The House in Smyrna

by Tatiana Salem Levy

  I was born in exile, outside my own country, on a cold, grey winter’s day. Two hours of contractions without result, because I still hadn’t turned and the anaesthetist wasn’t there. My mother suffered in giving birth to me. And when I came into the world, she couldn’t hold me in her arms because she’d been given a general anaesthetic. Worse: when she woke up, she realised they’d cut her open, up and down. She would forever bear the scar of my birth, a straight line, in relief, from the space between her breasts down to her pubis.

  I was born in exile, and that’s why I am the way I am, without a homeland, without a name. That is why I am solid, unpolished, still rough. I was born away from myself, away from my land — but, when it comes down to it, who am I? What land is mine?

  There you go again, narrating through the prism of pain. That isn’t what I told you. Exile isn’t necessarily full of suffering. In our case it wasn’t. I worked as a correspondent for a magazine in Brazil. Your father remained in the party. We were in Portugal, eating well, speaking our own language, meeting people, working, having fun. Your grandparents came to visit us; lots of people came to stay. We were always travelling: Paris, Florence, Madrid, Athens, Kiev. Yes, it is true, sometimes the uncertainty of our future weighed heavily: would we ever go home? But deep down we knew things would change in Brazil — we just didn’t know when. No, dear girl, things weren’t the way you describe them. When you were born, it wasn’t cold or grey. I didn’t suffer in giving birth to you. They didn’t give me an anaesthetic; nor do I have a scar. I gave birth to you naturally. I held you immediately. You were loved and wanted, the result of a painless exile. When amnesty was declared, I didn’t want to come back. You were very young and I would have preferred to stay on a few more years. But your father still believed in the party: he believed change was possible. So we returned, to make the revolution. There wasn’t all this suffering that you speak of. On the contrary, there was much positivity and an enormous will to live.

  I already had my ticket and only a few days to pack. I was going to Turkey first and then on to Portugal. Because it was summer, I didn’t need to worry about cold-weather clothes. Nevertheless, packing is always a mixture of elation and worry. Great, I’m going to travel, I said to myself. Then I immediately started fretting that it would all go wrong. Then the elation of leaving came back. I spent the days packing and unpacking my suitcase, as my emotions swung back and forth. Sometimes I thought I might stay longer than planned and would stuff in all manner of clothes. Then I’d think I wouldn’t even last five days, and out they’d come again.

  I had never travelled like this before, with an objective to fulfil, but after listening to my grandfather and giving it some thought, I had decided to accept the challenge. At the very least I might find some meaning for my pain, and maybe even a way to free myself of it. I wanted to walk again, to find my way. And it struck me as logical that if I retraced, in reverse, the path my forebears had taken, I would be free to find my own.

  The day I left, I had to get help to close my suitcase. Even though I’d rolled up my t-shirts and flattened my pants as much as possible, it was stuffed to bursting with clothes. It’s always best to err on the side of excess. I sat on top while a friend helped me lock it. Are you going for good? he joked. You never know, I replied.

  When the doctor came into the room, he was holding a jar with a weird, squishy object in it, almost as big as a melon. We stared at it, waiting for him to say something. He smiled, a smile that wavered between sarcasm and contentment, and announced: This is your spleen.

  That thing? you said in surprise. And what makes you think I’d like to see it?

  Because it’s your spleen, he said, disappointed.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the jar, staring with a mixture of disgust and fascination. I was looking at an organ. A sick organ. It was your spleen. And yet when I looked, you were still there, alive. You didn’t need it to carry on. Look how big it was!

  Normally a spleen is about twelve centimetres long. Yours was thirty.

  Your eyes bulged. Really?

  The doctor came closer with the jar, but you looked away. That’s enough, you said, please don’t insist.

  He told us about the surgery and post-operative procedures. I couldn’t take my eyes off the spleen. It looked soft and slimy.

  A month earlier, the doctor had given you the news: you would need an operation. Your spleen was very swollen; the malignant cells were proliferating.

  But how will I live without a spleen, doctor?

  Well, anyone can live without it. It’s a useless organ.

  If it’s useless, why do we have it? you asked like a curious little girl.

  The doctor didn’t answer. He just noted down the hospital and date of the operation in his planner. We left feeling cold.

  I’ve never had an operation, you said. I’m afraid.

  Relax, I said. Didn’t you hear him? Everything indicates that it’ll be simple, without any risks. As I spoke, I stared at your belly, an enormous ball. You’ll feel a lot better afterwards.

  I know, but I’m scared anyway, you said.

  You’ll have time to get used to the idea, to prepare yourself. But don’t blow things out of proportion. Trust the doctor, he knows what he’s doing. If he said you can live without your spleen, and that the operation is simple and for the best, then believe it.

  When we got to the car, you were sweating. Do you want me to drive? I asked.

  It was a long month. Every day we thought about it, talked about it. Fear was plastered across the walls of the flat. Every morning the same anxiety, wishing that time would pass quickly, and that time wouldn’t pass at all.

  What day is it today? you’d ask me first thing each morning.

  Stop worrying so much, Mother. Relax, you’ll be fine, you’ll be fine, I’d say. And you’d answer like an echo: Yeah, I’ll be fine.

  In all honesty, it hadn’t passed through my mind that the operation wouldn’t go well. The doctor had been very optimistic and had explained how simple the procedure was, and I’d believed him. If it weren’t for the fear stamped across your face, I wouldn’t even have thought about it until the day you were admitted to hospital.

  I dreamed every night of the scalpel cutting into me. They were going to take out a piece of my body, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to live without it. I was afraid they might cut me in the wrong place, that they wouldn’t find my spleen, that they’d cut out another organ, that they wouldn’t be able to close me up again.

  It was very early, still dark out, when we left the flat. You had to check in ahead of time so they could start you on medications and make sure you were fasting. The minute we set foot in the corridor, we were struck by the cold hospital smell. Your hand was sweaty, but anyone looking at you would have thought you were calm. Your sister and Dad arrived a short while later. First, two nurses came in and, after introducing themselves, put you on a drip with medications. We sat there chatting, trying to lighten the mood, to give the day some semblance of normality. Your sister talked about work, Dad talked about things in the news, and you and I listened more than we talked. An hour and a half later the doctor arrived, with the same smile he gave us every other time we met him: All up, the surgery shouldn’t take more than an hour, two at the most. You barely took in what he was saying, as the sedative was already beginning to take effect. First, we’re going to give you a general anaesthetic. Then we’re going to open you up and remove your spleen. It’s all very simple.

  When you were wheeled into the operating theatre, lying on the stretcher, you were mumbling things that barely made sense, like someone talking in their sleep. I held your hand until we got to the door and I had to let go. It hurt to have to leave you on your own, but I continued trusting in the doctor’s calm words. I went back to the room, where Dad and your sister were. We all wore serious expressions. Let’s go downs
tairs and get something to eat, said Dad. We spent more than an hour in a restaurant on the same street as the hospital, talking about anything but you, while the doctor took out your spleen. I think we’d best get back, I said. They might have finished. When we got to the hospital, it was a while before we were given an update. Everything was going well, but the operation was taking a little longer than expected.

  Almost an hour later, I felt my heart leap when the nurses brought you back. I stood quickly, needing to see you. You were lying on the stretcher with a sheet over you. You were awake, but still groggy from the anaesthesia.

  Are you okay, Mother?

  You grunted something I couldn’t understand.

  Ever since she left the theatre, said one of the nurses, she’s been asking for someone by the name of Vivi. Are you Vivi?

  No, I said, worried that you’d gone mad, that you’d forgotten my name. And I started repeating like an idiot: Mother, it’s me, don’t you recognise me? And you said: Vivi.

  Who’s Vivi? I asked, convinced by the nurse’s certainty that Vivi was a person. You just kept repeating: vi-vi, vi-vi, vi-vi. Then suddenly I understood. You weren’t calling for someone, you were announcing to yourself and the world: Vivi! I’m alive! It was only then that I realised the extent of your fear. When I let go of your hand and you were taken into the operating theatre, that was what you had felt. I hadn’t understood a thing. I hadn’t sensed your fear. It hadn’t crossed my mind that something might go wrong. You were just having your spleen out. It was only when I realised that Vivi wasn’t a person that I understood — for the first time — that your fear wasn’t just any old fear of something unfamiliar: you were afraid of dying.

  The first time we went out for a beer, I already knew what awaited me. We were in a bar somewhere in Botafogo. We didn’t know each other very well, but I was already smitten. I couldn’t think about anything but your body, your voice, the way you walked, gestured, dressed. You said you had a huge crush on me, that there was something about me. You said you hadn’t felt this way about someone for a long time, as we drank beer after beer. I listened to every word and felt my body quake: with fear, desire, happiness. You spoke words of passion, and I believed them. But at the same time I gazed into your eyes and knew everything, discovered everything. I gazed into your eyes and understood that, even if you came to love me, we’d never love each other in the same way. I knew from the start that my love would always be stronger than yours and, as a result, I also knew the suffering that awaited me. It was our first date, and I was overjoyed to be sitting beside you. It was a gigantic feeling that barely fit inside my small body, although it came mixed with a kind of pain in anticipation, as if I were foreseeing our future and divining in your eyes all the happiness and all the sadness that were in store for me.

  He was already on the ship when he felt a tightening in his chest, his stomach churning with anxiety: only he knew the real reason for his departure. You can always make a better life no matter where you are, but you can’t run away. No, to run away you need to board a ship and sail many miles, especially if your reason is love, an impossibly big love, as his was. He was travelling third class and his bunk was small, among so many others. The air had smelled sour since the start of the voyage, and he thought it would be hard to bear the stench, the strangers, the screaming children, and the drunks, while carrying so much pain. Truth be told, he wasn’t motivated to start a new life so far from his roots. What was more, he’d heard that the streets of Brazil were teeming with rats, cockroaches, and wild animals, rubbish scattered everywhere, and the air was so hot you could barely breathe. But it was where he had cousins, contacts, people who could help him. He couldn’t stay in Smyrna.

  An old man deposited his belongings on the bed next to his with a frown, as if to say he didn’t feel like chatting. It’s for the best, he thought, since he wasn’t really in the mood to get to know other people either. He preferred to keep to himself, lying on his bed, thinking his own thoughts.

  Rosa was her name. When her father had found out that she and one of his shop employees were exchanging glances, he hadn’t hesitated to take drastic measures. Rosa was only allowed to leave the house in the company of her older brother, whose job it was to ensure their father’s orders were obeyed. My grandfather was fired. Get out, go get a job somewhere else, preferably far from my establishment, my house, my neighbourhood, my country. He had been looking for another job for a year and it was only now that he was taking his former boss’s advice. Only now, on the eve of Rosa’s marriage to the young man her father had chosen for her.

  In his suitcase were the few letters he had exchanged with her on the rare occasions that they had managed to be alone, even if only for a few quick seconds. When he’d heard of her engagement, he’d spent a few days locked in his room until he decided to leave for a distant country. Before departing for Brazil, he gave her one last letter full of sweet, tender words and swore that his love was eternal.

  When I arrived in Istanbul, I was holding my Portuguese passport instead of my Brazilian one, thinking it would be less of a headache. There was a long queue in front of the federal police counter. Turks on one side, foreigners on the other. When it was my turn I heard: You need a visa.

  What?

  It’s the law. Portuguese citizens need visas.

  But I’m not Portuguese, I’m Brazilian. No, I’m not Brazilian, I’m Turkish. My grandfather is from here; my forefathers were all Turks. I am too. Don’t I look Turkish? Look at my long nose, my small mouth, my olive eyes. I’m Turkish.

  The officer sniffed. You need a visa.

  I didn’t bother to argue. I’d never convince him. I turned and headed for immigration. Peeved, indignant, and disappointed. I needed a visa to enter the country of my ancestors? They were born here, grew up here: didn’t any of that matter? Ten euros and a stamp in my passport: úç ay süreli müteaddit giri vizesidir. Çalişma hakki vermez. I have a three-month tourist visa, but I can’t work. I am definitely not Turkish.

  You were already blind in one eye when the doctor said: There’s nothing else I can do. If you can afford it, your best bet would be to try a hospital in the United States. Maybe there they can stop the disease from advancing.

  We didn’t hesitate. We packed our bags and in two days we had moved country.

  The first time I rang your doorbell I knew I was signing a contract without an expiry date. If any kind of rescission were possible, it should have been established there, at that moment, before walking through your door. But how could I not walk through it? Why not walk through it? My body still wasn’t paralysed, I wanted to walk; I wanted to see what had caught my attention on the corner, discover what was waiting for me on the other side of the road. In those early days, my passion manifested as hunger — for novelty, conversation, caresses, sex. I wanted to devour everything in front of me, everything that came from you. And that is what happened. I rang the doorbell, perspiring. My t-shirt clung to my torso, lightly outlining my breasts. When you opened the door, I couldn’t disguise my desire to jump on you, right there in your front hall. You ran your hand across my face, taking your time behind my ear, my neck. You tidied my hair with one hand and held the back of my neck with the other. You were asking too much of me at that moment, requiring that I be patient. I let myself be led, containing my fury and desire to control. And therein lay my pleasure: in being surprised, in being guided somewhere unexpected. With each touch of yours, fingers, lip, nose, I felt my skin quickly unravelling, in contrast to the slowness of your movements. You stared at me — eyes, chin, breasts, stomach — as if you wanted to destabilise me, lift my feet off the ground. And you did. At that moment, I was already treading on air. My feet were no longer in contact with the earth. There was no doubt in your mind: I was already yours. And, as if wanting to show me that you knew it, you held me firmly, squeezed my arms, and pressed your mouth to mine, your tongue to mine. You ran your hand do
wn my body. The further your fingers probed, the more vulnerable I felt. Your tongue found my breasts, one and then the other, and slid around my nipples, leaving them almost as wet as I was below, still waiting. Not for long, it is true, because I soon felt your hand under my skirt, my legs parting slightly, the invitation already made. And, as I was able to testify so many other times, few things excited me as much as your fingers pulling aside my knickers, leaving me exposed. To quickly cover me again with your fingers. Take me to bed, I said. You pretended not to hear. With both hands, you lifted up my skirt, yanked off my underwear, and then kneeled slowly. I remained standing while you implored something between my legs, in a language understood only by the two of you, my clitoris and your mouth.

  On the walls of the room, just moss. The stench of a closed environment. Objects green with mould. Everything falling apart, old before its time. In the middle of the room lies my bed of rotting wood. I don’t even know how it is still standing. In the middle of the bed lies my body. Dilacerated, covered in open wounds, purple and yellow spots, boils. Corroded by the ancestral nature of the room. Almost incapable of movement. In the middle of my body sits the typewriter. Its keyboard almost entirely erased, its ink almost gone. My blood-caked hands type these words, one letter at a time.

  I left the airport still indignant about needing a visa. Better to forget the whole thing quickly. The lack of recognition on the part of Turkish Immigration wouldn’t change my relationship to the country in the slightest. Or maybe they were right and I wasn’t Turkish after all. Maybe I had no reason to be there. I’d be a tourist like any other, I thought, wandering through mosques, boating on the Bosporus, eating lamb, visiting castles and museums, buying rugs, leather, and spices in the Grand Bazaar. I’d ask people in the street to take pictures of me and I’d say cheese at the right moment. I’d be the most foreign of tourists, awkwardly asking for information, laughing at things that weren’t funny. I’d take guided tours and see the city from the top deck of a bus, paying attention to everything the guide said. I’d go to restaurants where there was belly dancing, women with gyrating hips. Then I’d return to Brazil and invite my friends over to see the photos. I’d tell everyone what a beautiful country it was, that I had never imagined it was so exuberant, with enormous palaces and mosques, overflowing with the wealth of times past. I’d tell everyone I’d never seen anything so different before, a mixture of Eastern and Western cultures. I’d tell everyone that most of the women wore headscarves or veils. That the men stopped working when they heard the call to prayer. I’d tell everyone that the city was a little dirty, but very safe — you didn’t have to worry about going out with your camera hanging from your neck. I’d tell them all that they had to go, they had to visit Istanbul, it was worth it, really worth it, the most beautiful city I’d ever seen.