Confessions

by Loren Edizel

  CONFESSIONS

  Copyright © 2014 Loren Edizel

  Except for the use of short passages for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced, in part or in whole, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanically, including photocopying, recording, or any information or storage retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Department of Canadian Heritage through the Canada Book Fund.

  Cover photograph: Zeynep Akcay, Model: Sevcan Sonmez

  Cover design: Val Fullard

  eBook development: WildElement.ca

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Edizel, Loren, author

  Confessions : a book of tales / by Loren Edizel.

  (Inanna poetry and fiction series)

  Short stories.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  isbn 978-1-77133-176-0 (pbk.).— isbn 978-1-77133-179-1 (pdf).—

  isbn 978-1-77133-177-7 (epub)

  I. Title. II. Series: Inanna poetry and fiction series

  PS8609.D59C65 2014 C813’.6 C2014-905735-0

  C2014-905736-9

  FSC HERE IF POSSIBLE

  Printed and bound in Canada

  Inanna Publications and Education Inc.

  210 Founders College, York University

  4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3

  Telephone: 416.736.5356 Fax: 416.736.5765

  Email: inanna.publications@inanna.ca Website: www.inanna.ca

  CONFESSIONS

  A BOOK OF TALES

  LOREN EDIZEL

  INANNA PUBLICATIONS AND EDUCATION INC.

  TORONTO, CANADA

  For my mother

  Contents

  The Conch

  Small Gifts

  A Confession

  The Imam’s Daughter

  The Whisper

  Hôpital de la Paix

  Three Tales:

  Tale One: Lemonade

  Tale Two: Burgundy Wine

  Tale Three: Lapsang Suchong Tea

  Acknowledgements

  The Conch

  SOMEONE ONCE TOLD ME that empty seashells trap the sounds of the sea as they wash ashore, so we can listen with yearning to the life we abandoned millions of years ago. We put it to our ear and dream of waves, of the graceful, silent movements of life under water, of rugged seashores and white sand…. But you see, this one here, trapped a far more intimate sound for me. A secret I have never told anyone.

  It was the year 1941 in Izmir. The war was raging in Europe and we lived in fear of entering it. Atatürk had already died; Ismet Inönü was at the helm using diplomacy to keep the country out of the war. The Germans were a stone’s throw away, having already invaded Greece and its islands. There were rumours that Hitler would build ovens in Istanbul if he captured it. He had troops positioned along the border in Thrace, ready to attack. We also had troops positioned in the Belgrade Forest for months, waiting to defend Istanbul while falling ill with typhoid. We heard stories about our friends in Rhodes who were staving off starvation by coaxing German guard dogs into their houses to kill and eat them, at the risk of being executed. So we prayed. For ourselves, our starving friends, the Jews suffering in Europe and the souls of the departed. Those of us who were not religious prayed even more, and if we had the good fortune to still have some money, we also feasted. What else was there to do? When you feel the breath of death and destruction upon your face, you turn away and dance, all the while wondering when the stink will catch up with you.

  Soon after the New Year, my husband had started feverishly organizing a surprise birthday party for my twenty-fifth birthday. I knew about it, as usual. Whenever he got busy organizing them, furtive, unexplained smiles would start fluttering across our friends’ faces over a game of bridge or a plate of broiled çipura. I played along, pretending not to notice. It was an odd ritual; they pretended to keep a secret, and I pretended I never saw any signs even though they were all around me. Once the moment came, I felt compelled to exaggerate my enthusiasm by clapping and squealing so they could celebrate their own cleverness by joining me. Throwing birthday parties for his young bride had been a grand ritual for my husband since the time we met, to commemorate how we met. He was my father’s associate at work in those days and had been invited to my eighteenth birthday party. A lawyer by education, he was the director of my father’s shipping company. I was eighteen, he was thirty-eight.

  In my eyes, he cut a rather intimidating figure with his greying sideburns and self-assured, proprietary hand around my waist as we waltzed around the ballroom under the approving gaze of my parents. I was in a powder-blue chiffon gown wearing the diamond earrings my father had just given to me as a birthday present. My hair was up in a fabulous bun with curls around my face and while we swirled around the room, he leaned close to my ear, semi-whispering I was the loveliest girl at the party. I blushed, flattered by the attention bestowed upon me by this mature and worldly man. He was not handsome. Perhaps he was, but not in the way that attracted me. I didn’t know it then. I only knew I turned crimson whenever I felt his eyes upon me, and this, I interpreted as falling in love.

  A young blushing virgin from a wealthy family was considered a top prize, in those days. My father was not just going to give me away to any foolish young man; he was carefully preparing his succession. My birthday party had been orchestrated to bring my future husband, the bright director of my father’s company, into my life, so we may see and like each other and if all worked out, eventually be engaged in a lavish party where everyone who was someone in Izmir would be invited, and a few months later get married with an even more extravagant wedding to seal the deal. As we swirled around the room with my father’s associate speaking softly beside my ear, and me blushing and smiling endlessly in waltz-induced vertigo, I caught my parents’ eyes following us through every flourish and turn. My father’s had the self-satisfied look he got when he came home after a good business deal, and my mother’s were already organizing the celebrations; sending invitations, ordering the wedding dress and choosing the bonbonnières in Kemeraltı. The structure of my life was already set on my eighteenth birthday. The embellishments within were left up to me. We got married a year later.

  I took private French lessons as a young girl, and was encouraged to read novels by Max du Vezy and Delly, whose various dashing noblemen galloped through the pages on pure-bred horses, serving pretty young damsels copious amounts of emotional upheaval only to assuage them with passionate yet chaste kisses in the end. They were masculine, yet understood the feminine world to perfection, being utter gentlemen under that muscular and weathered exterior. Whether they were aware of it or not, these men were generally indecently rich yet uncorrupted by it. Blue-blooded aristocrats in title and soul, their mission in life was to make young girls dream of being the epicentre of a man’s world. Apparently, there was no price to pay for this, and one never found out what happened following the chaste kiss at the end. More chaste kisses? At the age of eighteen, I still did not know. Certain awakenings in my body pointed to vague pleasures to be had, but what exactly that entailed, or rather, how it exactly involved a man, I was not sure. Still, from that waltz to the day of our wedding, my father’s thirty-eight-year-old associate became the nobleman in my own romance, and when finally the chaste kiss came in the darkness of the now long-defunct Tayyare Cinema on Atatürk Avenue — the Kordon, that is — I was ready fo
r it. I was less prepared for the second kiss, however, which was less chaste and involved his salivated tongue searching for something among my teeth. Bits of food, I suspected. I closed my eyes, afraid to choke while his hand squeezed one of my breasts. There were no such episodes in Delly’s asexual novels. This kiss had occurred at the precise time when my spinster aunt, serving as our chaperone, had disappeared to the washroom. She had a weak bladder and was guaranteed to leave us alone at least three times during the movie; not including the intermission. My sexual initiation thus took place during these frequent movie outings. My fiancé made sure to offer my aunt a bottle of Cincibir soda at the beginning of every movie, and one during the intermission, in case she needed extra help filling her tiny bladder, while we progressed from tongue sweeps to breast squeezes. What were we watching in those days? I was too distracted to remember.

  After our lavish wedding, orchestrated to perfection by my obsessive mother, may she rest in peace, and which was also honoured by Atatürk’s lightning appearance, we spent the night at the Izmir Hotel, in our bedroom facing the illuminated bay. It was my first lesson in male anatomy. Our secret shenanigans in the darkness of movie theatres had not prepared me for the events that were to occur that night, and I must admit I was horrified. I spent the entire night awake while my new husband snored in loud, unpredictable rhythms beside me, worrying about the blood stains on the sheets that room service would find in the morning. I had visions of my spouse being taken to the gendarmerie, accused of committing a heinous crime for which the bloody hotel sheet would serve as proof. There was also the fear of ever-recurring intercourse, causing more bloodshed and pain with that once invisible and inconsequential male organ unexpectedly turning into a ruthless engine boring holes into the female anatomy. Forgive me for being so graphic, but you must understand the degree of ignorance with which we, girls, were made to enter marriage in those days. I felt soiled and outraged in my innocence for being given away by my parents to suffer, unprepared, this midnight intrusion into my core by a man I was now expected to call my husband. I had his name; I belonged to his household and would now live by his rules. My Max du Vezy induced rosewater daydreams were history.

  Over time, though, just like the first unchaste kiss became arousing after so many movies at the Tayyare, this nightly conjugal requirement also became more palatable to me. My husband took great pride in my beauty and grace. He was generous with compliments and gifts, both of which he frequently lavished upon me with the indulgence of an older man who feels fortunate for having secured the affections of a beautiful and wealthy young woman. If I asked for a piano, I got the very best money could buy. If I pined for a trip abroad, we stayed at the most expensive hotels. I was pampered, desired and loved. So, after seven years together, the fact that he continued to make a great deal about my birthdays gave me a true sense of contentment, if also of tedium. We had recently begun talking about having children. My father had long retired, passing the reins of his business entirely to my husband. The money had to stay in the family, and an heir had to be produced who would one day run the shipping company. These matters were never discussed openly, but we all knew the structure and the part we needed to play within it.

  The arrival of war had reduced our fortune considerably; not much was getting shipped in from Europe, but we continued shipping out agricultural products; food, basically. There was great shortage of food in Turkey those days, because we exported most of it to countries decimated by war. We ate sticky barley bread bought with food coupons so Europe could have its shipment of wheat. Although my husband’s ships were still needed for transporting goods, we were living far more conservatively; limiting all our expenses in view of Turkey’s feared entrance into the war.

  I had gathered that my birthday party would take place at our friends’ home in order to keep me in the dark as long as possible. Nermin had already invited us for a cozy dinner à quatre the night of my birthday, and we had accepted.

  They say your life changes completely every seven years. Seven years before, a daydreaming girl had waltzed herself into a pragmatic if disillusioned woman. Now, my husband’s surprise party at the Basmacıs’ was about to transform me yet again. I could not have guessed any of what followed our entrance into that house.

  There were neither balloons nor champagne that year, but close to fifty people had been crammed into the living room waiting for our arrival. They started singing and shouting as I pretended to freeze at the doorway, taken by surprise. After the required laughter, clapping and hugs, we slowly started moving around the room, drinks in hand, greeting acquaintances and old friends. A young man was sitting alone in an armchair, looking uninvolved in the surrounding conversations, both hands wrapped around a full glass of rakı, which he seemed in no hurry to taste. His thick brown hair was combed back from his pale forehead bringing out his high cheekbones and fine angular features. Long dark eyelashes were covering his eyes, softening the look in them. I was observing this newcomer from the corner of my eye while my girlfriends chattered all around me. At one point, he looked up from his drink and our eyes met. Nermin, who caught us looking at each other momentarily, pulled me toward the armchair and away from the noisy group of women.

  “Here,” she whispered, “let me introduce you to my cousin. He just got back from Germany. My uncle’s son, on my father’s side. He is staying with us until he finds a job and settles. Feels a bit awkward, not knowing anyone. You’re good with people. Do me a favour. I’ve run out of things to say to amuse him.”

  He rose when he saw us walking toward him and extended his hand, which I shook for some time. I think we forgot we were still shaking hands when Nermin cleared her throat and quickly introduced us before flitting off to another corner of her spacious living room in search of other conversations. He stood until I sat down in the armchair beside his; he asked me if I needed something, if he could get me a drink, some food. He looked a little flustered. I shook my head no and motioned for him to sit down. He obeyed. The glass of rakı he had been cradling in his hands all evening had finally been discarded on the coffee table, untasted. He seemed in no hurry to pick it back up.

  “You don’t like it much, do you?”

  He blushed through a smile. “Is it so obvious?”

  “You’ve been holding it like a dirty diaper.”

  We both giggled a bit. “It is not everyday one sees a Turkish man who doesn’t drink rakı. It must be one of those unspoken rules.”

  “I grew up in Germany. This gives me massive headaches.”

  “I think there must be some Tekel beer somewhere. Let me go see if I can find one for you in the kitchen.”

  I marched toward the kitchen with him in tow, feeling his eyes on my neck spreading warmth down my back all the way to my heels. When I handed him the beer his fingers accidentally wrapped around mine over the cold bottle, and there was in that moment great cause for alarm within me. I wanted to feel the touch of his warm fingers on mine longer, far longer than this transaction would allow. Even though the words of our conversation consisted of socially acceptable platitudes, the voices, eyes, and hands were having a subversive dialogue of their own. “Do you want it in a glass?” sounded like, “Do you want me in your arms?”

  “I would like that, thank you,” might as well have been, “I want to undress you and make love.” Our voices were husky, reluctant, groping in the darkness of language spoken lightly. The music changed and he asked me to dance. It was Glen Miller swing music. He was a smooth dancer, this boy from Germany; held me tight, swung and swirled me around. I giggled feeling the joy of being in rhythm with his body, my hair flopping about my face, sweat gathering on my brow. When it ended, I sighed and smiled as he unbuttoned his jacket, ready for more. I turned around to find my husband standing behind me, waiting. I introduced them as flippantly as I could, trying to catch my breath at the same time. I explained he was back home looking for work, instinctively feeling I had to le
ave them alone, so I tagged along with Nermin once more, disappearing toward another corner of the living room.

  “He is a really good dancer, your cousin!” I exclaimed still feeling enthused.

  “Yes, well, you’d better save the next dance for your husband, sugar. He looked worried for a moment, watching you two happily twisting and bending.”

  Aside from that waltz when I turned eighteen, I do not remember ever dancing with my husband. He preferred to sit, smoke and talk politics, and made me understand he felt there was a somewhat indecent dimension to the Swing that required athletic body movements such as raising skirts and showing thighs. He generally disapproved. I learned it all the same. Our weekly women’s tea parties were often dance parties, where we would teach each other the steps of these new, delightful dances that made us feel alive and free in our bodies.

  It turned out my husband decided to take Nermin’s cousin under his wing, that night. He was going to give him a job in the company. We needed someone who spoke languages, he said, someone young and energetic he explained to me in the car, on the way home. I nodded absentmindedly, as if I had a hard time remembering this fellow and could not care less; hiding my delight. I would see him again, and often. My heart was bouncing as the car moved along the cobblestone streets. I felt alive and youthful sitting next to my middle-aged husband, a deep secret already cutting me loose from his stuffy universe. Although still too innocent to articulate it, my body was yearning for this stranger’s embrace, his kisses and touch. I could imagine making love with him and needed no help in this from novels or movies; it sprang out of my pores, and chest and blood, this knowledge, and carried me away from that demure, colourless wife sitting in the car. I sighed, causing my husband to turn toward me.

  “Something wrong, darling?”

  “Just tired. It was a great party, dear. Thank you.”