Labyrinth

by Burhan Sonmez

  The doors open and close automatically. I walk into a large square. Is this another city inside the city? Every corridor in the shopping center leads to this square; this is where people meet and separate to go about their business. As each corridor stretches ahead it becomes a street, winding and disappearing into the distance. If I ever came here before I’m certain I would have gazed at it with the same wonder. It’s nothing like the Istanbul outside. It’s cool. Tranquil. My footsteps flow across the marble floor like water. I can’t feel the presence of a shadow behind me. It’s as though everyone here is shadowless. They only need themselves. Like me. If they occasionally suffer from headaches or insomnia, medicine runs to the rescue. There’s a pharmacy on every corner. Not just during the day, there’s one for every night as well. All the boutiques, shoe shops, restaurants, cafés, supermarkets, bookshops, locksmiths, banks, cinemas, and children’s play areas on all four corners of the city are concentrated here. With its towering walls and endless floors, this isn’t a shopping center but a new castle. Widescreen televisions. The aroma of coffee. The sensation of hunger. I try to understand why I left the park and came here. There are no ants. There’s no traffic. There’s no sound of police sirens. Cameras survey the corridors on all sides. Children run up and down in all directions. I sit on a bench beside a tree. The trees and benches remind me of the park. I observe the heavy shuffle of old people. I examine their faces in case any of them can bring back my past. Don’t worry, the doctor said, your past will come back to you sooner or later. I think my doctor watches too many television dramas, she loves talking in terse phrases. Apparently my past won’t come back to me when I’m expecting it, but when I’m not. Nothing that I’ve been thinking about for the past few minutes, nothing that’s been going through my mind, belongs to me. My head is full of the doctor’s words. I don’t know how much of my mind is really mine. The best thing to do is walk. Here I can walk without bumping into anyone. I stop in front of a shop window and stare at the lifeless mannequins. I walk to the adjacent shop window and gaze at a large aquarium. I’m like the fish. That swim in the same place and wander within the same limits. I’m afraid of the sea, but I like the aquarium and the fish. If I live long enough I’ll be able to see the days that lie ahead: In the future they’ll build a maternity ward at one end of the shopping center and a cemetery at the other. Here people are born, they live and, eventually, they die. Perhaps my other life is like that too, assuming I have another life. The sun here doesn’t burn anyone, the snow doesn’t make anyone shiver. The sky is a part of this world. As I am going up the escalator I raise my head and look up. Daylight pours through the skylight. The magnificence of large, domed mosques and gothic churches. A tinkling sound chimes from a Buddhist temple above. I look at the people walking by me. Their faces are serene. They all wear the same expression of spiritual tranquility. I wander backwards and forwards aimlessly. I watch a clown act in a children’s play area. I listen to the songs. I notice Serka in the audience. He is looking around him with great interest. He’s either seeking his fiancée, or someone new to strike up a conversation with. As I look at him, I realize there are so many afflictions that people can be cursed with. Given the choice, would I rather stick with my own troubles, or would I prefer to swap places with Serka? I couldn’t say. I walk away before he can spot me. Once again I find myself in front of the aquarium. For a moment I imagine the world is comprised of this shopping center. There’s no such place as outside. The shop windows flow by endlessly like a river, and I fantasize about being a part of the aquarium. Glass within glass. Water within water. By myself, in the same place.

  9

  The grocer exits the shop and places a stool outside the entrance. Before he sits down, he checks both sides of the sidewalk to see if he knows any of the passersby. He knows me. I bury myself in the crowd at the bus stop so he won’t see me. I don’t want him to pounce on me today as well. Yesterday morning on my way out of the house he stopped me, asked how I was, and then told me a story. Did I also use to stop people and make them listen to ridiculous stories? In the grocer’s tale two men, one young and one old, were walking on a plain. On the riverbank they met an old woman looking for a shallow stretch of water that would allow her to cross to the other side. The young man came to her rescue by carrying her to the other side of the river on his back. The old man disapproved. Our customs state that touching a woman is forbidden, he said. For days, every time they stopped to rest the old man repeated the same words, insisting that touching a woman was a sin. In the end the young man couldn’t bear it any longer, I carried that woman days ago and then I moved on, he said, why are you still carrying her inside your head? When he had finished his story, the grocer looked at me, hoping for an explanation. He waited for me to comment. How’s your daughter, I said, to change the subject, is she doing well at school? I have the same feeling of oppression that assailed me when I was with the grocer yesterday. I don’t want him to see me. Two city buses draw up one after the other. Most of the people waiting get on. If one more bus comes I’ll be the only one left. I look at the grocer, he’s still sitting on his stool. I walk away from the bus stop and head back the way I came. My hands in my pockets, I slouch along the road. You shouldn’t always take the same route home. When I reach the intersection, I take a left. Maybe I used to vary my routes in the past as well, and always go home a different way. I walk slowly, to give me a chance to recognize the street I am on. A woman at a window is talking to her daughter, who is playing on the sidewalk. A dog dozing by a wall. A couple of cars parked by the roadside. A street seller peddling something I can’t see from this distance. A bookshop across the road with a sign saying “Berke Bookshop” hanging above it. Next to it a barber’s with “Magic Snip Barber” written in the window. Both doors are open. Are there any streets this quiet left in Istanbul? I wonder what it’s called. Should I go back and look at the sign on the street corner, or should I continue and read the name at the end? It’s a long street. The surface is cobbled. Each stone is followed by another, then another. They stretch as far as the eye can see, like sand dunes in the desert. There is no end in sight, nor is there any sign of the evening twilight. I remain in the same place, at the same time of day. The barber comes to the door. He calls out to the girl playing across the road. Come here my love. The woman at the window smiles at the barber. Go on precious, go to daddy. I glance down the street. There are no cars. This is that little girl’s moment of bliss. In the midst of a game with no beginning and no end, caressed by her parents’ voices, in a street that grows ever longer and replicates itself. The girl lets out a peal of joy. The barber beckons to the street seller up the road. He buys a kilo of apples. He selects one and hands it to his daughter. I could walk up and down this street over and over again and spend my days and nights here. I could memorize this as the only route to my house. Laundry hanging on a line flutters on a balcony. A song floats out of the same floor. Who is singing? Is it Kurt Cobain, Yavuz Çetin, or is that voice mine? The balcony is a long way up. I stop and look to see if anyone will come out. The song isn’t on for long. It ends. Its voice dies down. I keep going, counting the cobblestones as I walk. I don’t meet anyone. When the other end of the street eventually appears on the horizon, I turn and look back. The barber, the little girl, and the woman at the window have all gone. The first wave of twilight descends. Evening is approaching. The longest day I have ever spent outside by myself is coming to an end. I see a watchseller’s shop at the end of the street. Its sign says, “Serene Watches.” Today I’m trying to memorize all the signs, to test my tender young memory; I wonder how many of them I’ll be able to remember tomorrow. I walk up to the shop’s large window. The glittering watches on the shelves all show the same time.

  I push the door open and walk inside. The little bell on it chimes. The elderly watchseller, busy with repairs at the back of the shop, looks at me over his shoulder. He removes the loupe from his right eye. Welcome young man, he says. Hello, I say. He wa
lks towards me, tea glass in hand. He smiles. For a moment there I thought you were a tourist, he says, I was expecting you to reply in a foreign language. I used to think our knack for sussing people out at first sight improved with age. But it doesn’t. No, it doesn’t, I say. I describe the clock I’m looking for. He bends down, pulls out the bottom drawer, and puts it on the counter. Table clocks. They all have alarms, he says. The sound changes depending on the clock. We can try any one you like. This green one is a Vaktaki, it’s a good price. It’s made in Turkey. If you’re looking for a Swiss clock I recommend a HertzZeit. This white one. They come in different colors, I can get them for you from the storeroom. I pick up the white clock and hold it to my ear. There’s no sound. Give it to me, says the watchseller, I’ll wind it up. A wind-up clock. You wind it up by turning this key at the back. This is what you wanted. You only need to wind it up once every two days. It’s quiet, you can hear it if it’s near you, but it won’t disturb you if you put it on the other side of the room. It’s a bit more expensive than the other one, but I’m sure we can come to an arrangement. I’m not worried about the price, I say. I turn the wound-up clock over in my hands, then I place it on my ear. I don’t register how much time passes. The elderly man disappears. He comes back a moment later holding another tea glass. He hands me the fragrant glass of steaming tea. When he sees I still have the clock to my ear he says, I can see you’re someone who loves listening to clocks. When I was a child this place belonged to my grandfather. I used to come and watch him and listen to all his clocks one by one. I learned by myself that, just like people, every clock has a different voice. What a perfect invention, my grandfather used to say. He wasn’t content with just selling or repairing clocks, he used to subject everyone to all his eccentric ideas too. He used to say that throughout the whole history of humankind there have been a total of three great inventions. One was the clock. Thanks to the clock, we understood the meaning of the present moment instead of just birth and death. The clock had no past and no future. The past and the future stopped you from feeling real life. The clock had taught us that, but we still weren’t acclimatized to it, we hadn’t adapted our mindset to it. My grandfather, who gave me my first watch, said, don’t forget what I told you. Value the moment, the rest isn’t yours, don’t go wasting your life on what doesn’t belong to you. That day I was more interested in my first watch than in my grandfather’s words. It was only a very basic watch, but to me it was like a priceless jewel. My grandfather used to say that humankind’s other great invention was the mirror. The world outside the mirror was one entity, and the world inside it another. When you put them together they become one. When you first looked at a mirror it was a lock, and when you looked at it again it was a key. And in the face of life, the mirror was the source of both our courage and our fear. People should live their lives knowing that one and two were both the same and different, and never forget that they had discovered that thanks to mirrors. I attributed my grandfather’s putting the invention of the lowly mirror on a par with the miracle of the watch to the fact that he had first seen and fallen in love with my grandmother in a mirror-maker’s shop. There aren’t any of those mirror-makers left in Istanbul anymore. My grandmother used to paint designs on the mirrors and decorate them with borders that looked like frames. Don’t let your tea get cold young man. I made it fresh. It was my grandfather who got me into the habit of never being without a glass of tea. If he were here I’m sure he would recommend the white clock to you too. Its quality aside, the sound of this clock is totally unique. I pick up the clock and place it against my ear again. All right, I’ll have this one, I say. As the elderly man is wrapping the clock for me I ask, What was the third one, the third great invention your grandfather used to talk about? Oh, that? Let me see, what was it? Oh dear, I can’t think of it. That’s old age for you, just for a moment, you forget the things you know. Could it be fire, I say, trying to help him remember, or the wheel? No, neither of those. Okay, how about writing? That’s impossible, my grandfather didn’t like writing. He didn’t like writing? That’s right, he had a story about it that he used to tell everyone he met. A long time ago, there lived a good philosopher and a good pharaoh. The Philosopher, who knew everything and who strove day and night to discover the things he didn’t know, went to see the Pharaoh one day, in a state of great excitement. I have wonderful news, he said, I’ve invented writing. What’s that? asked the Pharaoh. By your leave I will explain, said the Philosopher. We are going to inscribe a different symbol on our tablets to represent each and every one of our words. Others who will know what those symbols mean, will look at the tablets and understand them when we’re not here anymore. They’ll know what we’re saying without hearing our voices. Isn’t that amazing? Yes, said the Pharaoh thoughtfully. Then he added, But I’m not sure whether everything that’s amazing is a good thing. Your writing will distance people from each other. As long as there are words being passed from one person to another, writing will erect walls between them. I doubt that that’s a good thing. My grandfather, who repeated those words as though they were his own, harbored the same doubts as the Pharaoh all his life. That’s why writing wasn’t an invention that he regarded highly. Do you live around here young man? Come and see me again sometime, I might remember the third invention my grandfather used to talk about. Okay I will, I say. I pay for the clock. Just then, the bell on the door chimes. A child in bare feet appears. He holds out his hand. Come back later, says the watchseller, I have a customer now. The child waits a few seconds, perhaps emboldened by my presence. The watchseller speaks more firmly. Run along son, I have a customer. The child realizes he’s not wanted and goes outside. I pick up the packaged clock from the counter and go out after the child. Twilight has descended. The car headlamps are switched on. I look up to the top end of the road. I notice the child I’ve just seen, in front of a cafeteria, under the light of a sign advertising “Ayşe Abla’s Café.” He’s sitting on the ground, murmuring to himself. I walk up to him and put my hand in my pocket. I drop my loose change in front of the boy. I tell him to wait there. I buy two sandwiches from the café. I give one to him. I keep the other for myself.