Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale (32 page)

Now, as for Aunt Tilda . . . All these comments, opinions, and escapades had no importance at all. The refined manners of her elder brother were sufficient to make him a gentleman. The number of men that had entered her life, who had laid down a life of finesse for her had been limited. This deprivation had led Monsieur Robert to a stage from where it would be easier for him to attain the truth: his life, his philosophy of life, what he had done for Lola, and her overwhelming love for a hero made him one of the romantic heroes of old whose like is no longer to be found—the story that had paved his way to this woman and made her a slave is supportive of this view. Those were the postwar years during which masses of people had begun developing new ideals and new hopes to help them survive despite the loss of so many lives. It was in such an atmosphere that Monsieur Robert, together with Monsieur Aldo, his business partner at the time, wandered all over the cities of Europe looking for business outlets. It was an unforgettable and unique era; a time in which unforeseeable people emerged from nowhere at the most unexpected moments and intruded on our lives. “What other people saw in films, personally I’d been an eyewitness of; I led a life of madcap adventure. O those days! Nobody would believe me were I to tell them!” he said one day, referring to those times. In these words, there lay concealed not only a sense of humor, but also resentment; even solitude. I would be bearing testimony to this solitude at an opportune moment, elsewhere, in stages. In this complaint, there was also a little boasting that resisted against the past. Those moments brought along a breath from distant lands without which one would have difficulty surviving. There was a different individual . . . “You know what, I’d been sent to prison in Milan,” he said, “I’d been incarcerated for four days and four nights exactly. Had it not been for Monsieur Aldo I’d be done for. I’d have stayed there for years probably and nobody would have been aware of my absence. Aldo got me out. He had influential contacts everywhere. Big business, you know . . . ” Monsieur Robert never referred to this subject afterward. He mentioned nothing about the act that had paved his way to jail. I chose to remain silent as always through such journeys in time to which I was occasionally invited. Words and questions would come to life elsewhere once again. I might have asked myself once again whether this was another story stored away in his memory, written elsewhere for other people. A recollection, an imaginary time desired to be stored and prolonged, the truth of which he could not even force himself to believe, let alone his listeners. Now that I am far removed from everybody, I can freely say it. Monsieur Robert had a knack for spreading lies. When I recollect certain circumstantial evidence, I’m inclined to surmise that he followed in the steps of an original guide, a guru, reminiscent of those legendary heroes of adventure movies, namely of Monsieur Aldo, for whom defeats and disappointments were hardly obstacles. However, I had to proceed on toward other sources. For, the traveler of that long adventure—who had cleverly lost himself in some time and space in accordance with the requirements of that little rumor that he had generated through his circle—had never taken part in our long conversations. When I try to place that past, it represents only certain details to me, I must say that certain questions had triggered in me little hope of attaining an idea of their shared past. Where had they met, how had they been introduced to each other, which dreams and journeys had been shared between them, and where, wherefore, and for whose sake had they parted ways? Who had they aspired to be at that time? All these questions are awaiting me in the dark labyrinths of that land I can never reach. In the blind alleys of dark labyrinths . . . for the sake of a few more dreams . . . for the sake of those few more steps within me . . . just as with other matters related to Monsieur Robert . . . in many of the people with whom I want to tell . . . Notwithstanding, what I have heard and with whom I could establish contact does not hinder my having a glimpse of the hero of that life even from a distance . . . Monsieur Aldo had been different people with different looks, had lived in the bodies of different people and figured in different photographs in those lives . . . He had remained in the mind of the people who had met him as a person versed in imports and who knew how to make the best of his life, and not only as someone who was a skillful poker player, a connoisseur of wines and of women. His creative talent that stunned people and which found its particular expression in trickery had earned him the reputation of being a man that opened all doors. His entourage had never doubted his mastery in fraudulent affairs. He cleared all sorts of goods at customs regardless of the regulations in effect. He was a well-known character in those surroundings. He was praised for his adage: “If you do it, so shall we.” Those were words used in critical situations; the words uttered in days whose contribution to the cause was well-known in advance, the words uttered in days when settling accounts did not present any difficulties. To see things at the right time had always been effective during those days . . . He was also remembered for his disappearing at times, during which nobody could find him anywhere; sometimes he was a Catholic Arab; sometimes a native of Beirut; sometimes a Levantine from İzmir; sometimes a native of Thesallonica; and sometimes a Jew from Istanbul. These were his own stories, the identities of people who had left with him their tales, their lives. His identity changed according to the person he wanted to be as well as to the time and place in question. Partly because of this, nobody could ascertain for certain his actual origin. He had spent the last days of his life in Barcelona according to some, in Goa, according to others. According to some, he had died of syphilis, and to others, he had been stabbed to death by a Syrian arms dealer. In the said story, he was apparently in the same bed with the wife of one of the people he transacted his business with. The man was overwhelmed by a sight he didn’t expect to see, and had lost control; he had deemed execution a suitable punishment. According to the account of certain people, this was a rather commendable death . . . Still, according to another version of the story, he had spent a life of luxury in a legendary manor house in Mexico City . . . This last version was, according to Monsieur Robert, the one he preferred to give credence to. He had never lost confidence in the master with whom he had collaborated once. To my mind, this was quite probably due to a connection concealed deep within himself, engendered by reasons that one need not to inquire into. Had that image in the mirror not taken us to places we didn’t want to go? Had Monsieur Jacques also taken heed of this dangerous admiration? It was not for nothing that Monsieur Jacques had said with resentment, and also as though he had taken offense, about his brother-in-law for whom he had some sympathy: that the teacher whom he emulated was a bad character. It was he that had been instrumental in his being introduced to Lola. The connection had been indicated to him years ago. One day, I would tackle the story of that path . . . I was well aware that certain words called us to certain secrets. I was waiting for that moment to occur. That moment that quite often shuts out our reality and opens up to reveal a place we are quite unaware of.

At times I am inclined to believe in the power of that moment when I think of its advance toward certain individuals that reach me. It seems to me that I can better explain the coincidences and the encounters that seem inevitable . . . Coincidences and meetings that seem inevitable . . . If we rely on Monsieur Jacques, he said that everything had started during an ordinary trip to London. Monsieur Aldo had mentioned a fair lady singing in a nightclub in Soho, in addition to the affairs to be attended to and the addresses that were not written down but had to be memorized before setting off on the journey. A nightclub in Soho . . . Could it be that the adventure, that dragging had started there? Maybe. Some people desire to see, to glance at the different aspects of evasions from their respective angles . . . How else could we explain the fact that we imprison our heroes exclusively within our own delineated boundaries? That may be one of the reasons why I want to believe in those songs sung or desired to be sung, to flow into those days, to the profound depths of those people. The woman, who had sung those songs there, was said to be a woman who had come over to London to rewrite her life, trying to forget as best as she could the devastation in Hungary. She had succeeded in escaping—by a stratagem she had devised, after having lost her husband in the concentration camps where everybody had succumbed to different ends—to London with her two-year-old son whom she wanted to save from that cold breath they felt approaching, despite attempts at escape from the dark days looming ahead, despite omissions. A woman, who had started to work in such a business, trying to forget her upbringing in Budapest, her excellent background in music and dramatic arts, the splendid life she had left behind. She tried to think that it had been a dream, persuading herself, with stronger emphasis every day, that all moral values could have been omitted, if need be, believing in the fact that there were no values after all that deserved the attribute of infallibility. She had made herself a new little entourage that formed a circle around her, a circle of admirers; a woman, who made her presence felt wherever she entered; a woman who had been obliged to leave behind all that had held dear and valuable to her, just like every stranger that had gone through difficult days but had to put up with them all the same . . . Monsieur Aldo had told his student about that woman by stressing certain details. He had given him a strange warning when he handed him the address of that nightclub: “There’s a song that Lola sings,” he told him, “which may have a profound effect on you. Do everything with her, enjoy her in every possible fashion, but don’t ever marry her.” This warning gave him food for thought that aroused in him a strange feeling. This wanderer who had succeeded in acting out the role of a different person or to embody the character of a different individual in every city, who could never build up the family he aspired for, had, for some reason or other, felt the necessity to speak of marriage as an expected development, even as a perilous act, while mentioning a little adventure or the possibility of a little adventure. Could it be because he had felt that his traveling companion, his young partner, who, succumbing to the charm of his cherished dreams, might blow up his world, and, fascinated and infatuated by her charm, delude himself that he had found in Lola the woman of his dreams which would eventually lead him to a dead end without return? Could it be that he was convinced after all those years that imagination might induce one to take wrong steps that entailed the payment now and then of heavy compensations?

Was Lola’s marriage with a young man like Monsieur Robert, endowed with refined manners and a tender heart, who enjoyed life to the fullest and was liable to be easily seduced by her charm, the result of her innate ability to perceive that it would be wise to join her life with a man, expecting that he would be a father to her growing son? Was she a person whom he could trust with the many things he aspired to in life, inspired by what the women he had left or had to leave in the past had provided him with? Could it be that Lola was concerned about the likelihood that she would make him unhappy after some time, this vulnerable creature often removed from actual reality, with his heart on his sleeve? All or none of these questions could be put in regard to this relationship. Any one of these questions . . . or any new questions . . . To bring forward, present, or exhibit such questions again, and even more at that, was not so difficult, given the fact that we had no possibility in hand other than what our imagination had provided us with; this was an amusing game after all that had enlivened new lives within us; an amusing game that secured our enduring attachment, causing us to take refuge in our deceptions . . . especially if you have opted for that hidden spectator who tries not to make his presence felt while watching those scenes that arouse critical points in you. In brief, to decipher Aldo’s attitude toward this relationship, his viewpoint, under the dim light of memory, was not possible. This might lead us to another question. For instance, could it be that this warning had been made, in contrast with the meaning that those words explicitly conveyed, to arouse matrimonial emotions? I believe the answers to this and other questions lie hidden in his relationship with Lola. However, as far as I know, nobody has succeeded in learning anything about this relationship. In this part of the story we were face-to-face with an adventurer who knew how to keep a secret between himself and the heroes of that story. This was the hardest part he had learned to play in the long path he had trodden. His figure seems to emerge before me now, though from a distance. With whom and with which particular era of history had that man—who, with his imposing stature, was eager to veil himself behind mysteries—wanted to come to terms? Still another question that awaits an answer was the one which involved a purple-brown Cadillac that Monsieur Jacques had mentioned having seen whenever his path crossed Beyoğlu. There were incidents that joined or connected each other in various intangible and unspecified ways, and that lived more often than not for the sake of those coincidences, to wit, of those encounters . . . When I ruminate over these things, I understand better the world that Monsieur Robert had discovered or believed to have discovered in Lola. After all, everybody desired sooner or later to take steps toward the images they conceived in their dreams. The pity he felt for his fellow beings was partly self-pity. When you tried to touch a fellow being who you believe to have left behind more than one life, you thought you would have access to those lives that you had failed to live in one way or another. Stories elaborated on by yearnings, fantasies, and lies . . . There are so many reasons to knock on the door of certain prospects . . . There would be no end to embarking on quests for things that would compensate for some defect . . . A short while after that first night Lola and Monsieur Robert decided to get married during a simple ceremony without informing each other’s family members, next of kin, and last but not least, Monsieur Aldo. After that first encounter, on his path toward that dearth, he would try to bring up the issue of Johann with paternal care, the child begotten by her from another man with whom she had established a marital relationship, learning of the paternity from a different source for the sake of love, of his first and only love . . .