The Lamppost Diary

by Agop J. Hacikyan

  3

  It had been a year since his sister’s death. Tomas refused to trust anybody. He was convinced that everybody lied to him. Mama and Papa remained the principal suspects, followed by Father Matos, his teachers, friends ... even God.

  ‘I’m not going, Mama. You’re lying again.’

  ‘Don’t you ever talk to me like that. Shame on you.’

  ‘Shame on you, Mama. I’m not going!’

  Papa hurried to Tomas’s room. ‘What on earth are you shouting about?’

  ‘I’m not shouting. Mama’s lying.’

  ‘No one’s lying.’

  ‘She wants me to go to the hospital to have my eyes checked. I can see everything. I know she’s lying.’ The terrible past was mirrored before his eyes, bright and clear. No need for glasses to see it. His delicate hands clenched Papa’s. ‘I’m not going, Papa. I’m not.’

  Tomas was trembling. He recalled the hideous faces in the hospital, the shrieks and moans of pain. He stormed out of the room. Papa ran after him.

  *

  He was exactly seven years old. One bleak spring day – almost a memory of winter – his parents delighted Tomas with a piece of sensational news; they were going to take him to Yerznga, the town where his mother was born. Tomas had a fairy tale impression of the place after listening to his mother’s bedtime stories night after night. They were engraved deeply in his mind: winters tobogganing on the mountains ... barrels of exotic fruit in the summer ... autumns moist and mellow, laden with stars ... and fragrant magic springs. That was where Mama had lived when she was Tomas’s age. For him Yerznga was an age-old fortress teeming with love and a mosaic of secrets.

  The unexpected trip filled Tomas with immense joy. It was hard for him to imagine that in a day or two he would be walking in the town he believed to be the centre of the universe. He would at last see Mama’s white wooden house, her garden, the shops ... He would visit the school she had attended until she was twelve years old, before moving to Sivas in central Anatolia. Before they went to Yerznga, though, they would have to pass a medical exam at the American Hospital in Istanbul.

  ‘As soon as we pass our medicals the hospital will issue our tickets,’ his father told him. ‘We’re all in good health but they just want to make sure. Only healthy people can take such a long trip ... Imagine, two nights and three days on the train!’

  Tomas was so happy he didn’t even bother to question this. Nothing really mattered, so long as they got their tickets and left. He was impatient – even more impatient than when he began counting the last few days until Christmas.

  A fine rain announced the end of three days of waiting. Tomas woke up with the first light of dawn and propelled himself out of bed in the direction of Mama’s bedroom. Never in his short little life had he been so eager to see a doctor, a bitter syrup merchant.

  *

  The Admiral Bristol American Hospital, that was where Tomas was born. A young nurse with dark eyes and black hair, in a white uniform, white stockings, white shoes and a white cap, shuffled in to escort Tomas to the doctor’s office. She smelled delicious. When she wasn’t speaking she was humming cheerfully. They entered a room where everything was hospital white, like Tomas’s face. There was a whiff of iodine, a sour smell of doctors and injections in the air. He felt the habitual spine-tingling chill of the doctor’s waiting room. There was a chart on one wall – the human life curve. The nurse asked him to get undressed before the doctor arrived. He obeyed, despite his shyness. He was still in his underwear when the door opened and two male nurses pushing a gurney thundered in out of nowhere. Despite Tomas’s resistance, they managed to hoist him on to it, strap him down and transport him to the operating theatre with numbing abruptness. Tomas was terrified. His earsplitting screams and protests reached all the way to the maternity ward, next to the theatre.

  The doctor’s mouth was covered with a mask and his hands with surgical gloves. He smelled of pain. Tomas’s deafening screams might have brought the entire hospital to a standstill. The boy strained hard to fling aside the straps and free himself, but it was no use. The doctor placed a round mask soaked in chloroform over Tomas’s mouth. The pungent smell made his head spin. A couple of semi-masked faces lifted him up onto a narrow operating table. He wanted to jump off but he couldn’t move. He tried to yell louder but no sound came out. Instead, he inhaled the acrid smell of the chloroform and church bells began to ring in his head – full and loud – louder and heavier – clanging more loudly than the cannons that fired blank shots to announce the end of fasting at dusk during Ramadan. The intervals between explosions became longer, slower and quieter, dwindling to total stillness.

  *

  The voice of the nurse woke him. His father’s words whispered in Tomas’s head: we’ll all have to have a medical ... He recognized the white-clad nurse with dark eyes. A semblance of a smile appeared on her face. There were other figures in the room: the two male nurses; the doctor who smelled of pain; and, standing behind them like mannequins, his parents.

  Tomas examined his surroundings. The room was white, transparent even. Was Yerznga so very translucent? It couldn’t be. He wasn’t in Yerznga! Mama must have been lying to him all these nights. There was no hospital in Yerznga; healthy people didn’t need hospitals. He was bewildered but he dared not ask for an explanation. He felt pain between his legs. He slid his hand down to touch his penis. It was burning. He heard the troubled murmur of his mother.

  ‘Don’t touch it. The doctor circumcised you so we can go to Yerznga!’

  Her words went to Tomas’s already addled head. Circumcised? Yes, that was what she had said.

  The black-haired nurse came and clasped his hand warmly. ‘The pain will soon go away,’ she said. Her fragrance enveloped his entire being, all the way down to his newly circumcised penis.

  He tried to figure out why he had to be circumcised to go to Yerznga. It made no sense. He knew all about circumcision. People who went to church were exempt from it, and he had always been so very happy about that. Seth was circumcised because there was a submarine on his doorpost. Tomas had seen Seth’s penis; it looked like a miniature turret with a pinkish cupola. Ahmet, the butcher’s son, was circumcised because his father took him to the mosque on Fridays. Fables of Yerznga folded open like bleak postcards before his eyes. The silence in the room was as fuzzy as his mind. He tried to suppress his rising panic by conjuring up happy visions but it was impossible. He was furious. His pain prevented him from articulating his anger. His mother kept on murmuring, until her dark muttering presence penetrated his being.

  He checked his surroundings again. He felt as if he were peering into an eerie fairy tale. He closed his eyes to shut out the monsters and dragons and the mammoth doctor. He wished giant fiery flakes of lies would float down from the sky, alight on his parents, and burn them more agonizingly than the scorching sensation of his penis. The vision of Yerznga was replaced by one of bearded barbers with razors parading up and down in the streets of Nişantaşι. They were not only barbers but also circumcision experts, jaundice healers and haemorrhoid freezers. All day long they shaved faces and all night long they chopped foreskins, slit gums to drain off people’s jaundice, and stuffed ice cubes into inflamed anuses to freeze piles. The tumult of rhythmic drums, zurnas, oriental clarinets and violins muffled the painful shrieks of boys being cropped in community centres or restaurants at circumcision weddings. They were being prepped for their nuptial beds. Tomas pictured everything in jaundice-yellow. Muslim boys in circumcision costumes – long nightgowns and beaded blue hats – running about joyfully in the streets for a week after their surgery. An ingenious thought suddenly shot through him, as sharp as lightning: he knew that when boys were circumcised they received presents – colourful glass marbles of all sizes, striped musical tops, footballs, gold coins, watches ... A stupendous revelation! He was entitled to the same!

  *

  A day after Tomas’s painful trip to Yerznga his grandmothers gave him money a
nd his aunts and uncles gave him tiny gold coins. As for his parents, Tomas had planned his retribution: with supreme satisfaction he asked for a white nightgown and a beaded blue satin cap, like the Muslim boys wore.

  ‘What?’ His parents were beside themselves. They couldn’t believe their ears. ‘What do you say you want?’

  His demand couldn’t have been more outrageous. What would the neighbours think? What would their friends say? Suppose it reached the parish priest’s ears! The family would make the front page of the local newspaper: ‘Armenian parents convert son to Islam!’ or ‘An Armenian Muslim!’ or ‘A newborn Muslim!’ Tomas, their own flesh and blood, running about proudly in the streets of Nişantaşι dressed in a white nightgown and sporting a beaded blue cap on his head! His surgery was only a practical intervention, not an act of compliance to some religion. It must remain a secret, discreetly concealed between his legs and covered by his shorts.

  Tomas was determined, however. Yerznga had faded; so had those bedtime stories about the Promised Land. His shouts and sobs left his parents no choice but to go to one of the shops in the Grand Bazaar that specialized in wedding dresses, circumcision and pilgrimage apparel, Ottoman costumes and the like.

  *

  Mama and Papa were now at the heart of the Grand Bazaar.

  ‘Right this way, Mister, Madam. We have more in the back. High value. Low price.’

  Shunning many shop owners trying to lure them in, the diffident parents ended up in a small, fairly unostentatious shop with a veteran, middle-aged shopkeeper who seemed to know his clientele well.

  Those who shopped in such shops had a genuine weakness for gold trimmings and lace. After offering them the traditional tea and engaging them in the usual small talk, he settled down to business. Firstly he offered them a brief lecture on the origin of genital mutilation, then talked about its purport and necessity for boys on the threshold of manhood, without forgetting to remind them of the importance of sacrificing part of the body to use the remainder in extreme rapture and vigour. And then he started taking caps and gowns out from large wooden drawers, and others from behind a velvet curtain.

  ‘The latest fashion in Istanbul, the latest in Izmir, the latest in Ankara and Adana. For all lavish, traditional circumcision feasts.’

  Tomas’s mother remained silent. Her Armenian accent wouldn’t have gone down well.

  ‘Something less elaborate, perhaps,’ the father intervened uneasily.

  The man smiled with heartbreaking disappointment. ‘I’ll show you a plain one. It’s very comfortable. It won’t aggravate even the most delicate penis. Circumcision should be bliss, not agony.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right,’ Tomas’s father said.

  His mother was mortified. After bargaining briefly, they agreed to buy a plain white cotton nightshirt and a blue satin cap speckled with beads.

  ‘What about a blue satin sash with tassels to wear over his shoulder?’ the salesman asked them. ‘It’s a must for circumcised kids and ...’ but he hadn’t finished what he was saying before they rushed out of the shop.

  ‘I’d have bought the silk gown instead,’ the man shouted after them, but his clients were already in the street hailing a cab.

  *

  How peaceful everything was around him! His bouboulig, his little dick, was healing well. There was no one else at home. Tomas put on the cap and gown and examined himself in the mirror. He was satisfied, not so much with his looks as with his revenge. Much to his dismay, though, he was only allowed to wear the costume at home. One afternoon, however, when his parents had gone to play bridge, he decided to take advantage of their absence: he put on his gown and the rest of his phallic accoutrements, ran out into the street and marched with utter insolence to Sinekli Bakkal4, the neighbourhood grocer. Yani, the Greek owner, was sitting serenely as usual on a high chair behind the old cash register, which resembled an oversized 1930s Remington typewriter.

  The shoppers and the grocer watched Tomas enter the shop with the superiority of a recently promoted general.

  ‘What happened to you, child?’ The grocer was appalled.

  Tomas grinned.

  ‘Have you been circumcised?’

  ‘No, I’ve been to Yerznga!’

  ‘You’ve been where?’

  ‘The boy says he’s been to Yerznga. Are you deaf or what?’ It was Madame Aleki, the cobbler Dimitri’s wife.

  ‘What’s Yerznga?’ asked Sultan Hanim, Tittle-tattle Ali’s mother.

  ‘Yerznga is the Armenian name for Erzincan, don’t you know? It is in eastern Anatolia,’ Rachel Behar, the gossip of the quarter, clarified with the panache of an intrepid explorer.

  Tomas regretted his remark. ‘No, I lied,’ he responded, unwavering, and walked out, holding his nightgown carefully away from his healing penis so it wouldn’t rub against it.

  The news spread like wildfire through the neighbourhood and to the rest of the city. Everyone was aware of the blasphemous act of Tomas’s parents. How could they? Why did they? Would they become dönmés, like the Christians and Jews who embraced Islam to avoid persecution?

  ‘His parents call him Namaz instead of Tomas!’

  ‘No, I don’t believe it!’

  Papa and Mama hopelessly tried to stop the rumours. They explained time and again the reason for their son’s circumcision and the rationale behind his ridiculous garb, but it was no use.

  The Muslim and Jewish kids of the neighbourhood received Tomas as one of their own. A week later, when he started back to school, his parents donated the cap and nightshirt to a needy Muslim family for their son’s upcoming circumcision ceremony.

  His mother explained over and over to Tomas that his doctor had recommended he have the surgery, failing to mention anything about their trip to Yerznga!

  *

  On his birthday, when Tomas had become accustomed to the new look of his penis, he showed it to Anya, the seven-year-old daughter of the Novotni family who lived on the first floor. She scrutinized it carefully, with childish curiosity, and said that it looked much better than it had before, even though she had never seen it then. He agreed with her. After all, it was a known fact that circumcised cocks were more attractive than their Christian counterparts. Tomas knew she didn’t have one, though. He had confirmed this by watching little girls as they ran naked around the raised marble platform of the Turkish baths. Tomas had been in love with Anya ever since he’d peered up at her white knickers under her skirt as she played with a skipping rope. She sang as she skipped, her blonde hair dashing across her face as her navy blue skirt flopped up and down:

  I love Piggy

  I love Twiggy

  I love the boys

  And the boys love me!

  And ever since her spontaneous remark about his penis Tomas thought that she was in love with him too:

  I love Piggy

  I love Twiggy

  I love Tomas

  And Tomas loves me!

  And one honeysuckle summer day his friend Seth broadcast a sensational piece of news: according to the latest issue of In Style, swanky circumcised boys wore slender gold rings on their penises on festive occasions. Tomas scooted to his mother faster than gossip and asked for a ring with his initials engraved on it.

  His mother had had enough. She burst into laughter.

  ‘Let’s wait for your bouboulig to become man-sized first so that we don’t have to buy a new one every year!’

  A few years later, though, his legendary trip to Yerznga opened new doors for Tomas, allowing him to become a bona fide member of an amateur football team called Circumcised Bombers. They played against uncircumcised Christian rivals and scored countless victories. The rivalry lasted until the early fifties, when people started getting touchy about segregating penises.

  4

  The endless war made Tomas much more aware of the grown-ups around him. He listened to their conversations from behind closed doors. Months passed and ushered in many others. Never had Tomas felt so lone
ly. The monotony of his days was broken only by the calendar on the wall, which portrayed the decisive goal of a football match, a souvenir from the national championship tournament of the previous year. There were holidays and festivities stashed in there. Every morning he tore off a page and threw it in the wastepaper basket: 23 October, Republic Day – he watched the soldiers parade on Taksim Square; 19 November, his birthday – but the school didn’t close; 25 December and 6 January, two Christmases – one for the Catholic Armenians and another for the other Armenians. It was puzzling. Tomas wondered how Jesus could have been born twice.

  There was also Vartavar, the Feast of Transfiguration, in July. Lots of fun! The celebration had originated as a heathen observance of Asdghig, the Armenian goddess of love and fertility. Tomas’s parents observed the old Armenian custom of drenching each other on the day of Vartavar. Tomas prepared himself for the occasion with platoons of mashrapas brimming with water. What he didn’t know, though, was the ancient custom for young men to try to catch a glimpse of Asdghig bathing in the river at sunrise, veiled in morning mist. He was still too young for such erotic rituals.

  *

  After a long monotonous spring Tomas was prepared for a full celebration. It was a bright, sunny morning. Tomas was on the balcony with his mashrapas, waiting for his father to come out of the apartment building. As well as these he had filled two buckets with water.

  Papa was impeccably dressed to go to work. Sophie Santos, the young Albanian widow who lived across the street, was already out on the balcony. She was in her usual skimpy negligee, despite the harsh comments and jeers she received from the envious women of the neighbourhood. They circulated all sorts of rumours that Sophie’s skirt was hitched up more often than not and that one of her part-time boyfriends gave her memorable beatings every time she cheated on him. Sophie was getting ready to greet Tomas’s father, Monsieur Anton, with a lighthearted bonjour, loud enough to reach the ears of every woman on the block, all of whom were persuaded beyond doubt that Sophie was in love with Papa and dying to seduce him.