by Latife Tekin
Atiye washed her hands of Huvat, consoling herself with the thought that the household would at least have his shadow. A father’s still a father, after all. In case he made a public nuisance of himself after her death, she prayed God to take Huvat’s life before her own. She also began to find a way of at least saving Nuǧber from the household which, she was absolutely certain, would fall apart after she died. Feeling that her sons would fend for themselves anyway, she set about arranging a marriage for Nuǧber. Dirmit she put into God’s hands. She hadn’t enough strength to save her and would probably die before she found a means to do so, anyway.
One morning, to drive away all the evil eyes that had been cast on Nuǧber, she led her off by the hand to have molten lead poured in water over her head. And to ward off any evil eye cast upon her in the future, she went in search of a ‘P’ stone. When at last she found one, she wrapped it properly and tucked it into her daughter’s bosom. She also hung a big blue bead around her neck. Next she took Nuǧber far from the local community to have someone read her marriage prospects. Having gazed into the mirrors, the fortune-teller, trembling and shaking with agitation, studied the boiling water, after which she gave Atiye the good news that Nuǧber would have a suitor within three time-spans, but that her suitor had no way of finding her yet. It was essential that Nuǧber, while she waited out her three time-spans, be outdoors at midnight.
Joyfully Atiye returned home with Nuǧber, and that night, urging her daughter not to be afraid, she took her down to the back garden, where Nuǧber waited alone under the fig tree from midnight until daybreak. But she failed to notice the humming in her ears, the twitch in her left leg and the burning feeling in her heart that the fortune-teller had predicted. Atiye advised her daughter not to lose hope on her first attempt. The following night, when everyone had turned in, she once more led Nuǧber down to the garden, and once more her daughter, thrilled and expectant, remained there until dawn. At daybreak she began to weep and climbed back up the stairs with great tears overflowing her eyes. Atiye sat Nuǧber down beside her, whispered prayers into her ear and told her about the many girls who had summoned their future husbands in this way. On the third night she once again escorted her daughter down to the fig tree, where Nuǧber waited hopefully. But again she heard no humming and felt no burning sensation in her heart or twitches in her left leg. So Atiye started reckoning in terms of three weeks and during this entire time made her daughter wait in the back garden. Nuǧber went down there after everyone else had gone to sleep and came back up again before they awoke. By the time three weeks had passed, she had lost all colour along with her hope. She appeared withered and drawn, and she was thin as a rail from going without food and drink. Not only had her suitor failed to locate Nuǧber under the fig tree, he also seemed completely ignorant of her very existence.
At this point Atiye began reckoning in months. Sitting Nuǧber down in front of her, she encouraged her to maintain her vigil. Who knew how desperately her prospective suitor was searching for her? Perhaps it would take him less than three months to find their house. That night, her head hanging, Nuǧber descended to sit by the fig tree once again. Cupping her face in her hands, she settled down to wait. The moon rose, round as a serving platter, and cast a silvery glow everywhere. As she watched it slipping quietly away high above her, Nuǧber thought about how she would hang her head in the morning, leave her place under the fig tree and trudge upstairs again. But suddenly she felt a shiver that soon turned to trembling. Then came some strong tremors. Her hands and feet turned as cold as ice. While she waited for the chill to leave her, she began to feel frightened and rose to her feet. As soon as she did, powerful twitches started up her left leg. Her heart burnt as if it had been grazed by flame, and her ears began to hum. With the moon fading away, she fell to her knees under the fig tree and wept for joy. In the morning Atiye pressed her daughter to her heart when she heard the good news. That very day she began to make preparations. First she gave the house a thorough cleaning; then she ordered Zekiye to stop weaving, moved the loom out onto the landing and draped a sheet over it. Never leaving Atiye’s side, Nuǧber did her mother’s bidding. She took wing like a bird, fluttered about, glided away, before returning at last to perch on the armchair and keep watch by the window.
In the days after she poured out her grief over her tinted clay, Dirmit offered up thanks to Mahmut, Huvat and Nuǧber for having rescued her from the rough edge of her mother’s tongue, and devoted herself to the radio. As soon as she came home from school she would put the radio on her lap and wish devoutly that Nuǧber’s suitor would appear soon. Then her own name might be wiped from her mother’s mind. After making her wish, she tuned in the radio, placed it on the divan and laid her head on top of it. Dirmit dropped off to sleep in that position so that when she woke up the radio was still in bed with her. Making the most of Atiye’s preoccupation with Nuǧber, she would take the radio with her to the toilet and down to the front door, where she watched people pass by as she stood holding it against her ear. Some days she communicated with nothing and no one else but the radio. Atiye, for her part, had not spoken to Dirmit since she had begun rejoicing that Nuǧber’s suitor would soon be knocking at their door. Although Atiye still prayed for patience and thumbed her beads, she left Dirmit alone, but grew increasingly annoyed when she noticed Dirmit’s devotion to the radio, her murmurings to it and her preoccupied manner. After grumbling to herself about this for a while, she finally lost all patience, sat Dirmit down in front of her and told her that when young girls looked preoccupied it meant trouble. ‘And why might that be, girl?’ Dirmit asked sharply. ‘They’ll think you’ve got yourself into trouble, good-for-nothing!’ Atiye hissed in her ear as if she were revealing a great secret. ‘Get away from me!’ Dirmit grumbled, and turned the radio on, full blast. Then, giving Atiye a stern look, she cradled the radio in her arms and sank back into her corner.
Overcome by anxiety and wary of her daughter’s impertinence, Atiye began to prod Dirmit out of her sleep to ask if anything had happened to her. Dirmit would jump out of her skin and have a trembling fit before going back to sleep. Then Atiye would take the radio from her arms. ‘This kind of attachment isn’t good for girls, you good-for-nothing!’ she’d say the next morning, trying to kill her daughter’s passion for the radio. But Dirmit just sighed and settled down beside it. One night Atiye, having once more reached the end of her tether, came over to Dirmit while she was asleep, shook her awake, and again demanded to know if she was in trouble. With a jerk, Dirmit sat upright and screamed out in rage. ‘Why do you keep waking me up, girl?’ she asked tearfully. Once again everybody woke up. ‘She’s in trouble but she won’t tell me,’ Atiye wailed, glaring at Dirmit and beating her knees. ‘Maybe she’ll tell you,’ Atiye said to Huvat, infuriating Dirmit.
Playing the interrogating angel to the hilt, Huvat planted himself beside Dirmit, made her drink a glass of water and then questioned her gently: ‘Would your mother ever mean you any harm, girl?’ Dirmit lowered her eyes sleepily. As she listened to him in silence, her mind was running through a list of all the swear-words she had picked up from Mahmut. Finally she broke down once more and began to weep. ‘Are you trying to drive the djinns into the girl?’ Seyit yelled from his bed when he heard her weeping. Attempting to shut him up, Atiye retorted that Dirmit was already djinned, that if she weren’t she wouldn’t take the radio with her when she went to the toilet or to bed. But Seyit angrily leapt up and pulled Huvat away from Dirmit’s side. Dirmit felt grateful to Seyit for rushing to her defence, but now it was he who sat down and started to question her, saying, ‘Don’t cry! If there’s anything wrong, sister, just tell me!’ ‘Why should there be anything wrong, man?’ Dirmit sobbed, flapping her arms about helplessly.
Now Halit was out of bed. ‘Man, what’ve you done to the girl?’ he demanded of Seyit, sending him back to bed and taking his place beside Dirmit. ‘Did Seyit say something to upset you, sister?’ he asked curiously as he bent over her. D
irmit shook herself free and stood up. ‘Why are you making me suffer like this?’ she pleaded and then flew into a rage. ‘There is something wrong with that girl!’ Atiye asserted before the others as she picked up her prayer beads. And then, to mark her words, she wet her finger and stamped it on the wall. Dirmit took one look at the mark and began tearing out her hair and flinging it down in front of Atiye. Her heart torn by the sight of Dirmit’s hair lying before her, Atiye took pity on her daughter and began to cry too. Then she stopped, fixed her eyes on the radio and started to curse it. ‘This radio will be the end of my daughter!’ she declared, at which point Huvat stepped in and silenced it forever. After throwing the radio out of the window, Huvat returned to his bed, and Atiye felt herself cooling off inside. Dirmit cried and cried.
Unable to bear her daughter’s constant weeping, Atiye fell ill the next morning. However, no one believed her. She called on each of them, one by one, to bear witness to her rattling breath and to press their hands on her heart that was beating so fast it seemed ready to burst out. She also urged each of them to examine the swelling under her right breast. But no one was interested. So Atiye tossed and turned in bed alone. Finally she quit calling them to her side to show them her swelling or to feel her heart. She refused all food and drink. Growing paler each day, she groaned constantly and soon developed a cough. As she sat up with her hands pressed down hard on the bed, she had coughing fits that seemed to turn her inside out. After each fit, tears coursed down her cheeks. She coughed so hard that she couldn’t sleep and she could say nothing more than, ‘May Allah protect even my enemy from such coughing!’
While everybody expected Atiye to recover again, her condition only grew worse. After each coughing fit blood gushed from her nose, striking fear into everyone’s heart. Cradling their chins in thought, they watched Atiye struggle on. They propped her up with pillows to allow her to cough more comfortably, plugged her nose with cotton wool and, as soon as the coughing fit had subsided, settled her back down again. ‘The woman’s going to die while we sit here watching,’ Dirmit shouted, unable to bear it any longer. ‘Take her to the doctor!’ So, like children playing ‘Fly away, Fly away!’ Halit and Seyit lifted Atiye up on their crossed arms and bore her away as she shut her eyes and rested her head on her sons’ shoulders. They returned home, but Atiye remained behind in the hospital. As Seyit retreated to a corner with his face in his hands, Halit looked down and sighed. ‘Mother’s going this time.’ Then silence fell upon the household. Weeping, Nuǧber packed Atiye’s slippers and nightie in a small bag and wrapped up a fork, spoon and glass for her, then Seyit wordlessly picked up the bag and left. Reminding him that if Atiye were really going to die he should bring her back, Huvat called out after him, ‘She may as well die in her own home.’ But after receiving huge injections and taking tablets that looked like lentils, Atiye’s condition improved a little, and, as it did, she struggled with Azrael, who was still sitting hunched down heavily upon her chest. She ran through a list of all the complaints that came to mind. How she’d never passed a happy day in her life. How God had saddled her with a husband unlike any other. How she had rotted half her life away as a stranger in the mountains awaiting his return, deserted and far away from her brothers and sisters. Azrael warned Atiye against quarrelling with him on her deathbed and to beware of committing a sin by reproaching God. He informed her that her lungs were swollen, that the little flap on her heart had decayed and that her womb was riddled with holes as a result of her prodding it with hen feathers and broom bristles to induce a miscarriage.
So Atiye stopped scolding Azrael and began to plead with him instead, stressing the fact that she still had unfinished business to attend to. She asked that he hold back from taking her until she married off Nuǧber and received at least some news from her brothers and sisters. Azrael stepped down from Atiye’s chest and looked long and thoughtfully at her pale face. He knew that Atiye had never reproached God during her long years as an outsider at Akçalı. She had kept her faith the whole time she’d awaited her husband’s return, and had given birth and brought up their five children all on her own. Consequently Azrael did not reject Atiye’s request, but granted her just enough time to complete any unfinished business. So Atiye returned home with all the life that was now left to her.
On the day she arrived, Atiye gathered her children, her husband and her daughter-in-law around her and told them, with a chuckle, about the fight she had had with Azrael. But soon she became thoughtful and, raising her eyes to the ceiling, said, ‘Bring me some news of my brothers and sisters.’ For many days Huvat begged Atiye to abandon the idea, while Halit complained that they didn’t have a single clue how to trace them. As they pressured her to give up, Atiye’s wish intensified into an irrepressible passion. She wandered through the house, deliriously intoning the names of her siblings and wailing that if she ever did find them she wouldn’t be able even to recognize them. Casting off all restraint, she began once more to speak and sing in her incomprehensible tongue. And as she cried and babbled about her brothers and sisters, she shut her eyes and dived headlong into the past, trying to recall their habits as well as the colour of their eyes and the distinguishing marks on their bodies. For the first time she started to talk about her childhood: their house that had stood next to a great waterway, the velvet drapes that hung in the house and the pearl necklace with multiple strands that her mother had worn around her neck. None of her children could tell whether Atiye’s account was real or only imagined. All the same, they were curious and listened closely to her, trying to discover whether such a land truly existed, where fruit was so plentiful it could be knocked from the trees even after days of beating; where houses were filled with pots of gold and where women sported all kinds of brightly coloured jewels in their noses and cloaked themselves in fine tulle. As her children came and sat beside her, Atiye resumed her story, then dashed their hopes by doubting her own ability to ever find her way from the city to her birthplace. She went on to say that when she was very small her father had moved them to a place where the water and climate didn’t agree with her mother. As a result she fell ill, and while she lay in her sickbed her father had fallen in love with a woman who worshipped a gum tree. Consequently her mother had died of a broken heart, and her father had married the woman who worshipped the gum tree and converted to her religion. After his conversion he never gave the children a second glance, allowing them be driven from home by their stepmother, who squandered all the jewels and pots of gold. Atiye started to cry, and, sobbing, confessed a secret she had been withholding for years: she announced to her children that they had another sister. ‘You may as well find your sister, even though I haven’t been able to find any of mine,’ she sighed, and offered them some clues to help them find her.
She explained to her children that their elder sister’s left wrist bore a hairy mark in the shape of a serpent. When she was born she was too large to fit into any cradle, so she might still be big. Her name, if they hadn’t changed it later on, was Nurfiye, and her father, a deranged Stationmaster, was a very old man even then. As Atiye’s children turned to look at each other, gaping in horror, she told them her daughter’s approximate age and began to cry once more.
Huvat tried hard but could find no way to convince his children that all those things Atiye had sworn were true had in fact been plucked out of thin air. He told his children the story of how, back when he was working as a contractor, he had met Atiye in the home of a master road-builder. He had pleaded with the builder’s wife to act as go-between. ‘She has no family,’ she said, ‘so you can just take her.’ He went on to describe how Atiye had come away with him without saying a word, much less revealing her marriage to an elderly madman or the existence of a daughter bearing a hairy serpent mark on her left wrist. Everything she had told them was a lie. He knew nothing about Atiye except that her stepmother had married her off when she was very young and that her first husband had shot himself while fooling around with a rifle. Huvat
swore that Atiye would never be able to find herself a peaceful place in the netherworld after telling so many lies. He tried to explain to his children that they would be making laughing-stocks of themselves if they took what she said as true and went in search of an elder sister with a hairy serpent mark on her wrist.
But even if she were relating dreams or imaginings, Atiye still managed to convince her children. She made them write down the name of her paternal grandfather’s village on a piece of paper, although she could only half remember it. She also revealed to them the name of the city where she lived under the iron rule of the elderly madman who had fathered her daughter, and went on to describe the house in which she had lived. She told them about the neighbours and the Arab couple who often visited them, about the vineyards that stretched out far behind their house, the potters who worked next door and the rocky hillside opposite. She said the rocks were all that remained of a woman who had turned to stone while riding a camel and holding a baby in her arms, then recounted the story. She talked about a hot stream that sprang from, and flowed down, the rocks and described the little wooden bridge over it. She declared that if they were unable to discover anything after being given so many clues she would no longer recognize them as her children. She would summon Azrael to her side and follow him, turning her back on them forever.
