Silent House Read online

  “Satisfied, uncle?” he said. “We made the night two months later. Now five hundred liras please!”

  Finally he took out the money and gave it to us. That’s the way it is: only the idiot Turkish-language teachers in our school think you can sweet-talk the snake out of its hole. I was so ticked off, I said, Let me hurt this old cheapskate, let me take care of him. As we were going out, I stopped and pulled out one of the peaches from the very bottom of the mound he had arranged by the front door. But he was lucky, and they didn’t all come tumbling down. I put the peach in my bag before we moved on to the barber’s.

  The barber was washing somebody’s head under the faucet. He looked at us in the mirror.

  “I’ll take two, guys,” he said, without letting go of the head in his hands.

  “If you want, you could have ten, brother,” said Mustafa. “You could sell them here.”

  “Leave two, that’s enough,” said the barber. “Aren’t you from the Association?”

  Two! I suddenly lost it. “No, not just two, you’ll take ten,” I said and counted out ten tickets and held them out.

  Even Serdar was surprised. Well, gentlemen, now you see, if I lose my temper this is what I’m like. But the barber didn’t take the tickets.

  “How old are you?” he said.

  The soapy head in his hand was now staring at me in the mirror, too.

  “You’re not taking them?” I said.

  “Maybe we make it eighteen,” said Serdar.

  “Who sent you from the Association?” he said. “You’re awfully excitable.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say and looked at Mustafa.

  “Don’t mind it, brother,” said Mustafa. “He’s still new. He doesn’t know you.”

  “It’s obvious that he’s new. Guys, leave me two tickets.”

  He took two hundred liras out of his pocket. The other guys immediately warmed up to him, practically kissed his hand, and immediately forgot all about me. So if you know the guys in the Association it means you’re the king around here? I pulled out two tickets and held them out. But he didn’t turn and take them.

  “Leave them over there!”

  I put them down. I was about to say something, but I didn’t.

  “See you, guys!” he said and then, pointing to me with the top of the shampoo bottle in his hand, “Is this one in school, working?”

  “He’s been left behind from sophomore year.”

  “What does your father do?”

  I kept quiet.

  “His father sells lottery tickets,” said Mustafa.

  “Watch out for this little fox!” said the barber. “He’s a real live one. Okay, I’ll see you.”

  Our guys all laughed. I said, Let me say something, and I was just about to say it—Make sure you take good care of your helper here, okay?—but I didn’t. I left without looking at the helper’s face. Serdar and Mustafa were laughing between themselves, but I wasn’t listening, I was ticked off. Then Serdar said something to Mustafa like this:

  “He’s just remembered he’s a barber; forget about it.”

  I didn’t say anything. My job was to carry the bag and when necessary to take out the tickets and pass them out. I’m only here with you because they called us from Cennethisar and gave us this job and I have nothing to say to you who are on the side of the shopkeepers and make fun of me and laugh and call me names, so I’m just keeping quiet. We went into a pharmacy and I was silent, we went into a butcher’s and I was silent, same in the grocer’s, and after that, at the hardware shop and the coffee seller’s and the café, I was just as silent, not saying anything even when we reached the end of the market. When we came out of the last store Mustafa stuck his hands in his pocket.

  “We each deserve a helping of meatballs after this,” he said. But still, I was silent, keeping it to myself that they didn’t give us that money so we could eat meatballs.

  “Yeah,” said Serdar. “We each deserve a helping after this.”

  But when we sat down in the meatball shop they ordered two helpings each. If they were having two each, I wasn’t going to have just one. While we waited for the meatballs, Mustafa took out the money and counted it: seventeen thousand liras. Then he said to Serdar:

  “Why does he have that look on his face?”

  “He’s mad we called him a fox,” said Serdar.

  “Idiot!” said Mustafa. But I didn’t pay attention because I was looking at a calendar on the wall. Then the meatballs came. We ate with them talking and me not talking. They wanted dessert, too. I ordered a revani; it was good.

  Mustafa took out his gun and began to play with it under the table.

  “Give it to me!” said Serdar.

  He played with it, too. They didn’t give it to me and shared a laugh about that before Mustafa stuck it in his waistband, paid the bill, and we got up to leave.

  We walked through the market afraid of no one, entered the building where the office was, and went upstairs without saying a word. When we went to the Association, as usual, I felt afraid. I get all stupidly excited as if I’m cheating on a test and the teacher’s seen me and knows why I look so nervous.

  “This is the whole market, right?” he said.

  “Yes, brother,” said Mustafa. “All the places you said.”

  “You have it all with you?”

  “Yes,” said Mustafa. He took out the gun and the money.

  “I’ll just take the tool,” he said. “Turn over the money to Mr. Zekeriya.”

  Mustafa gave him the gun. The good-looking guy went inside. Mustafa went too. We waited. For a while, I thought: What are we waiting for; I forgot that we were waiting for Mr. Zekeriya so it was like we were waiting for nothing. Then somebody our age came and offered us cigarettes. I said, I don’t smoke, but I took one. He took out a lighter shaped like a locomotive and gave us a light.

  “Are you with the Young Nationalists from Cennethisar?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “What’s it like around there?”

  I thought about what he meant. The cigarette had a weird taste. I felt like an old man.

  “The upper neighborhood is ours,” said Serdar.

  “I know,” he said. “I’m asking about the seashore. Where the Tuzla Communists are.”

  “Nothing,” I blurted out. “There’s nothing in Cennethisar on the seashore. It’s all rich society people.”

  He looked at me and laughed. I laughed too.

  “So what?” he said. “You never know!”

  When he laughed at the mention of “society people,” what did he mean? Serdar got up too and went inside somewhere, as if he intended that everyone coming and going should see me out there all alone and would figure out that I was new. I smoked cigarettes and looked at the ceiling, as if thinking important thoughts, things so important that it would be obvious to people going in and out as soon as they saw me: The problems of our movement! There was a book like that I’d read. As I thought that, Mustafa came out of the room and hugged somebody and just then everybody pulled back: Mr. Zekeriya had arrived. He took a good look at me on his way into the room, and I got up, but not all the way. Then they called in Mustafa. When he went inside I wondered what they would talk about, and when they came out again this time I stood up.

  “Good!” said Mr. Zekeriya to our Mustafa. “We’ll get word to you when we need to. Good work!”

  He looked at me for a second and I thought he was going to say something to me but he didn’t: he just abruptly sneezed and went upstairs again; to the party headquarters, as they say. Then Mustafa talked in whispers to a kid who had just been talking to me. First I thought they were talking about me, but that was crazy, they were talking about politics … I looked away so they wouldn’t think I was listening and curious.

  Then Mustafa said, “Okay, guys, we’re going.”

  I left the bag. We went to the station without talking, like men satisfied they had done a good job. Then I wondered why Mustafa wasn’t talki
ng. I wasn’t annoyed with him anymore. How did he like the way I did my part? I wondered. Sitting on the bench waiting for the train I thought about this, then when I saw a lottery shop I thought of my father, even though I didn’t want to think about my father now, but I thought about him anyway and I muttered what I wanted to say to him: The most important thing in life isn’t a high school diploma, Dad.

  When we boarded the train, Serdar and Mustafa were whispering to each other again. They say something or tell some kind of joke and make me look like an idiot. Then I try to think of a comeback, but I can’t find one right away and while I’m trying to think of it they see the concentration on my face and laugh even harder, then I get mad and can’t help myself and curse, and they laugh harder still, and then I realize that I look even more like an idiot now. When that happens I want to be by myself, when a person is by himself he can relax and think about all the great things he could say and do. Sometimes they make jokes that I don’t understand; they wink at each other, like they did just before when they said that word: fox! What kind of animal is that, anyway? There was girl in elementary school, she brought her encyclopedia to school, an animal encyclopedia, you’d say tiger, open it, and look at the Ts. If I had that encyclopedia I’d open it, and look up “fox,” but that girl wouldn’t let me see it. No, you’ll get it dirty! Okay, bitch, then why did you bring it to school? That girl went to Istanbul, of course, because her father was rich, they said. And she had a friend, with a blue ribbon in her hair …

  I drifted off … When the train came to Tuzla I was excited, but not scared. The Communists could get on at any moment. Serdar and Mustafa had stopped talking; they looked pissed off. Nothing happened. As the train moved on, I could read what the Communists had written on the walls: TUZLA WILL BE THE GRAVE OF THE FASCISTS! The people they called the fascists were us. I cursed a little. Then the train came to our station and we got off. We walked without talking and came to the stop.

  “Guys, I have things to do,” said Mustafa. “Take care!” We watched him as he disappeared among the minibuses.

  “I don’t want to go home and study in this heat,” I said to Serdar.

  “Yeah,” said Serdar. “It is hot.”

  “I can’t think straight anyway,” I said. I paused for a minute. “Come on, Serdar,” I said. “Let’s walk over to the coffeehouse.”

  “No. I’m going to the store. I have work.”

  If your father has a store, then you automatically have a job as well. But I’m still in school, I didn’t drop out like you. But the strange thing is I’m the one they tease the most. I’m positive Serdar is going to the coffeehouse this evening to tell everyone about “the fox.” Well, don’t worry about it, Hasan. I didn’t; I started to climb up the hill.

  As I watched the trucks and cars going quickly by to catch the car ferry at Cennethisar or Darica, I enjoyed feeling as though I were alone, and I yearned to have an adventure. There are lots of things that do happen in life and lots that could, but you’re just left waiting for them. It seemed to me that those things I wanted were coming very slowly, and when they did happen it wasn’t the way I’d wanted and planned; they’d all taken too long, as if to annoy me, and then suddenly you’d look, and they’d have already passed. Like those cars going by. They started to irritate me, especially since I was watching to see if one of them might stop and save me the bother of having to climb the hill in this heat, but nobody cares in this world. I started to eat my peach, but it didn’t make things any better.

  If only it were winter, I’d want to walk all by myself on the beach right now, go in the open door without worrying about anybody else. The waves would come and crash on the beach, and every once in a while I would scramble and run back to keep my shoes from getting wet as I walked along and thought about my life, how I would absolutely be an important person one day, how not only all those guys but the girls too would look at me differently then. I wouldn’t need anybody else if it were winter. But there’s school in the winter, goddamn it, and those crappy teachers …

  Then I saw the white Anadol coupe going up the hill. As it slowly got closer I realized that they were in it, but instead of waving to them I turned and hid my face. They went right by without realizing it was me. As they passed I thought for a moment maybe I was mistaken, because Nilgün wasn’t that pretty when we were little! But who else could the driver be except that fatso Faruk. Then I figured out where I’d go instead of home: I’d go down the hill, linger around their door, maybe I’d see my uncle the dwarf, and he’d ask me in, and if I wasn’t too embarrassed I’d go inside, I’d say hello, maybe I’d even kiss their grandmother’s hand, then I’d say, did you recognize me, I’m all grown up. Sure, they’d say, we recognized you, we were really good friends when we were little, weren’t we, we’d talk and talk, we were friends when we were little, we’d talk and maybe I’d forget about this foul mood I’m in.

  4

  Faruk at the Wheel

  As the Anadol slowly made its way up the hill I asked:

  “Did you all recognize him?”

  “Who?” said Nilgün.

  “The one in blue walking on the side of the road. He knew us right off.”

  “The tall one?” said Nilgün. She turned around and looked back, but we were far away by now. “Who was it?”

  “Hasan!”

  “Hasan who?” said Nilgün, at a loss.

  “Recep’s nephew.”

  “He’s gotten so big!” said Nilgün, surprised. “I didn’t recognize him.”

  “Shame on you!” said Metin. “Your childhood friend.”

  “Well, why didn’t you recognize him then?” said Nilgün.

  “I didn’t even see him. But as soon as Faruk said something I knew who it was.”

  “Good for you!” said Nilgün. “You’re so smart!”

  “You mean that I’ve completely changed this past year, that’s what you mean,” said Metin. “But you’re the one who’s forgotten her own past.”

  “You’re talking nonsense.”

  “All those books you read make you forget everything!” said Metin.

  “Don’t be a smart aleck!” said Nilgün.

  They stopped talking. Then there was a long silence. We went up the hill where ugly new concrete buildings were being built every year, passing between the gradually disappearing vineyards, cherry orchards, and fig trees.

  The portable radio was playing some random “light Western pop.” When we saw the sea and Cennethisar in the distance, I sensed from the silence something of the excitement we’d felt as kids, but it didn’t last. We went downhill without saying a word, and made our way through the noisy sunburned crowds in their shorts and bathing suits. As Metin was opening the garden gate, Nilgün said, “Honk the horn, Faruk.”

  I put the car in the garden and looked glumly over the house, which seemed older and emptier each time I came. The paint on the woodwork was all peeling, the vines had crept from the side wall to the front, the shadow of the fig tree fell on Grandmother’s closed shutters, and the wrought iron on the downstairs windows was completely rusted. I had a strange feeling: it was as if there were terrible things in this house that I had never apprehended before owing to familiarity but that I was now recognizing with surprise and anxiety. I peered into Grandmother and Recep’s damp, deadly interior darkness, which was visible between the decrepit wings of the big front door they’d left open for us.

  “Come on, get out, Faruk, what are you sitting there for?” said Nilgün.

  Walking straight toward the house, she saw Recep’s little figure pop out of the small kitchen door and waddle eagerly toward us. They exchanged hugs and kisses. I turned off the radio that nobody was listening to and got out into the silent garden. Recep was in that jacket he always wore to hide his age and that same weird tie of his. We embraced and kissed as well.

  “I was worried,” said Recep. “You’re late!”

  “How are you?”

  “Oh,” he said, bashful about
being asked, “I’m good. I made your beds and prepared your rooms. Madam is waiting. Have you put on some weight, Faruk Bey?”

  “How’s Grandmother?”

  “Fine … as long as she can complain … Let me take your bags.”

  “We’ll get them later.”

  We followed Recep upstairs. As I was reminded of the dusty light inside the house that seeped through the shutters and the smell of mildew, I felt somehow happy. When we came to Grandmother’s door, Recep stopped for a minute, caught his breath, then, with his eyes gleaming calculated cheerfulness, he called out:

  “They’re here, Madam, they’ve arrived!”

  “Where are they?” said the irritated old grandmother voice. “Why didn’t you tell me, where are they?”

  She was lying under a blue flowered quilt, leaning back on three pillows propped one behind the other, in the bed whose brass knobs I used to tap to make them ring when I was a child. One by one, we kissed her hand, which was white and soft, the familiar moles and spots on its wrinkled skin like old friends. The room, Grandmother, and the hand all had the same smell.

  “God give you long life!”

  “How are you, Grandma?”

  “Terrible,” said Grandmother, but we didn’t say anything. Her lips twitched a little, as if she were a shy young girl or pretending to be. Then she said, “Okay, now, what have you got to say for yourselves?”

  As we three siblings looked at one another there was a long silence. The room smelled of mildew, furniture wax, old soap, maybe mint candy, a little lavender, cologne, and dust.

  “Well, don’t you have anything to say to me?”

  “We came here by car, Grandmother,” said Metin. “It’s exactly fifty minutes from Istanbul.”

  He says this every time, and every time Grandmother’s stubborn face seems distracted for a moment before resuming its expectant expression.

  “How long did it used to take you, Grandmother?” said Nilgün, as if she didn’t know.

  “I just came once!” said Grandmother with triumphant pride. She took a breath and added: “And today I’ll ask the questions, not you!” She seemed to like this phrase she used habitually but then struggled for a moment, unable to think of anything as clever as she wanted.