Silent House (26 page)

A
fter dinner, when my father went off to the casino to sell his tickets, I left the house, too, without saying anything to my mother. When I got to the coffeehouse everyone was already there, including two new guys. Mustafa was explaining things to them. I sat down without drawing attention to myself and listened: So, said Mustafa, two superpowers, America and the Soviets, want to divide up the world, and that Jew Marx lies when he says that what makes the world go round is what he called the class struggle, it’s nationalism and the most extreme nationalists are the Russians and the Europeans. Then he told them that the center of the world was the Middle East and the key to the Middle East was Turkey. It was the superpowers, he explained, that had started the argument over “Are you first a Muslim or a Turk?” using their agents to divide us. These agents are all around, they’ve infiltrated everywhere, he said, and unfortunately, they might even be among us. There was a nervous quiet for a little while, after which Mustafa told them how we used to be united and that unity terrified them to the point of throwing up blood, those treacherous, slanderous, imperialist Europeans, with their tales of

“Plants don’t grow where the Turk has passed.” I felt I could almost hear those hoof beats that made the Christians shudder on cold winter nights, but all of a sudden I got really annoyed, because one of those new fools who had just joined us piped up: “Okay, brother, but if we find oil, too, will we be like the Arabs and get rich and develop?”

As if everything’s about money, everything’s material! We are not fighting for money here, we are fighting for our spiritual salvation. Mustafa didn’t lose his patience, he explained it all over again, but I didn’t listen, I know these things, I’m not new anymore. I noticed a newspaper lying there, so I took it and started reading it, the want ads, too. Then Mustafa told them to come back when it was late. They gave him a salute to show that they had learned the need for absolute obedience and they left.

“Are you going out to write on the walls tonight?” I asked.

“We did them last night, where the hell were you?”

“I was at home,” I said. “I was studying.”

“You were studying?” said Serdar. “Or you were peeping in windows?”

He gave me a dirty smile. I don’t pay attention to anything he says, but I worried Mustafa might take him seriously.

“I caught this guy down at the beach front this morning,” said Serdar. “He was eyeing some girl. Some rich kid, he’s in love with her. He stole her comb, too.”

“He stole it?”

“Look, Serdar,” I said. “Don’t call me a thief, or you’ll be sorry.”

“Fine, so I suppose that girl gave you the comb?”

“Yes,” I said. “Of course she did.”

“Why should a girl like that give you her comb?”

“You wouldn’t understand such things.”

“He stole it!” he said. “He’s in love, the fool, he stole it!”

I took the two combs out of my pocket. “Look,” I said. “Today, she gave me another one. You still don’t believe me?”

“Let me see,” said Serdar.

“Take it,” I said, holding out the red one. “I guess you learned this morning what will happen if you don’t give it back!”

“This comb is totally different from the green comb,” he said. “It isn’t something that girl would ever use!”

“I saw her use it with my own eyes,” I said. “She has one of these in her bag, too.”

“Then she didn’t give this one to you,” he said.

“Why?” I said. “Couldn’t she have bought two of the same comb?”

“The poor guy,” said Serdar. “Love has taken control of his senses, he doesn’t even know what he’s saying.”

“Don’t you believe that I know her!” I shouted.

“Who is this girl?” Mustafa suddenly said.

I was taken aback and I thought, Mustafa’s been listening.

“The guy’s in love with some society girl,” said Serdar.

“Really?” said Mustafa.

“It’s a bad situation, brother,” said Serdar.

“Who is this girl?” said Mustafa.

“Because he keeps on stealing the girl’s combs,” said Serdar.

“No!” I said. “She gave me this comb!”

“Why would she do that?” said Mustafa.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably just as a present.”

“Who is this girl?” said Mustafa.

“You know, when she gave me this green comb,” I said. “I wanted to give her a present in return, so I bought this red one. But as Serdar says, the red one isn’t as nice as the other, it’s not the same as the green comb.”

“I thought she gave you both of them,” said Serdar.

“Who is this girl, I’m asking you,” shouted Mustafa.

“I know her from when we were little!” I said. “She’s a year older than me!”

“She’s the girl in the house where his uncle is the servant,” said Serdar.

“Really?” said Mustafa. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“Yes,” I said. “My uncle works for them.”

“So this rich girl just gives you a comb as a present for no reason?”

“Why not?” I said. “I told you: I know her.”

“Are you a thief, you idiot!” Mustafa shouted.

Everybody heard him. I broke into a sweat; I hung my head down in front of me, wishing I were anywhere else. If I were at home now, nobody would be bothering me; I could go out to the garden, look at the mysterious lights on the silent ships going off to distant places.

“Well, are you a thief or not, answer us!”

“I’m not a thief at all,” I said. Then I thought of something and, pretending to laugh a little, I said, “Okay, I’ll tell you the truth! It was all a joke. Just to see what he’d say. I was joking with Serdar this morning, but he didn’t get it. Yes, I bought the red comb from the shop. You can go and ask them in the shop if they have the same one. And this green comb is hers. She dropped it on the street, I found it, and I’m just waiting to give it back to her.”

“Are you her servant, is that why you’re waiting?”

“No,” I said. “I’m her friend. When we were small—”

“The stupid guy’s in love with a society girl,” said Serdar.

“No,” I said. “I’m not.”

“If you’re not, why are you hanging around her door?”

“If I take something that doesn’t belong to me and then I don’t return it to the owner, they’ll call me a thief, that’s why.”

“This guy must think we’re as stupid as he is,” said Mustafa.

“So you see,” said Serdar. “He’s fallen really hard!”

“No!” I said.

“Quiet, you idiot!” Mustafa shouted. “He’s not even ashamed. And I thought that this guy would amount to something. I was fooled when he came to me asking for something bigger to do and I thought that he was ready for more responsibility. In fact the whole time, he’s been playing slave to some society girl.”

“No!”

“You’ve been going around like a sleepwalker for days!” said
Mustafa. “While we were writing slogans last night, were you hanging around her house?”

“I wasn’t.”

“And you make us look bad with your thieving!” said Mustafa. “Enough already! Just get out of here!”

We were quiet for a bit. I wished I were at home right then, peacefully working on my mathematics.

“Look, this shameless guy is still sitting here!” said Mustafa. “I said I don’t want him around anymore!”

I stared at them both.

“Why don’t we just forget about it. We have more important things to worry about,” said Serdar.

“No, get this guy out of my sight. I don’t want to look at some society lover boy thief.”

“Let it go. Look, he’s shaking. I’ll straighten him out. Just have a seat and relax, Mustafa.”

“No!” he said. “I’m going.”

And he really was.

“Come on, brother!” said Serdar. “Just sit down.”

Mustafa was standing up, playing with his belt. I had an urge to get up and punch him. I’ll kill him! I thought. But in the end, if you don’t want to be alone, you have to learn to explain yourself, so others don’t misunderstand you.

“There’s no way I could be in love with her, Mustafa!” I said.

“You come tonight,” Mustafa said to them. Then he turned to me. “You, don’t show your face around here again. You don’t know us, never saw us!”

I thought for a bit. Then I suddenly said “Stop!” and ignoring the trembling in my voice I said, “Just listen to me, Mustafa. And you’ll understand.”

“What?”

“I can’t be in love with that girl,” I said. “She’s a Communist.”

“What?”

“Yes!” I said. “I swear, I saw it with my own eyes.”

“What did you see?”

“The newspaper. She was reading
Cumhuriyet
. She gets
Cumhuriyet
from the shop every day and reads it. Sit down, Mustafa, let me explain.”

“Don’t tell me you’re in love with a Communist?” he said.

For a moment I thought he was going to hit me. If he did, then I would kill him.

“No,” I said. “I don’t fall in love with Communists. Until yesterday I still didn’t know she was a Communist. Would you sit down, Mustafa, so I can explain?”

“I’m sitting down,” he said. “But if you’re lying it’s going to end very badly for you.”

Then I was quiet for a minute, and I asked if they could let me have a cigarette.

“So you’ve started smoking, too?” said Serdar.

“Just give the guy a cigarette!” said Mustafa and finally sat down.

Yasar gave me a cigarette but couldn’t see how much my hand was shaking, because he lit the match. When I saw the three of them looking at me with great interest to see what I would say, I took a minute to puff and think.

“When I saw her in the cemetery she was praying,” I said. “That’s why I figured she couldn’t be some society girl, because her head was covered and her hands were open to God, just like her grandmother’s …”

“What’s this guy saying?” said Serdar.

“Ssh!” Mustafa said. “What were you doing in the cemetery?”

“Sometimes people leave flowers there,” I said. “My father says that if he puts a carnation in his lapel when he goes out at night, people in the casino buy more tickets. So he sends me there to look sometimes. So when I went there that morning, looking for flowers, I saw her next to her father’s grave. Her head was covered and she had her hands lifted up to God.”

“He’s lying!” said Serdar. “I saw that girl on the beach this morning; she was totally naked.”

“No, she wasn’t, she had on a bathing suit,” I said. “Besides, in the cemetery I couldn’t have known what sort she was.”

“Fine, so is the girl a Communist now?” said Mustafa. “Or are you just jerking us around?”

“No,” I said. “She is. When I saw her praying there I was, all right, I admit it, a little confused. Because she wasn’t like that when she was a kid. I’d known her since childhood. She wasn’t bad, but she wasn’t good either. You don’t know them. Trying to figure it out, I got all confused, too. I was curious about what kind of person she is now. That’s why I started to follow her …”

“No good bum!” said Mustafa.

“He’s in love, that’s it!” said Yasar.

“Quiet!” said Mustafa. “How did you learn she was a Communist?”

“Following her,” I said. “Well, I wasn’t actually following her at that point. By chance she came into the shop where I was drinking a Coca-Cola and she got a
Cumhuriyet
. That’s how I realized.”

“You understood just from that?” said Mustafa.

“No, not just from that,” I said, and I was quiet for a second before continuing. “She goes and gets
Cumhuriyet
every morning and doesn’t get any other paper. And then she no longer socializes with the other rich people here.”

“She got
Cumhuriyet
every morning, and you were hiding this from us, because you were still in love and going after her, weren’t you?”

“No,” I said. “She got
Cumhuriyet
this morning.”

“Don’t lie, I can tell,” said Mustafa. “You just said that she gets
Cumhuriyet
every morning.”

“She goes to the shop every morning and gets something, but I saw this morning that what she gets is
Cumhuriyet
.”

“This guy is lying,” said Serdar.

“Another minute and I’m going to break his face,” said Mustafa. “He went after this girl knowing full well that she’s a Communist. So what’s with these combs, then?”