Silent House (38 page)

Looking through the barbed wire at the beach, I didn’t see you in the crowd, Nilgün. Mustafa hadn’t shown up either.

So I left the beach, heading toward your house. A gentleman is calling, the dwarf will say, he’d like to see you, Nilgün Hanim. Really, a proper gentleman, you say, very well then, Recep Efendi, show him into the salon, I’ll be right there. As I walked I kept looking around on the chance you had already left the house, but our paths didn’t cross, my lady. When I got to your garden gate, there was no sign of the car, and I preferred to forget who had pushed it uphill in the rain all night, like an idiot and a blind slave. Where was the Anadol? I passed through the gate, but being a gentleman and not wishing to disturb anyone, I didn’t go over to the main entrance up the stairs but out back to the kitchen door. I recognized the shadow of the fig, the stones of the wall. Like a dream.

I knocked on the kitchen door, waited a little: Are you the servant of the house, Recep Efendi, I’ll say, this record and this green comb,
I believe, belong to a young lady who lives here, I used to know her somewhat, but anyway, that’s not important now, I’ve only come to drop these off, I have no other purpose. After a while, I knocked again; still no answer: Uncle Recep must have gone to the market, he wasn’t at home. Maybe nobody was home! As in a dream, yes! My hair stood on end!

When I pushed on the handle, the door slowly opened. I went into the kitchen silent as a cat. I knew that smell of cooking oil. I didn’t see anyone, and because I had my sneakers on, nobody heard me climbing up the stairs that twisted upward beside the large earthenware water jar. I felt like a ghost haunting someone’s dream, and I was thinking it was because I hadn’t really slept, but when I smelled the cooking oil, I thought, So this is what such houses smell like inside, like a real house! I’m really here.

When I got upstairs, I slowly opened one of the doors. Looking inside, I recognized that disgusting shape right away: Metin asleep with the sheet over his head! I thought how he owed me two thousand liras and how he had said there was no God. I could strangle him and nobody would know. But then I thought for a second: they’d find my fingerprints. So I quietly shut the door and went in the open door of the room on the other side of the hall.

I realized from the bottle on the table and the huge pair of pants thrown on the unmade bed: this was Faruk’s room. I got right out of there, and when, without thinking first, I opened the next door, I shuddered because it seemed to me I saw my father on the wall. How strange: my father with a beard; he seemed to be staring out of the frame at me in anger and disappointment, as if saying, Oh, what a shame, you’re a total idiot. I was very nervous at that moment. But when I heard the old woman’s voice with the rattle in it, I understood who the picture on the wall and the room belonged to.

“Who’s that?”

I froze, but when I saw her completely wrinkled face and huge ears buried in the crumpled sheets, I shut the door right away.

“Recep, is that you, Recep?”

I silently ran down the hall to the last room, and as I waited trembling by the door I heard that voice again.

“Recep, is that you? I’m talking to you, Recep, answer me!”

I went right in, and suddenly I was astonished, Nilgün, my lady, to find myself in the room that was obviously yours! I pulled back the covers from the empty bed and breathed in your scent, then hurriedly made it up again when I heard that ancient voice still calling, as if to keep me from moving on to your closet.

“Who’s there? Who’s there, Recep?”

I took your nightie out from under the pillow and gave it a sniff. It smelled of lavender and Nilgün. Then after I’d folded it up to look as if I hadn’t smelled it, tucking it back under the pillow, I thought, Why don’t I just leave the record and the combs here? Yes, right on your bed, Nilgün, is where I should leave them. When you find the combs you’ll understand: how I’ve been following you for so many days, how I love you. But I didn’t leave them, because I had the thought that that would mean everything was finished. Then I decided, let me end it, but it was too late.

“Recep, I’m talking to you, Recep!”

I had to leave the room immediately, because I understood from the heavy rattling that the grandmother must be trying to get out of bed. As I twisted quickly down the spiral stairs I heard her door open behind me and a cane pounding on the carpet hard enough to put a hole in it.

“Recep, I’m talking to you, Recep.”

I turned around and went into the kitchen, stopping just as I was about to fly out the door. I can’t go without doing something … There was a pot over a low flame on the stove. I turned the knob until the flame shot all the way up. I did the same with the other knob and went out thinking, I should have done more.

Telling myself not to pay any attention to anybody, I walked quickly, and when I came to the beach, just as I thought, this time through the barbed wire I saw you, Nilgün Hanimefendi, there in
the crowd. Let me give you the record and comb and put an end to all this! I’m not afraid of anyone. She was drying off. She must have just come out of the water. Mustafa still hadn’t come.

I waited a little before going to the shop. There were other customers.

“Give me a
Cumhuriyet
,” I said.

“Sorry!” said the shopkeeper with a deep red face. “We don’t sell it anymore.”

I didn’t say anything. After a little while, Nilgün Hanimefendi, you came in from the beach and asked, as you did every morning, “A
Cumhuriyet
, please.”

But again the shopkeeper said, “Sorry. We don’t sell it anymore.”

“Why?” said Nilgün. “You had it yesterday.”

The shopkeeper indicated me with the tip of his nose, and you looked at me: we looked at each other. Did you understand at that moment? Did you understand the kind of man I am? Now, I thought, I can explain everything to you patiently and without rushing, like a gentleman. I went outside, and with the record and the comb at the ready, I waited. A little later you came out, too. Now I’ll explain, and you’ll understand everything.

“Can we talk a little?” I said.

She stopped and looked at me for a second with surprise, oh, that beautiful face! I thought she was going to say something, but she just walked away as if she had seen the devil. I ran after her, not even thinking about who might be around.

“Please stop, Nilgün!” I said. “Listen to me for once!”

She stopped. When I saw her face up close I was even more astonished. What a strange color were her eyes!

“Fine,” she said. “Tell me what you have to say right now.”

It was as if I had forgotten everything: nothing came to mind, as if we had just met and had nothing to say.

“This record is yours, isn’t it?” I said. I held it out to her, but she didn’t even look at it!

“No,” she said. “It’s not.”

“It’s yours, this record is yours, Nilgün! Take a good look. You can’t tell because it’s a little sooty! It got wet and I had to dry it.”

She bent her head down and looked. “No, this isn’t mine!” she said. “You must have me confused with somebody else.”

And off she went again. I ran after her and grabbed her arm.

“Let go!” she yelled.

“Why do you all lie to me?”

“Let go!”

“Why are you running away from me? You can’t even say hello! Can you tell me what harm I’ve ever done you? If it hadn’t been for me, do you know what they would have done to you by now?”

“They who?”

“How can you lie to my face? As if you have no idea. Do you or do you not read
Cumhuriyet
?”

Instead of giving me a straight answer, she cast her eyes hopelessly around, as if looking for somebody who might help her. Still holding her by the arm, I made a last attempt, gentle and polite as I could.

“I love you, do you know that?”

Suddenly she slipped out of my grip and tried to run off, but halfheartedly, as if she didn’t really believe she could get away. I ran two steps after her, and like a cat reaching for a wounded mouse, I firmly but kindly grabbed her wrists, so delicate, in the middle of the crowd. Stop a minute. It was easier than I could have imagined. She was shaking. I wanted to kiss her, but being a gentleman, I wasn’t going to take advantage of her now just because she realized what she had done wrong. I know how to control myself. Look, nobody in this crowd is rushing to help you, because they know you’re in the wrong. So, tell me, little lady, why were you running away from me, tell me, what were you and the others all scheming about in secret, say it so that everybody in the crowd can hear, so that nobody can misunderstand and accuse me of being involved in anything. I was wondering if Mustafa was anywhere near. Then just as I was waiting
to hear what she would say, so that once and for all everyone would stop making up things about me, and this endless nightmare would finally be over, she suddenly started shrieking:

“You crazy fascist, leave me alone!”

And by that she confessed that she was in fact working together with the others. At first I was really surprised, but then I recognized it was my job to give her the punishment she deserved, and so right then and there I started hitting her again and again.

W
hen I realized that the girl lying there was Nilgün and that it was Hasan who’d beaten her and run off, I let go of my net bags full of groceries and ran and ran until I got to her.

“Are you all right, my girl?”

She was bent over, like a sleeper in bed, with her head in her hands and turned toward the pavement, trembling.

“Nilgün, Nilgün,” I said, holding her by her shoulders.

She was still crying softly. People came out of all the corners where they had hidden and began to crowd around us, curious, timid heads leaning out over the shoulders of those standing in front of them, trying to get a better look and say something, some shouting themselves hoarse with concern. Seeing them all around her, she seemed embarrassed and reached out to me for help to stand up. I saw her bleeding face, and I told her, “Lean on me, dear girl, lean.”

She got up on her feet, leaning on me, and I gave her my handkerchief.

“There’s a taxi,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

The crowd cleared the way for us to pass. As we were getting into
the taxi, somebody ran up with my grocery bags and Nilgün’s bag. Another kid said, “Wait, this is hers,” and gave her a record.

“To the hospital?” said the driver. “Istanbul?”

“I want to go home!” said Nilgün.

“At least let’s stop by the pharmacy!” I said.

She remained quiet the whole way there, still trembling, and every once in a while giving a blank and indifferent look at the handkerchief she was dabbing her eye with to see whether she was still bleeding.

“Hold your head like this!” I said, pulling back her hair.

Once again it wasn’t Kemal Bey in the pharmacy, but his beautiful wife, listening to the radio.

When the woman saw Nilgün, she let out a scream. Then she began to rush around the shop as she peppered us with questions, but Nilgün just sat there in silence. Finally Kemal Bey’s wife was silent, too, and went to work cleaning the cuts on Nilgün’s face with cotton and medicine. I couldn’t look.

“Kemal Bey’s not around?”

“I’m the pharmacist!” his wife said. “What would he do? He’s upstairs. Oh, sweetheart, why did they do this to you?”

Just then the door opened, and in came Kemal Bey. He paused for a moment, and then, looking as if he had always expected something like this would happen, he said, “What happened?”

“They beat me,” said Nilgün.

“My God, what have we come to?” said the lady pharmacist.

“Who is ‘we’?” said Kemal Bey.

“Whoever did this …,” said his wife.

“Hasan,” murmured Nilgün. “He belongs to a nationalist gang.”

“Just be quiet now, you, quiet,” said the woman.

But Kemal Bey heard the word and seemed angered. Looking around he reached toward the radio and yelled at his wife, “Why do you always have this thing turned all the way up?”

With the radio turned off, the shop suddenly seemed empty, and then pain and shame and guilt flooded in.