The New Life (26 page)

“Oh, the doctor just loves to read!” chuckled this willing and able Kim Novak.

When the nurse left, the doctor locked the door behind her. He sat in his chair with the deliberation of a mature man. And while we smoked man to man, he explained everything.

There was a time in his early youth when under the influence of his family he had been religious, he went to the mosque on Fridays and fasted during the month of Ramadan. Then he had fallen in love with a girl; a while later he had lost his faith; following that, he had become a Marxist. He had felt an emptiness in his soul after these storms had abated, having left there their mark. But when he'd seen the book in a friend's library and read it, “everything had fallen into place.” He now comprehended the place of death in our lives; he had accepted its reality like an undeniable tree in the garden, or a friend in the street; he quit being rebellious. He had comprehended the importance of his childhood. He had learned to remember and love all the little things from the past, like bubble gum and comics, and the proper place in his life for his first love as well as for the first book he had ever read. He had always loved his wild homeland anyway, and those mad and sad buses too. As to the angel, he had understood this miraculous angel's existence through reason and believed it by virtue of his emotions. After all this synthesis, he knew the angel would find him someday, and together they would ascend to the heavens; he would, for example, land a job in Germany.

He had told me all this as if he were explaining to me how to effect a cure by giving me a prescription for bliss. The doctor rose, having assured himself that his patient had understood the prescription, and all that was left for the incurable patient was to see himself to the door. I was just leaving when he said, as if telling me to take the pills after meals, “I always underline as I read; I recommend you do the same.”

I took the first bus going south, Angel, as if I were running away. I told myself never again! I would never again venture to the coast of the Black Sea, adding that Janan and I would have never been happy on the Black Sea, as if there had been such a clear-cut and boldly painted fantasy among my plans involving my future happiness. Dark villages, dark sheep pens, deathless trees, sad filling stations, empty restaurants, silent mountains, and anxious rabbits went through the looking-glass of my window. I told myself I had seen similar things before; in the film that was playing on the screen, it was only long after the nice young man with good intentions discovered he had been badly deceived that he first took the bad guys to task and then turned the gun on them. Before he killed them, he interrogated them one by one, getting them to beg for mercy, considered forgiving them, hesitating long enough to give them the chance to do something treacherous; and it was only after we, the viewers, also decided that the bad guy was a blackguard who deserved to be put out of his misery that gunshots were heard on the screen placed above the driver's seat. That is when I looked out of the window like someone who finds seeing bloodshed and killing distasteful, feeling as if I were hearing the lyrics of a curious song made up of gunshots, the noise of the engine and the tires; and I wondered, Angel, why I had not asked the handsome doctor, when he was prescribing me the book, your identity.

The lyrics went like this: “Doctor, Doctor, give me the news…” Who is the angel? asks the young patient. The angel? says the doctor full of himself, takes a map, spreads it on the table, and as if showing the pitiful patient the X-rays of his hopeless organs, he points out the Mount of Meaning, and the City of the Unique Moment; and if this is the Valley of Naïveté, and this the Point of Accident, then this here has to be Death. Must one love meeting Death, Doctor, as one does the angel?

According to my notes, next on my list of people who had read the book was the local newspaper distributor in the town of Ikizler. Ten minutes after I got off the bus, I saw him sitting in his store in the middle of the shopping district, scratching his thick and short body through his shirt with pleasure—nothing like Janan's lover; being the ready and able detective that I am, I was out of there in ten minutes on the first bus out of town. Two buses and four hours later, my next suspect in the capital of the province put me through even less trouble; there he was in the barber shop right across from the bus terminal, regarding the lucky passengers get off the bus with a deep sadness in his eyes, a dustpan in one hand and a spanking-clean apron in the other, waiting on his boss who was industriously shaving someone. I felt like singing a verse that went through my head, “Come, brother, come with us / let's you and I on the bus / go to a land that's fabulous.” I wanted to push through to the end before my muse left me. So, in the next town which was an hour's ride on the bus, thinking that the unemployed suspect was very suspect indeed, I was forced to inspect the old birdcages, flashlights, scissors, cigarette holders made of rosewood, and oddly enough, gloves, parasols, and a Browning that the heartsick informant had hidden in a dry well in his backyard. This dealer with a broken heart and broken tooth presented me with a Serkisof watch as an insignificant expression of his respect and admiration for Doctor Fine. As he was explaining how he and his three friends met after Friday prayer in the backroom of the pastry shop to discuss the Day of Independence, I reflected that not only the evening but also autumn was suddenly upon us. My mind was overcast with dark and low clouds when a light went on in the house next door, and suddenly among the autumn leaves the honey-colored shoulders of a well-built half-naked woman appeared in the window, only to disappear like a shudder. Following that, I saw black horses galloping through the sky, Angel, and impatient monsters, gas pumps, dreams of bliss, closed movie theaters, other buses, other people, other towns.

Later on that evening, I felt more upbeat than disappointed talking to the cassette tape dealer even after I understood he was not the Mehmet in question, skipping from subject to subject talking about the good cheer his wares provided for people, about the rainy season being over, about the sadness of the town I had come from, when I heard a dolorous train whistle and became anxious. I had to immediately leave this town, which did not have even a name in my memory, and return to the dear velvet night where the bus would take me.

I was walking toward the bus terminal, which was in the direction of the train whistle, when I saw myself in the rearview mirror on a bright and shiny bicycle parked on the sidewalk. There I am, with my concealed gun, my new purple jacket, the Serkisof watch presented for Doctor Fine in the pocket, blue jeans on my legs, my clumsy hands, my fleeting strides; then the shops and windows backed off and were gone, and what I saw in the night was a circus tent which had a picture of an angel over the entrance way. The angel was a hybrid between a Persian miniature and domestic film star, but still, my heart leapt. Not only does this student who cuts his classes smoke, sir, but look how he sneaks into the circus tent!

I bought a ticket and entered the tent, where it smelled of mold, sweat, and earth, sat down and, having decided to take time off from everything, I began to wait along with some crazy conscripts who had failed to return to their squadrons, a few fellows out to kill some time, sad and elderly persons, and a couple of children and their families who seemed to be in the wrong place. This was not like the circuses I saw on television; there were no marvelous trapeze artists, no bears riding bicycles, not even some domestic jugglers. A man pulled off a dirty gray cloth and materialized a radio, which was then levitated to dematerialize into music. We heard a piece of à la turca music, then the young woman who was singing it appeared and sang a second song with her plaintive voice and left. Our tickets were numbered, there would be a drawing, we were to sit patiently; that's what we were told.

The woman who had sung before put in another appearance; this time she was an angel, she had lined the corners of her eyes, which made them appear slanted. She had on a modest two-piece swimsuit like the kind my mother wore to Süreyya Beach. Then around her neck was an odd piece of apparel, something I assumed at first was some sort of a strange shawl until I saw that it was a snake she had wrapped around her neck, flinging the two ends over her delicate shoulders. Was I seeing some sort of unusual light that I had never seen before? Or was I merely anticipating such a light? Or perhaps I was only imagining it. I was so happy to be there in that tent watching the angel and the snake with the other twenty-five people or so, I thought tears would pour out of my eyes.

Later, when the woman was having a conversation with the snake, I thought of something. Sometimes you suddenly remember a distant memory seemingly long forgotten, and you wonder why of all times you're remembering it now and your mind becomes utterly confused; that's how I felt, but it was more a feeling of peace than confusion. One time my father and I were visiting Uncle Rıfkı. “I could live anywhere at all, provided trains go there, even if it is a whistle stop at the end of the world,” he had told us. “I cannot even imagine a life where one cannot hear a train whistle before dropping off to sleep.” I could easily imagine spending the rest of my life here in this town, with these people. Nothing can be worth more than the peace that comes from oblivion. Those are the things I thought as I beheld the angel speaking sweetly to the snake.

The lights went down for a moment, the angel withdrew from the stage. When the lights went up again, it was announced that there would be a ten-minute intermission. I had a mind to go out and mill around with my fellow townspeople with whom I was to spend my whole life.

I was just threading my way among wooden chairs when I saw someone sitting three or four rows from the so-called stage which was nothing more than a rise in the ground, reading the
Viran Bağ Post,
and my heart began to beat wildly. It was
that
Mehmet, Janan's lover, Doctor Fine's son who was presumed dead; he had crossed his legs and, in full possession of the peace I so longed for, he was reading his paper, oblivious to the world.

13

When I stepped outside the tent, a light wind blew into my collar, down my back and then all over my body, giving me goose bumps. My prospective fellow citizens changed into mistrustful enemies. My heart kept beating wildly, I felt the weight of the gun in my belt, and it wasn't just my cigarette I was sending up in smoke but the whole world.

A bell rang, I looked in: still reading his paper. I returned to the tent with the rest of the audience. I sat down three rows directly behind him. The “program” began. I felt dizzy. I don't remember what I saw, what I didn't see, what I heard, what I listened to. My mind was on the back of a neck. It was a clean-shaven humble neck that belonged to a decent human being.

Quite a while later I watched the lottery being drawn from a purple pouch; then the winning number was announced. A toothless old man leapt up on the stage, overjoyed. The angel, who was wearing the same two-piece bathing suit and a bridal veil, congratulated him. Without further ado, the man who sold the tickets showed up with a huge chandelier in his hand.

“My God!” cried the toothless old man. “It's the Pleiades with Seven Branches!”

Listening to the audience in the back shouting their protests, I realized the same man must win the lottery every time, and the chandelier must be the same one that reappeared every evening under its plastic wraps.

The angel had in her hand a cordless microphone, or some sort of fake microphone that did not amplify her voice. “What are your feelings?” she said. “How does it feel to be so lucky? Are you excited?”

“I am very excited, very happy, God bless you!” the old man said to the microphone. “Life is something beautiful. Despite all the troubles and sorrows that abound, I am neither afraid nor ashamed of being so happy.”

A few people applauded him.

“Where are you going to hang your chandelier?” asked the angel.

“This was a stroke of fortune,” said the old man, leaning over the microphone as if it were viable. “I am in love. Also my fiancée loves me very much. We will soon get married and move into our new house. That's where we will hang this piece with seven branches.”

Some applause was offered. Then I heard shouts of “Kiss, kiss.”

Everyone fell silent when the angel bussed the old man on the cheeks. The old man took advantage of the silence and slipped away carrying the chandelier.

“But the rest of us never win anything!” said an angry voice in the back.

“Quiet!” said the angel. “Now listen to me.” The same odd silence that had ensued during the kiss again fell over the audience. “Your lucky number too will come up one of these days, don't you forget it! Your hour of happiness will also strike,” the angel said. “Do not become impatient, do not be cross with your life, cease and desist envying others! If you learn to love your life, you will know the course of action you are to take for your happiness. Whether you have lost your way or not, you will see me then.” She raised one eyebrow seductively. “After all, the Angel of Desire is here every evening, here in the charming town of Viran Bağ!”

The magical lighting that illuminated her went down. A naked light bulb lit up. Keeping a distance between myself and my quarry, I left with the crowd. The wind had risen. I looked left and right; there was a bottleneck up ahead, so I found myself standing a couple of steps behind him.

“How was it, Osman? Did you enjoy it?” said a man who was wearing a melon hat.

“Oh, so-so,” said he. He sped along, his newspaper tucked under his arm.

Why had I never considered the possibility that he would resign his identity as Mehmet just as he had fled from being Nahit? And what about this particular name he'd adopted for his new pseudonym? If I could have considered it, would I have considered it? I didn't even consider it. I stayed behind, waiting for him to put some distance between us. I took pains studying his lean body with a slight stoop. Yes, this was the guy all right, the one with whom my Janan was madly in love. I began to follow him.