Author: Selim İleriTranslator: Jean Carpenter Efe, Sevinç Ener
As if we wouldn’t be happy. As if we wouldn’t ever be. (The ruthless words of a fortune-teller.) In the ashtray, a half-burnt cigarette, never to be finished; on the wall, the childish prints of my dirty fingers; and in a vase, a bouquet of hyacinths still wrapped in raffia might remind them of me. For a short time, maybe for a couple of hours. It seems as though everything has come to an end. What was it that drew me to that house: the humanity and sincerity of Gülten, the irreplaceable friendship of Ali, but it’s all killing my enthusiasm. I’m giving up my enthusiasms one by one. They’ll forget. In a few hours, all my feelings, all my love will fade into silence. They’ll live through miserable Sunday mornings. (Spring is on the way; they say these rains bring good tidings of spring. The seasons seem to pass in a monotonous, ordinary sequence with no effect on our lives). If only I could keep them from forgetting; if only I could. If only I’d cease to be this dull and shadowy Kemal in their lives. Maybe they’ll remember that I drink my coffee black. Gülten will; Gülten is nice.
I didn’t have the right to ruin a Sunday morning when they could have been reading books or lying in bed for hours. (The rain starts and then stops. That’s how spring rains are supposed to be; fruitful. That’s what they always used to tell me, saying that the countryside I’ve never seen or known would turn green with the rains. But they only bring dust and dirt to the narrow back streets of Kurtuluş). The armchair I’ve sat in for so many evenings. “It’s the first time we’ve sat in here since we got married,” Ali said. Every night. Every night you come here without thinking that you might be bothering us. Even friendship has its limits… A house where the parlor has never been used. A teeny-tiny apartment. I do feel the twinge of being the third person, being out of place each time I come here. Still I come. Because of my heart-breaking loneliness. “We’re tired of your bourgeoisie loneliness,” Ali once said later on. Quite a while later—when the polite uneasiness of beginnings started to fade away.
I was fooled by the summers. Relaxing and benumbing summertime.
It’s over now. All of it. I have to put a dead end to my honor. I will ignore the silence of my heart, its insidious resistance. It’s been years since I deciphered the alphabet of solitude. I’m going to carry on from where I left off. These are all cheap sensibilities.
The moment the rain stops I go into the store. I’m surrounded by masses of colorful and speckled flowers. (A bouquet of hyacinths still wrapped in raffia. For some reason hyacinths symbolize happiness.) It’s one of those rootless flowers that you can pull up easily. They grow along the banks of brooks, on rocky cliffs and around fountainheads.
“Where would we find them at this time of year? It’s impossible.” That’s what the flower girl said. She straightened her tasseled belt, played with her skirt and smiled at me. I can no longer insist. But I can ask them to arrange a basket. I wanted the flowers to have a basket of their own. Let them put the flowers in a straw basket. (Ali won’t say “bourgeois loneliness” any more). It was one of those bad winter days when night falls early. Once I got home, I couldn’t help but go out again.
My mother had said, “Don’t go to anyone’s house on a Sunday. One of these days they’ll throw you out.” Then she complained that I’d never grown up in the first place and that I really ought to come to my senses. I ignored her. The walls of my room keep closing in on me. I can’t be content with a teddy bear clinging to my bedside. In those moments of weakness when we really need people, need friendship the most.
“Mother, I’m going out,” I say. She looks me crossly in the face. “Forget-me-nots don’t bloom at this time of the year anyway.” I’d ripped the ears off my teddy bear. I gently stroke its matted fur and give it a fillip on the nose: “We’re on our own, if you know what I mean.” I notice the florist’s. A store I have to pass by everyday. But I seem to be noticing it for the first time. Who could I send flowers to? The loves I’ve never had; I’m a stranger to orchids in cellophane.
“I’d like to send some flowers.”
Doubtful looks from the girl. She examines me from head to toe. Crinkled corduroy pants, a raincoat frayed at the collar and cuffs, unshined shoes and I still want to send flowers. No way she could have understood. “It blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, so that they couldn’t see with their eyes or understand with their hearts…”
“A basket? Or would you prefer a box?”
“A basket. A small basket.”
“Let’s put violets in it…”
“No, no violets or hyacinths.”
Blue flowers would be blossoming. They’d pull up as soon as I touched them with my hand.
Those years when Ali started to earn his own bread. I can taste all the disgust and sickness of my childhood. I used to wander around aimlessly; I’d chew forget-me-nots. Ali is someone who has found everything he’s longed for in life. I envy even his hard times, those when he felt hungry and made wishes from the bottom of his heart. “You’re healthy. That’s what matters the most.” He will bring up my bourgeoisie traits again. My “loneliness” will return to slap me in the face. My jaws will clench; I’ll have to hold back my tears. Gülten will intervene. A working husband and wife who’ve hardly ever sat in their parlor. The room came into use when I turned up all of a sudden. I adore this room. I can’t tell you how much. It’s a proud and peaceful room that gives you confidence.
“I’m happy only when I’m with you.” My words fall like an unbearable weight on Ali’s shoulders. His shoulders sag.
Suddenly he straightens up, “Don’t talk rubbish.” I didn’t think I was speaking rubbish. I’d taken shelter with them like a stray cat, not minding a few kicks and shoves now and then. I felt that I was demeaning myself, losing my dignity, but somehow I couldn’t run away.
This was the last door I could knock on in my love-forsaken days.
“You’re selfish,” says Ali. He won’t be saying that any more. I won’t be riding in the Kurtuluş dolmuşes any longer. I’ve lived through all four seasons in this house. I can’t say, though, that the seasons bring any new meanings to our lives. (We’ll meet again. The same arguments, misunderstandings and deadly silences in the middle of conversations… Don’t they see that each time something more is broken and hurt? Gülten probably does. Or she pities me. She pities me. Finally, I’ve become a person to be pitied. And Gülten pities me.) One Sunday morning, I get up and go over to their house. After a Saturday night spent together and probably enjoyed. How sorry I felt that the night had to end. We’d been together till dawn. Gülten’s potato salad. The coffee Gülten makes, her kind and loving hopeful words. Ali was nice, too. You shouldn’t wear people out. Last night, Ali was nice too.
“Every evening you go to their house. You’ve forgotten what it’s like to stay in. One day they’ll throw you out.” My hands tremble as I reach out for the doorbell. Slowly I go up the stairs. So that our confrontation will be delayed. Actually, I should turn back.
“You overwhelm people. You want us to talk to you and care for you twenty-four seven.”
“It’s not like that, Ali. I’m so lonely. I’m sorry, I know I’m making you uneasy. I can’t help it”
“You really are making us uneasy. You left in the middle of the night and now we wake up to your face again.”
“I’m so lonely. I forget it only when I’m with you.”
“Your loneliness is your own problem.”
He didn’t really mean what he said. “You never should have said that. You shouldn’t underestimate the pain and fear I feel when a night ends. You don’t really underestimate it.” Chaos weighs heavily in our lives. We all blame one another.
Gülten had not left the stairwell. “Goodbye, Ali,” I’d said. He’d held out his hand. (I have to make these Sunday mornings the dead end of my honor.) I retreat down the steps as fast as I can. If I knew that I wouldn’t fall, trip or look ridiculous, I’d take two or three steps at a time; I’d race from here. Gülten, standing in the stairwell and saddened by some constantly slamming and beating sounds she seemed to be hearing, was sending regards to whomever she could think of. They know I never forward those regards, they know I’m dead jealous of my friendships. But there was no need to waste words. I was on the steps; it was impossible to think clearly.
“Last night, I felt like the third person. We were talking about summer vacations. This summer, there just had to be a visit to the seaside: Bodrum. You two were talking. I was listening. You didn’t invite me. You didn’t have to.
The beaches, the sun and the fish of Bodrum… I’ve never gone to Bodrum and I probably never will. Not even this summer. Because you didn’t invite me.”
“Where are you coming from?”
“I was at Ali’s.”
“So early in the morning… Shame on you. They’ll start to wonder if you don’t have a house of your own.”
“They didn’t say anything.”
Ali didn’t like the dead silence that filled the room from time to time. The abrupt ending of conversations, the impossibility to continue should have suggested that I get up and head home. However, I liked even that silence. I felt quite content buried in the armchair, living in the recently unlived-in room. Gülten is different. She can always find topics that won’t lose interest. Ali’s world was not so rich. Then too, Ali was an introvert. (The rain is whipping my face. I need to find some people. People who will take my mind off Gülten and Ali. And now the rain’s pouring harder than ever.) In his friendships Ali calculates what to say and what not to say. He doesn’t make confessions like I do. I’m incredibly honest with them, as I can never be with any one else. They listen to me for nights on end. They’ll listen for a whole month, until the intoxication of their yearly holiday ends. “Let’s finally go somewhere this summer, Ali. We miss the sea.” Gülten’s thick dark hair; her fine sense of style. They’ll be going to seaside restaurants in the evenings. Summer nights are unbelievably hot. In Istanbul we literally bake. In Bodrum the breeze blows in from the sea. They’ll be eating fish, shrimp, oysters, squid…
“Is everything all right, Kemal?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know; you look a little pale. You seem to be upset about something.”
“No, I’m fine.”
I lower my head. My eyes meet Ali’s. “His bourgeois loneliness has probably reawakened,” says Ali, smiling. I could break the window, the china ashtrays, the plates and glasses in the kitchen, the lamps in the bedroom… But I don’t sense any bad intention in his teasing. He’s joking in a friendly manner. I love their friendship.
I’m as lonely now as if I’d known them for years. Actually it’s only been a year since our friendship began.
It was a dull and empty Sunday morning. I’d had nothing to do. I couldn’t find the strength to lie down and read a book the way Ali would. I never could. I thought for sure they’d call. I was beside the telephone. It didn’t ring. I’d gone through the papers. With every line I scanned I could feel desperation surrounding and enclosing me. As if besieging me. All the hurt and broken-heartedness between Gülten, Ali and me was transformed into the butchery in the papers. I have to make them understand how unprotected I’ll be on my own, that I can’t defend myself and will be defeated by this hopelessness. (“How fortunate are those in mourning, for they shall be consoled… because they shall be shown mercy.” They haven’t, though. Maybe because they don’t believe in the fruitfulness of the rain.) They were having breakfast. “Would you like some tea?” Gülten had asked.
What I expected Ali to say was, “As if he’d say no; he’d even take water.” He didn’t say anything. He’d opened the papers I hadn’t been able to read as if trying to hide his face. As if there were something he didn’t want to see, something he despised. He wrinkled his forehead; his eyes had lost their sympathy. Gülten was spreading butter on the toast.
“I’m full, Gülten, thank you,” I say. She insists. Our eyes meet. She looks at me with sensitive and understanding eyes. This moisture in the corners of my eyes. I’ve got to hold back my tears no matter what. (The rain hadn’t started yet. We could have gone to the Bosphorus. All the restaurants along the shore. All the varieties of fish. “You didn’t invite me to Bodrum but I’m inviting you for a fish dinner.” I’d rehearsed what I was going to say on my way there. I’d try to act lively, carefree and relaxed. That’s how I’d be. Only a fortune-teller could have known that the rain was on its way. It was a winter morning heralding an early summer.)
“Go to Bodrum. Wander along the beaches if you like. I won’t speak to you again when you return. I shouldn’t. Go to Bodrum by yourselves. Enjoy your togetherness. Let the sun show its compassion only to you. Let the sea’s cooling waters be a treat only to you. Like I said, wander along all those beaches…”
Then Ali put the paper down. We’d spoken little. “Has something happened?” he’d asked. “Something must have happened for you to have turned up like this.” Then he’d gone into the bedroom. Gülten and I were left alone in the kitchen. (The first drops of rain on the windows, forming ponds on the window panes.)
“I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want a basket.”
“Whatever you like.” Her eyes still on my raincoat, on the muddy cuffs of my corduroy pants.
“How much are the violets?”
“Ten liras a bouquet.”
“What are those?”
“I wouldn’t recommend them, sir. They’ve been here for two days now. The violets have just arrived.”
I’d only wanted to ask the name. They reminded me of lilies. I liked lilies as well.
“The violets are expensive. I’d like to send a lot. In a huge box.”
“You’re right. It would cost quite a bit. What price do you have in mind?”
I want to send flowers to Gülten—standing at the top of the stairs waiting for me to descend. I want to send her all these flowers.
“Why don’t we prepare a bouquet of carnations? Carnations are nice, too.” She points to the carnations with their petals about to fall off. I don’t like them. I have to decide. Her playing with the tassels has quickened.
I stumble as I put on my shoes. My laces are still untied. Ali is standing in the doorway. I lean against the wall. My handprint remains on the wall. “I’ve left a mark on the wall,” I say.
“No harm, I’ll wipe it off,” she responds. Something seems to tear inside me as I leave. Each time, I think I’ll never see them again. I can’t ask, “When shall we meet again?” I’ve always said “We’ll speak on the phone, keep in touch.” Today I didn’t. I tied my shoelaces. I wiped my hand on the skirt of my raincoat and held it out to them: “Goodbye Gülten, Goodbye Ali.” Ali doesn’t come out into the stairwell. I had no right to ruin their Sunday morning.
“You’re friendly people. I really like you.”
“Thank you, Kemal.”
“I really mean it. From time to time, I believe you and Ali are the only way out.”
“Still, you must shake this loneliness thing off.”
“Gülten, you’re forgetting that Kemal is a bourgeois.”
“Ali’s only teasing you.”
“I’m teasing you, too. I’m no bourgeoisie.”
A youngster brings the cellophane box. One night I’d gone to Ali’s house. I’d enjoyed happy moments at their small table. Friendships are the last shelter. The girl opens the lid of the cellophane box. Her hands seem facile. “Is there a blank card?” The youngster hands me the card. I reach for the pen on the table: “Dearest Gülten, I’ve never met anyone else who shares one’s loneliness like you do. Thank you for this morning.” I put the pen back on the table. I give the girl the address. She is no longer playing with her tassels. She writes the address down in her notebook. “Send it exactly at seven please.”
She smiles and adds, “Don’t worry.”
It had been a summer I loved. It had passed between an unused parlor and a small balcony. It was a summer when monotony was replaced by finesse, sensitivity and meaning. I’d felt the same enthusiasm each time I ran up the stairs.
“You’ve been like this since you were a kid. You haven’t changed a bit. Always at other people’s houses. You were just there yesterday.”
I’ve been like this since I was a kid. I haven’t changed a bit. I was always attracted to other people’s houses. What was it about Ali’s house that I liked so much? At first it was a game, it hadn’t yet been spoiled by the idea of having to give it up… Gülten, by no means ill at ease, seemed to enjoy preparing dinner even after an exhausting day at work. Ali’s reliability and his attitude without contempt. We’d quickly found solidarity in each other. Ali would draw sharp lines across his life: born in poverty in Üsküdar—the years he studied and worked—falling in love with Gülten—getting married… Üsküdar is a neighborhood where we used to pick forget-me-nots in my childhood. It’s a place we used to visit often. I can’t seem to shake off this Üsküdar—as if it were my destiny. It’s taking revenge for a sin I’ve never committed. I long for the health that Ali’s found and experienced. It’s not jealousy. I respect their happiness. “How fortunate are those in mourning …”
(I have to find others. Acquaintances I haven’t seen for a long time. People who should be happy when they open the door. “We were together last night, and we wake up to your bell in the morning. You’re so selfish.” The dust and earth that the rain couldn’t wash away. It’s all mud now.) They’ll send the flowers at seven. That youngster will deliver them. He’ll curse at me deep inside; “In this rain…” he’ll say. But they aren’t being sent to celebrate or repair anything. I’m putting an end to this emotion, I’ve reached the end. I’ll reminisce about so many things from that summer. Ali is not a man in his thirties. He is constantly rejuvenating, becoming more like a child. This rejuvenation of his is magical. He buys soda for Gülten and me. We’re watching a bad movie at the outdoor summer cinema. Gülten’s laughter, Ali’s laughter. I join in; I laugh loudly. Tears start to run down my face, I’m still laughing. I’m dying of laughter. The crowd in the outdoor summer cinema begins to thin out. Gülten is telling me something. She is telling me something nice. I feel like wrapping my arms around both of them. A strange kind of insolence. An insolence that doesn’t suit me. I should be humble. That’s how I was brought up. My eyes are now fixed on the paving stones, on the cracks and crevices.
“Call again, Kemal.”
Gülten knows that I won’t call. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have stood in the stairwell for so long. I feel sorry for her. (My dignity is bruised.)
“I was bored, that’s why I stopped by.”
“Have you eaten, Kemal?”
“I give you a lot of trouble, Gülten.”
“Come off it, now. I’m cooking anyhow.”
It’s a stupid gesture, my sending flowers. I’ll go back and tell them I’ve changed my mind. “I’ll deliver them myself; give me the box,” I’ll say. I’ll throw them down in some secluded place; if I drop them at a run nobody will notice. Ali will be absolutely furious. I couldn’t stand Gülten’s pity. The girl at the florist’s will shake her tassels. The cuffs of my pants are muddier than ever.
I should go home and wait for Gülten’s call.
