Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale (35 page)

“Don’t forget to take with you your winter wear, your overcoat . . . You know, climates change all the time. You can leave with me what you will not and cannot take with you,” I told him. I had also mentioned in passing that he must not give up hope, that one day he might come back. I felt that he had a lump in his throat which prevented him from talking and that he evaded my glances. His wide imagination had narrowed. What exactly remained from the past thirty-five years of his life, from the city to which he had desired and was now obliged to leave a completely different person; from his city, of which every corner and street had something of him in it, which had left an imprint on his memory, although he felt somehow a stranger in it and considered himself a misfit there; from Edgware Road; from the Arab district; from the Indian businessmen; from the elegant restaurants; from that Pakistani cloth seller in Regent Street; from that stout janitor with a husky voice; from that heavy smoker from Trinidad in that modern flat in Yorgo Street who was up-to-date with all the car models to their minutest details and histories; from that aged Jew, a collector of pipes whose name I could never learn and who used to sell newspapers in front of the underground station at Marble Arch and who gave the impression that he had had a sedate life and was known to have the skill to transform the daily spectacles he had been privy to into wisdom and sapience; from that reformist synagogue; from İncila Hanım whom he had frequented during his lonely hours for the sake of the good old days and in order to forget his own cares and to borrow some money; and from Victoria Casino where many of his hopes had been dashed? Which would be, do you think, the parts that would stand their ground now, in terms of the visions left behind, the moments which he believed he had lived? The words that we want to forget now and then, which we believe to have been forgotten, remind us of that song of loneliness. We ought to resume once more making headway in our questions . . . to resume once more, with patience despite our vacillation. Did we ever expect that we could communicate to those people that language we tried to interpret, so that one day we could make ourselves heard? There were moments when I kept reminding myself that our clothes lived on without us, that they had to go on living despite the fact that they had been abandoned and left behind. He had long stared at his suits and jackets. He could take with him only a few of them. Then he had caught sight of his tuxedo. “I’ve got to take it with me,” he said, “for formal gatherings, you know.” Notwithstanding the fact that he knew all too well that he would never have the opportunity to put it on, that those parties had run their course, never to be resurrected. This was a bare reality for anyone who had had the desire to examine those days. However, he was in need of witnesses who knew the past well so that he might not lose confidence in those days he had lived, had been obliged to live, and had been linked to by a firm belief. He had told me a small anecdote as he was gingerly putting his tuxedo in his suitcase. It was a small yarn, a story that aptly reflected the life he built on fertile imagination, written on a background of ice. What kind of a reaction must one have experienced after having abandoned the castles of sand, built so painstakingly on the shore, left to their destiny? “O the old days, I distinctly remember, Princess Soreyya in Monte Carlo . . . ” he said. “She was standing around the roulette wheel. I’d made a fortune that night, an amount beyond my imagination. I’d gone near her. She had been losing. Having watched her for a while, I’d whispered in her ear and suggested a number. She had placed her bet on it and won. She kept on playing afterward on the same number, and swept the board each time. Then she had put a cigarette between her lips which I had lighted. She had glanced at me. She looked weary and tired. Yet, she had not lost her beauty. She held my hand and said: ‘You are a real gentleman.’ I was wearing my tuxedo that night . . .” Was the incident he spoke of the one I had seen that morning? Was that woman truly Princess Soreyya? Who can tell for certain? Actually, answering this question, whether true or not, was of little importance to me at all. What was consequential was the place that this recollection or fancy had occupied in my life. Princess Soreyya was the veracious heroine of a never-ending night . . . He had to take his tuxedo with him . . . that was the last I saw of him. He had preferred to go to the airport alone. He knew more or less the individuals who would be waiting for him in London. After all, he had spent thirty-five years there. He was going to get a modest retirement pension from the social insurance and live in a tenement house. The parks would be gorgeous to look at in springtime . . .

I knew well that once I left he would be gazing at his image in the mirror for a good while . . . with a forced smile on his lips . . . This, he believed, would permit him to know the person who stared back a little better . . . and enable him to get accustomed to his presence . . . an image reproduced on the canvas of the souls of those family members who could not take those forward steps had stirred Monsieur Robert in me, every time with new words, in the belief that the said steps would lead, or be expected to lead, to the materialization of certain lives, as seen through the lifetime of one man. An image that aroused in me the desire, the necessity to go forward . . . Where in that story had Princess Soreyya vanished? To whom did those nights belong? Who would be the wearers of those clothes, where would they put them on and for what purpose?

Perhaps the legend of that mirror will never come to an end. How many paths, songs, and prospects lay ahead?

A long time had elapsed in the meantime.

A bleak, dreary, and severe winter ended the year. The snow lay settled on the ground for weeks. We received no news from him. Neither a letter nor an address nor a greeting card on New Year’s eve, nor a midnight call . . . However, I still believe that he must be living somewhere in London and that he will return one day with new expectations. With new prospects, as a completely different person.

I have another belief; a belief which lends meaning to what I see, that makes it possible to fit certain words, sounds, and calls within me into a place very different from where the song associated with this mode of expression leads me regardless of my wishes, and which makes me think that a day will come when I shall be in a position to relate this misinterpreted life-story to others. This was surely another way of deferring the desire to relate it, to believe in the recounting of it. However, this postponement might give me the chance to brood over a certain number of my shortcomings. For instance, I can remember at such times, Lola and Johann pitching their tent in their own darkness. As a matter of fact my ties with İncila Hanım and Tahar Bey had been broken. It seems to me that there are certain things that I cannot define, things that have been left incomplete, that I have left incomplete on purpose; things whose meaning is contained in a sort of secret joy . . . Can this be one of those expectations whose origins and boundaries have not yet been delineated and defined? Perhaps . . . Nevertheless, whatever the hidden meaning of such a question may be, I am inclined to think that in order to understand that vision of London better I will have to move on toward that darkness generated by the said shortcomings when the time comes and visit new solitudes. I must muse over İncila Hanım once again. I wonder what had this woman—who knew those journeys and that history much better than any of us—felt when she looked after Monsieur Robert in his old age? What moments had concealed what emotions? Whose nights were they? What was that which should not be lost, what could not be lost in that small flat?

What remains now is that big, thick envelope that contained “confidential information” and was meticulously sealed, that Monsieur Aldo had entrusted to Monsieur Robert long before he had set out for an unknown land. Monsieur Robert had given it to me that morning, saying: “Well, I’ve lived all that has been written there. What is written there can be understood only when one experiences certain feelings. The information contained therein is yours henceforth. However, you must promise me that you will open this envelope only after you have received the news of my death, or when you are convinced that I am no more.” I promised him that I would do so. “There is still a long time for that,” I said, and he smiled. That smile was the last smile of his I saw and I kept an image of it in my mind . . . . Then we had packed up and gone out. As he stepped out the door, he did not turn to cast a last glance at the things he had to leave behind. We did not hug each other. He had done his best not to speak more than was necessary when I helped him to put his last
impedimenta
into the taxi. It was evident that he was afraid to, lest his words leak those sentiments he preferred to keep to himself. As the taxi started to move he made a gesture with his hands as if to say: “What else could I possibly do?” waving his head to and fro. Did his looks connote a question whose answer was still pending, regret or despair? I don’t know, and I never shall. Nevertheless, I kept my promise. That envelope is still in that drawer just as it had been delivered to me. It is waiting for the right moment; just like certain moments await certain people and certain people await certain moments. I know, these are two different paths, regardless of our prospects, indifference, defeats, or small victories. Both require the experience of loves deserved, affections, lives, and solitudes . . . yes, the experience of loves deserved, affections, lives, and solitudes . . . Little joys that those bitter experiences have made us a gift of . . . to understand and to make others understand. I’m curious about the goals I will have accomplished when I feel I am ready to tear open that envelope. What can possibly be written on those pages? Can it really be a letter written by Aldo himself? . . . Or else . . . When I go over the relevant points one more time, I’ll feel myself inclined to think of the truth in the last lies . . . to believe once more in time and in poems awaiting their ages . . . to believe once more in earnest . . . at all events . . . certain things that continue to bleed somewhere anyway . . .

I must also add the fact that we had stored in us the adventures of certain people, of our heroes who had irremediably lost certain moments, but who would continually gain ground on us. You had desired to see the door that those words had prepared for you. It is true that some of the paths were long and dark. The people to whom you had turned a cold shoulder were those who could see you whether you liked it or not, the people you could never get to anymore.

Which one of these deaths would fit you, do you think?

Those faces that conceal those streets

I did my best to preserve the vividness of that image in my mind in order not to break with the tidal flow of the story. What I was in pursuit of was a text I thought I could penetrate despite my dismay in unlocking its mystery. There is no doubt that what I was to behold, once the door was unlocked and I had the courage to step in, would be much different from what I had been anticipating when I was on the other side. I could guess this; I mean this aspect of the adventure. There were feelings propagated by fears that could not be smothered as we put up a bold front against people provoking us. If we were to go back to the shadows we had left behind—in the darkness of our past, and had the boldness to touch them in the real sense of the word—we would have known each other better. I believe that was what made our march on attractive and meaningful toward those individuals. Through some people we meet, or are separated with, through those eventualities and delusions, we become the possessors of ourselves. Those are the doors which open to ourselves, to our very depths, to the history that we cannot explain. That world sucks you in so long as you don’t solve its mystery. That world could be the invention of widely different fancies and lies so long as it was not truly lived. Having taken that step, you return to yourself. Back to yourself . . . to the mirror that you always wanted to hide in one of your drawers but always failed to do; back to your fear and lack of courage to reveal and confront your true face.

The image was a virtual one. An ordinary image in all probability, but one sufficient to make a man definable to others in larger dimensions, despite those visions that found different credence in different individuals. This is the reason that has induced me to commence the narration of my story with such peripheral vision. Having tried other people and other words, unfortunately it is impossible for me to be able to visualize, at this stage, my destination. It follows that I will be cutting an untimely, poor figure once again. So be it. Our deficiencies, errors, and lies that originated in our imagination contribute to our way of life, after all. We desire to remain with certain people to the bitter end until we lose all hope despite all the adversities because of our failure to solve, understand, and find answers to certain things. It was a long distance call and was supposed to be confidential; it seemed to be the peroration, the concluding part of Aunt Tilda’s love affair. This finishing stroke told of a lover who, having realized his irrelevance, was intending to withdraw to his hideaway in the distance. One might call it abandonment, an abandonment whose subject could not exactly be determined; for who abandoned who, who abandoned what, and who abandoned when, were far from being explicit . . . This was one of the partings for which she was already prepared, as she had already experienced such separations before on many occasions, at different places and in a diversity of ways. The story was transferred to me from another time, and would, out of necessity, be written by me with such things in mind; it seemed to me that I had caught up with one of the most important sections of the story . . . the story by which the play was enacted; the play was about a person who had dearly paid for his eccentricity. I happened to be in a scene that featured in it, along with sorrow and fate, and the comic element as well. Associations and reminiscences overwhelmed me and I did my best to forget and recall them at the same time. What I saw had nothing to do with me, what I happened to be had nothing to do with them. In other words, what I saw there was outside my sphere and was related to me only by casual acquaintances . . . this caused my escape, my ability to escape, to be more fallacious, more unpredictable. It looked as though the reason for my desire to waste my time and effort on an impossible task was due to this. As a matter of fact, I had tried to evoke such a feeling in other scenes, in other pasts, in the slim hope that I never ceased to entertain, and in the delusions and despairs I could not confess even to myself. It occurred to me for the first time that once certain steps were taken, life was lived as a game, and certain scenes were desired to be shown to others despite human desultoriness, indecision, and love; especially loves with all their mysteries and enigmas, avid for spectators. Every love assumed new meaning thanks to the spectators it had been seeking; for every love needed at least one spectator.