Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale (27 page)

On the one hand there was Eleni who had evoked in me the visions of a forbidden and inaccessible realm, and on the other hand, Tanaş, resigned in his shell to a long-lasting gradual decay. Hüsnü, discontented, had had to pay in an utterly dejected state the price for his failure in complying with the requirements of the day, while Şükran had missed that shadowy flat in which she used to live during those days of horror when she approached death, perhaps the last steps taken in her struggle for life which was most probably a lost cause from the very beginning, a foregone conclusion; and there was Anita in that room of hers where her father one day left her without forewarning, leaving behind regrets, a lot of unanswered questions, and, what is more important, an uncompleted story; her father whose name I never knew and who had given me the impression that he always had other things to tell . . . fathers and daughters . . . Şükran, Eleni and Anita . . . They had their songs, songs left unfinished, not properly lived as they should have been; songs that had never been vocalized . . . It would have never occurred to them, of course, that they would one day come together in the same story. They may have guessed if one takes into consideration those paths and incidents. Nevertheless, how far could we trust those differences, if the dead ends and boundaries were to be taken into account? I must confess that during the days when it had been my intention to share my version of Madame Eleni’s story, I had not expected that the events would take such a turn, that, haphazardly, I would be obliged to proceed on to other stories, and that I would have summoned those men to this story. First on the agenda was the nude figure of Eleni as seen through the window of the kitchen that opened to the shaft and the strong odor of cooking that emanated from there. The scenes of that episode—expressing despair along with revolt—would gain ground. Some people were looking for an opportunity to settle themselves in their respective places in our lives or in other people’s lives just like in those songs . . . Now it is time to question whether those lives had been lived, truly lived, for the sake of a few words which would be omitted or were desired to be left with other people, at least for a period of time. Yes, for a brief period of time . . . a brief period of time . . . Those moments which direct one’s course in life and leave one face-to-face with oneself . . . Where were those moments, where were they concealed in that story, the nights when Madame Eleni went around naked in her house or while she made her last preparations? Or during the pleasant moments when she was busy laying the table for Tanaş, imprinted henceforth forever in the memories of so many people? Or during one of those evenings that Şükran may have lived, at those tables, those restaurants by the seaside, in those beds, in those houses, reminiscing now and then of the house flooded by sunlight? In the games that Hüsnü used to play with his daughter whom he called my first beloved child in that small house? In Anita’s dreams of conjugal nights that she believed she would realize one day through that music? In the emotion felt by Anita’s father on the eve of his departure for the
kibbutz
, having said farewell to a few people he was leaving behind in the remote past for a new life ahead? One moment, a single moment, or a special, very special segment of life . . . a moment that would enable one to exist
per se
. . . In my efforts to summon people here, this was what I had been trying to find out perhaps. Have I succeeded in this? Have I? Really? I don’t know, truly. What’s more, all sorts of associations that this accomplishment may engender make me uneasy, and create in me a sense of the absurd, giving me the creeps. To be able to succeed . . . what did this mean, anyhow? Whose was the so-called success? What had I prevailed upon? Where were we supposed to find new words and expressions to describe those concealed figures within us? Certain shortcomings suggest to me that I still have to cover great distances. I have already said this. This seems to me like a story that will regenerate itself in time, and will be dictated to me in a different tone. If so, can it be that what has been done so far has been in vain? No, certainly not. At least, I don’t want to believe that is the case, after so many steps have been taken and hopes treasured. For, I’m convinced that such feelings hold true not only with respect to stories, but also for relationships. They bring in, at every instance, a new individual, or they remove something from us along with every separation and debacle. We had been entertaining the hope that certain things might sooner or later change despite the associations they created, hadn’t we? Indeed, we were expecting—we should expect in fact—that certain things would or might change. We also had to go on holding onto expectations for certain things that would enable us to look into that mirror from a different angle . . . to go on holding onto expectations . . . To enable one to make oneself believe that one did effectively live those relationships in the first place. I estimate that only by clinging to this belief can I insist upon the fact that they should not give up hope in the face of those eventualities despite the despair of the heroes of the story in question. Thus, to know that certain stories will never end like the relationships in question, that they can never be terminated, provides the justification for sticking it out to the bitter end, for clinging to life. Had not those individuals left for distant lands carrying within them that unshakable belief even when they were in the grips of despair? Had we not ventured, for this very reason, to continue our journey, our journey toward others—despite all the looks directed at us—and toward other eventualities, by our looks, by our looks of whose depths we were seldom conscious?

A hotel room at Sıraselviler

Stories for some people begin in one manner and continue in the same vein. Some objects return to us like individuals; a vision can associate in you those individuals you had been concealing in the secret corners of your heart. A day comes when the stories lingering in those images try to be conveyed through those words that were mislaid somewhere but were wished to be revived, the heroes remaining always in the same in solitude.

It’s time now that I spoke out . . . whenever I recall Monsieur Robert in order to reconstruct his life, based on images lingering in my mind which I would have liked to keep between himself and myself solely; whenever I desire to tell someone of an episode which I believe not to have been sufficiently understood by the majority of people, for the sake of those values I would never wish to be deprived of, I remember that small squalid hotel room at Sıraselviler and the nights spent there in ‘that room’: the interlocutions and, what is more important, the fertile poem of continually renewed hopes and deferred joys. This was the first stage of the journey I had set out on toward regeneration, based on the visions in my mind of the lives in other stories, those lives abandoned to their destinies. Those words belonged to other stories, were designed to linger elsewhere and were desired to be shared with other people . . . This indicated that there were sentences that returned to us at the most unexpected moment, inviting and compelling us to take new paths, and to bind us with new expectations, visions associated with these sentences, sentences we had been expecting, sentences for individuals we had lost somewhere on our journey . . . Whenever I recall . . .

Even though what was told to me in that room cannot properly be expressed, there had been moments delineated to me, in other words, delivered to my custody. A night commode, a bed, two old bags, costumes laden with traces of the past, costumes providing certain clues related to the past . . . This was a picture that enabled me to get ahead of Monsieur Robert, of the Monsieur Robert within me. A picture that took on deeper significance as the years went by, whose details were perceived in different guises as time progressed, a photograph one would like to display on very special occasions, even though one feels and knows that one cannot appear within the frame beyond a certain point, as one would have liked to. We could add to these uncertainties the fear of touching certain visions and details. The question here is a kind of despair. A despair generated by the fear of the unknown in a person you would have liked to have been familiar with, with reference to a story you had been dreaming about, simply because his merits and demerits are unknown and are bound to remain unknown to you; a despair generated by the likelihood of the fixation of an image in your mind; an insignificant image liable to disintegrate at the least unexpected moment. Monsieur Robert was a man of paradoxes, if the impressions he had left with other people are to be trusted, and also if one takes into consideration the photograph he showed to me or those long, mandatory walks. I must say that this life, which assumes meaning, in a way, by such conflicting elements, renders my progress toward it difficult. That is exactly where my despair comes into play, at the very spot where I want to conjure up this story and share it with people. Why am I so hesitant about it, I wonder? I feel I am walking on the boundary separating the wish to tell it and the fear of telling, and I distinctly remember the reason why I had to put off the realization of certain dreams.

Monsieur Robert had left behind him the vision of an original person along with the aspects of a lifestyle lived off of the beaten path. With the gift of hindsight, it occurs to me now and then that he derived a kind of wry pleasure from leaving people with such conflicting impressions. This appeared to be the most significant rule of his legacy . . . prototypal individuals, stories generated by paradoxes and original interpretations . . . To be able to understand this it sufficed to have access to the world of the Venturas. According to Monsieur Jacques, Monsieur Robert was a man who had wasted his life on ostentations, in pursuit of the will-o’-the-wisp, by the constant lies he told himself and his acquaintances; a listless and vainglorious life. The steps he had taken had been all wrong; he had kept bad company, he had never cared about tomorrow, he had dressed in other people’s clothes and had emulated others, not daring to show his true personality.

Private matters must remain private.

She had, in her capacity of an elder sister, always taken good care of him and looked after him as a protective mother should. She had firmly believed in the role she was playing . . .

Jealousies, offenses, and the covert game of fighting for superiority . . . Monsieur Robert would, one day, endure defeat through resignation in the face of the criticisms leveled against him about his life, acknowledging that he had acted wrongly, yet appearing as if he was determined to continue fighting. I understand better now this formulated intention. This was a consequence of the game’s rationale. He had the capacity of perceiving the overall reality related to him, although he was a man of paradoxes and the author of errors. This was a feeling. A feeling which did not require literal explanation; a feeling which was experienced naturally, a feeling shared and desired in a different fashion. Nevertheless, leaving aside all our comments, it was not possible to see the sorrow involved in it. We tried to understand, tried as best we could. We had to venture to proceed again toward an individual in order that we might penetrate the sorrow of his long absence, with little hope of it deserving to be renewed, in full consciousness of the fact that that walk might engender within us, at the least unexpected moment, the fragments we believed we had mislaid somewhere . . . Monsieur Robert’s story was in a way the story of an interminable fight that seemed never to come to an end, it seemed that one had to engage in a realm other than one’s own with strangers and estrangements; the smiles of winners and losers concealing a great many sentiments and recollections. What had been experienced there had reminded me once more of this reality, of the feeling that the said reality had engendered. One is inclined to ask if that reality had any significance anymore, if any boundaries still existed for these two people fed by different hopes in different worlds. Where, how, and with whom could the boundary between the winners and the losers be traced after those steps had been taken? In other words, had this fight, if it could be called a fight at all (not by my standards), this victory, have made Monsieur Jacques happy? I doubt it. It seems to me, that after so many deaths, losses, unrealized dreams and repaid remorse, he would not feel like asking such questions. I think that from then on, one had other expectations and prospects for the days to come. There is not the slightest doubt that the path taken, ushered by those days, was a particular path of loneliness, the treading of which would involve great difficulties. In that state of omneity, of complex relations, there are moments that provide us sometimes with small clues about people’s attitudes toward life. When I tackle the subject from this angle, it seems to me that Monsieur Jacques must have felt relieved for a brief period of time, if I may be excused for saying so. While facing those lives to which you prefer to be a spectator, as if looking at actors on a stage, there are certain moments when you feel like saying to yourself: “I’m thankful for being here; it’s a blessing that I have not experienced what they are experiencing now.” Well, mine was a similar feeling, a kind of self-consolation. Despite your dreams and performances up until that point, you could succeed better by taking refuge in the individual you would become. My integration with this sentiment, under the circumstances, was not difficult. Monsieur Jacques was a person who belonged to a world of security after all, in contradiction to Monsieur Robert, who had experienced in different guises successes and failures over the course of his business life, not to mention in his relationships with women, and the path he had taken late in life. I had seen that world; I’d never been a stranger to it. That means my words could return to me for the sake of those lives . . . Insignificant victories desired to be experienced, concealed in a world of security, considered more often than not as a sanctuary . . . even though these victories lacked security and reliability . . . petty victories, yes, petty . . . petty victories to which we all cling to, and more importantly put up with in order to be able to protect ourselves against tribulations. Was this one of the rules of our opting to be mere spectators or a consequence of having no other choice? While passing judgment on Monsieur Robert’s life, Monsieur Jacques had said:
“
Palo or phaeton
”
(Cudgel or phaeton). Later, at an opportune moment, I‘d asked him the meaning of this expression; to which he had reacted by making a gesture with his hand as if to say: “Bosh!” To explain a well-established expression must have upset him; as a matter of fact there are certain words and meanings that these words conceal, that settle themselves within us without us realizing. We are used to cultivating certain words and their representations within us without having conceptualized them. We drew a lot, without questioning their origins, on certain conversations. The moment in question was one when I experienced restlessness in a way I could not define. After a short silence, during which he had sipped his tea, he said: “The first meaning refers to ‘wealth or poverty,’ in other words ‘everything or nothing,’ the second to ‘cudgel or prestige.’” We both felt inclined to smile at this explanation; after which we stood silent for a while. I think we had seen, at that moment, people associated by those words that morning, in very different places in the company of very different people. “I’ve never been one of them; I was afraid to be,” he said. “One could see the identity of the people one tried to represent better in this way.” Did these words connote a boasting or regret? I couldn’t tell. Could it be evasion again? There were so many people who had trodden this path for their entire life . . . mirrors reflected at times terrific images . . . Monsieur Jacques had never lived up to the adage ‘cudgel or phaeton’ if one considers the critical turns in his life. We had to understand this loneliness which necessitated no explanation, considering his social standing and the nature of his character. Inability to do something about it, not being able to do otherwise . . . It was not difficult for me to know and often recall this individual that Monsieur Jacques exemplified. He was one of those who could justify themselves openly, flouting all failures and errors committed. His appreciation of Monsieur Robert had been in this vein. The expression gave a full account of this adventurer. What was depressing was the fact that what had remained in the end was the ‘cudgel.’ However, whether you deemed it odd or not, the fact remained that the reminiscences aroused by ‘cudgel’ should at all events not be regarded as strange. Berti was also of the same opinion. We were faced with a fact which might pave the way to the assessment of a struggle engaged in for the sake of living, a fact which certain individuals conceal in the secret corners of themselves. That was not difficult to understand. The man who had lived in London, in another country—experiencing them in all their aspects, and who had, in the end, exhausted himself—was for Berti a hero. Indeed, the hero of an adventure that had not materialized. Whenever he recalled his uncle, he could not help remembering his years of study at Cambridge. The fact that when he had been back in Istanbul, Monsieur Robert, in his indispensable identity and façade of ‘Monsieur Robert,’ had found himself as someone ready to defend himself to the bitter end; this was probably due to this indispensability. “He paid no attention to what people said in the least; he lived as his conscience dictated,” said Berti who tried to put into words a resentment directed both at himself and at his father. I distinctly remember that evening. It seemed as though this sentence had opened the way to a short journey back in time. This was a sentence that had enabled me to make a comment whose context was familiar to me. I had cast a glance at Juliet who was looking at Berti. Her countenance betrayed the identity of an elder sister, of a mother. I had realized then how much I loved them despite the wide divergence of opinion between us. Berti’s display of secret admiration for his uncle, his mere display, had emphasized this impression still more. I’d been treading a thin boundary line, a boundary the crossing of which would take us to a more meaningful place, a deeper place than the sense of loyalty would account for. Berti had never succeeded in forsaking that individual who had been able to spend so many years in London and had turned into a hero of a lost life for that very reason. He was in need of the image of that life even after so many years; he had to persuade himself that he had not lost the power to carry on his struggle against that man in the first place, against the man bequeathed to him by his father. I could not overlook this probability; I was obliged to proceed on a path whose end I could not foresee, in the inner world of that story that was dictated to me toward that incredible life marred by anxieties. The story of those who unknowingly yield important clues about their identities through words, which seem to be insignificant, was the story lived by many with several different characters and from many walks of life. Nevertheless, I am still of the opinion that, whatever the reason was that prompted his endearment to someone forsaken, it was meaningful. This reality may not have been so important for other people, but it was of paramount importance for me. This was one of the characteristics suggestive of someone who was a good person. Yet, life was not always generous enough in the distribution of rewards. The years to come were to prove this. Berti would never be able to find this courage among his friends. Was this the recompense for the goodness generated by certain lives? Perhaps. But to be frank, I don’t feel like proceeding on the path that this question may lead to. Is it because I still find it difficult to define what is ‘good’? Perhaps. But what is still more important is my belief in the evil within me. The path that leads to the ‘good man’ has already become full of potholes for many of us.