The Gaze (13 page)
cadi
(witch): Before roasting Hansel in the oven, the witch wanted to be certain he’d been fattened enough. Every morning she inspected the child’s index finger. But the finger was always bony and thin. Because Hansel was tricking the witch by showing her a twig instead of his finger. Since the witch couldn’t see well, she never managed to eat Hansel.
B-C was winding his finger through his corn-coloured wig, and watching us with a smile that froze my blood.
Just as we were about to start fighting, the man and I both stopped to look carefully at what kind of lady we were risking injury for. And both of us decided at the same moment not to drag the matter out. In a hoarse voice I told him to get lost. He made a short speech about not stirring up trouble. We started to back away, without neglecting to give each other dirty looks, until we both bumped into the same invisible wall.
camera obscura
: An instrument that reverses images.
I began to feel my way along the invisible wall that enclosed me. When I’d made it half way around the circle, I found myself nose to nose with the round-faced man. As far as I could understand, he too had been feeling his way along the wall, and had made it half way around the circle. This way, when we met again we’d both have completed the invisible circle. A crowd had gathered around us. We were surrounded by eyes that had flocked around to watch a fight. It was then that I understood that the flame of every street fight is fanned by the eyes that gather around to watch it. Every street fight is caused by spectators.
cemal
: Beauty. A beautiful face. In Sufism, a manifestation of God in the form of goodness and beauty.
I landed my first punch in his stomach. He doubled over and fell to the ground. I didn’t think he’d be able to pull himself together quickly, but I was wrong. It was clear he wasn’t as inexperienced as I was. He threw his first punch at my nose. My eyes went dark. I tasted warm blood. B-C, who’d been left on the other side of the invisible circle, started to scream like mad when he saw the blood. The invisible circle was a boundary. We, the fighters, couldn’t get out, and no one from outside could come in to help. B-C, with tears in his eyes, was trying to climb the invisible wall that separated us, struggling to reach me.
At that moment something unexpected happened. First, the crowd began to exchange meaningful smiles. Then, just to make the fight more colourful, they opened a door in the invisible wall to let B-C through. As if in a dream, I saw B-C dive through the gap with a blood-curdling scream, jump on me, cover me with kisses, then furiously begin destroying his pea-green, snake-skin bag on the round-faced man’s head. The rest was a blur.
cennet-cehennem
(heaven and hell): The eyes of those who have suffered their punishment in hell and have then been accepted in heaven must forget what they have seen there before they can enter.
They took hold of my arms and helped me get up. I didn’t have the strength to stand on my feet. I looked at B-C, and saw that his tears had made tracks through the thick rouge on his cheeks. In front of everyone, his eyes shone with pleasure at my having fought for him. We sat on some empty crates outside a grocery store. For a while, we didn’t talk. As people started to drift away in ones and twos, B-C began to kiss my bruises softly with his cherry-coloured lipstick. ‘Bruised cherries,’ I whispered. We embraced each other, and swore once again that we would never hurt each other. I was filled with peace. The wind was blowing bruised cherry, I was aching with bruised cherry, my lover was kissing bruised cherry.
ceviz asaci
(walnut tree): The walnut tree records everything it sees in the shells of its walnuts. That’s why no one wants to make love under this tree.
When we left with our arms around each other, I thought we would take the shortest route back to the Hayalifener Apartments. But B-C dragged me into the first bar we passed. It was gloomy inside. B-C sat at the bar knocking back one beer after another; I couldn’t do anything except retreat into a corner, lean my head back, and wait for the blood to clot. When I did this, I couldn’t see B-C. As long as I couldn’t see him, I was terrified.
As I grew frightened, I grew hungry.
cin
(
jinn
): According to the Holy Koran,
jinns
were created a thousand years before Adam.
Jinns
made of black clay are visible to the human eye, but
jinns
made of smokeless fire are invisible. There are many types and categories of
jinn
. Some among them can cause madness.
As we sat at the nearest
gözleme
place, waiting for the waiter to bring our spinach
gözleme
, I did the best I could to behave well towards B-C. It was clear that I couldn’t tolerate a second fight that night. Though he didn’t seem to notice how tense I was. He was frightfully drunk. He was provoking passers-by, talking nonstop about things I didn’t understand at all, and laughing loudly at his own words. Everyone’s eyes were on us. This wasn’t my idea of going out in disguise.
çekirdek
(seed): Tired after travelling a long way over hills and valleys, a traveller stopped to rest under a plane tree. He had olives and bread in his bundle. As he was eating, just for fun, he started spitting the olive seeds as far as he could.
A giant approached with enormous steps. He shook his fist and shouted, ‘Just now one of the olive seeds you flung killed my son. You’ve murdered my only son.’
The traveller was bewildered. ‘How could that be? It’s impossible. Think about it. What’s a tiny little seed next to a huge giant?’ The giant was confused. In order to understand whether or not the traveller was in the right, he started looking at one of the olive seeds that had fallen to the ground. He looked and looked…he looked day and night, through sun and rain, over seasons. He went away, then came back and looked again.
A long time later the giant roared, ‘Ah, so, what’s a tiny little seed next to a huge giant, ha? Before long I was going to start believing this lie.’
The giant thought it was just for the traveller, who somehow couldn’t convince the angry giant of the difference between looking at a seed ‘now’ and ‘looking at it years later’, to bow his head for his punishment under the olive tree that was growing next to the plane tree.
‘Why are you so uncomfortable, sugar? Or does it frighten you that everyone’s looking at us?’ B-C asked ill-temperedly. And then, jumping to his feet, he continued talking in a voice that everyone could hear, knowing that everyone was watching him.
‘Of course. Within the four walls of home you want us to be playful and flirtatious, even whorish, but as soon as we step outside you want us to be demure and proper little ladies. You have no idea that when you’re playing with our appearance you’re playing with our pride. Aren’t you men? You’re all the same. If we went out and did a tenth of what you want us to do at home, you’d cry for blood immediately. Am I lying? Enough! I object to the splitting of my personality.’
If only the earth had opened and swallowed me up, or one of the bus-boys had showed me a secret passage under the table through which I could slip away, or my corset had burst and me and my warmly dripping fat had been flung for miles, if only I could immediately have disappeared forever. By now everyone in the place must have stopped whatever they were doing and were waiting to see what my reaction would be. For my part, I couldn’t take my eyes off the stains on the edge of the plate, full of warm spinach
gözleme
, that the waiter had just brought.
Dabbetülarz
: The animal that will emerge from the earth on the Day of Judgement. It has the head of a bull, the ears of an elephant, the legs of a camel and the tail of a hyena. It will paint the faces of the believers white, and the faces of the unbelievers black. The good and the evil will be known by the colour of their faces.
When we finally returned to the Hayalifener Apartments at the end of that long night, B-C couldn’t wait for me to open the door. And wouldn’t you know it, the key got stuck in the lock. While I was struggling with the door, he suddenly threw back his head and made a sound as if he was choking. Just in time I realised what the sound meant, and was able to get out of the way. He vomited all over the walls, the corridor, and his boiled-corn coloured wig. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, he went and vomited on the neighbour-lady’s doormat. I was hurrying so much I was shaking. In any event, the key didn’t give me any more trouble, and the door opened.
As the door opened, B-C pushed me aside and rushed inside in one motion. Just in front of the bathroom he lost his balance and fell noisily off his lofty high-heels. He was so drunk he wasn’t even aware he’d hurt himself.
Efî
: The female viper Efî first lost the eyes with which she saw. Later, when she encountered the Razyanc tree, she lost her blindness. (Research: The dried heart of Efî, who first lost the eyes with which she saw, and then lost the eyes with which she didn’t see, is considered a talisman against any kind of spell.)
When he came out of the toilet he looked terrible. He’d returned to his former height, he’d smeared cherry-coloured lipstick all over himself, all of his make-up had run and mixed together, his fish-net stockings had run from top to bottom, the hair that had been plastered under the wig was sticking out strand by strand, and the eyes that had been so fiery and alive all night seemed wrapped in a sad silence. He stood before me with his oversized hands clasped together and wearing a pouting expression. It was clear he was going to be very ashamed of himself, if he had the strength to be ashamed.
Elsa’nin gözleri
(Elsa’s eyes): Elsa’s eyes are the residue of sadness. Poets sift through the sadness, and children through the residue.
As he threw himself onto the bed he whispered sadly.
‘I wouldn’t have wanted you to see me this way. In this state…’
But it pleased me a great deal to see him in this state. To tell the truth, it was quite pleasant to see him in this wretched and disgraceful state, because he always seemed to know what he was doing, and took everything seriously, and wore himself out thinking deeply about every problem, and could always guess everyone’s story, and so get a fix on their weaknesses, and succeeded and behaved towards everyone, people he knew as well as people he didn’t know, with an authority that someone with his small frame might not have hoped for.
fal
(fortune-telling): Every method of fortune-telling wishes to see the future. It’s not enough just to see, one has to make others believe one can see. (Example: Apollo gave Cassandra the ability to tell fortunes. But when Cassandra turned down his proposal of marriage, Apollo punished her by ‘making others disbelieve what she saw.’)
In the morning when I was getting ready for work, I looked and saw that he was up, sullenly making coffee. We came face to face.
‘Tell your eyes to forget what you saw last night,’ he said half-jokingly.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘They won’t forget.’
‘Anything?’ he asked in an annoyed tone.
‘Anything,’ I said, not knowing why I was resisting him this way.
‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘They’ll forget.’
Fames
: Fames, the god of hunger, lived in a land of boundless appetite covered by inedible plants, razor-like ridges of ice and never-melting snow. He was so thin, so very thin, that from a distance he resembled a heap of bones. From his lips, bitten to shreds and blue with cold, emerged the names of the foods of which he dreamed: The agony of hunger could be read in the sharp glances of his lustreless, blackened eyes. His face was yellow and wizened, and his skin was dried out. His fingers were very thin from being sucked on. From time to time he started to eat himself, and had teeth marks all over him.
Fames’ breath smelled worse than rotten eggs. Whoever smelled it once would hence remain hungry. Whoever was poisoned by Fames’ breath would remain unsated no matter how much he ate. Hunger ate at them even as they ate their food. Because it wasn’t their stomachs that could not be filled, but their eyes.
I felt distressed as soon as I left the Hayalifener Apartments. I wanted to go back home and not go out for the rest of the day. The hill seemed steeper than ever, and the route more complicated than ever. The easiest thing to do would be to take a taxi, but I can’t be taking taxis every day. To think about wheezing up the steep steps of the bus at this hour of the morning, to make my way down the crowded aisle and push and shove to make room for myself, to think about the eyes that would be watching me the whole way, made my feet want to turn and go back home. There was a minibus route between the Hayalifener Apartments and the nursery school; but minibuses were the worst of all.
When I forced myself to walk again, terrible wheezing sounds emerged from my chest. With every step I felt how chapped my legs were, and I had to stop frequently. I was accustomed to this much. Movement has always been difficult for me. But now, moving in order to do something I didn’t want to do, it was not just my body that resisted, but also my soul. As I struggled up the hill, passers-by gave me worried looks.
fotosraf albümleri
(photograph albums): Photograph albums are taken out of the closet at regular intervals to remind the eye only of the good things it has seen. Each time, it will examine the photographs with curiosity, as if it were seeing them for the first time; with curiosity and in strict order: infancy, childhood, youth, marriage, infancy, childhood, youth…
When I reached the top of the hill drenched in sweat, I stopped to catch my breath. I’d made a very definite decision. I couldn’t go on like this.
I was going to go on a diet.
‘Open Your Eyes!’
Pera — 1885
After the evening call to prayer, the eastward-facing door of the cherry-coloured tent was opened for men.
At that moment the men, who acted as if they wanted to prove that they were there by coincidence, and had come to the tent not out of curiosity but to see what everyone else was curious about, wearing indifferent expressions as if they were just going to take a quick look and leave, entered the eastward-facing door of the cherry-coloured tent with casual steps. The men’s section of the tent had been set aside for them. It didn’t matter what nation they were from, what language they spoke or what religion they believed in; it was sufficient that they were men. And also that they arrive one by one. Keramet Mumî Keşke Memiş Efendi had laid down this condition: every man had to come here by himself.