Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale (79 page)

‘Tchukal’
meant. Having been told what it was, she had burst into laughter. Rosita was a charming little girl with deep blue eyes . . . O that fate! O the inhabitants of that street . . . they were no more, alas! Among others, Madame Allegra . . . She also had vanished into thin air along with her memoirs. One of her sons was in Milan and was engaged in commercial transactions. Another of her sons was a practicing psychiatrist in Geneva, to the best of my recollection. They rarely wrote to their mother to whom they sent enough money as to enable her to lead a comfortable life. She had a maid by the name of Kader; she happened to be the janitor of an apartment nearby. She came to work at her apartment as a charwoman. One day, after seven years of marriage she had been ousted from her home, accused of barrenness with the intention that she be sent back to her village. Having been deprived of all possessions, save for a bundle that contained all her belongings, she had to take shelter in Madame Allegra’s home. She had been left penniless and as she had been illegally wed by an Imam, she could claim nothing from her husband in the eyes of the law. On the other hand, it should be noted that Madame Allegra had been suffering from loneliness. This had been the beginning of their companionship which was to last for years. She was to carry on her odyssey either in that house or at a different place, behind a different door accompanied by different awakenings and slumbers. These two women had different origins and had had to leave a significant part of their lives with different individuals, burying it in their vocabularies. Kader was at an age in which she could easily have been her daughter. Despite their initial conflicts of opinion, they had eventually learned how to lead a symbiotic life. It may be that the link that connected them to each other was their betrayals. He remembered them strolling arm-in-arm in the streets. Kader was to remain in that house for many years afterward. Long after, she had said “yes” to the marriage proposal of Selami Bey, a retired gentleman from the Land Registry, in whose presence everybody in the district showed self-restraint mixed with some sort of diffidence, and moved to another house . . . As a matter of fact he had been instrumental in bringing about this liaison. Selami Bey, with whom he had a passing acquaintance, had had a confession to make to him. It was early morning . . . Selami Bey had told him that for the first time in his life he had felt himself close to a woman. This woman had a striking likeness to a little girl, a traveling companion, a figure from an old story, who used to pass by every morning in front of his window in the arm of a blind man begging in the streets, to the accompaniment of the melancholy songs he sang. She was very little and had sorrowful looks. He had wished to adopt her, but had failed to set eyes on her after that morning. It was high time now his wish should be fulfilled. Selami Bey’s voice sounded plaintive but affectionate; it was kindly and soothing, full of yearning. Although he could not make head nor tail of what he had been told, he had inferred that his sentimental attachment to Kader was full of genuine emotion. This partly explained Selami Bey’s relinquishing his greeting to certain people on certain evenings. Those were most probably the hours when he recollected the little girl in question. Selami Bey had disclosed to him his secret for the first time. Something hitherto kept secret was being revealed to him. Upon his return home, he had spoken about this incident to Madame Roza. To decide was not so easy. They could not guess the reaction of Kader at such a proposal. To begin with the age gap between her and Selami Bey was enormous, which could not be overlooked. On the other hand, was such a relation to be formed, Madame Allegra would be returning to her former solitude. Nonetheless, Selami Bey’s insistence had greatly impressed him. She might, after all, try another individual and lifestyle. It was Madame Roza that had broken the news to Kader. She knew all too well how to behave and act in such delicate matters. Kader could not conceal her astonishment and the tremor in her voice; she had inclined her head toward her breast, and after a moment of silence, she had said with a weak smile, that she had lost the greater part of her youth, that something had died within her years ago, but added that on certain nights she felt the lack of a male companion. Her voice was tremulous as she made this confession; she was hesitant as usual, as though exhausted, as though she wanted to conceal certain things. It may be that she had imagined herself in Selami Bey’s arms, experiencing her womanhood. But who could tell that Selami Bey was one of those men who divested himself from his robe before going to bed, putting on merely the trousers of his pajamas and penetrated women by pulling them down. Her power of imagination could not go farther than that. After this important avowal she said to Madame Roza: “My name ‘Kader,’ meaning ‘Fate,’ suits me well. Please tell Selami Bey that I’m ready to give my hand to him. I don’t expect that he would like to be a father at his age.” Her words bore the traces of a deep sorrow, of a deception whose roots lay deep in her entrails in addition to a little latent hope. As she was trying to initiate herself to the idea of marriage, she was looking for someone to partake of her unavowed sense of deficiency which she had been keeping concealed; she had never recovered from the grief she felt for having failed to give birth to a child with her first husband, in her first marriage. She had acknowledged that her womb was a wasteland. She acknowledged the fact that her fate had reserved a barren and arid terrain in her which the lies and deceptions that surrounded her, would never let her explore. Could it be that time had enthralled her in vain? One must note, however, that she had been raised in a tradition according to which barrenness could not be attributed to men. Her state might be due to a lifestyle in which emotions were unnecessarily impaired, nay killed, and lives were extinguished because of absurdities. The victims had unduly paid the cost of their deceptions without being given the chance of self-defense, resignedly, without raising their voices. One wondered who the true victim was under the circumstances. Customs and mores were responsible for the gradual extinction of lives. To provide an answer and suggest a solution would thus be impossible for a long time to come. What actually remained were the concrete incurable wounds that the individuals received. The injuries received but not given voice to . . . for the sake of upholding the traditional lifestyle. A short time after the exchange of these words, Kader and Selami Bey were married in a modest and solemn wedding ceremony. Kader’s witness was Madame Allegra, and Selami Bey’s best man had been himself. Following the exchange of formal words, everybody had repaired home. The paths of Madame Allegra and of Kader gradually bifurcated despite the proximity of their living quarters. The same was to happen when they were to move into a new house. Their contact was to grow less frequent as time went by; so did the telephone calls, eventually; their old ways and neighborly relations gradually declined till they ceased altogether for the sake of their private lives, forgetting the bygone days. Although there had been no break in their relations as the
Rosh Hashanah
joined them; actually everybody had lived his own life. Madame Allegra never failed to show up on the first or the second day of the Jewish New Year and brought them her specialty, apple jam with mastic that she prepared with her small hands as though it had been her duty. Apple jam with mastic . . . Everybody was aware of its meaning. Everybody shared in the jam in question that was meant to contribute to the sweet course of the coming year. There was no point in discussing such evident issues as everybody knew it and tried to go on living for the sake of that past. Madame Allegra didn’t have to announce beforehand the visit she was going to pay. On the other hand, there were people whose custom it was to gather together at certain homes for the sake of rendering the platitudes of life more meaningful. If so, why had there been a hiatus between the family members which had caused a break in relations? After having shared so many moments, communions, and joint experiences how come that they had succeeded in surviving without having seen and talked to each other. Who, in the meantime, intruded on their privacy? Well . . . that was life after all. Willy-nilly, such things happened. This appeared to be the rule enabling them to cling to their new places. In this whirlwind, in their efforts to make them believe in themselves, the price of those omissions was paid, naturally. Differing languages and climates had never been able to prevent the same people from enjoying the same experiences.

How had he come all the way down to where he found himself? Lately such had been the lapse of days, days of which he proved to be a mere spectator at times. A word, a hazy appearance took him automatically to other lives and instances. There were chance encounters which displeased him on this long and silent path; encounters with people whom he would have preferred to turn a blind eye to, or to address with one or two words. All the same, it was pleasant to return to the old days even though for a brief period. It was nice to be able to talk with those people from beyond like in the olden times. Madame Roza’s rose jam would never be consigned to oblivion under any circumstances. It would perpetuate that warmth forever. Nor would her dish of artichokes in olive oil, eaten with relish, whose taste remained on the palate long after it had been savored ever be forgotten. Her stuffed squash with minced meat and caramel sauce, and the kashkarikas prepared with the outer layer of the squash swathed with garlic which had an acrid taste . . . her unforgettable leek stuffed with minced meat whose main ingredient was black pepper . . . her broad bean dish with spinach, her white mastic pudding, and to crown them all off the date pudding with currants she specially prepared for the Passover evenings. Those dishes were the tastes, the odors, the local colors that one took notice of after they were gone, real things with living parts . . . These were of the recorded stories which readers interpreted differently. The preparation of these dishes had caused many a controversy between her mother-in-law and herself, just like in other similar houses intent on being faithful to their tradition. However, in weary resignation she had to submit to her fate with resolution, diffidence, and kindness. This affection was expressed by a warm approach. After all she could not turn a blind eye to the state of her mother-in-law. The atmosphere created by this affectionate voice had brought them to a very special standing despite all the problems they had encountered. It may be that over a course of time they had not been conscious of this journey, the place they had arrived at was a place they could not describe nor define, of which they would never be deprived. Could it be that what had brought them so close to one another was the bitter experience of the man who had gone away never to return? She was reluctant to mull this over at present. Actually, they had made a point never to discuss this issue among the family members. To ignore, to refrain from recalling something was in fact one of the ways to carry about a loved one to the bitter end, blessing him with perennial life. There was no sense anymore in starting again from a new point of departure.

Who had Monsieur Kirkor hidden where?

When Madame Perla, advanced in years, had begun waning, shutting herself up in her room with her multitude of ‘chambers’ within, it hadn’t been for nothing that she, whose personality and looks commanded respect and diffidence and whose reticence inspired fear among her peers, had expressed the wish not to die without informing Madame Roza of the approaching hour, having appreciated the favors and sacrifices that her daughter-in-law had shown her, despite her worsening condition. A smile flickered across her face, expressive of her dejected frame of mind. She had dreadfully missed her mother; as a matter of fact, not only had she missed her, but she missed a lot of other things, a lot of other things besides; Halıcıoğlu, her childhood at Halıcıoğlu . . . she inevitably saw it now through the illusory and deceptive gears of her imagination as seen in the other stories. Those were the days when her father’s close friend Monsieur Pardo, whose idols throughout his life had been Voltaire and Rousseau, was teaching French, the days when the Little Officers School, once frequented by Ismet İnönü, had not yet been occupied by the British troops. Years were to pass before that officer was to kill that Jewish girl who had turned him down. They lived in a three-storied house with nineteen rooms overlooking the Golden Horn, whose drawing-room was heated by a huge brazier, where electricity was still nonexistent, where water had to be obtained from a well, where rakis of different flavors were kept in cans; in a three-storied house often visited by acquaintances, wherein everybody lived collectively.

A section of the house was reserved as a workshop whose renown had spread not only to the capital but also to most of the major cities in Europe—Vienna, Budapest, and London for example. Her father was a well-known figure among the carpet dealers and collectors. All spoiled carpets dating from the nineteen century which had been damaged, whether they were at the Covered Bazaar or Tepebaşı, were brought to Avram Efendi to be mended. It hadn’t been easy to gain this reputation. Just like other masters in the trade, he had also served as an apprentice for many years in carpet weaving. The years he had to pass in this profession had trained him to become a specialist in the root of the madder plant, used in dyeing carpets, chiefly because of its alizarin content in the form of the glycoside ruberythric acid, which enabled him to capture such unusual colors. Thus he was the sole custodian of a secret lore, which had been entrusted to him by his master, Kemani Kevork Efendi, to whom he had been apprenticed over several years. Their move was a rewarding one, interesting in many respects and worthy to be told. Its pathos wasn’t solely down to the fact that Kevork Efendi—who used to train him after business hours as a continuation of their routine job, confessed that the reason for this was not simply compensating for his loneliness, as he naturally was—but because the relationship between master and apprentice was of a strange kind. If one considered the history of such a relationship, of such an order whose color and voice happened to be intrinsic in it, an Armenian master entrusting the secret of the calling to a Jewish apprentice was unheard of; it just wasn’t right. It was exactly this soft spot of Kevork Efendi’s wherein he felt his overwhelming loneliness. He had two sons who had opted for other professions and refused to continue their father’s trade. They had never felt any inclination to learn the trade. Kevork Efendi had been discreet about their whereabouts. Now and then, he used to speak of misalliances, political relations, deaths, and illusions. It was apparent that he preferred to keep certain grievances to himself. Nor had he inquired into these matters, as he had been content with what he had been told. The master-apprentice relationship required the latter’s submission to the former’s will, after all. How had this apprentice pledged allegiance to Kevork Efendi? This was not very clear; it was shrouded in silence. However, once, only once, had he spoken of his failed relationships. It was reported that his mother had had a beautiful voice which was listened to behind many a window, and that she practiced her zither for hours on end. Yes, for hours on end. This practice had lasted up until her marriage, when she had moved to another window. To cut a long story short, Kevork Efendi had gradually initiated his apprentice into the secrets of his profession over the course of many years, in whose bright future he had complete faith; instructing him how he should devote himself to particular colors of his choice during his practice. Then, after several years had passed, to put on the finishing touch and perform his last duty, he had addressed his probationer, saying: “Time now to turn over a new leaf! You are on your own now; open your own workshop and find out your own colors!” It is said that Kevork Efendi had a large circle of influential acquaintances in the Palace; the consideration he enjoyed enabled him to reach the sultan, Abdülhamid, who had received him on many an occasion and chatted on state affairs as well as his affairs of a female nature . . . This was, however, a widely held belief having no sound foundation or source, his father, based on the accounts of his own father, had fancied the Supreme Ruler as a man of gigantic proportions. Once, he had gone to the gate of the palace to see him get in his coach, he had been disappointed at his diminutive stature. Great indeed was his disappointment! A disappointment he could hardly reconcile with the image he had formed of him in his mind. What was the rationale of this disillusionment? Who had been overwhelmed by this unexpected vision, who had suffered because of it, in whose behalf had this vision had an effect? Where did Kevork Efendi stand in this fallacy? Which fancies had been left unrealized?