Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale (87 page)

Had those in Istanbul really been satisfied with this piece of news? He put on his thinking cap once again and asked himself the same question, only to leave it unanswered like before. Had they, his parents, understood that Nesim had actually died? He couldn’t tell . . . He would never be able to, in fact. For he himself had been a part of the lie he had concocted. The funny thing was that he had begun deriving a sort of pleasure from this diversion. He was convinced, however, that they had surely perceived the truth, that the lifestyle he had described to them seemed illusory. They knew the truth; a truth that had been the necessary consequence of the correspondence exchanged; a truth that was to remain unmentioned. In the meantime, everybody that had played a part in this play had tried to act it out without daring to confront the reality, like in the case of those, who, tight-lipped, endured their fate. The house was well aware of this evasion from reality, of this attitude toward life. The reason for the continuation of the game played and listening to their contents should have been sought in this evasion, to be precise, in this traditional evasiveness. In order to be able to endure the death of Nesim, Rachael, and their daughters, they had to cling to this concocted story. This illusion had facilitated their lifestyle. Under the circumstances, the fact that the frequency of letters had gradually decreased alongside the lengthening of the silence, after Ginette’s arrival in Istanbul should not arouse any suspicion. The affection, which had failed to be invested until then, had now found a foothold in Ginette, to whom the tender attachments of the family members had been directed. Nesim, before he himself set sail toward Istanbul, had, as a forerunner, sent his youngest daughter. The family had to get acquainted with its own members who were dispersed. This was not so difficult for those who were bent upon perpetuating this lie. Thus, Ginette also had been cast in the play that was being enacted. There was no denying the fact that she had played her role impeccably. Once she had said that she had made a fool of the murderers who had been instrumental in inducing her to choose another lifestyle, by giving her parents imaginary and illusory parts in a scheme she had invented. This had made him love Ginette all the more and made them much closer to each other. Being able to endure, and while enduring, to be able to contrive new paths. He believed that he had tried many a path in this direction. Men had found what they had been seeking on these paths and felt strength in what they had to go through. These oaths contained their contours, their lies, as well as their shortcomings they would take along on the journey toward death. Now that he was far removed from those places, from his peers who no longer saw him as in the old days, he understood his situation better. One lived by the struggles one waged and the courage or the cowardice one displayed both in his own eyes and in the eyes of his fellows. To know all this was a source of self-complacency despite all that had been experienced—the yearnings, the shame. Life was perhaps a much simpler game than one sometimes believed. However, it wasn’t so easy to take stock of the real situation and acknowledge one’s limitations. One could not bring oneself to face the reality of the fact that one would never be able to divulge all his secrets unless one first experienced over and over again the resentments which followed defeats and mistakes. Only you existed in those resentments . . . only you and your past . . . which you shunned and refrained from understanding. This may have been the reason for your keeping silent.

The voice in the sideboard

All things considered, there might be more than one reason for the impossibility of properly communicating to a fellow being what may remain hidden in unforgettable moments, or in other words, those things that even words fail to express despite the knowledge one has acquired about life at a great price. What is intended to be conveyed had not been limited only to the resentments and injuries received, but it was something else, a ‘spot’ that made man feel powerless. That dream had been responsible for his inability to suppress this reality. The dream in question was one that his father had dreamt one night during the atrocities and mass murders. The image of this dream kept recurring despite the amount of time that passed; it was an obsession that haunted him, reminding him of that facet of life that cannot and could not be put into words. As he told his dream, his father seemed to have returned to his childhood in a distant land. Nesim had slipped into that large sideboard at home. He looked despondent, restless, and anxious. “What are you doing there, son?” asked his father, “come out!” “Let me alone, go away father, go away . . . It’s very hot in here and it stinks. Sorry I cannot come out, I cannot, come, shut the door!” was Nesim’s answer. He was petrified to hear this; he hadn’t been able to help his son. Nesim looked wretched and desolate. The dream of his father had made an appalling impression on him. One took stock of the fact that those near to you found the necessary means to communicate their experiences of pain and death through different dimensions. It wasn’t so easy to establish connections between experiences occurring in different places and at different times. If one pondered the event, what one deduced after careful, measured consideration was that the dream of his father had coincided with Nesim’s ordeal, with his death and murder. It was difficult to explain how certain visions entered our life. One was led to believe
per force
in the existence of a different, very different clime. Those days had been lived by everybody through inquiries lost in the haze of the past and by the dreams of an uncertain future. There, a host of words had been hidden heavy with many an emotion which could not be carried at the time, or preserved for a distant, very distant future.

As he turned over those past events in his mind, he concluded that his mother had proved to be more realistic and brave than his father. His mother used to whimper in a corner as silently as possible, not letting others hear her cries. She had simply listened to what had been told about Nesim without comment. Not even a question. Not a single remark . . . to keep silent, to bury one within oneself, within one’s nightmares, not to tell anyone her feelings or experiences . . . these had been her wealth of alternatives. Keeping silent and letting oneself be buried in one’s nightmares . . . This had been her game. She had experienced that deep sorrow, that painful reality that her motherly intuition had perceived without sharing it with anyone, denying all sympathy and empathy. She would be carrying on this play patiently for years to come. This was for her a duty, in a way. A duty performed by lending her ears to her beloved and bestowing her looks on the eyes of the people she gazed at. How come her looks had made an indelible impression on him, as he frequently saw them in his mind’s eye and desired to transmit them to others? What true meaning had those looks concealed? Why had he had to repeat himself over and over again in desiring to share them with others?

Monsieur Bussac should not marry

Madame Perla’s eyes that saw what there was to be seen and what should not be seen thus closed to the light forever. Would she become a mere spectator of what her imagination had in store for her?

When had this event taken place exactly? He couldn’t tell for sure; how could he recapture the past by returning to it? He had to acknowledge the fact that another loss had occurred. To the best of his memory, Menderes was in power at the time. Radical changes were under way, in the hope that a new era was being heralded. Renewal of hopes . . . glimmers of hope for a transformation . . . This change in power had especially pleased those who led a life similar to his. Those who had to suffer the consequences of the unjust measures imposed by İsmet Pasha were justified in their hatred for him. As he listened to the news on the radio, Kirkor used to say: “Father Antenna foaming at the mouth again!” Kirkor used to refer to him at the time as “Father Antenna,” or “Father Battery,” or as “Dümbüllü” . . . Those were the days . . . in spite of all that had happened . . .

Kirkor had suffered many tribulations, hardships, and betrayals up until that point. His frequent remark: “Let bygones be bygones! Provided we live that long!” that epitomized his indignation in the face of all the adversities, gratified him. In this silent vociferation, one could sense a revolt against the incarceration of his smothered feelings. Actually, in spite of all his hopes and unwillingness to accept defeat, Kirkor had not been able to live that long; many an encounter, settlements of accounts, and little victories he expected had not been fulfilled in his lifetime. Now, as for himself and the things he had left behind . . . He could view his past experiences through a different frame. He could see what he had experienced through another window without being detected. This made his loneliness more bearable and meaningful. Memories could, at times, knock on the doors of new and unexpected moments. This was the other aspect of abandonment . . . The vanity of having gone through those experiences was mixed with this sentiment. The vanity of having survived those days, of having lived through them despite adversities, of having succeeded in remaining alive . . . just like the feelings that a man would harbor for having an impressive record of achievement and failure at the same time, both of which were borne with equal equanimity. He had known how to recover after every defeat and considered this struggle for survival as human fate. The sundries shop at Yüksekkaldırım had not been a success. He had to close it and deal in a multitude of odd jobs. For instance, he had been involved in the supply of tens of thousands of red and white electric bulbs used on the tenth anniversary of the declaration of the Republic. He had opened a small workshop where he fabricated rubber soles, but being inexperienced in this field, he had been swindled, engulfed in debts and gone bankrupt in no time. As a sales representative employed by the French coal and gas company, he had patrolled the streets of the neighborhood of Beyoğlu, Taksim, Tarlabası, and Sirkeci selling water-heaters to barbershops, dentists, and venereal disease specialists. In addition to his regular pay, he used to get considerable financial incentive for each product sold. He had crept into the good graces of Monsieur Bussac, the general manager. A close friendship had developed between them. Monsieur Bussac lived alone. He was in his fifties at the time. When they sat over a cup of coffee with medium sugar in the evenings, he used to tell him about his past in his own country. He had an old mother living at Belleville in Paris. He had had employment in a variety of cities in a variety of countries, like Cairo, Indochina, Algiers . . . and most recently in Istanbul. He had married three times, divorcing his wives in due course while getting curtailed. “Hence the last thing I would do would be to marry again,” he used to say every now and then. He always returned. He was always smartly dressed. He made warm compliments to the two boys of the house. It was an affection that seemed to express deep-seated emotion; it was an affection that the little gifts he used to bring in whenever he came to visit could not contain. Could it be that he had had no child from all three women he had married, had this been seen by him as the greatest error of his life? No one could tell, then . . . then a day came when the coal and gas company was nationalized along with many others. The French people and the staff of other companies would be heading abroad. However, he had lingered for a while in Istanbul, during which time his visits to his house had become even more frequent. At long last, one evening he had announced that he would have to leave this country where he had spent ten years of his life, whose sea and fish would be lost to him, as he had found a job in Senegal. Their cordial friendship had been carried on by correspondence; a few lines sufficed for both of them to keep informed of the latest news. Such relations had opened new paths at different times of their life. Then, in a letter, he had informed him that he had married an African woman considerably younger than himself. His wife was expecting a baby. He wanted to experience this emotion before he died. He sounded happy, although a little bit restless. He could not foretell if he could live long enough in order to be able to give a good education to his child. In spite of everything, he felt elated to be able to see his line propagated. He was asking the meaning of hope; he was trying to explore its extent, and to find out the line of distinction between hope and deception; the result of his findings would have brought him to the ultimate question for which he would try to find an answer. Had this question already been asked? Had its answer ever been found? Beyond that border, there abided absolute silence, darkness without a glimmer of light. That was it for Monsieur Bussac’s letters. He would be hearing nothing from him anymore. His successive letters would be returned without having been opened with the stamp: “Could not be delivered at the address indicated.” It occurred to him that this might have been devised by Monsieur Bussac on purpose as a way of leaving a positive impression on the minds of those he had left behind on the brink of his departure. In the long run, everybody passed away having followed his own path in life, their prostrations, experiences, and the wrong impressions he may have left behind without ever being able to explain to people how they had actually differed from them. Everybody went the way of all flesh, vanished in his own way, or found certain things within him without being able to communicate them to a third person . . . most of the time having fallen a long way behind, conscious of his delay. Everybody lived up to one’s horizon. What remained behind was what one would have seen. Many a place might remind one of that falsehood. For, there was a price to pay in order to be able to experience, to really experience that emotion. Deceptions and lies assumed new meanings through Monsieur Bussac’s silence.

Where are your corpses?

The days he spent in the coal and gas company were unforgettable, not to mention pleasurable because of his intimacy with Monsieur Bussac. To be frank, those days also concealed a new line of hope in addition to newly protected memories. He had found the wherewithal to contribute to his recovery, the settlement of his outstanding debts, and, what is still more important, the ability to scrape together the last of his savings. Putting aside some money was the result of his economy rather than of him receiving a handsome salary. They had not had enough means to set aside a sum for the replacement of the linoleum of their floor, nor could they afford to pay the rent for a flat on the island for the summer season. With a view to reducing waste, they made a point to go to the Cumhuriyet joint just before the show started so that they should not be obliged to consume drinks while waiting for it to start; they preferred to take a streetcar rather than hire a taxi, and took care not to switch on the electricity as long as they could do without it in the drawing-room. This was the sate of their economy at the time; a snapshot of the dearth experienced. One thing had to be acknowledged, however, acknowledged and stated openly. He had been able to approach that little fantasy entertained over many years with cautious and silent steps, toward that desired inner experience, making sure that others may not perceive them. He had opened a little shop at Sultanhamam to sell clothes. He had the necessary experience for this; now that the state, extent, duration, and result of his practical knowledge was satisfactory, he was sure he would succeed this time. Nevertheless, life played some unexpected tricks on him. These facts found their justification several years later. A second enlistment was on the way. Life was thrown into turmoil; one felt the serious consequences of the war which had been waged for quite some time now; in the face of an imminent entry into war the State had decided to call to arms some twenty-thousand privates from among the minority population, gathering them in a camp for a possible mobilization of forces. It was a time when all sorts of rumors were spread in all sorts of languages and in all sorts of manners. It was rumored that Nazi Germany might make huge inroads into Turkey any moment now. Ismet Pasha followed a wise policy, to be frank; he discussed the current affairs with Churchill and the Americans on different wavelengths, and did everything to keep detached from the ongoing hostilities. The rumor ran that a secret contract had been signed with the Germans and that a bakery had been set up at Sütlüce amongst other preparations for war. Could this calling to arms be a part of that scheme? It was true, the minorities in question contained Armenians and Greeks as well. Yet, they may have had recourse to this scheme as a sort of subterfuge to handle the situation with kid gloves. The boundaries of fear might stretch very far in this atmosphere of uncertainty and apprehension. The whole mass of conscripts faced with such an unforeseen event had felt a gloomy foreboding that something was going to go wrong. However, this was not exclusive to the Jews, for among the orthodox Greeks there was also a general apocalyptic expectation. This mere supposition might be a debatable subject. But when what had happened was considered, one could not help thinking that this recruitment might be an omen or anticipatory sign of some looming disaster. The Armenians also felt panicky; they were heading inland toward the Anatolian provinces; the majority of this mass migration was dispatched to Yozgat.