charging up to Kato and pulled him into the circle of dancers. He shook his sweaty palms and lay down on the ground. Although it was evening, it was still light; it would be some time before the stars came out. Aglaja leaned over him, her red curls covering his face.

  “Will you sleep here with me tonight?” Her mouth was a huge black caterpillar.

  “Don’t you have to go to work? I thought you were working today.”

  She sat down beside him, her face floating above his. “No, I’m not. Maybe I’ll never go back to work again.”

  “And your accordion?”

  “I’ll just have to play on you.”

  She pulled Kato up, clasped his body from behind, pressed her belly against his back, laid her head on his shoulder and played something very fast on his ribs.

  * * *

  —

  He was woken by an acrid smell and opened his eyes. Aglaja’s sharp nose was touching his cheek; he looked into her wide-open eyes through a milky film. Her lashes were long and very straight. The two of them were lying on the grass next to the tents, Aglaja’s leg over his hip. At first he thought the tear gas was dew, then he began to cough and noticed that his face was smarting. Aglaja coughed too; soon everyone was coughi
ng, then the coughing turned to crying and suddenly they were all on their feet. Masks appeared on people’s faces, their red eyes gleaming over the top. The gas seeped through the thin cellulose above their mouths; the first coughers fell to their knees.

  Kato spun around frantically, trying to find Aglaja, screaming her name. Panic coated his throat like a layer of flour. Then he saw a flash of red curls in the cloud of gas and ran toward it. Aglaja stood there mumbling: “My hat, I’ve found my hat.” She picked herself up, smiled at Kato and keeled over.

  The gas cartridge had got her on the right temple. Kato hadn’t heard anything—or seen the cartridge hit her. He saw Aglaja fall down at his feet and not move again. Then he saw the orange can of gas beside her outstretched body. Blood was trickling out of her ears; her left arm had fallen on her chest as if she were clutching flowers. Her head was bent back; her whole body seemed to be made of rubber. It dropped quiet. A cloud spread in Kato’s head and broke through his skull. The gas, he thought. He felt tingly and dizzy, then he was knocked down by a crowd that scattered like a school of fleeing fish. Some of the faces wore goggles; their mouths flew open and shut.

  He groped his way along, running his hands over the ground, his head pulling toward the earth. He got back to his feet. The gas was no more than a fine haze now. He saw a man carrying off red curls; he’d thrown Aglaja over his shoulder; her head was wobbling as if it had become unmoored from her body.