Istanbul, Istanbul

by Burhan Sonmez

  She held out her hands and touched my face. She felt my cheeks, my chin, and my forehead. She put one hand on my neck and moved the other along my nose and eyebrows.

  “You have regular features and a handsome face,” she said, as though she were talking about her knitting. “Yasemin told us about you. Help the child with her homework. I can’t always get my head around school problems.”

  I didn’t think I had ever seen a house so stricken by poverty. There were no curtains on the window. The pane was broken and they had covered the gap in the top corner where the glass was missing with a plastic bag. There was a camping cylinder by the opposite wall and next to it a cardboard box containing a few plates and glasses. They were boiling water for tea on the weak flame of the camping cylinder. The rug on the floor was faded and in tatters. The plaster was peeling off the walls. There were no table or chairs. There were two quilts folded one on top of the other at the top end of the couch. It was clear that at night the grandmother slept at one end of the couch and Serpil at the other.

  Serpil picked up her schoolbag from the floor and came and sat beside me. She opened her bag, which was discolored and splitting at the seams, and took out her text and exercise books.

  “Our teacher set us three questions.”

  “Let’s start then,” I said, “read them out one by one.”

  Serpil looked first at her grandmother, then at me, and started reading.

  “Unit questions. Question one: Why do the seasons change? Why isn’t it always summer or always winter?”

  “How am I supposed to know that?” said the grandmother.

  Serpil and I looked at each other and smiled.

  “Write, Serpil dear,” I said, “There are two reasons: The first is that the world revolves around the sun. The second is that the earth’s axis is not straight. Because the sun’s rays hit the earth from different angles throughout the year, the temperature also changes. That’s how come we have seasons.”

  “I knew it,” said the grandmother.

  “Why didn’t you tell me if you knew?” said Serpil.

  “Not the question, my lovely, I mean I knew that all Yasemin’s friends were clever.”

  I coughed abruptly and tried to correct her. “I’m not Yasemin’s friend, I’m her brother,” I said.

  “Brother, friend, what difference does it make, you’re all the same.”

  All three of us chatted as we completed Serpil’s homework. We discussed why the snow on the mountain peaks didn’t melt even though the seasons changed, and why there was only one season in the poles, although there were four where we were.

  “We’re like the poles,” said the grandmother. “We stay poor all the time. I wish the rich and the poor could change places, like the four seasons. That wouldn’t be bad justice at all.”

  It was clear from the autumn draft that blew in from the gap in the window that they would soon be needing that justice. What were they going to do once Istanbul’s cold and snow and the damp that seeped into one’s bones came? Would they light a heater? Serpil’s toes peeped out of the holes in her socks. Maybe her grandmother was knitting her a pair of socks and then planned to knit her a thick sweater. They were both thin. Their fingers were bony and their faces pale. I could tell that it was just the two of them in the house because they had no furniture except the couch and no covers except the two quilts.

  “I’d better go,” I said.

  The grandmother held my arm. “I won’t hear of it, you haven’t had any tea yet, or anything to eat. Serpil darling, if you’ve finished your homework pour us some tea. And bring your Yusuf Ağbi some food.”

  “I’ve just got one last thing to do, Grandma. I have to memorize a poem.”

  “Which poem?”

  “A poem about our Heavenly Homeland.”

  “Heavenly?” laughed the grandmother. “Some heaven!”

  I sat up. “Let Serpil study, I’ll pour the tea,” I said.

  “I don’t want to put you to any trouble, my boy. There’s some bread and olives there too. You can have them with your tea.”

  “Thank you, I’m full. I ate before I came.”

  Serpil sat beside the quilts and opened her textbook in preparation for memorizing the poem.

  I poured the tea. I added sugar to the glasses and stirred.

  The grandmother put her knitting on her lap and held the hot glass between her two palms.

  “I started to knit when I was Serpil’s age,” she said. “I could see then. Our village was on the other side of the world. We had two seasons there. In the summer I worked in the fields, in the winter I knitted. There I was thinking I would spend my whole life in the fields, and now I make my living by selling the sweaters I knit. The neighbors act as go betweens, they tell their friends about me. And some days I go down to the beach and sell them on the street. But how far can we make the money we get from the sweaters stretch? This child needs more than that.”

  “Not just the child, you too.”

  The grandmother put the tea glass she was holding on the windowsill. Leaning toward me she said, “If I ask you a question will you be able to answer it?”

  “What is it about?”

  “It’s about Serpil.”

  I stared at her blankly.

  “It’s a simple question,” she said. “Serpil is my daughter’s daughter and my husband’s sister. How can that be?”

  More than the question itself, I pondered how little sense it made. “That sounds like a riddle,” I said.

  “I ask Yasemin similar questions, and give her until her next visit to answer them. I want her to have another reason for coming back. Will you be able to work out the answer to the question?”

  “I doubt it, it looks complicated.”

  “I’m very happy to hear it. I’m going to give you time too. Wherever it is you’re going, look after yourself, and come back safely. I want the answer to the riddle.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll come back with the answer,” I said, trying to sound cheerful.

  The grandmother sat back. She wiped her eyes with her fingertips. “Do you know, Yusuf,” she said, “I miss the dreams I had before I lost my eyesight. When I looked at the young girls at weddings in the village I thought they were mountain nymphs. They had long necks and bare cleavages, birds fluttered on their breath. I used to dream that I would be like those girls when I grew up, that I would cast light on mirrors, but before I reached adolescence my life had changed. For an entire summer, winds smelling of mildew blew in the village, the crops rotted. Shepherds found deer drowned in the river, and corpses of wolves that had fallen over the precipice. Majestic winged eagles that flew as though they were the sultans of the heavens fell out of the sky one by one. The disease that was blinding them soon spread to the children. Many of my friends died in a single night, complaining of pain in their eyes. The women mourners arrived and started up their lament. I was lucky, I lost my sight but stayed alive. I cried hard, the women mourners lamented even harder. They said the village had been cursed for setting traps for baby deer and for shooting baby wolves. Do you know that story, Yusuf? There was a city inhabited by blind people, everyone there was born blind. One day a child regained his sight and started to see the things around him. The villagers were terrified of this disease and killed that child to stop it spreading to all the other children. They burned his body. I’m thinking of Istanbul. What does this city, which commits such terrible sins, deserve? What kind of a curse should smite her? Or has she already been smitten and are we suffering the consequences? Here they lynch anyone who regains their sight. You have dreams, my boy, and they lynch you too.” The grandmother slowed down, as though she were growing sleepy, her voice grew fainter. She murmured to herself. “They’ll lynch Yasemin, with her long neck, her bare cleavage, and the birds fluttering on her breath too.”

  I looked outside. The garden entrance to our gecekondu was visible from the window. It was possible to observe who went in and out from here. But who was goin
g to do it, the blind grandmother? It had grown dark, Yasemin Abla had not returned, nor would she after this time.

  The sounds of ships’ horns and seagulls’ cries came from the distance. The stars flowed onto the city, like a dust cloud from the east. The sky looked wet, as though it were overlaid with water. Perhaps there were more stars beyond the horizon and they were waiting because there was no more room in the sky. The sky was both infinite and compact enough to fit into a bell jar. It was difficult to tell where the stars ended and where the city lights began.

  The grandmother leaned forward and held my hand. She placed a folded piece of paper in my palm.

  I opened it with great curiosity and read the short note: “the house is being watched . . . gray point . . . tomorrow . . . 15 . . . ps: forget the earrings . . .”

  The earrings?

  The grandmother delved into her cleavage and extracted an earring from her bra. It was the other amber earring completing the pair.

  “Has Yasemin Abla been here?” I asked excitedly.

  “I’m blind, I couldn’t say,” she said, enigmatically. “There’s an alleyway that backs onto the rear exit. Serpil will show you. You can leave that way without anyone seeing you.”

  I reread the note in my hand. We had our own precautions. We named our meeting places after different colors. The gray point was the bus stop in front of the University of Istanbul Library. And the meetings were always an hour before the stated time; we were going to meet at 1400 hours. Sending the other earring was Yasemin Abla’s strategy for ensuring I believed the note was from her. Her warning to “forget the earrings!” was as clear as a nail driven into the wall. I mustn’t leave a single trace behind me, I mustn’t carry anything on me that was in any way linked to anyone else.

  I kissed the grandmother’s hand.

  “There are some geraniums in our house. If I leave you the key will you water them?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry, my boy, we have your key,” said the grandmother. She picked up her knitting, wrapped the wool around her finger and started knitting again, raising and lowering the needles like a bird’s wings. As I was leaving she called out behind me. “Don’t forget my question, I want the answer.”

  Outside, the biting wind licked my face. I wrapped my scarf tightly around my neck. Following Serpil, I plunged into the darkness. The alleyway twisted and curved into infinity, forking in places. There was brush everywhere. Someone who didn’t know where they were going would get lost before they knew it. It was like a secret labyrinth. The light was growing dimmer, the sound of dogs barking from below grew fainter. Once we had passed the hill and the brush we came out at a vegetable garden. We paused at the point from where I had to continue my journey alone.

  I took out the money I had in my pocket and gave half of it to Serpil. I told her to study hard and to take good care of her grandmother. I leaned down and kissed the top of her head. It was then that it struck me that her face, with its glowing radiance, was perfect for the amber earrings. It was candid, delicate, and charming. She looked like a mountain nymph. All that was missing was the yellow amber. I moved her two plaits away with my hand, and raised her chin. I put one amber earring in one of her ears and the other in her other ear. “These are yours now,” I said. She blinked in disbelief and raised her hands to her face. She touched the earrings dangling like two drops of water. Her face had the most beautiful expression in the world. If I let her she would grow wings and fly off into the star-studded sky.

  As I entered the vegetable garden and slowly started walking, the verses I had learned from Yasemin Abla sprang to my mind. “O free man! Thou shalt always cherish the sea.”

  At that moment someone called out my real name. I stopped in the darkness and looked around me. I couldn’t work out where the voice was coming from. My heart pounded in my breast. A cold sweat ran down my neck. When I heard the same voice again I half-opened my eyes.

  “Demirtay,” said the Doctor, “you’re talking in your sleep.”

  “I must have dozed off,” I said, staring at the dark walls of the cell. Sleeping and losing myself in thought was healing. I dreamed that I was out of here and regressed to my old life in the days before they captured me. Afterward it was always awful. When I opened my eyes in the cell again, hopelessness and regret clawed at me. I saw a pus-colored wall before me. Why did I get caught, why hadn’t I run faster, I berated myself. I wanted another chance. A chance that would radically change my life, I said. Then I would writhe in pain from the injuries covering my body.

  “Uncle Küheylan,” I said, “shall I ask you a riddle?”

  “Lord bless us, are you going to get your own back and put me to the test now after my riddle yesterday?”

  “My riddle’s harder. Listen. A woman has a little girl with her. I ask if it’s her granddaughter. This is what she says: This is my daughter’s daughter and my husband’s sister. How can that be?”

  “Did you dream that?”

  “No,” I said. I didn’t mention the grandmother and Serpil.

  “My daughter’s daughter, my husband’s sister,” repeated Uncle Küheylan to himself. “It’s a good question. Let me think about it and let’s see if I can solve it.”

  Uncle Küheylan and the Doctor pondered the question while wondering why they hadn’t taken anyone away to be tortured for the past two days, and why they were leaving all the cells in peace. They hadn’t taken anyone yesterday or today. The iron gate had only opened when the guard was changing and when they were bringing our ration.

  “The interrogators are people too, they got tired of torturing people for ten, twenty hours a day and they’ve all taken the day off so they can have a break. They’re lying on a beach somewhere warm, maybe on an island in the ocean, letting the sun shrivel up their souls,” Uncle Küheylan said, laughing.

  “No,” said the Doctor, “torture is sweaty work and they went out before their sweat had dried. They caught a chill in the cold and wind and it spread quickly. Now they’re all at home taking it easy and drinking lime blossom infusion with lemon and mint.”

  While the Doctor and Uncle Küheylan were laughing, a small button slid across the concrete floor of the cell, landing by our feet. We couldn’t understand where it had come from. It was a yellow, star-shaped button with two holes. Uncle Küheylan picked it up and held it to the light. “This button comes from a woman’s clothing,” he said. We all went to the grille and looked out. Zinê Sevda was standing in the opposite cell like a portrait in a gray frame. She had ripped off one of her buttons and thrown it to us from the gap under the door. She smiled when she saw us, or rather when she saw Uncle Küheylan. Her purple-ringed eyes lit up. She traced “How are you?” in the air. Uncle Küheylan replied, writing the letters laboriously, like a schoolboy who has just started classes.

  Leaving them alone together, I sat back down. I placed my feet on top of the Doctor’s. I contemplated Kamo the Barber’s impassiveness as he slept with his head on his knees. He hadn’t said a word today, but behaved as though we weren’t there. He had withdrawn into his shell and slept all the time.

  When Uncle Küheylan, who was standing at the door, leaned down and said, “Kamo, come to the grille, Zinê Sevda wants to thank you,” Kamo raised his head. He stared with an even more jaded expression than usual. He examined his surroundings as though trying to remember where he was. Then, waving his hand in the air in a dismissive gesture, he signaled that he wanted to be left alone. He hugged his knees, buried his face in his arms, and retreated into his own world. The most secluded spot he could escape to was his sleep. That was the furthest he could get away from us.

  6TH DAY

  Told by the Doctor

  THE BIRD OF TIME

  “A girl boarded a large ship in the port of Istanbul with great stealth, climbed up the steps, and hid in a large lifeboat. She wrapped herself up in a sail and strained her ears to listen for any sounds coming from outside. Once the ship had set sail she heaved a sigh of relief. Time aboard pa
ssed between sleep and wakefulness. She listened to the crew singing. When the ship anchored in a port, she waited until everything had turned quiet and darkness had fallen. She descended the steps unseen by anyone, and started running. She was heading toward a new world. As she ran until dawn she noticed that the full moon was following her, turning wherever she turned. She reached the desert. She lay down on the sand. She rested a while. Far off in the distance she noticed a hovel. In front of the hovel an elderly hermit was facing the sun, praying. The hermit stood up slowly, and stared at the silk-clad beauty coming toward him, as though he were in a dream. He hurried inside his hovel and, kneeling before a holy manuscript, spoke to himself: God is putting me to the test. I must not succumb to the desires of the flesh. Besides, I’m an old man. I’ll go outside and give the girl some water. The girl told him she did not want to live in the palace harem, that she had run away from Istanbul and that she wanted to stay with the hermit. That way she could also discover the right way to serve God. The hermit advised her to keep walking, saying there was another hermit who lived behind the sand dunes who was much better qualified to show her the right way to serve God. The girl walked wearily under the blazing sun. Around noon she reached the second hermit’s hovel. Thinking he had seen a mirage, the second hermit rubbed his eyes and stared hard. The creature approaching him was a long-haired, slender-waisted nymph. This was the hardest test the hermit had ever had to endure. As God had subjected him to such a difficult challenge it must mean that he was well on his way to becoming a hallowed saint. Upon this realization, he fell to his knees and held his arms heavenward. Dear God, he prayed. I may be old but I still have desires. My flesh is burning, my blood is boiling, but I will resist. I shall not go the devil’s way. Then, seizing the water bowl, he advanced toward the girl. She drank thirstily. Drops of water trickled from her lips, down to her chin, all the way to her neck. The girl looked at him through lowered lashes, take care of me, she implored, let me stay with you, show me the way to serve God. The hermit sighed. Ah my daughter, he said, how I would have loved to show you the way to serve God. There’s someone who can do that much better than me. Go over those dunes, go to the hermit who lives in the spot where the sun sets. There you’ll find the way to serve God. What was the desert? What was it, other than sand and sun? Grains of sand were all alike, so were sand dunes, and so were hermits. They were all like each other, one repeated the other’s words. As long as the sun burned with unabating fire, what was the desert? The girl walked on and on, growing wearier and wearier, her pace getting slower and slower. As the sun was on the verge of setting she went over the final sand dune and spied the hovel below it. Here is the most beautiful part of the desert, she said. In front of the hovel was a hermit who was much younger than the others. Kneeling facing the setting sun, he was rapt in prayer. When the young hermit heard the girl’s voice he turned and looked. Before him he beheld a nymph, with budding breasts and bare thighs. It was a gift from God. The hermit held the girl, who had swooned from exhaustion, in his arms, and carried her into the hovel. He dabbed her forehead, neck, and cracked lips with a wet cloth. He waited at her bedside until daybreak. God showed people beauty in many ways. Roses on bushes, water in the desert, and the moon in the sky were beautiful. In addition to all that, the nymph girl was a mirror of heaven. The path to God was that of the quest for this beauty. That was why the hermit was interred in the depths of the desert at such a young age. As the sky outside was beginning to turn light, the girl opened her eyes. She gazed at the hermit. I don’t want to go back to the palace, she said, let me stay with you, show me how to serve God. They stepped outside the hovel, knelt before the newly risen sun, and closed their eyes. God was with them. They spent that day gathering leaves and making a bed for the girl. At night they slept side by side. The hermit thought long and hard, he had torrid dreams, and one night he made his decision. Are you prepared to serve God with all your being? he asked the girl. She was. Listen, said the hermit. The Devil is God’s archenemy. God banishes him to the fires of hell, but he gets out again. A person’s duty is to serve God. Now you do just as I do. The hermit slipped out of his clothing. The girl too removed her silk dress. They were now naked. The sky had turned darker, vaster, and was studded with stars. They knelt on the sand and gazed up at the full moon. While they waited in silence, as though in prayer, physical changes began to take place. The hermit’s manhood gradually became resurrected until it was rigid. What’s that? asked the girl. That’s the Devil, said the hermit. He’s causing me pain. Surprised, the girl bent down to take a closer look. She frowned. She pitied the hermit. Adopting a pious tone of voice, the hermit said, I know why God sent you here. He wants to know whether we will be able to put my Devil into your hell. He is testing us both. We have to help each other. The girl gazed at him loyally. She said she was willing to do whatever it took to get God’s blessing. The hermit rose to his feet and led the girl inside the hovel. When they awoke the following morning their faces bore a different expression. They smiled at one another in bed. The Devil really must be God’s archenemy, said the girl, he grew violent when he was driven inside me and ran rampant in the fires of hell. I counted, we sent him back to hell six times in total during the night. The hermit told her they needed to keep up the good work. To tread the path to God they would require a great deal of faith. He mounted the girl. Once again he put the Devil back in hell. There is nothing as sweet as serving God, said the girl. I think anyone who thinks of doing anything but serving God is a fool. But all night long I’ve been thinking: Why didn’t God destroy the Devil from the start? If He wants to destroy him but isn’t strong enough, that means God is weak. But if He doesn’t want to destroy him even though He can, that means He consents to evil. If God is strong enough to destroy the Devil and wants to do it, then why does the Devil still exist? Where does this evil come from? They spent their days in the desert talking, sleeping, and worshipping God. The sun rose and set in the same spots, but each night the moon had a different face. One day as the hermit sat beside the hovel, gazing into the distance, the girl protested. I didn’t come here to sit in idleness, she said, I came here to serve God. What have we been waiting for since yesterday, why aren’t we putting the Devil back into hell? The hermit smiled. He said they had taught the Devil his lesson and that they would not punish him unless he reared his head with pride. The girl looked dismayed. She placed her hands on her belly. You may well have quenched the rage in your Devil, she said, but the fire in my hell is still burning. Hell wants the Devil. They saw a cloud of dust in the distance. The sand in the desert flowed skyward. A group of men on horseback came over the dunes and stood beside them. We’ve come for the princess, they said. They mounted the girl on a horse. Turning back the way they came, they disappeared in the same cloud of dust. Back in the Istanbul Palace, they entrusted the girl to the care of the doctors and ladies in waiting. They bathed her in rosewater and sat her down before a mirror. They wove beads into her hair, anointed her skin with perfumed oils and lined her eyes with kohl. Once they had prepared her, they took her for an audience with the court’s older women. The older women asked her what had befallen her and what she had done in the desert. I worshipped God, said the girl, my life was nothing but virtue. I opened my legs and the hermit put the Devil into hell. I learned how happy worshipping makes people. If only I could have continued serving God. For a moment the older women were silent, then they burst out laughing. Don’t worry, they said, anyone who wants to put the Devil into hell and serve God can do it here too.”