The Time of Mute Swans

by Ece Temelkuran

  Jale Hanım can’t really talk with so much meatball in her mouth, but she says, “Oh, you mean … now who was that guy?” I listen to the news with Grandma.

  Former Prime Minister Nihat Erim has been assassinated by unidentified gunmen near his summer home in the Istanbul suburb of Dragos. The terrorist organization Revolutionary Left has claimed responsibility for the attack. Nihat Erim served as prime minister from March 26, 1971, to May 22, 1972.

  Grandma dropped her fork. “He tortured your mother,” she said. Just like that. Her mouth opened and closed before I understood. I don’t think she understood. It was that quick. For the first time, nobody was eating. Grandma started putting salad on her plate, a huge pile of salad. She looked at me to see if I was looking at her. And I was. Nobody said anything until the news was over. They just ate. A sign saying ENTERTAINMENT came up on the TV, and still they kept eating. They were about to burst like balloons. Then Füsun Önal sang “One Way Ticket” on TV, easy and free, just like the Americans. Jale Hanım and the others got all sleepy and sank into their armchairs with their arms folded over their bellies. Feride Abla was chewing gum again. “Sugar-free gum doesn’t count,” she told her mom. “Gum spoils your fast only if it has sugar in it.” She was reading Weekend when her dad asked what was on TV. That’s when she got the red magazine and told us about His Holiness, Ömer.

  “For crying out loud,” Jale Hanım said. “Those are the only kinds of movies they show during Ramadan.”

  Her husband said, “Good, good. We’ll learn something.” Jale Hanım and Feride Abla kept talking even though their eyes were closing.

  “Mom, I heard the ladies in the apartment building next door are having this ‘mukabele’ thing all through the night. Have you heard about it?”

  “It’s some kind of meal, right?”

  “No, Mom! It’s chanting passages from the Koran together, because of Ramadan.”

  “Well, let them pray the night away for all I care. If you ask me, they’re a little backward, the whole lot of them. I think everyone in that building is from Yozgat or some godforsaken place like that. Oh, except for that lady Sevgi visits, Ayla. But she and her husband are communists, from what I hear. Why can’t more people be like us? Fast during Ramadan, say your prayers at Bairam. Everything in moderation. But if I do say so myself, we did go a little overboard again tonight. We really must try to eat less. I say it every night, but …”

  Then they got quiet. Jale Hanım’s eyes closed, and so did her husband’s. Feride Abla took the phone into her bedroom. She’s calling her fiancé. I know that because Jale Hanım told Grandma once that Feride Abla always calls her fiancé “in secret” and it’s “hilarious.”

  When the Ömer movie started and everyone else was snoozing, Grandma talked to me real quiet.

  “Listen, Ayşe. God told people to fast so they would know what it’s like to go hungry. That’s why.”

  “But they ate so much!”

  “That’s because they’d gone hungry since dawn.”

  “Why did that man torture Mom? And when? Was I born yet?”

  “Forget I said anything. It never happened. I’m not thinking straight these days, Ayşe honey. It looks like everyone’s fallen asleep. Would it be terribly rude if we let ourselves out?”

  “Let’s turn up the TV. That’ll wake them up!”

  Grandma laughed. “Go ahead, turn it up.” Then Ömer yelled really loud on TV, and Jale Hanım and her husband almost jumped out of their seats. She went to the kitchen to make tea, and he went to the bathroom.

  When Grandma went to the kitchen to help Jale Hanım, I went out on the balcony. I looked over at Samim Abi’s house. I wanted to see Ayla. To wave to her. But all I could see was their terrace, empty, and the back room, the one that’s locked. It was dark. I looked over at the police station and at the mulberry tree. The silkworms are growing bigger in Parliament. Mom’s going to be so surprised when they turn into butterflies. And they’ll be flying around! She doesn’t know I don’t have them at home. She didn’t ask about them, even once. And Grandma forgot all about them, too. Then the light went on in the locked-up room. I could see a shadow on the curtain. Samim Abi? The room went dark again. Ayla Abla went out on the terrace. She looked over at our apartment building. She looked the other way. She looked down at the street.

  I was going to yell, “Ayla Abla!” But I didn’t. I ducked, but I didn’t know why.

  When Grandma yelled, “Ayşe! Ayşe!” I went back inside. Feride Abla turned on her tape player.

  “Shrugging it off we arrived in this place

  By mistaking a smile for a friendly face”

  The People of a Nation Share a Common Land

  “I think most of you already know Vedat from the coffeehouse or the public fountain. But I’ll introduce him anyway while we’re gathered for our committee meeting. I want you to see comrade Vedat as the new Hüseyin. They say there’s no need to praise a brave man to his face, but let me say that we have full confidence in Vedat, that he’s proven himself time and again, and that he’s as brave as they come. He’ll be handling all the problems and questions in your neighborhood. Now, here he is, comrade Vedat.”

  Hüseyin Abi introduced the new big brother. I heard Birgül Abla say that he’s handing “vigilance and mobilization” over to Vedat Abi. Hüseyin Abi has been “reassigned” to another place. Later, maybe Birgül will be reassigned too. Vedat Abi doesn’t talk much, and he never smiles. I don’t really like him. But Gökhan says, “He’s our revolutionary big brother, so we have to trust him.” Gökhan still carries that knife everywhere and tries to act like a grown-up.

  Then one of the uncles in the audience—I couldn’t see which one—said, “Hang on a second, Hüseyin!” The uncle didn’t stand up to talk, and that’s wrong. He coughed, was quiet for a minute, and talked again for a long time, stopping now and then to cough.

  “Hüseyin, these are blood-filled times and, I mean, everyone is expecting a coup, so it kind of feels like this is being done outside our initiative. Cough cough. Is it, or isn’t it? I think it is. And there’s another thing—don’t take this personally, comrade Vedat—but it’s never a good idea to change horses in the middle of a stream. Cough cough. I mean, don’t get me wrong, but this is all so … Do you see what I mean?”

  Hüseyin Abi said, “It’s like this,” and stopped. Everyone was looking at him. He wasn’t smiling anymore, and he was hanging his head.

  “It’s like this …”

  He stopped again. That’s when Birgül Abla stood up and said things I didn’t understand. I don’t think anybody understood. Because nobody said anything. The uncle said nothing, but he was shaking his head from side to side. There was a lot of whispering. When the room got quiet again, it was time to move on to “the other items on the agenda.” That day, the main “item” was “neighborhood defense.” If a coup’s coming, you must make “preparations.” Vedat Abi spoke, his voice so low nobody could hear him. Well, I did, but his words didn’t mean much to me. Anyway, the meeting was soon over. As we all walked out of the “Fruit and Vegetable Cooperative,” people talked to each other in low voices. Even the women were saying, “This is no good.” Mom yelled at Nuran Abla.

  “You’ve been revolutionaries for all of two seconds, and you think you know what’s best?”

  “But Aliye Abla, we don’t know this young fellow.”

  “Did you know Hüseyin when he first came? You’ll get to know this one too.”

  Mom took my hand, and we walked home with Dad. Again, she made flour soup for dinner. We’ll have money tomorrow after we go to Ayşe’s house. Mom will make soup out of a chicken neck, but right now, the flour’s floating on the soup and we’re watching it. Dad ate fast. Mom ate nothing. They didn’t talk. When I sat down on a cushion and started reading Ulduz and the Crows, they blew out the candle on the table and went out in front of the door to talk.

  “Aliye, this will never work if they keep sending members of the organization a
ll over the place. That guy was right to ask about it. That’s just what I was thinking. The only reason I didn’t say anything was that I didn’t want to make trouble for Hüseyin. They say we’re headed for a dictatorship. If it doesn’t happen today, it’ll happen tomorrow. But they’re still sending our people away.”

  “Hüseyin’s off to Fatsa, he says. He’s probably joining the guerrillas. I don’t know what they’re doing, Hasan. And what about the guns they stuck in our coal cellar again?”

  “I didn’t see anything. What did they put in there?”

  “I don’t know if it’s new rifles or what, but they stuck a big sack in there. Nobody’s thinking straight these days. Before Hüseyin goes, ask him to clear out the cellar.”

  “Listen, Aliye. There’s something else I want to ask you. Are you putting money aside without telling me?”

  “I’m setting aside a little something for Ali. So he can go to a special doctor.”

  “What happened? Are the revolutionary doctors not good enough for you?”

  “They’re up to their necks in work already.”

  “You’ve been acting different ever since you started cleaning for rich people.”

  “Not again, Hasan! Anyway, there was something else I was going to tell you. You know Zarife the Kurd? Followers of Apo keep coming to their house. They’ve been telling Zarife’s sons to go down there to Kurdistan.”

  “Kurdistan,” Mom said. It’s “down there,” she said. Maybe it’s far off in a different Turkey. Zarife and her friends speak a Turkish I can’t understand. And they scream like birds, making their tongues and their throats show when they’re really happy or really sad. So they must be from a different Turkey. I didn’t tell Mom about the other big brother and how he called Hüseyin Abi “Sinan” at that dance place. Because that’s a different Turkey, too.

  “Aliye, do you think Hüseyin and the others are going to go underground?”

  “Why would they do that? We’re not in enemy land!”

  “I don’t know. They seem so strange these days, so troubled. They keep it inside. They don’t tell us anything, but if they did … If they said, ‘Come on, let’s do it!’ Maybe, all together, we’d—”

  “Let’s say we decided to do that. Where we would go? How can we go underground with our families, our kids?”

  “That’s true, but will the slaughtering ever stop?”

  “Slaughter or not, it’s still our country. Isn’t it, Hasan? If it’s not, we should just pack up and leave for good.”

  So, Turkey has an underground. A different country, down there under the ground. But how will they get there? By digging and digging, like an ant? Maybe the ground under Turkey is already full of tunnels. There are a lot of things under the ground in Ankara. Hüseyin Abi told me. There must be people living down there, too, only we don’t know about them.

  “Aliye!”

  “Yeah?”

  “They say a lot of people are going to foreign parts.”

  “And?”

  “They say they made themselves a country over there.”

  “And?”

  “Maybe we should apply for Germany too? It’s like Turkey now. That’s what they say.”

  “I don’t want to go anywhere.”

  “I don’t either, but we could think about it.”

  Is there a Turkey in Germany? That means there’s a different map than the pink and yellow and blue one at school. There’s an underground map, there’s a map of the Turkey “down there,” and there’s a map of our country. There are other places, other maps I don’t know about.

  Dad burped really loud.

  “That flour soup gives me gas. I’m puffed up like an inner tube. Feel that!”

  Outside, Mom and Dad laughed. Dad’s belly went goop goop because Mom spanked it. I didn’t have much flour soup, so I’m hungry. My belly’s going grrr grrr. It’ll stop by morning. It’ll stop when I have tea. When you smoke, you don’t get hungry. That’s what Gökhan said: “Have a cig and you won’t get hungry.” I wish we had bread with Şokella. Maybe they’ll give me some again at Ayşe’s house tomorrow.

  What kind of name is “Sinan”?! That’s a rich person’s name.

  Our Oath

  “They’re here, Grandma! They’re here! Come quick!”

  Grandma doesn’t put her hair in a bun anymore; it just hangs down on the sides. She’s sleepy all day, every day. She walks so slow. She’s always asking, “Huh? Huh?” It took so long for her to get from the hallway to the front door.

  —

  My mom rang the bell. We’re waiting at the front door. I could hear Ayşe inside, yelling, “They’re here!” But nobody’s opening the door. Ayşe probably forgot to take the silkworms to Parliament. Hüseyin Abi forgot his Ibelo lighter. Maybe Ayşe forgot everything too.

  —

  Maybe Ali told everyone about the swan papers. I’ll be mad at him if he did. Only the two of us should know. It’s ours and it’s for us only!

  —

  If Ayşe forgot about the swan papers … She doesn’t know any marching songs, so she can forget important things. She probably went to the concert again and ate Şokella bread without me. She made new friends. They told her the swan papers were stupid. They all laughed and teased. Maybe her real name isn’t even Ayşe. Maybe she has a rich person’s name too.

  —

  Ali has boys for friends and they’re more fun for him, of course. They kick balls. They hang out in the street. They play cowboys and Indians. “Ayşe’s just a stupid girl!” That’s what he tells them. “She can’t even read the little letters.” I know it. He said that. Maybe he won’t even come here anymore. I feel like crying. First Dad got weird, now Ali.

  —

  When we were reading the swan papers, Ayşe said it was for us, only for us. But she went and told her mom, I’m sure she did. She doesn’t have a chief in her neighborhood so she blabs. That, and because she’s a girl. I don’t care! Let her tell everyone!

  —

  Grandma opened the door. Ali! I knew he’d come.

  —

  Ayşe was happy to see me!

  —

  “The butterflies are in Parliament! Hooray!” That’s what I yelled when I saw Ali. I shouldn’t have done it right away, shouldn’t have yelled, but I was so excited. Grandma won’t know what I meant. And Ali’s mom doesn’t know about it. It’s okay.

  —

  Ayşe got the silkworms into Parliament. I knew she’d do it. Because, because …

  —

  Me and Ali decided together.

  —

  Because we decided together.

  —

  That night, Ali said to get out the swan papers. Everybody thought we were asleep. It was when we got back from the concert and we went to bed early. The papers were hidden in my lunchbox. There were six pages. All full of writing in little letters. We turned on the little light on my desk. Ali bent over the papers, and I bent over too:

  “Ayşe, we have to read it all. Every word. We have to understand. Everything depends on us.”

  “Ali, why does it depend on us?”

  “Try to understand. They’re making a dictatorship. Nobody knows that but us. They act like they know, but they don’t. Not really. Not all of it.”

  “Who? What?”

  “The fascists! They’re coming, Ayşe.”

  “What does—”

  “When the fascists come, they’re going to hurt the swans. We have to save them. Because we’re revolutionaries. Don’t you understand?”

  “I understand, Ali! I know all about revolutionaries. Dursun Dede’s waiting for our revolution. And his hair is white and he can’t do it. We have to do it. We have to work hard. Right?”

  “I guess. Revolutionaries save everyone, or something like that. Ayşe?”

  “Yes?”

  “If I can’t read these papers … can’t understand, I mean … Hey, don’t put your hands on your hips like that.”

  “You can read
it. You’re smart. I put the silkworms in Parliament, now you can read these papers. Come on!”

  Ali started reading. We didn’t understand anything at first. But then Ali said, “Here it is, right here!” Ali read and read, because everything depends on us. That’s why.

  To date, an Avian Deflighting Technique has been applied once at the Animal Clinic of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Ankara University.

  A mute swan (Cygnus olor) was attempting to return to Swan Park after its transfer to the residence of the general chief of staff when it struck several buildings and trees while in flight. When it was brought to our clinic, it was in a semi-conscious state. Despite our efforts, the bird expired. The martial law commander of Ankara then instructed the municipality to inhibit the flight ability of the remaining swans in the park, upon which the municipality applied to us for assistance.

  We responded by performing for the first time a tenotomy of the extensor policis brevis. This simple surgical procedure on a healthy specimen from the park was a success—i.e., the wing extension property was reduced, rendering the bird incapable of flight. Furthermore, the literature on this technique reports that the ability to groom and breed is not impeded in any way.

  The procedure consists of a few simple steps, of which the most critical is the excision of a portion of the tendon while the wing is fully flexed. With young birds, operated on before flight has developed, the ability to extend the wing is lost and it remains permanently flexed.