The House in Smyrna

by Tatiana Salem Levy

  Still mesmerised by the beauty of the young woman I had just discovered, I imagined what it would be like to touch her radiant skin, because after exfoliation it is smoother, softer. Our connection was explicit. She smiled at my awkwardness, at how ill at ease I was with such a new experience, and I smiled in response, happy that she was there, in the same room, witness to my first Turkish bath. I smiled at her beauty, enchanted by her delicacy, almost laughing out loud: I had never seen such a beautiful woman before.

  As I stood up, another bucket of water was thrown over me. I already felt confident enough to scrub my own body in front of everyone. I asked Sihem if I could pour the bucket over myself. She filled it again and handed it to me with a self-satisfied look, certain that the fact I was enjoying the ritual was her achievement. I noticed the other women looking at me, and some of them started to give me some tips, explaining what I should do through gestures. I imitated them diligently. Suddenly, one walked over, handed me her glove and asked me to scrub her back. I trembled. I didn’t have the slightest idea how to do it. I was afraid. She sat there waiting for me to exfoliate her, as Sihem had just done to me. Tired of waiting, she turned around, took back her glove, and waved her hands in the air, explaining what I was supposed to do. Nothing complicated; all I had to do was start. The glove was rough and a certain amount of pressure had to be applied for it to be effective. I felt as if I was hurting her, but it was evident that I wasn’t. She was used to it and probably came to the hammam once a week, as was the custom in her religion. I was already growing tired when she asked for the glove back and gave me a smile of approval.

  In the other room, the heat was more bearable. That was where I was given the massage. Lying on my belly, I felt Sihem’s hands working the knots out of my muscles. I was tense, as usual. My lower back hurt, my neck and shoulders were stiff, rocks embedded in my body. Are you carrying the world on your shoulders? she asked me. I told her that people always asked me that, but no, it wasn’t the world. I was carrying my past, I was carrying a story that wasn’t mine, which was why I was there in Turkey. I told her that my grandfather had emigrated from Smyrna. That I was there in search of my past and to look for the old family home. She listened with attention and it was as if in that moment we became equals for the first time.

  So you’re Turkish?

  Not exactly.

  Do you speak Turkish?

  No.

  Not at all?

  Absolutely nothing.

  But you’re Turkish anyway. You look Turkish — I had already noticed your features.

  Crack, crack, went my bones and I sighed with relief. She was a little heavy-handed for my small body, and I was a bit uncomfortable, but there was no way I was going to complain, much less now that our connection had been legitimised. After I told her why I was in Turkey, she made the massage even more intense, as if doing her part to help me free myself of the past. I felt that she wasn’t just loosening up my muscles, but also fighting against everything I had just told her.

  The young woman left while I was lying on my belly. I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye, to look into her eyes one last time. By the time Sihem finished the massage, the woman had simply gone. Anxiously, I looked for her. She couldn’t have disappeared like that. How could I continue my journey without her? Without those breasts that I had never touched? Without the mouth that I had never kissed? No, she couldn’t have left without saying goodbye to me.

  I think Sihem had spent more time with me than was usual. I was exhausted from the trip, from so many new things. Exhausted just to think about what lay ahead of me. Would I find my ancestors’ home? Would the key still be the same? I tried to believe in the story I had invented for myself, a story that I was still inventing — the only one capable of providing me with any answers, perhaps the craziest story of all, but also the most real. I didn’t know to what extent my grandfather’s stories were true, to what extent what I was experiencing now was true. I didn’t even know if my journey was real. It seemed that the closer I got to the facts, the further I got from the truth.

  Today I masturbated thinking about you with another woman. For heaven’s sake, am I going mad?

  We weren’t in the hospital anymore, but in a hotel in the city of Baltimore, in the United States. I thought you were still asleep and opened the curtain only a crack, so as not to wake you. Outside, the city glimmered. You heard me moving about the room and asked if I was up. Yes, it’s almost nine o’clock, I said, glancing at the clock on the nightstand. Your eyes were closed. I’m going to open the curtains, I said. It’s a beautiful day out. You didn’t say a thing, and it occurred to me that I was the one who shouldn’t have said anything. I saw you opening your eyes and then closing them, opening them again, closing them again. That was when it dawned on me that maybe it made no difference, and I realised that your open eyes didn’t linger on anything. They were like two lost marbles, like an instrument that you didn’t know how to use. I saw it, and I didn’t say anything. I watched you and noticed that as I looked at you, you didn’t look at me. We’d never look into each other’s eyes again. Like in a film in fast motion, I began to imagine everything that you’d never see again: the sun outside; the cities of the world, with people walking, bumping into one another, hurrying past, or just strolling along; the dogs; the birds. You’d never again see Rio de Janeiro, Ipanema, Copacabana, the beach, the sunset, the moon rising over the ocean, the trees. You’d never again watch films; you’d never read another book. And when my hair grew long or when I cut it off, or when I bought new clothes, or put on weight, or got pregnant, or grew old, you wouldn’t see it. You wouldn’t see a thing. Ever again.

  Mother? I blurted out, almost shouting, as if calling for help. Mother? I said, almost crying, almost collapsing, as if hearing you speak might stop me.

  Yes? you said, without any enthusiasm in your voice.

  I think I’m going to get something to eat, a sandwich or some yoghurt. What would you like?

  Anything, you said. I’m not hungry.

  Okay, maybe I’ll buy some fruit, a banana or an apple, I said as I got dressed, my eyes full of tears. I just wanted to get out of the room so I could cry without you hearing me. And I did, from the hotel corridor until the moment I returned with two sandwiches and a banana. When I came back, you were still lying in bed, in the same position, opening and closing your eyes. I left the paper bag on the table next to the television and lay down next to you. We didn’t touch the food.

  Mother? I said, this time in a steady voice, as if my tears had carried away my fear.

  What? you said, eyes wide open, unblinking.

  You can’t see anything anymore, can you?

  You didn’t answer, just shut your eyes, and it was your mouth that cried, your downturned lips. Then I hugged you tightly, very tightly, and said: Everything will be okay, you’ll see. I listed all the things you could do without seeing: there was still lots of music to listen to; I’d read you stories, newspapers, novels, poetry; we could talk a lot, eat yummy things, and drink good wines; you could dictate to me everything that you wanted to write; you could imagine all the films that you wouldn’t see, because in your head you could still see lots and lots, you could still see whatever you wanted. Lying there like that, you listening in silence as I enumerated all the things you could do, we invented a world for ourselves for the last time, we created the world we would live in for the last time. We still didn’t know that in two weeks it would all be gone, that in two weeks you wouldn’t be able to see or imagine, or listen to music, or taste good wines, or hug me, or hear the many many stories that I wanted to tell you.

  I had two names on a piece of paper: Raphael and Salomon. The surname was exactly the same as mine. These were the people I had to look up when I got to Smyrna. According to my grandfather, it wouldn’t be hard to find them, because it was a small community and he’d received news of them only
a few years earlier from some cousins in France. Yes, maybe the channels would be open and I’d find them easily, but then what? What was I supposed to do after I located them? I was afraid I wouldn’t know what to say, that I wouldn’t have anything to talk about with those people of whom I knew nothing. I knew that in some way, at some point, we crossed paths on the same family tree. But what did they do? What did they think? How did they live? Would we have any affinities, subjects of mutual interest? Or would they be as foreign to me as the people I saw in the streets of Istanbul, as the people I had come across by chance and whom I would probably never see again? I was hesitant, but at the same time anxious to find out what was going to happen on this journey, in the story I was telling myself.

  When you leaned over to whisper sweetly in my ear, I knew you were going to ask me to do something: Tomorrow, I want you to go out for the day and only come back in the evening. I want you to wear a miniskirt without anything underneath. Yes, you heard me: I want you completely naked underneath.

  This journey is a lie: I’ve never left this musty bed. My body rots a little more each day, I’m riddled with pustules, and soon I’ll be nothing but bones. My legs are covered in weeping wounds and my flesh is raw. How could I undertake such a journey? I have no joints; my bones are fused to one another. The only way I could leave this bed is if someone were to carry me, but who would pick up such a repugnant body? What for? I have the silence and solitude of an entire family in me, of generations and generations. As if all the happy things that they all lived had dissipated into the air, leaving only the sad ones. When I was born, my parents took one look at me and knew that I was sadness and solitude. That after me there would be nothing, because after sadness and solitude there is nothing. Ever since I was a girl, it’s always been the same: whenever someone looks at me, I see fear cross their face, because I came into the world old and I carry death in my eyes.

  I have never left the spot, I have never travelled, I know nothing but the darkness of my room. The key my grandfather gave me is still beside me, lying on the bed as if it were part of my putrid body. We are both the colour of worn bronze, covered in dust. It is as if we were one, so rusted that, in a person’s hand, we would be nothing but dust, lumps of flesh, and shards of metal.

  Don’t you ever think about positive things? Don’t you have any dreams? I do, of course I do. I dream that one day a prince will come to fetch me on a white horse. I won’t need to make any effort. He’ll know that I’m the woman he has been looking for. All we’ll have to do is look at each other to know we were made for one another. He’ll offer me his hand and take me, on horseback, to a beautiful place, where there will be a big party, where I will be reunited with everyone who has already departed this world and everyone that is still in it. We’ll live happily there, in a land that knows no death, no time, no pain. So you dream? Of course I dream. I have another dream that I’ve never told anyone. What is it? My dream, Mother, is to write. To write? Yes, I have this impossible dream: to write and write and write.

  He had sworn never to love another woman and, although he wished he could undo his promise, it was what ended up happening. When he saw Hilda at the club dance, he knew he would make a home with her. He also knew that he would cultivate affection and admiration for her, but never the love he had felt for Rosa. He had two left feet, and stepped on Hilda’s toes. He didn’t know the music had a beat to follow. The invitation (Let’s sit down a little?) was a way to avoid another such disaster. Hilda wasn’t especially beautiful (short, slightly hunched shoulders, long nose, crooked fingers), but she was attractive in her own way, with the charm of a woman who was quick to smile, at peace with life. And that was what drew him to her; he wanted someone cheerful by his side. He asked her how old she was, if she came to the club often, and if he could see her the following week.

  The second time they saw each other, they didn’t dance to a single song. They just talked. He asked about her family, where she was from, her father’s profession, and where they lived. The third time, again at the club, he asked if she was single. The fourth, in Lido Square, if she would like to marry him. The fifth, in Machado Square, if he could talk to his future father-in-law to ask for her hand in marriage. The sixth, at their home, Hilda hung back, watching her almost-fiancé talk to her father. The seventh, the eighth, the ninth, the tenth, and the eleventh, they talked about the wedding and the future. The twelfth time they saw each other, she drank from the wine the rabbi handed her, and he broke the glass, the noise of the splinters on the ground confirming that they would be connected for life, until death did they part.

  He and Hilda were a couple like many others. His business began to grow, with increasingly satisfactory profits, and he decided to expand the shop. He remained in the same downtown shopping district he’d been in from the start, but moved to a bigger establishment. At home, Hilda fell pregnant for the first time: they hoped for a boy to carry on the family business. He hired new employees to help in the shop, which was even busier. She suffered from morning sickness, and missed having company in the house. He worked late into the night at the shop. His ambitions were great. She felt her belly growing at a frightening pace. He barely saw her, and would arrive home with bookkeeping to do, his mind elsewhere. Her eyes teared up when she felt her baby’s feet kick for the first time. He was euphoric about the shop’s profits. She gave birth on a hot March day. He was there, heart beating wildly, when the doctor came out of the delivery room to give him the good news: it was a boy. His kingdom was guaranteed.

  By the time their second child (a girl) came along, the shop already had a branch in Copacabana, and the family had moved to a house in the now-affluent neighbourhood of Leblon — which, at the time, was madness: Leblon? But it’s so far away, so deserted … The girl came at a good time, because Hilda was aching for a companion. The daughter would keep her company as she starched collars, cooked dinner, and dusted the house. The son, in turn, was already a little king, demanding his mother’s constant attention and pampering.

  They were well-off by the time Hilda fell pregnant for the third time: another girl. He was a little disappointed at the news, while she was happy with what fate had given her, a new ally around the house. By now, the shop had another three branches in different parts of town, and no longer sold only tools, but all kinds of construction materials. This success in business ensured the family many privileges, such as an imported car, a driver, and two maids; and for the children, a bilingual school, and private piano and French lessons. The third child was born into the bosom of a family that was so successful it barely remembered the past. The suffering and hardship the father had endured before he was married were not to be mentioned. After all, what mattered now was that they were well, with good health, work, and harmony. Everything else was the past, and the past had to be silenced, left dormant among the threads of memory.

  No one was surprised when Hilda fell pregnant for the fourth time. An affluent family should proliferate. The second boy came into the world on the last day of an atypically harsh winter in Rio de Janeiro. But he was terribly weak, with underdeveloped lungs, and lived only three days. He never saw the family home and barely spent any time in his mother’s arms. My grandfather raged in the corridors, talked to himself, saying mazel bajo — it can only be God’s punishment. He felt deeply guilty, although he was guilty of nothing. It must have been a divine curse for some sin of his own. But why the boy? he repeated, unafraid and unashamed that his daughters might hear him.

  Four years passed, and silence and mourning reigned in the house. The boy’s ghost lurked in every room and, like the past, no one was allowed to talk about him. If someone mentioned him, even if only briefly, it would bring on a fit of paternal fury. As if it was disrespectful of his pain. Until, on another winter’s day, Hilda revealed that she was pregnant again. They would have another boy, it was certain.

  Wary of a second divine punishment, he curbed his urge to shout at the heave
ns when he walked into the hospital room and saw another girl in his wife’s arms. After a dead boy, a girl. There she was, fragile, trying to suck a little of her mother’s milk, and she could never have imagined how strong she would have to be in life. It was as if her body contained a secret that would only be revealed years later. Even as an adult, when she had to face the dictatorship and, later, cancer, she never lost the fragility that was evident in her tiny baby’s body.

  Her father thought he didn’t love her, because she reminded him of his dead son. Only when she was taken prisoner by the dictatorship and he feared he might lose her did he finally understand that his love was old, and that the ties that united them had been established at the hospital, the same day he had almost cursed fate for having brought him another girl.

  When you leaned over to whisper sweetly in my ear, I knew you were going to ask me to do something: Think of a woman. I closed my eyes and sought in my memory for a female body that excited me. Have you thought of someone?

  Wait, I said, and was immediately surprised by your face between my legs. With my eyes closed, I thought of the most beautiful breasts I had ever seen, ever wanted to touch. Small, round nipples. Maybe you, certain I was thinking about a woman, were thinking about her too. The same one or another one. And we made love untiringly, all over the flat. Then we lay on the bed and you asked who I had thought about, if she was real, what she looked like. Blonde? Brunette? If I’d ever made love with a woman, if I was attracted to women. Then we started all over again, you, excited by my answers, and I, excited to be telling you my stories, to invent stories.