Many and Many a Year Ago (26 page)

Haluk Bey knelt before the well-kept grave. As he cleared away the moss nobody else could see, he seemed to be bringing his wife up to date on recent events. We waited for him to stop crying before we put the rings on our fingers. He embraced us and said, “The reason you were both spared from these fatal accidents was to strengthen your togetherness.”

Samsun took us to the Ayvalık station to catch a bus to Istanbul, stopping off at a gas station restroom on the way. The litter of radical journals and bedraggled fanzines on the front seat made me wonder what might be in the glove compartment.
Thus Spake Zarathustra
by Nietzsche,
Three Anatolian Legends
by Yashar Kemal, CDs by Leonard Cohen and the left-wing folk singer Edip Akbayram, Sudoku puzzle magazines: were these his carnival masks? Before I climbed onto the bus I told him, “I owe you a debt of gratitude because, while you were trying to save your lady from loneliness, you did me an even greater favor. But if I ever see you again in whatever mask you choose, I'll make sure you regret it.”

I almost added, “After, of course, I deal with your boss.”

Dr. Kamil Polat was a man in his forties with curly hair and slanting eyes; and he was tiny. Perhaps this was why, I thought, he tried to look like a rhetorician. He examined Sim at a clinic on the Asian side of Istanbul, where a medical-school friend of his worked. I appreciated the fact that he never referred to the erroneous treatment my fiancée had already undergone.

“It's a very challenging corneal disk detachment. It wouldn't be an easy operation. And time is against her; she has to be operated on soon. I would recommend Dr. Carl Cooper. He is a partner in the Wishion Eye Clinic where I work and a legend in his field. They call him C. C. for short. His initials, you see, sound like “See, see” in English—a happy and deserved coincidence. If you've got $250,000 I'll start begging immediately.”

I couldn't think of anything to say but, “We'll be grateful to you.”

“I'll call you in forty-eight hours. Otherwise my mother's words—‘If you don't arrange an operation for Sim I'll never speak to you again!'—will come true.”

Dr. Kamil Polat called when he said he would. Dr. Cooper had received the X-rays and other files and would operate on the morning of 19 January. We were to be in Boston three days before the surgery for a final examination. More good news was that he'd obtained a ten percent reduction on our bill. As the words
Allah razı olsun
rolled off my tongue, it didn't occur to me that I had only $185,000 in my account.

I was taking Sim to visit the radio announcer Saadet Gülmez, her one-time neighbor in İzmir and an old high-school friend. I was excited at the prospect of at last seeing the labyrinthine interior of the Istanbul Radio House where he worked. But on seeing Sim's young friend playing her voice like a virtuoso, I sneaked out of the gloomy building at the first opportunity; it would have embarrassed me to be introduced to her as a professional colleague.

I walked toward the book dealer whom I used to see when I was staying at the Pera Palace. I had to find at least $45,000 for Sim's surgery. Strangely, I didn't think it necessary to make any plans beyond ascertaining the market value of the two books Ken Melling had pointed out to me in the library that day. On the inside front cover of the books was written N. ZERVUDAKI. I was glad that I had no time to think about how Suat had acquired these books that Count Noldolsky had inherited from his beloved's husband. As I opened the door of the tiny shop at Galatasaray, a middle-aged man with glasses was holding forth: “No, it was Yashar Kemal who told the greatest love story of Turkish literature in
The Legend of Mount Ararat
.” The smiling book dealer and a young woman sitting on the only chair in the store were listening to him, but I couldn't tell whether it was out of respect or just because he was a regular customer. He looked like a bureaucrat or a failed writer played by Peter Sellers. When his hand reached toward the two books I pulled out of my briefcase, I assumed that he was the dealer's secret partner.

“If these two masterpieces of the Ottoman era are to be sold for any reason other than marriage or illness, I'll be heartbroken,” he said.

“I'm suffering from both,” I said.

“Then I can direct you to someone who can speedily solve your problem. There's a small bookseller just five minutes from here on foot. ANKA specializes in rare and historical books, maps, and photography. Open by appointment only. The owner is Ä°smail Bayramoğlu. He's a serious collector of Ottoman books in foreign languages. He lives in Paris and Istanbul and is an honest perfectionist. Shall I call him?”

Despite the florid phrases of gratitude choking my throat, all I could get out was, “I would be glad of that, sir.” He went out to use his cell phone and I shifted awkwardly on my feet, too self-conscious to examine the books on the shelves. My new fairy godmother said, as he gave me the address, “Ismail won't charge a commission if he can set a good value on the books.”

I walked down Balo Street among the tiny buildings camouflaged in beige and gray paint and climbed the stairs to the third floor of one adorned in faded red. ANKA looked like a book museum. Had I seen this plain smiling man, Mr. Bayramoğlu, on the street, I never would have taken him for a world-class collector. As he took his cigar out of his mouth his age dropped from the forties to the twenties.

“These books are important and in good condition,” he observed. “And especially if these coats-of-arms prove to be what I think they are …”

He held a magnifying glass to the insignia. He sniffed the bindings. He put on his gloves and ran his fingers over them. He consulted other books, brochures, the Internet. After speaking in French to two different people on the phone he concluded, “These books came from the library of Emperor Napoleon the Third.” If I waited for the Paris auction I might get 130,000 euros, but there were Turkish customers who would pay 90,000 to 110,000 euros right away.

I was trying to work out what that would be in dollars when Ä°smail, seeing my helpless expression, said, “I'm talking at least $125,000. When do you need the money?”

“Tomorrow, if not today,” I said with quavering lips.

He tucked a receipt for the books in my pocket as I left. Although I knew Balo Street was full of bars, the James Joyce Irish Pub had escaped my attention before. I plunged into the dimly lit interior, where I downed a double cognac and reviewed the train of events. If Suat Altan and/or his counterparts were really planning to push me into a blind cul-de-sac after first opening one door after another, I wasn't going to let them have the last laugh. Whatever they might think, even if Sim left the operating room as blind as she came in, it would not matter that much to me.

Next day, when Ä°smail Bayramoğlu called to inform me that he had deposited $125,000 into my account, my parting words were, “Sir, can you tell me who the man was who sent me to you?”

“That was the retired banker Selçuk Altar. He dislikes the limelight, but in my opinion he's one of the country's most important book collectors.”

I rushed to Yapı Kredi Bank to get my credit card limit increased to $185,000. I bought two open New York-Istanbul plane tickets and Sim and I went to the U.S. consulate to start the tedious rigmarole of obtaining visas.

During our last week in town we were treated like “brave conscripts.” The day before our flight, after taking Sim to the painter Sevinç Altan's studio apartment in Galata, I dropped by Radio Estanbul to say goodbye to Rifat Demren and leave him six weeks' worth of taped material to broadcast.

I needed to drop a spare set of house keys off with Sami. He brought me linden tea and said, “They say there's a ninety-nine-year-old woman at Ayvansaray who tells fortunes. The bazaar got together and had Sim's fortune read. She said at least one of her eyes will be saved.”

I couldn't bear this.

“Sami, are you a lousy liar or are you just imitating one? If you could only hear the sound of your own blabbering voice, your spirits would be the first to sink.”

Boston! The receptionist who checked us in to our hotel offered us a room on the twenty-fourth floor with a view of the river. I was slightly offended when I realized that the Wishion Clinic had recommended this luxury hotel because it was specially equipped for the handicapped. Sim went to bed and quickly fell asleep. I sat in front of the large window to view the cityscape at night. The Charles River, embraced by a body of light on either side, looked tame. I couldn't help comparing it to the archaic Golden Horn that was lake, river, and sea all at once. I was glad the sight of the red lights glowing from our neighbouring hotel didn't produce butterflies in my stomach as it brought to mind Disco Eden. I liked the soulless house next to it for the feeble light leaking out of one or two windows. A plane groaned overhead.

Dr. Kamil Polat managed to make us laugh by playing the Fenerbahçe soccer club's fight songs in his car on the way to the clinic. I loved the campus town feel of Cambridge on the other side of the river. I tried to describe to Sim the harmony of color and height between the brick buildings and the green vegetation surrounding them in the skyscraper-free district. It was reassuring to see the Wishion Clinic, composed of blue glass and gray aluminum, on the deserted Arrow Street. There for three long days, while Sim exhausted herself going into one examination after another, I meditatively roamed the building's corridors. I prayed for the visually impaired who approached me with little steps, and said hello to those who extended an arm.

On the evening of 18 January we were ushered into the presence of Dr. Carl Cooper. He was a gentleman in his sixties who seemed firm but fair. He inspired trust when he refused to give hope. “There is great damage to her left eye,” he said. “We'll be very careful to avoid leaving any scars.” I went to the cashier to put down a fat sum as an advance. Not to seem disrespectful to Kamil Polat, I signed the release form without reading it. They told us Sim would stay that night in a private room. That evening Dr. Polat and I went to an Italian restaurant on Newbury Street with overly attentive waiters. He drank only one glass of white wine since he would attend Sim's operation the next morning. As he dropped me off at the hotel he said, “Well, the good thing about eye surgeries is that they don't end in death,” which did nothing to decrease my anxiety. Like an adolescent, I was on the brink of saying, “Kamil, I love Sim the way she is now. What if gaining her sight back is the cause of my losing her?”

Back in my room I chose three cocktails at random from the minibar. I pressed against the window to look for the farthest point of light in this town that combined the skyscrapers of New York with the red brick of London. No more merciless a joke than losing Sim as she regained her vision came to mind. I imagined a narrative in which she abandoned me for the love of a genius painter. I wondered what Ahmet of
The Legend of Mount Ararat
would do in this case.

They let me see Sim for five minutes before the operation. As they escorted me out I said, “If worse comes to worst, we can always start where we left off,” recognizing the cliché even as I uttered it. Dr. Polat asked me to return in three hours.

Disturbed by the icy cold of the empty streets, I sought comfort first in the Lame Duck bookstore and then in Grolier, which carried only poetry. I bought
Averno
by Louise Glück for the sake of her beautiful name. As I wandered the Harvard campus it occurred to me that a school isn't the most significant factor in one's education. I took shelter at the Pamplona Café and drank organic teas whose names I was hearing for the first time. I experienced the juvenile ambivalence of a child waiting for his mother at the maternity hospital, excited about the prospect of a sibling but uneasy about sharing his mother's love.

At 12.50 I stood up and walked to Arrow Street. Dr. Cooper had already indicated that he could save Sim's right eye, but I was worried about the next stage. Not knowing how well I could play the part of acting euphoric about a successful outcome, had I found a strategy worthy of Ahmet of
The Legend of Mount Ararat
?

Kamil Polat gave me a thumbs-up and advised me not to embrace her too powerfully—as in the Turkish movies—when he allowed me to see Sim for ten minutes. I poked my head through the half-open door and said, “If my face is uglier than you expected, my body won't bother to come in.” That she had put her pillow upright behind her and was sitting up was a positive sign.

“Come three steps closer and wait for my decision like a good soldier,” she replied, in a voice that seemed to have gained volume. Squinting, she stretched her arms toward me and said, “You're neither as handsome as Samsun described nor as ugly as my grandfather implied.” I hugged her like she was cotton candy and didn't let her go until the nurse warned me. The pure and genuine light in her eye scattered all the dark clouds inside me. That revitalizing green was enough for me. I said, “You look like you've put on new make-up, Sim. It becomes you very well.”

In order to maintain the precision of her sight, the clinic wanted to keep Sim two more days for observation. I called our dearest friends, beginning with her grandfather, to bring them up to date. I left Sami until last. When I came to him, I said, “Sami, you're nothing but an indecent soothsayer. When I get back I may decide to settle our accounts for my fiancée's unopened left eye by closing one of yours.”

We stayed in Boston for five more days, attending the clinic every morning. I knew Sim wouldn't utter any clichés about her joyful recovery, and I was glad of that. As we wandered the city she didn't let go of my right hand, and if she forgot herself and clung to my arm, we smiled at each other ruefully. We took the metro from our hotel to one of the most luxurious malls in town, where Sim leafed through almost every magazine in the bookstore. I rejoiced to watch her looking at the paintings and sculptures in the Boston Museum of Fine Art and the Isabella S. Gardner Museum. She was reluctant to leave the splendid New England Aquarium, saying, “Sharks are wonders of design.”