The Time of Mute Swans

by Ece Temelkuran

  The papers were still there on the table. I stuck them under my shirt, against my belly. They touched my skin, and it was like swan’s wings were touching me. I was excited to show them to Ali. We’re going to be heroes. We’re going to have an adventure. All the way home those papers made a soft sound, like mulberry leaves in the wind, but Mom didn’t even look at me. If she’d asked, I might have told her I’d taken papers about swans because Ali is really smart and he’d understand. But she didn’t ask. Today, Mom wore the nice shoes that make her feet hurt. She was limping a little. I walked slow, too, and the papers didn’t make very much noise. Not that Mom was listening to me. Ali’s going to be so surprised!

  Charity and Friendship

  It’s Saturday night. Mom and Dad are drinking rakı out on Samim’s terrace. Because Ali is spending the night, he’s visiting Samim Abi and Ayla Able with us. Tomorrow, we’re going to a concert with Grandma. Ali and I are watching TV in the living room. I can hear the other guest talking out on the terrace. Her name is Süheyla.

  “It happened at Tuncer’s burial service. Everyone was shouting slogans and crying. The guy who dug the grave—one of ‘the people’ we always glorify—was scrambling up out of the grave when a National Lottery ticket fell out of his pocket. Everyone was looking at him. Anyone, he went back down into the grave, picked up the ticket, checked it was legible, and put it in his pocket. This is the guy who a minute ago was singing revolutionary anthems with his fist in the air. It got me to thinking…. ‘The people’ inhabit a world we’ll never understand. A precarious dream world, a world of survival.”

  Because Süheyla Abla is from Istanbul, she has long hair and a long dress with flowers on it. She writes books. She wears lots of rings, really different rings. She has Bodrum sandals made of leather. Her toes are pretty: long, thin, white, and clean. When she talks, she crosses her legs and jiggles her foot. And she makes her hair move back and forth, like it’s windy, except there isn’t any wind. She’s got yellow hair, and when she stands under the light it looks like Lucy’s hair in Dallas. She’s not famous, but she looks famous. That’s because she’s from Istanbul. I’ve seen pictures of “Istanbul Nights” in Auntie Jale’s Weekend supplements. When Süheyla Abla is talking, Mom looks at the table and secretly smiles. Some of the girls in my class smile like that when another student is at the blackboard and doesn’t know the answer.

  Süheyla Abla laughs a lot while she’s talking. Mom and Dad and Samim Abi and Ayla Abla keep looking at each other, but they don’t laugh.

  “But our revolutionary men get on like a house on fire with ‘the people.’ That’s because there’s one thing they have in common: fear of women!”

  Ali’s not talking right now because he’s playing with his string, but he’ll talk later. Mom’s sitting sideways, tearing off little pieces of her rolling papers and making them into tiny balls. She’s lifting her eyebrows and making her mouth small. That’s what Mom does when she doesn’t want to talk. Or maybe it’s because she doesn’t like Süheyla Abla’s flowery dress and loud voice. I think she’s talking extra loud so the others will look at her. I can hear music coming up from Jale Hanım’s house. Ali is thinking. He says he needs to “take action.” I gave him the swan papers. He couldn’t believe it. I might become a revolutionary too! But first we have to get the butterflies into Parliament.

  They started playing in the street again. Bang bang! Ali says it was a handgun, not a rifle. Dad and Samim Abi pulled the table close to the living room door. For a while, everybody was quiet. Then Süheyla Abla started talking again. She holds out her fingers and rubs her rings together while she’s talking.

  “This country wakes you up in the middle of the night to a sense of dread, and, in the morning, to a sense of shame. Overnight, while you were in your bed, terrible things were happening somewhere, and with the morning light you blame yourself for the deaths of people you’ve never met. You’re constantly under siege. It’s paralyzing!”

  —

  I can’t tell Ayşe about those “terrible” things. She’d be scared. But they told me about them at the cinema. “They gouged out the eyes of the bodies in Çorum…. They’re murdering more leftists in Çorum…. They’re massacring Alevis.” Hüseyin Abi is going to rescue the people in Çorum. It was at the outdoor summer cinema in Öveçler that they told me. We went there on the bus to see Revenge of the Snakes. But first the big brothers and big sisters got up and gave a talk. Then they all shouted together: “Down with fascism!” They said lots of things, but I couldn’t understand it all. Hüseyin Abi would have explained it better. He opens his arms when he talks, and everyone understands. When he explains, I don’t get scared. When he explains things, we always win. I should tell Ayşe the way Hüseyin Abi tells me.

  “Ayşe, we can get the butterflies into Parliament if we are united. If we’re united, they can’t break us.”

  —

  Ali got up. I can’t see the TV because he’s standing in front of it. He’s talking like I do on “show and tell” days at school.

  “The revolutionary path is … it might be covered with broken glass, but together …”

  Ali is holding up his arms. Now he puts his hands on his hips.

  “We must resist, Ayşe. If we don’t resist, there will be a dictatorship, and they’ll gouge out our eyes. Listen to me: our eyes! But you should get mulberry leaves from the police station. You won’t be an opportunist, because you have no other choice. Get some leaves tomorrow morning. I can’t go. They’ll know I’m a revolutionary.”

  —

  Ali makes me laugh! He’s so funny. He got mad at me, though. When he started playing with his strings again, I went over and gave him a hug. “You’re really clever,” I told him. He likes that. He put his strings back in his pocket. Süheyla Abla is still talking out on the terrace. How can she have so much to talk about and why isn’t anyone else talking? I want to get some Coca-Cola for me and Ali. But I don’t want Mom to add water to it this time. We’re old enough to drink it without water. We’re old enough to “resist,” too.

  Süheyla Abla laughed to herself again. They’re still not looking at her.

  “If you ask me, we’re wasting our time.”

  Mom is still making her mouth small, but she opens it and talks.

  “Is that what they’re saying in your artistic circles in Istanbul?”

  “As if everyone in Ankara has joined a guerrilla movement, Sevgi Hanım.”

  Mom picked up a plate off the table and went to the kitchen. I followed her. A second later Ayla Abla came into the kitchen too.

  “Sevgi, I’m sorry about that. Sühelya hasn’t been the same since her fiancé was tortured to death.”

  “We can’t make everything about us, Ayla!”

  “She’s had a little too much to drink.”

  “We’re in the middle of a civil war, Ayla. If everyone gave up as soon as they lost someone … I wish she wouldn’t talk like that today of all days. They’ve just launched an operation in Fatsa. People are being tortured. The ‘common people’ are who she’s ridiculing. How dare she!”

  They went back to the table. I got a bottle of Coca-Cola, holding it in both hands. I’m going to pour me and Ali a glass, the exact same amount. Exactly equal!

  The bottle of Coca-Cola is teetering on the tray, but nobody’s looking at me. They’re looking at my mom and Süheyla Abla, who’s laughing like Sue Ellen now. You know, when Sue Ellen gets sad and laughs with a drink in her hand. Süheyla Abla leans close to the table and lifts her hand at my mom.

  “There’s something I’ve never understood. That quiet arrogance you’ve all adopted out here in the sticks, in Ankara. What have any of you done? You get together with your friends and try to stay alive, just like everyone else.”

  I made it all the way to the coffee table without spilling a drop. And I didn’t spill any when I poured it into the glasses either. If I had, I’d have given the bigger glass to Ali. When he sits in the armchair his feet poke in
to the air. His feet aren’t dirty, he’s just got brown skin.

  —

  I need to be brave, like Hüseyin Abi and the other big brothers. But I can’t talk like he does. I’ll sit here, and I won’t try to hold out my arms.

  “Ayşe, you know that lunchbox you have? Let’s put the silkworms inside it. Then we’ll put in lots of leaves. A whole lot. If the silkworms get hungry, they won’t be able to sleep. And if they don’t sleep, they won’t grow up. We don’t want their tummies to grumble. After that, you need to go with your mom to Parliament.”

  I’m going to protect her. Hüseyin Abi would. When the teacher with the yellow hair asked me to bring her a stick, Hüseyin Abi got mad. He went to school with me the next day and said, “Shame on you! It’s bad enough you beat these kids, but you can at least get your own stick.”

  She never beat us after that. Hüseyin Abi will say, “Shame on you!” in Çorum, too, and they’ll stop hurting people. It worked when he told Uncle Laz not to hit Nuran Abla. Uncle Laz never hit her again.

  —

  It sounds like Mom is shouting at Süheyla Abla. I mean, not really shouting, but her voice is sure loud.

  “What matters is principles and the establishment of a new social order. That’s what they’ve tried to do in Fatsa, even if on a very small scale. They’re establishing a new way of life. In the middle of fascism, surrounded on all sides, they’re trying out a new way of life.”

  Süheyla Abla laughed like a wicked-hearted woman again.

  “Friends of mine went to that festival in Fatsa. There you are, an intellectual visiting from Istanbul, and they tell you not to drink alcohol, not to do this and that, not to upset the locals by—”

  Dad jumped in to help Mom. Together, they’ll make Süheyla Abla be quiet.

  “I’m sure your friends have every opportunity to drink rakı to their heart’s content in Istanbul. The fascists are afraid of what’s happening in Fatsa not because there’s been a bloody uprising—there hasn’t—but because the people there are peacefully showing that a better life is possible. It’s not revolutionary violence the fascists fear, it’s the success of a revolutionary order. Fundamentally, they fear life itself. And our moral shortcoming is that we’ve become too entrenched in our middle-class lifestyle to join them in Fatsa.”

  “Well you can say that again,” Süheyla Abla said, with a wicked laugh.

  Now they’re all standing up and talking at once. That’s what grown-ups do when they get excited about politics. Ali ignores them and tugs at my arm.

  “Are you listening to me? We need to get lots of mulberry leaves. I checked the Wonderland of Knowledge, and it says they’re going to spin cocoons soon.”

  “But I want you to come with me to the police station.”

  “No. Go with your grandma.”

  “No. What if they hurt me?”

  “They won’t hurt you. You’re different.”

  “You’re just saying that because I’m not poor. You’re the one who said it wasn’t a game. You said it, not me!”

  “Okay. We’ll go together. If they beat us and we’re together, it won’t hurt very much.”

  I sat down next to Ali so he wouldn’t get scared. He gave me a piece of string from his pocket. Ali made himself a ring out of another piece of string.

  —

  I’ll go to the police station with Ayşe. We’ll stay together, shoulder to shoulder. United. I don’t drink much of my cola. It burns my lips. Soda does that too. Ayşe loves it, though. She takes a big swallow and goes, “Ohhh!” Maybe her lips don’t burn. There’s so much food on the table out on the terrace. They don’t eat it all. It just sits there. They eat slowly, just a few bites at a time. I wish I could take some of that food home. But how can I? If I can’t take any food home, I shouldn’t eat any. They think I don’t like their food. That’s not it, though. It’s just … if Mom can’t eat it, I shouldn’t either.

  I don’t understand those papers about swans. Maybe I’ll understand better tomorrow morning. Or maybe, when everyone’s in bed, I’ll turn on the light—because they have electricity here—and try to read it again. All you have to do is press the switch, like in school.

  —

  I can’t read small letters like Ali, but I looked at those papers. I can tell from the drawings that they’re going to do something to the swan’s wings. I think it’ll hurt. Ali says he’ll read it later. He’s smart. He’ll understand. But what if he doesn’t? Sometimes even grown-ups can’t agree on words.

  That’s what they said when I went to Kızılay Square with my dad a couple of days. Dad’s friends were living in a big tent in the square because they were on strike. They work at the Turkish Language Institute, and they fight over words all the time. Some words are bad—not because they’re dirty words or curse words, but because they’re “loanwords.” The Turkish Language Institute wants to give those bad words back to their owners. Anyway, me and Dad went to the tent because the strike was ending that day. Everyone was playing drums and dancing, because that’s what happens when a strike ends. One of the uncles started yelling.

  “We have been striking not just for our social benefits but to protect our language. This is a victory both for our union and for our mother tongue.”

  Samim Abi came up to us.

  “Hey, look who’s here. Aydın Abi. And you brought little Ayşeyevich, I see.”

  Everyone was happy, and nobody wanted to go home. Dursun Dede came over. He smokes all the time, and he plays games with me. He always talks to me first. He can make a whistle out of a piece of rolling paper. One time he made a rabbit. It wiggled its ears when you pulled its tail. He’s a teacher. When I grow up, I’m going to read his books.

  Dursun Dede can’t get to the end of a sentence without coughing. He stood in a cloud of smoke and talked to my dad and Samim Abi.

  “Things aren’t looking good. Khoff khoff! We’re in for some terrible times.”

  Everybody was happy. Dursun Dede tried to be happy, too.

  “We’re still waiting for your revolution, guys!”

  Then he looked at me.

  “Don’t get me wrong, little miss. It’ll happen one day. Khaff khak khak! But the grown-ups aren’t working hard enough. When it’s your turn, you’ll do a better job.”

  Dad shook his head and looked serious.

  “I worry about the kind of world we’re passing on to our kids.”

  Samim Abi put his hand on his hip. His face got all wrinkly, like Dursun Dede’s, because the sun was getting in his eyes.

  “What worries me is that we’re not going to be able to pass anything on. They’ve started censoring everything. We had to cut half of the footage from Çorum. All this history, straight into the rubbish bin.”

  “Store everything you can,” Dursun Dede said. “Hide it for our kids. Have you heard the latest about the language committee? They’ve recommended the official dictionary drop the word ‘resistance.’ And it’s not even a loanword!” Then he went over and started talking to some other uncles with white hair and beards.

  Samim Abi shook his head.

  “Nothing makes sense anymore, Aydın.”

  That’s when I asked my dad.

  “Dad, what are they going to do to the swans?”

  “What swans?”

  “The ones in the park.”

  “Nothing, I guess.”

  “That’s not what Uncle Selahattin said!”

  “What did he say?”

  Dad forgot! He doesn’t remember. I got a lump in my throat. It hurt to swallow. I’m not going to tell Dad I took the swan papers from Uncle Selahattin’s office. I hope Ali can read them tomorrow.

  —

  I wish I could take home some bread at least. The other morning, Mom and the other women were doing a bread boycott. Soldiers brought us bread. We don’t have money to buy store bread. The soldiers don’t understand. They came in a jeep with GMC on the front. The back of it was full of sacks of bread. They wanted to give the wo
men the bread, but the women wouldn’t take it. That’s because the women were cooking their own bread on iron plates over a fire. Up on the wall was a piece of cardboard with big letters saying: “Bread, equality, freedom!”

  Flat bread is revolutionary. That’s why the soldiers brought us the opportunist store bread. Mom shouted at them.

  “Look here, soldier! Take your bread back. Don’t make me throw it away!”

  The bread fell onto the ground, because they were fighting. Uncle Dürüst came up, quiet as a swan. And his hair is white not because he’s old but because they gave electric shocks to his pee-pee in the coup. He slowly picked up the loaves of bread. Everyone was fighting. A soldier kicked over the metal plates. Cinders flew up. Hüseyin Abi was in Çorum, so he couldn’t “organize” us. Some of the aunties’ muslin scarves fell to the ground. Birgül Abla swung at a soldier and said, “Shame on you! How can you hit an old woman?”

  One of the soldiers went back to the jeep. He was quiet as a swan too. Uncle Dürüst said something to him, but I couldn’t understand any of the words he used. The soldier took the bread from Uncle Dürüst one by one, put them in the back of the jeep, and left with the other soldier. The women celebrated by waving poles in the air, the long, thin poles they turn the bread with while it’s cooking. The dark-skinned aunties made a loud, high sound, like a screaming bird. That’s what they do when they’re happy. They’re from Diyarbakır, and I can’t understand a word they say.

  Mom took Birgül Abla’s arm, and they sat down next to the open fire.

  “Listen, Birgül. This isn’t working. We’re getting scattered.”

  “What do you mean, Aliye Abla?”

  Mom laughed.