‘Yes, let’s,’ said Ziya.
As he spoke, he looked soulfully into Binnaz Hanım’s eyes.
This seemed to embarrass her, because now she averted her eyes. Then she lit the cigarette already dangling between her lips, falling back into her chair as the smoke seeped out through those lips and billowed upwards. And at that moment, Ziya could see the little girl in her. Gone were the lines that the decades had drawn on her face. It was as if they, too, had taken fright and abandoned the girl who now gazed at him in terror, wide-eyed and trembling.
‘Then my mother took leave of her senses,’ Binnaz Hanım continued. ‘Yes, for some reason, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. She’d managed to bear the sight of my father’s lifeless body, but when she saw his coat in my arms that day, she lost her mind. My mother had always been the second of the two pillars holding up our household, and now this pillar was crumbling, before our very eyes. And we children were at our wits’ end, Ziya Bey. Because of course we had no idea what to do. Our despair seemed to know no bounds, but each time we looked at each other, it seemed deeper, and darker. You might have thought that all the lights in the world had been extinguished, plunging us into a nightscape so black it was almost luminous. Who knows? It might have been the darkness of our future we could see just then, shining through the sands of time. All we could do was to cry helplessly on each other’s shoulders – cry into the night. What was to become of us? From time to time, we heard footsteps approaching. We’d rush to the door, sobbing and red-eyed, to see who was there, but all we could hear were footsteps receding. They ran like the wind, these footsteps, rushing in only to rush away. I like to think it was our father’s spirit, back from the graveyard to see how we were. Ever so gently, pressing his ear against the door. Drinking in the music of home and then vanishing into thin air. Every time this happened, of course, it felt like losing him all over again. And once again, the vale of tears would claim us. The first to cry would be the youngest; he would stand up, saying “Who’s there?” in that milky voice of his, and toddle off to the door, and as he walked he would open his arms, ready for a hug, and the wider he opened them, the more excited he became, but even so, there’d be tears welling in his eyes by the time he reached the door. I have no idea how many days we spent like that, wandering around that house of ours, bleating like lost lambs. But in due course, our grim-faced relatives surfaced. They arrived from all four corners of the city to divide us up. My aged grandmother, for instance. She took me to her draughty ruin of a house, fitting me out with a thick mattress that reeked of naphthalene. Sitting on the edge of said mattress, she stroked my hair and said, “There’s never a tragedy without another in its wake, my child.” She was only trying to offer me comfort, but I was in no state to understand. In actual fact, many months passed before I understood a thing anyone said to me. I stayed inside, wandering like a mute ghost from one room to the next. But my grandmother could not afford to feed me, Ziya Bey, let alone keep me in school. Once that chapter of my life had closed, I went to work in a meyhane. A distant relative found me the job. And after that you never saw a pen or a schoolbook in my lovely little hands. Day and night, I was washing dishes. In the early days, at least. The scullery was right underneath the big room where they served the customers – a low-ceilinged cavern that you reached via a wooden staircase so coated with grease that it stuck to your feet like gum. We could hear every chair that scraped the floor in the meyhane above – every laugh, every song and every curse. It wore us out, listening to that ruckus. But not because we were working like donkeys while other people were having fun. No, it wore us out because they were having fun just above our heads. Sometimes I would say as much to the other girls working there, and whenever I did, the djinns would get the better of me. They’d swarm around my head until I just couldn’t stop myself. I’d look up at that ceiling and let loose a string of filthy curses. But the others? Not a peep out of them. Not a peep. When my rage got the better of me, they’d just exchange shifty looks. Who would be the first to tell tales? That cave we called the scullery was hard to bear – no, impossible to bear – at times like that. But never mind, because it wasn’t long before I was sent upstairs to serve tables. Leaving the scullery to sink back into silence. For me, from then on, it was smiles and wayward glances and rowdy songs; it was fat-assed men who were belching one minute, and rearranging their testicles the next. It was the dark night of the soul upstairs, just as much as it had been downstairs, but the meyhane, at least, had lights. Each one more brilliant than the last. You know how it is – some rooms are darkened by clutter, and others by noise. Some rooms are dark because they’re too empty, or too narrow or too wide. Well, in this meyhane the darkness was in the lights. And it was through this shimmering, rakı-scented gloom that I ran back and forth with my tray. Once a week I’d go and see my mother. I’d take her flowers and the finest cakes and sweets, in darling little boxes. But sadly she had no idea who I was. She called me “Auntie”. My gifts would just sit there on her lap. How ashamed she looked, with those downcast eyes of hers! And so like a child! Just a glimpse of one of those white-aproned orderlies, and she’d shrink before my eyes. Shrink into me, almost. If ever one of those orderlies came towards us, she’d grab my hand, my mother would. She’d fix her pleading eyes on mine. And then, in a faint and wavering voice, she’d say, “Save me, Auntie. Please, get me out of here.” Over and over, on and on. How helpless I felt when she did that. Because honestly, I had no idea what to do. A moment would arrive when I couldn’t stand it any more, when I’d take my mother in my arms and hold her tight, as if I were her mother, and she my child. Then I could hold back the tears no longer. Or the hopeless sobbing. So there you have it. The story of a luckless young girl, laid low by a calamity that never lessens, that just goes on, and on, and on. What happened next? you may well ask. But you know full well how stories like this pan out in this city of ours, which oozes evil from its every pore. You could write the script, Ziya Bey. What happened to me is exactly what you would imagine might happen, right down to the last detail. In the past we ate shit. In the future we shall do the same. You know how it is, Ziya Bey. We can rant and we can rage, but nothing short of a miracle will change it. Which is not to say I didn’t try! I tried but it was all in vain, and that is why I trod the boards of that meyhane for so many years, just for a scrap of bread. Or to put it differently, this is where my story played itself out. And if Ercüment Şahiner had not walked into my life, who knows where I might be today? In a nursing home, I’d guess – alone with my memories, my thoughts turning to death, wheezing one minute, dozing off the next. And drooling. Drooling from both sides of my mouth. Or if not that, then maybe I’d be one of those poor souls you see going through dustbins, clutching dirty plastic bags – one of those homeless wretches that the council rounds up when the temperature goes below freezing, rescuing them from the parks and the pavements and the city’s phone boxes and then calling in the TV cameras, only to throw them back on to the street a few days later . . . You’re wondering what this Ercüment Şahiner did for me? No need to beat about the bush: what this man gave me was an idea. Nothing more, nothing less. It was a winter’s day. I remember it well. The day before, we’d had a blizzard. From dawn to dusk, we’d watched that snow hurling down on us, thick as patches on a poor man’s coat. And then, that night, the blackest frost. By morning all the rooftops of the city and all its streets were stiff with ice, and, with so few venturing outside, a silence had fallen over everything, a faint and shimmering white silence. From time to time, a sound would float in. A city bus struggling up a hill. A child screaming. I was still in bed, and each time a new sound floated in, those sleepy eyes of mine flew open. Ercüment Bey, who had spent the night in my arms, was already up claiming business to attend to. There he was in the corner, getting dressed. The glare from the snow was so strong as to cast his shadow against the wall, and as I lay there, I watched it going through its paces. Ercüment Bey was getting dressed at the
same speed and with the same care as the shadow, of course: buttoning up his shirt, zipping up his trousers, fixing his tie just so, and then looking himself over, from top to toe, as if to ask, have I missed anything? Am I done? To tell you the truth, I got some sort of strange thrill from watching that shadow. It made Ercüment Bey himself seem a little less real. It turned our night together into some kind of a lie. But back to the story. When Ercüment Bey had completed his toilette, he came back to my bed, whereupon, with his usual finesse, he slipped my money under the pillow. Why I didn’t wait for him to leave, I do not know. But I pulled out the money, and, before his very eyes, I put it into the chocolate box where I kept all my earnings. Ercüment Bey was back in my arms by now. Throwing a sidelong glance at the box, which was decorated with angels, he said, “Keep that money in a box like that, and you might as well just pickle it. It’ll never grow, my lovely. If you have any brains, you’ll put it into land.” I laughed, of course. I said, “You can’t buy land for three kuruş. I couldn’t even buy a plot as long as my arm for that.” Ercüment Bey got my meaning. But then said, “You might not be able to get something in the centre, but go beyond the far hills, buy some land even Allah doesn’t give a fuck about, and wait for the city to come to you.” Those words were like earrings, and for a few years that was all they were, dangling in my mind and from time to time catching the light. To cut a long story short, in the end I did what Ercüment Bey had suggested, Ziya Bey. A big property broker like him was sure to know what he was talking about, and so I went out to the back of beyond, to a place so remote that even caravans never passed. And bought myself a patch of land. Then after – what, thirty years – this huge wave of noise they call a city had spread so far that it engulfed my fields. One fine day a contractor knocked on my door – a young man, flashing a gold necklace. In an accent I couldn’t place, he made me an offer. What do you say, sister? What if I built two big apartment blocks and gave one to you? There are no words to describe how that threw me. It was all I could do to keep myself from crying! The truth is, I’d never imagined that the three-kuruş land I’d bought at the dawn of time would prove so fruitful. That’s why I was so surprised. And who knows, Ziya Bey, maybe I felt a little ashamed to find myself showered with these great riches all of a sudden. I felt accusing eyes all around me. Voices saying I didn’t deserve it. It didn’t last long, this shyness. Once the apartments were up, it wore off, bit by bit, until one fine day it vanished like a morning mist. It happened in stages. That said – if you asked me to chart those stages, I’d have to give up before I began. Maybe it was time that gnawed away at it. Though it could be that my shame was no match for the miseries I’d suffered in earlier life, and the rancour those miseries had left me with. All I know is that I was at last able to relax. My mood lifted. I strolled through my building each morning, casting smiles right and left as I went. I was a child with a new toy, a curious child with a happy heart. How, how I loved going up and down in the lifts, just for the fun of it! How it thrilled me, to touch the banisters, to know that every single one of the doors standing in their pretty little rows belonged to me! I’d walk down every corridor, and every stairwell, until I’d seen the whole building, and then, having nothing else to do, I’d plop down on a chair on the balcony, and there I’d stay till evening. And oh! What joy I felt, as I took in the view! In actual fact, it wasn’t easy. It was, to tell the truth, a fantastically tiring state of affairs. People always say that happiness makes life seem so much lighter, but for me it was so much more tiring, Ziya Bey. If there is any lightness at all, it is only the first stage. And anyway. As you already know, when happiness takes root in you, it can dazzle your mind. It can blind you. You could say that I, too, was blinded, I mean, during those long and mindlessly happy days I spent on that balcony. And all the while, Ercüment Şahiner was in my thoughts. My happy heart fairly fluttered with the gratitude I felt towards him. And so I got it into my head to thank him, to throw my arms around him, and kiss him – let him know he was my miracle’s true architect. I rushed out to find him, and, what a pity, Ercüment Bey was no longer in his office. His colleagues told me that a childhood friend he’d claimed as his blood brother had left him up to his gills in debt. And so he’d fallen into the hands of a usurer. Then it went from bad to worse – Ali clothing Veli, Veli clothing Ali and both robbing Peter to pay Paul. Then the thugs came in to raid the office, and after that had happened a few times, he’d gathered up his things and fled. That was one story. Another story had it that he’d fallen in love with a slender, fair-skinned woman, who visited the office once a week. Maddened by passion, he’d buried himself in a deep, deep silence, until one day he upped and sold everything he owned to follow this woman to another city. But I can’t say I found this very convincing. Ercüment Bey didn’t have enough brains to lose them in such a way – so, no, I don’t think he was up to it. My guess is he went into hiding after those thugs who turned his office upside down put the fear of God in him. Maybe he was inside there, shivering like a wet kitten, thinking they’d come back to kill him on the spot, never guessing it was me looking for him. One thing I know: if someone, anyone, had told me what hole he was hiding in, I would have pulled him right out – paid his debts twice over, and then, to restore him to his rightful place, I’d have gone out to the flashiest neighbourhood in the city, and bought him the biggest, brightest office going, and furnished it from floor to ceiling in the finest taste. I’d have shown him to his chair, and said, “Do sit down, my life. Do sit down.” I could have done that many times over. That’s how grateful I felt. No words can express the depth of my gratitude to this man. Oh, the months I wasted, traipsing from building to building, down corridors that stank of piss. I combed every street, every arcade, every land-registry office. Every office of every muhtar who ever ran a neighbourhood, too. Wherever a broker might show his face, there I went, to find him. Now and again, I’d come across a muhtar or a broker who showed me the courtesy of listening to my problem. They would take down my details, and promise to let me know if they had any news of him, but a year and a half later, not a single one had got in touch. That’s when I knew I’d never find him, Ziya Bey. That was when I gave up the ghost. I returned to my chair on the balcony, empty for so long, and from dawn till dusk I took in the view. But my debt of gratitude still weighed down on me, of course. There was none of the old joy. I’d just sit there, looking emptily at nothing in particular. Gratitude is a terrible thing, Ziya Bey; the havoc it wreaks is something only the sufferer can understand. I would go so far as to say that it does a great deal more than ravage the soul: it presses down on you, turns you into a slave. A slave who is willing, even dying, to prove herself worthy. A wounded slave who is bent on opening her wounds even further . . . But anyway. So there I was, sitting on my balcony, gazing emptily at the apartments across the road, watching the cars and the crowds. Many visions came to me at that time. They fell into my mind like photographs from an album, slipping every which way. One such image showed me sewing that button back on to my uniform, my father at my side. I was turned in his direction, smiling faintly, and taking in his scent. There was another, much noisier picture, lit through wine glasses: a crowd of men. All smiling. At me. Or had they narrowed their eyes like cats to sneeze their smoke through their moustaches, all at once? Whatever the truth of this photograph, it summoned up another from the depths of my mind. In this one I was following my grandmother through a long street full of puddles. The further I walked, of course, the more darkly the slums cast shadows over my photograph. And soon they had grown into one great fake and lifeless tangle amid the rippling, quivering puddles. And now another photograph, wafting through the whole trembling mess. And in this one, I am having sex with men I don’t even know. Sometimes I even see myself coming to collect my father’s jacket, or washing dishes with those silent, cowering girls, or visiting my mother with those cute little boxes, or dragged to and fro by the claws of a shadow. And so it continued, Ziya Bey. It was one photograph after a
nother, for days and weeks on end. Until somehow they drifted out of view. One by one, they vanished from my mind. The only one that remained, I must tell you, was the picture of the money I’d saved in that chocolate box. No matter how I tried, I could not shake that image from my mind. It was as if a hidden hand was holding it up to me – trying desperately to tell me something. From dawn till dusk that picture never left me. I was lost to time, lost inside time and in thrall to it. My soul was elsewhere, far away. My mind was blank. Utterly blank. I might as well have been an idiot. Maybe that’s what did it – the blankness. Because one day at long last I was hit by a new idea, a thunderclap of an idea that turned all my memories inside out. The Ercüment Şahiner for whom I had searched high and low was a broker, after all. But I had allowed this fact to slip from my mind. I had, as a consequence, felt more gratitude than was warranted, had allowed myself to become crippled by it. No doubt Ercüment Bey told everyone he met back then to invest in land. It was part of his job. That is what I told myself, and that was when I remembered that that money in the chocolate box was my own. I had paid for this building with a wasted youth spent hopping from lap to lap. Once I understood that, Ziya Bey, I was no longer willing to let tenants surrender their keys to my accountant when they vacated the premises. What I mean to say is that I came to see my tenants as having occupied my own lost years, and that is why I decided they should, at the very least, come and give me the key themselves. So that’s what it’s all about, Ziya Bey, this business with the key. Now let me apologise for taking up so much of your time with my chatter. And not just your time, I fear. Am I right in thinking I’ve also given you a headache?’
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