The Flea Palace (43 page)

I smiled. One end of naivety leads to negligence, the other to innocence. The negligence part can be flawed but there is probably not much in this world as alluring as innocence.

‘My mother and stepfather were listening from behind the door, ready to intervene if something happened, fearing harm from the Mauve Prince. They had no clue what I was about to do. Of course, I didn’t have a knife or anything. There was only this steel pin in my hair bun – sharp enough – back then my hair was so thick, no other hairpin would do. Anyway, that’s what I used to slash my left cheek. Though I couldn’t see my face at the moment I could see the Mauve Prince’s: ashen with horror, almost lemon yellow. He started yelling and shrieking to stop me. My mother ran to the noise, she too let out a scream. Only then did I understand I must be in pretty bad
shape, cut up bad. My stepfather started hitting the Mauve Prince, thinking he was the one responsible, and the other didn’t even defend himself, as he was still in shock! While my stepfather was giving him a thrashing, my mother and I jumped in a cab, straight to the emergency room. I was amazed that it didn’t hurt at all. Apparently pain only comes later. There was a fatherly physician at the emergency room, almost a soulmate of grandpa. He talked sweetly, amiably, trying to get information out to learn who had done this to me. When he sensed the truth, he was livid with rage, but even his rebukes were sweet, I tell you. They gave me narcotics, sewed up the wound. Just as I was leaving the hospital, he held my hand. “My crazy little girl, now that you have transcended the threshold of sanity and sliced up this beautiful face of yours, do not ever go back to the meadow of reason and common sense. What is even worse than slicing up your own face without remorse is the remorse that follows. In that case you’ll really suffer and suffer for nothing. So be true to yourself, remain as crazy as you have been once the sutures are removed, promise?” I promised. We shook hands. It was lucky for me that he did such a neat job. Any other doctor, I tell you, would have sewn my face up like a sack. Still a scar remains, that doesn’t go away.’

I didn’t know what to say. Her story was not quite what I expected to hear. To fall in love with a person is tantamount to retrieving repressed stories from their house of sorrow – stories that have never seen daylight. As for staying in love, it is to nose-dive, once having heard those stories, into the house of dreams of your beloved only to stay put even upon encountering other stories that are far worse. I had acted impetuously concerning the Blue Mistress. She was not blue. At least, her blueness was not as lucent as it seemed at first glance. I pulled her toward me. She snuck closer, fidgeted until she had made her head comfortable on my chest. Then she silently, softly let herself go.

‘I loved the Mauve Prince because of who he was but then he pretended to be someone else. Never lie to me, please?
Everything should be what it is!’

I just nodded. A person who claims to abhor lies, if not telling one herself will inexorably bring bad luck to those around her, just like a smashed mirror. One who asks never to be told a lie actually yearns for it. It’s similar to showing a gun in a film – sooner or later it has to be put into use. Still, I did not want to demur. Before long, she fell asleep under the light seeping through the window. She was not that beautiful but her face had a sort of magic. Watching her always gave me great pleasure.

I got up. Groping around for something to wear in the dark, I turned on the lamp. The sheet covering the Blue Mistress had slid across, exposing her right leg. Only then did it occur to me for the very first time that we had always made love either in the dark or half-dressed; her naked body still remained a mystery.

The upper part of her leg was covered with scarlet stripes of scars. Lined up vertically next to one another like those five line clusters of lines we imagine are used in prisons to count the passing, not-passing days. I took a closer look. The majority did not seem to be very deep, as if slashed open in a hurry. However, one among them was quite deep and seemed to have been opened more recently, having had no time yet to heal.

02:22 a.m.: She turned onto her face with a clipped moan. I covered her body and turned off the light.
Rakι
would have gone down well at that moment. As soon as I turned on the kitchen light, several cockroaches vanished like greased lightning. Sooner or later I too would have to have the house fumigated. I sliced plenty of white cheese and melon. On the cheese, I poured the olive oil the Blue Mistress had brought and thyme, a great deal of thyme. The olive oil merchant would probably not want to know that the bottles he carried to his little mistress were consumed by another man.

I stepped out to the balcony. Careful not to squash the cluster of ants busily shouldering home the bulky corpse of a black beetle, I pulled my chair closer to the railing and lit a cigarette. How many more cuts were there on her body? I did not know what had opened up those wounds… Was it a razor or a knife? Or a hair pin? I glanced at the garbage bags piled up by the garden wall down below. Nothing had changed. The sour smell of garbage was still with us.

Madam Auntie had been waiting for hours by the seaside together with collectors like her. With each gust of
lodos
, that enraged southwest wind, the waves brought bits and pieces, torn sails, broken oars, compasses with shattered pointers, rudders that had lost their course, the letters spilled from the names of the boats left behind from those voyages that were never to reach a port of tranquility and those travellers long disembarked.

The sea, once satisfied with playing with those plastic balls or inflatable beds the waves had long ago snatched away whilst you were on vacation and the straw mats or hats the wind had carried far away from their rightful places, brings and delivers them all to different shores.

Next to collectors like her, Madam Auntie was waiting to collect what the sea would ferry to the shore.

As soon as Celal left the beauty parlour, he blasted through the back streets right out to the avenue. After walking for about fifteen minutes in the crowd without a destination in mind, he entered a street lined up with five bars looking exactly alike. Though it was not at all his habit, he felt like having a beer. From among them, he chose one randomly and dashed in. Inside it was crammed full. He headed directly to the table closest to the door, as it was his habit to be as close to the exit as possible, asked for a beer, and also fries from the gaunt, runty waiter with gestures that displayed not only his distaste for his job but also the fact that his mind was occupied elsewhere.

As Celal waited to give his order, he spotted at the table across a swarthy man with three rings in three different shades of purple under his eyes, who either could not stand still or was simply on the verge of collapsing onto the table. The man’s eyes were fixed on the
rakι
in front of him. Though not taking a single sip from his glass at present, it was only too evident that he had already had more than his share. He had not touched the fried anchovies either.

‘Why-the-hell-are-you-star-ing-at-me-mate?’ croaked the man all of a sudden, slurring the words hoarsely. Celal shrunk in his seat not knowing what to say but thankfully the waiter sprung up by his side at precisely that moment. ‘Take it easy on him, brother,’ the waiter advised, his attention fixed on the passers-by scurrying on the other side of the windows, as if he would like to be there among them rather than here in the bar.
‘A harmless fellow. Just feeling down today.’

The beer was decent enough, the fries not at all. There were lengthy strings of mayonnaise and ketchup spurted all over them. Mayonnaise was fine but Celal couldn’t stand ketchup. He got angry at himself for not having warned the waiter. Fidgeting edgily he turned aside so as not to have to face the table across.

One of the four strapping men at the next table had lifted his thumb up, as if trying to hitchhike from where he sat. He was a scary, brawny man with a hooked nose and a bottomless craving to have his opinions confirmed by others, given the frequency with which he asked ‘Isn’t that so?’ Guzzling a swig of beer, he wiped his moustache with the back of his hand and blitzed his friends: ‘What’s up? Why are you all silent? We aren’t the type to chicken out and run away! Isn’t that so?’ He brought down the blunt knife smeared with hotdog dressing he was holding, right in the middle of the table with a bang. ‘You want a bet? Be my guest. This is how I make a bet, my man. We are no kids who’ll bet on two marbles, three bottle caps, isn’t that so? If I lose, I’ll chop off this thumb and leave it at the table, but if you lose, the same rule goes for you, isn’t that so?’

To this end, the knife on the table must not have been impressive enough, for he snapped the blade of a pocket-knife out in a flash, placing it next to the other one. Then he once again lifted his thumb up in the air, frozen like a statue. As the others gawked at the squat and chunky thumb aimed right at them, a chill swept over the table.

If it were any other time, afraid of a row Celal would have left the place, but today he felt like drinking. So he stayed and continued to drink in spite of the provocations of the drunk at the table across from him, the ketchup on the fries and the thumb terrorizing the next table.

Unused to alcohol, his eyes turned bloodshot before he was halfway through the second beer. Fixating his glance on the stains and cigarette burns of the tablecloth, he heaved a deep
sigh. Why was his twin so different from him? They did not have one single thing in common. Why were they not alike in any way? And if they were so very dissimilar, why did they still work together? By the time the third beer had vanished, he had reached the decision to part ways with Cemal.

Su was going to have her first English lesson tonight. 7:00 p.m. was the time agreed upon. She looked at the glow-in-the-dark watch her father had given her as a birthday gift: 4:35 p.m. There still was a lot of time. Bored stiff, she wandered around the house wherein everything had turned white. Her mother was sleeping, having once again spent the night awake and cleaning.

Opening the windows she peeped at the children playing down on the street. Though she watched them with interest, it did not even cross her mind to join them. She wouldn’t want to be among them even if given the chance. Like all lonely children who had not a friend outside of school or buddy at home, who had mastered the art of being as well-behaved as expected and as docile as was not expected and who were now searching for ways to subvert the art, she too looked down on the street games with a hidden fury. Exceedingly careful not to make a sound, she sneaked outside. The intimacy that had blossomed with the old woman that day at the hairdresser was still fresh in her memory. Not that she had forgotten the ban on leaving Bonbon Palace, with the exception of attending school…but on second thoughts, the flat right across could not be considered ‘outside’, could it?

Thus, she did what she had never done before, daring to visit the neighbour next door. Not a sound was heard from the flat after she rang the bell. She pressed it again, this time a bit more tenaciously and was just about to give up when the door of Flat Number 10 opened.

Offended that his twin brother had not come back, Cemal saw off the last customer and turning over the beauty parlour to the apprentices, went out into the street feeling depressed. The night breeze felt good. He blasted through the back streets with speedy steps, as if sliding, and went right out onto the main street. After walking for about fifteen minutes in the crowd without even knowing where he was headed, he entered a street lined up with five bars, all looking exactly alike. Though not at all his habit, he felt like having a beer. Among all the bars on his way, he randomly chose one and dashed in. Inside it was crammed full. He headed directly to the table closest to the door as it was his habit to be as near to the exit as possible. He then asked for a beer and also fries from the gaunt, runty waiter with gestures that displayed not only his distaste for his job but also that his mind was hooked-up somewhere else.

As he waited to give his order, Cemal spotted at the table opposite a swarthy man with three rings in three different shades of purple under his eyes, who either could not stand still or was simply on the verge of collapsing onto the table. Still without shifting his gaze from the
rakι
in front of him, the man beckoned the waiter and whispered, his breath smelling profusely of liquor, to the latter’s ear: ‘Ask-him-why-he-is-back-let-us-know.’ Upon seeing the confusion on the waiter’s face, he impatiently clarified: ‘Ask-him-why-did-he-leave-if-he-was-to-come-back-if-he-was-to-come-back-why-he-did-he-leave-if?’

By now Cemal had realized the man across was talking about him but he just could not gauge what on earth he was saying. He shrunk on his chair not knowing what to say, but thankfully the waiter sprung up by his side at precisely that moment: ‘Take it easy on him, brother,’ murmured the waiter in an exasperated voice. ‘He’s a regular customer. Just feeling down today, provokes whoever he sees, but he’ll never behave shamefully.’

The beer was decent enough, the fries not at all. There were lengthy strings of mayonnaise and ketchup spurted on them. Ketchup was fine but Cemal would have none of that mayonnaise. He got angry at himself for not having warned the waiter. Fidgeting edgily he turned aside so as not to have to face the table opposite.

At the table to his right were four strapping men, one of whom had lifted up the thumb of his right hand which was bandaged in gauze with a lump of dried blood around the nail, and kept sitting like a statue. One of the others quietly murmured: ‘Why don’t you go home man, why are you still sitting around with a bandage and stitches?’ The one next to him piped up in support: ‘Anyhow, I do not have the foggiest idea why we came back here. We’re probably the only ones on earth to return to the bar after a visit to the emergency room.’