by Ayfer Tunç
My shoes got wet and I was cold. I had no choice but return to the shop, but after first buying a bottle of wine from the corner off-licence. I opened the shutters softly, but my hands shook as I turned the lock. I sneaked into my shop like a thief, and didn’t turn on the lights. I went to the counter and sat on my stool. I was confused, and in a strange way I was excited; I was exhausted from the strain of pretending something that wasn’t happening was happening, and that’s why I forgot to turn on the electric fire.
Suddenly I felt like crying. I leant my head on my arms and fell asleep crying.
When I woke up my back was like ice; I turned on the small light on the counter and looked at the clock; for the sixth night running, it was a good time to return home. I took a couple of large swigs from the wine bottle, replaced the cork and hid the bottle under the counter. I sneaked out of my shop again and went home.
This time too, those three questions continually to bother me, and this time, I looked up at the windows of my flat from below. I was maudlin. I wanted to hug my wife, to bury my face in her shoulder, to say, I haven’t been anywhere tonight… I felt her protruding shoulder blades under my hands. Then I remembered her ribs and the bones that bulged from her fingers, the dullness, the lifelessness of her yellowish, swarthy face. The windows changed colour with the rays of the television that was on. The bony woman had not slept.
And so that anger, that anger that had dragged me into this meaningless game suddenly grew inside me. It was unfair, I know… But it happened. I rang the bell longer and with more rage than previously. I didn’t look at the face of my wife who virtually raced down the stairs with flustered steps. I was afraid that those fantasies of sweet hued women, boneless women, with faces reminiscent of twittering birds which had entered my dreams in the shop as I went to sleep crying, would be spoiled. I heard my wife murmuring a question in her peeved, hurt voice. Shut it! I said harshly. I lay down on the bed in my clothes and closed my eyes.
In actual fact, I didn’t fall asleep, but lay fully conscious. But a drunken snore came from my mouth. I heard my wife sobbing a tiny, frail sound; I felt a broad smile spread over my face, a smile that I wasn’t in control of. I was lying on my back, but it was as if the panes of the window at the foot of my bed had risen to the ceiling, and with my open eyes I saw my face in these panes that covered the room’s ceiling. In the light from the moonlight that filtered into the room, the smile on my face resembled a gaping, bleeding wound. I thought I was having a nightmare.
On the seventh night I didn’t visit the same tavern. I had no money to spend there. I bought cheese, pickles, and dried fruit and nuts. I spread them all out on the counter on a sheet of newspaper. And I drank the rest of the wine. Every now and then I turned off the electric fire to save money. I put my coat over my shoulders and fell asleep again. This time I didn’t cry; I went further with the women in my dreams. Again I returned home towards morning. Again I rang the bell from below. This time, I didn’t just tear a strip off my wife, but I also pushed her roughly by the shoulders. When I got up in the morning I realised she wasn’t speaking to me. I laughed to myself. But she still had to make herself ask for money for the market, to buy the lad some shoes. She wasn’t talking to me, but she still had to ask for money. I left it like flinging it in front of her.
A few days later, a stout woman with perspiration on her upper lip came into the shop. She bought a whole load of things; lining, interfacing, binding, buttons, a zip and I don’t know what else. She was in a hurry, in a fluster, and she was chatty. As she left she forgot her bag, but I didn’t say a word. As soon as she went out, I rummaged through the contents. Somehow I managed to quickly take the lipstick out of her bag, throw it in the till, then come running out of the shop with the bag in my hand, shouting, Madame, you’ve forgotten your bag!I don’t know quite how; I did it in a jiffy. After hastily checking her bag she thanked me profusely. My heart was pounding in case she realised the lipstick wasn’t there, but she never noticed I’d pinched it. I smiled at her with an honest, decent face and then I watched her mingling with the crowd, swaying her heavy hips from right to left, happy she’d escaped lightly from this little mishap. The people of the city were flowing from the streets to the road and it was crowded. Watching them, even for a few seconds, enervated me and I returned to my shop. I was amazed that my hands were trembling so much as I took the lipstick out of the till drawer; they actually burnt as though I had grasped a glowing ember. My palm sweated. I put the lipstick down, wiped my palms on my trousers and took it in my hand again.
That night I went home, went to bed early and heard my wife saying to the children, Be quiet, your father’s tired, he’s sleeping. All the while, I kept thinking about that lipstick. The blood-like red, its gliding texture…
The following night I ate my dinner in the shop and drank my wine. I phoned home and heard my wife saying, Hello! hello! in her excited and frightened voice; I put the phone down without saying anything.
Later on, this was something that I did this frequently. Luckily for me, I’d answered a few wrong numbers while at home, and insisted that’s what they were a little too forcefully. My wife had stared at me with her sorrowful eyes and had gone to bed early.
For a while I read the usual magazines that my neighbour, the second-hand bookseller, was forced to take from his important customers, despite not being able to sell them. He used to wrap up parcels and give them out here and there to people like me. It was pouring. I heard it beating on the half-open shutters. It was as though the rain was covering up something that I was secretly doing, it was concealing and smothering it with a din. The lipstick was on the counter. I got undressed and took off my shirt. I applied the lipstick to my lips and transferred lipstick print onto my shirt collar, and even dabbed a little against the edge of my vest, too.
I stared at the mark on my shirt for such a long time, and during that time so many and such a variety of women passed through my mind, that I stood in a trance for such a long time and got cold. Collecting myself hastily, I got dressed. Just as I was about to leave the mirror caught my eye. I saw the face of a pathetic man in the mirror, blue of face, wearing red lipstick and I recoiled. I wiped my lips with a paper napkin. I rubbed the paper napkin so hard on my lips that they turned red and looked as though they still had lipstick on. I sat for a while and waited for the redness to pass.
I learned much later that my wife, who noticed the spot of lipstick the next morning, had cried all day.
Meanwhile time passed. A few days of the week I went home on time. On others I listened to the radio in the shop and built castles in the air. I enjoyed my wife wandering around me with a sulky face, her looking at me with beseeching eyes; I felt her crying secretly, and I smiled. I heard her moaning as though she’d fallen into the clutches of some terrible illness. I can’t guess how long all this lasted. However, with every passing day I enjoyed this game even more. Now I too had a tale of womanising, and the only one who believed in it was my wife.
By now my frail, unattractive, bony wife was growing thinner every day. Her large eyes had for a long time been veiled in tears, and stared with a deep sorrow, evoking not beauty, but the desire to cry. I was trying to write the end to a non-existent tale of womanising, and even forgetting to caress my children.
I bought a red tie with little blue hearts on it from a salesman who came to the shop one late afternoon. He said he worked on ships and swore he’d brought this tie in Europe. I didn’t believe that he’d even seen a seaside city other than Istanbul. I took it anyway and put it on over my garish, dark-brown wool shirt. I knew it didn’t go very well, but I didn’t mind a bit. There was a strange joy inside me, as if I hadn’t bought the tie with my own hands, but, like an unexpected gift, found it suddenly in the palm of my hand.
I turned on the radio, and while wondering whether the girl presenter who was saying, Tell your loved one you love her at every opportunity,was blonde or brunette, a whole lot of customers suddenly descended. I t
reated them each cheerfully, not even getting angry with those who made me bring down the boxes near the ceiling, open bolts of lining material, and left without buying anything. I didn’t tell Mukadder abla, the dressmaker’s apprentice, that her debts had accumulated.
Then I closed my shop when everyone else did, and wandered the night about the streets with the tie round my neck. When I returned to the shop again later, I opened a tin of fried aubergines and drank two bottles of beer. Then I went home. I saw my wife’s eyes, that had for some time been continually tearful, were fixed on my tie, and that she suddenly drooped as if the blood drained from her. She went to bed without saying a word to me. The following morning, I saw that contrary to her usual habit, she hadn’t hung my shirt and trousers, but just left them there; and she hadn’t touched the tie. While I was getting dressed I watched her from the corner of my eye; she avoided turning her face towards me as I did up my tie at length, busying herself with something or other, and shouting at the children for no reason. I smiled.
Strangely, although all this convinced my wife I had a mistress, it wasn’t enough for me. And now, after all that’s happened, I wonder whether the man who came that day to the shop, gave a bulk order and paid for it all on the spot, and whom I thought was such good luck for me, was actually part of my wife’s dark destiny.
The days had lengthened, spring had arrived and a few shoots had even sprouted from the tree stump that had been crushed by hundreds of heavy wheels in the street. In spite of spring my wife was desperately unhappy.
It was early in the morning, and while the kiosk man had yet to skewer his döner on the spit, and the lazy second-hand bookseller to open his shop, an elderly man with sweaty hands came in. He had retired, he was going to open a shop for his wife and he had ready cash. If we could come to an agreement, he was going to buy a heap of things. He wondered whether I could be of help to him. He was a strange customer, a little naïve, and clearly had no clue about business. We bargained until midday. I made the greatest sale of my life. I sold a huge amount of goods to the man who was going to open a shop for his wife who was bored at home. He paid half immediately and wrote a cheque for the remainder. Suddenly, I had a lot of money. I was so glad and cheerful, yet towards evening this large sum began to frighten me. I decided I couldn’t stay in the shop. As soon as I put the money in my pocket, I left.
I went to one of the nightclubs I’d always stared at from a distance, but never had the courage to enter. The money in my pocket had intoxicated me. The bouncers at the door laughed and said, It’s much too early. Come towards midnight. I didn’t know what to do. I thought briefly of going back to sit in the shop, but I didn’t feel like it. Spring had come, you see. There was the smell of pollen in the air. I was fed up of just sitting quietly in the dark, behind closed shutters.
So I went to a tavern. As I entered I checked my pocket. My money was in its place. But I couldn’t drink; I was frightened that I’d get drunk and get robbed. And just in case they thought I wasn’t drinking because I was skint, I ordered a whole lot of mezes. I ordered broad beans in yoghurt, for instance, and artichokes, things I hadn’t had for years. I ordered a mixed grill and then ordered another. I surreptitiously spilled the rakı on the floor. I kept looking at my watch but it was only nine, so I decided to go to the cinema. I stared hungrily at the naked women in the film, and when it finished time had come. I didn’t go to the same nightclub, but went to another one.
It was strange, it was as if they knew I had money; at the door they showed me every respect. I went inside and sat at a table. My tie was round my neck. I was very excited as this was my first time, but I was afraid too. I was trying to conceal my fear. A woman came and wanted to sit at my table and I felt myself stammering and sweating. I took all I had to say, Of course, do sit down. Then she began to pester me. She was pale, just as I’d imagined, but she spoke incessantly and I couldn’t hear what she was saying because of the noise. I started staring at her mouth opening and closing, and notices she had a rotten tooth that stank. Then my eyes fixed on her sweaty, flabby armpits; the pale woman’s light blue dress with the overgenerous décolleté had gone pitch-black at the armpits. She carried on drinking, and so did I.
As I drank I relaxed, I became clearer. First I talked about this and that and at one point, with the excuse of getting the waiter to fetch some cigarettes, I flashed my money. Then a certain courage came over me. I became tall and straight-shouldered. I said to her,
‘There is just one thing I want from you. Whatever it costs, I’ll pay you.’
She thought I wanted to sleep with her, and as she looked me over and I saw her lip curl up mockingly; my blood drained, my old wound, my old fear retuned, never letting me go…
‘Just say the word, big boy,’ she said, ‘But I’m expensive. Just so you know.’
My eyes sought the smarmy photographer who was wandering around, capturing the ever-changing women’s faces under the colourful lights with a flash of his camera.
‘Let’s have a photo together,’ I said, ‘but a proper intimate one. Gaze at me like you love me.’
She laughed for so long I clenched my fists.
‘Don’t even mention it, big boy. Just give the money and then see how I love you.’
Then, before I could say another word, she called out to the photographer, drew close to me, put her head on my chest and an arm around my waist. I was bewildered, as though it wasn’t me who’d proposed it in the first place. I didn’t know where to put my hand. The photographer said,
‘Hug her back, abi; you’re as stiff as a board.’
He held my head and turned it to the woman and put my arm on her bare, greasy shoulder.
‘Gaze into abla’s eyes. For heaven’s sake smile a little, abi!’
The flash went, again and again. I noticed the woman was really enjoying herself. She’d joined forces with the photographer, and the two were shoving me into various poses. She pressed her cheek to my cheek, she kissed me, and then while she was rubbing off the trace of lipstick, she smiled at the photographer and we entwined our arms and drank. Then she got bored. And told him to push off.
Towards morning, the photographer deposited a stack of photo graphs on the table. She chose one from amongst them and suggested she write on the back. Clicking her fingers she sum -moned the waiter,
‘Gi’s a pen,’ she said.
The fingers that asked for a pen quivered in the air, waited in agitation. The waiter handed her the same pen with which he’d written the bill, and wanting to join in the fun, leant his thigh against the table, rested his hand on his waist and began to watch. She bit the top of the pen and then asked,
‘What’s your name, big boy?’
‘Why do you ask?’ I said.
‘Gonna write it, aren’t we?’
‘Never mind my name,’ I replied.
‘Well, what we gonna write then?’ she asked.
This strange request of mine must have made the rounds around the nightclub staff in no time at all, because the waiter chipped in and told her to write To my greatest love.
‘Hey mate, that’s good, bravo!’ she replied, .
And all this time, I was just staring. Bewildered and shrunk… She wrote, A lifeless memento, to my greatest love. Then she turned to me,
‘What should my name be?’ she asked.
‘What?’
‘What is your name?’
‘It says Cansev on the poster, but I’ll be whoever you want, love,’ she replied, ‘What should I write on the back of the photo?’
‘Cansev will do,’ I said, ‘that’s fine.’
‘Sure thing, whatever you want it shall be, big boy, he who pays the piper calls the tune.’
She wrote Cansev, and signed it. Then she giggled,
‘Wait, let me look at those again,’ she said
Looking at the pictures one by one, she ripped up the one or two she didn’t like,
‘I haven’t come out well. Who’re you going to fool with
these, big boy? Show off to your friends?’
I gave no answer. She smiled a little as though she pitied me and then got tired of waiting, and with an, Eeeh, none of my bleeding business!she got up. She was swaying, barely able to stand on her feet. Her face grew serious as though the fun was over and the cinema crowd had dispersed. She stretched out her hand with short stubby fingers and long nails painted the colour of dried blood,
‘Pay up and let’s go.’
When I left the cheap nightclub my cash was considerably diminished, but I had a whole lot of photographs in my jacket pocket, and signed, too. I went to the shop and made a lot of noise as I parted the shutters. I entered, sat on the counter and stared at the photos one by one; I read the woman’s scrawly writing and smiled. Then I removed the thin cardboard covers on the photos with the name of the nightclub and tore them up. I put the signed photograph in my pocket and spread the others over the counter. As day broke I went home. I rang the bell from downstairs. I realised my wife’s footsteps were no longer agitated and timid sounds, but that she walked as though she were dragging her feet. She didn’t look at my eyes, and after opening the door she went upstairs again with tired, weary steps, and we went to bed without speaking.
The next morning I deliberately didn’t wear that jacket; using spring as an excuse to go out in shirtsleeves and walk to the shop. Then in the evening I saw that my wife was very subdued. She was quiet, it was though she didn’t see me; she wasn’t even sulking and her behaviour was very strange. She took no notice of the children’s noise. In the morning the boy came to me and told me they were going to their uncles for the day, and I gave him my approval without really paying attention.
*
That day I was uneasy; I spread out the photos I’d looked at a hundred times again on the counter, and waited for Turcan. He didn’t appear; his assistant looked after the shop. In the evening I went to a shop that sold mezes, I was planning to drink in the shop again but then suddenly I decided not to. My feet dragged me home.
