Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale (20 page)

“After that night we tried to establish contact with Mimico; we did something we hadn’t done before; we invited him to our house; we told him that he could come either alone or with Lena. Yet, he chose to remain remote from us. It looked as though he had lost confidence in his friends. Or he had preferred not to allow others to see the real face of the woman who was his lot in life. We were to learn all about it much later, after the lapse of some time—in other words, too late. This beautiful woman who could seduce any man by her charm, who had, I’m sure, tried a plurality of relationships, had already married twice, but both marriages had proved disastrous. The men with whom she had established matrimonial ties had been wealthy foreign businessmen. She had lived a couple of years in Lugano, a few years in Corfu and a few years in Alexandria. It was rumored that she had been the mistress of an MP. However, all these reports were based on hearsay. One felt that while she was in the company of the said MP, that it was his first attempt at dancing, drinking and enjoying a night. He was a Levantine. He spoke French and Italian as his mother tongues. He had lost all the members of his family at an early age . . . Berti had learned this, years later, from Mimico, one evening while having tea at the Park Hotel. That had been the only evening when they had been genuine friends. I feel sure that they had had better insight into their acquisitions and losses. I can’t otherwise explain Berti’s disclosure of his experience of that evening to me. An evening full of remorse, a remorse which he openly displayed. There were many other questions in our minds to which we had no proper answer. How did it happen that such a woman had opted for a conjugal life with a man like Mimico? According to Berti they had met at
Casa d’Italia
. The very night of the encounter, they had dined in a restaurant at Tepebaşı and had a few drinks. Mimico had, for the first time, tried to light a cigarette, which had amused Lena. Afterward, they had made a trip to the Princes’ Islands, to Büyükada to be precise, where they had had a swim. Apparently they confessed to each other that, together, they had experienced the most pleasant moments of their lives. Then, at Lunapark, Lena had proposed to Mimico. She didn’t have any family, as a matter of fact, there was no one to whom she was closely related. Their respective solitudes had linked them together. Eventually, their wedding was celebrated by a modest party attended by only a few neighbors and a few relatives that had cropped up from God knows where. It had occurred to no one that Lena was not a Jewess . . . However it appears that the invitees had been mystified by other facts; they must’ve asked themselves the same questions we ask each other after many years of marriage. What could have induced a woman like Lena to choose Mimico as a husband? Could it be the need to take refuge in someone or to have some respite, or for another reason? There was more than one possible answer hidden in the relationship. At long last, the thing that everybody had been waiting for had taken place. Two years after the shooting of this picture, Lena had abandoned Mimico without leaving a note or reason. She had gone away just as she had come, in the natural course of events. This was natural for us too; there was nothing strange in it. However, we, like everyone else, had been content with merely watching the development of this relationship from a distance without making any remark. Therefore, it was evident we might have missed a good many things. A strange presentiment, our skepticism, seemed to have quickened the coming of the final curtain. We were shattered all the same. For, we were well aware of the fact that Mimico wouldn’t accept this as naturally as we had done. He had initiated himself to matrimonial life with such great expectations despite his apprehensions. This must’ve been the reason why he couldn’t bring himself to believe that Lena could have forsaken him. He consoled himself by imagining that she must have gone somewhere with a view to solving a matter of urgency, and that she would sooner or later come back home. He went even further; he turned this fiction into concrete fact. He felt as though he had to. This was the only way that he could refresh his link with life. We tried not to leave him alone during those days. However, he wanted nothing to do with us. He did not express this openly, but the way he behaved made it apparent. He may have thought that the people whose confidence he believed he’d lost and in whom he could trust no more had no right to be privy to his troubles. It was as if he were chastising us for our belatedness and improvidence. He punished us by not allowing us to share in his grief. He needed people whom he could take to task. Now I understand it better. I think he had at the same time begun liking solitude and trying to find in this solitude another person. These were the days when he had got rid of his stammering. Nevertheless, he grew less and less talkative; he buried himself in his reticence more and more. He seemed to have chosen his own path to wisdom. After a while, our ties broke all together, under a cloak of darkness . . . Without being involved in a struggle, like before . . . Afterward, long afterward, we were denied the chance to watch the ritual of solitude even in our solemn silence, the ritual to which other people bore witness. He had become more and more introverted; that was all that we could see. During those days when he preferred to keep aloof from his former friends, when he seldom went out and looked to discard them from his life completely. I was told that now and then he frequented the restaurant where he had dined with Lena, spruced up, as though he was going to a dinner party. At the beginning, he used to make a booking for two, he had the table set accordingly, and began waiting for his wife, expecting that she, to whom he had remained faithful throughout his life, might come at any moment. Having waited for quite a while, he began eating slowly according to the rites of the ritual; he told the waiters that the woman he had been waiting for must’ve been delayed, that she might show up any moment; that he’d had a tacit understanding with her, according to which if either party were delayed the other party might start eating, thus asking the waiter to keep the setting of his companion intact. After the conclusion of his dinner, he got up as though there was nothing out of the ordinary, intimating to the waiters that he had enjoyed his meal, thanking them for their service and that he would call again. This habit lasted for years. In the meantime, the waiters had understood, of course, what was going on, just so much as to satisfy their curiosity. One day, by chance, when we happened to be eating at the said restaurant, Muhittin Bey, who had told others about this ritual of Mimico’s and had developed it as a habit of his own, entered. He had understood his role in this play. The words used in the play were the only thing that had changed; as a matter of fact, even the words became insufficient beyond a certain point. I think Mimico had endeared himself to everybody there, through his farcical play based on an imaginary exercise. I said ‘by chance,’ and by chance indeed it was! After all, the world is a small place, isn’t it? Muhittin Bey was an elderly gentleman, of that old Istanbulian stock; a tall man, with thick-framed glasses; he spoke slowly, articulating each word he uttered. He had an aristocratic air. He seemed to have learned how to enjoy life after years of trials and tribulations. He spoke through his looks, through looks that seemed to perceive a man’s true personality. I believe he owed this to his aristocratic quality. He might have been an excellent stage actor. As a matter of fact, he had reminded me of an actor I’d seen in a film which is beyond my recollection now. All that I can remember of that man were his looks that transported one to a different realm. He seemed to have solved a good many problems in his life; he gave the impression that he made the best of every opportunity. It was an awe-inspiring and humbling demeanor; but very effective, indeed. The countenance of Muhittin Bey was not debasing. Quite the opposite in actual fact; he struck one by his gentility. He had an imposing and well-proportioned gait which commanded admiration. As we were eating, he approached and excused himself, imparting to us the fact that, given that he knew us, he should like to tell us a remembrance of his. I cannot remember having enjoyed any other story so much. It was a very long story. It was the story of a person we knew so well, to wit Mimico . . . This was how we came to know of his experiences in that restaurant, by the good graces of a person who had been more than a witness, who aided in the construction of those scenes, each of which was pregnant with a plurality of undertones . . . A friend, a very old friend that accosted us at the least expected moment. We were sitting at the same table. Muhittin Bey said that he had at last found the right people to whom to tell the story locked in the store of his memory that was desperate to see the light of day. That would apparently be his last night in that restaurant. He had worked a lot in the years gone by, had made an infinite number of acquaintances, and had finally decided to withdraw to his corner. It was as simple as that; there was nothing out of the ordinary in this. It seemed that everything was changing and was finding new breath in others. He wasn’t the only one that had undergone a transformation, the recipes and the customers, the voices and the odors that made the restaurant what it actually was had also changed. This was only natural at his age. Everybody in his turn would, out of necessity, experience this. Nevertheless, being conscious of this fact didn’t prevent
him from feeling lonely and like a stranger at a place where he had spent so many years. Only
he
knew the stories hidden in the cracks of some of the plates; he knew how the old goblets of wine had been broken; he knew all the loving couples sitting
tête-à-tête
at the tables; he knew the story of the woman who often came to the restaurant and was later stabbed to death by her husband. But now was the time for sharing, to the extent that the possibilities and conditions involved with such a lag-in-time allowed. He was extremely happy as he planned to live night and day together with his sister, who was almost his age, in his derelict house overlooking the sea, replete with souvenirs that would abide there forever . . . He had mentioned Mimico as an old friend of his, a human being—a stranger to us as he had believed—one that he could never forget. He knew a lot of things about him, more than he professed to know. I believe that Mimico had told his story about Lena, with all its miseries, but also about his other friends and the people that had abandoned and betrayed him. He behaved as though he wanted to say that he had been expecting us, as if we were fated to meet each other sooner or later. ‘Why on earth, do you think that I stayed here all this time? I’d been waiting for you,’ he seemed to say; just like in those horror stories that thrilled one. ‘I’d been waiting for you.’ We, who had been sitting at the table, totally unaware of what was going to take place had the chance of lending our ears to the story in question. We hadn’t dared to let our interlocutor know that we knew Mimico, perhaps because of our guilty complex. This seemed to us a better way of handling the situation. Mimico had been recalled to life that night as he would have liked to be, long after he had passed away. It’d been some four or five years since his demise. I can’t distinctly remember now. I couldn’t remember a great many events, much as I would have liked to. All that I could remember was that we had been informed of his death by a small notice that had appeared in a daily. It was a tiny announcement that would hardly engage the attention of a casual reader . . . You know what, I have the habit of scanning the obituaries every day without getting tired in the least . . . Who had placed that notice was not known; beneath the notice was written ‘a friend.’ The burial ceremony had been ordained. According to the wish of Mimico, the notice had been given after the service. We could never learn who that friend was.

The notice had shattered Berti . . . He took me to the Tozkoparan district, to the streets where they used to play marbles. He told me about Mimico’s mastery in marble playing, as he described the old streets that kids gave an original charm to. He was matchless, unbeatable in marbles. This was one of the rare accomplishments of his life, one which he prided himself on. He devoted the major part of his leisure to this game. He dedicated the greatest part of his time to it . . . turning a deaf ear to his mother’s reproaches. It was reported that he had a great number of bags replete with marbles; it was also claimed, however, that this was exaggerated. Was it possible to gather all the marbles on earth; would the power of this boy’s imagination, reluctant to grow up, suffice in collecting all of the marbles within the brief span of his boyhood? To live cheek by jowl with his treasure was bliss for him. For him every marble had its own gamut of radiation. He was reminding that person, his only confidante, whose access to his forbidden zone had been allowed, of all these particulars. This was a world of its own to which marbles invited you. To be able to carry the entire burden of the world within a marble; like in a fairy tale, by giving birth to one’s own tale . . . to such an extent that you would, for a while at least, be oblivious to the concrete world around you, the world you happened to inhabit . . . One evening, when school let out, he had loitered and wasted the day while playing marbles with his friends. The day was growing dark and he had not shown up. Madame Victoria was agitated; she rushed out and found her son two streets away, at that very place Berti called: ‘that triangulated spot preferred for long lasting parties.’ She took him by the ear and dragged him home.

“He was in the presence of his circle of friends who couldn’t match him in this game and were there to witness the mastery he displayed. Right at the moment he was about to make a smart stroke. His loitering had driven her mad. He had to be subjected to a severe chastisement that evening. She was known to be a mild and kindhearted woman but when she got mad, no one could abate her wrath. This was to my estimation a kind of self-protection, as well as a measure of protection to those she loved. To be able to stand on safe ground was not so easy, after all. A desperate struggle took one to places one would be reluctant to inhabit. You see, I’m trying to understand the situation without passing any judgment on it; yet, I can’t decide whether she was justified or not in venting her wrath on her son. Poor Mimico was not only humiliated in the presence of his companions, but had also lost all his marbles, as, when they were back at home, Madame Victoria had taken a hammer in her hand and broken all of them into pieces. Later on, she had confessed to my mother-in-law that what she had done was a stupid thing and that she had bitterly regretted it. Many years had passed. Everybody had grown up in their own way. What she had done was a ‘little murder.’ He was positive about it. He would never be able to forgive her for that. Yet, what’s the use in dwelling on something that occurred years ago? As a matter of fact, Mimico had not even touched a marble after that incident; he held no marbles to the light, nor did he want to hear their clicking sound anymore. Berti thinks that this was one of the most important things that had dispirited him, the underlying cause of his moroseness. By losing his marbles he had lost his small world, his small sanctuary . . . We had been passing by Christopher’s old bicycle repair shop. It was a dirty and dingy place in the basement: now tenanted by a scrap iron dealer. He didn’t have to provide an explanation for it. I’d understood. I could at least imagine what must have happened. As I’ve told you already, many people fancied him as a backward, retarded fellow who had bats in the belfry. Many people thought him to be a timid and weak man. To my mind, he was a misfit, a person poorly adjusted to his environment; a person who had failed to make himself understood. You know the type; those who prefer to remain a member of the same flock or who cannot help being one of the herd, who find it difficult to fit in a given place with others different to them. Actually, the problem was a simple one, much simpler than one could imagine. Do you remember, I’d spoken to you once of a magic wand? Of a world liable to change by a sleight of hand? Unfortunately no one could get the hang of this; even his closest friends, even Berti, for that matter. We had no opportunity to discuss this with Jenny. She must’ve felt the same as me. The fact is that during those days, everybody was absorbed in their own problems, in their own human concerns. At such times, we remained aloof from other people; we tended to keep our distance . . . So distant now, so far away . . . Madame Victoria must have been conscious of this. Had it been otherwise, one could not possibly explain her desire to see her son married, to have a nice girl for himself. O, those frightful nights of sexuality! The hell that made the weekends impossible . . . Evil and cruelty dominate human relations under the circumstances . . . The existence of a reliable woman . . . the mother could discern it, although she had partly destroyed that well-protected world when she could not restrain herself from breaking his marbles. Nevertheless, men realized that after a certain point the only path left to them was in seeking mutual protection against all untoward occurrences. Barring the deceptions, the injuries received, it was not so easy to seek refuge in other people. Mimico’s dilemma was his having been in pursuit of a woman who would favor his devotion to marbles. It is a pity that he could not bring himself to believe that such a woman did not exist, that he, Mimico, could not possibly have such a woman. In a nutshell, his dream was not of this world. You may come forth claiming that women are cruel and impassive in such circumstances, and I will not contradict you. Yet, one should not forget that every individual has a right to self-protection, to protect oneself or to try to do so. Madame Victoria had done everything she believed to be right for her son, but she had to succumb to an untimely death. For Mimico, this meant the loss of his most reliable sanctuary and refuge against the adversities that one was fated to encounter throughout one’s lifetime. He knocked on Berti’s door early one morning. To father Jacques, who had opened the door for him, he said: ‘Mother has gone.’ Jacques did not get what he meant by that at first; he sensed, however, that something was wrong. He awakened the house who then mobilized. They went to see what the matter was. Mimico, who opened the door and tried to explain what had happened, not with words, but by gestures that seemed to signify that his mother had gone far away. They rushed to the bedroom; Mimico’s mother lay dead. They got nearer to the body. There were a couple of teardrops on her cheeks, two drops almost dried. The mother-in-law noticed this and pointed them to Berti. Had tears rushed to her eyes because she had felt a great pain before she died? It seemed that the departure hadn’t been so easy. Had Madame Victoria wept because of pain or because of the fact that she was going to leave her child all alone in the world in such a vulnerable state? No one could possibly guess. However, I’m inclined to believe in the second alternative. Much as he would have wished to, Berti wanted to stay there for the day, but he could not bring himself to. He had the impression that Mimico preferred to be left alone. The same inclination had been expressed during the following days. The pouring of oil on troubled waters was necessary. Everybody was conscious of it. There had been no change in his daily routine. Mimico continued to work at the accounting department at the rabbi’s office. After a while, he was engaged as a bookkeeper in a small company. After a while . . . When he needed some more money . . . He always felt the absence of his mother; he began waiting for that woman who would give him maternal affection and warmth when needed; trudging patiently on the rough paths of life . . . Then Lena popped up one day. Lena was for him a dream figure, although at the same time, a source of many worries. She might not have been a sweetheart in the proper sense of the word; she was a symbol from a dream. This must’ve been the reason why he didn’t want to wake up. To pay the cost of the difference had been easy for no one. The latest episode was stored in Muhittin Bey’s memory. The restaurant had closed shop because it had changed hands. For Mimico, this meant the severance of his vital ties to his dreamworld. This might be considered to mirror the destruction of his marbles. Yes, the loss of his marbles . . . at a time when he had after many years been deprived of his pristine energy. This development of affairs moved Mimico away from his friends; bereft of his game, life for him had lost its significance. He began building walls. Muhittin Bey was one of the rare people who had the privilege of climbing over those walls. He paid visits to him on a few occasions. One day, he went to inform him of the restaurant’s inauguration. He was to be the guest of honor; a table was reserved for him. Mimico had smiled. So many years had gone by since he had last smiled. Yet, he looked prostrate. He spoke of the approach of the end . . . Muhittin Bey was with him on his last night. Just before he died, he told him that everybody had done everything that had been required of them, except for that army sergeant who had slapped his right ear, causing his deafness, whom he would never forgive. None of us knew what had befallen him during his military service. Neither Berti, nor I, nor anyone else; none of us . . . I’
m sure Madame Victoria herself had not been told of it. What is more interesting still was that he had never told us (or wanted us to know) that he couldn’t hear at all from his right ear. It appears that before departing he had wanted to communicate it to someone . . . that’s all . . . ”