by Latife Tekin
Dirmit’s account, the long, trailing letter and Halit’s news that it had turned into a white bird flying over the city were all too much for Atiye, who took to her bed that very day. The next day she was again overcome with fits of coughing. She fell back like a log after each one, without even the strength to open her mouth and call out to Azrael. She beckoned to Azrael once or twice through her coughing, but he misunderstood and thought she was only struggling for breath. After trying a few times to call him to her side, Atiye gave up her signalling and, once her coughing had subsided a little, rested her head upon the pillow she had placed on her lap and fell asleep. Meanwhile, Huvat soothed his children’s troubled hearts a little by claiming that Atiye was only putting on an act to scare them and that there was no real truth to her coughing.
But her condition took a new turn after midnight. Her face turned as white as limewash, shadows settled below her eyes and her throat rattled with every breath. In the small hours she began to bleed heavily from her nose, and her face, hands and feet swelled up. Huvat paled when he saw Atiye’s swollen feet. Gesturing to his children to leave the room, he asked Atiye, ‘Shall we get your place ready, girl?’ Nodding, Atiye placed her hand on her heart and fixed her eyes upon Nuǧber’s wedding picture on the wall. ‘I’ve sent Seyit,’ Huvat said. ‘They’ll be here before you die.’ Atiye then lifted her hand slowly and pointed to Mahmut’s divan. Huvat told her that Mahmut had flown home quick as a bird and was waiting outside. With her eyes still on Nuǧber’s wedding picture, Atiye dozed off.
Suddenly she awoke with a weight on her chest and a loud ringing in her ears. Looking around wide-eyed, she released her breath with a rattling sound and then once more closed her eyes. She dived headlong into deep, warm water that freed her chest of the weight. Her body, arms and legs dissolved in the water, while her hair floated strand by strand up to the surface. ‘Don’t leave my hair in the water,’ she murmured, as Zekiye gently lifted Atiye’s head to place another pillow beneath it. Then she took Atiye’s hair in the palm of her hand and gave it a squeeze. As the water dripped from it, Zekiye tearfully braided her mother-in-law’s hair in two plaits and gathered them on top of her head. Huvat saw Atiye lift her hand to pull down the braids. ‘It must feel heavy,’ he said. Then he picked up the scissors and snipped them off. ‘Please give me my mother’s hair,’ Dirmit said, bending over her father’s hand. She took the braids and left the room. Holding them up to the light creeping in from the trapdoor to the roof, she spoke to each moist, shiny hair.
While Dirmit whispered to her mother’s hair, Atiye clung tightly to her spirit. As it writhed about in her palms, eager to fly off, she asked about the fate of her children. She pleaded hard, swearing to God that she would give away nothing of what she learnt. Then a weight came down on Atiye’s eyelids, and she flew up high like a bird. First she saw a big crowd marching in rows down a wide road, shouting and holding up their hands. The crowd flowed on and passed before her, as Dirmit, holding a red flag and running madly, caught up with the crowd and soon became lost in it. Now the wide road lay empty under a light shower of rain. Then Halit appeared in the middle of it, with his son Seyit cradled in his arms and Zekiye by his side. He hung his head mournfully and looked down at the road as he trod on with Zekiye beside him. Coming up behind them, his cap set crookedly upon his head, Seyit appeared holding a welding torch. As he stood there in the middle of the road, he wiped away the sweat that had gathered on his brow with the back of his hand. Then, shading his eyes, he looked towards one end and laughed out loud when he saw Mahmut. Loaded down with huge steel protractors and a set of compasses on his back, and a guitar of galvanized sheet metal strapped around his neck, Mahmut sulked as he plodded towards Seyit. Nuǧber was standing alone at the end of the road, her baby in her arms. When Atiye saw her daughter all on her own, way down at the far end, her heart fell.
But, just as quickly, she grasped it up in the palm of her hand and rose in rebellion. Swallowing her oath to God, she breathlessly revealed all that she had learnt in the final moments before her death. Then she opened her eyes to let her spirit fly. But she forgot that her spirit had already flown away. When she sat up to count the people who had come to her funeral and bumped her head on the lid of the coffin, she remembered that she was dead and was overcome by grief. Yet she also felt secretly happy that she would never again suffer pain. Just then, however, demons arrived with sticks in their hands to thwart her happiness, because she had gone back on her oath at the last minute. Atiye ignored them completely at first. Then, attempting to disarm them, she asked, ‘What’s the stick for, love?’ When that failed, she tore into them. ‘If you demons know what’s good for you, you won’t beat up a heartsick woman like me!’ she said.
While Dirmit was playing ‘Black Dots’ on the night of her mother’s death, she found out that her mother had stood up to the demons and bared her insides to them. Delighted that her mother had not given in to the demons, and unable to contain her joy, Dirmit announced to the family that her mother was turning the netherworld upside down. She had no sooner done so, however, than she was forbidden to play ‘Black Dots’ any more. Huvat swore that she would drive herself mad chasing after her mother’s spirit and, to mark his words, he licked his finger and stamped it on the wall. As Dirmit clenched her teeth and angrily eyed the wet mark, a bright red carnation bloomed right out of it. She blinked in disbelief. Rising slowly, she plucked the red carnation off the wall and pinned it to her breast.
TRANSLATORS’ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank those who have helped in the course of this translation: Ken Hollings, our editor at Marion Boyars, for his patient, spirited collaboration and judicious interventions; Moris Farhi, for his suggestions, criticism and encouragement; Ruth Christie, for kindly providing a sample draft of the first 15 pages of the original to Marion Boyars; Latife Tekin, for her generous assistance in explaining uncommon words and expressions in her novel; and students in the Translation and Interpreting Department of Boǧaziçi University, for invaluable feedback.
Saliha Paker and Mel Kenne
PUBLISHERS’ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The publishers gratefully acknowledge the kind assistance received from the following organizations towards the publication of this book:
Gümüslük Academia Foundation of Arts, Culture, Ecology and Scientific Research;
The Arts Council of Great Britain.
Copyright
First published in the Great Britain & the United States & Canada in 2001
by Marion Boyars Publishers
26 Parke Road
London SW13 9NG
www.marionboyars.co.uk
This ebook edition first published in 2014
All rights reserved
© Latife Tekin, 1983
This translation & introduction © Saliha Paker and Mel Kenne, 2001
Translated from the original Turkish edition, Sevgili Arsiz Ölüm, published in 1983 by Adam Yayinlari, Istanbul, by Saliha Paker and Mel Kenne
The moral rights of the author and translators of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters are fictional, and any resemblance to any persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–7145–2400–9
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