Silent House Read online

  Silently, we went up the hill, passing Ismail’s house. I turned onto the Darica Road, going by the cemetery, and then took the old dirt road that ran behind the cement factory, and we swayed back and forth as the car rumbled up the road that had been left rutted by the rain. When we got to the top it had started to sprinkle. I turned the nose of the car toward the view, stopped, and, like the young people who came here from Cennethisar in the middle of the night to kiss, we gazed at the view: the shore that twisted and turned as far as Tuzla, the factories, vacation villages, the campsites of bank employees, the olive groves fast disappearing, the cherry trees, the agricultural college, the meadow where Mehmet the Conqueror died, the barge on the sea, the trees, houses, shadows, all were being swallowed up by the rain that was gradually advancing on us from Tuzla Point. We saw the quivering white trace of the thunderstorm on the sea. I filled my glass with the remains of the raki bottle and drank up.

  “You’ll ruin your stomach!” said Nilgün. “Why do you think my wife left me?” I said. There was a brief silence; then Nilgün said carefully, reluctantly, “I thought the decision was mutual.” “No, she just left me.” “No.” “Actually, yes,” I said. “Hey, look at the rain!” “I don’t understand.” “Don’t understand what? The rain? If you drank you’d understand more. Why don’t you drink? Maybe you consider it a sign of defeat?” “No, I don’t think like that.” “Yes, you do, I know what you think. So I’m surrendering, so what?” “But you haven’t even declared a war yet,” said Nilgün. “I’m surrendering because I can’t stand living with two souls. Do you ever feel that way: sometimes I think I’m two people. But I’ve made up my mind, I’m not going to do it anymore. I’m going to be one person, one whole, completely healthy person. I love the carpet commercials on television, and those for refrigerators overflowing with food, I love my students who raise their hands during exams and ask, Professor, can we start from the second question? I love the magazine supplements of the newspapers, guys who hug one another when they drink, the ads for night schools and sausage that you see inside buses. Do you understand?” “A little,” said Nilgün in a melancholy way. “The sky looks bad, doesn’t it?” “Yes …” “Well, I’m drunk.” “You couldn’t be drunk on what you’ve had.” So I opened one of the bottles of beer, and as I drank from it I said, “Well, what do you think looking down at everything from up here?” “You can’t see everything …,” said Nilgün seeming cheerful now. “What if you could? I remember a passage from The Praise of Folly: if someone were to go to the moon and look down at the earth and see everything happening all at once, what would he think?” “Maybe he would think it was all confusion.” “Yes,” I said, and suddenly I recalled, “ ‘This matter of the imagination seems confused as well …’ ” “What’s that from?” “It’s a poem of Nedim’s from the early eighteenth century!” I said. “His capping off a ghazal of Nesati’s. It just stuck in my mind.” “Recite a little more!” “I don’t remember any more. At the moment, however, I’m rereading Evliya’s travels. Why do you suppose we’re not more like him?” “What do you mean?” “Well, this majestic poet and a singular soul, he manages to be himself. I can’t do it. Can you?” “I guess I haven’t really thought about it enough,” said Nilgün. “Oh,” I said. “So cautious. You’re terrified to take one step outside of your books, you can’t help but keep the faith, like my colleagues … Look, the rain’s made the factory disappear. What a strange place this world is.” “What do you mean?” “I don’t know … Am I boring you?” “Not at all.” “We should have brought Recep along.” “He wouldn’t have come.” “Right, he’d be embarrassed.” “I really like Recep,” said Nilgün. “Chops!” “What?” “That’s the sneaky dwarf in one of Dickens’s novels …” “Faruk, you are really cruel.” “Yesterday he was trying to ask me about some historical event in Üsküdar, I think.” “What did he ask?” “I didn’t really give him a chance to ask! Look what he showed me today!” “You really are cruel.” “A list that our grandfather wrote.” “Our grandfather?” I reached in and pulled it out of my notebook. “Where’d you get that?” “I told you, Recep gave it to me!” I said and began to read aloud. “ ‘Knowledge, hats, pictures, commerce, submarines …’ ” “I don’t get it.” “List of things lacking in our poor Turkey.” “You know Recep’s nephew Hasan?” “No.” “I think that Hasan has been following me, Faruk.” “Shall I continue with the list?” “I’m telling you he’s following me.” “Why should he be following you? Let’s see, ‘submarines, a bourgeoisie, the art of painting, steam power, chess, a zoo …’ ” “I just don’t get it.” “You never even go out—how could he be following you … ‘factories, professors, discipline.’ Pretty funny, isn’t it?” “Every time I come back from the beach this Hasan is behind me.” “Maybe he wants to be friends.” “Yes, that’s what he said.” “Well, that explains it … Our grandfather had given this matter some real thought, all those years ago, let’s see, ‘zoo, factories, professors’—well, I think we have enough professors by now—‘mathematics, principles, sidewalk,’ and then he wrote with a different pen ‘the fear of death’ and ‘the awareness of nothingness’ and ‘liberty.’ ” “That’s enough, Faruk.” “Maybe he’s in love with you.” “Something like that, I suppose.” “Now, here’s his list of the things we have an excess of: ‘men, villagers, bureaucrats, Muslims, soldiers, women, children.’ ” “Those don’t seem funny to me.” “ ‘Coffee, laziness, arrogance, bribery, sleepiness, fear, porters … minarets, honor, cats, dogs, guests, family and friends, bedbugs, oaths, beggars …’ ” “Enough!” “ ‘Garlic, onions, servants, shopkeepers’—certainly too many of all of those—‘little shops, imams …’ ” “You’re making this up.” “I’m not. Take a look.” “It’s in the old script.” “Recep showed this to me today, read it, he said our grandfather gave it to him.” “Why would he have given it to him?” “I don’t know.” “Look at the rain! Is that an airplane I hear?” “Yes!” “In this weather!” “The plane is such an incredible thing!” “Yes!” “Imagine we were in that plane right now.” “It would probably crash. Faruk, let’s go back, I’ve had enough.” “My wife always used to say that. First, tell me what you think of me.” “What I think of you? I love you very much, Faruk.” “Besides that.” “I wish you wouldn’t drink so much.” “And?” “And why are you like this, my wonderful sweet brother?” “Like what?” “I want you to be happy!” “You think I’m no fun? Wait, let me entertain you. Where’s my notebook? Hand it here! Listen: ‘Butcher Halil’s twenty-one akçe’s worth of beef were weighed and came out one hundred twenty dirhems short.’ The date, the thirteenth of Zilhicce 1023, so that’s, let’s see, January fourteenth 1615.” “But what does it mean?” “The meaning is very clear: ‘The servant Isa robbed his master Ahmet of thirty thousand akçe, a saddle, a horse, two swords, and a shield, then took refuge with someone named Ramazan.’ ” “Very interesting! Maybe you should turn on the windshield wipers.” “Interesting? What’s interesting about it?” “It makes me glad that these things intrigue you, but please, dear brother, don’t drink so much.” “Nilgün, would you like to come stay with me?” “What?” “Not in this car, at my house, I’m very serious now, instead of living with our aunt in Istanbul, Nilgün, come stay with me. There’s a huge empty room and I’m all alone.” There was a silence. “Thank you, it is a good idea,” said Nilgün. “Well?” “I’m just wondering if my aunt and her family would think it was rude.” “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go back.” I turned on the ignition and started the windshield wipers.

  25

  Metin Pushes His Luck and His Car

  Because everyone had had such a good time the night before, they decided that the best thing would be to do it again, and that’s how we wound up hanging around Turan’s a second night. But when everyone started complaining about having to listen to the same music, too, Funda started pushing Ceylan to go home and get her best of Elvis album to liven things up.

  “In this rain?”
r />   “I have my car, Ceylan,” I said cautiously.

  And so Ceylan and I, just the two of us, left the house, and that drowsy, cranky bunch slowly being poisoned by the boredom of the awful music, and we headed off in my brother’s old Anadol. We sailed along saying nothing as the raindrops dripped off the leaves, the wet, dark road suddenly appeared in the light of the old car’s dim headlamps, and the rusty windshield wipers kept up their sad whispering. When we stopped in front of Ceylan’s house, I waited as she leaped out toward the door and followed her orange skirt, which was dazzling even in the gloomy rain. Then when the lights in the house went on, I tried to imagine Ceylan going from room to room and what she was doing there. What a strange thing love is! A little later Ceylan came running out with the record in her hand and got into the car.

  “I had a fight with my mother!” she said. “ ‘Where do you think you are going at this hour!’ ” she said, mimicking her mother.

  We were silent again, until I drove right past Turan’s house without even slowing. Ceylan asked, nervously, even suspiciously, “Where are we going?”

  “I’m getting tired of those guys! Let’s go for a spin, okay, Ceylan? I’m really bored, and it would be nice to get some air!”

  “Okay, but not a long one, they’re waiting.”

  I went slowly through the back streets, totally pleased with myself. When I saw the pale lights from the little houses of those decent, ordinary folks peering out from their windows or from their little balconies at the trees to see whether the rain was letting up, I thought, Oh, what a fool I am to believe that we could be like this, that we could get married, that we could even have children. But when it came time to go back, I pulled another childish move and instead of heading toward Turan’s, I left the neighborhood and started speeding up the hill.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  I didn’t answer or even turn my head, but just kept going, my eyes glued to the road, like a good race driver. Then, even though she would know it was a lie, I said that we had to get gas.

  “No, let’s go back now!” she said. “They’re waiting for us.”

  “I just want to be alone for a little bit so we can talk, Ceylan.”

  “About what?” she said sternly.

  “What do you think about what happened last night?”

  “I don’t think anything! Things like that happen, we were both drunk.”

  “Is that all you’ve got to say?” I said resentfully as I pressed down harder on the gas.

  “Come on, Metin, let’s go back. It’s rude.” “I’ll never forget last night!” Cringing at the cheesiness of my own words.

  “Well, you drank a lot, it’d be better if you didn’t drink so much again!”

  “No, not because of that!” I couldn’t help taking her hand, which was resting on the seat cushion. Her little hand was burning hot, but she didn’t pull it back as I had feared. So I said, “I love you,” feeling very ashamed.

  “Let’s go back!”

  I squeezed her hand tighter and thought of my mother, whom I can barely remember, and as I tried to put my arms around Ceylan, she screamed.

  “Look out!”

  A pair of mercilessly powerful lights was in my eyes, coming straight at us, so I pulled sharply to the right. A long truck passed like a train with a huge roar, blaring its horrible shrill horn. Since I had forgotten to step on the clutch while leaning on the brake, the old Anadol shuddered to a halt as the engine stalled. And then I couldn’t hear anything but the song of the crickets.

  “Were you afraid?” I said.

  “No. Let’s go right back, it’s getting late!”

  I turned the ignition key, but the motor wouldn’t start. I tried it again, but still no luck. I got out of the car and tried to get it going with a push, but that didn’t work either. Working myself into a sweat, I finally managed to push it onto the flat road. Then I got in, turned off the lights to save the battery, and let the old Anadol slide quickly and silently down the long hill.

  As the tires sped up, they made a nice sound on the wet asphalt, and we went gliding downhill like a ship setting sail in the black darkness of the open sea. A few times I said, Let me try the motor, but it still didn’t work. When a bolt of lightning struck somewhere in the distance, in the bright yellow light that filled the sky we could see people writing slogans on the walls. After that I didn’t use the brake at all, even as we made the curve, and with the momentum from the hill we were able to glide all the way down to the train bridge and after that very slowly as far as the gas station on the Ankara highway. At the gas station I got out of the car and went into the office. Leaning over the table, I woke up the attendant and told him the engine wouldn’t start and the clutch seemed to be broken. I asked if there was anybody who knew about Anadols.

  “It doesn’t have to be somebody for Anadols,” the attendant said. “Just wait a minute!”

  In a Mobil oil ad that was on the wall, the model holding a can of gasoline looked incredibly like Ceylan. I returned to the car stupefied.

  “I love you, Ceylan!”

  She was angrily smoking a cigarette. “We’re late!”

  “I said I love you.”

  We must have just been staring emptily at each another. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I made as if I’d forgotten something, got out of the car, and quickly walked off. I found a dark corner, not too far, and just watched from a distance. In the dim light of the irritating neon sign blinking overhead, the cigarette smoker was only a shadow. I continued sweating as I saw the red tip of the cigarette flare up every few seconds. I must have stayed there like that for almost half an hour, watching her and feeling like a low-class sneak. Then I went to a stand a little ways down the road and bought a chocolate, the brand you see advertised most on television. Finally, I went back to the car and sat down next to her.

  “Where were you? I was worried,” she said. “We’re terribly late. They’ll be wondering what happened.”

  “Look, I got you a present.”

  “Oh, hazelnut! I don’t like that one.”

  I told her I loved her; she didn’t react; I tried again, then let my head fall on the hand she had in her lap. And from there I was able to quickly kiss her nervous fidgeting hand a few times, and then, as if I were afraid of something getting away from me, I took her hand in mine. After kissing it some more I lifted my head up so I could get some fresh air, and so that I might not drown in the despair I felt engulfing me.

  “People are watching!” she said.

  I retreated for the moment and went over to watch a family of laborers returning from Germany for the summer. They’d stopped for gas, but the light above the pumps must have been broken, because it just kept blinking on and off. I really didn’t want to, but my feet carried me back to resume the same pointless idiocy inside the car.

  “I love you!”

  “Oh, come on, Metin, let’s go back!”

  “Let’s just stay a little longer, Ceylan, please!”

  “If you really loved me, you wouldn’t hold me hostage out here in the middle of nowhere!”

  I was trying to think of something to say that would seem more meaningful, but when you get down to it, words aren’t very useful at baring our souls, they’re just something else we hide behind. As I was looking around helplessly, I saw something in the backseat: a notebook. Faruk must have left it there. I started flipping through it in the neon light, and then I showed it to Ceylan, trying to keep her from exploding out of boredom or anger or both. She read a few lines, gritting her teeth, before suddenly throwing it into the backseat of the car, exasperated. When the guy finally came to repair the car, I got out to help him push it to where he could see better, and in that harsh light I saw Ceylan’s cold empty face.

  Later, after the mechanic and I had checked the engine, and he’d gone off to buy a part, I looked again and saw Ceylan still had the same cold and bored look on her face. I walked away from the broken Anadol in the rain, which had start
ed again, full of confusing thoughts about love and cursing all those poets and singers who glorify this disastrous and destructive emotion. But then I remembered that there was something about this terrible feeling that made people put up with it and even enjoy it. Even so, I couldn’t take Ceylan’s resentful look, so I slid under the car with the mechanic while he was working. There, in the dirty greasy darkness, covered by the old car, I felt Ceylan just fifty centimeters above me and yet very far away. Eventually, the engine turned over, and from where I was I could see Ceylan’s lovely feet and long beautiful legs getting out of the car. Her red high heels carried her first a few steps to the left, and then changed course and took her to the right, before she got really annoyed and, finally figuring out where she meant to go, headed there in angry determination.

  When her orange skirt and broad back finally entered my field of vision I realized she had gone into the office. I quickly slid out from under the car and, telling the guy to “make it snappy!” ran after her. Inside, Ceylan was eyeing the telephone on the desk, and the attendant sitting there, still sleepy, was eyeing Ceylan.

  “That’s okay, Ceylan!” I shouted. “I’ll call them.”

  “Did you just think of that now?” she said. “We’re very late. They’ll be worried, who knows what they’ll be thinking … It’s two in the morning …” She was going on, but, thank God, the sleepy attendant went outside because a car had pulled up to the pumps, and I was spared further humiliation as I opened the directory and immediately found Turan’s family. As I was dialing, Ceylan was saying, “You’re really inconsiderate!”