I held his hands, cupping them in mine.
“You look well,” I said. “You’ve put on a bit of weight. Are you growing your hair?”
“Yes, I’m going for a shoulder-length mane like yours.”
“Then we can have our photo taken together.”
“I’d love to. We haven’t got any photos of the two of us.”
“Your hands are like ice, Demirtay.”
“As usual.”
“Go in and get a jumper. You’re going to sit on the balcony with us and drink rakı. I don’t want you to get cold.”
“I won’t put on one jumper, I’ll wear two.”
“Good idea.”
As soon as the sun went down the balcony started to feel frosty, it was beginning to get chilly. If I hadn’t been wearing a woolen cardigan I would have been cold too.
“Uncle Küheylan, I bring you gossip hot off the press. Once we sit down to eat I’ll tell you which singer used to sell fish when he was young and has now given up music to go back to selling fish with his childhood sweetheart. I heard the fishmongers saying which palace the map of the treasure buried under İnönü Stadium is hidden in. And I found out who had rigged the latest horse races. All will be revealed.”
“We’ll listen to you gladly. But you’d better go and help the Doctor now or he’ll give you a hard time again.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Demirtay went into the living room, but the moment he was out of sight he came back again.
“Uncle Küheylan,” he said, “I almost forgot.”
“What’s up?”
“When we sit down to eat, apart from all the gossip, I’m going to tell you the answer to the riddle.”
“Which riddle?”
“The riddle about Jean Bey and Filiz Hanım that was the talk of the newspapers and had the ferry passengers intrigued for days. Filiz Hanım was Jean Bey’s wife and daughter and sister. We heard that. But according to the latest news Filiz Hanım was also Jean Bey’s aunt. Do you remember?”
“Of course I do.”
“I’ve worked out how that can be possible.”
“Really?”
“You’ll be amazed when I tell you.”
“I can’t wait.”
“But I want a prize.”
“What prize?”
“Seeing as I’m getting punished for arriving late, I should also get a prize for guessing the riddle. Don’t you think so?”
“It makes sense to me. I think you should. Let’s see what the Doctor thinks.”
“I’ll persuade him in the kitchen.”
“Good luck to you, you’ll need it!”
The Student Demirtay went inside. He left me alone on the balcony. I became lost in the contemplation of Istanbul, who reproduces suffering and sorrow every day, but at the same time creates hopes and dreams. Like tortured souls who climb up to the Bosphorus Bridge to commit suicide and behold the sights for the last time, or lovers strolling hand in hand who stare, awestruck, as though they have never seen them before, I gazed at Dolmabahçe Palace, Sepetçiler Pavilion, and the Galata Bridge. I observed the gecekondu neighborhoods on the poverty-stricken hills of the Anatolian side preparing to be enveloped by white fog. Istanbul was a city with a million cells, and one cell on its own was an entire Istanbul. A part was in the whole and the whole was in a part. Near was far and far was near. Everything was sterile and fertile.
In this city every physical pain was accompanied by emotional pain. Crowds and solitude were equally oppressive. The pain of unhappy love competed with poverty. Difficulty making ends meet advanced at the same pace as old age. Epidemic diseases and epidemic fears went arm in arm. Children were growing up thinking there were fiber optic cables under their skin instead of veins, the number of old people carrying calculators in their pockets instead of mirrors was growing. Figures replaced the letters on their tongues. They said that love had turned into money, but much as they took out their calculators and tapped away, they couldn’t work out why money never turned into love. Figures were not enough.
I heard the Doctor calling out from inside.
“Uncle Küheylan! We’ll be there in a minute. You won’t be lonely for much longer. Be patient.”
“If you don’t hurry up I’ll finish all the rakı,” I replied.
I refilled my empty glass. I added water and ice. There in the city of my dreams, in the company of the people I loved, on a balcony overlooking the Bosphorus, I sipped my rakı.
My father used to say that Istanbul created a different city every season, that she gave birth to other cities in the dark, the snow, and the fog. On a hot summer’s day he once saw a group of students sitting in a row on the shore of Tophane, painting. Each student observed the Maiden’s Tower, the seagulls, and the sea before them and applied paint to the canvas, but no two paintings were the same. In one the sea was blue, while in another it was yellow. In one the Maiden’s Tower was young, while in another she was old. In one the seagulls were spreading their wings, while in another they died en masse. The canvases were not depicting the same city, but all kinds of very different cities, separated by several eras and great distances. They were bright or dark, cheerful or melancholic. But the city my father saw was different from all of them. It was only then I understood, my father had said. What made a city into a city was a person’s look. People who gave her bad looks made the city evil, people who looked at her through good eyes rendered her beautiful. The city’s changing and becoming beautiful depended on people’s changing and becoming beautiful.
I looked at the Istanbul that my father had left years earlier. It had disappeared from view. The body of the Maiden’s Tower was submerged in fog. The sea had turned as white as the rakı in my glass. Ferries and fishing boats had pulled up on the shore to rest. The only visible object in the clouds of fog was a red-winged seagull. The seagull had spread its wings wide and was gliding from sea to shore. It had let its body go in the void. Monopolizing the whole sky, it descended toward the rooftops. When it came a little closer I realized it wasn’t a seagull but the red shawl. The red shawl appeared out of the fog one moment, and disappeared the next. Had I overdone the rakı? How many glasses had I had? I tittered to myself.
I heard a voice shouting, “Doctor! Doctor!”
It was familiar and came from downstairs.
I stuck my head over the balcony railing. I saw Kamo the Barber waiting on the pavement at the building entrance.
“Kamo!”
“Uncle Küheylan! It’s so lovely to see you.”
I waved.
“Come on up,” I said.
“I’ll be along later,” he said.
“How come?”
“I’m going to Beyoğlu to meet my wife Mahizer.”
“Bring her too.”
“We’re both coming. She wants to meet you too.”
“Don’t be too long, dinner’s nearly ready.”
“Has the student kid arrived?”
“Yes.”
“What about Zinê Sevda?”
“She’ll be here soon.”
“I’d better go. I mustn’t keep Mahizer waiting.”
“Go on, go quickly so you can come back quickly.”
Kamo put his hands into the pockets of his thick coat. He walked away with quick steps.
When he was almost at the corner I called out to him.
“Kamo!”
He stopped and looked. He looked like a shadow in the fog. At the junction where existence and nonexistence meet, he was in between the heart’s slow pace and time’s speed.
“I’ve missed you,” I said.
He smiled. He opened his two arms wide and embraced the air. He hugged me tightly from a distance. Then, turning away quickly, he took large strides and vanished into the fog.
I raised my glass in the air. “To your health, Istanbul,” I said, “to your health.”
As I was putting my glass down on the table I realized my nose was bleeding. With my handkerchie
f I wiped the blood running down to my lip. As I was checking to see if there was any blood on my clothes, I remembered a hot summer’s day from adolescence. I was on a hillside on Haymana Mountain, passing by a mansion on my horse, who was stifled by the heat. I drove my horse toward the girl collecting water from the fountain in front of the mansion. The young girl’s hair was plaited. Yellow lira coins hung from the ribbon on her forehead. Her fingers were hennaed. It was obvious she had recently been a bride. She brought a bowl of water and held it out to me. I drank thirstily, shedding my weariness in the cool water. My horse too drank his fill in the trough. Turning my back on the sun, I left. I climbed up the hill. As I was passing a wild pear tree I noticed the blood on my shirt. My nose was bleeding and the blood had dripped onto my white shirt. At that moment I realized that I had fallen in love with the recent bride. Blood was the sign of either love or death. I was at an age where I was still far from death, but near to love.
I took a cigarette paper out of the tobacco case. I put the paper between my fingers and added a generous line of tobacco on it. I rolled it. I wet the edge of the paper with my tongue and stuck it down. I dried the wet patch on the paper with the lighter’s flame. I inhaled so deeply it was as though I wanted to finish the cigarette in a single drag. I blew the smoke out through my nose. The smoke would help the bleeding too, it would clot the blood that kept stopping and starting. I leaned back. I strained my ears to listen to the classical Turkish song drifting out from the living room. But not for long; the song’s melody was drowned out by the sound of gunshots coming from outside.
The Browning, Beretta, Walther, and Smith & Wesson explosions resounded again. On one hand I wanted to blot out the noise, on the other it gave me hope. As the sound of each bullet came a little louder, I wanted to know what it was that was getting closer all the time. Was it life or death approaching? I raised my head. I looked at the bird of time gliding in the profound darkness. It had spread its broad wings, filling the entire space. It had released its body, worn out by the winds of the past, into the emptiness of the present moment. One of its wings was tinged with suffering, the other with beauty. If I stood up and stretched out my hand, would I be able to reach it? If I stood on tiptoe and stretched my fingers wide, would I touch the black feathers of the bird of time?
As the gunshots came very close, stopping just outside the iron gate, I wanted my generously rolled cigarette to stay between my fingers forever. I didn’t want life, death, or suffering, I just wanted to feel the taste of the cigarette in my nasal passage. I wanted to think of the lace embroidery on the tablecloth, the color of the toasted bread, the smell of the iced rakı. I wanted to dream of the red shawl flying on the sea breeze just for the sake of it, and to sink my bare feet into deep pile rugs. I wanted to eat cheese and pickles. I wanted to turn up the music full blast so everyone could hear, and to sit on the balcony waving to the ships. It didn’t happen. The sound of the iron gate started up where the gunshots had left off. The saw-like grating of the iron gate filled the corridor.
I waited without moving. I raised my hand to my neck. It was painful. I stroked it. I moved my head right and left. I examined my long nails. I smoothed back my unkempt hair. I wiped the bloodstains from my forehead. I straightened my torn shirt collar and squared my shoulders. I touched the wall, running my fingers along the uneven concrete. I felt a cold wind spreading from my fingers to my arm, and from there to my whole body. The air smelled of damp and seaweed. My throat stung. My ears were ringing. A whirlpool was spinning inside my head. As the bird of time glided on its broad wings in the darkness, the sound of the iron gate permeated the emptiness.
Raising my head, I took one last look at the fog opposite.
The yellow fog was beautiful.
The fog that enclosed time in Istanbul, harboring both life and death within it, was so beautiful.
“Hell is not the place where we suffer,
it’s the place where no one hears us suffering.”
—Mansur Al-Hallaj
GLOSSARY
Abla
Affectionate term of respect used for an older female.
Ağbi
Affectionate term of respect used for an older male.
Balık-ekmek
Highly popular Istanbul street food, consisting of freshly caught mackerel served in bread, often with onions, lemon, and chilis.
Bey
A formal term of respect used for a man, equivalent to Mr.
Cacık
A side dish made from yogurt, garlic, cucumber, and mint, commonly known by the Greek name, tzatsiki.
Darüşşafaka
A charitable society founded in 1863 for the purpose of supporting the education of poor and orphaned children.
Ezme
A very spicy pulverized tomato salad, popular as a mezze, or eaten with kebab.
Gecekondu
Literally “sprung up overnight.” A cheap, illegal dwelling constructed very quickly by people migrating from rural areas to the outskirts of large cities.
Hanım
A formal term of respect used for a woman, equivalent to Miss, Mrs., or Ms.
Haydari
A popular mezze dish made with thick yogurt, garlic, feta cheese, and herbs.
Hoca
Teacher.
Lokman Hekim
A mythical medical doctor and pharmacist who lived around 1100 BC and believed he had found the cure for all diseases, as well as the elixir of immortality.
Mansur Al-Hallaj
A ninth-century Persian mystic, revolutionary, poet, and teacher of Sufism. He was accused of heresy and tortured and executed.
Rakı
Turkey’s national drink, made of distilled aniseed.
Simit
Bagel-like street food covered with sesame seeds. Very popular in Turkey.
Istanbul, Istanbul Page 23
