Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale (22 page)

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As for the other witnesses of the incident; the steps they took would show you the direction of your future path, whether you were in their company or not, you could at least decide it for yourself. Now, what had Madame Eleni, who knew the significance of the stories related to flights, felt in the presence of all these events? The answer is not so easy to find. Nay, even impossible! To begin with, at the time, Madame Eleni happened to be far away, remote from us; such had been her choice. The distance was partly our doing, I think; it was a reflection of our aloofness. To my mind, this was due to the denial of her circle, making her out as if she were denying it, to her insistence on keeping her inner world inaccessible to others, and to our failure to take that step toward her as well as to our lack of courage to do so. The story she lived and revealed to us was the story of those people, who, although close to us, preferred to keep people at arm’s length, in that area which we always had difficulty in delineating its boundaries although we were in a strong position to do so, or which we could interpret, based on certain relationships, dreams and human beings . . . there were lives, moments, and contingencies we had missed. That question and what it gave rise to have always diverted me from my path; the questions I asked others and myself using different phraseologies educe me now belatedly and seem as though they can re-establish my links with certain people. When and through which particular window had I last had a glimpse of Madame Eleni, busy in that kitchen that opened to the light shaft? Was she actually naked, as she seemed to be; could it be that she had been able to strip herself naked during those evenings? When had I last tried to advance, groping in the dark, as in those stories to which I could gain no access, and which, precisely because I had failed to do so, took quite different turns from what I would have expected, were elaborated upon by hesitations, suspicions (and, most importantly), enlarged their dimensions over time, aided by our shortcomings? To try to advance in a story, groping in the dark . . . Madame Roza’s gait on this path had been quite different; her steps had been quite different. Once again, she had remained behind that curtain of secrets which I have always tried to explain, and already tried to share, at other places, with other people; her finding similarities between the thunder on a stormy night and the sounds of gunfire during the Bulgarians’ offensive at Çatalca of which she used to tell me when she was in the mood; her elaborating on the stories she had in her memory; her association of thunder with death; the thunder, that when she was matured, during her motherhood and grandmotherhood that appeared to her terrifying and threatening and made her feel like taking refuge in someone, just like when she was a little girl; her staying in Istanbul as an émigré; her suffering that had inevitably succeeded in permeating her former days of plenty; her grieving over her abandonment, in that small Eden, of her faithful dog who had never left her side during those horrible nights, sleeping in her house, in her room, at the head of her bedstead; her abandonment of her father who had failed to adapt himself to their new lifestyle in Istanbul and to the conditions prevailing there; her failing to pardon him for his leading us to betrayal. This woman told all these things as though she had been narrating a fairy tale; she who could not bring herself to leave the people she loved
tête-à-tête
with their own afflictions despite her own worries. She could not and would not whisper a single word about Madame Eleni’s secret or her past to anybody despite our strict insistence. This discretion had been enough for me to feel lonesome once again in that story. Nevertheless, I did entertain a faint hope for years and wanted to believe that I would one day be able to discover the mystery of this story in all its elements, as I had to live other lives in all their specific details. To live other lives; by trying to bring together certain scenes with others I borrowed, lending meanings to them, without overlooking the changeability of the story beyond a certain point, like in the case of every other story that we transport to our own personal ventures . . . This seemed to be the only way, the securest way to patch up the bits and pieces. I can convey that doubt that had changed the course of the story in those days only by words which I know to have changed. The absence of answers and the fact that answers can give rise to new questions, whether one wants it to or not, lead up to the same place; the urge to go back and have access to those past experiences despite all the defeats likely to be encountered on that path . . . I had come into contact with the source, or at least thought that I had. Those scenes return to me now like an old song mislaid somewhere in the past, left to abide there for a long time, without letting it sink into oblivion. Could one attribute the taciturnity of Madame Roza to the privilege bestowed on her of being the only neighbor given the right to call now and then at Madame Eleni’s for a cup of coffee, to the imposition on her circle of her superiority, to her incapacity to betray the responsibility that her past observations laid on her shoulders—it was a mysterious past and she had acquired that knowledge for the sake of her own life—or to her concealing her household secrets not only from her confidante but also from her own self, by providing answers of a general nature to my questions with trite maxims such as “well, after all, everybody has her own way of life,” or “every household has its own secrets?” These were the possible explanations that presented themselves at first sight. However, outside these possibilities, each of which could lead one to a different place, there was another possibility which I thought should be considered, as I felt it nearer to me. The said opportunity made it possible for me to trace back a return, a completely different return, an opportunity that shed some light, from a different time, on the life of two people, to be precise, on their joint life . . . She had identified the hours that she had spent with Madame Eleni with a small world which she believed she had lost for good and in which she would not live ever again. In that world, there existed a sense of language which her childhood had delineated through different angles and had been abandoned in the distant past. To be able to decipher the language of one’s childhood with the help of one’s later experiences, to be able to return to that innocence, to that little poem, during the hours jointly reproduced by two people. The fact that Madame Roza was reluctant to allow others to cross over the borders of the island in which she led her daily life and which she tried to keep alive seems now understandable. What had prompted me to narrate these things was her almost perfect knowledge of the Greek language which might be a source of envy for many people. What she had learned in that small, cold Greek School at Çatalca (demolished during the Balkan War, but which continued to live in the memories of many people) whose teaching staff consisted of priests who created an atmosphere of terror, had made possible the reproduction of other sentiments and prepared a reliable background for sharing certain lives. It is to be noted, however, that what her father—a member of the nationalist forces who continued to shuttle between his motherland and here, during the post-war period of World War I—told about the treachery of the Greeks had left indelible traces on Madame Roza. Yet, she still had a penchant for Greeks which she could not bring herself to confess even to herself. This
terra incognita
within her remained unadulterated, unsoiled and intact. One could feel the traces of this approach in her elation while reciting the heroic Greek verses as enthusiastically as the poems of Victor Hugo and Lamartine which she had memorized at the
Alliance
in Istanbul and in her passion for sharing this enthusiasm with us. This was a return quite different from the one she had experienced while with Madame Eleni to which she tried to lend meanings in a completely different dimension. The integration of poetry was an interesting point. I believe that this made the return journey somewhat more beautiful and worthy of narration; seeking ways to resuscitate a man lost in a different time, trapped in a different body, fixed with greater yearnings . . . Those people were different. There certainly was a difference between Roza the child and Roza the mother, the spouse, the woman and the grandmother. Now, I am in a better position to appreciate the importance of those poems, of those yarns. She had not memorized any other poem since her school years; she hadn’t felt the need. Nevertheless, this choice enabled her to view the world at a closer range, allowing her to attach greater and deeper meanings to those poems than their inherent significance alone. This was just one of her solitudes it seems. On the other hand, we all know the stories that solitudes engender or may engender according to one’s idiosyncrasies. Is this the reason why I came to believe that Madame Eleni might fit the theme of a poem as well as the plot of a tale? Yet, this belief had not allowed me to intrude upon the boundaries of this woman who kept herself distant from her friends. This was a story involving considerable unknown elements, a story that was rewound every day. Under the circumstances it was inevitable, natural and to be expected that the incidents that had taken place in her story should persistently lead me astray. Whether we know it or not (whether we are obliged to or not) it is an undeniable fact that, not only in love affairs but in all relationships we want to possess above all else what we are liable to lose, what we are afraid to lose. However, we can derive certain conclusions from the times when Madame Roza let the cat out of the bag, although she tried to make us overlook them as though they were insignificant things. On the one hand, the rumors that many people reproduced had no relevance whatsoever to the actual facts, but were thought of as nonsense to those who tried to keep aloof from such gossip. On the other hand, certain secrets were left in the background unpronounced, with the potential for expression . . . Could this story be based on the unlikely foundation of a telltale clue? Why not? In order to understand certain stories better, like certain lives, in order to get a hold on them, was it not required to ignore the consequences of certain errors, and, more importantly, to live with these errors? Those oversights were inevitable, you couldn’t, after a certain point, remain indifferent to their call, those calls which you believed capable of changing the course of a life . . . It was not possible for you to remain indifferent to the calls or to the feelings engendered by those calls . . . I must take a pause here. For, to the best of my understanding, the word ‘call’ had a special place in Madame Eleni’s life. It was evident that she also had to forbear the consequences of the call along with all the storms that this had caused within her. Her confidential past, that had caused her to look like a lunatic who had broken all her relations with the outside world and confined her within the four walls of her house, had roused my interest especially for this reason. I had taken a few steps ahead in a story related to abandonment; in this way, I once again had the possibility to piece together the vestiges left by certain people. This was a game I could not have possibly denied myself. In this way, I should be able also to recollect the history of those dilemmas, of dreams not realized, and of defeats. This seemed to be a necessary consequence of the game. What made this game real and worth playing was this, I think. What we experienced within us was a stage play enacted more than once, the consequences of which one endured in one way or another. Otherwise, how could we put up with the existence of people we had left at a particular time of our lives, entrusting us with those certain encounters brought back to us at unexpected moments? Did the stories of other people not give us certain clues about our own which attached us to life and assumed significance by our occasional lies that took different forms as time went by? Under the circumstances, could one consider Madame Eleni’s story, for instance, the story of her devotion to a man whose arrival had been awaited for a lifetime, despite all the recollections, feelings and betrayals? In addition to what we had learned from Madame Roza, there were pieces of information that certain rumors had wafted toward us. Eleni was said to have been enamored with a Turkish officer when she was in her teens. The story went that they used to meet secretly. This secrecy and the exclusion that caused it had inevitably brought them closer to each other, as the story went on. Having arrived at that critical point beyond which there was no return, they had sought the solution in escape . . . escape anywhere . . . for the sake of their love . . . in order not to lose each other further down the road . . . So far there was nothing out of the ordinary in terms of originality or precedent. In order that I might fit Madame Eleni into her place in this peculiar story, Tanaş had to intervene. He was a man who had born the grief of abandonment over many years. He had a delicatessen in Karaköy. He also was an experienced loner; he was the hero of another unique tale, and was, on top of that, Eleni’s father, a man devoted to his daughter. A father devoted to his daughter . . . When you think of all that had transpired, it looks like a strange kind of love that startles one; a story of bondage, a story that shelters in it a death that only the heroes can properly define, a death deeply embedded in their secret depths, as is the case with all sorts of enslavement and passion . . . Tanaş had the premonition that his daughter, to whom he was devoted, would vanish into thin air following that escape. The only way to thwart this scheme was to keep her under lock and key; this was a kind of measure that an unrequited lover might revert to in order to hinder the elopement of his beloved with somebody else . . . This was the exact spot, the starting point of the story according to some, and, according to others, the point where the story continued under new guises. We know nothing about the details, we never shall. All that we know is that the story had begun on the night that Eleni was getting ready to elope with her captain, and that this state of affairs had lasted for many years. Eleni had been confined to the house that night. Days had dawned and the sun had set from different angles thereafter. Under the circumstances, one understands the situation better: her seclusion and the impression she created in us that made her supposedly insane—the events that, to many, may seem utter nonsense, conveyed to me by various mouths, at various times, with a view to patching them up—now meshed into a whole consisting of a succession of scenes. She had eloped taking with her the black patent leather shoes purchased for her by her officer lover for the sake of that yearning that called to her in fictions, the Bordeaux red