by Latife Tekin
If his life were truly his life, would he get so mired in ambition? Fall in love again and again? For some reason he couldn’t make out, he’d never been able to face up to Gogi’s failure at coping with life. It was only on their account – his brothers and Gogi – that Halilhan carried on living in this world at all.
His gentlemanly ways hadn’t allowed him to throw in their faces how truly high-minded he was, a man whose worth and capacity for self-sacrifice lay far beyond their grasp.
He could sense the sort of psikoloji he’d fall prey to after being struck by a lack of understanding in any circumstance. In the future, he’d not only start to mistrust every single creature that he came across, but he’d also forever be trying to get even with the world for the blow Gogi had dealt him. He was used to being constantly excluded by his brothers, who were totally ignorant of their estranged condition in this world and of the philosophy of betrayal – by their very nature they were doomed to remain so. But what drove Halilhan to the point of revolt was the fact that he was being pushed into a twisted and deformed attitude all because of Gogi.
Now he could only think of praying that his friend wouldn’t find him expendable. People all over the world often experienced such fragile moments in their relationships, but no court had yet been established that could pronounce upon that sacred union we call friendship. There was no authority that Halilhan knew of which could be called to account in this type of case. At least, none that he had heard of. All those who had lived their lives and finally retired from them had shifted the account books of friendship completely onto conscience, most probably because they couldn’t come up with any strict rules from anywhere else.
What a pity that was! Because depending on the form that friendship took, the soul flowed in a particular way, and anyone viewing it from the outside couldn’t detect the signs hidden in this current. It was impossible to explain to others how deadly bitter one could become as a result of this eternal blindness. Such was the unpleasant but common lot of all.
In great friendships even a hole as tiny as an atom could spark off magnetic storms that destroy love and flatten the soul to a silken thinness.
Halilhan, as usual, hadn’t sent word of his visit, and he found Gogi and Mesut gleefully lost in an experiment they’d set up. On the inner surface of the enerji box they’d hung a cage, and their eyes were now focused intently on the bottom of this cage, where a poor bird with folded wings had toppled onto its beak. Halilhan noticed how completely they’d lost touch with the world. Although he felt deeply hurt on witnessing this spectacle, which did not involve him, he couldn’t think of anything to say. It was obvious to them that orgon enerji was far more important than the life-project they’d planned to secure their future. And in their hearts they felt no sympathetic ache for the Volvo’s ruined organs.
Suddenly he understood everything!
Thanks to the concentration of the maystro mechanics who renovated the Volvo, Halilhan was able to shake off his loneliness and get a new lease of life. All that money he’d spent must have paid off the devil’s ransom for his soul. Before turning the Volvo back over to him, these marvellous surgeons-of-mechanics performed an unforgettable test. He’d keep alive in his memory until the day he died the thrill of that moment when the men stood a coin on its edge on the bonnet and switched on the ignition. The engine came to life so flawlessly that the coin didn’t budge even one milimetre. Halilhan wept for joy when he saw how carefully the engine’s revizyon had been carried out, and how much fine tuning had gone into adjusting the valves, karbüretör, spark plugs and distribitör. But, alas, the original, harmonic spirit of the car was forever lost.
As Halilhan was driving his ‘Rollsroycean’ Volvo home, the smile that had settled into his eyes when he first sat down at the wheel suddenly darkened. An awful chill took hold of his body and plunged it all the way down to freezing point. All the stories he’d ever heard about restored wrecks came back to him… What a pity that the Volvo, having lost her original spirit, was now so careless that she passed by women in a rude and rocking fashion. No matter how breathtakingly beautiful some of these women were, the Volvo still refused to glide gracefully by, and not a single spark flew up from her exhaust pipe.
In his despair, Halilhan made the rounds of holy men’s shrines a dozen times with the Volvo as a test. In the end, however, he was forced to acknowledge, very painfully, that the Volvo remembered nothing of her days before the accident – not only her spirit but her memory had been lost in it. Because of his infinite confusion during this time, he neglected putting the Teknojen venture back on the agenda. Also, the wound Gogi had inflicted on him made him feel worn-down and rusty inside. It was now clear to him that he would have to accept his soul-brother’s resignation, but he very much needed to have one last talk with Gogi about his future.
The breath of the ragged men turned into white clouds of steam that quivered in the emptiness.
On the evening when Halilhan set off to see Gogi, the snow, that sweetheart of silence, was tiptoeing up the barren branches of all the trees. Such scenes made any talk of Teknojen useless. Halilhan, who sensed the mysteries of the world and nature, knew this. But what could he do? He too had no choice but to follow a calendar dictated by necessity.
While Halilhan was striding along, crunching the sugary snow under his heels, Gogi was engrossed in the exciting experiments he was carrying out on his body. Warmed by pins and needles, he sat inside the enerji box where he’d shut himself up for protection from the cold and all the evils of the world.
From what Gogi was saying, Halilhan quickly gathered that he could expect nothing from him, even in the way of a supporting idea. When the conversation turned to ‘their common destiny, their future and the like,’ Gogi didn’t even care enough to wish him fair sailing. The mimicry adopted by his dearest friend must have been controlled by some extraordinary power since, instead of looking lost or distracted as he often did, Gogi kept a cool, straight face. Halilhan should’ve just said, ‘Forget all this stuff!’ and left Gogi’s home to try and raise his spirits by himself, seeking solace in the heavenly wonder of snow. But gripped as he was just then by tension and curiosity, he couldn’t help but push this friendship right up to its breaking point.
Once Gogi loosened up and started telling him about the ideas he and Mesut had been working on together, Halilhan got really upset. More specifically, he felt strangely rattled when he heard that Gogi and Mesut’s scheme involved a particular resource that Gogi had held close to his chest and kept mum about, even during the warmest days of their friendship. Mesut and Gogi had come up with an idea to put into operation the dilapidated public lavatory at Gogi’s back door, in the old dervish lodge encircled by high walls. What incredible gall…! So that’s how it was – his soul-brother and his real brother’s love and affection for each other were simply beyond imagination! Of course it was wonderful that they’d dreamed up a way to make money by letting out the lavatory to the highest bidder…but Halilhan still couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d been conned. He had every right to shout out his grievances in Gogi’s face, but he didn’t, knowing that such carping would get him nowhere. He could’ve said, ‘I wish you hadn’t spared me this kind of straight talk, back when times were so tough at Teknojen. Instead, as a fine gesture, he made an offer: ‘If you’re planning to fix up the lavatory, I can get you a good deal on some tiles.’ His instincts told him that if he wanted to keep his lines of communication with Gogi open, in some way he had to buy into this new idea that the man had got hooked on. In the face of their friendship he felt utterly helpless.
Gogi and Mesut were hoping to use the income from the lavatory to finance their research project, and then, after a little fine-tuning, they would use orgon enerji to fuel Mesut’s device ‘that ran on nothing’! Mesut couldn’t possibly have made such a powerful and vital decision without the dark conniving of Aynina. In fact, only Aynina could’ve acted as the architect in this kind of production. She’d used all
her womanly ways to separate him from his family, and now by speeding up Teknojen’s bankruptcy she’d guarantee that her husband would remain in the palm of her hand. Halilhan could guess what the vengeful woman had in mind for them. Not long after Halilhan’s accident, when she visited Rübeysa to wish her well, she’d mockingly brought up the matter of the twenty-two gold armbands and vented her ill-will: ‘We’ve had it up to here with this karakter who’s kept us all scrappling around in the dirt.’
Aynina considered herself to be a clever woman, but had it dawned on her that Gogi and Mesut’s partnership, powered as it was by the fuel of fantasy, could only be a losing proposition? Skipping merrily along, hand in hand, they all appeared to be blind to the fact that in this day and age he – Halilhan – and he alone, could point them toward some realistic line of business. Odd that not a word of sense ever seemed to squeeze through to their brains. What a shame it was that in these disjointed times they couldn’t even sit down for a friendly chat.
Being a thoughtful man, Halilhan would work out his business in his own way. But could Gogi – a man whose chosen way of life was to picture himself as pure enerji, able to fly and to make rain fall whenever and wherever he liked – could Gogi, at this moment, offer him any sound advice? That was all Halilhan really wanted to know.
But Gogi played cat and mouse with him mercilessly, letting him see the tidbits of meat he’d dried in the enerji box, telling him that he’d not only learned the art of mummification but that he could make milk curdle instantly into yogurt as well – all thanks to orgon enerji. His next step would be to string those meat bits around his neck as an amulet! The utter lack of interest Gogi showed in Halilhan became more obvious as, with piercing looks and ritualistic gestures, he went on to argue that these tiny meat scraps had talismanic powers.
In the end, being agreeable just for the sake of the good old days got to Halilhan, and he stood up to leave. ‘If you can imagine investing in the yogurt business, I’ll put up some cash. I doubt that you’ll forget me completely.’
He and his partner of destiny had definitely come to a parting of ways. The crack in the summit was widening! Before bidding farewell, Halilhan had acted as the agent and voice of reality, hoping to direct them toward a more sensible investment. However, Gogi had left Halilhan with a clever reminder as well. As if he were passing on a magic key while he shook his soulbrother’s hand, he whispered Hazmi’s name…
The breath of the ragged men that shone white in the emptiness was swallowed by the moon who – with her wooer the wind – tossed snow about in a translucent, chiffon-like shimmer.
Halilhan felt the depths of his solitude as he moved through the night with heavy steps. In any case, his romantic nature ensured that the look of sadness would never leave his face.
Leaving a trail of aching footsteps behind him, he arrived home to find that his wife and children had long since lost themselves in sleep. Knowing that he could never catch up with them, and with his wounded heart in revolt, he stepped back outside. Ah! His Volvo…having given up the control she had previously exercised over his love affairs, she lay under a covering of snow and darkness. He stood there, staring at his car’s impotent form until he started trembling from the cold. With tired eyes and a hollow face, he hauled open the Volvo’s door and threw himself down onto her seat. Since it was all over, he needed some soul-soothing music. He thrust Gogi’s favourite cassette into the Pioneer, whose amplifier took a while to warm up. Yeah…the sheer magnitude of this break-up called for a celebration indeed. Cables running beneath the Volvo’s velvety carpet set the tweeters going in the 2000-strength columns at the rear window.
When on our street darkness falls, falls
Memories awaken and rise in my heart
Happy days my mind always recalls, recalls
How could my eyes bear to see us part
‘A sobbing man lets his body depart…into emptiness…’ By daybreak, which lay hidden behind the snow-covered windows, Halilhan had long since leapt into a timeless dimension. But he remembered Gogi whispering Hazmi’s name and came instantly to life. Naturally he’d shed some tears for a love gone sour, but in matters like this he was opposed to a style that bordered on lunacy.
He made up his mind to call on Hazmi. Fate was obviously drawing him down that path. Baggy-eyed, he snuggled up to Rübeysa with the warm longing he felt for his brother still fresh in his mind. But he awoke panting, his fervour having evaporated after struggling with nightmares of headstrong Hazmi’s stubbornness. His brother’s capricious karakter had become an immense weight that trod heavily upon his body, and before noon he was set upon by an ache deep within his soul.
In spite of all the love he felt for Hazmi, their relationship had gone so far downhill that at this point it would be foolish for Halilhan to try and come up with some honeyed talk he could throw out to his brother to show his affection. As he saw it, the idea of sowing seeds of togetherness while sidestepping love itself was light years away from true human feeling.
Two brothers who could click into sync because they didn’t want to live in fantasy worlds shouldn’t be doomed to remain apart just because of some screwy snapshots they still kept of each other buried deep within their skulls. Sad to say, as the situation now stood those images were inevitably set to collide head-on.
Finally Halilhan hit upon a way to smooth out their relationship. He’d use the leftover cash to rent a place for Teknojen and invite Hazmi into a ready-made office. Forgetting all about the heartless winter, he leapt to his feet and set off for the coffee houses, stopping only for a moment or two to shiver when the thought struck him that there’s no way a guy can pick the perfect season to launch a new business venture!
He’d had the very best intentions in setting his sights on last summer as the ideal time to launch their business, but fate had settled on a snowy day for Teknojen’s start-up phase. ‘This fits the bill perfectly!’ Halilhan exclaimed as without a hitch he took over the office of a construction company that had gone bust – furniture, curtains and telephone included. How sweet it all was! As he looked down at the paper he was signing, the thrill sent his blood pressure through the ceiling. But while wandering about in his new space he felt dizzy and abandoned, and a distinctly sad look settled on his face as a tribute to Gogi.
Thus far, Halilhan had frittered away too much work-time in self-reckoning. Not wanting to think about anything, and preferring to simply listen to the silence, he sat down one morning at the desk he would occupy from then on. He swept the room with his eyes, which were like two warm, green pebbles. The wall opposite was covered with cuttings from calendars – framed pictures of plants and tired-looking animals. A half-opened rose with white petals, a parrot with pale yet penetrating eyes, a waterfall, a snowy mountain peak… And in the exact centre of those pictures, behind a pane of glass and placed within a big frame, hung the black-and-white portrait of a prime minister. Halilhan liked this portrait because he felt that it would furnish their company with a suitably sober mood. The fabric of the window curtains – a green mesh with tiny eyelets – fit their type of business also; and while green wasn’t at all to his liking, he wasn’t planning to strip them off just yet. He was struck by the great number of potted flowers lining the windowsills. Someone had hung white and pink tulle butterflies from the branches and the leaves of a huge thistle, which gave the room a womanish look. Halilhan thought that those tulle ornaments were not suited to the gender of a construction business and might offer a clue to the former bankruptcy… Those guys just hadn’t very well thought out what they were doing and had ended up with a common dekorasyon. Velvet armchairs the colour of roof tiles and coffee tables that could double up as draught-boards made the place look more like a brothel than a company office. Halilhan got annoyed when he imagined Hazmi getting rubbed-up the wrong way by the look of the place. However, on the plus side, in one corner stood a sober-looking iron safe, so big that even a regiment of men would have a hard time hefting it about. He’d of
fer this safe to Hazmi as substantial proof of the company’s worth. But even the top of this was decked out with coloured fish woven from straw that swung about – flying fish so light that they danced around at the slightest puff of breath. So much for them… They brought seks to mind and would have to be ditched.
‘Okay, brother, let’s get a business card custom-made to your taste.’
Armed with this humble phrase, Halilhan stepped out of the Teknojen office ready to face Hazmi. His brother had got back into the junk business, then plunged into the depths of silence after selling some stolen wares. He was now in a feverish state and hiding out in various grungy places. Before he started out, Halilhan pitched a crate of oranges into the Volvo’s boot, feeling indescribably uneasy, as if he were off to visit a seriously ill patient. He was so overwrought that no better gift than fruit came to mind. Hemmed-in by windows all steamed-up from the cold outside, he amused himself with kind thoughts, to try and hold off the stress as he headed toward the bakery where Hazmi was holed-up. When Halilhan at last laid eyes on him, exhausted and dozing, curled up in a corner with a scarf round his neck and lost in the smell of freshly baked bread, he was overcome by a fit of weeping before he could even utter a word.
‘Maybe you’re not aware of it, but at this moment nobody but me can put into just the right words everything you really long for. As your big brother, I think I’ve kept a close eye on both of you every step of the way, without fail – how you’ve been feeling, your financial and family situations, everything. Kindly see that, as quarrelsome as you’ve been, I’ll never give up on you, even though my knees are already shaky at my age, and I’ve got no one but you to thank for it. I don’t want to be worn to a frazzle again by your ignorant ways. I simply don’t deserve that. You may curse me or kick me out to show off your true karakter, but I’m certain that time will soon prove you wrong if you do. If you could somehow look back on our lives like you were watching a movie, I’ll bet you’d be surprised to see how strong the bonds are that hold us together. How nice it would be for you to notice that we even share the same tone of voice. And if you look at our faces and general attitudes to life, well, it’s hard to believe how alike we are, isn’t it? What good can come to us from denying the foundation these things rest on? I came here with the principles of brotherhood in mind, ready to hand you the key to Teknojen. I expect you to answer me however you see fit. And only you know how that may be.’
