Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale (15 page)

Olga’s white lie might have given rise to quite a different story. For instance, the burned diary and letters in question may have been purely fictive, a figment of Olga’s imagination. Olga may have tried to shoulder her literary genius that she had created in her imagination, and to accompany it with a part of that identity she wrote about. It is quite natural at times that we appear in the sight of people with our shortcomings revealed, with the things that we had failed to realize . . . We could also imagine that Olga, in addition to all these motives, aimed to invite us into this story in order to keep track of something. What makes me say this is a conviction that the letters written all those years ago with tremendous patience will, one day, after the occasion of a good many deaths, be discovered by someone and brought to light. I would like to believe this so much. I wonder if these notes and letters that are to be brought to me one day, at the least expected moment, by someone, a complete stranger to me, might change the course of this story? This may well be the case. Haven’t we already observed that certain stories lead up to others and that the heroes of those stories figure solely to provide outlets for the protagonists of others?

Eva was always in Mexico City

There are inter-fated stories created at unexpected moments, for the unthought-of heroes of tales, for the sake of brand new lies and fantasies. The story that penetrated Olga’s life happened to be such a story, its life took place on one of her long lonely nights, which over the course of time was transformed into a tale. Based on what I have been told and from what I could glean from the information which I had access to, the Bronstein family, after their settlement in Istanbul, continued to correspond for some time with Jacob who had stayed in Alexandria. When she recounted those scenes during which letters were read out, Olga seemed to be conjuring up certain things that she could not properly define or confront at the time . . . I knew, of course, that she was an imaginative woman living in her own dreamworld; she had also concocted other tales and legends. There had also been tales that could not cross the threshold of other lives. What had eventually come to me had been the tale of a relative going through a totally different adventure, an adventure that had been seeking its denouement somewhere totally different and was heading toward a totally different destination. A short time after settling in Istanbul, in the letters written to his son, Moses had tried to depict the new city where he had taken up his abode, reverting to all the means at his disposal—informing him of the advent of a pretty baby girl to the world, his sister, of his great remorse at having left him there, stressing the necessity of a family reunion despite all the prevailing conditions that he took for granted. In response to which, Jacob wrote back simply intimating and informing them that he missed his family very much, that he wanted very much to embrace his little sister, but that he couldn’t leave Alexandria due to business commitments; because of the said obligations he had to leave for Mexico, but that he would one day come to see them and the fascinating Bosporus and the Golden Horn he had seen only in photographs at all costs. These are the types of dialogues that are carried out from a distance and are based on unbreakable ties. It seemed that in the letters there was an unsolved mystery that muffled all the small talk, and that aroused in the mind a vexed question . . . Eva’s words, uttered now and then, “I’m sure he had something in his mind that he wanted to share with me, but failed to do so,” had consolidated that impression. It was reported that Jacob had eventually gone to the Mexico City. We have it on the authority of the letters. The lost son, which had been the talk of the town, was nourished and sustained by those letters. The
raison d’être
of the ‘outsiders,’ of the ‘foreigners,’ was to elaborate on that dream to the extent their imagination permitted, or perhaps with a view to smothering the pain that their shortcomings and imperfections bred and to convert it, even though on a modest scale, to the anticipation of return . . . I gather that Olga had also wrought out her tale by treading this path. In his letters from Mexico City, addressed to his parents, and at times in private to his sister, Jacob had spoken of his experiences and his life there. Apparently he was dwelling in a very big mansion, reminiscent of a palace. He had a family and also a daughter . . . His time was taken up mostly by business, he couldn’t write them as often as he would have liked. But he would do his best to make up for the lost time. The country he lived in was different. Even Jews could openly express their Jewish identity. Nevertheless, certain relations could cause trouble. But this was part of the game . . . Like everywhere else in the world. The way of life in the best societies was always out of the ordinary; unless one personally shared it, one could never understand it.

The correspondence exchanged between them lasted for many years, up until the moment of Eva’s death in her old apartment at Kuledibi, overcome by the grief of separation from her son . . . Moses had had cups of tea more often than not those nights. Olga wanted to believe that she had left Henry in the distant past, and felt obliged to remain tight-lipped about her new and forbidden relationship saying nothing to anybody, including her father. But a time came when the letters, which had decreased in frequency, stopped altogether. Questions had remained unanswered. The thrill of anticipation had vanished in the end. The investigations that a friend of Olga’s conducted at the American consulate fell through. There had undoubtedly been monkey business; something to be hushed up, something that the people in Istanbul should not know anything about. Something that would have corroborated what Olga had, by her motherly instinct, guessed. Something that the people left behind would, even though from a long distance, contribute in sharing . . . A new shortfall, an unprecedented pining, a sense of abandonment that could be shared . . . After the correspondence broke off, the name Jacob was less often heard in conversation; people had transformed him into a hero of an exotic tale while the heroes and heroines of Istanbul were in great awe of this exoticism. Olga had come upon a very sensitive crossroads. Failure in keeping a dream alive even through correspondence had occasioned a new sense of defeat in her father, or the recurrence of the feeling of remorse at a most unexpected time . . . There were times when solemn silence was preferred; when silence was converted into another sort of dialogue. To be able to be the bearer of affection to the very end was not so easy after all. Anyway, a remarkable variety of behaviors or figurations had already traced that fine line of separation in this story. Her father, during his retirement, after having closed up shop, and continued tailoring jackets at home for acquaintances, had developed the custom of stretching himself on the sofa to take a rest during which he took up the photo albums and gazed at their contents for hours. For everything was there: Odessa, Riga, Alexandria, the quays, the shops, the streets; lineaments, moments and particularities sunken into oblivion, unbeknownst to the living souls. There was also the city that had signified a new era and which had completely changed the course of his life. This city had caused him to encounter Schwartz, the limit of self-sacrifice. The dialogue he exchanged with these photographs, his most substantial conversations, was partly due to this, as was the case in such situations . . . just like the heroes that figure in the snapshots in the stories of other realms and penetrate other songs, stage plays, and film squares . . . His gaze fixed upon those photos, he used to withdraw to his inner world, and believing that he was not being observed by Olga, he sometimes smiled, sometimes wept; sometimes he spoke successively in Russian, Yiddish and sometimes in a mixture of both languages depending on the actors that figured in the snapshots he was staring at. Now and then, after his chat with those heroes, he asked his daughter to bring him a cup of tea. This custom had evolved over time into a sort of ritual; a ritual taken before setting out on a new journey . . . Olga would soon be witnessing the same anticipation in another person she was fond of. But there would be a need for more time and for other photographs. But the fact remains that certain stories might come back at the least expected moment, at the least expected place . . . One night, when she had got used to her solitude, Olga found a letter on the floor beneath her door. This letter, written in English, bore on it the stamp of Mexico City. Attached was a photograph. The young man figuring in it, in the company of a young woman, was a replica of his father in many respects; he was smiling at the holder. This wan smile seemed to conceal behind it an aura of sadness, as though he intended, simply by the expression on his face, to tell something to the viewers, to the onlookers, in the future. This was a feeling hardly definable, an inexplicable feeling, generated partly by those words, by that story, a feeling that was desired to be kept alive . . . I will never forget it. When she peered at that photograph, Olga had narrated the event as though she wanted to live that moment once again. She was overwhelmed and her voice was trembling.

Well, the photograph represented her elder brother Jacob—who she had never before set eyes on—and her niece who were living in a completely different climate. Evita was her name; as a matter of fact, the letter was written in her handwriting. She was saying that it was a much belated letter, that her father had died some two years back and that she wanted very much to see her grandfather and her aunt whom she thought of as an elder sister. Her name was Evita. This was a point that should be overlooked for those of whom who are familiar with the events of history. ‘Evita’ meant, ‘Little Eva’ . . . Jews living in their homeland named their children after their parents, so that when they were no more their memory and spirit would go on living . . . Olga never knew if her elder brother had been faithful to their tradition or religion. After what she had learned, it no longer had any importance however. She could trace the fact back to when Evita was born her mother was most probably alive. Was this a simple coincidence or another fact which might explain the reason for his stay there, another fact that people wanted to hide from her? As far as I know, Olga had also failed to find the answer to this question. She had failed to do so, but this unexpected letter had opened a door to a totally different dreamworld. The letter was not a simple correspondence but bore the characteristic of an invitation to spin out the story despite all the interruptions and separations that had taken place in the meantime, as well as the distances and losses involved. A connection had tried to be forged in a new world involving two individuals living in different countries with different languages and expectations. There was some surprise about the fact that Olga, who had always desired to create and had been capable of engendering new nights and new dawns in her dreamworld, had introduced into this story all her willingness, her past and her selfhood. So, the letters would continue to have an existence in the space of the following years despite the divergent human beings, places and nights involved. Evita had given a detailed account of her adventure. She had been married to a collector of butterflies and remained his wife for seven years before she had decided to break the matrimonial tie, as she could no longer put up with certain acts of her husband. A son was born to her who was now fourteen. She had risked establishing a new relationship and was living with a colleague of hers, an English teacher, after a lapse of four years. She felt happy. The father of her son was, according to the latest news, in pursuit of new prey in Guyana. As for her father . . . well, Jacob, the story of Jacob (for she had always addressed him as Jacob) was totally different from what they knew. It may seem unbelievable, but her father had remained faithful to his family in Istanbul. However, no human being, anywhere in the world, had had the semblance of the things, places and human beings figuring in the tale imposed on them. Jacob could live that life only in those letters . . . in order to be able to put up with the absence of his family and to familiarize himself with the idea of being a citizen of a foreign country . . . in order not to lose in his imagination a lost life on the path to a lost family . . . Firstly, he had been involved for a short while in drug trafficking in Alexandria as a consequence of his illegal dealings with certain officials, but had to give it up after being convicted and imprisoned for a term; he ran away from the gang aboard a merchant ship leaving for Mexico City, where he had worked on many an odd job, finally ending up as a sous chef in a small restaurant and marrying the daughter of the boss. Those had been the happiest days of his life. She had been the child of this marriage. Nevertheless, in time, many feelings had yielded in place of others. Her mother had declared that she no longer wanted to live the life that her husband, who was deprived of the gift of an aspiration for learning, and for higher goals, provided her with, and that she would be going to the USA to enroll in Princeton University to study anthropology, thus leaving home without any further explanation, never to return. That was the last they had heard of her. Father and daughter sat together brooding over what they should do, trying to plan out their future. After this incident, the father had given up the restaurant business and bought a second-hand typewriter, taking his place in the old square among those professionals who carried on the traditional business of writing love letters for anyone suffering from unrequited love. Her father had written thousands of love letters in his new job . . . To give some hope to others through a couple of words . . . Most probably he had to conceal his own identity in those letters, in the hope of keeping alive his love for his wife, not to lose his confidence in that love forever . . . There had been nights when he also called at some bars to have a drink or two with some people he knew . . . always in the same places and in the company of the same companions . . . Like many other travelers in other parts of the world, in the same condition, who roamed the streets at night . . . She had learned of those spots where she now and then went to pick him up. She always had a hot soup ready at home on such nights. She had never forgotten those nights. As a girl obliged to live her younger years in solitude and in a different atmosphere, to master her fears while walking those streets and to befriend the night had taken her quite some time. The experiences of the past were quite different from those of the present. Her latent fears during the day were due to the crowd and the din of the city and to its threatening character. The silence of the night brought her a kind of peace of mind she had difficulty in defining.