Part 6 (1/2)

Sidar had met her at one of the bars on Istiklal Street. She was the friend of a friend of a friend he had recently met. Other than her coppery hair, the girl had two instantly noticeable characteristics: her eyes and a talent to imbibe beer like a sponge. When the bar had closed down late at night, on her own she had followed Sidar to Bonbon Palace. Once inside, she had scrutinized the flat in a vain attempt to find an item that could be a rapport between the guest and the host. There was no object to talk about. Thank goodness there was Gaba.

Spotting the hazelnut wafer the girl offered him out of her purse, Gaba had sprinted toward her rolling like a ball of fur. Like all burly creatures, he was unaware of more refined techniques of expressing his love. The two of them had tumbled around the floor together in some sort of a game invented there and then. Meanwhile Sidar had watched them from aside, scowling at Gaba's unexpected vigour and ogling at the girl's belly appearing every time her T-s.h.i.+rt slid up a bit. Then suddenly, like the men in the 'Tales of a Thousand and One Nights,' who go mad with anger when the woman they had their eyes on is interested not in them but in an animal, he had interrupted the game, chased Gaba away and drawn the girl to himself. Just like her belly, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s too were milky white. They s.h.i.+vered when kissed.

Shut in the bathroom Gaba had stumbled headfirst from the crest of glee he had climbed just a moment ago. After a while, his bewildered barks had turned first into angry growls and finally into an endless howl. As the girl had shared his sorrow, Sidar had the most spoiled s.e.x ever, coming in castrated ecstasy.

When the door opened, Gaba had refused to move an inch, lying there down by the toilet, indifferent and immobile, as if hadn't been him scratching the door and making all that noise all this time. There he stayed that day, the following day and the day after that. Desperate to win his heart Sidar had bought his favourite foods, sacrificing part of the money put aside for the electricity bill. Gaba had reluctantly smelt the meat, cheese and sausages placed in front of him and remained glued to his spot by the toilet, all the while shooting daggers with his eyes. Only three days later, upon sniffing the roasted rabbit that had cost the rest of the money Sidar had put aside for the electricity bill, had Gaba finally returned to his old self. Sidar listened to his dog's slurping and munching with a grin on his face as if listening to enchanting compliments. The fear of losing Gaba had been so unnerving that he had decided never again to bring another guest into this house.

He had remained true to his word. Meddling in love affairs did not match the life he led anyway. One needed a decent life for such things; it required time, money and energy. He had no money. His energy was limited. As for time, it was becoming short. To dodge his fixation with death, the year 2002 seemed an appropriate time, through its completing a circle by moving from the nothingness of zero to the amplitude of two only to follow the same path back and the earthquake ridden Istanbul, which smelt as rankly of death as 18th century Lisbon, seemed the most appropriate place. Inside his head, just at the spot where he kept banging on the dirty, dusty pipe crossing the living room, Sidar carried his rage like a malignant tumour fattening day by day, making plans to die soon.

Flat Number 9: Hygiene Tijen and Su.

House cleaning sessions fall into two types: those that stem from yesterday and proceed into tomorrow and those that have neither a yesterday nor a tomorrow. So utterly different they are from each other in terms of both causes and consequences that where there is one not even the name of the other comes up. Accordingly, women who do house cleaning also fall into two types: the traditionalists, with a strong awareness of yesterday and tomorrow, and the radicals, with no notion of either.

When the traditionalists clean their houses, they know too well that this will be neither the first time nor the last. The cleaning done at the moment is an important and yet ordinary hoop of an extended chain that advances at regular intervals. The last house-cleaning stint has usually been done only a week (or fifteen days) previously and will be repeated within a week (or fifteen days). Hence every cleaning-day is part of a solid routine and more or less the same as the one before. It always commences and ends in the same way: first the windows are cleaned and the rugs shaken out, then the floors are swept, starting always with the same room and proceeding in order. The furnis.h.i.+ngs are dusted without altering priorities, the kitchen always receives great attention, tea and meal breaks are taken at approximately the same hours and finally, in the last phase, the cleaning is completed when the bathroom is given a once over. Since the traditionalists have such firm ties with the past and their confidence in the future is just as strong, there is no harm in leaving the unfinished parts until the next cleaning episode.

The cleaning of traditionalists is not a bustle performed in the name of keeping the house in order, but the very mark of order itself.

As for the radicals, in the eyes of these who are less in number and more scatterbrained, every cleaning operation is unique and absolute. It does not matter one single bit if they have done cleaning fifteen days, a week or even a day ago. Since there is not, in the map of their lives, even a single suspension bridge connecting the two separate cleaning days, the cleaning of the past remains there. Thus they always go through their houses as if they had never gone through it before. They set on the task as if held responsible for cleaning it for the first and the last time, as if making a damp den, long uninhabited by anyone except the genies, liveable. It is hard to predict when and where they are going to commence cleaning since any impetus at any moment can incite them into action: be it a melon seed stuck on the switch, soot on the curtains, lime traces in the sink, oil drops on the table cloth, forgotten liquid at the bottom of a gla.s.s that has turned mouldy, a bit of mud on the floor...the tiniest detail can suddenly provoke the radicals to launch an all-out cleaning stint. As such, all cleaning activities are different from one another as no one, including themselves, knows where to start and how to proceed. Actually at the outset they might not even be conscious of embarking on yet another cleaning mission. They could find themselves cleaning the whole kitchen when they are supposed to be simply was.h.i.+ng a gla.s.s, the whole bathroom when scrubbing the sink or the whole house when wiping the switch. Their cleaning has neither a 'before' nor an 'after'. For the traditionalists housecleaning is one of many such bouts of activity, for the radicals it is the one and only.

Rather than bringing order, the cleaning done by radicals is the very reason behind the chaos in the house.

Hygiene Tijen was one of the radicals. Perhaps she had always been so, but her radicalism had reached in the last three years a level that was worrisome to those around her. Not only was she capable either by herself or with the help of a cleaning woman of turning the house upside down at any time, she could also devote her entire day at other times to sc.r.a.ping off the burnt oil deposits wedged in the handle of a single pan. Stain or rust, dust or soot, crumb or residue, mildew or dirt; she couldn't stand to see any of these. When she deemed an object could not be cleaned enough, she had lately acquired the habit of opening the window and throwing it out. Staunchly believing that filthiness was an invasion by microbes, what she really wanted to get rid of at such impulsive moments was not the objects she threw down, but the microbes emanating from them. The tiniest amount of dirt would never stay still but would generate microbes that every minute increased three, even five fold. So she immediately threw this hive of microbes out of the house. Not only the residents of Bonbon Palace but also quite a number of pedestrians happening to plough the street at the wrong time had been witness to Hygiene Tijen's catapulting of items. First she had thrown a burnt-out pot out of the window, upon failing to cope with the feeling that she would never ever be able to remove the tarry marks that betrayed the snow white rice. Then, she had hurled out an old rug after whisking it for hours upon becoming anxious that she could not at all get rid of the dust in the ta.s.sels. Yet just like her cleaning, her way of throwing out items also lacked consistency. When she hurled an object, sometimes she would utterly forget about it, abandoning it in the garden to its fate, whereas some other times she would instantly regret her actions and ask for it to be returned. Then, it fell either upon her daughter, husband or the cleaning lady on duty to go down to pick the item, since she hadn't stepped out of Flat Number 9 for about four months.

There was only one person who could keep up with her pace: Meryem. Their relations.h.i.+p was a perpetual ebb-and-flow. With her constant bagging and caprices Hygiene Tijen too often offended Meryem who, though not at all irked by the amount of work piled in front of her, was extremely sensitive about how she was treated. When Meryem quit, Tijen would hire other daily cleaning women in rapid succession, ending up woefully yearning to get Meryem back and eventually managing to do so with pleas and a wage increase. These days Meryem had again signed an armistice. Though they were at peace now, Hygiene Tijen was worried about the advancing pregnancy of her most trustworthy sanitary soldier. She would evidently have to stop working before long, at most in a couple of weeks.

However, the sour smell of garbage engulfing Bonbon Palace worried Hygiene Tijen even more than the thought of being left without Meryem. She could not stand this smell. Like never before, nowadays she regretted marrying her husband heedless of her parents' advice and thus having to forego a considerable inheritance, as well as the prosperity she once used to live in. Along with the garbage smell, her misery also escalated day by day. Every morning as she opened her eyes into this smell, she felt like throwing up and slammed open all the windows, without realizing that in so doing she scared everyone below into thinking that a new set of items would start to rain down. Before long, unable to judge if the open windows decreased the smell inside or not, she would close them all again and repeat this pattern at least ten times a day.

Hygiene Tijen's nerves, which were already strained to their limits by the garbage smell, had entirely snapped the moment she read the letter sent by the school administration. The teacher writing the letter requested that as a favour to the other children Su should not be sent to school until it was ascertained that she was rid of her lice. Since that day, the was.h.i.+ng machine worked non-stop. Su's clothes were all kept in bleach and a feverish cleaning routine reigned in the house. Hygiene's soldiers were fighting a war at dozens of fronts against an enemy immensely fecund and invisible to the naked eye. Yet the cleaning militia, too, were everywhere. Each had taken up a position at a separate location. There were cleaning fluids, some in spray form, some liquid and still others you left to dry (with separate ones for the windows, metals, wood, marble and tiles); brushes, a different one for the sink, toilet and the tub; lime removers, rust removers, stain removers; floor wax, silver polish, sink drainer, toilet pump; a vacuum cleaner (with different hose accessories for liquids, dust, curtains, armchairs, rugs, corners, air filters), carpet-sweeper, mop, duster, pail, brush, sponges and coated sponges (separate for smooth or rough surfaces); detergents with cider, lemon, lilac and pacific islands smells; throat searing disinfectants; cloths for the floors, walls and dusting; moth b.a.l.l.s, lavender pouches, garment bags, soap pieces...all had been mobilized and, along with special shampoos from the pharmacy, were defending Flat Number 9 of Bonbon Palace against lice shoulder to shoulder at every possible corner.

Flat Number 5: Hadji Hadji and His Son, Daughter-in-law and Grandchildren.

'Please grandpa, pleease...' repeated the seven and a half year old while looking sideways at his siblings.

The other two children were glued to the TV. Though the programme they watched had ended about ten minutes ago, they had not yet been able to detach themselves from the vacuum left by the coquettish announcer with the rose bud tattoo. Still, Hadji Hadji considered the demand of his older grandson the joint wish of all children. 'Well, okay, let me tell you the tale of the fisherman Suleyman then,' he said, as he put aside his four books the number of which had not changed in years the second one ent.i.tled, 'Interpretations of Dreams with Explanations.'

'During the old days in the Ottoman Empire, there lived in a cottage a fisherman named Suleyman. He was so poor his hands had not touched money even in his dreams, but he had a golden heart. He lived alone without getting mixed up in anything, not hurting even an ant. Those were the most wretched days for the Ottomans. It was the period of 'The Rule of Women', a time when the country had hit the bottom. The concubines in the palace pulled a thousand tricks every day. So many innocent souls were strangled because of them. The bodies of the victims were thrown into the sea from the palace windows. The corpses would bloat in the water for days, sometimes getting caught in fishermen's nets.'

The six and a half year old, unable to adjust to the spirit of his grandfather's tale after the vivacious morning programme he had just watched on TV, swallowed hard as if to get rid of a bad taste. The little girl right next to him had bent her head down, thrust out her lower lip and sat still, almost petrified.

'One night, Suleyman went out fis.h.i.+ng. Luckily, oodles of fish were caught in his net, but he was such a soft-hearted fellow that he was unable to kill any and instead returned them one by one to the water.'

'What kind of a fisherman is that?' croaked the seven and a half year old.

'So Suleyman was going back to his cottage empty handed,' continued Hadji Hadji, having no intention to quarrel with him this morning. 'But all of a sudden he noticed a white protrusion on the water. Though it was dark, there was a shadowy moonlight. He paddled in the direction of this shape and when he was close enough, saw a corpse floating on the water. Had he been some other fisherman he would have just let it float there, feeding the fish, but being the good man that he was Suleyman could not do so. After some struggle, he pulled the corpse into the boat with the help of his oar and uncovered it. What did he see but a young and very beautiful woman! There was a dagger thrust right between her two b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and yet, if you looked at her face, you would think she was alive! She smiled sweetly, as if not at all angry at her murderers. Her lips were like cherries, her eyelashes arrows, her nose an inkstand; as for her hair, it curled all the way down to her heels. Our fisherman Suleyman could not take his eyes off this beauty.'

The ringing of the phone ripped the story apart. The seven and a half year old grabbed the receiver with hands that were becoming more contorted and inward curling by the day. Yes, they had finished their breakfast. No, they were not being naughty. Yes, they watched television. No, grandpa was not telling them one of his tales. No, they had not turned on the gas. No, they did not mess up the house. No, they did not swing from the balcony. No, they did not play with fire. No, they did not go into the bedroom. He swore it was true that grandpa was not telling a tale. His mother must have had a gnawing suspicion that day since she insisted: 'If your grandpa is telling you kids a tale, just say: ”It is warm today.” I'll understand.'

The seven and a half year old turned and intently looked at the old man who was looking intently at him. Without taking his eyes off the old man, the child murmured distinctly: 'No, mom, it isn't warm today.'

He placed the receiver back. Waiting for a couple of seconds to pa.s.s so that he could enjoy this game he played every day, he tilted back his large head the growth of which could not be stopped and urged with an indistinct smile, 'Come on grandpa, continue!' Only this time, his voice sounded not as if he were making a request but rather as if he were giving his approval.

'Fisherman Suleyman could not possibly leave the corpse of this mysterious beauty back in the water,' continued Hadji Hadji, trying hard to beat the distress of taking refuge in his grandson's compa.s.sion. 'He took her to his cottage and watched her all night long, heartsick with sorrow. At dawn, he dug up a deep grave in his garden. He did not at all want to part with her, but nothing could be done about it. The dead are under the earth and those alive over it. This is how it will be until the Day of Judgment when we will all gather together.'

'Couldn't he just not bury her?' blubbered the five and a half year old.

'No!' jumped in the seven and a half year old. 'If you don't bury a corpse, it'll stink. It'll smell so awful you can't stand it.'

'But it smells awful here too,' whined the other one, thrusting her lower lip out even further.

'Maybe there's a corpse in here too. Did you ever open the closet and look inside?'

'There's no corpse here,' roared Hadji Hadji seeing daggers in front of his older grandson. 'It just smells of garbage. No wonder it stinks when the entire neighbourhood dumps its garbage in our garden! Yet, as the building administrator, I'll certainly find a solution to this problem. Don't worry.' He sat the little girl on his lap. 'And listen, the beautiful woman in the tale had not died anyhow. Before burying her in the soil, fisherman Suleyman said, ”Let me remove the dagger on her breast.” The moment he took out the dagger, the woman moaned. She had not died after all. The dagger had reached the bone but not the heart.'

Trying to find solace in this unexpected explanation the five and a half year old gave a crooked smile. She cowered on her grandpa's lap, and certainly would have felt a lot more comfortable had she not felt her older brother's gaze upon her.

'Our death is written on our foreheads. Even if they thrust a dagger to your heart, you won't die if it is not so written on your forehead. When the poor woman came back to life, she asked fisherman Suleyman for a cup of water. Then she started to talk. Apparently she was a concubine at the palace. The sultan liked her the most. The other concubines were so green with envy and their hearts were so tainted with evil, they had decided to kill this innocuous soul. Buying off the harem eunuchs, they had made them stab the beautiful concubine's white chest. She told this story in tears and then said: ”If you take me back to the palace, our master the sultan will surely reward you with heaps of gold.” Upon hearing all this, our fisherman Suleyman became lost in thought. He didn't want gold or anything. He had fallen in love. That night this beautiful concubine slept in his bed in the cottage but fisherman Suleyman slept outside in his boat. Some time in the middle of the night the devil approached him. ”Don't take the woman back,” he hissed, ”How could one take such an attractive woman back? Let her be yours. She could stay here, wash your clothes, cook for you and be your wife.” That's exactly what the devil whispered.'

Hadji Hadji silently studied his grandchildren as if expecting them to put themselves in the hero's shoes. Yet, that pertinacious smile on the face of the six and a half year old hinted his mind was not on the moral dilemma of the tale but on the parts that promised s.e.xuality. As for the five and a half year old, she was busy adding another word, 'concubine', into her wallet of words newly learned. Once again, the seven and a half year old was the only one left. When his grandfather's eyes turned to him, he slurred sarcastically, 'Of course he didn't take her back.'

'Of course he took her back!' thundered Hadji Hadji. 'He personally delivered her to the palace. The sultan was delighted. ”You can ask for anything from me,” he declared, but fisherman Suleyman asked for nothing. He left the palace gates as poor as he had entered them.'

There ensued a p.r.i.c.kly silence. Finally convinced that the tale was over, the six and a half year old hollered: 'I'm so hungry!' The five and a half year old, closing the wallet in her mind, jumped off her grandfather's lap: 'Osman first, Osman first!' While the pot warmed up on the stove, they set upon building their tent, piling sheets, pillows and bedspreads in the middle of the living room. Only the seven and a half year old, he alone kept sitting where he was, maintaining his composure. He had picked up an ill.u.s.trated novel and pretended to be reading it with interest, but his moss green eyes, that looked contracted as they failed to keep up with the growth in his head, were fixated on his grandfather and siblings. Every pa.s.sing day, he detested them more.

Flat Number 7: Me.

Ants raided my balcony today or perhaps it was just today that I noticed ants had raided my balcony. They never remain still. In step with commands that only they can hear, in orderly russet strips they now march back and forth between the dark fissure at the wall and the hot dog I had forgotten on the coffee table. I cannot figure out where they came from and how on earth they made it to the third floor. This apartment building is teeming with all types of bugs. At nights they keep me company whilst I down a few drinks.

My father's curse, I guess. Either his curse or his genes. Back in those days when I a.s.sumed my drinking had nothing to do with his, I thought my father's greatest problem in life was not to know how to drink. Ever since I realized how badly my drinking habits resembled his, I started believing instead the problem was not his drinking but his not knowing when to stop. He couldn't break it off, it was that simple. At the outset, he couldn't possibly foresee where to stop and once he arrived at that point, he would have gone too astray to care about stopping. After he had polished off a few, it didn't take him long to pick up the pace. Before long his bloodshot eyes searched for a road sign. A clear sign, a concrete warning: 'Slow down, fine gravel at ten metres!' or 'Slippery surface! Sharp turn! Graded road!' It was at those times that he needed most someone to come forth and tell him how he looked from the outside. Only we could do that, being closest to him, but we never really tried. Both my mother and I would take our place at the table with him, fill our plates with appetizers, peel apples, dice oranges, make lanterns out of orange peels and simply wait for what was going to happen to happen. My mother had convinced first herself, then me, that my father should not be disturbed while drinking. She was so diffident when she was around him, and perhaps rightly so, but even at that age I knew this was not the only reason for her behaviour. Though it certainly pained her to witness my father's collapse, I couldn't help but think that she also secretly, unknowingly enjoyed it. Observing him squander every night the grandeur he would not even momentarily be bereaved of during the day gave her pleasure. That is why she set those rak tables lavishly garnished with appetizers and mezes each more delicious than the other every night... Every night for twelve years...

After all, my father was too much of everything. He was too handsome, too dexterous, too pedantic, too intricate, too egotistical, too unflappable, too frivolous...too much for me and my mother; too much for the housing complex we lived in, the army he served at, the towns he was appointed to, the animals he failed to heal...too much for the life he led...I cannot tell for sure if there ever was a time when I loved him, but I do remember being proud of him once. As a kid I was proud of him because he was tall and handsome, far too much. Back in those days, oodles of stories circulated about children being kidnapped and raised by the gypsies and I remember thinking of my father being one of the kidnapped kids thereafter accidentally mixed in with us. He was so unlike everyone else. We all had similar features, brownish hair, average height and the same laughter. When annoyed we averted any eye-contact, even our stormiest moments looked composed, so patient, ordinary and meek we were, men and women all the same. However, amidst us there he was, with a height that did not fit through doors, a head of hair that turned burning blonde under the rays of the sun, piercing hazel eyes that darkened when sad and always looked you directly in the eye as if to get you to account for your actions, a temperament that swayed between opposite poles and a checkered record of outbursts, flaws and failures piling up day by day along with his sins.

If my father had not been so handsome, robust and self-a.s.sured, my mother would have probably been more at ease. That malicious angst furtively gnawed at her bliss and cast shadows in her eyes shadows that could be deciphered even in her engagement photos where she stood fretfully smiling on his arm, wearing an aquamarine engagement dress with a huge synthetic magnolia attached to her collar. She must have abhorred the hypocrisy of time. First having me, next my brother, then two miscarriages one after another, and finally the daughter she so much wanted, raised spoilt and turned in the end into a replica of herself... I have always found pitiable the way in which middle-aged women who were once beautiful vent half-coyly, half-superciliously, how beautiful they were in their youth, showing every one, each and every time the same old photographs to make their claim credible. Even more pitiable than that is when their children, especially their sons, show the same photographs of 'my-ma-was-so-beautiful-when-young' in a rather coy, but mostly supercilious manner to their own acquaintances, especially to the women they fall in love with. As for us, because of my father, or maybe I should say thanks to him, neither my mother could play this game, nor my brother and myself.