by Latife Tekin
Darkness had already fallen when the boy arrived with a bunch of flowers in his arms and rain dripping from his hair and nose. Huvat resented the fact the boy had come alone to ask for his daughter’s hand, and was annoyed with the girlish hair that hung down to his shoulders. When the boy lit a cigarette and blew the smoke right at him, Huvat put on a long face and from then on refused even to glance at the boy or say a word. Although Atiye made signs, he went on sulking, leaving her with no choice but to say that her husband wasn’t feeling well. Then, starting to talk, she got the boy talking, and the situation improved a little after she had winked and nodded at Halit and Seyit. A short time later, shuffling his feet on the kilim, the boy asked Huvat for Nuǧber’s hand. ‘We’ll see,’ Huvat replied, his eyes fixed on the floor. Getting up to leave, the boy said: ‘I’ve said what I came to say and made my offer.’ Then he promised to return with his mother.
No sooner had the boy stepped out the door than Huvat flared up, saying he would rather die than have a son-in-law with long hair down to his shoulders who lit up and blew smoke all over the place the minute he sat down. As Huvat settled back with his chin propped in his hand, Seyit sprang up to say that the boy wasn’t Nuǧber’s type and swore that all the Akçalı people would laugh him right out of town. Then he called in Nuǧber, who had fled the room when her father started shouting. He told her that only with great effort had he kept from killing the boy on first sight. Then Seyit settled back with his chin in his hand, as Nuǧber sobbed and bowed her head. Now it was Halit’s turn. He claimed that he had scrutinized the boy carefully and remarked that if only his hair didn’t fall into his eyes he would be fit for company. He could be made into a proper young man, if they took him to Zekeriya the barber for a haircut.
Atiye felt a little relieved when she heard this, but Huvat was now carping about the boy’s age, saying it would be a disgrace if his daughter married someone younger than herself for no apparent reason. On top of that, the boy had blown smoke into his face the whole time, showing him almost no respect at all. Atiye listened in silence, taking in the drift of the menfolk’s thoughts. But now, by way of a brief prologue, she enquired, ‘Don’t I also have a right to speak on what concerns this girl?’ Then she launched into a lengthy argument, alleging that if she were dead and gone, the girl would be left out in the cold with no one to lift a finger to help her. She was also able to work into her case the boy’s hair and the way he smoked. She capped her defense with tears as big as her prayer beads. But all she could get from Huvat was: ‘No way, this boy won’t do for us!’
For days afterwards, Atiye trailed around after Huvat, trying to change his mind. One moment she stroked his back to please him, the next she started quarrelling or pressed Halit to have a word with him. Afraid that Nuǧber might lose her prospect for good, she arranged for her to meet the boy in secret. Then she made the rounds of the mosques and dervish houses, where she offered prayers to keep the boy coming to their door. As she looked for a happy solution without falling desperately ill again, she sought advice from several people and came upon a means of controlling Huvat’s tongue. After stroking his back to put him to sleep, she then picked up a handkerchief that had been consecrated with prayers, knotted all four corners and gently tucked it into his breast. All night long she recited prayers for Huvat’s tongue to be tied as fast as the knots on the handkerchief, beseeching his mouth never to open if he had a bad word to say about the boy until the whole business was over and done with. From that night onwards, Huvat was tongue-tied. When the boy came on his second visit, accompanied by his bleached-blonde mother with bouquets of roses in her arms, Huvat had totally forgotten all that he had said before. And when he heard that the blonde woman had split her vocal cords while giving birth to the boy and ever since that day spoke in a whisper, Huvat was also speechless. He gave Nuǧber away at the woman’s first request.
Satisfied with her work, Atiye untied the four knots on the handkerchief that night, then took it out and buried it. As soon as the handkerchief was buried Huvat opened up again and started grumbling that he didn’t much care either for the woman who spoke in whispers or for her son with the shoulder-length hair. He hadn’t a clue who they were and wouldn’t even consider giving his daughter away to people he didn’t know. But now Atiye knew how to keep Huvat and his beard under her thumb. ‘Go on, talk,’ she muttered to herself, nodding repeatedly while Huvat spoke, ‘then off to bed with you!’ Later, after she had tied up the corners of another handkerchief, she put Huvat to sleep and slipped it into his breast. Through all this knotting and burying of handkerchiefs, the old Huvat was transformed into a plaything in his wife’s hands, and Atiye was able to secure her daughter’s engagement.
Since Huvat couldn’t say much after that, he started to play cards and throw dice with his son-in-law and gradually warmed to the boy. When he discovered that the boy was as fond of the sea as he was, Huvat boasted that he had the best son-in-law in the world. Once the boy had gone off to get a haircut with hardly a word to hurt anyone’s feelings, Huvat could only crow about his son-in-law over and over again. When the boy sat Nuǧber down before him and combed her hair for hours in front of everyone, Huvat never even thought of objecting. And although he had never before witnessed such a thing, it never crossed his mind to interfere when the boy started to sing and dance, wildly shaking his head, hands and legs. On the contrary, he forgot his age and status as father-in-law entirely as he clapped his hands and rocked back and forth to the beat.
Nuǧber’s betrothed, for whom she had waited so long under the fig tree with tears in her eyes, soon came to shine like a glorious sun upon the household. His blonde mother became Atiye’s silent sister and the children’s silent auntie. Nuǧber exhibited the full range of her skills for her silent mother-in-law, squeezing out mantı pastry and baking börek, while her beloved gathered everyone to his side and told them jokes and stories that set them laughing or made them think. After a while the young man switched to games that he taught them all to play. He started out with ‘Beat the Donkey’, a game they played so often that everyone came to love it passionately. From then on, instead of going out to watch the sea, Huvat remained glued to the window all day long, keeping an eye out for his son-in-law. As soon as he spotted him about to enter the house, he picked up the donkey stick, stationed himself at the top of the stairs, and welcomed him in, booming out, ‘Get in here, son! What took you so long?’ ‘Don’t disgrace yourself in front of the boy!’ Atiye reminded him, but Huvat only ushered in his son-in-law with even greater exuberance. The boy didn’t even have time to catch his breath before Huvat declared, ‘Look now, I’m It!’ as he gathered everyone around him, picked up the donkey stick and started the game.
Eventually, when everyone’s enthusiasm for the donkey game cooled, he began to sulk at his son-in-law’s reluctance. Rising to the occasion, however, his son-in-law began to display his other talents. He stood on his head for Huvat without holding on to anything; then he juggled ten eggs without breaking them; finally he did a lot of magic tricks. Huvat’s fondness for his son-in-law doubled accordingly. Later Huvat latched onto the idea that his son-in-law came from a family of professional dancing men. When he let Atiye in on his thoughts, she said he’d better keep mum about it since she knew how Akçalı people had viewed those wandering entertainers who spun quilts on their hands and twirled eggs in the air for a living. To rid Huvat of the idea, she said that his son-in-law could very well have picked up such tricks at school. Eventually Huvat’s obsession waned, and he started attributing his son-in-law’s spirited manner to youthful inexperience. He even relished the fact that the boy liked to play around with eggs, and promptly showed him how to play the egg game and sing its accompanying türkü. Picking out two nicely rounded eggs, he laid them in salt for a while to harden their shells and then handed one to his son-in-law. As Huvat threw himself into the egg game, all his worries evaporated. But now Atiye began to grow concerned, afraid that her quiet, dignified daughter might
let this irrepressible boy slip though her fingers. She felt that her daughter should be more attentive towards her betrothed and whispered in her ear to defer to him more. But the more Nuǧber tried to follow her mother’s advice, the more confused she grew over what to do, going so far as to cut his toenails, comb his hair and even stuff blue beads and pinked, scented handkerchiefs into his pockets. Then she took his cue and she started to dance. She jumped to her feet whenever he did and capered about before him, shaking her head and kicking her legs the way he did. Each day she made mantı and baklava and fed him with her own hands. In a frenzy she plucked her brows as thin as string and painted her face and fingernails until she was no longer the old Nuǧber.
While she pranced around him, warbling her türküs like a nightingale, the boy started to show off the rest of his talents. No sooner did he arrive in the evenings than he rushed out again, stretched a rope from one end of the street to the other and started to play football. He soon made friends with all the neighbours and took to calling on them without even bothering to knock. Some days he gathered the children to his side to tell them stories. On others, he joined the young boys chasing a ball from one end of the street to the other, skittering about as a goalie or bouncing the ball on his head or knee.
‘My, my! What a son-in-law Allah has blessed us with, girl!’ Huvat chortled as he watched the boy raising such a ruckus and causing everyone to rush to their windows in alarm. Atiye was deathly afraid that the evil eye might fall upon the boy and lead his heart astray. However, after all his racing about and hollering in the streets the boy was back, his eyes glued on Nuǧber’s and his voice rising deep from his heart to pronounce her name alone. Atiye felt a wave of relief as she watched her son-in-law poised by her daughter with a comb in his hand. But noticing how he acted, how his fancy was captured by all manner of things, she soon realized he had a disposition very much like Huvat’s. ‘This boy’ll cause my daughter to suffer,’ she concluded, and to mark her words drove a nail into a corner in the wall as a reminder to everyone that one day she would be dead and gone but that hole would stay. Just then her son-in-law came thundering down the street with a plastic ball-like hat on his head. His headgear under his arm, he bounded upstairs, quickly collected Nuǧber and swept her away on his roaring motorbike.
A short while later he sold off the motorbike, which he had always kept chained at the doorstep, and bought a rowboat, which he moored at the quay. However, after taking Nuǧber out for frequent rides on the sea, he grew tired of the boat too, sold it and reappeared one day with a van full of boxes. One by one he carried the boxes up, piling them in the middle of the room. Then he opened each box, took out the metal and wooden rods, the screws and the tubes of glue, spreading them out on the floor. Next he picked up the labelled diagrams, called everyone to his side and wouldn’t let them sleep for several nights. He had them hold the rods while he joined them together, either flat or upright, twisting in the screws, leaving not a single one unused as he assembled wood and metal trains, planes, buses and kites of all sizes. ‘My God, how marvellous!’ Huvat repeated over and over again, struck with wonder at his son-in-law’s brightness. Atiye, meanwhile, couldn’t utter a word in her distress. Even though she still smiled at the boy, she harboured dark thoughts about him. Then the boy took them all on an outing to an empty field. He gave one of the kites to Nuǧber and another one to Huvat, appointing Dirmit to look after the trains and the aeroplanes. Posted at one end of the clearing were Seyit and Halit, while the boy took up position at the other end. Now he gleefully set the planes in motion, shouting in joy as he watched them take off, then racing them to the other end of the clearing. Atiye in the meantime stared at the nail hole she had made in the wall, blew her prayers about and begged, ‘Oh Lord, please let me be wrong about him!’ Her face cradled in her hands, she tended to her thoughts until they returned home.
While Nuǧber fluttered about trying to keep up with her beloved, Seyit, equipped with his gleaming false teeth, left to do his army duty. As soon as he had gone, Atiye sat Mahmut at her knee and said, ‘Son, we have an outsider among us now,’ meaning Nuǧber’s young man. She went on to explain to him that it was now his turn to earn a living and support the family. Mahmut tried to shrug off the responsibility at first, claiming that it was his elder brother Halit’s turn, not his. ‘He’s heartbroken and not in his right mind,’ Atiye insisted, defending Halit and shifting the burden onto Mahmut’s shoulders. So for days Mahmut walked the streets trying to set up his own business before he finally landed a job at a hairdresser’s in a far-off area. However, he’d already had more than enough of that sort of experience. Reminding himself that he couldn’t deal with ‘those stiff-haired bitches’ he returned home and asked his father to help him find a proper steady job.
Pleased that his son had sought his help, Huvat went with Mahmut down to the coffee-house. There he listened in on the news and decided to introduce his son to the business of ‘technical coating’, a trade considered to be highly respectable but with only a few masters. He looked around for a while but couldn’t come up with a master of the trade who would take on his son, so he set out to seek those he had dealt with in the past, thinking they might offer him their help. But when he knocked on their doors, some couldn’t remember him at all, while others turned him down flat. Turned away from the gates of companies and factories that were watched over by guards, he fumed for days that the taste of money had turned his former colleagues into nothing better than a pack of dogs. His constant sighing and his claims that he was a better master than most of them would ever be drove Atiye crazy. At last she started to grumble at him for having wasted everything by staying idle all those years. Turning a sharp eye on her, Huvat asked, ‘How d’you know so much about these things, girl?’ Then he started ranting that only a few companies had a stranglehold on the market and, like dragons, wouldn’t let anybody else in. As he cursed away, Atiye ignored him, waiting for his fit to blow over. Finally, after a lot more chasing around, Huvat found a master in the trade of technical coating, pleaded with him to take on his son and placed Mahmut in his hands.
Wondering what this technical coating business his father kept harping on about might really turn out to be, Mahmut set out on the long journey with his master. He eventually found himself on a huge poultry farm. When Mahmut saw chickens proudly strutting about the brightly lit rooms, his jaw dropped. Still astonished, he followed his master until they finally came to an area that was heated to protect the chickens from cold. When he found that the work amounted to plating fibreglass-wrapped hot water pipes with galvanized iron, his blood froze and his knees almost gave way.
During the first few days Mahmut couldn’t at all see himself doing this kind of work. Having to suffer so because of the chickens, having to keep company with strangers day and night, far from home, but most of all having to end up doing construction work again: it was just too much for him. He gradually controlled his anger, however, by heaping curses on each and every last chicken there – beak, comb and feather. Then, desperate to escape the chickens, he started trying to discover the tricks of the trade. He went on full alert, gluing his eyes on his master’s hands as he measured up, bent and then shaped the iron sheets. Finally it dawned on him that this business was like tailoring. It amounted to nothing more than fitting the pipes and boilers with sheets of iron. Yet he was also well aware of how difficult the measuring and calculating were. Although he racked his brains and tried to see how his master took the measurements, made the moulds and cut them out, the man kept Mahmut on the run and evaded his questions by never fully explaining how he measured or cast his moulds. However, vowing to himself to become a wizard in the business, Mahmut stubbornly persisted in his attempts to foil his master, who kept the finer points of the trade from him like a secret treasure map. Mahmut tailed his boss everywhere until he at last discovered the place where the man hid the templates on which he worked with his huge T-squares and compasses. After he had stolen the plans, he bid far
ewell to the chickens and flew away.
When Mahmut came home, he warned everyone not to let anybody in without first finding out who it was. Then he struck fear into their hearts by announcing that he had stolen his master’s workbook. ‘Let the jackass find his book now, if he can!’ Mahmut exclaimed as he withrew into a corner. For a while he turned the book over and over in his hands. Then he motioned Dirmit to his side and made her promise to help him with the calculations. Dirmit brought over her protractor, a set of compasses and a ruler. After she had shown her brother how to use them, Mahmut scattered pieces of coloured cardboard across the middle of the room and crouched over them with the instruments. Scrutinizing the plans and making calculations, he drew circles and triangles on the cardboard pieces. Then, picking up his scissors, he cut them out and either laid them one on top of the other or pasted them side by side.
Watching Mahmut, who had promised to learn the trade like a wizard, merely drawing and making notes, drove Huvat out of his mind. He cursed his son up and down, declaring that never in his life had he seen anyone anywhere or at any time learning a trade in this way. But Mahmut ignored him and remained hunched over his cardboard sheets. Then one day he sprang to his feet and announced joyfully that he had become a master wizard of his trade and could now fashion any kind of coating for anything. At first Huvat laughed right out in his face. Then he started to curse Mahmut for always having to do things his own way. But Mahmut stood his ground and stopped his father cold by demanding to know whether Huvat would accept him as an expert if he were to coat Huvat. Huvat turned to his son in disbelief. ‘Well, let’s see you do it then!’ he said. So Mahmut helped Huvat onto his feet and methodically measured his arms and legs, his waist and the curves of his face. Then, crouching over his cardboard pieces he started to draw on them, and painstakingly jotted down all his figures. Hours later he put the cardboard panels on his knee and cut them out one by one. Then, his cupped palm full of pins and clips, he stood before Huvat and slipped the coloured panels over his legs and arms.
