Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale (85 page)

Juliet . . . Lovely Juliet, who sometimes appeared to him to be closer than his own sons . . . How interesting it was! Fate had traced an interesting path for the family members. He had entertained for Juliet feelings similar to those that his father had felt for Roza. He had found in Juliet the daughter he had long been seeking, the daughter he sorely missed. However, if one went into details, Juliet was very different from Roza, the daughter that Roza had been to his father. Alongside the close affection she had displayed for him lay an undying vengeance. Juliet had learned almost the entire story from Berti as soon as she had become a member of the family. In that story, she knew that her father-in-law had done a great injustice to the man who she loved and wanted to share her life with. Juliet’s love during those years was primarily directed to show Berti to his father. It had not taken him long to understand the situation. People who adopted similar attitudes to life understood one another. From the very moment of her entry into the family, she had decided to introduce herself as a woman that knew how to adopt this attitude and how to endear herself to him. In time they would understand each other better. A time would come when they would jointly assess the people around them, assigning them particular places in their lives. Juliet was different. Their play was different, different from the innocent and innocuous play staged by Roza and his father.

His father used to get up, spruced up, like in the old days, and open the door to their source of income. He removed the particles of dust that lay around. Kevork Efendi had taught him everything. Then, he lit his cigarette and sipped his coffee waiting for his son. Afterward it was his custom to chat with the neighboring craftsmen. They used to call him ‘Father Avram.’ His skill in weaving was known to everyone; his being a connoisseur of old carpets was also acknowledged by all. Now and then they came over asking his advice about the value of a Persian carpet of six square meters; they inquired whether he knew any reliable carpet mender and the best way to protect carpets in good condition. His father never refused giving an answer to such questions. As a matter of fact, he liked being the source of such wisdom. Sometimes one could read a sadness in his complexion he could not express in words. One especially noticed this in his lineaments when he harangued for hours over the protection and preservation of rugs and carpets. However, behind that aspect of dejection there lay concealed another thing that could not be put into words. They were well aware of his expertise and connoisseurship, but knew nothing of his art. Nor could he communicate his abandonment. At such moments, he set out on long walks. The Park Hotel at Tokatlıyan was his usual haunt; sometimes he got it into his head to call at the tavern of Aşer, or at the café of Sarı Madam or else at Cumhuriyet Bahçesi. Only Roza knew his whereabouts. “If I fall dead one day in the street, you better know where to look for me,” he used to say to Roza. He was haunted by the idea of death in those days. Nevertheless he would continue to outlive that blaze by a good many years, however he would carry his own fire within himself in his own way, to somewhere he would tell to no one.

They held long conversations during which he told of his experiences. A close intimacy had developed between them. Must he have been so removed from life in order to gain this closeness?

Who had Lilica applauded at the window?

The only thing they had taken with them from the house at Halıcıoğlu had been Lilica. Lilica had always been considered as one of the family, despite her strange ways and peculiarities, Lilica had been an elder sister of sorts both to him and his elder brother.

She was an integral part of their lives, a person from whom they could not tear themselves. They couldn’t possibly forsake her at the place they had abandoned. They would find a corner to accommodate her in every house they were to move into, a little corner, a modest little corner, a corner that would give one the impression of closeness despite detachment, and inspire in one the joy of living by its very existence. As a matter of fact, this little corner had sheltered the whole family under one roof despite the losses they suffered. What placed her in this corner, and made her feel as though she belonged to it, was her funny manner of expression. Her manner of talking had earned her the epithets ‘lunatic’ or ‘meshugga,’ used in reference to her by some people who took pleasure in pointing out the differences of someone out of the ordinary. However, it was plain to see that she used her brain in a fashion different from the other people of her entourage, and that her style aroused laughter in many.

However, those who closely knew this protean woman would likely declare how wrong the assessors who formulated their judgments from a distance had been. Those who had an intimate knowledge of her were aware that she possessed intelligence far above the intelligence of ordinary people. A considerable intelligence difficult to describe but which could only be sensed. Everybody had had a share in the realization of this intelligence. The superiority was concealed in a few details hardly to be ignored. For instance, Lilica, by an unprecedented dexterity, rolled dough so thin and of such unbelievable dimensions that one would almost think it to be partly translucent. The days when she performed this feat were considered ‘demonstration days.’ She delighted in being the focus of attention and to play the leading role even though it was a brief one. However, this was not the only play in which she acted as a prima donna. The Feast of Lots contributed to the rejoicings, at least for her and her elder brother. On the days in question she prepared currant cakes with walnuts. How he missed the tiny Dedos de Haman (Haman’s fingers). The ingredients of these tiny buns of which the dough was prepared at home and which was baked in the oven were pounded walnuts, black currants, plenty of sugar, and cinnamon. Those fingers that had made headway, growing in popularity over the years, occupying a major place in his life not only during his childhood but also in the days when he believed he had grown into an adult; later his wife had also learned how to prepare those buns. Goodwill had once more been shown to people cared for. This was another face of motherhood. When the appointed time came, in other words on the Feast of Lots, the cakes prepared to commemorate Lilica were as tasty as the originals. There was something missing though. The taste was there, but the ritual had been mislaid somewhere over time; that little ritual that contributed to the taste of the cake. That little ritual that reminded the participant that both the preprandial and the postprandial processes of a well prepared meal were equally important, in terms of the titillation of the palate . . . Madame Roza was well aware of this refinement. She preferred to retire to the background, leaving Lilica in the foreground. Haman’s fingers . . . How funny and childish it sounded, how certain feelings perennially kept their authenticity. The Feast of Lots, the Jewish festival celebrated on the 14 of Adar and instituted to commemorate the deliverance of the Jews from the machinations of Haman was the occasion during which the fingers had to be munched and munched till they were entirely ground in order to wreak vengeance on the cruel vizier. There was no end to the number of fingers that man had. When Lilica was asked about the multiplicity of the fingers, she used to say: “He’s got many fingers. He’s so bad!” At times he used to introduce to her the imprecations of the word ‘ill-omened,’ which she wrongly pronounced, the meaning of which she would learn years later. In time, many other ill-omened incidents would occur. The adversities of the time were the evils of an unforgettable shadow play. However, the fact that the word ill-omened signified something bad used to qualify that a person had deserved it.

It may be that Madame Roza had kept alive the fingers of Haman in order to preserve the memory of these petty mischiefs. How about Juliet, had she intended to take part in this play? He must not forget to ask her this. He must not forget. Lately his memory had begun failing him. Not only did he forget past events but also the names of certain loci. What had remained in his possession were his visions which linked him to life, anonymous visions from a different time. Most of these visions that had gained meaning by the associations they gave rise to had remained imprisoned in a place where he could take no one.

Among the souvenirs in the store of his memory was also the time when Lilica washed him as a child. How could he ever forget? He had experienced his first sexual instincts and his first
real
woman on the said occasion. Friday was the day for bathing, after his elder brother, who washed himself, came his turn. As Lilica put it, the water they obtained from the cistern was boiled in large copper boilers on a wood fire. Jackie the Lame was responsible for the transportation of the boiler to the room. His powerful muscles seemed to be ill fitted to his small stature; it was as though all his force had been focused on his biceps. Jackie was never sober. His frequent bouts of coughing and his guttural voice did not deter him from smoking. Seeing him in the grip of such fits, one would think that he was about to keel over. Yet he had no match in heaving the gigantic boilers and carrying them to their destinations. They used to take their bath in large washtubs. When he was naughty, Lilica used to chide and threaten him by saying: “I’ll wash you with boiling water, you’ll see!” realizing that her words had some effect. Nobody could guess what crazy thing she would indulge herself in next. Nobody could guess the weak points when she would lose her temper and cause mischief. For instance, she was frequently caught in the act of laying ambush or of setting booby traps for children in the district who harassed her. Those traps were sophisticated designs, mostly pitfalls. Once she had released a big rat from a paper bag in the midst of a game the children were playing in the street. Throwing stones and hitting people and causing them minor injuries were but ordinary events. In this, equipped with a slingshot, she lay in ambush; she never missed her target. Once, having witnessed the neighbor’s dog pissing on the clean bed sheets hung out to dry in the garden, she had sought, and found, the opportunity to punish the culprit with incandescent tongs. Nobody could master her temper. Nobody could see what she saw, nobody could understand her jargon. Her tantrums could never be contained. Otherwise, under normal circumstances, she was an attractive and pretty girl who had endeared herself to her peers; a young girl determined to remain a child faithful to her childish pranks. Her occasional verbalizations and logorrhea accompanied by a smile no longer attracted attention in the streets on her way to shopping. As a matter of fact, these manners of hers added to her charm. The threat “I’ll wash you with boiling water” sometimes lingered as a friendly reproof. At such times, she suddenly assumed a maternal and alluring air; she knew how to make the water tepid and saw to it that the towels were spotlessly clean. To observe that the towels smelled pleasantly was the greatest praise one could give her. Upon hearing such remarks she smiled broadly like a young girl and said with a feminine charm
“
De novyo pasha . . . De novyo ke te laves i yo ke lo!
”
(I hope you’ll have such a bath before your nuptial night, and hope that I’ll survive to see you then). This formula was repeated at every instance during the bath process. Otherwise Lilica would feel that purification had not been properly realized. These wishes seemed to be a sort of future-oriented contingency plan aimed at reserving a place for her. Everybody had to try on new garments in order to be able to discover a new color. The funny thing was that when he had taken a shower years later in another house before entering the bridal chamber, he would not remember the said ritual and the wish that accompanied it. What had gone by had been buried the past.

When he celebrated his twelfth birthday and came of age, Lilica ceased to wash him. But a time had come when they were left alone. He had experienced his first erection. Lilica had explained to him the mystery of sex with the following words: “A time will come when your dick will grow and increase in size and become like an eggplant which you will use to penetrate into a girl’s pussy; but first you must undergo the bar mitzbah.” So saying, she used to rub his penis. He felt a pleasing sensation. He experienced an erection but it did not grow as big as an eggplant. He had to wait, apparently, to see it grow larger. One day he had asked her to describe to him a woman’s pussy. Whereupon she had shown him hers, it looked much different from the penis. It was covered with dark hair. Sometimes Lilica also exhibited her breasts and buttocks which were rather voluminous. He had wanted to touch those places that seemed to him sights he had not set eyes on before. She let him touch her breasts solely. These visions were to remain indelibly marked on his memory.

After a few years, his initiation was also made; the feast lasted, just like his elder brother’s, for three days and three nights. His father had not failed to invite home an orchestra for the occasion. He had thus been formally initiated by rites and ceremonies into his community, becoming a member of it. His father began instructing him in ‘the thing’ that Lilica had long before initiated him into. He had been waiting passionately for that moment. His brother had also enlightened him on the issue after a lapse of a few months. However, nothing new had been told, since Lilica had already described it in all its details. He, on the other hand, had had the perceptiveness to listen to what he was being told him without passing remark, believing he should not reveal the secret that she had entrusted to him. As a matter of fact, he felt somewhat proud of his faithfulness to his promise; he had actually felt a desire to tell Lilica about what he had been told by his elder brother. However, she had faded into the distance since the day she had initiated him. Hence he had to wend his way toward another woman. Haphazardly he had to follow this new transformation.

He also remembered her countenance on that night of the conflagration: when the flames had begun licking every corner of the house, filled with an infinite number of keepsakes, she had gone into a mad panic, overwhelmed by an acute attack of fear and anxiety, and, running to and fro aimlessly, had started muttering incomprehensible prayers, before she had finally resolved to sit on a rock in the immediate vicinity of the house, listlessly exposed to the adverse effects of the flames, and began to sob. That house had sheltered her over many years; there were so many things that belonged to her, now consigned to oblivion. He had asked his father once, as a kid, when, from where, and why had this strange girl come under their roof; it was an important question no doubt. According to the answer he received, the members of the household would measure the place they were expected to occupy and their respective stations with reference to her. Nevertheless, the simple answer received was: “A distant relative; child of a very poor family, an orphan . . . ” He had sensed that something, some meaningful reality was being held back from him. It seemed that Lilica was for his father a little girl, a child that had been brought to the house, somebody more important than an ordinary relative. He had within him a presentiment that justified this supposition; some concrete fact, left unexpressed and unarticulated so far, had surged from his depths to the surface. It was a sentiment unprofessed, but one that gave away Lilica’s indispensability to that house. Yet, that was the uttermost limit beyond which he could not go. After all, she happened to be one of the family . . . one of the family. So were that house and the folk living with her under the same roof; together to the bitter end. By the way, it was rumored that Jackie the Lame and her had had some clandestine affair. Let others say what they will, let them call her ‘lunatic’ or ‘nitwit,’ she was an attractive girl with big breasts, wide hips, long, fair hair, hazel eyes, and alabaster skin. However, neither at the time, nor later on, had they run into any compelling evidence to that effect. Nobody could be able to guess her age correctly. His father had been reticent about it like in every other matter. His statements had been conflicting. She had left everybody guessing. Lilica had been an integral part of the house because of her originalities and mysteries.