The Gaze (32 page)

Madame de Marelle hesitated. She felt that she could get the lock open if she tried a bit more. She was curious about this young man and his famous beauty. She wanted to see. She stood silent for a moment, holding her hair-clip. As the old maid watched her anxiously to try to see what she was going to do, she stood looking at the box as if she was spellbound. Then, suddenly, whatever it was that passed through her mind, she let go of the box. She’d changed her mind about opening the box. She already had too much else to do, and didn’t want to linger in that unpleasant room.

Then take it out of my sight,’ she said, gathering up her hair and rearranging it into the bun she always wore. When she finished arranging her hair, she left the room wearing a stern expression on her face.

‘You’re right, ma’am. It’s not always necessary to see everything. Some things should remain kept out of sight!’ murmured the old servant behind her. She seemed reassured.

In time, Madame de Marelle forgot this incident. She was never curious about the figure of this young man who turned heads and caused suffering, and she never saw it. She gave birth to rusty-haired coloured children. She raised rusty-haired children. As the new names echoed through the mansion, and the branches of the family tree grew heavier, the name La Belle Annabelle was never encountered.

If Madame de Marelle had insisted on seeing what she shouldn’t see, this sin would in the future result in Annabelle being surrounded by people who wanted to see her terrible beauty. But because the box had never been opened, nothing like this happened. La Belle Annabelle was never born. There was never such a person. She didn’t exist. There was never a figure, no matter how beautiful it was, that lived simply in order to be looked at. Even the most beautiful of the beautiful, the most beautiful
jinn
of the poisonous yew forest had the right to remain far out of sight. Without her, the spectators in the cherry-coloured tent had no need to open their eyes wider and wider. Two never was. One number was missing.

   ‘ONE!’

Timofei Ankidinov couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw that huge sable go into the basket and disappear. He left the sailor who was in danger of freezing on the sled, and started circling the basket in curiosity.

‘Perhaps it would be better if you didn’t look. It could be a trap for hunters. Or a Siberian curse!’ said the sailor from where he was lying. He was quite the man for groundless beliefs. He’d witnessed so much in Siberia that his mind couldn’t grasp, and he was wary of the natives of this land.

Timofei Ankidinov hesitated. When he lifted the lid of the basket, that huge sable’s valuable fur would be his. Who knew, perhaps there were lots of sables at least as big as this one under the basket. Indeed he might even have found a way that led to Pogicha. If that was so, he’d return to his home with a fortune large enough to buy everyone. He stood there holding his dagger. As the sailor watched him anxiously to try to see what he was going to do, he was looking at the basket as if he was spellbound. But suddenly, whatever it was that went through his mind, he took a step backward. He’d changed his mind. He wasn’t going to open the basket, he wasn’t going to look inside. Indeed he already found the place spooky enough, and didn’t want to linger.

‘If that’s the case, let’s leave right away.’ He said. He sheathed his dagger, and went to the front of the sled.

As they set off again the sailor whispered in a low but self-assured voice, ‘You’re right, let’s go. It’s not necessary to see everything. It’s better that some things remain well out of sight!’

As the two men moved off into the distance, two souls were about to unite inside the basket. A while later, the basket opened of its own accord. The beardless youth emerged having taken part of the sable’s soul and having added part of his soul to the sable’s. He was now the tribe’s shaman. Until the moment of his death, whenever he remembered that day, he’d remember that, for reasons unknown to him, he’d felt a terrible fear of being seen; he would never take the talismanic power of eyes lightly. He and his descendants lived for centuries and centuries, until the despicable races that chewed up Siberia had dried up. In the family tree of the shamans, which had its roots in the sky and its branches in the ground, the name Sable-Girl never appeared.

If Timofei Ankidinov had insisted on seeing what he shouldn’t see, this sin would in the future result in the Sable-Girl being surrounded by people who wanted to see terrible ugliness. But because he didn’t open the box, nothing like this happened. The Sable-Girl was never born. There was never anyone like that. She never existed. There was never a figure, no matter how ugly she was, who lived simply in order to be looked at. Even the ugliest of the ugly, the most wretched, plagued creature had the right to remain far out of sight. Without her, the spectators in the cherry-coloured tent had no need to close their eyes so tight. One never was. The number One was missing.

Keramet Mumî Keşke Memiş Efendi ran up to the westward-facing door of the cherry-coloured tent. He was out of breath. He looked everywhere. The Sable-Girl wasn’t there. He stopped for a moment to try to think where she might have gone, but at the same moment a worse suspicion was aroused. He ran to the eastward-facing section of the tent. He looked everywhere, searched every corner. What he’d feared had come to pass. La Belle Annabelle was also missing.

That day, he didn’t say anything to anyone until evening about his two most popular actresses having run off. He didn’t say anything, but in any event the truth would soon come out. And when the truth came out, he was going to have to give up this enterprise. Without the most beautiful of the beautiful and the most ugly of the ugly, it wouldn’t be possible to keep the cherry-coloured tent going for even a single day.

Did this grieve him? No one could tell whether or not he was grieved. As always, his eyes were a curtain of mystery. But surely he wasn’t all that grieved? In any event he wasn’t going to remain in his present form. Time was endless, and space was limitless. Surely one day he would melt; he would melt, and solidify again, solidify and then melt again. In any event he would return to this world at another time, much much later but very soon, and in another place, very very far away but just here.

In any event…one more…and one more…

   ‘ZERO!’

‘Open the door!’

They’re banging on the door. I have to get up and open the door but I’m too weak, much too weak. I can’t move. And it’s not as if I’ve suddenly stopped and frozen to the spot either, but I am completely motionless for perhaps the first time in my life, and can’t move. I am like gelatine. I am in a dense fog. Sometimes I close my eyes, sometimes I open them. It doesn’t make any difference either way. The eye doesn’t see here.

‘What are you waiting for. She’s not opening the door. Break the door down. Break it down!’

This voice sounds familiar. It must be one of the neighbours. Which one, I wonder? What did they cook for us this time, what are they bringing us? Is it
börek
or is it a sweet, is it
pilaff
or is it dumplings…I can’t make out which of the neighbour-ladies is shouting.

The door breaks with a terrible cracking sound. With the breaking of the door, an uncountable number of neighbour-ladies rush in, pushing and shoving each other and uttering bloodcurdling screams, and jump on top of me.

At the same moment I start rising into the air.

I was so inflated with gas that I was as round as a ball. In this state I look like a huge Zero; the fattest of all numbers, the only number lighter than air. I was pleased. Since I’d counted my way to Zero, since I’d become Zero by no longer existing, I could comfortably rise into the sky and above the clouds.

At first my feet rise only a few inches above the ground. Later I rise further, and approach the ceiling. I open and close my arms and legs as if I’m swimming. By doing this, and moving to the left and right, I’m able to shake off the neighbour-ladies’ hands. They don’t stop screaming for a moment. Struggling not to loose my balance, I approach the door to the terrace. Since my feet didn’t touch B-C’s rocking chair, I must be quite high up in the air. At that moment I see the cat. It’s looking at me from below, with all of the fur on its back standing on end. I wave to it. It hisses at me. The door to the terrace is wide open as usual. I swish through the curtains, which were blowing back and forth gently like the curtains in films about haunted houses, and go out into the open air. I’m leaving the house, in a way that I’ve never left the house before.

I’m level with the roof of the Hayalifener Apartments now. My feet are swinging back and forth in the emptiness. I’m looking at the people climbing up the hill and the people descending the hill. I’m looking at those who slide on the ice and roll down into the flames. As I rise, I see first the hill, then the whole neighbourhood, then the entire city. And the city is completely different when you look at it from above like this. The neighbourhoods spread out fibrously like boiled chicken, the apartment buildings are layered like pastry, the people are like grains of badly cooked rice that stubbornly refuse to stick to each other. As I look at the city I realise that I’m not the least bit hungry. My stomach is so full that I suspect I might not be alive.

From the sky I look down on the tombs of saints, the crosses on pale-faced churches, fountains in peaceful courtyards, wooden houses under whose eaves demons chat at night, street dogs who rush at strangers like thirsty jackals, the people who comb through the garbage for food. I look down on the city that collapsed under the weight of the bolts with which she blocked the door against the possibility of her heart being stolen in the nonchalance of the night, thus causing herself to become more introverted. To my eyes, the city looks like a bird’s nest made of twigs and straw. There are millions of newborn chicks in it; and they’re all so hungry. They cry out at the tops of their voices to a mother they’ve never seen because their eyes have not yet opened. The worms that are stuffed down their pink beaks only serve to stop their endless chirping for a brief moment. Every night the city is drawn to this shrewish hunger. And it is never satisfied.

This city has an East and a West. But once a person rises into the air and sees it from above, this compass breaks. There remains neither East nor West. For me now there’s only below and above. Because I…

…have finally become a floating balloon.

I’m a floating balloon filled with gas. And like every floating balloon, I’m floating in the eyes of a lonely-child. Lonely-children, unlike other children, often turn their eyes inward. When they’re not looking into themselves, they usually either have their heads down and are looking at the ground, or else are lying on their backs looking at the sky. For this reason, they’re the first ones to notice me. As I swing in the sky, the lonely-children in the various corners of the earth will stop what they’re doing and watch me with fixed eyes. Perhaps at the very first moment they see me, they don’t think there could be lonely-children other than themselves who are watching me at the same moment. Let them think so. A floating balloon is a show seen by an audience of one. In time she’ll learn why this is so.

Yes, it is learnt of in time. Because a lonely-child is so surprised and excited the first time she sees a floating balloon, she’ll want to show it to someone else at once. She’ll think she can break free of her loneliness by showing someone else this beauty she’s discovered by herself. She’ll either go home and call someone outside, or pull her mother by the arm, or shout to the children nearby. At first the others won’t understand what the lonely-child is saying; then, they’ll look at where she’s pointing. But they won’t see anything there. Because the floating balloon has long since floated away. It’s not there. It’s not as if it had been there and was gone; it was as if it had never existed. The people the lonely-child has called to see the floating balloon will laugh half bashfully and half angrily. She’s understood. She’s understood that if you take your eyes off a floating balloon, it won’t be where you left it when you look back. This means that, just at the moment you took your eyes off it, the floating balloon ceased to exist at the point you left it. Because it exists when it’s seen, but ceases to exist when it isn’t seen.

The next time the lonely-child sees a floating balloon, she won’t try to show anyone else. She’s grown up after all; enough to see that in this world, anything she discovered alone wouldn’t free her from loneliness. From now on she’ll keep her secrets to herself. The next time, she’ll hold her breath, and won’t take her eyes off the balloon as she watches it rise. Her heart will soar. She won’t tell anyone what she’s seen. Because the rise of the balloon addresses only the eye; it is seeing and being seen. Putting it into words wears it out; virtually any word that tries to describe it will be inadequate. As if it’s not a balloon, but a silent promise that’s floating in the sky. The balloon floats, the child watches; the child watches, the balloon floats. Then, the balloon passes through the sky’s satin gate. It disappears. The lonely-child is disappointed. Because she didn’t take her eyes off it for a single moment; she hadn’t let go of the imaginary string. The floating balloon has still gone. Not because it was invisible, but that in its visible state it had become lost to the eye. Then the lonely-child realises something else. She understands that time is forever chasing its own end. For this reason, every balloon explodes in the end, and every secret gives itself away.