Bliss: A Novel (39 page)

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Talking to the donkey,” Meryem replied.

The boy laughed. “It’s our donkey, but I’ve never heard it speak,” he said.

“It talks only when it wants to,” responded Meryem.

The boy introduced himself as Mehmet Ali. “Where are you from?” he asked.

Meryem told him about her hometown, and Mehmet Ali was surprised that she was from the east. “I would never have thought so,” he said. “You have a slight accent, but since you’re with the ambassador, I thought you were his relative.”

Mehmet Ali was very talkative, and Meryem soon learned all about his life and family. They had left their hometown because of the war but had not gone to a big city like millions of others fleeing the fighting. Instead, they had come to this little coastal village where a relative of theirs had given them the idea of selling pancakes. They were just making ends meet but believed they would earn more in the future as the number of tourists coming to the village increased.

Meryem stroked the donkey’s face as she listened to Mehmet Ali. A little later, they heard the professor calling her name. They felt awkward when they returned to the front garden, as if they were mutually guilty of committing some sin. Everyone was looking at them.

Later, as they walked home, the ambassador asked Meryem where she had been.

“I was talking to a donkey,” she said.

“What did it tell you?”

“It told me that you were right.”

The ambassador and İrfan burst into laughter. This girl was certainly as odd as the professor had said.

The next morning, the ambassador asked if they had the answer for him. İrfan spoke first. “In a horse race, one of them could enter the city first,” he said, “but it would be out of the question to enter last. Since their father was aware of this, he actually wanted the princes to become reconciled and agree between themselves as to who would ascend the throne.”

“You have failed,
mon cher!
” The ambassador laughed.

İrfan shrugged; he had already forgotten the question. Besides, he had made up his answer on the spur of the moment.

“Come, commander, what’s your answer?” asked the ambassador, turning to Cemal.

“Please don’t let him know it, please, dear God!” Meryem prayed.

“Neither of the brothers move,” said Cemal. “They wait in the hunting lodge for days. Whoever gives in, loses, and the one with the strongest willpower waits till the end and becomes the new sultan.”

“No, commander.” The ambassador laughed. “That’s not the right answer either. What if neither of them moves, and they wait there for years? Now, pretty girl you tell me.”

“They exchange horses!” Meryem blurted out.

The ambassador began to applaud, and the professor laughed.

Cemal jumped out of his chair. “What do you mean by ‘exchange horses’?” he shouted.

Meryem turned to him and explained slowly, as though talking to a child, “They get on each other’s horses and ride them like mad in order to enter the city first. The son whose horse comes in last becomes the sultan.”

“But the last, not the first, becomes the sultan!” Cemal objected.

“Not the first son,” said İrfan, “but the son whose horse enters the city last. The answer is in the question!”

Cemal left the table.

“Thank you, Bibi,” Meryem said to herself. If Bibi had not told her this story when she was a child, Meryem would never have come up with the right answer, but she had no intention of sharing her secret with the others.

Both the ambassador and the professor had admired Meryem’s wit while Cemal had left the room abruptly, his face purple with rage.

Was she going to lessen her enjoyment by telling them the truth?

“How did you find the answer?” İrfan asked.

“I thought about it all night,” Meryem replied, “and the answer suddenly popped into my head!”

*   *   *

Later that day, Mehmet Ali brought some pita bread to the stone house. He stayed in the vicinity that afternoon, twisting his forelock and secretly watching the house.

The following day, he came again toward midday and said that his mother had asked for Meryem. A large group of tourists had come, and the old woman needed help. Since Meryem had told her that she knew how to make pancakes, his mother wondered if she could give them a hand. Meryem was sure that this was Mehmet Ali’s idea but made no comment.

She went to the pancake restaurant that day, the next day, and the following one, too. So it happened that she began to spend most of her day there. Mehmet Ali’s mother hugged Meryem, kissed her cheeks, and said, “My little partridge. Don’t you have a mother or a father?”

“No,” Meryem answered.

“My poor girl,” the woman said, and hugged her again.

Although the professor and the ambassador were good to her, Meryem felt nervous and uncomfortable near them. When she was with the family from the east, she felt at home, as if she were in her own part of the world. She felt the family were sympathetic toward her and would not cause her harm.

One day she asked the old woman, “Shall I bake some flaky butter pasties?”

“Of course, my dear,” said the woman, “but let me bring you something else to wear so that your nice dress doesn’t get dirty.”

Together they entered the small house. The woman opened a wooden trunk and took out a blouse and a beautiful pair of baggy pants decorated with purple flowers.

Meryem was amazed at how comfortable she felt in these clothes. As soon as the trunk was opened, she had caught a whiff of her hometown, bringing her to the verge of tears.

How strange it was. The clothes she had struggled so hard to get rid of now seemed to embrace her like old friends. She would never give up wearing her new clothes, which would always give her a sense of freedom, but it would be pleasant to wear her old ones from time to time.

Putting on an apron, she covered her hair with a muslin cloth and sat down in front of the kneading trough. Soon, her arms were covered in flour up to her elbows. She sat down beside the hot metal tray, baking the thin sheets of pastry and spreading them with butter before folding them into shape. From that day on, many customers asked for her special pastries.

In the afternoon, Meryem washed her arms and face at the faucet in the backyard before she changed her clothes and went home. The next day, when she returned, she immediately put on the baggy pants.

Wearing those pants was not the only change in Meryem. As soon as she stepped into the family’s garden, she felt secure. She spoke without embarrassment, and even her accent smacked of the east again.

Meryem talked nonstop with Mehmet Ali, laughing, telling stories, and teasing him. She behaved flirtatiously toward him and felt proud when the boy looked at her admiringly.

Everything flowed along like milk and honey, and Meryem smiled knowingly to herself when the old woman said, “You’ve brought us such good fortune. Since you came here, the customers have been flocking in.”

When she caught Mehmet Ali secretly looking at her breasts, she smiled to herself again. He followed at her heels as though mesmerized and never left her side. Meryem enjoyed feeling his excitement, which she had inspired.

One day, when she was alone mixing the dough inside the house, Mehmet Ali tiptoed up behind her. He gathered up all his courage, kissed her on the neck, and rushed out of the house. Meryem smiled to herself, and strangely, was not in the least upset.

A WILD NIGHT

Life was going smoothly, and everything was harmonious and peaceful in the house that smelled of orange blossom. It seemed as though they could go on living that way forever. Even Cemal, in spite of huffing and puffing and making constant complaints, had to put up with living among people he was sure were traitors, for he had nowhere else to go.

The retired ambassador enjoyed having a like-minded friend. At first, he had said that no one was allowed to bring up political matters, but this ban only applied to others. He took pleasure in stating his ideas, and if anyone interrupted, he got angry, and said, “This is what I think. How can you have an opinion on this? For half a century, I’ve been racking my brains over these subjects.”

The others listened to the old man without much comment. It was especially difficult for Meryem and Cemal to grasp what he was talking about.

Whenever Meryem sat in the garden during the day, she would suddenly stand up, take a few steps forward, then go back to her seat. This act might have surprised some, but there was a reason. She had discovered that the crickets were afraid of her white dress. Each time she walked toward the trees, all the noise in the garden abruptly stopped, and this made the others laugh. The ambassador would say, “Come on, Meryem, make them shut up. Show yourself.”

The moment İrfan and the ambassador waited for with expectation was when they sat down at the table among the trees and sipped their whisky.

None of them knew that the day on which the professor invited them out to dinner would change their lives forever.

The professor had become tired of eating pasta. He wanted to take them to the fish restaurant in the village. Besides, he had promised the boys working there that he would come there for a meal. The others were also looking forward to a change of diet. İrfan insisted on using the dinghy instead of walking, so at sundown, they crowded into the small craft and slowly glided toward the village over the crimson waters of a sea smooth as glass. İrfan thought that the ambassador would speak of “the wine-dark sea” and refer to himself as Homer, but the old man said nothing.

When they arrived at the fish restaurant, they found it full of British tourists, a merry group of young men and women, already slightly tipsy, singing, shouting, and showing off.

The owner of the restaurant showed them to a table in the garden by the sea. The table sat awkwardly on the uneven ground and rocked like a camel journeying across the desert, but the seafood was very fresh.

The owner showed them his trays of fish, carrying them out into the garden for the inspection of such honored guests and promising them that the sea bass were not from a fish farm. Three of the people at the table remembered the fish farm where they had first met. Recalling the mosquitoes and sand fleas that had attacked her so viciously, Meryem began to scratch herself. What a hellhole that place had been!

The restaurant owner also brought the local crayfish, squirming around on the tray for their inspection. With the air of an expert, the ambassador ordered some of these, explaining just how they should be prepared and served. “Of course, just as you say,” bowed the owner.

In a short while, he brought wineglasses and a well-cooled bottle of the locally produced white wine. The ambassador picked up his glass, swirled the wine around, and looked at it for some time before announcing, as if it were something very important,
“Il a de la cuisse.”

He pointed to the oily trickles running down the glass. Then he took a sip, turned the wine on his tongue, swallowed it, paused, and said, “Very nice.”

The owner was surprised to receive praise for such a cheap wine, but he filled glasses for the ambassador and the professor. Cemal and Meryem declined, placing their hands on top of their glasses.

The ambassador and İrfan drank the wine down as if it were water, finishing the bottle before the salad was served. As the two men were used to whisky and hard liquor, wine was like sweet-smelling water for them. The owner’s son brought new bottles one after another.

From the moment they stepped into the garden, they realized that it was another of those paradises along the Aegean. They caught the sharp scent of honeysuckle, which in this area grew like a small tree, leaning down over them and spreading its fragrance all around. At this hour, the night-scented stock released its perfume to mingle with that of the honeysuckle.

Slowly, the crimson color of the sea disappeared. As darkness descended, the intoxicating scents in the garden grew stronger, and the young British tourists at the other tables continued their boisterous laugh.

“Since the waters of Lake Van are brackish, there are no fish there,” Cemal commented, “but in
Erci
, where the river meets the lake, we have delicious mullet.”

“Really,” said the ambassador, “how interesting.”

The professor said nothing, and the two men then returned to their conversation.

Suddenly the lights went off. Some of the British tourists exclaimed in surprise, but the locals, who were used to such problems, were not disturbed. The waiters immediately brought kerosene lamps to each table and hung lanterns in the trees.

That evening, the ambassador did not stop talking. It was as if he wanted to compensate for all his years of being alone. Both he and the professor began to slur their words after consuming so much wine, and each became unreasonably happy. Perhaps the merriment of the youths at the other table was contagious.

Meryem watched the girls and the boys embracing each other, but she did not yearn to be close to those slender, tanned boys anymore. When she looked at them, she thought of Mehmet Ali’s dark hair falling over his forehead and the sincerity in his brown eyes.