Dear Shameless Death

by Latife Tekin

  After the coloured clay, the radio and Mahmut’s guitar had all been destroyed, Dirmit came up with a new theory about her mother. It occurred to her that she would be spared her mother’s tongue-lashing only if she found something she could devote herself to without actually touching it. Day after day she tried to think of something that wouldn’t arouse Atiye’s suspicion. Finally she hit upon a way of ingratiating herself with Atiye while letting her own heart roam about freely as she sat at her mother’s knees. She decided to write poetry.

  Spreading out her books on top of the sewing machine, she lowered her head and reflected seriously upon how poetry should be written. When she grew impatient, she grunted. Oof! At first Atiye was happy to think that her daughter was attending to her lessons and, when she heard her going ‘oof’ and then sighing, she even pitied Dirmit, feeling that her school work might be too difficult. Slowly, however, she came to realize that when Dirmit released her grief in a single breath she was gazing intently at a blank sheet of paper without moving her pencil. Annoyed because she suspected that her daughter might be seeing things again, Atiye started to worry once more. She moved over and stood beside Dirmit, her eyes open wide, her gaze fixed upon the paper. When Dirmit felt her presence there, she let all the pithy and embellished words that were winging about in her head free to fly over the roofs of the clouds. Day after day she found that she couldn’t put two words together and commit them to paper. She chewed her hair in anger and gnawed her nails because Atiye was always peering curiously over her shoulder. One day, however, she was suddenly struck by inspiration and, while her mother stood at her side grumbling, she wrote her first poem. After stringing together her tears on paper, she grabbed up the poem, stepped out onto the landing, hoisted the ladder and climbed up onto the rooftop. Sitting amidst the tiles, she recited her poem to the wooden houses that leant against each other, to the roofs, to the chimneys, to the clouds and the whole sky. Then, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her sweater, she folded up her poem, stuck it in her bosom and descended from the roof with hope in her heart and her mind set on writing much better poems than this first one. Silently she went back to her place at the sewing machine and took out a clean sheet of paper. Then, gnawing on her lip, she settled down to think.

  From then on Dirmit wrapped herself up in a quilt made of words. She slept on a bed of words and sat on a chair of words. Atiye became thousands of words whose days were numbered. Huvat gazed at bottles filled with words. Nuǧber sat waiting for words. Zekiye wept words. Seyit smiled with his gleaming white teeth made of false words. Mahmut pressed his tongue against his teeth and whistled words. Halit banged words on the walls. Dirmit didn’t know which way to turn or which one to write down first. As she wandered about in confusion, words rained from the clouds and poured out of the taps. All those words, together with all those others that sat quietly and those that threw themselves face down on the divan, turned into chaos in Dirmit’s head but not poetry. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t write a second poem. Maddened with rage, she punished herself by going without sleep, food, drink and laughter unless she wrote a poem first. Soon she added crying, talking and going to the toilet to her list of prohibitions. She did everything but chain herself to the blank page. But as the restrictions increased, she started to feel worse. The words in her head began to kick and fight, then turned into needles that pierced her brain. Her self-denial was giving her pain but no poetry.

  Since the restrictions hadn’t worked, Dirmit tried competition. For a while she raced with the sun, laying a sheet of paper in front of her at sunrise and commanding herself to write a poem by sunset. As the sun sank, Dirmit tore up the blank paper in anger and defeat. Next she tried racing with the moon, but the moon faded away before the poem was written. At last Dirmit came upon a way. One by one, she took the words from her head and put them into her heart. When a word made her heart pound she wrote it down at once. When it had no effect she cast it out. From that day forward, Dirmit became a slave to her heart, doing what it told her to do, going where it told her to go, saying what it told her to say. If her heart conflicted with her mind, she did too. If her heart overflowed itself, so did she. If her heart grew agitated, she did the same. She became so at one with her heart that she totally forgot about lessons and school work. If she put a word into her heart, she picked another one out of it. She didn’t care that the Djinnman had carved a notch for her, or that her mother was following her about with her prayer beads. She wrote one poem after another, covering both sides of all the pages of a big notebook that she kept carefully hidden from her mother. She took the notebook up to the roof and chimney, leaving Atiye below without sleep or rest.

  ‘It’s just her and that notebook, nothing else means anything to the girl,’ Atiye complained, trying to sniff out the notebook under beds, in cushions, on the roof or in the bathroom. But she wasn’t able to get her hands on it, so at last she went to bed, hoping for dreams that would uncover it. Upon waking she felt about in all the places where she thought it might possibly be. ‘Oh Lord,’ she prayed, ‘take the notebook away from that girl and give it to me!’ Finally she made her last request to Dirmit, repeating over and over that, if her eyes were left open on the day she surrendered her spirit, Dirmit should bring her notebook and lay it down on her mothers belly. But Dirmit’s poetic heart had turned to stone. Rather than say to herself, ‘Let her see it from a distance and satisfy her curiosity,’ she cried, ‘You smashed up the radio and you made my clay weep. Is it my notebook’s turn now?’ When she refused to reveal even a part of it, Atiye swore, ‘May your notebook devour your heart!’ and at last let her be. For some time Atiye made no mention of the notebook at all, leading Dirmit to believe that she had forgotten about it. However, on the very day Dirmit retrieved it from a hollow in the staircase and put it in her bag, Atiye found it and hid it away. ‘My notebook! My notebook!’ cried Dirmit all day long as she dashed around the house. ‘See if you can find it, good-for-nothing!’ Atiye retorted, rattling through her prayer beads.

  No matter how much Dirmit wept and begged, Atiye kept the notebook hidden away. That evening, gathering everyone around her, Atiye gave a full account of how she had long been annoyed by Dirmit’s fondness for her notebook, which she prized even above her parents. As a mother she was naturally curious but she had never been able to lay her hands on it. Then she brought out the notebook for all to see. Huvat picked the notebook up, turned it over a few times, then handed it to Seyit. ‘Lets hear you read it, man!’ he said, and Seyit read out the poems at the top of his voice as Dirmit wept in rage. ‘Can this be anything worth crying over, girl?’ Seyit scolded when he had stopped reading. Planting himself beside Dirmit, he ruffled the notebook’s leaves and asked, ‘Can this thing be worth your tears?’ Then he tore the notebook up and threw it away. ‘Damned if I can see any sense in you at all!’ he tossed casually back at her before going to lie down on the divan. Placing a hand over her now cooling heart, Atiye heaped prayers of gratitude upon her son’s hands for having torn the notebook up. ‘What good is poetry to someone like you, anyway, girl?’ said Huvat, and Mahmut burst out laughing, not stopping to wonder what was so funny about a smashed-up guitar and torn-up poems. Instead he threw himself on the floor, then on the divan, holding his belly in a fit of laughter. Soon they were all laughing, while Dirmit continued to cry. She was still weeping after the mattresses were spread out and everybody was in bed. All night long as she listened to the heavy sound of breathing, Dirmit moaned, ‘My poems! My poems!’ The next morning, hanging her head, she picked up her bag and left the house, her sleepless eyes downcast. All the way, snow as fine as powdery flour fell on her head as she walked along.

  Dirmit was so deeply upset that she couldn’t even feel pleased about the dog snow. As it dropped gently down upon her, she shrugged it off sulkily. However, after every two steps the dog snow drew a white curtain across her way. It stopped her to ask why she wasn’t pleased it was snowing. Dirmit told the snow everything tha
t had happened the night before. ‘Come with me!’ the snow commanded, flurrying angrily. Then it took Dirmit’s hand and led her down a long, long tree-lined avenue. Dirmit beheld a multitude of people there, holding their hands aloft and shouting as they marched along in rows. Full of wonder, she turned to the snow. Letting go of her hand, the snow instructed her to rid herself of her troubles by mixing with the crowd and shouting as loud as she wished. At first Dirmit hesitated to join these people who opened their mouths and shook their fists in such anger. Unable to overcome the urge to shout, however, she quickly slipped into one of the rows of marchers. As she looked around at all the shouting people, she realized that she didn’t know a single person. Much later on she was surprised to see in the midst of the crowd a teacher from her school who never smiled and who always kept to himself during the breaks. Suddenly she wanted to run up to him and find out where and why they were marching, but felt scared because she had joined in with the crowd rather than go to school. Instead, she grasped the arm of the young boy about her own size marching at her side. She asked him what the shouting was about and where they were heading. ‘For the teachers,’ was all she could make out, as the rest of the boy’s answer faded into the roaring of the crowd.

  Unable to figure out what all this had to do with teachers, Dirmit’s eyes curiously searched the rows for her own teacher. While she was peering around in confusion, the boy beside her signalled her to raise her hand and shout. At first Dirmit didn’t know what to shout. When she tried to make out the marchers’ words she could hear nothing but a collective roar. So for a while she only marched, timing her steps to the roaring and wondering what to shout. Then she remembered that the snow had told her: ‘Let go of all your cares and shout!’ With this in mind, she parted her lips and raised her fist. However, feeling her heart starting to pound, she became so embarrassed that her cheeks flushed deep red. So she unclenched her fist and lowered it, took a few deep breaths to calm the beating of her heart and bit her tongue to rid her mouth of dryness. Then her thin voice rose and joined that of the crowd, surging up, irrepressible, as she started shouting:

  ‘They’ve torn up my poems! They’ve torn up my poems!’

  Suddenly the huge crowd turned to face Dirmit, then rushed towards her, hollering. Her knees shook and she felt her bones melt away as she gasped once and collapsed on the spot. When she reached out for her bag, which had been torn away from her, trampling feet crushed her arm. ‘My arm!’ she cried, and a hand gripped her tightly by the arm, pulling her onto her feet. Looking around fearfully, she saw wheatstalks tossed about in the wind, bending back and springing up again. Then the wheatstalks suddenly turned into people running in all directions. Dirmit stood transfixed, as if frozen by a spell, watching them as they scattered and vanished. The snow came to her rescue, sprinkling its watery flakes on her face. ‘Run, the police are coming,’ it told her as it helped her pick up her bag. Without looking back, Dirmit ran off towards the street into which the people had fled and disappeared from sight. She sped down the whole length of the street in a single breath, but when she reached a clearing she didn’t see a soul. Turning her face to the snow, whose fine flakes veiled the sky, she complained, ‘You don’t know anything!’ The snow only laughed, and Dirmit asked why it had led her right to the middle of the crowd. The snow thought for a long time and then began to explain why, after coming down in thin flakes, it always melted away, and why it eventually turned into water even though it did stick for a while.

  Dirmit was astounded to hear that the snow melted away because to stay on the roofs of those box-like dwellings and see the suffering of the people inside was too painful. She was pleased that the snow was able to see inside all the houses, and when she exclaimed, ‘I wish I were snow too!’ the snow laughed, sprinkling Dirmit’s lips with its gentle flakes and caressing her face. It told her that even if she weren’t snow, she could see inside those houses, if she wanted to. ‘But there are so many of them!’ Dirmit sighed. ‘Aren’t there any other girls whose poems were torn up?’ she asked, closing her eyes. The snow fell and turned into water. When Dirmit opened her eyes and looked for the snow it was nowhere to be seen. ‘If there are, I’ll find them,’ she shouted, raising her head to the sky. Dirmit gently felt her bruised arm and tucked her bag under it. Then, remembering that she couldn’t go to school now or return home, she decided to go to a movie.

  She went into one displaying a poster of a blonde girl with coloured balloons showering over her head. Watching the film, she found out how a village girl was able to become a singer, get stabbed in the stomach and collapse on stage. As the blonde girl lay bleeding profusely, Dirmit cried so hard that her eyes were red. She was still weeping when she left. She thought about the blonde girl under the lights that twinkled on her face as she sang. Then she recalled the morning’s march and what the snow had told her. With a heavy head and feeling as if something were trembling inside her, she arrived home and, without saying a word, settled down in a corner. There, amidst the din of chaotic sounds that rang in her ears, she searched for her own voice.

  And she found it. For a long time she sat there with her eyes closed, hearing her voice shout, ‘They’ve torn up my poems.’ She conjured up before her eyes all the streets she had marched along shouting, and the row upon row of houses she had passed by. She shivered in fear and was overcome by guilt, as if she had stolen something or accidentally dropped the big mirror in their house and shattered it. Then her heart started to pound heavily as she wondered anxiously if one of the Akçalı people might have seen her marching and would inform the whole household about it. She opened her eyes and stepped up to the window, but as soon as she saw the snow she felt ashamed of her fear and pulled the curtain over her reddening face. The snow laughed at what Dirmit was doing and called to her from outside the window, asking, ‘Didn’t it feel great to be shouting and running in the streets?’ Pleased that the snow hadn’t confronted her with her fearful feelings, she opened the window, leant over the sill and cried out, ‘That was the greatest!’

  From then on Dirmit revelled in the joy she had felt as she shouted with people out on the streets. Every time she recalled how she had shouted, her eyes fixed on those big buildings, she felt like shouting again. Whether lying down, sitting, watching the snow or eating, she had to work hard to keep from shouting. One evening, however, her voice rose in rebellion. Although Dirmit grasped her throat tightly and tried to restrain herself, it didn’t work. Breaking loose, her voice shot up from her throat. For some time after that, Dirmit couldn’t keep her voice down and would start shouting every now and then. No one in the household had any idea what could have happened to her so suddenly. ‘Are there voices that tell you to shout, girl?’ Atiye probed. But Dirmit just hollered at both those who questioned her and those who only gaped in amazement. She did nothing which wasn’t preceded or followed by a shout. Atiye came up with a nice new name for her that the whole household adopted: ‘Yelling Girl’.

  While Yelling Girl went about the house yelling, Nuǧber’s suitor turned up triumphantly on their doorstep. He wiped the sweat from his brow and stationed himself under Nuǧber’s window, intent upon remaining, come rain or snow. For a while Atiye watched the boy through parted curtains, then dressed her daughter up and sent her off, with a thousand and one warnings, to see her suitor. She was still running through her beads and offering prayers when Nuǧber returned home, beside herself with joy. Dropping her beads, Atiye led her daughter by the shoulder to a corner. Atiye spoke first, and Nuǧber listened. Then Nuǧber explained, and Atiye nodded. The next day Nuǧber got all dressed up again and skipped outside, happy as a lark, to see her suitor, while Atiye prayed fervently for the boy to have eyes only for Nuǧber. Some days she blew prayers over sweets and tucked them into Nuǧber’s pocket to feed to the boy. Other times she pressed Nuǧber to give him tasseled ‘groom’s finger’ handkerchiefs for luck. ‘Walk like this!’ Atiye advised. ‘Don’t forget to do this, my girl!’ And that’s how the boy fe
ll so deeply in love with Nuǧber that he didn’t even glance at any other girl. Each day Nuǧber would either go out to meet him or sigh over him from the window.

  Finally Nuǧber brought her mother the good news, and Atiye joyfully informed the rest of the family that Nuǧber’s suitor would soon be ringing their doorbell. Atiye took Huvat aside and explained to him that the boy was a little younger than Nuǧber, but looked proper and trustworthy. Then she begged him to remove his bottles from the wall on the day of the boy’s visit. She had to pour out a thousand words before she could persuade him to speak tactfully and to take off his white-striped devil’s pants and put on a pair of proper trousers. ‘Striped pants will bring bad luck,’ she kept insisting.

  So, early the next day all the hustle and bustle began. First they worked out what everybody would wear, what they would say and where they would sit. After that, every nook and cranny in the house was scrubbed spotless. Then they made a tray of baklava for the evening and arranged big cushions where the boy was to sit. Next they spread out kilims on the stairs and sewed print curtains to drape along the whole length of the landing. Finally they tucked into Nuǧber’s bosom a handful of henna that was wrapped in bleached cloth and blessed with prayers and made her drink plenty of sherbet so she wouldn’t feel nervous or suffer from a parched mouth. Just as Nuǧber took her first sip of sherbet, it started to pour with rain. Atiye interpreted this as a sign that Nuǧber would lead a life of plenty. And so, saying ‘Let’s hope for the best!’ she sat down to wait.