Songs My Mother Never Taught Me (15 page)

İz's parents, who never once stopped arguing, had come to Istanbul for a family wedding. As her mother looked me up and down suspiciously, I tried to convey with my eyes, ‘Calm down, silly woman, I've no intention of becoming your son-in-law.'

I knew Ä°z and my uncle would like each other. He invited us to his favourite restaurant and produced a small bag in which there were thirty-two news cuttings from 2003. He asked me to pick ten for him to examine and serve up as an absurd novel.

1. Kütahya: When they thought the laser show at the opening of the Z Bar was a UFO they banned laser shows the following year.

2. Samsun: M.P. (22) robbed the local branch of a bank and was caught two months later trying to deposit money at the same branch.

3. Bursa: S.K. (30) shot all the tomatoes when he learned there were no green peppers left in the greengrocer's. ‘What kind of greengrocer is this?' he asked.

4. Adana: The Association for the Protection of Domestic Poultry was busted for organizing cockfights.

5. Bursa: A mosque holding 3,000 people was built in C., a town of 3,000 people.

6. Paris: The Turk who threw his camera on the pitch at the Turkey – Brazil football friendly was identified by the police when they developed the film in his camera.

7. Adapazarı: S.A., the health officer in the Accident and Emergency department of a state hospital, left his place for two hours to a retired mariner, C.V.; a doctor caught the mariner giving stitches to a patient who had cut his hand.

8. Sivas: A.K., dreaming that his wife Ş. was having an affair, killed her in front of her children by cutting her throat.

9. Aydın: Thinking his wife had gone out, M.G. (28) brought his lover back in the boot of his car. Realizing his wife was at home he forgot all about the lover, who was later rescued by the police when they heard banging from the boot.

10. Bursa: Intoxicated L.A. parked her car on a downhill slope, but instead of putting on the handbrake she lay down in front of the car.

I went to the shooting range because I had made a promise to Adil Kasnak and I wanted an excuse to have my registration deleted at the earliest opportunity. That would give me the chance to enjoy some poetic insults from the man shaped like a polar bear. When he asked, ‘Do you really want a receipt?' I recalled a newspaper report on how ‘In the Turkish economy 66 out of every 100 lira goes unrecorded,' and how ‘114 different ways to evade tax have been discovered.'

‘Encouraging your customers in tax evasion doesn't look good, Mr Adil,' I said.

‘Don't be so pompous, my boy, like some youngster who's just stopped wanking and started going to knocking-shops. You must know that this is how the market tries to survive. I apologize for assuming that you might use the tax you've saved for better things than the government ...'

We entered the shooting range together. The place wasn't as primitive as I expected. A dozen heavyweight men with goggles and earplugs were running around like waddling ducks, taking cover behind obstacles, appearing to practise shooting, sometimes single-handed and sideways, at times with both hands, standing up or squatting.

The chaotic improvisation came to an end when the trainer in the red trousers and purple t-shirt blew his whistle. The pupils gathered dutifully round him in a half-circle. I wasn't surprised to hear complaints when they were required to fire six shots in twelve seconds.

‘I could never work with this team,' I told Adil.

‘I thought you might say that, Ergenekon Junior, but if you pay the difference I can arrange for you to take oneto-one lessons from the best shooting coach in the city ...'

So I was going to meet Cahid Çiftçi, who was to have more influence on me than any of my Harvard tutors. Adil Kasnak had added, ‘One of his eccentricities is to get annoyed when people pronounce the last letter of his name as “t”. He is from Eastern Anatolia. His wife died giving birth to twins, who also died. He never remarried. He was a truck driver, but was forced to retire early after a road accident left him with permanent damage to his foot. Before that he must have been the best hunter in the Istranca Mountains. When you get used to his ugly mug you'll realize what an interesting fellow he is, my boy ...'

Cahid didn't look older than forty-five though he had thick ash-coloured hair. He had this depressed look as though he might burst into tears if you asked, ‘How are you?' I thought for a moment he reminded me of Lennie, the naive giant in
Of Mice and Men
. The tides of a deep and noble loneliness were hidden in his eyes. I was expecting Kasnak to scratch his balls, appreciating that we were two of a kind. Cahid Hodja screwed up his face every time he put weight on his lame foot, then looked relieved as though his punishment lessened at each step. I had to work on him for two sessions to stop him addressing me as ‘Sir'.

During training he threw off his haunted look and roared like a fanatical preacher, showing as much respect for the guns as though they were thoroughbred mares. Somehow he spotted in me the talent of a ‘sharpshooter'. (It seems that I'm at one with the gun as if it were part of my body, and my arm forms a natural extension to the grip.) Apparently if the weapon doesn't receive bodily warmth it transmits its own coldness of soul back to the body. Consequently, to be ‘integrated' with the metallic texture, I was confined for ten days to a Webley brand, ‘single-shot' antique revolver. As I grasped the long-handled weapon with both hands and focused on the huge mirror, I recalled a documentary scene of copulating turtles.

On the way to work I would carry this antique gun in my bag, and at home when I went to bed I would hide it under my pillow and pray. The ritual I tolerated for Cahid Hodja's sake was complete when I finally ate the blessed sugar cubes. I imagined my enigmatic Hodja would eventually make me a present of a minimalist Webley.

Cahid Çiftçi's theatrical teaching technique encouraged me. I would feel like grabbing a machinegun and maniacally firing at all the target stands when I heard him say, ‘Well done, you monster, good for you.'

He would say, ‘Draw a virtual line between your right eye and the target, then let the bullets fly like fury along that line.' I could never have imagined that I would be more relaxed at the shooting range than at the swankiest spa. I was happy to join the ranks of the advanced students. On the eighth week, Kasnak had watched my successful performance shooting at a distance of twenty-five and fifty metres. I managed to make him admit, ‘You focus on the target like a born sniper and you caress the trigger as if you're counting prayer beads. Well done!'

Once a week I took Cahid to local restaurants where he chose to read a liberal newspaper, or the colossal
Turkish Dictionary
. I confess I enjoyed watching him looking around suspiciously at the local traders smacking their lips and bolting a quick lunch. Every time he brought the fork to his mouth the sight of him finishing another bite under stress was as impressive as a dervish dance. But to make him sweat from embarrassment I would call İz and exchange erotic chat while we waited for our coffees. He was a good listener in spite of his sorrowful eyes that seemed to say, ‘Don't even try to ask me any personal questions.'

The night of 11 July, when İz left for Adapazarı
²
to witness nature's tragedy, I forced Cahid Çiftçi to come to the İskele Restaurant. Bit by bit I told my Hodja my whole life story. All I learned about him was that he lived in modest Ümraniye, on the second floor of an apartment block. If I did start to look for my father's killer now, I had an accomplished guide who knew how to keep his mouth shut.

From the day I met İz I never had nightmares, except for one in which I made clammy love with my beloved's housemate, Zuhâl, who had had her large breasts cut off, like the woman in one of Küçük İskender's poems. As soon as I kissed İz I was completely at peace with my life. I had met her with the help of the repulsive Selçuk Altun and for this reason I feared the surprise second act of the play.

Uncle Salvador fell in love with the tender young girl in a painting by Herbert Draper, which he bought from a London gallery. The nude with the angelic face in the picture he named Sylvie. Her profile, as she reached out to clasp a 200-year-old strand of seaweed, reminded me of Alexander the Great. My uncle set off on a tour to write an absurd novel. The day he returned to Istanbul he called me excitedly. ‘I could be reaching a turning point in my life, dear Arda,' he said. ‘The captivating girl having anal sex with a one-armed black man on a Dutch-made video that I've watched three times is the spitting image of Sylvie! I'm taking the first flight to Amsterdam and I'm not coming back till I find her.'

‘If you're proposing to marry this porn star I hope you won't claim back the bonds and real estate you passed over to me, because I may not give them back,' I said. Since I had begun to shoot bullets like peanuts I'd become edgy and stubborn.

The morning my uncle shot off to Amsterdam a letter arrived at my office address, written on the back of a supermarket receipt and marked ‘Personal'. Inside a crumpled envelope was written:

SON OF A TURNCOAT JEWISH BITCH! NOW
YOUR LIFE IS GOING TO BE A PRISON,
EFFEMINATE FAGGOT!
WAIT FOR YOUR DEMON FROM HELL ...

Assuming it was a joke by Beste and Güfte, I put the message and its envelope in my jacket pocket and concentrated on my series of meetings. As I set out at night for the shooting range, I felt every particle in my body quiver with paranoia. Surely the teasing twins wouldn't play such a shallow trick? I had never harmed anyone but myself in my entire life, so why was my life to be made a prison? I didn't think my parents had left any unpaid bills. I began to wonder about this threat that so completely missed the mark, from someone unaware that for me imprisoned life would actually be a form of reward.

Annoyed with my bad performance, Cahid Hodja left me alone for a while. The more I pulled the trigger as an act of therapy the more my hands shook. The Hodja returned to me after ten minutes and for the first and last time put his left hand on my shoulder. I can hardly describe how relieved I was to hear him say, ‘I'm ready to forget this session. Your finger won't jump to the trigger unless you're ready, and Arda, you only lose a gun's respect once.'

I didn't mention the note to Ä°z. Two days later I had even forgotten where I'd put it.

On the night of 22 July I dropped İz off and drove home alone. It was the night when six carriages of the Ankara express came off the rails. At first the official number of dead announced was 139, later the figure dropped to 37. The academicians had warned of the weak infrastructure and of the fatal danger it posed if it continued to travel. But those responsible for the calamity refused to resign. I was wandering along the main street which even the stray dogs avoided, and was listening in distress to Pat Metheny. I was trying to find some relief by cursing all those mustachioed men who shared responsibility for the train accident. Though I was intoxicated, I noticed a shadow jumping in front of the car. If I hadn't been cruising slowly my jeep would have thrown him all the way to the Ottoman cemetery. (I shouldn't have stopped under the dim street lamp.) I recognized the stout man reeking of rakı who grinned and suddenly flashed a flick-knife under my chin. Seydo, whom my mother had had beaten up, his shop destroyed and his family chased from Çamlıca for calling me ‘son of a turncoat Jewish bitch', was now back fifteen years later saying, ‘It's me again, you son of a turncoat Jew!'

With a sudden blow to my face he pulled me out of the car and began to drag me towards the seaside cemetery.

‘If you try to yell, I'll carve you up in the middle of the street!'

I shuddered, remembering that I'd read that in our country a crime is committed every two minutes, and that 32.7 per cent of cases that reach the courts remain unresolved. I wasn't expecting to see an empty police box on this dead-end street I had turned into for the second time in my life. Seydo continued his harangue until we reached the point where this squat box like an igloo was illuminated.