Dear Shameless Death

by Latife Tekin

  Huvat stuck to his guns at first, certain that Mahmut would fail, but as he watched the pieces climbing towards his chest he began to feel nervous. Finally Mahmut mounted a chair beside Huvat and carefully covered his head too. When Atiye saw Huvat staggering about and rustling she burst out laughing as he broke free from the cardboard covering. ‘Well done!’ he proclaimed again and again, now halfway convinced that Mahmut had become a master. With Huvat done, Mahmut moved his mother into place next and coated her too, prayer beads and all. Under her cardboard panels Atiye wept joyfully and offered up thanks to God, her tears soaking the cardboard that covered her face. Then, wanting more practice, Mahmut begged Dirmit to let him work on her, and swiftly proceeded to cover up her hands, feet and head. Nevertheless, Huvat cautioned Mahmut against being over-confident. Covering up people at home was very different from coating pipes and boilers and fitting elbows with iron sheets on construction sites. To drive home to his father once and for all how skilful he was, Mahmut sat Nuǧber and her betrothed side by side and coated them too. Under the cardboard coating Nuǧber kissed her beloved and blushed deeply as she broke through the sheets. Since Huvat still wasn’t entirely convinced, however, Mahmut went on covering everything and everybody in the house until he at last announced, ‘I’ve done enough here!’ and set out for the coffee-house. That very day he came home with a job.

  Astounded at seeing Mahmut become a master by crouching over pieces of cardboard at home, Huvat stroked Mahmut’s back and said he had always thought the boy was gifted, ever since his childhood. On the day Mahmut came home with a brand new guitar under his arm, Huvat gathered everyone around him and announced that Mahmut could play whatever he wanted and could do whatever else he liked. So once again Mahmut wrote all over the walls and pasted up pictures. With Huvat’s beard and Atiye’s beads under his firm control, he picked up his guitar when he came home each evening and played and sang until midnight. Atiye blew more of her prayers after Mahmut than she did for the others, cooked the meals that he liked best and banned aubergines from the house because Mahmut referred to them in disgust as ‘priest food’. For his part, Huvat started to boast in the neighbourhood that he had only one son, whose name was Mahmut. He offered him cigarettes, lit them for him and did just as he was told.

  Before long, however, Mahmut grew too big for his britches. He forbade Nuǧber from going out with her young man and stuck his nose in Dirmit’s notebooks. Furthermore, he meddled with Halit’s sleeping and waking routine and with his visits to the coffee-house. Next he cast his eye upon Dirmit’s bed, questioned why it was he instead of Dirmit who slept on the floor and promptly exiled her from the divan. From then on no one could start eating before he did. Anyone who came home later than him had to stand at the door. And if anyone dared to ignore him while he played the guitar, he cut the next day’s household allowance in half. Except for Dirmit, everyone became his slave and was kept strictly in line. Dirmit had relinquished her bed without a word, sat down for meals after her brother without a word and accepted without a word Mahmut’s habit of rummaging through her bag every evening. But when he tore up her poems and sneered, ‘You wouldn’t be writing poetry if you weren’t in love,’ she hurled herself fiercely at him. Grabbing him by the neck and knocking him over, she jumped on his chest and gave him a resounding slap on the face. ‘How dare you!’ cried the others, surrounding Dirmit. ‘Girl, how much are you worth in this house compared to Mahmut?’ Then, one by one, they started to beat her up. As Dirmit lay on the floor, shielding her head with her hands, Mahmut attacked. He trampled her furiously and only stepped back when he had cooled down a little.

  All night long Dirmit didn’t move from the spot where she lay with her hands covering her head. ‘May your stubbornness wither away,’ Atiye hissed as she threw a quilt over her. But when she folded it back the next morning and saw Dirmit still there in the same position, she worried that her daughter might have been seriously hurt. Pounding her knee, she crouched beside her and felt all about her body. ‘She must’ve broken a bone!’ she cried, leaning over and lamenting as everyone gathered at her side. Flustered, Huvat lifted Dirmit up in his arms, but she shook herself free and leapt down. Keeping her head bowed, she quickly collected her books and stuffed them in her bag. ‘Where’re you off to so early, girl?’ Atiye demanded, barring her way. But Dirmit pushed her aside and rushed out the door. ‘I hope your hands break!’ she screamed as loudly as she could from the bottom of the stairs. Then she was gone.

  ‘You’ve ruined the girl!’ Atiye wailed when Dirmit didn’t return that evening. ‘See if I don’t really break her bones when she gets back!’ Mahmut snorted. Huvat paced up and down, wringing his hands, as Halit set off in search of Dirmit. Nuǧber crept back to her seat at the window, chin in hand. When Halit came home after scouring the streets and the schoolyard, all their hopes faded. As Mahmut peered sheepishly at Atiye, who was twitching all over, the grief in Huvat’s heart suddenly burst forth. Sobbing heavily, he strode over to Mahmut and dragged him by the arm into the middle of the room. ‘Now get out there and find your sister!’ he bawled. Just then Halit hurled himself at Mahmut, and all hell broke loose.

  Dirmit walked right in on the middle of the fight, shyly clutching her bag. Atiye gasped in relief, then lunged at her. ‘Cooled off now you’ve had the boy beaten up?’ she spat. Shielding Dirmit, who had retreated to the divan, Halit headed Atiye off. Now an interrogation started, with Dirmit sitting behind Halit and the others facing him. They asked their questions, but Dirmit remained silent, and when they hollered at her she wept. In between stood Halit, arms stretched out, like a bird all aflutter, protecting Dirmit. As Huvat watched Halit flit about Dirmit, he swung away from her and turned on Halit, shouting that he and his sister were two of a kind. Facing his son squarely, Huvat angrily accused him of shirking work and letting his wife weave carpets. Now it was Halit’s turn to weep. Unable to bear her son’s grief, Atiye turned wrathfully upon Huvat and, with scathing words, drove him back sulking into a corner. ‘They’ve lost their minds from hunger,’ thought Nuǧber, who brought in a tray of food and placed it before them. Mahmut refused the meal, shamed by the beating he had received. Dirmit was too scared to move. Going over to sit beside Dirmit, Halit leant his back against the wall and said he still had a bellyful of the words his father had fed him. As she picked up her beads, Atiye muttered that she had no reason to eat since her time on earth had been used up that very evening. Zekiye backed off too, gulping: ‘I’m only the poor daughter-in-law.’ Huvat was the last to turn away from the food. ‘If I starve to death, I’ll be free of you, and you’ll be free of me!’ he flung at them all. So Nuǧber cleared away the untouched food and made a vow. If ever she managed to get away from this household before she wasted away from grief, she would happily give alms to an orphan.

  Once the food was cleared away, the beds were spread out. Mahmut lay down on his divan, pulled the quilt over his head and turned his back on everyone. The lights were turned off, and the room was perfectly silent except for Atiye’s whispering as she thumbed her beads. While everyone else slept, she lay wide awake worrying about where Dirmit might have gone to and who she might have seen that day. Gripped once more by concern that her daughter might have got herself into trouble, and curious, she crawled over to Dirmit’s bed and gently lifted the quilt. She felt for Dirmit’s legs and hesitantly drew back her nightie, afraid of waking her up. As Atiye fumbled about, Dirmit felt something crawl over her legs. She woke with a start and screamed, thinking it was a mouse. Then she saw a dark figure cowering by her bed. ‘Who’s that?’ she yelled, waking everyone up. ‘It’s me, good-for-nothing,’ Atiye replied as she switched on the lamp. ‘Why’re you shouting?’ Everyone crowded around Dirmit’s bed to find out what was going on. Dirmit trembled and sobbed violently as she told them that Atiye had been doing something between her legs. ‘Why, she must be djinned!’ exclaimed Atiye and swore that she had never laid a finger on the girl. Dirmit replied that it must’ve been some
one else, then, who pulled back her nightie and touched her legs. ‘Whoever it was had better own up!’ she demanded. They all looked around at each other in search of the guilty party. At last Atiye confessed and everyone clamoured to know what she was up to, poking around under Dirmit’s nightie. ‘Even dogs care for their pups!’ Atiye began, and, taking care to use wily words and wind them out, she finally revealed that she had only wanted to find out if her daughter was still a virgin.

  Upon hearing this, Dirmit collapsed in shame and rage. She shook so violently that Huvat had to pin down one arm and Mahmut the other, while Halit sat on her legs. But still they couldn’t stop her from shaking. Dirmit struggled like a bird under her father and brothers, while Atiye sprinkled water on her face and held an onion under her nose. But Dirmit shook even more violently, as tears streamed over her face and rolled down her neck. Putting down the onion, Atiye picked up her beads and blew her prayers about, as Dirmit gasped and moaned, whistling like a bird as she sucked in her breath. When she kept on tossing about and struggling, Atiye threw away her beads in a panic and crouched beside her. ‘Get up. She’s going,’ she shouted, pulling her husband and sons off Dirmit. ‘Come on, girl,’ she begged Dirmit, weeping, ‘shout a little.’ As soon as Dirmit heard the word ‘shout!’ she opened her eyes, fixed them on the ceiling and began to yell at the top of her voice. So loud and long were her shouts that they shook the walls to their foundations, and sawdust as fine as flour drifted down from the ceiling. The dust rained on until it grew weary, and Dirmit’s voice grew hoarse. Finally her wings dropped to her sides, broken from the struggle. With a throbbing ache in her head, she fell asleep.

  When she awoke the next morning her ears were humming. Silently she got out of bed, picked up her bag and walked out, slamming the door behind her. As she hurried down the stairs and into the hallway, she ran into Nuǧber’s betrothed, who stood in front of her and barred her way. Crouching down, Dirmit tried unsuccessfully to duck under his arm but, stepping aside, she once more found her brother-in-law blocking her way. Not knowing what else to do, she backed towards the stairs. As her brother-in-law drew closer and closer, her heart started to pound in fear. Unable to shout or snap at him, she fixed him with a glare. But he only chuckled and sat down beside her. He placed a package on her lap, then went on upstairs, leaving her alone with her gift. Shyly Dirmit opened the parcel and saw a thick notebook with a key, which slipped through her fingers and fell with a thud to the floor. When she heard the notebook clink its key on the floor, chiding her for fearing her own brother-in-law, she felt so ashamed that she couldn’t even bend down to pick it up. She showed the tears running down her cheeks to the notebook and begged to be forgiven. When she got up to leave, she leant over, picked up the book and dropped it in her bag as if it had burnt her fingers. From that day forward she was too ashamed either to look her brother-in-law in the face or speak to him. But she did write him a very long poem and copied it out on the very first page of the notebook, which she then locked up.

  For some time afterwards Atiye carried on about Dirmit’s notebook with its lock and key, but didn’t touch it out of respect for her son-in-law. She compared Dirmit, who crawled into bed with the key to her poems hanging from her neck, with her mother-in-law, Nuǧber Dudu, who, in her dotage, had slept with the key to her trunk tied securely around her waist. ‘God forbid that you should ever take after her!’ Atiye sniffed occasionally, or spitefully said: ‘May you drop dead on top of your notebooks!’ But Dirmit ignored her and got on with her poetry, taking her mother’s charitable cursing in her stride. ‘Let me lose my mind but never my poems!’ she prayed.

  As Dirmit lounged about the house writing her poems, Nuǧber’s wedding preparations began, and with them there came a whole set of problems that nobody had foreseen. First of all, Huvat took an oath that he wouldn’t let Nuǧber leave home unless a ram with hennaed horns and a painted tail was brought to their door. Atiye wondered aloud what a hennaed ram would be doing in the city. Informing her husband that such talk would harm their daughter’s marriage prospects, she asked everyone in the household to put pressure on Huvat to forget about the ram. Next Huvat drove everybody crazy when he became obsessed with the idea that the groom’s family had to post a flag on their roof three days before the wedding. ‘May you be posted like a flag on the roof yourself, man!’ Atiye hissed under her breath, while out loud begging and pleading with Huvat, barely able to silence his prattle about the flag. It wasn’t long, however, before Huvat broached the subject of the bedsheet. As the bride’s father, it was his duty to spend the wedding night at the groom’s house, as was the custom. He would never recognize it as a proper wedding if he didn’t instantly receive the good news of his daughter’s virginity. Atiye writhed in her distress but refused to plead with Huvat again. Once more she took up her handkerchief and raised a prayer to God that Huvat’s tongue might be tied fast like its knots. But this time God rejected Atiye’s appeal and sided with Huvat. So, having failed to bind her husband’s tongue, Atiye next pinned her hopes on sweetness. She acknowledged to Huvat that, for a long time, she had sinned by preventing him from performing his marital duty. Now her sin was weighing heavily upon her. So, to make Huvat change his mind about the bedsheet, she crawled into his bed. Huvat made some new conditions, however. ‘Just once won’t be enough to let you get away with it!’ he declared, and from then on took every opportunity to corner Atiye. ‘Oh dear, what’ll I do now?’ Atiye fretted, frantically searching the house for a hiding place. ‘I can’t fall ill just before the wedding!’

  Sometimes she escaped, at others she was caught. At last she was only able to free herself by making Huvat give way over his final condition. Huvat had claimed that the Akçalı people wouldn’t come to the wedding with only a written invitation but would have to be called upon by an emissary on the day. He announced that this job would be given to Dirmit. When Dirmit told him that she would rather die than make the calls, Huvat accused his daughter of rebelling against him and summoned Atiye into the bathroom to discuss the matter. In order to save Dirmit from making the rounds of the houses, Atiye went into the bathroom, where she was forced to pay for sinning against the tinted clay and the torn-up poems as well. Having changed her husband’s mind, she at last emerged from the bathroom, heaving a deep sigh of relief.

  Thus it was that Nuǧber packed up the dowry she had so often sighed over, together with all the pebbles and beads that Atiye had stuffed in her bosom for luck, and went off to be married, unaccompanied, thanks to her mother, by either ram or flag. Because she had managed to leave home before wasting away with grief, on the day she left she offered alms to an orphan. After sending her father the good news that she had proved to be a virgin, Nuǧber began a brand new life in a house with a big balcony in a far-off neighbourhood where every New Year’s Eve people smashed glasses and bottles in the street.

  Once Nuǧber had flown the household, Zekiye, who had sighed whenever she saw Nuǧber smiling, concluded that if she were sick in bed she might be appreciated as much as her sister-in-law. So, imitating Atiye, she took to her bed, where she began to moan and speak deliriously. She fluttered her eyelids as she spoke of riding along on angels’ wings to a shining place where her hand touched Halit’s. And as Zekiye tossed and turned, waiting for Halit, Atiye nudged and poked her son. ‘Come on, man,’ she urged. ‘It’s no sin to go to her!’ ‘The sin’s all mine!’ Halit replied, shrugging her off. So Zekiye stuck to her bed and, in her dreams, walked about in the vineyards of Dizgeme and met Halit in their family’s stable. She chattered about how he had brought her strings of sweet sausages when they were engaged, and babbled on about anything else that might work in her favour. Then she took back all her words. ‘I’ll be dead before three measures of time!’ she announced, and passed the next three days groaning.

  On the evening of the third day she frightened Atiye when she started gasping and thrashing about in bed. Atiye sat down beside her and lamented, ‘What can I say, oh daughter-in-law
? You share my fate!’ When Zekiye saw Atiye weeping she poured out her heartaches, and Atiye stopped crying and gave her some advice. She said that even if women were ill they should keep it from their husbands, because revealing it would only deepen the chill between them. So she begged Zekiye to get up out of bed. But rather than take Atiye’s advice and do her housework like a good daughter-in-law, Zekiye fixed her eyes on the ceiling and moaned, ‘I want to stay in bed!’ She forgot about Halit and began to rave on about Rızgo Agha, her mother, her brothers and her sisters. Then she switched from raving to making her ‘last wish’. She asked them to fetch her father to take her corpse to Dizgeme, adding that her son should pay visits to her grave on the occasion of his circumcision, his engagement and marriage. ‘Enough of your wishes, girl!’ Halit finally commanded, incensed by her weeping. Then he beat her up. When Halit’s hand came down on her, her wish was granted, but she frowned and sulked that her illness hadn’t turned out to be anything at all like Atiye’s. Unable to figure out what had gone wrong, she slept on it for many days, deciding in the end to accept her mother-in-law’s advice and avoid taking to her bed. She moaned and raved, dreaming on her feet even as she played her part as the good daughter-in-law of the household. Saying that Zekiye’s dreams boded well for her, Atiye assured her that Halit would calm down as he grew older and would at last come to sit at her knees. Zekiye took hope and seated herself at the loom. Counting the knots, she awaited the day when her husband would take his place at her knees.