Uncle Küheylan faced me as he continued. “Are you listening, Demirtay?” he said. “I loved the deer on the mountains as well as the deer on the wall rug. I grew attached to the old stories about Istanbul but I’m attached to Istanbul as she is now too. I’ve realized that even though people may have loved Istanbul in her present state, they felt no affection for her. Love without affection made them selfish. Like lovers who oppress the one they love, they couldn’t see what was lacking in themselves. Convinced the age of happiness had abandoned them, they didn’t believe in Istanbul.”
“Is that why you wanted to come here?” I asked. “To see what Istanbul was really like?”
“I wanted to know if I could make my dream come true before I died. I made it here at the final turning of my life. Did the price for coming here have to be the pain I endured? Why wasn’t I brave enough to come before, why did I choose to come only once death was staring me in the face? I don’t torment myself with all these questions. When I got caught I told the interrogators I would tell them all my secrets if they took me to Istanbul. Now, like machines, they ask me the same questions every day. I describe Istanbul to them, they don’t get it. I show her to them, they don’t see her. They want me to give in to pain, to give up my love. They want me to stop believing in myself and in Istanbul, and to be like them. They torment me in every imaginable way. They tear my body apart to try and make my soul look like theirs. They don’t realize that my faith in this city is only getting stronger.”
“Uncle Küheylan, so what if our faith gets stronger?” I said, my voice irritated. “No one sees us suffering here. People don’t know we exist.”
“The people who torture us see that we’re suffering.”
I knew that our suffering here was imposed by both the city and time. Time and the city were the same, that’s why God’s rule had been overthrown here. There was no one watching over us. Those who said God invented good, and evil came from people, were wrong. If God had wanted to, He would have made good boundless. What was stopping Him? I think He invented evil, and it was left up to people to invent good. Did the people living aboveground realize that? Was there anyone who thought about us, who gave a damn about everything we were going through?
“The best witnesses of pain are the ones who inflict it. We’re as big a part of their lives as they are of ours,” insisted Uncle Küheylan.
“You’re talking about time and watches,” said the Doctor. “Ali the Lighter had a thing about them too. He kept asking what time it was.”
The Doctor had chatted to Ali the Lighter when they had brought him into the cell yesterday. He had examined his injuries and, noticing how cold he was, removed his jacket and put it on Ali’s shoulders. Ali the Lighter had wanted to know about time in here and had complained about there not being a clock. Like all new arrivals, he too was curious about time’s direction. Whilst outside, time was in the rays of the morning sun, at night it was in the darkness of the sky. In the workplace, it was found in office hours. At school in the bell signaling break time, in the car in the speedometer. In the streets aboveground, every sound, every object, stated where time was located. But where was it here? Was it in the gray wall, on the dark ceiling, or in the iron gate? Was it in the scream that echoed like wolves’ howling in the distance, in the blood that seeped into the wall, in the final look of those led out of the cell who would never return? That had preyed on Ali the Lighter’s mind too; when they had come to take him and he had limped slowly out of the cell with his injured leg, the first thing he had done was ask the guards what time it was. “You’re at the end of time,” they had told him, “there is no time for you anymore.”
On the day he was captured Ali the Lighter had been in Belgrade Forest with his friends. They had decided to meet there because it was cold and snowing and they assumed it would be deserted. There were twenty of them. It was the first time they had met in such a large group. They had worked on their plan for the secret torture building three floors underground known as the Interrogation Center, and discussed their strategy for raiding it. They had signaled the entrances, the guards’ locations, and all the different routes they could take. They had designated tasks and decided who would prioritize what. They had smoked a large number of cigarettes and talked about their friends who went missing after being detained, and about the young people who had recently joined them. Despite the bleak news they still managed to joke and tease each other. Though they had no faith in today, they did believe in tomorrow.
As they sat shoulder to shoulder, huddled in their parkas and scarves, their ears suddenly pricked up at the sound of the warning whistle of the guards on duty. One of them stood up and walked toward the guards; very soon he was back. We’re being surrounded, prepare for a clash, he said. They divided into groups of four, scattering in all directions of the forest before the circle closed in on them. They had no intention of being hunted. They tried to work out the whereabouts in the woods of the real concentration. They scanned the area with their sharp eyes. It wasn’t long before they heard the first gunshot. One of the groups had had a close encounter. The sounds reverberated. The circle led by Ali the Lighter was trying to cross another area. If they could carve a passage in the west it would be easy for them to reach the residential areas. The branches trembled under the roar of the helicopter above them. Sparrows, starlings, and crows hastily took wing. Under the shelter of the trees’ wide branches, the group managed to move through the forest without the helicopter spotting them. They kept close to one another. When the sound of gunshots increased shortly afterward they realized that other groups had also joined in the clash. It was going to be difficult to get out of there before darkness descended.
As Ali the Lighter and the rest of his group were passing a hillside, the sound of nearby gunshots made them dive to the ground. When they saw there was no one in their field of vision, they realized the shots were not aimed at them. It was one of the other groups fighting. They were on the other side of the slope. They decided to cross over to help out. They could surprise the attackers and clear a path for their friends. They moved in silence, but things did not go according to plan. As they were passing through one circle they found themselves trapped in another. With bullets whizzing past them and bombs exploding, they lost their way. Who was firing, who was attacking, who was retreating? It was impossible to know. As branches snapped, sending snow flying in all directions, they lost track of each other’s voices. They fired until the helicopter above them had left to go elsewhere. Then the gunshots ceased. Ali the Lighter realized he had lost his friends, he was by himself. He looked all around him, but saw no one. He followed the footprints in the snow and searched behind the bushes. His friends had either been shot or changed direction.
He moved around constantly. Rather than seek an exit by himself he chose to follow the sound of gunshots and go to the aid of the other groups. He succeeded in eluding the small circles every time. When he loaded his final ammunition clip amongst the dense trees, he was panting and exhausted. He fell to his knees and lay on the ground, abandoning himself to the snow. He wanted his sweat to dry. While pondering which direction to take, he looked at the branches above his head. It was then that he realized that night was falling. The clouds were being erased, the sky was clearing. Darkness was extending rapidly, like ink spreading through water. The trees were growing taller. It was a moonless night. When Ali the Lighter heard someone next to him calling out his hand automatically went to his weapon.
“Ali.”
He walked toward the shadow under a red tree. When he saw it was Mine Bade from his group he fell to his knees.
Mine Bade was sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree trunk. Her breathing was labored.
“I’ve lost a lot of blood,” she said.
“Where did they shoot you?”
“In the chest.”
“I’m getting you out of here.”
“Don’t even try. I know I’m near the end.”
“No,
we’re going.”
“I hope the others made it.”
“Well, the gunshots have stopped . . .”
“They must have got away.”
“I can carry you. It will be easy to go out of the forest in the dark.”
“Ali the Lighter, I know you never leave anything unfinished. But forget about me, go and carry out the plan we talked about today.”
“You mean the raid?”
“Yes. You have to go and attack the Interrogation Center and save the people they’re torturing there.”
“We’ll do it together.”
“I would have loved to. The man I love is there too. I’d give anything to save him, to run into his arms . . .”
Mine Bade closed her eyes before she could finish speaking. Alarmed, Ali the Lighter felt her face.
They heard an elderly owl hooting in the distance.
Mine Bade opened her eyes again.
“I’m so thirsty,” she said.
Ali the Lighter grabbed a handful of snow and held it out to her.
“Melt this in your mouth.”
“Do you know who I love, Ali?”
“Yes.”
“I never told him. I was too timid.”
“Don’t worry. He loves you too.”
“Really? Do you mean it?”
“We all talked about you two. Everyone knew you loved each other. I think the only ones who didn’t know it were you two.”
Mine Bade took a deep breath. She rested her head against the tree trunk. She looked up at the stars. The sight of two consecutive shooting stars thrilled her as much as when she had been a child.
“Did you see the shooting stars?”
“Yes.”
“I made a wish.”
“Don’t worry, when you wish on a star it always comes true.”
“My face feels as though it’s on fire.”
“When did they shoot you?”
“An hour ago. I walked aimlessly until I eventually collapsed against this tree trunk.”
“They might follow the trail of blood and find you.”
“They won’t follow any trails until morning. And besides, I won’t see the morning.”
“They could come in the dark too. Let’s not stay here. There are houses where we can hide in the neighborhood just outside the forest.”
“Ali, I’m not afraid anymore. Do you think it’s because you’ve told me that the man I love loves me too?”
“It’s good that you’re not afraid anymore.”
“So I didn’t need to tell him I loved him. All I had to do was take him in my arms.”
“Perhaps he was more afraid of declaring himself than you were.”
“Is that why he looked at me like that?”
“How?”
“He had this way of looking . . . right now . . . in the torture chamber . . . do you suppose he’s in a great deal of pain?”
“We’re going to rescue them.”
“Don’t waste your time with me, Ali. Go and find our friends. Go and rescue the people who are suffering.”
They heard the elderly owl hooting again in the distance. The branches rustled. The sound of a gunshot rang out nearby.
Ali the Lighter lay Mine Bade on the ground. He lay down beside her. He surveyed the surrounding area, inspecting the trees and the bushes. He couldn’t see anyone. It was dark. The stars did not provide enough light to see very far on that moonless night. He held his breath. He listened to the forest. When he heard the sound of birds taking flight a short way ahead he said, “Wait here but don’t move, I’m going to check that area over there and I’ll be back.”
He walked slowly and silently. He searched behind the trees. He raised his head and looked up at the branches. Seeing no one, he concluded he must have gone the wrong way. Just as he was turning back the sound of a gunshot beside him sent him reeling to the ground. The searing pain in his leg made him writhe. He clutched his wounded leg with one hand and groped in the snow for his gun with the other. They didn’t give him a chance. They surrounded him. They stamped on his back and his head. They handcuffed him.
“Let me go!” he screamed, again and again. “Let me go!”
Their suspicions aroused by Ali the Lighter’s behavior, the men examined the footprints in the snow and headed toward where Mine Bade lay. When they reached the red tree, they shone their torch on the area around it. They looked at the bloodstains. They saw no one.
“Who was here? Who were you shouting out a warning to?” they demanded.
“I didn’t warn anyone,” said Ali the Lighter.
“Your footprints lead here too. Tell us, whose blood is this?”
“What blood? All I can see is snow.”
As Ali the Lighter collapsed under the blows raining down on him, he thought of Mine Bade. He was happy she had got away despite her injury. He had reached the end of the road. They would either kill him there or allow him to live a few more days. He was prepared. He tried to curse but his mouth was so full of blood that the only sound he could emit was a groan. As he faded out of consciousness he saw the light of the helicopter hovering above them and heard the sound of gunshots resounding in all four corners of the forest.
Would Mine Bade’s wish come true? Would she manage to escape from the forest, and would the wound on her chest heal?
“That’s not what she wished for,” I remonstrated with the Doctor, who was describing that night as though he had lived it personally. “I think Mine Bade wished for a raid on this Interrogation Center, and for everyone suffering here to be rescued. Her wish will come true, they may well come and rescue us.”
“You might be right, Demirtay. Maybe her wish did concern us.”
“And it wasn’t just one shooting star, but two. Even if one misses, the other will hit the target.”
“I hope it won’t miss.”
“Who does Mine Bade love? Did Ali the Lighter tell you?”
“No.”
“He’s here, in the same slaughterhouse too, apparently.”
“It’s packed with cells underground,” said the Doctor thoughtfully. “Who knows which one he’s in?”
“The part of the story I liked best was when Mine Bade was happy to discover her man loved her. I would have wished for the same thing, I would have wished to find out here and now that I was loved.”
“But this isn’t a story, Demirtay, it’s real.”
“Doesn’t everything that’s happened in the past and that we tell in words become a story, Doctor? Here there’s no such thing as the past. Haven’t we discovered that over these last days?”
We were like ordinary Istanbul dwellers. We either idealized yesterday, or fantasized about tomorrow. We tried to feign that today didn’t exist. On the one hand we told the story of the past and on the other we told the story of the future. And we thought of the present as the bridge between the past and the future. We were terrified of that bridge collapsing, of plummeting into the void below. We ruminated incessantly over this question that we couldn’t get out of our minds: Who possessed today, to whom did today belong?
A loud noise came from the other side of the iron gate. We strained our ears to listen. When we heard the same sound repeatedly we realized it was gunshots. The interrogators were either testing their guns, or venting their rage by killing someone.
“That’s a Beretta,” said Uncle Küheylan, showing us that he was as knowledgeable about guns as he was about people. We waited for a repetition of the distant sound. The passages beyond the iron gate were long, labyrinthine, with a lot of walls. It was impossible to tell how far away the sounds were. When we heard the same explosions again Uncle Küheylan said, “That one was a Browning.”
Then the noises stopped. The walls returned to their previous silence.
“Time is getting on, there’s no one around,” said Uncle Küheylan. “The sun’s going down, it will be evening soon. We were going to throw a rakı banquet yesterday but it didn’t happen. Shall we have it today i
nstead?”
We were going to drink on the Doctor’s balcony. That was our fantasy. As the lights in the neighborhoods on the other side of the Bosphorus came on one by one, we would select one charming feature of each. We would count Üsküdar, Kuzguncuk, Altunizade, Salacak, Harem, Kadıköy, Kınalıada, Sultanahmet, Beyazıt, and identify mosques from the length of their minarets, and distinguish where the traffic jams were from the sound of the car horns. For centuries people had been doing everything in their power to ravage this city. They had smashed and demolished and jammed buildings on top of each other. We would wonder at how Istanbul had managed to withstand such devastation, marvel at how well she had retained her beauty, and be swept away by her relentless allure.
We played out the scene before us: the Doctor spread a white tablecloth over the table. He fetched cheese, melon, fresh borlotti bean salad, hummus, and haydari yogurt dip. He added toasted bread, salad, and cacık. He then made room for dishes of rice-stuffed vine leaves and spicy ezme salad. Finally, he placed a vase of yellow roses in the center. There wasn’t space on the table for another thing. As he poured rakı into the glasses he checked to see he had put the same amount in each. He added water to the rakı. He went inside and switched on the stereo. A romantic song started playing.
Istanbul, Istanbul Page 15
