Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale (30 page)

One might have lived those evenings

Flights and/or steps that others determine for us and occasionally lend meaning to . . . Monsieur Robert’s experience of flight one evening in his sister’s apartment—who was busily engaged in preparing the commemoration dinner—and the flight that he experienced a year later, widely differed in character. I had to have complete confidence in the feeling engendered by this difference, the story of a person who had come from another land somewhat belatedly made the experience of such difference inevitable. It was true that on both occasions he had been in the same room, in front of the same mirror, stylishly dressed with utmost fastidiousness, and he felt that sense of victory originating from a sense of vengeance that lay deep in his breast. The story had required the realization and experiencing of this difference; everybody felt that need, everybody that looked at that response, toward that direction from different angles. Otherwise he would not have given me those keys; otherwise I could not make headway towards him despite all the good will I had. However, the prevailing conditions necessitated that those flights take place through different corridors. The first flight brought with it renewed hope in spite of all the disappointments experienced and aspirations fulfilled, in spite of the loneliness; while the second flight implied a deep-seated resentment likely to be harbored until the final days. In the first case, Madame Roza was still alive. If the place and the relations of the elder sister in the family are considered, this should be taken as an explanation. The joy of return had just been exhausted. In the second case, he would be realizing that he had already been too late for tomorrow, in other words that he would no longer be in a position to indulge in fantasies like the past, to return to the place where he had been robbed of all his toys. This was the reason why I had desired to see him again, getting prepared for that evening in front of the mirror. I want to have it clear in my mind. Monsieur Robert must have dreamt of a genuine Istanbul evening just before that first Passover night that was to be celebrated in his sister’s absence. Such an evening—after so many years had elapsed in between, would be his only evening, the only one of his life. At a time when everybody was desirous to show that everything was all right, would attend, and would take a few reluctant steps forward . . . he had heard a sound; it seemed to him a call from his childhood. This journey would be the last he would be in a position to make to his family. He had called up Juliet telling her he had suddenly felt indisposed, which made his visit impossible. “I see,” Juliet said, “We are always here; come whenever you feel like it.” After this short telephone call he had stretched himself over the bed wandering his gaze over the room he was to vacate. He felt exhausted. This room would be the last room occupied by him in Istanbul. He heard voices outside. Voices and sounds of life that flowed away in a very different milieu; voices and sounds similar to those in other stories . . . He suddenly desired to return in the midst of that life . . . at least for these last days. The place where he happened to be was enough to indicate to what extent this aspiration was fulfilled or where it had been lingering. Yes, this room was going to be his last room in Istanbul . . . The life that had been attained, that had been thought of as having been attained and that had been interpreted differently in various instances, that made those things possible, could thus easily be lost . . . On the day we parted company, he had harangued about his feelings on that night of separation. He was full of resentment, so much so in fact, that he could not and would not impart it to anyone else. He not only resented his family, the city that had rejected him just as he had expected when he was in London, but also the individual that he had always aspired to be. Inherent in this resentment was a kind of joy that originated from his capacity to see certain realities clearly. He was conscious of the things that faced him; he felt them. He had witnessed that he had been in a position to outdistance the people who had turned a deaf ear to what he had experienced. When he had said on the telephone that he could not take part in the festivities, Juliet said: “I understand.” This was an expression that had lost its force, and that had been eroded through frequent usage . . . one of those expressions that we use to justify ourselves, to dwell a little longer in the minds of other people; an expression which builds mutual confidence . . . I understand . . . then silence . . . What had Juliet exactly meant by that? He had left on her, and, consequently, on them probably, the impression that he could not put up with a Passover evening in the aftermath of his elder sister’s untimely death just a few months before. That was all he could tell them to help them understand. He had suddenly felt exhilarated; it was a gaiety that a new person had generated in him. That person had approached him with mincing steps, gingerly, without making any noise, despite all expectations. Nobody could see the point he had reached anymore, or to be precise, the point he had attained. He had suddenly realized that he had outrun his rivals and that he belonged henceforth to another place. He had to have confidence in this man, to trust him as best as he could, taking into account other moments, nights and awakenings . . . in order to be able to carry better both the place he had hoped to reach and the years he had left behind. There, in the last country he knew with whom and with what he had to coexist, with what dreams in particular . . . This may have been the reason why he had recalled the Passover evening, his loneliness and the return to oneself, when he was about to set off on the true path. The associations made by what had remained in his mind from that evening summarized his life and represented it in its multifarious aspects. Those evenings also seemed to linger as a reminder of his wrong steps. He had in the store of his mind two festive evenings shrouded by a variety of masks and representations . . . two Passover evenings lived in different climates, neither of which could assume the aspect of a genuine home. What one had experienced there were different solitudes, different abandonments, different evenings, different silences and different times of reticence . . . smiles and little charades. That evening in London, Monsieur Robert tried to recapture the image of Lola he had just parted with and from whom he could not believe he was separated, İncila Hanım tried to bring back a picture of Hugo in her memory who had left with her the story of a real struggle as well as her tangos that she had never been able to sing as she would have liked to, and of Monsieur Tahar and the streets of Casablanca he remembered. They would have evoked the former Passover evenings that had left them with indelible memories. I believe that Monsieur Robert had felt better about how warmly he had been attached to the friends he tried to take along to the small hotel room in order to introduce them to me. He had begun considering them as the most reliable people in his life after the experiences he had with his family members. A warm feeling was concealed there; a feeling that would lead a person elsewhere, to somewhere one could not always describe, to a place one was always in pursuit of . . . That may have been the reason why I had wanted to present him with a little gift as a token of that night. I was at some place where I was thinking about that man concealed within me as much as about the man to whom I had given a gift, as is the case with true gifts. I should be able to describe that place, although in a different fashion, by words in which I could lend a new meaning to suit the occasion. Do gifts not generate in us our secret yearnings in addition to certain feelings, or perhaps along with certain feelings? Monsieur Robert had left behind certain barely perceptible scenes related to that nigh
t that I can describe to the extent the power of my imagination will allow. This was a source that would provide me with enough power to enable me to live according to my fancy. These were my clues. Certain items and certain words would henceforth be ours alone. A little fantasy . . . still more fantasies. What steps should we take or what keys should we make use of to enlighten our relationships and our identities in those relationships? I’m no longer upset by the thought that the place those items and words have brought me to today or may bring me to some time in the future, enabling me to live this story in all its dimensions. The contributions of people, up to a certain degree, to my becoming conscious of my ‘originalities’ taught me to have a reliance on my questions despite all the disadvantages involved. Paths that we took, that we succeeded in taking in others, were, in fact, paths that belonged to us, paths in which we found ourselves. All the steps we took contained ourselves; we had developed a certain attitude toward life. This was at the same time the place where stories were true, I think. We endeavored to keep track of that, sticking to our errors and the apprehensions we could not express, and eventually to lies. When I think of all of this, my conviction increases that Monsieur Robert, as a person who has committed many errors in his life and experienced misunderstandings in different ways, will not hinder my progress in reaching a different point in a story about him. And so, the gift assumes a different meaning and dimension. This is the feeling of a rebirth caused by reproduction through words. I could not possibly guess to what extent the survivors of that Passover evening in London believed, at that time of togetherness, in a rebirth after a whole lifetime spent dwelling on the past. What I knew was, if one took into consideration what Monsieur Robert had told me, the fact that Monsieur Tahar, with his profound knowledge of philosophy that was acquired and thoroughly assimilated, had spoken on slavery until the early hours, on its history and the different meanings and forms it had assumed, on the evening when liberation from slavery was being celebrated. To be liberated from slavery? To what extent was this possible? Monsieur Tahar never answered this question. No matter what we did and what we risked, we could not get rid of certain things related to us, of certain things we thought we had left behind . . . Could it be that İncila Hanım’s impulse to speak that evening of Istanbul, of its sea, of that seaside residence lost in the haze of the past, the pinkish yogurt of Kanlıca, was another sort of slavery? Why not? If one agreed with the fact that it was indeed slavery, then İncila should be considered as someone who had known how to carry her slavery with optimum grace. She had singled out herself from her companions by self-imposing a return to Istanbul every year, thus imposing order on her life and transforming this habit into a little ritual . . . by re-establishing the pattern of her life every year; for, the sea called her every summer; it was a constitutional trait that had its origin in her unfathomable depths. It looked as though these mornings and evenings had forced open the doors of many a dreamworld. The true songs might have been trapped there. In a nutshell, İncila Hanım had regularly gone back to
her
Istanbul for those special moments; it had been her burning desire. The demolition of the seaside residence to yield to new construction had made no difference. In this respect, she presented a sight rather different from those proffered by the ordinary people we encounter in a good many stories, by the people we are used to seeing around us. This fact associates in us the story of an individual who looks on us and on the world at large through another window. Under the circumstances, one is inclined to imagine that the place was occupied by songs that could not be sung and could not be lived in a different climate. It seems that her El Dorado also aspired for completely new sounds and scents. It seems that the sea had flooded her imagination, facilitating her assimilation into new conditions, preserving her life in the ground floor of that new construction. The sea had literally flooded her imagination. In the early days of summer, it was her custom to put on her red, orange, and yellow streaked black swimsuit that gave her breasts a pointed appearance, and dive into the cool waters of the Bosporus. She would set the table in the evening to regale herself with delicacies while sipping at her raki, contemplating the setting sun and the vessels that glided toward the Mediterranean Sea. Years had liberated her from her bondage to houses and furniture. She must have nurtured the seaside residence in her depths somewhere. Her success in placing the shadows there in a new scene must have been an extension of her mastery at losing, losing in every sense of the word. To know how to lose . . . could you define the loss by starting from this assumption? According to Monsieur Tahar, she was a slave to the sea, to the moments and sentiments in which the sea was involved. Why had she been so enamored with the vessels heading for the Mediterranean? Why had she chosen to go and stay in her new house, her sanctuary on the Bosporus, in those summer months as she was used to in her teenage years? The answers, the correct answers, to these questions seem to have been lost in time, buried within certain individuals. Once more, everybody had to find the right answers to their questions. Our occasional
déjà-vu
experiences involving certain individuals and certain glances had some meaning after all. I cannot deny the existence of other questions which were new and were likely to serve me as a guide in showing me a couple of little paths in certain sections of the story. For instance, where had İncila Hanım’s father gone and with whom had he lived? Who had served as intermediary in selling the seaside residence, in setting it on fire and in arranging its looting, like many of its counterparts? What furniture, paintings, and objects had remained after this looting? To what extent could the remnants of the past survive in this house that confronted the Bosporus with a different face? As far as I can remember, İncila Hanım had said nothing likely to shed light on the dark corners of her life. In the restraint of Monsieur Robert one could see the traces of a like darkness. Despite all that they had shared, they were curious to know those special areas and tabooed moments. To know those tabooed moments, in other words to know the moments set apart as sacrosanct . . . in order to live . . . To resist as best one could against what they experienced . . . Now I feel I am nearer to the meaning of this attitude.