The Flea Palace

by Elif Shafak

  Agripina did not stop. Not only did she not stop, she placed the wrappers on top of one another creating new hues. After a few attempts she placed red on top of blue and witnessed the whole world turn purple. A wheezing cry escaped her lips: ‘Is-tan-bul!’ She had found it. She had found the colour that had escaped her on the deck of that rotten, reeking boat where she had stood at the age of nineteen with a small swelling in her womb and a larger one on her back. In the spectrum of colours and hues, Istanbul was purple; a greyish-bluish purple the eye-dazzling sun reflecting from the lead-plated domes blotted drop-by-drop and scorched strike-by-strike. She remembered that accursed mixture of yellow and purple. Over and over, again and again, she heaved in gasps: ‘Istanbul!’ It was as if she were not repeating the same name hundreds of times, but pronouncing one single, lengthy name of unchanging syllables. Pavel Pavlovich Antipov could not bear it any longer; taking his wife’s hands into his, ‘Agripina,’ he muttered, ‘Did you remember Istanbul?’

  In the following days, Agripina fantasized two things about herself: first, that she was young, and second, that she was in Istanbul. Occasionally Turkish words spilled from her lips. Her palms were sweaty all the time; her reason came and left. Every time it left her, she found herself in Istanbul, and when it returned she would have left yet another piece of her mind back there. There was no noticeable improvement in her condition. Every passing day not only steadfastly replicated the previous day but also hinted that there would soon be no more repetitions.

  She should not die like this, with such an untimely departure leaving behind the unbearable burden of her absence. On the morning of a troubled night, Pavel Pavlovich Antipov came to the clinic. ‘Agripina,’ he asked, ‘Would you like us to go to Istanbul once again?’ When he saw her blushing smile, as if she had heard something obscene, he ruled it to be a hidden ‘yes’. He felt that he should do such a thing so that his wife’s death, even if it were to occur before its time and much before his own, would at least be more dignified than the life she had so far led. To this end, in spite of all the delay, he had to provide her with the opportunity to avenge the pain of those earlier days, by returning years later to the city where at such a young age she had been so scorned, trampled, belittled and defeated. He wanted to make sure this incomplete and stumpy tale would be completed in peace; while he spread out in front of her the pleasures she had once been deprived of, the luxuries she had not tasted, and the bliss she had not felt. He had made up his mind. Agripina should spend the rest of her life not at this clinic but in Istanbul, only this time not as a refugee or deportee or stranger or guest or tenant. She should not be in the others’ Istanbul but her own. To make her a home there, he would first make her a homeowner.

  Thus they arrived. They arrived but at first glance neither the city could recognize them nor they the city. Having no desire to spend a day more than necessary in hotel rooms, Pavel Pavlovich Antipov started immediately to search for a suitable house. He did not yet know if the local laws permitted foreigners to acquire property or not. However, given that there were so many people in the world willing to tamper with the gage of their nature for personal benefit or illicit gain, he did not have the slightest doubt that he would somehow find a way. Nonetheless, the opportunity that presented itself within ten days was more than he could wish for. By chance a usurer they sat next to during a dinner reception, hosted by the owners of their hotel, mentioned how the construction of an apartment building in an exclusive neighbourhood of the city had recently been halted midway due to the unexpected bankruptcy of the owner. Pavel Pavlovich Antipov did not miss this opportunity that had come his way.

  The following morning, the first thing he did was to go visit the construction site. The construction was not, as the usurer had recounted, halfway through. As a matter of fact, there was nothing there except a pit, but this was better, much better. He then started to track down the White Russians who had shared the same fate with them in the 1920s but had stayed to become Turkish citizens. Realizing the advantage of having the name of a Turkish citizen on paper to ease the legal procedures, but unable to trust anyone not from the same origin as him, after some research, he finally reached an agreement with a reticent couple who had become Turkish citizens and made a living selling delicate lampshades at a dingy shop in Asmalιmescit. A company in which the couple had no shares provided a front to cover the ownership of the apartment building. Without a single false move Pavel Pavlovich Antipov calculated everything precisely and paid abundantly. His chequebook speeded up transactions that would have otherwise taken a long time and cause ample trouble. For an architect he hired an Armenian Istanbulite whose family he had conducted business with in France. He had also left a large chunk of money to his mistress there, to make the lies he told her more convincing. Hardly did he complain. For the first time in years, he was content spending money freely without any reservation. Whilst he did not withhold any expense, he did want control over all the expended materials. Even though he did at times consult his wife about the trimmings such as the gates, the garden walls, the iron grills of the balcony, the frontal decorations, the curl of the stairs or the marble used in the entrance, all in all he did what he wanted.

  Agripina did not seem interested in such details anyhow. Ever since her arrival in Istanbul, she spent her time either watching the sea from the window of the hotel room or listening to the squabbles of her Alsatian companion and her Algerian maid who did not even for a moment leave her side. The expression on her face while looking at the waters of the Bosphorus was no different from that which she had worn whilst gazing at the vineyards from the window of the clinic in France. Not only did she seem unmoved at being back at the place where they had buried their baby but she occasionally confused which city she currently was in. And yet, she did not look unhappy either. Like a timid, tremulous raincloud she floated above Istanbul, ready to shed tears but impossible to touch.

  For Pavel Pavlovich Antipov, his wife’s insulation from the world was an indication not of her illness but her innocence. Many a time at the front, he had witnessed how soldiers of different nationalities retained a common belief that if there was even one innocent person among them, this would spare them all from a portentous end. He too sought refuge in his wife with a similar conviction.

  When the outside walls were painted in ashen tones, the window frames and iron grills of the balcony in two shades of grey and the fine decorations on the double-panelled entrance door completed, the apartment building emerged in all its dazzling beauty. The most striking characteristic of the building was that no two storeys were alike, having been constructed upon Pavel Pavlovich Antipov’s insistence in Art Nouveau style, even though no longer in fashion. As if to compensate for their lack of balconies on the facade, the flats at the entrance had much larger windows than the rest. The balconies too changed from one floor to the next. Those of the second floor extended outward in a semi-circle, while the balconies on the third floor were buried so far inside the building one could easily sit in the apartments without worrying about being seen from the outside. Instead of an iron-railing, the sides of the balconies on the fourth floor had been surrounded by a stone wall adorned with floral reliefs and two large marble flowerpots on either end. So striking were the differences that one could not help but think the residents of the building shared the same space without living in the same place.

  In front, the relief between the windows of the first and second floors was particularly eye-catching. Here placed within a circle was a small-headed, large-bodied peacock. The five feathers of the peacock, one on top, two to the left and two to the right, pointed in five different directions. Suitably large eyes were drawn at the tips of the feathers and the eyes in turn were adorned with thin, puny lines resembling eyelashes. Contrary to the feathers, one heading to the sky and the other four in four separate directions, the head of the peacock was bent down. At the spot on the tip of its feet, which it looked towards, embroidered within an oval frame and barel
y visible from the street were the first letters of the names of the husband and wife.

  ‘What will you name it?’ he asked when he showed her the apartment building with pride. A jasmine-scented offshore breeze sweetly blew in between them and gave voice to things Pavel Pavlovich Antipov could not express: ‘Agripina, here is your baby with eyes the colour of ashes. She’ll always love you very much but will not expect in return more love than you are capable of giving. She’ll solely and completely be yours but will not demand dedication from you. Never will she fuss, cry, get sick or die. Nor will she ever grow up. She’ll not abandon you as long as you do not leave her. She’ll be referred to as whatever you say. What name will you give your baby?’

  Agripina Fyodorovna Antipova listened with excitement to what the offshore breeze murmured. She remained pensive for a moment and then, with a spark in her eyes exclaimed: ‘Bonbon!’

  Pavel Pavlovich Antipov stared at his wife puzzled. Then he must have concluded that she had not understood what they were talking about for he repeated the question, this time adding in a few suggestions himself. She could choose names that alluded to their motherland; or a word that would remind them of the Istanbul of the 1920s, as a tribute to those days. Or, even better, she could select names that could demonstrate how very different their second arrival in the city had been from the first. ‘Triumph’ would be highly befitting, for instance, as would ‘Pride’, ‘Blessed’, ‘Zenith’, ‘Memory’, ‘Escapade’, or ‘Saga’. It could just as well be the ‘Forget Me Not’ apartment. ‘The Reuniting’, ‘The Placatory’ or ‘The Appeasing.’ There were hundreds of meaningful names with which they could crown their success, and should indeed do so, since there was so much effort, suffering and also money behind it. Agripina Fyodorovna Antipova listened to her husband’s soliloquy with a docile smile. But each time her response remained the same.

  When Pavel Pavlovich Antipov and Agripina Fyodorovna Antipova moved into Flat Number 10 of Bonbon Palace on September 1st 1966, the entire sky was filled with plump, lead-coloured clouds. The whole world had assumed the same insipid tone as if God had run out of bonbons with coloured wrappers. After giving the flat a cursory look over, Agripina, trailed by her Algerian maid and the sullen Alsatian companion, headed directly to the balcony. She opened the double-panelled door and stepped out. The city was spread out right in front of her. It had changed…and how… She looked at Istanbul with the malicious pleasure of a woman who years later encounters the rival whose beauty she once secretly envied, now aged, decrepit and shrivelled. Then a strong northeast wind blew, her own image confusedly crossed her mind and her eyes became misty but she still continued to smile. At that moment, Pavel Pavlovich Antipov watched from afar with pleasure the smile that had settled on his wife’s face. She looked so content! There, it had been worth it, worth returning to this city after all this time. Men, especially those like Pavel Pavlovich Antipov who expect life’s uncertainties to confirm their truths, relish in the satisfaction of their women as proof of their own success. Looking at his wife that Istanbul night, as a strong northeast wind replaced the jasmine-scented offshore breeze of the past few days, Pavel Pavlovich Antipov too felt proud of himself.

  Time proved Pavel Pavlovich Antipov right. His wife died before him. The Alsatian companion and the Algerian maid returned to France soon thereafter. Yet Pavel Pavlovich Antipov did not go anywhere. After losing Agripina, he lived alone in Flat Number 10 of Bonbon Palace for another two years. When he died, he was neither a year more nor less than one hundred years old.

  In 1972 Bonbon Palace was inherited by Pavel Pavlovich Antipov’s daughter, born out of wedlock. Valerie Germain, who lived in a large house in the Paris countryside with her husband and four children, the last of which she had given birth to when forty, did not attend the funeral of her father whose presence had been nothing but an echoless void for her. Not only did she not visit the grave where he was laid next to Agripina, she also remained equally indifferent to this unexpected inheritance. Neither then nor later did she feel the need to come and see the building. Renting out all the flats with the aid of a rather greedy but just as competent Turkish real estate agent and managing the business from afar, she did not interfere with anything as long as money was regularly deposited into her bank account.

  Less than three weeks after she had rented out Flat Number 10, however, she received a letter gracefully penned in proper French. It was from the tenant. She was informing her that the personal belongings of Pavel Pavlovich Antipov and his wife were still there. Since the furniture was rather large in quantity and value, she indicated, it would be worthwhile for the owner to come and see things for herself. However, if this was not possible, she could find a shipping company to transport it all to France and help with the arrangements.

  In her response, Valerie Germain thanked the tenant for concern she had shown and expressed her sorrow for having inadvertently caused such trouble, but then indicated in no uncertain terms that she was not interested in receiving any of the mentioned items. Her tenant could choose among these any she wanted to keep for herself, to use them as she saw fit, or dispense them to others; she could then throw the rest in the garbage. The decision was hers. Of course, if any expense would be incurred in moving the furniture out of the house, she was ready to deduct it from the rent.

  Another letter arrived soon after. The woman in Flat Number 10 stated that she could not bring herself to throw the belongings into the garbage, and that she believed her landowner would agree with her if and when she saw the furniture herself. Volunteering to safe keep them for her until then, she had attached to the end of her letter a list of one hundred and eighty items describing each and every one in detail. Also included in the letter was a black-and-white photograph. It was a picture of Bonbon Palace, probably taken by Pavel Pavlovich Antipov right after the construction was completed but before anyone had moved in.

  The apartment building appeared colourless and soulless in the picture. There was not a single person in it, neither on its windows or balconies, nor on the sidewalks or the streets. It resembled a child of war with no living relatives and no eyes to watch her lonely growth. It looked equally placeless. One could not get a clue about what the city surrounding it, if there was one, looked like. It could be anywhere in the world and of any time other than the present…

  Valerie Germain liked this picture. For a long time she kept it posted on her refrigerator along with shopping lists, invoices to be paid, calorie counts, food recipes, vacation postcards and the pictures her children had drawn. Then, the children grew up, her age advanced and she lost the picture of Bonbon Palace sometime, somewhere.

  And Today…

  Flat Number 3: Hairdressers Cemal and Celal

  ‘Oh God, what wrong have we done to deserve this smell? We literally live in garbage. It won’t be long before we start scrabbling around like roosters.’

  It was none other than Cemal uttering these words and whenever Cemal said anything at the beauty parlour, female laughter, some genuine, others out of politeness, would immediately follow. That, however, was not the case this time. On the contrary, as soon as he stopped, a heavy silence descended upon the place.

  Here such pure silences were rare as rubies. For silence to occur, the cessation of many street-sounds had to miraculously coincide. These included the ear-splitting horns of the cars turning down Cabal Street to avoid the traffic jam of the avenue, only to clog the road here too, and the yelling of both the watermelon vendor at his stand on the corner and his competitor circling the neighbourhood in the run-down pickup truck (whose loudspeaker could be heard from the same place every twenty minutes)… Not forgetting the shrieks of the children filling up the hole-in-the-wall playground squeezed in between the apartment buildings, comprising of two swings, one seesaw and a rickety sheet-iron slide that when heated up in the sun burnt the bottoms of those sliding on it… All of these parties had to agree among themselves to concurrently hush.

  Since the s
ources of noise inside the beauty parlour were just as plentiful as those in the world outside, for a true silence to rule even for a short period of time, here too, a number of highly extraordinary events had to happen. The television in the corner which was constantly on and always showing the same music channel, had to fall silent even if only for a moment – a chance event that could only happen during the few minutes when either the lights went out, kicking in the generator, or one of the customers sat on the remote-control by mistake. The bellowing air from the small hairdryers, the monotonous hum of the large dryers placed on each customer’s head like the transparent turban of a grand vizier, the constantly bubbling samovar in the kitchen, the mechanical hum of the ceiling fan, the crackle of the aluminum folios wrapped on one by one to colour and highlight streaks of hair, the splashing water when it was time to wash the hair, the nagging of the customer who found the water put on her hair suddenly either too hot or too cold, the itchy feeling buzz of the manicure file upon the nails, the sizzling of the wax emanating from the body hair removal room, the rustling of the broom and duster brought out continually to sweep the shorn hair, and the chats ebbing or flowing with the inclusion of new participants, often never to be concluded or completed…for there to be a genuine silence in the beauty parlour, all these had to simultaneously stop and stay this way. Of course, on top of it all, Cemal would have to stop talking.

  However, the world is full of miracles. At least Bonbon Palace is. All of a sudden lumpy clouds of silence of unknown origin crowded into the room through the wide open windows and, like a muffler, softly spread onto all the sources of noise. In that flawless silence Celal, the second hairdresser in the salon, sighed gratefully. He had never liked the uproar and commotion or the noisy chatter that went on day and night but there was nothing he could do about it. After all, the one who triggered this wearisome katzenjammer he had to suffer all day long, was none other than his twin, born of the very same egg as he had been. Cemal talked so much. He always had a desire to talk and also a topic to talk about. He chatted with the customers all day long (not minding his broken accent in Turkish which he still had not been able to get rid of), kept an eye on the television to vilify every single music clip, incessantly scolded the apprentices, eavesdropped on others’ conversations to put in his two cents’ worth…and he did all these things, not in any particular order but all at once…