Silent House (30 page)

I turned over and looked at the floor from the edge of the bed; the ant had disappeared. When did you get away? The sun was higher in the sky. Seeing I was late, I bolted out of bed. I stopped to get something to eat in the kitchen and then went out the window without anybody seeing me. The birds were in the branches again. Tahsin’s family was lining up their cherry baskets on the edge of the road that goes up the hill. By the time I got to the beach, the guard and the ticket guy had come, but Nilgün still wasn’t there. So I went over by the breakwater and looked at the yachts and feeling very sleepy still, I sat down.

I’ll call her up in a little while, I thought: Hello, Nilgün, listen, you are in danger, don’t come to the beach or the store today, I’ll say, in fact, don’t leave the house from now on. Who’s this? An old friend! Then I’ll hang up on her abruptly! Will she guess who it is? Will she understand that I love her, and only want to protect her from danger?

If there’s one thing I know, it’s that we have to be respectful toward women, we can’t just be ripping newspapers out of their hand and tearing them up!
Woman is a pitiful creature, it’s not right to treat her badly. My mother, for example, is such a good woman! I don’t like people who show them disrespect, guys who only think about going to bed with them, rich guys and materialistic bastards. I know that with women you have to show that you are polite and gentle: How are you, please—after you, if you’re walking with a woman your feet should slow down by themselves at just the sight of a door, and without even thinking, your hand should reach out to open it for her, Please allow me, I know how to talk to ladies and girls. You want to smoke like us, even on the street? Fine, you can smoke, it’s your right, too, I’m not some backward, I can swoop in to light your cigarette
with my locomotive-shaped lighter and talk to you with ease, just as I would with a man or a classmate, perfectly comfortable, if I want, if I just make a little effort, I wouldn’t even blush or stammer, and then they’ll see what kind of a person I am, they’ll be surprised and embarrassed that they had got me all wrong … can you imagine? Grabbing the paper and ripping it up! Maybe Mustafa wasn’t serious.

I got fed up looking at the sea and the yachts, so I headed back to the beach. Mustafa must have said it just as a joke, because, after all, Mustafa knows that you can’t treat girls badly. I did it to test you, Mustafa will say, to see if you’d learned that discipline means absolute obedience! There’s no need to mistreat that girl you love, Hasan!

When I got to the beach I saw that Nilgün was there and was stretched out like always. I was so sleepy that I didn’t even get excited. I looked at her like I was looking at a statue. Then I sat down, Nilgün, I’m waiting for you.

And maybe Mustafa won’t even come, he might have forgotten the whole thing, or decided it was so unimportant, he’d just stay in bed. The crowd was racing to the beach: cars from Istanbul, mothers, fathers, and children with baskets and beach balls.

I thought, Maybe I just won’t do it. I’m not that kind of person! But then they’ll say that he couldn’t even get the newspaper out of the Communist girl’s hand, let alone rip it up! They may even say, Well, he used to be an nationalist, but now he’s a Communist; watch out for that Hasan Karatas from Cennethisar, don’t let him in your group! But I’m not afraid of being isolated, I’ll do big things on my own, they’ll see.

“Hey! Wake up, man!”

I was startled. It was Mustafa. I got right up.

“Did the girl come?” he said.

“Over there,” I said. “With the blue bathing suit.”

“The one reading the book?” he said, giving you a dirty look, Nilgün. “You know what to do!” he said then. “Which shop is it?”

I showed him, then I asked for a cigarette, which he gave me,
before going off a little ways to a spot where he would watch and wait.

I lit the cigarette, and as I started waiting, too, my eyes were fixed on the burning tip: I’m not an idiot, Nilgün, I’ll say, I have strong convictions, last night we were out writing slogans on the walls despite the danger, see, I still have paint on my hands!

“Ah, you’re smoking cigarettes. It’s bad for you. You’re so young.”

Uncle Recep, carrying his string bags.

“It’s the first time,” I said.

“Throw it away, and go back home, son!” he said. “What are you up to around here again?”

I threw the cigarette away just to get rid of him. “I have a friend I’m going to study with, I’m waiting for him,” I said. And I didn’t ask him for money.

“Your father’s coming to the funeral, isn’t he?” he said.

He stood there for a minute, then went off, swaying in a weird way, like single horse pulling a wagon uphill:
tick-tack, tick-tack
.

A little later I looked in Nilgün’s direction. She was getting out of the water and coming this way. I went to tell Mustafa.

“I’m going to the shop,” he said, “If she buys
Cumhuriyet
as you said, I’ll come outside first and cough. You know what to do then, right?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Pay attention; I’ll give you the signal!” he said and went off.

I slipped into the side street and waited. Mustafa went into the shop. A little later, you went in, Nilgün. I got all nervous, so I decided, Let me tie my sneaker laces a little tighter, and as I did I realized my hands were trembling.

First Mustafa came out, looked my way, and coughed. Then Nilgün came out, the newspaper in her hand. I started to follow her. She was really walking quickly, her feet touching the ground the way a sparrow hops along before taking flight: If you think you can confuse me with those beautiful legs you’re mistaken. We moved away
from the crowd. I looked back, there was no one but Mustafa. When I got close, Nilgün heard me coming and turned around.

“Hello, Nilgün!” I said.

“Hello,” she said, before she turned and continued on.

“Just a minute!” I said. “Can we talk a little?”

She kept on walking as if she hadn’t heard. I ran after her. “Stop!” I said. “Why won’t you talk to me?” No reply. “Or have you done something wrong that you’re ashamed of?” No answer still, she kept on walking. “Can’t we talk like two civilized people?” Still no answer. “Or don’t you even recognize me, Nilgün?”

When she starts to walk faster, I realize that there’s no point shouting after her, so I run up beside her. Now we’re walking together like two friends, and I’m talking.

“Why are you running away?” I’m saying. “What did I do to you?” She’s silent. “Did I do something wrong? Tell me.” She doesn’t say anything. “Tell me why you won’t even open your mouth?” She still doesn’t say anything. “Fine,” I say. “I know why you won’t talk, should I tell you?” She doesn’t say anything, and now I’m getting mad. “You have a low opinion of me, don’t you?” I said. “You take me for some who-knows-what! But you’re wrong, girl, you’re wrong, and now you’re going to understand why!”

I said that, but I didn’t do anything, because I felt so ashamed I could have screamed. Just then, I saw those two fancy young gentlemen coming along the other way.

I was waiting, hoping that these two snobs wearing jackets and ties in this heat wouldn’t get involved in our business. I drew back a little, so that they wouldn’t get the wrong idea, and when I looked again Nilgün was practically running. Since her house was off the next corner, I started to run too. Behind me, Mustafa started running, too. When I turned the corner there was Nilgün, arm in arm with the dwarf and the string bag dangling from his side. I stopped behind them, frozen.

Mustafa caught up. “Coward,” he said. “I’ll show you.”

“No!” I said. “Tomorrow! I’ll show them!”

“Tomorrow, huh?”

At that moment I thought, What if I just take a swing at Mustafa? He’d be lying there, knocked out. Then he’d see I’m no coward. I don’t like anybody assuming they’ve got me figured out. I am a completely different guy from what you think, do you understand this? Once these fists start flying, I’m not me anymore; I get so angry that it’s like stepping outside of myself and standing there watching all this anger, and then even I’m afraid of this other person. I guess Mustafa understood, because he couldn’t say anything, because he understood. So we walked on in silence. Because you understood that otherwise you’d be sorry, too, didn’t you?

In the shop, there was only the shopkeeper. When we asked for
Cumhuriyet
, he thought I meant we wanted one copy, so he gave it to me, but when I said we want all of them, he understood, and because, like Mustafa, he was afraid of me, he let us have them. There was no sign of a garbage can. So after I ripped up the papers I just scattered them around, wherever. I also pulled down the pictures of naked women the shopkeeper had in the window and ripped them up too, the sickening weekly porno magazines. So, it seems I’m the one who has to clean up all this filth! Even Mustafa was surprised by my anger.

“Fine, okay, okay, that’s enough now!” he was saying. He got me out of the shop. “Come to the coffeehouse this evening!” he said. “And be here again tomorrow morning.”

I didn’t answer at first. But as he was going off I asked him for a cigarette. He gave it to me.

23

Fatma Refuses to Live with Sin

A
fter Recep took away my breakfast tray, he went to the market. When he came back he had someone with him. I realized from the footsteps, light as a feather, that it was Nilgün. She came upstairs, opened my door, and had a look at me: her hair was damp, she had gone swimming in the sea. After she left nobody else stopped by my room until noon. I could barely hear Faruk and Nilgün talking downstairs over all the noise coming from the beach. That’s the paradise on earth you wanted, Selâhattin. I got up to close my windows and shutters and then waited to have my lunch so I could drift off into my afternoon nap. But Recep, who had gone to some fisherman’s funeral, was late to bring it, and I had no wish to go downstairs. Finally he did come with my tray and shut my door behind him.

The afternoon nap, my mother used to say, is the best of all kinds of sleep. One has the best dreams after eating lunch. Yes. I would perspire a little at first and then relax until I felt light as a swallow. Afterward, we’d open the window to let out the stale air and let the fresh air in, together with the green branches of the trees in the garden in Nisantasi, and also to let my dreams escape, because I used to
believe that my dreams continued on without me from wherever I left off with them. Maybe the same thing happens when we die, my thoughts floating around the room, inside the furniture, between the shutters closed tight, swirling around and brushing against my table and bed, over the walls and the ceiling, so that somebody slowly cracking open the door would think they saw the shadows of my memories: Shut the door, I don’t want my memories tainted, don’t poison them, just let my thoughts float in here like angels until Judgment Day, beneath my ceiling, in the hush of this house. But I knew what they’d do after I died: one of them, the littlest, actually, let it slip from his mouth once. This place has gotten so old, Grandmother, said Metin one time when he was eager to sin, let’s have it knocked down, let’s build an apartment house in its place.

You have to get beyond that ridiculous prohibition called sin, as I have, Selâhattin used to say, have some
raki
with me, just a sip, aren’t you at all curious, it does no harm, on the contrary it’s useful, it stimulates the mind. God forbid! Fine, then just say it for me once, Fatma, that’s all, and let the sin be on your husband, just say, “There is no God,” say it, Fatma, come on. God forbid! Fine, then listen to this, the most important article in my encyclopedia: listen, I’ve just finished it in the new script. From the article on
bilgi
—knowledge—under the letter
B
in the Latin alphabet, listen:
The source of all knowledge is experimentation … nothing that is unproven by experimentation or that cannot be proved by experimentation can be deemed valid …
Here is the crux of all our scientific knowledge, this sentence, in an instant it lays aside the whole problem of the existence of God, because this is a problem that cannot be proven by experimentation, the ontological proof is merely so much scholastic blather, divinity is a concept only for metaphysicians to play with, there is, I’m afraid, no place for God in the world of apples and pears and Fatmas … ha, ha, ha! Do you understand, Fatma, your God is no more! I don’t have the patience to wait until my encyclopedia is finished, I’ve made an inquiry with an Armenian printer, I’m going to have this article published right away on its own. And I’m calling Avram the jeweler again, for the same
reason: I can’t have the progress of knowledge subject to your possessive girlish whims, you’ll have to give me a nice piece from your box, I swear, atheism and secularism will do the whole country good, and if those idiotic fanatics try to stop my article from being sold, I’ll just go among the crowd at Sirkeci train station and hand it out to people myself. You’ll see, they’ll take it gratefully! Because I’ve spent years sifting through French books for these pearls and writing them in a language my people can understand. So you see, Fatma, what I’m really burning to know is not whether they’ll read it, what I can’t wait to see is what they’ll be like after they’ve read it!