Bliss: A Novel (27 page)

“Cemal,” said Meryem, the courage and determination in her voice startling even herself. “Cemal, I have one last wish to ask you, for the sake of the times we shared together in the past. Please blindfold me. I don’t want to see the rocks when I fall. Please, I beg you, blindfold me.” Her words ended with a hiccup and a sob.

Cemal did not answer, but then she heard the sound of his feet approaching over the loose gravel as he drew near, loosened her scarf, and tightly blindfolded her with it. Finally, he knotted its ends at the back of her head. She shuddered when she felt Cemal’s warm breath on her bare neck. The scarf hurt her eyes, but she felt better now that she could not see the world around her. She began to sway backward and forward as though she were about to fall.

The tranquillity that had enveloped Meryem when talking to Cemal a few minutes ago was replaced by the agitated beating of her heart and a ringing in her ears. Her breath came in pants, and the blood rushed to her head. Terror was like a bird flapping its wings inside her chest. All she could hear was the ringing in her ears. The entire city of Istanbul was buried in silence.

Meryem tried to think of all the good people in her life. She tried to picture her mother’s face, yet she could do no more than imagine a vague white shadow standing with a lamp in her hand at the door of her bedroom at the top of their house. She had never been able to imagine her mother any differently.

Then she tried to think of Bibi. She remembered the hurt look in the old woman’s eyes and how she had begged her forgiveness.

Meryem realized that thinking of people who had never harmed her increased her fear, whereas thinking about Döne or her aunt aroused her anger. She could not help remembering the hens lying on the ground with broken legs and bloody wings.

As Meryem lost herself in her memories, Cemal was preparing to shove her over the edge. It was then that he saw a single transparent bead of perspiration, as if her mortal fear had condensed into a single drop, trickling down her delicate neck. “She’s afraid to die,” he thought. The smooth, lucent drop resembled rainwater. What a frail neck the girl had. He noticed a few strands of auburn hair blowing in the breeze. Then he realized that Meryem was no longer able to control her breathing. Her chest and shoulders were heaving involuntarily.

That morning, after leaving Yakup’s house and walking through the fields, Cemal had felt as though he were being chased by the PKK terrorists. His shoes sank deep into the mud, and he walked quickly, as he had been trained to do in the army. He could keep this pace up for hours and walk a whole day and night without rest, but soon he realized that the girl with him was out of breath, and though she had broken into a run, the distance between them was widening. He heard her stumble and fall more than once, but she always got up again and struggled to keep up with him. Finally, he had slowed down.

Since the beginning of their journey, Cemal had felt he must remain emotionally unattached to the girl. This was not through cruelty but the attitude of a predator. His instincts told him that Meryem must remain a stranger to him, so he had tried to suppress all memories related to their childhood. Now he heard the girl’s fitful breathing as she stood there with her back to him. He noticed the goose bumps on her neck, and smelled a mixture of cinnamon and dried roses when the breeze blew from her direction.

Cemal’s resolve began to waver. He could not help remembering her childish giggles when they played games, her illnesses, the way they had rolled hoops together and climbed trees to look at birds’ nests. Slowly, Meryem was transformed into the little girl Cemal used to know so well. He remembered how they would pull the horse cart backward into the courtyard. He could smell the bitter scent of honeydew melons piled in a corner. He remembered how he and Meryem used to break open the unripe melons by hitting them against a big stone and devour them as the juice poured down their chins. Once, during the Liberation Day celebrations, Memo, who was acting the part of a Turkish soldier, had bruised Cemal’s temple with his gun. Meryem had ground up some hemp seeds, wrapped them in cloth, and rubbed them on Cemal’s forehead.

When Cemal realized that his wall of resistance was starting to cave in, he immediately focused his thoughts on Meryem’s sin.

In the military, they had taught him to focus on the idea that the enemy was “inhuman.” Now, the girl in front of him was not the girl he knew as a child but a soiled, sinful woman, who had discredited his family. His family could not survive such shame. For centuries, this crime had been dealt with and punished in the same way. This was God’s will. It was his father’s will. No one could defy God’s rules. Besides, this sinful girl was the only obstacle standing between him and Emine.

As he prayed
“Bismillahirrahmanirrahim!”
he suddenly remembered a previous Feast of Sacrifice. As a small boy, his father had ordered him to cut the throat of a blindfolded sheep. Then, too, he had prayed before the killing.

He collected himself and repeated,
“Bismillahirrahmanirrahim!”
Three more droplets of perspiration rolled down Meryem’s white neck. They were smaller and rolled faster. He could hear the girl’s troubled breathing. As a whistling sound came out of Meryem’s throat, Cemal foamed with rage—vile creature, bitch, disgraceful, disgusting, filthy, sinful thing!

Then, with all the violence of the pain inside of him, he hit her.

Uttering a wild scream, Meryem reeled from the blow and tumbled down into blackness, not knowing what was happening. She felt herself hit the ground with a thud. The taste of mud filled her mouth. One side of her head felt numb.

After a few seconds, she could feel the wetness of the cold ground on which she lay. Her eyes were blindfolded, but she realized that she could still breathe. Oddly, she did not feel any pain except on the left side of her face. The oppressive silence had disappeared, to be succeeded by the sound of distant traffic and calls to prayer.

Meryem lay motionless, afraid to breathe. Then she slowly removed the scarf from in front of her eyes and saw wet concrete and ugly stones beneath her cheek. Cemal was squatting down three feet away.

Suddenly, it was as if the sun had risen inside of her. Her heart lifted, like a rainbow appearing after a day full of black clouds.

She was not dead. The way Cemal was crouching on the ground implied that she was no longer about to die. Cemal would not kill her now, and nor would anyone else.

Meryem had finally defeated her family, who had closed their doors against her and sent her out to die. Their plans to get rid of her had all been in vain.

She sat up with a triumphant expression on her face and walked toward Cemal, without even thinking about her aching cheek, now going purple from the blow.

Cemal was squatting on the ground, rocking backward and forward with his arms wrapped around his knees. It was he who was in pain now, not Meryem.

Meryem bent over Cemal with such a feeling of self-confidence and compassion that the protective energy flowing out from this young girl was almost palpable.

She touched him on the shoulder. “Come on, Cemal. Let’s go. There’s no need to stay here getting wet.”

It did not seem strange to address him in such an authoritative way, though up to that day, she would have not thought it possible to speak to him like that.

Cemal pushed Meryem’s hand away roughly, but then, like an obedient child, stood up and began to walk away slowly without looking at her. This time, Meryem could easily keep up with him. He no longer strode in front of her like a mountain commando but trudged along slowly and wearily. Overwhelmed by gratitude and compassion, Meryem wrapped the faded headscarf around her head like a triumphal banner.

As she walked along the muddy roads of the deplorable district where hundreds of electric cables festooned the houses like dry creepers, Meryem was sure that, although Yakup and Nazik would be stunned when she and Cemal returned together, they would act as if nothing had happened.

And so they did. After the first few moments of silence, the children, the television, the Hizbullah operation, and many other irrelevant subjects were discussed until the tension in the air disappeared, and everyone felt relieved. Even the purple swelling on Meryem’s left cheek apparently went unnoticed.

Yakup and Nazik were aware of everything that had happened, but the children were utterly lost in their own world ruled by the television. They sat cross-legged on the floor with their eyes glued to the screen. Even when they spoke to each other or replied to their parents’ questions, their eyes remained fixed on the magic box. They knew everything about chocolate of all kinds, different brands of olive oil, credit cards, automobiles, newspapers, chewing gum, banks, washing detergent, and margarine, and had learned by heart all the advertising jingles. They participated in this ritual of watching the television with great eagerness, determined not to miss a single program, commercial, sitcom, or whatever else might be shown to them.

Watching television was not allowed in Meryem’s home. Although she had seen it once or twice at a friend’s, she had never watched it enough to become addicted. Now, she saw that Yakup and his family seemed to live in a world of television, as though they thought of their own lives as something temporary that had to be endured. The children knew the names of all the television personalities and their characters better than those of their own relatives. They would sing along with a bottle blonde who barked rather than sang and imitate the dancing of an excessively painted lady.

When a showman pointed his finger at the camera, and shouted, “Ay-ay, ay-ay,” the children in turn would point their fingers at the screen and scream, “Ay-ay, ay-ay!”

This was a world that was totally foreign to both Cemal and Meryem.

According to the television, the weather, which had remained rainy for much of the week, was about to become colder, due to a low-pressure system coming from the Balkans. Hanging from the ceiling, the red-hot metal bedstead, through which Yakup illegally channeled electricity,warmed them like a desert sun.

“You look miserable,” Nazik said to Meryem. “Let me give you something else to wear. If we wash your dress now, it’ll be dry by tomorrow.” At the same time, she squeezed Meryem’s hand, and whispered, “I’m so glad,” convincing Meryem that Nazik was a good person.

Nazik looked older than her age. She had to carry home water from the public fountain some distance away, take care of three kids, clean other people’s houses four days a week, and work overtime under Yakup at night in bed.

As she lay on her pallet that evening, Meryem contemplated all that had happened that day. She tried to understand why Cemal had felt helpless enough to content himself with only hitting her, but she fell asleep without an answer.

Early the next morning, after Cemal had left with Yakup, the two children had gone to school, and the baby had been consigned to the care of a neighbor, Nazik and Meryem set off for the city center.

“I’ve got something to do there,” said Nazik. “Come along, and you can have a look at Istanbul,” and added, “I know you’re wondering where we’re going in the blue bus. I’m going to have an abortion. Yakup doesn’t want to use condoms, so I always end up at the midwife’s place. I can’t remember how many times I’ve been there.”

Meryem asked her once again why she went through all this trouble for the sake of living in Istanbul.

“Yakup doesn’t listen to me,” replied Nazik. “He’s obsessed with this contemptible city. He keeps saying that he wants to bring his children up here.”

Meryem was wearing a blue dress and a scarf with brown and yellow flowers that Nazik had given her. Her own scarf and threadbare dress, which had endured so much sweat and anguish, had been washed and hung out to dry. She felt awkward in someone else’s clothes.

Meryem studied the surroundings from the window of the bus. Even though the bus passed through many neighborhoods, Meryem saw nothing that resembled her picture of Istanbul. A while later, she saw some buildings that resembled those in the small city she had seen in the East. The ground floors of the buildings were occupied by greengrocers, barbers, and electricians.

At one of the stops in a certain neighborhood, the bus driver’s assistant called out, “Midwife’s stop!” Many women got off the bus.

“This stop used to have a different name,” Nazik explained, “but now everyone calls it the midwife’s stop.”

They entered an old building that smelled of gas, boiled cabbage, and mold. Many muddy pairs of shoes—men’s, women’s, and children’s—were piled up in front of the doors outside the apartments on each floor.

Nazik rang the bell of one of the apartments on the third floor. A plump woman with a large black mole on her cheek showed them in to the waiting room. It was crowded, and Meryem felt a little afraid as she glanced at all the women waiting their turn.

The women wore strange clothes like none Meryem had ever seen before. Most of them were bundled up in black garments that concealed every part of their bodies, except for the eyes. Some had covered the top half of themselves in large shawls or even blankets, which hung all the way down below their waists. Gradually feeling more secure among other women, they relaxed and began to remove some of their wrappings.

“These women often have to have abortions,” said Nazik, “because their husbands don’t like to use condoms—just like Yakup. And the pill causes cancer, they say. That’s why this place is always so full. The women come out of the surgery after five minutes, go back home, and cook dinner for their husbands. They constantly complain about being beaten by their men. It makes you want to vomit.”

Meryem listened attentively to a conversation about being beaten. These women, who hid themselves under thick layers of clothing and kept away from strangers, were talking excitedly about the brutality they experienced at home. Sharing their stories with others seemed to relieve their feelings. Only one woman had a different twist to her story. Her young, beautiful face was blue, one of her eyes was swollen, and she had a cut on her lip. Embarrassed, she quietly shared her experience.