Silent House Read online

  “There’s a chaise longue over there,” said Ceylan, pointing with the tip of her nose.

  Walking over to the chaise longue I saw it: horrifying furniture inside the open door of the concrete house; in American films, rich unhappy couples sit on furniture like this, drinking whiskey and shouting at each other as they argue about their troubled marriages. The smell of furniture, wealth, and luxury wafting out of the house seemed almost to challenge me—What are you doing here?—but I gave it some thought and I relaxed: I’m smarter than all of them! I looked at the gardener still watering the lawn, I picked up the chaise, went back with it, and sat down beside them listening to the chitchat while trying to decide whether I was in love or not.

  Fafa was dishing some dirt about our classmates, and Ceylan, also in our class, kept saying, tell them about this, and, oh, tell them about that, so that by the time the stories had ended I’d been roasted by the sun, and to top it off, I still hadn’t made up my mind. Then, not wanting to seem like some kind of boor who didn’t enjoy a joke, I decided to tell them some similarly retarded stories of mine, so I described in detail how we stole the exam questions from the principal’s office, but I left out how much money we made selling them to some stupid rich kids, some of whom had to pay a second time to get the answers, too, because I figured they would take it the wrong way, my having to do little jobs like that because I didn’t have a rich father to give me an Omega wristwatch for my birthday or some other bogus occasion, it would seem crude to them, even though their fathers were up to pretty much the same kind of thing from morning till night. The terrible racket of a motorboat pulling up shattered the relaxed atmosphere. They all turned their heads and looked. I deduced it was Fikret. He came in at high speed as though he were going to crash into the quay, then suddenly stopped, raising a big spray of water before jumping ashore with some difficulty.

  “What’s up, guys?” he said, shooting me a glance.

  “Let me introduce you,” said Vedat. “Metin, Fikret!”

  “Guys, what do you want to drink?” said Ceylan.

  Everybody said Coca-Cola.

  Fikret didn’t even answer but just pursed his lips and waved away the offer, as if to suggest he had too much on his mind even to enjoy a Coke.

  I looked over but couldn’t figure out whether Ceylan felt sorry for him or not. But I understood something else: I’ve been wise to this game the Fikrets play for years. If you’re ugly and stupid and you want girls to look at you, you better at least come off really deep, and it doesn’t hurt to have a boat that sounds really fast and a car that goes even faster. Ceylan brought the drinks. They sat for a long time talking, glasses in hand.

  “Anyone want to listen to some music?”

  “Where are we going tonight?”

  “Hey, didn’t you say you had an Elvis album?”

  “I do. Where is that ‘Best of Elvis’?”

  It all must have been too exhausting to consider, or maybe it was the sun, but they fell silent for a while until they piped up again, but then they stopped before they spoke again and stopped once more; during that last lull, some awful music blared out from an invisible speaker and I thought it was time for me to say something.

  “This is really banal music!” I said. “In America they only listen to stuff like this in long elevator rides.”

  “Long elevator rides?”

  Yes, Ceylan, and as I spoke, I watched you looking at me pretending that you weren’t, because, yes, I probably believed I was in love now, so though I was embarrassed, I explained it to you, Ceylan. I said how important to the lives of New Yorkers these elevator rides were, how the Empire State Building was exactly twelve hundred and fifty feet and one hundred two stories high, and how there was a fifty-mile view from it, but I didn’t mention that I hadn’t been to New York and seen that view yet, only that according to the 1957 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica in our school library the population of the city was 7,891,957, while, according to the same edition, it had been 7,454,995 in 1940.

  “Ugh!” said Fafa. “You memorized it like a little brownnoser?”

  When you laughed at her, too, Ceylan, I had to prove that I wasn’t somebody who memorized things just to brownnose, and so to give an idea how smart I am, I announced that, for example, I could multiply any pair of two-digit numbers in my head.

  “Yes,” said Vedat. “This guy has an awesome brain, the whole school knows it!”

  “Seventeen times nineteen?” said Ceylan.

  “Eight hundred thirty-three!” I said.

  “Seventy times fourteen?”

  “One thousand eight!”

  “How do we know it’s right?” said Ceylan.

  I was excited, but I just smiled at her.

  “I’m getting a pen and paper,” said Ceylan.

  Because you couldn’t stand that irritating smile on my face, Ceylan, you jumped up from your seat and ran inside among that awful furniture returning a little later with a notepad from some Swiss hotel and a silver fountain pen and an angry look on your face.

  “Thirty-three times twenty-seven equals?” “Eight hundred ninety-one.” “Seventeen times twenty-seven equals?” “Five hundred thirteen.” “Eighty-one times seventy-nine equals?” “Six thousand three hundred thirty-nine!” “Seventeen times nineteen equals?” “Three hundred twenty-three!” “No, three hundred seventy-three!” “Please multiply it again, Ceylan,” “Okay, three hundred twenty-three!” “Ninety-nine times ninety-nine equals?” “That’s the easiest: nine thousand eight hundred one!”

  “You really memorized them all, like a brownnoser!”

  I just smiled and thought how those cheesy books that say all love begins as hatred were right.

  Afterward, Ceylan went waterskiing on Fikret’s boat, and I immersed myself in thought about the phenomenon of competition, realizing right away that I would probably be at it until the middle of the night, because Goddamn it: I believed I was in love now.

  6

  Recep Serves Breakfast

  I woke up, put on my jacket and tie, and went outside. It was a beautiful morning, still and bright! There were crows and sparrows in the trees. I looked at the shutters, all shut; they were still sleeping, they got to bed late last night. Faruk Bey drank, and Nilgün watched him. Madam shouted something from upstairs once in a while. I hadn’t even heard Metin come in. I worked the pump slowly, not to disturb them by its creaking; I splashed the cold morning water on my face, then I went inside, slicing myself two pieces of bread in the kitchen, which I took out to the chicken coop. As the chickens fluttered around clucking, I broke two eggs carefully at one end, drank the liquid inside, and ate my bread. Leaving the coop door open, I was bringing the other eggs back to the kitchen when I received a surprise: Nilgün was awake; she was going somewhere with her bag. When she saw me she smiled.

  “Good morning, Recep.”

  “Where are you going at this hour?”

  “To the sea. It’s crowded later. I’ll just take a dip. Are the eggs from the coop?”

  “Yes,” I said, somehow feeling guilty. “Do you want breakfast?”

  “I do,” said Nilgün, laughing, and left.

  I watched her from behind. A cautious, fussy, wary cat. Sandals on her feet, legs bare. When she was little, her legs were like sticks. I went inside and put on water for the tea. Her mother had been the same. Now she was in the graveyard. We’ll go and we’ll pray. Did she remember her mother? She wouldn’t, she was only three. Doğan Bey was a district administrator in the east; he sent them here the last two summers. Your mother would sit in the garden with Metin on her lap and you at her side, the sun would be on her pale face all day long, but she’d go back to Kemah as white as she came. I used to say to her, Would you like some cherry juice, küçükhanim, Thank you, Recep, she’d say, put it over there, little Metin on her lap; I’d put it down, two hours later I’d look, and she’d only have had two sips from the big glass. Then Faruk would come in, fat and sweaty. Mom, I’m thirsty,
he’d say, and down the whole thing in one gulp. Good for you! I got out the tablecloth and was spreading it on the table when the smell hit me: Faruk Bey spilled raki on the table last night. I went and got a cloth to wipe it. By now the water had boiled; I brewed the tea. There was milk left over from last night. I’ll go to Nevzat tomorrow. I thought of having a coffee, but I held back and gave myself over to work. While I was setting the table Faruk came downstairs. His heavy steps made the boards squeak, just like his grandfather’s. He yawned and muttered something.

  “I made tea,” I said. “Sit and I’ll bring you your breakfast.”

  He plopped onto the chair from which he’d been drinking last night.

  “Do you want milk, too?” I said. “We have some good, rich milk.”

  “Okay, bring it!” he said. “It’ll be good for my stomach.”

  I went to the kitchen. His stomach. Those poisonous liquids he kept drinking would burn a hole through it in the end. If you drink again, Madam said, you’ll die. Did you hear what the doctor said? Doğan Bey looked down, thinking, then he said something like: If my mind can’t function I’m better off dying, Mother, I can’t live without thinking, but Madam said, this isn’t thinking, my boy, it’s just depression, but they had stopped listening to each other by that point. Then Doğan Bey died, writing all those letters. Blood was coming out of his mouth, just like his father, it must have been from his stomach, Madam was sobbing, calling for me, as though I could do something. Before he died I took off his bloody shirt, put a freshly ironed one on him, and he was gone. We’ll go to the cemetery. I boiled the milk and poured it nicely into a glass. The belly is a dark world that only the Prophet Jonah knows. When I think of that dark pit my hair stands on end. But it was as though I didn’t have a stomach; because I know my limits, I’m not like them. When I brought the milk, I saw that Nilgün had arrived, so quick! Her wet hair was beautiful.

  “Should I give you your breakfast?” I said.

  “Isn’t Grandmother coming down to breakfast?” said Nilgün.

  “She’s coming down,” I said. “She comes down mornings and evenings.”

  “Why doesn’t she come down for lunch?”

  “She doesn’t like the noise from the beach,” I said. “I bring a tray up to her at midday.”

  “Let’s wait for Grandmother,” said Nilgün. “When does she wake up?”

  “She’s been awake for a long time,” I said. I looked at my watch: eight thirty.

  “Hey, Recep!” said Nilgün. “I got the paper from the grocer. I’ll get it in the morning from now on.”

  “Whatever you wish,” I said, going upstairs.

  “What’s the point?” Faruk said. “What do you gain by reading how many people killed how many other people, how many were nationalist, how many were Marxist, how many of them weren’t on either side?”

  I headed upstairs. You have no ideas, Recep! Death! I think about the hereafter, and I’m afraid, because a person is naturally curious. The source of all knowledge is curiosity, said Selâhattin Bey, you understand, Recep? Upstairs, I tapped on the door.

  “Who’s there?” she said.

  “It’s me, Madam.”

  She had opened the closet and was rooting through it. She made as if to close the door.

  “What is it?” she said. “What are they shouting about downstairs?”

  “They’re waiting for you to come for breakfast.”

  “Is that why they’re yelling at one another?”

  The old smell from the closet spread out in the room. As I smelled it, I was remembering.

  “No,” I said, “they’re only kidding around.”

  “At the table, first thing in the morning?”

  “If you’re concerned, I’ll say something, Madam,” I said. “But Faruk isn’t drinking. People don’t drink at this hour.”

  “Don’t cover for them!” she said. “And don’t lie to me! I can tell right away.”

  “I’m not lying,” I said. “They’re waiting for you to come for breakfast.” She was still looking inside the closet. “Shall I bring you down?”

  “No!”

  “Will you eat in bed? I can bring up the tray.”

  “Bring it up,” she said. “Tell them to be ready.”

  “They are ready.”

  “Fine. Close the door.”

  Every year before visiting the graveyard she rummaged through the closet as if she were going to find something she’d never seen or worn before, but in the end she wound up wearing that same awful heavy coat. I went to the kitchen to fetch her some bread.

  “So what’s the count?” Faruk was saying to Nilgün. “How many killed yesterday in street shootings?”

  “Total of seventeen,” Nilgün read aloud, then remarked, “Half of them right-wingers and half leftists, I guess.”

  “Your grandmother says she’s not coming down to breakfast,” I said. “I’ll go ahead and serve yours.”

  “Why isn’t she coming down?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “She’s going through her closet … Nilgün Hanim, you’re sitting in a wet bathing suit, you’ll catch a cold. Go up and change and then read the paper …”

  “Look, she didn’t even hear you,” said Faruk. “She’s mesmerized reading about the dying and the dead. She’s still young enough to believe the papers.”

  Nilgün looked up and gave me a smile as I went down to the kitchen. I turned the bread over and prepared Madam’s tray. Madam reads the paper to see if anyone she knows has died, not some young agitator ripped to pierces from bullets and bombs, but some old person who’s died in bed. Sometimes she would get annoyed, complaining that ever since Atatürk made everyone take a new name it was chaos, because she couldn’t keep track of the families she knew. Sometimes she would clip the death announcements just to make fun of the infernal, made-up surname—What does that name even mean? My father was the one who’d given us our family name and it was Karatash—Blackstone. It was very clear what it meant. But it was true, a name like theirs, Darvinoğlu, who could understand it? I tapped on the door and went in. Madam was still scouring the closet.

  “Leave it there,” she said.

  “Eat it right away!” I said. “Don’t let the milk get cold.”

  “Okay, okay!” she said. “Now shut the door!”

  When I remembered the bread, I ran downstairs. At least it hadn’t burned. I put Nilgün Hanim’s egg and the other breakfasts on the tray and carried it up from the kitchen.

  “Sorry it took so long,” I said.

  “Isn’t Metin coming to breakfast?” said Faruk Bey.

  Running upstairs again, I began to open his shutters, which woke him in a foul mood. He was still grumbling as I went downstairs to pour out the tea, but by the time I’d brought it out Metin had come down and taken his place.

  “Your breakfast will be ready in a moment,” I said.

  “What time did you get home last night?” said Faruk Bey.

  “I forget!” said Metin, wearing only a bathing suit and a shirt.

  “Did you leave gas in the car?” said Faruk Bey.

  “Don’t worry, Faruk!” said Metin. “We drove around in some other people’s cars. It’s not as if I’m dying to be seen in an Anadol around here.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” said Nilgün.

  “Just read your newspaper!” said Metin. “I’m talking to my brother.”

  I went back in to get the tea and more bread to toast.

  “Would you like milk as well, Metin Bey?” I said.

  “All your friends asked about you,” said Metin. “Used to be you were so close, you couldn’t stand to be away from them, now you look down on them because you’ve read a few books.”

  “I don’t look down on them. I just don’t want to see them.”

  “You could at least say hello.”

  “Would you like milk as well, Metin Bey?” I said.

  “Just because you’re political doesn’t mean you can’t be intere
sted in people, too.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” said Nilgün.

  “Well,” said Metin, “I have a sister who’s been brainwashed, but I see her every day.”

  “That’s just stupid!”

  “Did you want milk as well, Metin Bey?”

  “Guys, don’t start,” said Faruk Bey.

  “No, I don’t want milk,” said Metin.

  I rushed to the kitchen and turned over the bread. They brainwashed her! Was that good? There’s no hope for us until they clean out all the filth in their brains, those empty beliefs and lies, Selâhattin Bey used to say, and that’s why I’ve been writing all these years, Fatma, that’s why. I got myself a glass of milk and drank half. When the bread was toasted I brought it out.

  “When Grandmother prays in the cemetery, you do likewise, okay?” Faruk Bey was saying.

  “I’ve forgotten the prayers that Auntie taught me,” said Nilgün.

  “That didn’t take long,” said Metin.

  “Metin, I’ve forgotten them, too,” said Faruk Bey. “Just hold your hands the way she does so she doesn’t get upset, is all I’m saying.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll do it,” said Metin. “I don’t mind things like that.”

  “You do it, too, okay, Nilgün?” said Faruk Bey. “Put something on your head as well.”

  “Fine,” said Nilgün.

  “It won’t destroy your political beliefs?” said Metin.

  I left and went upstairs. Madam had finished her breakfast and was back at the closet.

  “What?” she said. “What do you want?”

  “Do you want a glass of milk?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  I was picking up her tray when she slammed the closet door and yelled, “And stay out of my closet!”

  “I’m nowhere near it, Madam!” I said. “As you can see, I’m just getting the tray.”

  “What are they doing downstairs?”

  “They’re getting ready.”

  “I still haven’t decided …,” she said and seeming suddenly embarrassed began to root around in the closet again.