Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale (25 page)

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Falsehood and truth, solitude holding sway in depths, great depths . . . Where can we place, in the order of things we believe unassailable, the people we have abandoned to death and extinction, because of our failure in appreciating differences and in displaying the required generosity through evasion and apathy? From where do we expect them to seek us out? Madame Eleni’s cloudy story, which one day I believe I’ll be able to have a better insight into and narrate in a different vein, is one of those stories likely to generate such questions. We were compelled to proceed on, with greater empathy and tolerance, in order to understand the meaning certain words, colors and scents bequeathed us. Over time . . . as we came to know human beings better and better . . . by grafting the value of certain moments onto other moments . . . Can I explain my mandatory journeys to those moments, my recollection of Anita—who I want to believe is at this very moment carrying on her existence in a different country—at a time I’m ready to share with so many people so many stories, empathizing with so many different people? Perhaps I can. What I know for sure at this juncture is that it was a question of bad timing, and that a meeting had not taken place. Exactly who and what had I been shunning? What had prevented me from correctly understanding what Anita had in store for me during our brief encounters? Anita who comes to me with looks full of despair from such distant realms, as a heroine of an incredible and unacceptable father-daughter relationship, as though desiring to impart to me certain things that remained untold to that point . . . Now, I may recall that wall that other people raised between us with their defying looks, posing an insurmountable obstacle to our gaining ground toward understanding our fellow human beings . . . to describe or define that wall has never been easy . . . to offer a logical explanation as to the real causes of our avoidance of those people toward whom we were supposed to advance . . . What we appeared as afterwards was seen as a kind of egotism, but at the same time a self-defense against the scorching effect of that inferno, of our inferno; taking refuge from the world of those who knew you to be different. That was another variant of evil, certainly . . . another variant of evil . . . One cannot deny the existence of certain relationships, with all their consequences, to which one would have liked to do away with, despite your best intentions, with evasions and betrayals. You are chased by moments that make you encounter that shadow you had been trying to evade, at a spot you hardly expected. At such times you cannot even confess to yourself how and when you were involved in such relationships and who exactly was implicated; years must go by and one must have many years of experience with the people in question, having suffered the consequences and inevitable remorse entailed before one can comprehend the nature of the relationship one had and the character of the people with whom one had been involved with. These are the moments when one takes stock of the memories created in you at the least expected moment by what you had failed and not dared to experience in life. Moments of inevitable transition from one story to another, stories that one believes to be forgotten . . . The fact that I remembered the evening concerts at the Technical University—conjured up by images lingering in my mind of the two aforementioned individuals who strove to carry throughout their lifetime the burden of their oppression and solitude thanks to certain items—each of which was conducive to a new story that leaked out through visions that have become hazy, may perhaps be explained by tracking the origins of what has been left over in us from certain experiences. Those were the evenings when I was obliged to view certain relationships from a distance. Who had been the original owners of those school desks, who had listened to the lessons taught in the classrooms, who did the corridors that ran down the building belong to, the bedsteads, the Saturday evenings, the night lights? To be able to provide answers to these questions, I had the wild expectations of my imagination. Those were the evenings when I was obliged to view things from a distance . . . the evenings when I tried to find out those limited areas wherein I could take refuge and view certain individuals through false screens, in garbs they would never actually wear, vested in false regalia merely for the sake of not losing touch; the evenings I lived more passionately by postponements than I do today . . . those evenings when Aunt Tilda in her bizarre attire approached me asking how I was, when she acted out that game of bliss, when she frequented concerts for the sole purpose of breathing the atmosphere of the foyer, seen through her eyes as a genuine stage, rather than a place to listen to the performance or stare at the audience like most of the occupants of the stalls did, where she greeted everyone and pretended as if she knew everybody, where she showed off her knowledge of French, where she made as if she paid no attention or took no notice of her being taxed with the attribute of ‘loony,’ or where I wanted more than ever to beat a hasty retreat to that island within me which was getting bigger and bigger but seemed to be so distant. I wonder whether Anita, who had emerged before me one of those evenings at the least expected moment, had also experienced this warmth and transported it to another evening. Whether those awe inspiring looks were the harbinger of a journey or of being dragged along, I was unable to figure out at the time. It was during an interval that Aunt Tilda, who in her habitual garrulousness talked to a group of people; as far as I could gather from what I overheard through the din she opined that the Polish pianist had played with remarkable agility, commenting however that his dark costume had seemed to be rather outlandish, and that he ought to have put on a frock coat, failing that, a tuxedo. The people she was addressing were a couple who gave the impression that they had been together their entire life. They were aged and seemed that they had chosen to freeze their respective lives at a spot they had decided upon. They had been successful in bringing to a conclusion a life spent in unison. Aunt Tilda was, or at least seemed to be, content despite the reactions of the individuals to whom she was talking. She was acting out. She had found her spectators to feign interest only for a brief moment . . . A faint smile flickered across their faces as though they were listening to her; their occasional evasive looks seemed to suggest that they were searching for old acquaintances fitting their status and social position. It was an evening when snow had begun falling before the start of the performance. At the end of the concert the city had assumed another aspect. The entire city was under heavy snow. It gave one the impression of being a traveler who had crossed a vast land and found himself in new territory. The crisp snow crunched as I walked through it slowly from Maçka to Şişli, absorbing the silence that was characteristic of snow. A simple joy had filled me. I was the small child who frolicked in the snow-covered fields. In addition to this magical transformation caused by the snow, Anita, who had broken in upon my life at an unexpected moment and whose looks are indelibly stored in my memory as though she had foreseen that she would leave deep traces in my mind, had her share in this feeling also. The snapshots representing that concert interval will never be forgotten and will always jog my memory, reminding me of Aunt Tilda. Aunt Tilda who still went on acting out her scenes of bliss, still stylish, and who must be wandering somewhere far removed from here, from the place where she once rambled in deserted streets with a pair of socks, wearing an old overcoat in rags, with disheveled white hair, reminding me of the days and nights when she used to share the same house with Monsieur Robert; photographs representing them toget
her, each being the embodiment of the other . . .

Bertie and Juliet also were there . . . They were in the company of a middle-aged man and a young reserved girl with dark hair. Actually I would have preferred to greet them from a distance, but Juliet, who understood my loneliness better than anyone else, had insisted through a gesture that I join them. She seemed to imply that she was in the company of people of no great importance. That was not difficult to guess. We had a bond between us as a consequence of our converging paths, steps we shared with mutual empathy. I could not refuse her call. We had talked about our impressions of the recital, trivial loquacity, in the usual manner. We were trying to find small shields for our differing solitudes . . . Then, we had been introduced. “Anita, our sweet girl,” said Juliet taking the arm of the young girl. The middle-aged man was her father. I was being introduced to friends of Juliet and Berti, whom they had never mentioned before, but who seemed to be their intimate friends. Anita had a sort of attraction that made one restless. To have known her meant taking a step in the direction of an enigmatic story that had a magical appeal, replete with mysteries. It looked as though she wanted to say, to convey, something. I am still at a loss how to exactly define my feelings at the time. I think her looks had stiffened me. I had apprehensions. I had misgivings. Anita looked like the heroine of a dream with her long wavy hair, large, dark eyes and full red lips. The magic had slowly begun to work. She had shaken my hand, squeezing it for a good while. I was to penetrate the meaning of this handshake years later. Years later when I had had the same experience with other people in different circumstances . . . There was another conversation going on in the depths beneath the words exchanged that seemed to be going nowhere. We had to revert to the question of the recital in one way or another. There was something in Chopin’s music that disquieted me despite my efforts to the contrary. There was a small detail that I could not define exactly. “You are wrong,” she said with a tremulous voice, “you are unfair. He was a very unhappy person.” To which I could give no answer, but had simply smiled. Those were the years when I could not naturally rid certain shortcomings of mine with spontaneity without feeling a sense of inferiority, as was the case with the handling of my indignation which I should have repressed or expressed at the right time depending on the situation.

Then we had parted to resume our seats . . . Juliet had invited me to her house as usual to which I had answered favorably. A small lie had joined us once more; it was a lie we both shared . . . The lie was in fact the correct mode of the day, the right thing to do . . . Moments that would have changed the course of our lives had not been lived as of yet. Those were the times when those steps were still a mystery to us. They were the steps that were taken within us first, the steps that would have contributed a great deal to our way of life. This is the case with the unforgettable relationships that make us what we actually are.

Chopin’s works were again to be played in the second part of the program. As I gazed around, I saw Anita who happened to be two rows behind. She was looking straight at me. How could I foresee that her stare would remain fixed within me for many years to come? The years would elapse, yet her stare would remain as a vague invitation, an invitation marked with regret. Our looks crossed once more after the recital. Something had happened between us that caused alien things to be stirred within me, emerging from an unconventional place . . . This must have been the beginning of a relationship that one comes across only once in a while . . . An unexpected visitor would shake the very roots of everything . . . This was a relationship that would bring along with it death—the point of no return . . . for the sake of a life beyond death. Those looks seemed to conceal despair, hopelessness difficult to describe, a sort of liberation from life, an effort to hold on to somebody . . . to give up one life for another . . . For what reason? We were enthralled by so many relationships we could not properly experience because of the obstacles raised by the feelings that we were unable to probe into and properly define, enthralled by an anxiety which held the caption of “If only I knew” . . . In order that I could understand properly what was being conveyed to me by this cryptic and special dialogue, I needed to be able to feel the new words and sounds, and, last but not least, the audience. Did the rest consist merely of a feeling I would be nourishing in my depths and whose meanings would be lingering within me for years to come? I doubt it. The power of Anita’s looks had been supplemented by an uneasiness generated by the inevitable emergence of a characteristic of hers which I had not taken notice of when we had been first introduced to each other. This was caused I think by the fact that one of her legs was shorter than the other . . . That’s all I could distinguish at the time. As we went out I saw her glance at or toward me, on her father’s arm, through the crowd. I had smiled in return. I believe I had tried to convey to her my desire to see her again. It was a kind of promise. She had gotten the message, I believed. Had it been otherwise I could not have carried within me the effect those looks had. Now I am trying to understand and untangle the other feelings that had caused that smile on my lips. Had I been affected, for instance, by her limping? It is easy to give a negative answer to this question and deny certain undeniable facts. To feel the need to speak about this detail after so many years reveals something I’ve been concealing. Those individuals and their respective distinctions that call to us . . . I had already tried to empathize once to someone the pain generated by a story that began with the aforementioned words. There were stories that paved the way to each other and stories that always reverted to the same theme . . . Some people had the talent to spin through numerous stories while certain words assumed new meanings all the time. However, you realized that in that peregrination it was yourself that you had been looking for all along. You were haunted by those visions because of this . . . This was the reason why you wished to go back to certain nights and certain breakfasts.

In Anita’s story one could perceive the presence of a good many stories stored in my memory. I think I was prepared, better than most, to identify distinctions. This preparedness assisted me in understanding the path that led there, to those individuals, who were more than willing to lend an ear. This was the reason why I had the premonition that a day would come that I would see Anita once more. The episode could not have come to an end before it began. I had a fatalistic side I could not get rid of despite my best efforts, a trait which I tried to keep alive nonetheless . . . It ensured that one should wait and know how to wait.