Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale (93 page)

( . . . ) Now that I’ve reached a state in which I may be able to share those lives carried by regret, not omitting to interrogate myself, the reason for my supposition that we live mostly by our fantasies may result from our acknowledgment of defeat after a given stopover along the way, or from our consideration of the fact that we do not take it as a defeat, or from our simple conviction in stories. I had returned to the inexhaustible pack of lies without end. I must have been prepared for certain things at least. These returns and deceptions can foster the belief in writing and make it defendable. We cannot deny the existence of one-man shows in the various scenes shifting to other backgrounds during a death play. There, one can remember those little seclusions, those shadows and the long road that leads to solitude. That road is your road, that country is your country, that time is your time. You may come across certain people with certain procurements in the tales you assembled over the course of those years you let pass you by; those years parade in front of you as though not experienced because of your fear of the demolition of those shelters or those years which you were content to merely observe and in certain cases exhaust through deferment; those years you have tried to fit into a couple of words, visions, and objects. With the acquisitions of those years, you dream of announcing with all your heart to certain people that you have become resolved not to return. They are the things you saw during your different lives which you could not understand. They are your impossibilities of return. They are your regrets, your deficiencies, and your dilemmas. You must have learned by now that you should not and cannot leave a person in a very distant place after all the losses suffered. No one has remained or will ever remain at a time or place where one cannot relive the past. In the play you have acted with closed eyes, you feel carved within your depths scars marked as wrinkles. Then you ask yourself who were those people who had raised those walls around you. For whom had those photographs of happy moments been shot? Who had those walls hid and spared from whom?

( . . . ) Such questions are undoubtedly asked in many cities throughout the world, in their streets, beyond the walls that bar entry for certain people to a history they are in pursuit of, the history of their own ‘old city.’ Whose ghetto was it, for whom had it become a forbidden zone, under what name and in which languages and during what times had those fears and estrangement been experienced? Whether we like it or not the history of Milan, Warsaw, and Budapest, in the background of their reflections in us, open the door to many a story that had been acted in those ghettos. However, it seems as though, in addition to all this, there are people waiting for us far beyond those visions. One cannot help asking whether there may be people who have preferred to remain in those ghettos among the architects and foremen of those walls. Had those walls not been erected, the history written would have been much different of course. The history would have been written, blending different colors with different days. Such hesitancy begins with those emotions of fear and alienation, in that sense of failure, in a place where you cannot meet with other people whose presence you are aware of. This hesitancy lends breath to other songs which you still find difficult to sing. You must know that the walls, once demolished, continue to soar afterward. One is inclined to ask who had been the possessors of those walls henceforth. To whom did those walls belong? To those who had been set aside, or to those who had been willing to be set aside? Everybody created his own ghetto and lived there until the end. Everybody unconsciously incarcerated himself in his own ghetto. Those stories had for this reason brought me to that boundary from whose bourns no traveler has returned. This was also the boundary wherein I inquired of myself the credibility of what I beheld, heard, and told; if the things I had dreamt of might have actually occurred or not. Nevertheless, I had to make that step forward which would take me to the other side of that boundary in order that I might be able to understand myself better. That was the reason why I went back to those streets that I could never exhaust in the background of that district and that story. Everybody had walls that remained far beyond that history. Everybody needed to display to somebody else his experiences and had to have them confirmed by them. Everybody was his own slave and victim in the long run. For instance, my pencils whose lead frequently broke, my perfumed rubbers, and my compass which I never used as well as the smell of that floor polish were all there. There, in addition to what I had abandoned and the things that I had moved away from was that epileptic beggar who always stood in the same corner, whose smile gave me a fright; and Madame Vera who went around with her greasy and disheveled hair in rags despite her wealth; apartments; the hoard; and the taxi driver ‘Kemaletting the Crazy,’ an enthusiastic devotee of the Feriköy football club, who invited his clients sporadically to a tavern to have a mug of beer; Aleko, the communist newspaperman who never ceased to heap the Party of Justice with faint praise; the Pinocchio Gatenyo with the bulbous nose; the ‘fake plumber’ stinking of alcohol throughout the day; Monsieur Oscar, ‘the asthmatic carpenter’ who died of a stroke when he was about to complete a colossal kitchen cabinet for a client unknown to us, while sipping at his raki, working till the late hours in his small shop over many years; Münip Bey who, having opened his window on summer nights, used to play the song Tereddüt (Hesitancy) on his lute; the grocer ‘Bekir the Kurd,’ the ‘Swindler’; ‘Talat the Silent’ who starched and ironed clothes without speaking to anyone; ‘Aslan the Sodomite,’ the maker of quilts who used to hire boy apprentices with gnarled hands; Uncle Selahattin ‘the pedophile opinion dealer’, notorious for his absentmindedness and who frequently gave us colored pencils and crepe paper as a gift; Madame Alice the gossip whom I always imagined naked as she kept telling me that when I grew up I would pay a visit to her shop to buy slips and bras for my sweethearts; and last but not least ‘Kemal the Dwarf,’ the assistant pharmacist who used to give hypodermic injections to his clients and who harangued willing listeners, imparting them with his ‘vast knowledge’ of poisons, and who never failed to divest himself from his impeccable costume of a tie and white pinafore and who had ended up poisoning himself . . . When I remembered the images of these people I considered myself justified in having a profound belief in dreams, in fantasies and in new stories. This may have been the reason why that house had always welcomed me. That is why I tried to make headway for years and years in the story of that street and apartment with the hope of having a better insight into myself and into those lives. My walk would not come to an end. I lived my fantasies leisurely, as I learned how to abandon my words and ‘kill’ them. I wonder which of my unredeemable qualities had I given to those individuals that I tried to describe and comprehend in this long text, to which individuals had I sought within me; in my attempts at unmasking the identity behind which I had hidden myself? In a world what is there to lose, there are the issues pregnant with other meanings, the mirrors to reflect our new locations, windmills, all the sexual fantasies presented with all their illusions and all the other aspects of war as shown on the TV, with anonymous torturers all around us who are not exposed to the sight of the viewers. Everybody dies despite his dreams, especially for himself, in his own chamber; because your place in that long adventure is determined by those hopes that you have conveyed to others, or, what is still more important, by the hopes you were able to communicate to others. What cannot be expressed or is not desired to be expressed is, I think, that spot where truth and falsehood converge and which you cannot help seeing in the long run. In that spot which you would not be willing to share with others, you are hiding the truth which you are reluctant to approach, the truth which you are reluctant to consider at length, to analyze or to understand it. I had loved the poem found in those rooms that the sun had failed to illuminate properly, especially at such moments, these moments of silence. Those rooms also concealed the history of a contentment with certain things, little things which a person might enliven by referring to them under various names and associations. Those rooms were the spaces with which you established links between you and your personal effects, they were the drinks which you always deferred to a third person, the books you had not found the opportunity to read, your garden which you had failed to tend, your sea where you could not swim, and perhaps your house which you could not renovate. But the history of your contentment with these things had remained in calendars covered by a thick layer of dust, called for by other voices and other mornings. Those hotel rooms you visited on weekends, more often than not in the company of others, had not been nurtured with those flowerpots for no reason. Those telephone calls had not aroused new hopes in vain. Objects concealed other objects simultaneously.

( . . . ) In those things, those yearnings and wry joys we could not always share with others we became viable, as well as discovering a beautiful little poem or at least having dreamt of such a discovery. I had let myself penetrate the story, having been encouraged by these things on one of those days when I felt the entire text within me. Long long ago, I happened to be by the seaside in that café or in the tea garden, as it is preferred to be called nowadays. The summer was drawing to a close. I was hoping that what I saw, what I could see, would be able to dictate to me a sentence untouched up to this point, despite the old emotion that the summers aroused in me and whose stories I had been able to write. Fishermen were returning with their catch. It was the season of bonitos. Casting a glance on the bonitos lying scattered on the waterfront before taking their place in the chests, I had said to myself: “they are lean yet; at least one month to go before they get fat; all the same I must buy a couple on my way back home; why not fry them instead of having to roast them in the oven; I’ll add salted onions dressed with olive oil and lemon and . . . ” It was early yet for a Saturday morning for those who wanted to dispel the stress of the weekend and bask in the melancholy of Sunday evening and for the arrival of entire working-class families with blank expressions to watch the beauty of the sea passing platitudinous comments . . . On one of the tables sat an elderly gentleman with his face turned toward the sea. A feeling difficult to describe had drawn me to him. I had perched on a chair next to his table. “I knew you’d come,” he said. “I knew you’d come” was a sentence I had also read in other stories which had always given me a shudder, a sentence whose associations I couldn’t ignore. With a faint smile he looked at me as though he had heard the voice in my head. “It’s my habit to come here quite often at this hour of the morning. Quite often, so long as my health permits. I couldn’t quit this corner despite all I’ve lost . . . I’d been waiting for you . . . ” he said. I approached his face. I understood the reason for my shudder. The person I was facing was my exact double, my exact future replica. His smile must have been due to his apprehension at my realization. The smile was reminiscent of my unforgettable dreams. “Certain encounters have no explanation, despite all the words you rely on and in which you take shelter, you just cannot explain them,” he said. “Just like in those stories . . . a stranger meets you and says to you during one of your visits somewhere I knew you’d be coming,” I replied. “Just like in some stories . . . you have nearly come to the end of this long one. At least you happen to be somewhere which you believe to be near the end; you are somewhere where you intend to leave certain things awhile to be rid of them,” he said. “I know, however, that certain relationship will continue in others, in some way or another,” I said. “You’re right there . . . but when relationships are lived as they should be, when all debts are paid, different words are used,” he said. “One must know how to emerge from the egg, pupa, or chrysalis,” I retorted. He remained silent, staring into the distance. “I might figure you are at the very beginning of this story,” I added. This sentence was used to find a place for this piece of writing in my story which I realized more and more everyday that I would never be able to complete and to which now and then I wanted to take up once more with fresh enthusiasm. I was now in a position to tell all about it. Many a book for which I felt an attraction began with a little call. I distinctly remembered; that time was my own once more. The words were once again the words I tried to bring together, the words that would contribute to my new expectations. A letter, a note, or an unanticipated voice . . . Every preparation gains meaning by a journey to a completely new man, to a world of emotions, of probability. Who knows what one is going to meet on the road, who has called us from there, from the place from which we have received an invitation, what hopes or failures we are to run across. Bags are packed, suits are made ready; this is one of the questions begged, which figures in poems. One is puzzled to decide what he should take with him before setting out. Books, perfumes, objects, hallucinations, words . . . which of these things should one take on the journey? What exactly, since there will be no return. What exactly, since there will be no dawn anymore for such a hope? The spell has been cast. You can carry the sense of death more freely for this very reason. I had the opportunity to cast another glance at the letter left in my postbox. Both the address and the hour of assembly had clearly been stated. I was at the outset of a journey I had been looking forward to for a good many years from which I could put off no longer. The journey I was invited to undertake was to be a long and interminable one. I had arrived in the venue long before the stated hour; it was a restaurant far removed from all the known texts, a restaurant that concealed in it many details of the past. I looked about. The first thing I noticed was the profound silence that reigned there; it was a complete, hushed, and deathly silence . . . an introversion . . . Some of the tables were occupied by clients that exchanged words among themselves without turning their heads to look around. They seemed to be in a distant world of their own. A dim light illumined them. As I got used to the general atmosphere, I realized that these people were the figures in ‘that story.’ They seemed to speak openly about things. They hadn’t noticed me. I was absent, as though I had not come there at all. I had thought that I had to consider and try to understand my extraneousness and the place that my estrangement had brought me to. Under the circumstances, I might keep silent, I might shut up and wait and use my sight once again. There sat an elderly gentleman. The fact that if one stood stationary and abided in a state of immutability over many years, this resulting expectancy would present versatility. I gingerly advanced toward him. It was as though I knew him better than anyone, better than anyone that I had set eyes on up until that point. My diffidence might have caused my flight at any moment. I had felt once more the presence of the man within me. He had smiled: “I was the one who invited you; I knew you would come,” he said, “sooner or later . . . regardless of whether you’d try to evade and resist the urge to turn and run.” Suddenly I saw the sound of my fright. He was my old age, the future that lay ahead. “All right,” I said, “but I haven’t completed my story yet. The story I wanted to live to the bitter end has not yet ended . . . ” He inclined his head to his breast, evading my stare and said: “I know well enough that it has not. As a matter of fact, certain stories never come to an end; for some people stories never end . . . ” Relations with some people never end . . . some stories never end. To whom were these words referring; for whom were they meant; for which lack of communication; who had been ignored; for which last sentence were they aimed? Both of us kept our eyes from each other. During the whole length of the conversation our looks would no longer meet. “Beginnings or last steps . . . There seems to be little difference between them, very little difference; a difference created by a single sentence, a sentence that everybody would have liked to appropriate, everybody would attribute meaning according to his own idiosyncrasies. For, sooner or later everybody returns to the spot where the journey started. One realizes in time that walking means making headway toward your God. That is why one likes to live stories. Certain stories are exhausted within you by an interior dialogue,” he said. “I want to believe that what we are experiencing here is real and that it will, like all other dreams, be given life in my writing, l
ike many similar dreams I tried to describe,” I said. “There are dreams you can never describe,” he said. Whereupon I asked him where I was supposed to place this encounter in my writing, in the name of which dream, and the reason why he had invited me there. He smiled and stared at me at length for the first time. “You haven’t understood yet, have you? Just look around. They were your heroes, the figures you described, tried to describe in your other stories,” he said. “But,” I retorted, “it seems to me that I’m seeing them for the first time here; none of them address me.” He kept smiling. “Now, how about a new story?” he asked. I directed my look to the door. “You are looking in the right direction. . . again . . . even though we may not meet . . . again . . . for that writing . . . earmarked . . . the price being paid.” The sun had begun to make its warmth felt on that morning café. We had to keep silent, only for a brief moment, at this very spot of the story that I had not completed, of the story I had dared to commence. Our conversation had been interrupted by a silence which could be fitted in an ancient photograph laden with emotions and shortcomings, a photograph not suitable to be shared. “This story should come to an end with a different hero at a different place . . . ” I said every now and then during the whole course of our silence. To this end, I had wanted to tell the last part to someone at least, to an individual who would really listen to me . . . “There was a woman,” I said, “who had forsaken me for a painter and had gone to live on the Aegean coast . . . she was to return to me many years later, at the least expected moment . . . at a time when I had succeeded in acclimatizing to myself and giving myself over to myself . . . to run into each other years later in Şisle, on the shoreline; we were to walk on the sand with bare feet in order to feel our weight pressing in the sand . . . with bare feet, hand in hand . . . a last walk . . . a last walk or the first true walk of our lives. Perhaps only then would we be able to tell the stories we had left behind . . . only then could we be telling each other our stories and tales . . . in order to die in our dreams, in our last dreams as individuals who have known true touches,” I said. He retorted, “but who told you that our story has come to an end? We’ll have to try to bring together the pieces by having recourse to other people, to other voices and languages. We can no longer stop. Nevertheless, it’s still too early to see the figures in that café, or to live that walk along the shore . . . For the moment I can offer you the seashells of another shore . . . the seashells of another shore . . . as a small clue . . . ”