The House in Smyrna

by Tatiana Salem Levy

  You stood and began to undress too. Your penis was hard, upright, and I liked seeing it like that, as if it were looking at me too. I liked gazing at your defined, almost hairless torso, your legs like those of a football player, your slightly muscular arms. You were still staring at me, with growing arousal, and your eyes touched me from across the room. We remained distant for a time, until our burning bodies could no longer bear the solitude, until they demanded the presence of hands, mouths, another burning body.

  I tell (make up) this story about my ancestors, this story of immigration and its losses, this story about the key to the house in Smyrna, about my hope of returning to the place that my forebears came from, but you and I (just the two of us) know that the real reason for my paralysis is something else. I tell (make up) this story to justify my immobility, to give the world and, in a way, myself, an answer, but you and I (just the two of us) know the truth. I wasn’t born like this. I wasn’t born in a wheelchair; I wasn’t born old. There is no gust of ancient times at my back. I became like this. I lost my movements one by one after you were gone. After I met death and it looked at me with its eyes of stone. It was death, your death, that slowly took away my movement, left me paralysed in this musty bed.

  I don’t want to be blamed for your paralysis. I am still holding my hand out to you, but I can’t be an accessory to this madness of yours. I didn’t choose to depart, and you know it. Now it is up to you to manage your life. All I can do is offer you my hand, my words. Please understand: I am gone now, and the only way for me to live on is through you. If you give up, I will be dead. If you don’t move, if you don’t leave this dark room, I’ll be stuck here too. Get up. Move. If not for yourself, for me. I’m not asking you to live without the dead, but to live with them. Listen to me just this once; make an effort. I’m not saying it’s easy. All I ask is that you change the position of your lens, look at things from another angle. You haven’t lost anything; you can never lose what is already yours. If you can understand the role of the dead in this life, you won’t spend another minute in this bed. Don’t give up, for if you do, you’ll be giving up on me. Live on and I live on.

  Istanbul is a city of doors. Not only the doors of mosques and palaces but also the ordinary ones — of people’s houses, of small establishments — are intricately carved. Most are wooden, and you need time to appreciate them. On every corner I found new doors that I was drawn to for different reasons: the size of the lock, the complexity of the design, the colour of the wood, its weight, its smell. Sometimes I was surprised by the owners, who came out to ask if I was looking for something. No, I’d say, I’m just admiring your door. Some would smile, others would scowl, and yet others would tell me stories about their doors — how old they were, what this or that design represented, why they were made of such-and-such wood, why they were large or small. Sometimes they would explain these things to me in English, and I thanked them; other times in Turkish, and I thanked them too. What mattered was knowing that the object of my fascination had a meaning. And in that manner I readied myself for Smyrna: familiarising myself with doors so that I wouldn’t have any unpleasant surprises when I came face to face with the one that awaited me.

  I love to ride my bicycle in the middle of the night after making love. But it has to be one of those old-fashioned bikes with curved handlebars, basket in front. Full skirt, the wind uncovering my thighs. I like to ride fast, through almost-deserted streets, without stopping at red lights. I like to take wide avenues and then narrow streets and alleyways, lose myself along routes I don’t know. My smile broad, without a trace of mystery, body still warm, arms and legs wobbly.

  They found him lying facedown on the ground, a pool of dried vomit on one side and his sister’s letter on the other. He hadn’t shown up to work, and his cousin had sent his youngest to see if anything was wrong. The boy was seven and got a fright when he saw him lying there on the ground. He thought he was dead. He raced down the street crying, shouting that someone had killed his cousin. There was a great commotion, and neighbours from the whole street, busybodies, came to see the tragedy. Some people like to see bodies covered in blood, stabbed, run over, and then turn their faces away and say: How awful! They were already making up stories — that he must have brought some kind of illness from his country, that he’d had a heart attack — when his cousin, the hardware-shop owner, came and rolled his body over. He held his hand under his nostrils and saw that he was still breathing. He’s not dead, he said, he’s just unconscious. Few of those present were able to hide their disappointment. If he had merely passed out, what was all the fuss about? They went back about their business, except the cousin and a neighbour, who carried him over to the bed, tried to reanimate him, and gave him water. At first they wanted to take him to the hospital, but when he slowly regained his colour and senses, they thought it best to leave him where he was. He said he felt fine and didn’t want to go anywhere. I’m sure it’s no big deal, said his cousin. You know what the heat’s like here … Rest up today and you’ll feel better tomorrow. He nodded, thinking that all he wanted was to be alone, in his bed, under the sheet. But he had to wait for his cousin to stop chatting, another hour or so, with the neighbour there too, laughing at his stories. They finally said goodbye. See you bright and early at work, okay?

  The next day he didn’t go to work, or the next, or the next. He didn’t get out of bed for over a month. He barely spoke, just muttered sounds of discomfort. All he ate and drank were a few pieces of toast and cups of white coffee. He was growing weak and his relatives said it could only be deskarinyo, thinking of sending him back to Turkey on the next ship. Even those who had lived in Brazil for a while still mixed Portuguese with their mother tongue. That’s why they said deskarinyo, which is their word for homesickness. They had already called the doctor, who said he was perfectly healthy: it must be in his head. What they didn’t know was that he was shattered. That for him there were only nights, his heart a dark pit of sadness and guilt. He had lost his love, little Rosa, and felt both victim and culprit of the pain.

  He spent a long month in bed, a truly endless night, thinking of Rosa’s delicate hands, her fine lips, her long hair, her shy manner — that of a girl in love for the first time. She had been his first love too, and he told himself that she would be the only one, that he’d never again love another woman as he had loved her, as he still loved her. He thought about the soft body that he had never known, and everything he could have done but hadn’t. And, when he thought that he should have stayed on in Smyrna and stood up to Rosa’s father, ignoring customs and tradition, he felt his heart unravel further and anxiety flood his body. He felt so bad that all he could do was tell himself: I want to die. He even considered suicide, believing only death could alleviate his suffering. He also believed that, by dying, he would no longer be to blame; that if he came to the same end as his beloved, he’d be forgiven. But he didn’t even have the strength to stand. His body and the bed were one, as he had once believed himself and Rosa to be. His arms and legs barely moved, roots had sprouted from his pores, his fingernails were curved, and his skin was showing signs of mould. It was only when his cousin said that if he didn’t budge he’d call some neighbours to help drag him out of bed that he finally got up. Shrugging off the roots that bound him to the mattress, he moved, after lying in the same place, in the same musty bed, for over a month.

  Why do you always focus on the pain? You’ve always been like this, ever since you were a little girl. Your grandfather’s story isn’t only one of loss. This story you are telling contains other stories. Why don’t you write, for example, about how fortunate he was to set foot in a country as welcoming as ours? Why don’t you say that he was only able to build everything he did because he left? Or that, when he arrived in Brazil, he found a peace that he hadn’t previously known? Why insist on words of pain? I can’t write any other way. I can be happy too, but not here. Happiness is a part of my life too: in bars, at the beach, with friends, o
n other journeys. But why can’t you bring it into your writing? I just can’t. If my writing doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t exist. If it doesn’t rend the body, it doesn’t exist. I keep returning to pain, because it is what makes me write. But why don’t you try? If you can’t write without pain, at least write without this weight, without guilt. Unburden yourself. Be light, let your words be light. I don’t know; I’m not sure I can, but I promise to try.

  Do you love me?

  Yes.

  How much?

  You and your questions again!

  Answer me: how much?

  Very much.

  But how very much?

  You can’t die. It’s not fair. I could argue that I’m too young to lose you, that you’re too young to leave. That I don’t know how to walk without a little of your scent accompanying me, without your tender words to warm me. That I’m still not ready to walk on my own; that I need a little more time. I need a lot of time. All of time. I could argue that there are still too many things we haven’t done together. That when I’m sad I won’t have your arms to wrap around me. That when I’m afraid I won’t have your skirt to hide behind. That I won’t have anyone to whom I can say ‘I love you’ over and over without the slightest fear, without misgivings. I could argue that there are things I’ve never told you, things I want to tell you. That you too must have stories to tell me. That I want you beside me to hear about the adventures I have yet to live. That I want you by my side when I publish my first book. That I want you by my side when my first child is born, and the second, and the third. I could argue all this and much more, because my desire that you stay is infinite. On the other hand, I know there are arguments for your departure: that’s life, it ends, death always comes sooner or later. But I refuse all arguments that are not my own. That’s why I cry, wail: Don’t go! It’s not fair! That’s why I shout, as I beat on your coffin of polished wood: Take my mother out of there! I throw my hands in the air like people who aren’t right in the head, like the only ones who are right, and repeat: Open the coffin! But everyone is uncomfortable and embarrassed: The poor thing. They pity me, but they don’t hear me.

  It’s a hot, sunny day. When loved ones depart, the days should not be hot and sunny. The gravediggers lower the coffin into the hole and take up large shovels. There are no flowers. There are stones. They cover the coffin with earth, leaving you in there, alone, and me out here, alone. I stop shouting, but I am positive that I am witnessing a great injustice, perhaps the greatest of all. And I think that if you were here everything would be different, that if you were here you’d surely hear me. You’d open the coffin and get out. You’d stand and walk towards me, take my hands, and tell me there’s no reason to suffer. If you were here, you’d surely dry the tears rolling from my eyes. But I speak to you and you don’t hear me. You can’t hear me anymore.

  We were in bed when the telephone rang. On the other end, a deep voice asked how I was and said he’d gotten my number from the friend whose party we’d met at the week before. Trying to make conversation, he said: I really enjoyed our talk, however quick, and I would like to get to know you better. I replied in monosyllables, but he was in no hurry to hang up. When he started talking about my eyes and hair, I felt uncomfortable; after all, you were right next to me. I was surprised when, instead of asking me to make up an excuse to end the call, you whispered: don’t hang up. You gave me no time to answer or protest. Before I knew it, you had pulled off my clothes, and, as you kneeled in front of me, all I could see was the top of your head. I listened to a stranger’s voice as I felt your tongue moistening me. It wasn’t easy to control the tone of the conversation, to pay attention to what the guy was saying, or to at least answer: Of course, let’s get together sometime. My legs thrashed as I spoke. Worried he’d detect something odd in my voice, I started talking as if I was in a hurry. You noticed and censured me. You wanted to see it through. I had to invent stories, topics, and ask where he’d met our mutual friend and what he did for a living, among other things in which I wasn’t even remotely interested. Meanwhile, your tongue became more and more intimate with my vagina, and they slotted together like two mouths kissing. My lower lips felt like my upper ones, incisive, independent, and, most unusually, with a sense of taste. I knew the taste of your tongue so well, but like that, in such an unexpected place, it was completely different. When I eventually hung up, it was because my mouth was between my legs and it would have been strange to go on talking with my lips engaged with yours.

  When I was a little girl, my mother told me a story that her father had told her when she was little. From time to time, I find myself leaving the present and returning to this same story, as if it were somehow mine, so great is the terror that it awakens in me. In Istanbul, there was a very large family — generations and generations — that never went anywhere. A family marked by immobility. They suffered when, for some reason, they had to move outside of their habitual territory. They all lived next door to one another, and their houses occupied an entire city block. The Tembers — that was their name — owned grocery stores and tailor shops on the same block. They rarely paid visits, except in exceptional cases. Until one day, in one of the Tember family homes, a fire started. It spread from house to house, until it engulfed the entire block. As usual, they didn’t do a thing, and waited for outside help. But the fire was so terrible that no one was prepared to risk their own life to save those of such static individuals. And, thus, the flames devoured the whole family, which, as a result of its paralysis, would never again walk this earth.

  His sister’s letters became fewer and farther between, which saddened him. Although he was already accustomed to his new life (he had been in Brazil for almost five years now), he still missed his family and some of the things he had left behind. The letters were the only way for him to feel a little closer to it all. Every word brought him a whiff of Turkey, of home. Writing also made him feel closer to his family, and he’d remember Saturdays, when they’d spend hours at the dining table, as if time didn’t exist. There was a consensus that on Saturdays no one was allowed to fight, so that, sincere or not, the atmosphere in the house was always one of congeniality and mutual affection. To him, letters were like Saturdays, moments when he felt warm and safe. They didn’t always bring good news, it is true, like the one that told of the fate of his beloved Rosa, but for some time now the content of his sister’s letters had been more happy than sad: she had fallen in love and become engaged, with their father’s blessing; the family was doing well; the older brother had married; everyone was in good health, except for a few aches and pains of their mother’s. So, when his sister’s letters stopped arriving weekly and became fortnightly, and then monthly, he feared that she was hiding something from him.

  He tried not to think about it and went about life as usual, although he kept asking if something was wrong. His sister was always emphatic: No, dear brother, nothing is wrong. I’ve just been busy with preparations for the wedding (she wrote, knowing that she would never marry, her hands shaky with disease, her body lying listlessly on the bed). He wanted to believe her, although he suspected there was a secret lurking among her words, an enormous, dangerous silence. So, when the postman handed him an envelope that didn’t have his sister’s name on it but his younger brother’s, he knew he’d been right: he hadn’t been imagining things; the truth was very different to what he’d read in her letters. He tore open the envelope, sensing that the words inside it would be no less painful than those of Rosa’s death.

  Dear brother,

  Unfortunately, I do not have good news. I know that for some time you have been asking if there was something wrong here at home, and if we decided not to tell you anything, it was because our sister wanted it this way. She didn’t want to worry you so far from home, and we respected her wishes. I would have preferred to do things differently, because I know that you, like me, prefer the truth, even when it is cruel and sad. But, please understand, it
is hard to refuse a request from a loved one when their body is being mercilessly ravaged by disease.

  I am writing now because there is no longer anything to hide, no last wish to be fulfilled. We went through seven months of great suffering and, knowing our father as well as you do, you can imagine how we could barely bring up the subject, much less utter the name of the disease. But now I can, I must: it was tuberculosis. She contracted it at the height of her happiness, when she and Samuel had already set their wedding date. You should have seen her, waltzing about the house, laughing at anything, her face rejuvenated, bubbling over with happiness. Until one day she woke up feeling weak, with a strange, scratchy cough. It must be a cold, we thought. Except that instead of getting better, she got worse by the day. When she came back from the doctor’s, I realised we’d never see that cheer again. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so sad. The atmosphere in the house became so heavy it was as if we’d all begun to stoop, as if we’d all fallen ill with her.

  Our house became the saddest in the neighbourhood, filled with the silent suffering of a family that knew it was going to lose its only daughter, and the suffering of that daughter, who believed she’d found happiness. She didn’t want to tell you anything, dear brother, because she wanted you to keep believing in a world that no longer existed. Her only moments of happiness were when she received letters from you with news of Brazil, your job, your health, and your friends, and she wanted the feeling to be reciprocal. ‘I don’t want him to know anything,’ she kept telling me, ‘because what good would it do? Or do you want him to leave his new home to come visit a sister who isn’t long for this world? We can’t be selfish,’ she insisted. ‘Each of us must meet our fate.’