Dear Shameless Death

by Latife Tekin

  With Seyit’s return and Dirmit silenced at last and on her knees, Atiye began to long for death. Giving her heart the good news first, she announced: ‘You won’t be kicking around much longer!’ She went on to tell the pain in her back and the wound inside her that she was getting ready to die. Then she sent word to Nuǧber, calling her to her side, and was pleased to hear that she was with child. Next she sent Seyit off to fetch Mahmut, who packed up his guitar and came home for a few days. Mahmut excitedly told his mother that he could now make his guitar sing like a nightingale. ‘Well, son, I guess there’s nothing left in this world for me worry about then, is there?’ she asked, looking him straight in the eye, then added coldly, ‘I suppose you’ll be bringing your guitar to my funeral as well, won’t you?’ She said nothing for the rest of that day that boded either well or evil, but only shifted her gaze instead from one son to another until they all dropped off to sleep. Once they were in bed, she went over and sat beside each one to breathe in their scents for the last time. Next she moved over to Dirmit and stroked her hair. ‘Your face looks like mine, but I hope you have a different fate, you shameless bitch!’ she whispered, kissing her on both cheeks. At last she lay down in her own bed and called out to Azrael, saying that she hadn’t yet said farewell to her husband or her daughter-in-law but she had at least learnt that Nuǧber was with child.

  Azrael didn’t hear Atiye, however. She went on calling and calling. First she wailed at him that the pains were unbearable and then she chided him for keeping her waiting. But Azrael turned a deaf ear to her pleas. ‘Well, would you just look at what Allah’s doing now,’ she said as she straightened up in her bed, adding defiantly, ‘So is there some reason why you don’t want my life now?’ She demanded to know if Allah was now chastening her with her pain. As if she hadn’t been chastened enough by being torn away from her child and her brothers and sisters. Next she proceeded to pick a fight with Azrael. ‘Either take my life or take away the pains!’ she challenged. But no matter what she said or did, she couldn’t bring Azrael to crouch down on her chest or transport her to her desired destination. Getting really angry, Atiye started to quarrel with her womb, with the lung that she could feel swollen beneath her hand and with her heart. ‘Why go on struggling?’ she said, striking her heart. ‘Why not just give up and stop!’ Then she sent a curse down to her lung. ‘You should’ve been thrown to some mangy cur!’ she swore. She also had a few words for her sore womb. ‘May your shameless flesh be roasted like meat over a fire!’ Finally she threatened Allah. ‘I’m fighting with myself, but don’t think I’ve forgotten you!’ she said, raising her head and shaking it at the ceiling. ‘Don’t make me beg for death, or you’ll be stuck with an infidel when I die,’ she added. ‘Or I’ll fly back here swift as a bird and tell all your secrets!’ But the fear she hoped to strike in Allah came plummeting back to her. ‘What if I don’t die but only remain this way?’ she started lamenting. As she wept, the pain in her back picked up a rock and started to pound away at her innards. Atiye doubled up with a big pillow on her lap and laid her head on it. Half her tears flowed into the pillow as she passed the whole night staring into the dark with closed eyes.

  *

  The morning after Atiye failed to get Azrael to squat on her chest, Halit woke up early and went out, strutting down the stairs dressed to the nines. Before he returned that evening, Atiye had already heard the good news. Halit had been seen parading up and down in front of the Akçalı folks’ coffee-house with a girl who hugged him around his waist with one arm and dangled the other one. She wore a sleeveless dress that rode a hand-span above her knees, and had her hair tied up in a bun on the top of her head. ‘Allah must’ve known,’ Atiye mused, pleased to have received word of this. ‘That’s why I didn’t die last night!’

  When Halit came home that evening, Atiye met him at the top of the stairs, all set and ready to trick him. ‘A man who would parade his girl in front of the coffee-house surely wouldn’t hide her from his mother,’ she hinted, giving him the idea that she wanted to see the girl at once. Maligning Zekiye behind her back, she promised Halit that she would have plenty of baklava ready on the day of the girl’s visit. Halit was so overjoyed by his mother’s words that he impatiently started to describe the girl. He blathered on about her eyes, her velvety voice and her good nature. ‘Is that so, my son?’ Atiye echoed, teasing the words from his mouth. ‘Velvety voice and eyes of crystal?’ Early the next morning she sat rolling out the dough for baklava pastry. By that afternoon she had tidied the house and poured the syrup over the baklava. Then, with her hand on her heart, she sat down by the window to wait. When Atiye finally caught sight of Halit and the girl turning the corner and walking up the street arm in arm, she left the window to stand by the door. ‘Lord, give me strength of heart and speech,’ she implored. She invited the girl in, but signalled her son to wait outside and closed the door after him. ‘You’re a pretty girl,’ she began, then added, ‘My son’s been foolish,’ and told the girl all about Zekiye. ‘You can have it out with him if you like,’ she concluded. Having revealed Halit’s true colours to the girl, she now called to her son, who entered the room, looking quizzical. When the girl turned down her eyes, Halit’s face turned as white as limewash. Pretending not to notice, Atiye now eased over to her son’s side and enquired softly, ‘You haven’t laid the poor girl, have you, man?’ Halit bent forwards to look at the girl, who first turned beet red then grew pale. After the weeping girl had left, Atiye turned to face Halit. Placing the tray of baklava before her son, who had duped a poor trusting girl, she said, ‘Man, they say it’s good to eat baklava after lying.’ Fiercely kicking the tray, Halit stomped all over the baklava and stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

  The news of how Atiye had taught her son a lesson rushed through the homes of all the Akçalı folk that very evening. Completely forgetting their own worries and troubles, they gossiped about Halit until deep into the night. ‘Good for him! He did the right thing taking her around and enjoying himself,’ some declared. Others prattled on about the way Halit winked at the men in the coffee-house as he promenaded by with the girl. Still others confessed that they liked the way the girl’s dress showed off her rear. Then someone else ventured that ‘the baklava got the worst end of the deal,’ and all the Akçalı folk in the city started laughing. Halit quickly became known as ‘The Baklava-Stomper’.

  Knowing nothing about his son trampling the baklava, Huvat came home from the village loaded with news. Halit had dearly hoped that Zekiye wouldn’t return too. However, his wife burst in through the door with Huvat, her head and bosom stuffed with more prescriptions, herbs and pebbles to kindle passion in a chilled heart than she would ever need to set her husband ablaze. The moment Halit set his eyes on her, he lost his nerve. After welcoming Huvat and giving his son Seyit a few caresses, he left for the coffee-house, grumbling all the way down the stairs. Huvat then launched into his news of life in the village. First he spoke about all the hunting and dining parties he had been asked to attend. Then he informed them that the Armenians had left Gigi village. At the mention of Gigi, Atiye remembered Boos the pedlar. ‘It’s true he was a heathen, but he was such a good man!’ she mused and added that no one could ever wear out the baskets and the felt shalvars that he sold on his rounds of the villages. Huvat next told how the people from Koyunabdal had now taken over Gigi. ‘You should see it, girl. They’ve built such a lovely mosque there!’ he said, and excitedly recounted how he and Rızgo Agha had gone over to the village to look it over. ‘Aren’t you over stuff like mosques yet, man?’ Atiye sneered. ‘How dare you, girl!’ Huvat said, and prayed to Allah to protect him from all of Atiye’s lies.

  Atiye marvelled at how soon he had forgotten those days when shiny-scaled fish were stars, and he worshipped only water, claiming that he was born of it. She also let him know that she had hidden his white-striped devil’s pants and was planning take them with her to the netherworld. On her arrival there she would say, ‘Here, just t
ake a look at these pants my husband used to wear! Let them be struck from my list of sins!’ ‘Remember to take the bottles with you too, girl!’ Huvat said, grumbling that Atiye never let him enjoy a story. Then he fell silent, while Zekiye went back out to fetch the sacks they had brought back from the village. Laughing, she told them how surprised the married women in the village had been to hear her speaking her mind in front of her father-in-law. As she poured out the bulgur and the erişte pastry, she recounted all that she had seen and heard back in the village, giving a full report on those who had eloped or moved away. Then, turning to her mother-in-law, she described the pebbles and herbs she had brought back to inflame her husband. She also let Atiye in on some advice she had picked up about how a woman should slip into her husband’s arms while he slept and how he would become spellbound, imagining her to be a fairy girl. But Atiye cautioned her daughter-in-law that her son wasn’t likely to fall under a spell and that, if he did, he only had to take a boat across the sea to break it. Why else, she argued, had her black pepper burning been in vain? Sure, Halit hadn’t caught on the first time, but he did the second, and could very easily have hopped onto a ferry. Her son had read far too many books, Atiye warned her daughter-in-law, to be taken in any longer by spells. Finally she counselled Zekiye against upsetting her husband by trying to slip into his arms while he was asleep.

  As hard as Atiye tried to get through to Zekiye, however, it never really dawned on her that her mother-in-law might have good grounds for offering her such advice. Instead she mixed the seeds of a whole bushy head of broomplant with forty seeds of black cumin over which she had begged Atiye to whisper forty Yasin prayers. Into the mixture she dropped a little white pebble plucked from her bosom. Then, laying the concoction out in front of her, she took up her embroidery needle and swiftly crocheted a tiny pouch. After lining the pouch with a layer of garlic skin, she stuffed it with the seeds and the pebble and hung it up over the door. When Atiye saw Zekiye hang up the pouch, the chilling thought struck her: ‘What if Seyit were to fall under its power? That would be the end of my home!’ As a safeguard, she called out to Zekiye: ‘Say, “This is for my husband Halit,” girl.’ So Zekiye repeated to herself three times: ‘I’ve made this for my husband Halit.’ She followed this by making a wish for Halit to be her slave and to find himself a job. She told her mother-in-law that seven brides had hung just such a pouch over the door to kindle their husbands’ passion and had seen their wishes come true. But Atiye counselled Zekiye, as she lay in wait for Halit to return home and fall asleep, that if she was really sure the spell she had cast was a strong one, there was no rush to see it work that very night. Plenty of nights lay ahead of them. However, when she noticed that Zekiye was deaf to her pleas Atiye sighed, ‘God willing, you’ll be a fairy girl tonight,’ then dropped off to sleep.

  It worried Dirmit that Zekiye was putting all her faith in seeds and pebbles in her quest for love. As she lay there, staring at the pouch, there arose in her mind a story in which the forty seeds of black cumin were changed into as many rosebuds. After telling herself the story again, she went to sleep. Seyit soon came in and crawled into bed. Much later Halit entered the room, creeping like a shadow, then slipped quietly into bed, turned over once or twice and fell asleep. At first Zekiye pretended not to hear him. Then, all a-tremble, she rose up and tried to slip into his arms. But whatever was about to happen next, Halit sat straight up and screamed as if he were djinned, and Zekiye’s passion became stuck in her throat. The others, who had fallen asleep, their heads filled with stories, wishes or curses, suddenly woke up. Atiye hurried over to rescue her daughter-in-law from the hands of her son. Far from turning into a fairy girl at midnight, Zekiye only turned out to be a weeping wife.

  When she saw her daughter-in-law collapsed in tears, Atiye announced that her heart was so full of grief that if she were to curse Halit just then he might be instantly struck down. She therefore refrained from cursing and commended Halit to his own conscience instead. After she had helped her daughter-in-law up from Halit’s feet and put her back into her own bed, she consoled her, saying that curs had no right to fairy girls. At that point, Huvat piped up that sons had no right to beat their wives in their father’s presence. Before falling back to sleep he added that wife beating should be done in a quiet place. Atiye wished and prayed fervently for her husband to have a quiet place to sleep and never wake up again. After requesting this from Allah, who had refused her own request to die, Atiye waited for Halit to go back to sleep. Afraid that the devil might get into Zekiye again, however, she once more cautioned her daughter-in-law against playing the fairy girl. Then she crept back to her bed.

  Seyit, on the other hand, hadn’t arisen to watch. He didn’t consider wife beating to be a manly act because he was still a red-blooded spirit, even though he hadn’t spoken of it for a long time. He had shut his eyes the moment he had pulled back his quilt and seen what was happening. As for Dirmit’s forty rosebuds, they faded without having a chance to bloom, and after midnight the forty black cumin seeds became forty teardrops.

  ‘Get over here, fellow,’ Atiye commanded her husband the next morning. Huvat had clearly failed to lie forever in the quiet place where he had fallen asleep, and was now up and about just to spite her. ‘Thanks be to God we’ve managed to save Nuǧber at least,’ Atiye began, although what she had really wanted to say was: ‘Why don’t you try to be a proper father?’ She went on to drop a hint about how Dirmit had run away in his absence. Then she told him how Halit’s exploits had led him to become known as ‘The Baklava-Stomper’. Huvat also learnt that she had acquired a mighty enemy as a result of her quarrel with Azrael. She could deal with him if she had to, Atiye said, but no one else. Azrael was just being stubborn at the moment but he would surely give in one day. And the minute she tricked him into it, she would be off and on her way. As for Seyit, she added, he had started harping on about the company as soon as he got back, and that was a sure sign that he was heading for trouble. She did not at all approve of the way things were going at home, she said, and she would forever have to be looking over her shoulder. Then, releasing a long sigh, she asked her husband how she could ever show her face in the netherworld. ‘Man, what am I going to say? “Here I am. I’ve abandoned my daughter to poetry, one son to the guitar and another to manage a company. My eldest son I’ve left to the wife he loves so much he can’t stand to look at her or even get into the same bed with her.” Won’t they wonder how I’ve managed to accomplish all that?’ Atiye pressed on as if she were earnestly seeking advice. ‘Instead of saying that I’ve entrusted my children to the hands of a father who worries about them day and night and heading happily towards the final reckoning, why should I have to hang my head in shame in the netherworld among those who’ve managed to set their families straight?’

  Huvat was simply overwhelmed. He couldn’t think of an answer, no matter how hard he tried. So he turned to Halit and Seyit for help. ‘What should your mother say, man?’ he asked. ‘She should face up to them without shame,’ Seyit replied first. ‘She should be defiant and declare: “I could only do so much. If you’d given me more to work with, I might have done better!”’ He argued that she could also say her daughter wouldn’t be writing poetry forever and it was always possible that her son would found a company of his own some day. And if they really give her a hard time,’ he added, ‘she should scream at them as loudly as she does at us!’

  Halit glared at Seyit, angry at his outburst over what their mother should say. ‘Man, don’t you know better than to snap like a dog?’ he said. Huvat suggested that if Halit had a better idea, he’d better come out with it. After thinking awhile, Halit said, ‘On my behalf, she should say, “I wish I’d given birth to a rock instead of him.”’ Then he wiped his tearful eyes with the back of his hand and reaffirmed his mother should reproach him before God. Switching over to Seyit, Halit said his mother should testify that her younger son had always been eaten up with envy because he was short and, try
as he might, he’d never got over it.

  Seyit was stung by his brother’s words. ‘Tall as a poplar, boy, but scatterbrained all the same!’ he flung back and started baiting his elder brother. He accused Halit of lacking courage and said that he always hung his head and started weeping when he was under pressure. Whenever people laughed behind his brother’s back, he said, he was too ashamed to admit that Halit was his elder. ‘Man, do you think you’re the only guy who’s turned off by his wife?’ he went on. If his brother had been as ambitious as he himself was, he argued, they would have long since set up their company. They would have put themselves in a position to mix with the right people, and their mother wouldn’t have had to brood over such things.

  Seyit fell silent. ‘At least I don’t set my eye on the branch my hand can’t reach, Lion-heart!’ Halit retorted. ‘Then what made you set your eye on engineering, man?’ Seyit snapped back. Huvat finally had to cut in, telling his sons that he was sick of their dogfighting. ‘Get out of here, you snapping cur!’ he said to Seyit.

  His face downcast, Seyit slunk away, and Halit returned to the subject of what advice they should give Atiye. He reasoned that there was no need for her to worry herself over what to say about Dirmit. ‘Every time we got upset we jumped on the girl and drove her into the dumps,’ Halit said. ‘Since we never even tried to understand her deep down, we oughtn’t to be hard on her now.’ Halit also brought up the heartache he had felt when reading Dirmit’s letter to Seyit. This was why he wanted his mother to say of Dirmit, ‘My girl has taken so much into her heart that it’s all ablaze now.’