Istanbul, Istanbul

by Burhan Sonmez

  Two possibilities shot through my mind. Was the target of the gunshots the Doctor, who had said “Death is good too”? Was it the ingenious Demirtay, or the angry Kamo, or the obstinate Zinê Sevda? If one of them had seen their opportunity, grabbed a gun, and run into different corridors and started a confrontation, how far could they have got? How could they have found their way around the corridors?

  There was a better option: The Istanbul above hadn’t forgotten us. Others had joined the group of young revolutionaries who had survived the conflict in Belgrade Forest. They had sworn to end our suffering, to rescue those who were in pain. They were coming to our aid. The Doctor’s young son and Mine Bade were with them.

  The gunfire sounded again. One explosion followed another. Beretta, Walther, and Smith & Wesson bullets mingled with the Browning fire. Their echoes were heard in the corridor. I distinguished each gun as I distinguished the cry of each wild animal on the Haymana Mountain where I had spent my whole life. I strained my ears. I grew anxious when I remembered the wounds each bullet could inflict on a human body.

  I was worried about my friends. What state were they in now? Were they alive or dead? I thought they could be both at the same time. As long as I couldn’t see them, my friends were both alive and dead. They breathed, and at the same time lay lifeless on the floor. The walls between us made every possibility likely. The same was true of those battling their way toward us. Those who had leapt forward, armed to the teeth, were both those coming to rescue us and those trying to kill us. I didn’t know anything else. And as long as I didn’t know, all possibilities were equally likely. The appearance of our underground cell from the world aboveground was also the same. While Istanbul dwellers who heard that we were suffering here walked around feeling sad and desperate, they thought of two likelihoods for us. We might be alive, or we might be dead. Perhaps we were breathing, or perhaps we lay lifeless on the floor.

  I put myself in the position of the people aboveground. I looked at myself through their eyes for a moment and didn’t know what to think. I felt both alive and dead, as though I were both at the same time.

  While I was lost in thought, drawn to the white light in the corridor, like a moth, the gunshots stopped. Everywhere fell silent. The cell became soundless, like before. I continued to wait, as though someone might appear from the end of the corridor at any moment. I held onto the grille bars so I would be able to stand on my one good leg for a bit longer. The light dazzled me and I blinked. I heard banging on a cell door in the corridor behind ours. “Guard!” shouted a voice. Someone in a cell behind ours needed help. “Guard!” I trained my ear on the corridor. I waited for the guard’s footsteps. The guard would get up from his chair now, come out of his room and stride along the concrete on his hard heels. He would go to the rear corridor and stand at the cell door. He would slide the bolt, open the door, and start cursing. But the guard didn’t move. He didn’t get up from his chair, his heels didn’t stride on the concrete. He left the voice coming from the back cell unanswered. The corridor, now silent again, fell into a bottomless pit. I was too exhausted to wait any longer. I leaned against the wall. Putting my weight on my good leg, I slowly slid down. I sat on the floor. Opening my legs wide, I took a deep breath.

  It was only then that I realized my nose was bleeding. I picked up the cloth from the floor and wiped it.

  I was not sleepy. I felt hungry. My mouth was dry from lack of water.

  I decided that chatting to the Doctor would be better than killing time staring at the blank wall. I mimed taking my tobacco case out of my pocket. As I rolled a cigarette with my split and cracked fingers, I resolved to go to the Doctor’s house and chat to him there. I fantasized that I was sitting in his favorite place with him, on his balcony overlooking the Bosphorus. I handed him a generously rolled cigarette. Then I rolled one for myself. I picked up the lighter on the table and lit our cigarettes. I took a drag and, after holding it inside my lungs for a while, released it into the blue sky that is such a rare phenomenon in Istanbul at the start of winter. I put the gunshots I had just heard out of my mind. I listened to the car horns, the ferry sirens, and the seagulls’ cries coming from below.

  Arranged on the lace tablecloth on the balcony were dishes of ezme, cheese, and pickles. The rocket was fresh. The yogurt was creamy. There was squeezed lemon on the radishes. There were flaked chilis sprinkled on the olives. The bread was sliced thinly, a few of the slices were toasted. The water jug was half full. There was ice in the rakı, served in long, delicate glasses, the cloudy rakı was nice and cold. The tobacco case, the lighter, and the ashtray were all lined up on the table. It was clear from the lace embroidery on the edges of the white tablecloth that it was an heirloom from bygone times.

  It was a warm day. The Doctor seemed relaxed and cheerful. A crackly recording of an old classical Turkish song drifted out from inside. The singer was the Doctor’s wife, who had died many years ago but never left this house. You are my heart’s master, she sang, in her powerful voice, that place is yours alone. Though my lifetime is spent and my hair is gray, you’re everything to me, you are joy, you are life, she sang. The words of the song trickled down the balcony like water and flowed along the gutters toward the earth. There was nothing left in the apartment, nor in the garden below, nor in the street that did not evoke that longing. The street vendors called out in the same voice. The ferry propellers and the car wheels rotated with the same whirring sound. The roofs were lined up in rows, descending like steps to the sea down below. The sea’s swollen waves rose and fell in tune with the song. One after the other, the captains sounded their horns, as though they could see the rakı we were drinking and hear the song we were listening to.

  The Doctor raised his glass first to me, then to the sea opposite us. He smiled when he saw me imitating him. He took a sip from his rakı.

  “I’m so glad you came, Uncle Küheylan,” he said.

  “I’m glad I came too,” I said.

  “Have you been able to see enough of Istanbul?”

  “A long lifetime, plus ten days, that’s enough for me.”

  “I’m happy to hear it.”

  “I can die in peace, Doctor. I feel quite tranquil.”

  “Why are you talking about death? Let’s think nice thoughts. Let’s make a wish to set this same table regularly, and to drink rakı every season as we gaze out on Istanbul.”

  “Let’s drink to good days.”

  “To good days . . .”

  We clinked glasses.

  We looked at the empty deck chairs on the roof terrace of the opposite building, at the washing lines, at the roof tiles. There was no mist. The sky was clear. Except for a tiny scrap of cloud at Çamlıca Hill, everywhere was azure blue. We could even see the houses and the groves on Kınalı Island. There was approximately an hour left before the sinking sun on the right would set, painting the sky a flaming orange.

  “It will be evening soon, everything will be cloaked in a magical blanket,” I said.

  “Magical? What magic is there left in Istanbul?”

  “Doctor, I’ve applied what you said about hope the other day to magic. Magic is better than what we have.”

  “Hope or magic, it doesn’t matter which one we use, it won’t suffice to save Istanbul’s beauty. I don’t say this to everyone, Uncle Küheylan, I’m saying it to you. People grow weary, they want to get away from here.”

  “Doctor, people give up on this place because it’s not fit to live in. But what we should be looking at is whether Istanbul is a city worth creating rather than worthy of living in.”

  “What part of her is going to be created? Her ravaged beauty?”

  “Just recreating her beauty alone justifies a conquest in itself.”

  “Conquest. . . . Are you still resolved on that?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Even after everything you’ve witnessed for the past ten days . . .”

  “Now I’m more determined than ever.”

  �
�I think we should drink to that.”

  “Let’s drink to everything that springs to mind today.”

  We leaned back on our chairs happily.

  We spied a red shawl floating above the rooftops on our right. The shawl was caught up in the wind and was heading toward the sea. At times it rippled, at others it flew straight. It glided like birds with outstretched wings. It didn’t look as though it intended to land on a rooftop, it looked set on reaching the sea. Immersed in the shawl’s captivating redness, we thought of places far away.

  “Uncle Küheylan, sometimes I get confused. It’s as though I’ve known you all my life instead of just ten days. Do you get the same impression?”

  “I also feel as though we’ve been exploring all the nooks and crannies of Istanbul together and chatting for years, and that the longer we talk the more we have to tell each other.”

  “We must be getting old . . .”

  “I’m already old, Doctor, you watch out for yourself.”

  “But your mind is like a razor. You’re fitter than I am.”

  “I haven’t forgotten the things I’ve learnt, it’s true. For example, that book you mentioned has etched itself on my brain, I’ve been thinking about it for days.”

  “Which one?”

  “The Decameron.”

  “You’ve memorized the title.”

  “Yes, I won’t forget it now.”

  “You won’t forget the funny stories it contains either.”

  “Doctor, all the stories you told us from that book being funny reminds me of something my father told me. On his return from one of his trips to Istanbul my father said he had stayed in the underground cells and he told us about an island he had heard about from a seaman in his cell. According to the customs of that island, when someone died everyone congregated in the home of the deceased, and wailed and lamented until the middle of the night, then everyone went back home. Then, once the family members in the house of mourning were alone, they would start talking and laughing and telling funny stories about the deceased. With each story they would explode into laughter, and as the stories went on, tears would roll down their faces. They call it yellow laughter. They think yellow is the right color for laughter that makes people forget death. What do you say, Doctor? Do you think it’s their need for yellow laughter that makes the noble ladies and gentlemen in the Decameron tell funny stories when they can feel death breathing down their necks?”

  “Maybe,” said the Doctor, but didn’t continue. He rose to answer the telephone that was ringing in the living room.

  Laughter too was better than what we have. That was one of the lessons that life had taught us. Alone on the balcony, I extended the expression to the food in front of me: cheese and pickles were better than what we have. Whereas rakı was better than everything we have, without exception. I chuckled to myself. I took a sip. I put the glass down on the table and nibbled on a gherkin. How wonderful it is to live in Istanbul, I said. I contemplated the small fishing boats bobbing on the waves like matchboxes at the point where the waters of the Golden Horn merge with the Bosphorus current. As the sky behind the minarets and the tall apartment blocks in the west was turning different shades of red, I became aware that the sudden mist that had appeared on the Islands’ side was heading this way, and that it would soon be hanging over the fishing boats. I spread ezme on a slice of toasted bread.

  The Doctor, who had now returned, and I drained the last drops of rakı. We refilled our glasses.

  “That was my son,” he said, “letting me know that he won’t be home tonight.”

  “Our young doctor? I wish he’d come. I wanted to meet him.”

  “He wants to meet you too, Uncle Küheylan. He sends his regards.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Young people. They do exactly as they please. It’s impossible to understand them. Apparently he has some very important business to see to.”

  “How’s his girlfriend? Mine Bade . . .”

  “She’s well. I haven’t met her yet either. They were both going to come tonight and I was going to meet her.”

  “It obviously wasn’t to be, Doctor. Hopefully next time . . .”

  “Next time?”

  The Doctor paused, as though he were feeling tipsy. He stared at the sea beyond the rooftops. He clutched his glass with both hands. He laced his fingers together. He slouched forward. He hunched his shoulders. He watched the current of the now docile Bosphorus. He cocked his head to one side so he could hear his wife’s voice from inside better. He closed his eyes. He murmured the lyrics of the song with her. His head bent down so it touched his shoulder. His voice slowed down, he fell silent. He breathed deeply. He waited. Just when I was beginning to think he must be feeling sleepy he sat up and opened his eyes. He looked at me sadly. He examined me first from close up and then from a distance, as though doubting my existence. He took a sip of his rakı.

  “Are you all right, Doctor?” I said.

  “I wanted to meet the girl my son loves. I wish Mine Bade had come tonight.”

  “If there’s a shooting star tonight we’ll make a wish for them.”

  “I think we’ll be seeing fog instead of stars, Uncle Küheylan. Your magical Istanbul will be shrouded in fog in a minute.”

  We heard several explosions, one after another.

  We couldn’t work out where they were coming from. First we glanced over at the houses opposite, then we leaned over the balcony railing and looked down at the street three floors below. The heavy evening traffic, the darting schoolchildren and the streetlamps that were coming on one by one, all seemed normal. There was no one else leaning over their balconies or windows. The terraces and drawn curtains remained unchanged.

  “Were those gunshots?” asked the Doctor.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, so he wouldn’t worry. “Never mind what’s going on outside, let’s enjoy our rakı.”

  I knocked back half the glass. I had an urge to get drunk there and then. I gazed at the distant windows lit up by the rays of Istanbul’s setting sun, as though seeing them for the first time.

  “Uncle Küheylan,” said the Doctor, “your father said there’s a world in the sky that’s just like ours. I told my son about it the other day. It amused him, but as usual, he had to think the exact opposite of what I thought. He said we need to look for the world that’s like ours down below rather than up above. The underground isn’t far, it’s right next to us, he said. People there suffer and writhe and search for a way out. They are tired and weak. They raise their heads as though they’re looking at the sky. They fantasize about us and call out to us. Each of us has a double who lives underground. If we listen we’ll be able to hear. If we peer down we’ll be able to see them.”

  “Maybe my father’s double in Istanbul is your son. A born again version. What do you say, Doctor?”

  We both burst out laughing at the same time. We leaned back on our chairs. My father was dead, his son was alive. The color of our laughter, turning yellow on the line between death and life, flowed toward the Istanbul Sea like a river. Rows of lights shone wherever we looked. While Topkapı Palace and the Maiden’s Tower were lit up, Selimiye Barracks and Haydarpaşa Station were trapped behind fog. Ships slowed down, ferries sounded their horns for longer. The fishing boats were returning to the shore. Day and night, reality and illusion, were becoming confused. Everything hid its own opposite inside it. As night enveloped the color of day, illusion was announcing the tidings of a new reality. The city that was sprawling out with her naked body was wrapping herself in a silky, fleecy cover embroidered with silver thread. But if a village symbolizes a person’s childhood and a city their adulthood, the Istanbul dwellers still lived in purgatory, like troubled adolescents. They could not put on the appropriate expression for beauty. They wandered around nervously during the day and went to bed anxious at night. They forgot that wanting a beautiful city was the same as wanting a beautiful life.

  The Doctor, who waved his hands around
as he laughed, almost knocked over the water jug. He just managed to grab it by the middle before it fell off the edge of the table. He started laughing again as he wiped his wet hand. Along with his yellow laughter, everything around us gradually became tinged with yellow. The water in the jug and the bread in the basket turned yellow. A yellow wind enfolded the chairs on the opposite terrace. The seagulls flying from the sea to the shore surrendered their wings to the yellow emptiness. As the ships in Istanbul Port unloaded their yellow cargo, the feet of the Bosphorus Bridge lit up with yellow light. Remembering was as long as ever, living was short. The Doctor’s memory overflowed with memories with yellow shadows. Each part of the city transported him to a different time, each sip of rakı led him to a different memory. The color of the iced rakı also turned yellow.

  When we heard knocking at the door we looked at each other.

  “He’s here at last,” said the Doctor.

  He put his glass down on the table. He got up without rushing. He went to open the door.

  I listened to the voices at the door.

  “Demirtay,” said the Doctor, “where have you been?”

  “There wasn’t any decent fish here, I had to go all the way to Kumkapı,” said the Student Demirtay.

  “What was wrong with the fish here?”

  “Didn’t I promise to bring you the best fish in Istanbul?”

  “It’s six o’clock and you’ve only just got here.”

  “Six? Your clock is wrong, Doctor. My watch says ten to six.”

  “Stop your teasing, you imp. Take the bags into the kitchen.”

  “I got salad too.”

  “Your punishment for being late is to make the salad while I fry the fish.”

  “It will be my pleasure. Isn’t Uncle Küheylan here yet?”

  “Do you think everyone’s like you?”

  “Is he here? Where is he?”

  “On the balcony.”

  Demirtay ran out excitedly to the balcony. Without giving me a chance to get up he threw his arms around my neck. He buried his head in my shoulder. I felt his heart beating. I thought how well life suited the young. Don’t let death take him away, I didn’t want anyone to wrench Demirtay away from my arms. I waited until his heartbeat had returned to normal.