The Flea Palace (34 page)

I could not remain outside either. Consecutively, repeatedly I stopped drinking numerous times in rapid succession, first with enthusiasm and perhaps a bit of success, subsequently with a somewhat slackened interest, then with weakened effort, and towards the end, with no hope. Each time we prepared new calendars together: calendars where days, rather than years constituted the turning points, where time was measured by promises that could not be kept. In neat squares we would draw monthly calendars box by box. Whenever I deviated from the plan, I would convince Ayshin with great difficulty not to indicate it on paper like a stain but rather prepare a new one from scratch. To my calendars, each trivial event presented an appropriate opportunity, every special day a genesis. Thus when I received my doctorate, on New Years’ Eve, on my thirty-third birthday, on the first snow of the year, when we survived in one piece the traffic accident that totalled the front of our car, on our wedding anniversary, on Ayshin’s thirty-first birthday, when I learned my thesis director had lung cancer, on the night when my sister and I brawled raucously at long last spilling our guts out, on the day when I received the
news about my stepfather’s death, on all sorts of gatherings acknowledging the value of life, on the pretext of Ayshin and I going out of Istanbul for the weekend, on roads, parties, hotels, shores… I ga-ve up, ga-ve up, ga-ve up drinking, each time zealously supported by my wife…

I achieved success but not enough. Since I had once managed not to put a drop in my mouth for weeks, every glass I had thereafter inevitably meant a move backward. I myself was the role model I craved to be; the ideal which slid out of my palms like a slippery soap, whom I kept chasing after but could not seize even when I caught it by the trouser leg was me. After a while, Ayshin too started to confuse what was ‘insufficient’ with what was a ‘fiasco’. From that point on, the reason for her interventions tended to be blurry. Her worrying about my health was no longer the reason for her to force me to compete against myself. Words and actions lost their primary meanings; through convoluted ways, everything became the indication of something else. My calendars were each a barometer now. Ayshin measured how much I loved her by the number of days I spent without imbibing. Yet when love is the issue, numbers and proportions only cause trouble. ‘Very’ became such a feeble adjective whenever ‘more’ was do-able. I loved Ayshin very much but
we both
knew I could do better than that. Somewhere along the way there had been a misunderstanding, leading Ayshin to believe that it was necessary for me not to reduce drinking but to stop cold, and that I could only reach this goal with the help of love,
her
love. If I could ever accomplish this it would be ‘for her sake.’ I was trapped. She had initially wanted me to reduce drinking for the sake of my health, then for the sake of our relationship and next, before I knew it my drinking had become not my problem but hers.

On one of those days, I drew a huge crimson ‘X’ on my calendar. This latest re-birth which had by chance fallen on the 22nd of the second month was in two ways different from the previous ones. First, while hitherto I had honestly stopped
drinking, now I was stopping drinking honestly. Second, unlike my previous oaths, I remained true to this one till the end. From 22/2/2001 to 22/2/2002 when the court divorced us in one hearing, I did not put a drop of alcohol into my mouth in Ayshin’s presence.

She watched for a while this brisk, definite development with a contentment marred by incredulity. Still she did not go any further, playing the detective to uncover the truth. Even though she constantly kept me under surveillance while I was with her, she did not once pry into what I was getting up to in the shady zone outside her field of vision. I wonder if the saint with two graves had ever crossed Ayshin’s mind during those days, for at this juncture my circle had rotated once again and, just like my father, I had assumed two separate personalities in two separate parts of the day. There was a clear difference between the two of us however. My father was teetotal during the days and drunk at nights. With me, it was the opposite, as necessitated by my circumstances: I was sober during the nights and drunk during the days.

The human body shelters within it a clock that works not only from right to left, but also the other way round. It all depends on how you set it up. I had become fully adapted to the new system within at most two weeks. Not having regular work hours at the university was a blessing. During daytime I did not miss any opportunity that came my way and went around constantly drunk, but at night as soon as I went home I sobered up as if hit on the face with a pail full of ice water. I stayed sober during the nights and right after Ayshin left for work in the morning, started drinking at breakfast. In the last analysis, day or night did not make much of a difference: to properly manage one, I needed to mess the other one up. Contrary to what I had feared, this particular arrangement did not weigh heavily either on my stomach or my conscience. Perhaps one gets used to anything as long as he knows there is no alternative on the horizon.

When making this arrangement, however, I had simply
overlooked the fact that everything has a life cycle of its own – a hint my father knew all those years. The morning hours were not apt to hide secrets away. Not only because we mingle with others all day long or have duties to perform in full view of everyone, there is something else in daytime, intrusive and insidious, transforming the city into an open forest of unseen creatures. The moment I placed a few crumbs of secrets into a tree hollow, somebody would snatch it away. Wherever I turned my head, I saw among the branches, twigs and leaves that surrounded me hundreds of eyes dazzled by the sun; a harsh beam of light which made it impossible to comprehend who was looking from where and with what intent. In that suffocating brightness of daytime, I wobbled amidst whispers, unable to distinguish the faces behind the voices. I could sense that others caught the smell of liquor on me, and every so often my tongue stumbled at words or my mind was distracted. I could sense it all but never could I discern who around me knew of my secret and to what extent.

It was precisely at this juncture that Ethel came and perched amidst my life with all her weight. We had not been seeing each other for two years. After losing the Mevlevi
ney
player and hurling enough poison to last me forever over my decision to get married to Ayshin, she had gone to the United States to settle down there with a bright, versatile Pakistani brain surgeon. Then she returned, just as suddenly and impetuously as she had departed, barging into my life fortuitously at a moment when I needed her or someone like her the most. I had forgotten that Ethel’s greatest pleasure in this life was walking with her muddy feet on the priceless carpets in the spotless living rooms of women like Ayshin. She was quick to make me remember that. It didn’t take her long to discover my addiction and when she did, she neither disparaged me, nor put me on trial, nor suffocated me with questions that already had the answers within.

Instead she handed me an expertly drawn map – created in how many years on what kind of a life experience I still cannot
fathom – so that I could wander around in the forest of bodiless eyes and faceless sounds with minimum damage. This chart of hers was so technical. It included short liquor breaks adjusted to my work hours, one shot of hard liquor hidden in fancy thermoses, tiny clues about what would suppress the smell of the particular drinks, reinforcing drugs that would help me collect my thoughts, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, artichoke tablets to appease my liver… With the seriousness and perseverance of a seasoned trainer coaching for the international games a young athlete with measly means but boundless dreams, she prepared the best possible program available under the circumstances. In fact, she did much more than that. All during those years, at every single opportunity she kept me company and drank with me.

One of the gravest strokes of misfortune a married woman could face at a time when her husband is searching for ways to trample on the rules and prohibitions set by her is for life to present him with an accomplice in the guise of another woman. Once such a chance event occurred, I instantaneously found myself in a room filled with contorted mirrors that made Ayshin appear far more distant and Ethel much closer than they actually were. Perhaps, however, the outcome was not as clear-cut as I believed it to be. After all, when Ayshin initiated divorce months later, the reason behind this decision was neither Ethel nor my infamous addiction.

The Blue Mistress had been sitting without taking her eyes off the thin, crimson stripes of peppered oil oozing from the half-eaten, half-messed-up chicken with ground walnut. There was nothing she could do. She did not even want to talk, let alone raise objections. There wasn’t much to say anyhow. She had been caught in the ultimate trap of mistresshood: children!

Being the mistress of a married man is to know too much about what should remain unknown but not know what to do with this surplus knowledge. Mistresses are cognizant of the most hidden, most shameful secrets of certain members of the same sex who they have never met before and are probably not at all likely to meet hereafter. While spouses know little about them and are most probably not even aware of their existence, mistresses have long since gathered by the armloads all sorts of information…thorny, meaningless, morbid details… If the aforementioned have the habit of plastering their faces with cream before going to bed at night, for instance, a mistress will even know what this cream smells like. Likewise they would know the latter’s taste in clothes, their devotion to make-up, the type of mothers they were, the sort of jewellery they wore, at what time they went to bed and got up, their eating habits, unceasing curiosities, hideous obsessions, frigidities, hypocrisies, complexes, and also, what their possible reaction would be
if they learnt the truth
. Mistresses know all the answers without having asked the questions about these kinds of things. They do not seek confidential secrets, rather secrets
come to them. They come because in order to provide their mistresses with evidence of the kind of pandemonium they live in, men who are ‘Long Time Complainers of Marriage Who Still Don’t End Marriage,’ and ‘Want Change Without any Loss’, throw about headlines each more blatantly provocative than the last, like a crummy, popular daily newspaper ends up goading itself while trying to inflame its readers’ emotions. Contrary to what spouses suppose, those who grumpily, maliciously gossip about them are not the mistresses but their husbands in person. Mistresses are just good listeners. Not only do they not make the slightest effort to learn more, but also, as long as they are confident about their power and content with their privileges, they do not even touch these armloads of unpleasant knowledge heaped onto their laps. They get to probe, pardon and protect their foes who in the meantime would not hesitate in drowning them in an inch of water.

However, even Achilles has a heel and even on satin sheets there is a mothhole at some spot, an air hole that deflates all the power of mistresses with a hiss. From the moment they have a mistress, men who are ‘Long Time Complainers of Marriage Who Still Don’t End Marriage’ and ‘Want Change Without Any Loss’ start to love their children as if they have never loved them before. It is a sincere love and just as pathological. Just like Adam has covered his nakedness with a grape leaf, so too do the ‘LTCM’ men of the ‘SDEM’ team and ‘WCWL’ sub-team cover all their shortcomings with their love of children. As years move along and the number of mistresses increases, their fondness for their children spreads far and wide. Just like Eve was obliged to obtain herself the same grape leaf, so too are the mistresses bound to appreciate their lovers’ attachment to their children, an attachment that steadily increases in folds, getting more sensitive with each fold and acquiring immunity in the process.

The Blue Mistress lifted the gaze she had fixated on the thin, crimson oil stripes oozing from the chicken with ground
walnuts, half-eaten half-messed-up, and looked at the olive oil merchant with a weariness bordering on fury. The man’s twelve year old daughter had taken to bed with a fever. He had been snapped at by his wife when he had attempted to scold her for neglecting the child: ‘If you love your daughter so much, try not to go to your mistress tonight!’ Having been until that point confident of hiding his illicit affair from his wife, the olive oil merchant had been truly flabbergasted. A dreadful brawl had then erupted in the house and the sick child had heard
everything
.

The Blue Mistress got up from her chair and gave the man a warm hug. She told him in a cruelly soft voice there was nothing to worry about, his daughter would get well soon, and her broken heart could be easily mended since the kid loved her father very much. She had uttered exactly what was expected, not a word more or less. The olive oil merchant looked at his mistress with a sour gratitude. He seemed more comfortable now that he had heard exactly what he expected to hear.

As the Blue Mistress saw him off all the way to the door, the olive oil merchant smiled for the first time in hours. ‘Well done,’ he murmured just when about to go out, pointing at the table left behind.

‘It wasn’t I who made them,’ shrugged the Blue Mistress, ‘I bought it all from the market.’ From her voice, it was hard to tell whether she was enraged or not.

The olive oil merchant stood still for a moment. From his stare, it was hard to tell whether he was surprised or not.

In the lassitude canopying Flat Number 2, entirely severing it from the world outside, Gaba snored away, each paw pointing in a different direction. Since he had curled himself not only within the serenity taking over the house but also on top of his housemate, there was no way Sidar could budge until Gaba woke up. Not that Sidar minded that. He loved to stay still without achieving anything, not even trying to, with barely any energy, feeling slightly zany and slovenly, embraced by aimlessness, next to the being he loved the most in this world…to stay just like that, simply and purely stay… He too slid into sleep.