The Bastard of Istanbul (46 page)

Alongside the Alfa Romeo whooshed a yellow Volkswagen Beetle driven by Aram. Having a hard time understanding why the Kazancı women were taking their dead home but wise enough to know that nothing so tires a person as to attempt an objection to the aunties, especially when they came in a cluster like that, he had chosen not to ask. Hence he simply tagged along, trying to make sure his sweetheart was doing okay amid all this commotion.

At the jam-packed traffic lights at Shishli, only blocks away from the Muslim cemetery the dead-washer had tried to direct them to, by chance they all lined up side by side, like the leading regiment of an indomitable army with all the zeal to fight but no common cause. Auntie Feride popped her head out of the window and waved left and right, apparently thrilled by the happenstance of them all being lined up like this, acting in unison for the first time, even if it were for the sake of some mechanical red light. Rose ignored the gesture, Grandma Gülsüm the gesturer.

At the next red light, sitting between Armanoush and the driver of the hearse, Asya scrutinized the surrounding cars again, but luckily they had lost sight of one another. She felt a sudden, shameless relief to spot no Kazancı relatives of hers within eye range, except the one lying in the coffin in the back, of course, but then again that might not be included in her eye range as long as she did not turn around. As they drifted along in the jellylike traffic, so thick and congealed, slit here and there by unpredicted openings, in front of them materialized a bright red Coca-Cola van.

When the light turned green and they were moving again, in the lane to their right a fleet of cars with soccer fans appeared. They had caps and scarves and flags and banners and bandannas, and some had the colors of their team in their hair: red and yellow. Frustrated with the slow-moving traffic, most of the fans had momentarily sunk into lethargy, idly chattering among themselves, and once in a while waving a bandanna or two from the open windows.

As the traffic began lurching forward again, however, they resumed their chants and shouts with renewed vigor. Before long, a yellow cab with dozens of bumper stickers on it recklessly boxed itself into the tiny bit of space between the hearse and the Coca-Cola van ahead. The driver next to Asya cursed angrily as he slowed down. While he growled some more and Armanoush watched the cab in front with increasing wonder, Asya struggled to decode the writing on the bumper stickers. There, among many others, she spotted an iridescent sticker that claimed: DON’T CALL ME WRETCHED. THE WRETCHED TOO HAVE A HEART.

The driver of the cab in front was a rough-looking, swarthy man who had a gray Zapata mustache and who looked to be at least sixty, too old to get involved in such a soccer hullabaloo. There was a sharp mismatch between the man’s utterly traditional look and the frenzy with which he drove. Even more interesting than him, however, were the customers—or else, friends—in his cab. The man next to the cabdriver had his face painted half yellow, half red. This Asya could clearly see from the hearse behind because this man had popped his head out the open window, waving a yellow and red banner with one hand, while loosely holding on to the front seat with the other. The upper part of his body jerking outside, and the lower part hidden inside the car, he looked like someone cut in two by a magician. Even from a distance Asya could see that the man’s nose was so alcohol crimson that it upset the symmetry of half yellow and half red on his face, tipping the balance on behalf of the red. Just as she was pondering which particular drink—beer or
rakı
or both—could endow a human being’s nose with this particular shade, the window behind his was rolled down and another fan raised a drum in the air with one hand and held on to the interior of the car with the other. In perfect unison, the two hooligans sprouted half their bodies out of the windows, like the pruned branches of a yellow cab tree.

Then the man in the front seat pulled out a stick and started beating the drum the other held in the air. The impossibility of the task must have energized them, for they soon supplemented the banging and thumping with an anthem. Several pedestrians on the sidewalks stood stunned, but a good number applauded and joined the duo, mouthing the lyrics in an ever-increasing fervor:

“What are they saying?” Armanoush elbowed Asya, but Asya was slow to translate mainly because her attention had been fixed on a pedestrian. It was a lanky lad in rags, inhaling glue from a plastic bag while stomping his naked, blackened feet in time to the rhythm of the anthem. Every few seconds the boy stopped inhaling and mouthed the words of the anthem, but behind the rest of them, like an eerie echo: “. . . with our heavy steps. . . .”

In the meantime the other partyers also started to wave flags and bandannas out of their car windows, as they jovially joined in the song. Now and then the drummer stopped and used his stick to draw imaginary snakes in the air at the pedestrians and the street vendors on the sidewalk, as if directing them all, orchestrating the whole city’s hubbub.

When the first half of the song was over, a brief confusion ensued since few in this motley chorus seemed to know the lyrics of the second half. Not letting this bothersome detail shatter their solidarity, they started singing right from the beginning once again, this time more feistily than before.

Thus they all flowed along the avenue in a flood of red and yellow, amid chaos and clamor. Inside the hearse Armanoush and Asya and the driver silently watched, their eyes fixed on the yellow cab ahead. They tailgated so dangerously close to the vehicle that Asya could see empty cans of beer rolling around in the back window.

“Look at them! Is this how grown-up men should behave?!” the driver of the hearse exploded. “Now and again it happens. A fanatic dies, and his family or his madcap friends want to wrap his coffin with the flag of this or that soccer team. Then they shamelessly expect me to transport these sacrilegious coffins to the cemetery! If you ask me, all this is sheer blasphemy! There should be a law prohibiting such nonsense. Only the green prayer mantle should be allowed, I say. Nothing else. What do these people think they are doing? Aren’t they Muslim or what? You are dead for Allah’s sake, what do you need a soccer flag for? Has Allah built a stadium up there in the sky? Are there tournaments in heaven?”

Not knowing how to answer this last question, Asya fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat, but then the driver’s attention was drawn toward the yellow cab again. A mechanical melody rang out from the cell phone of the fanatic leaning out the front window. Still holding on to the cab with one hand, still conducting the city with his other hand, the portly hooligan made an attempt to answer his phone, forgetting he had no other hand for the task. He lost his balance, and along with it he lost two other things: first the drum-stick, then the cell phone. Both fell onto the road, right in front of the hearse.

The yellow cab abruptly stopped and the hearse came to a halt just when the rift between the two cars had shrunk to a hair. Asya and Armanoush lurched forward with the sudden stop, and then both simultaneously checked the coffin in the back. It was safe and sound.

In a flash the owner of the dropped items jumped down, still smiling and singing, his half-yellow, half-red face glowing with fervor. He stared back as if apologizing to the traffic behind for halting them all. Only then did he notice it was no ordinary vehicle that had been tailgating them but a sage green hearse, the symbol of death tagging along like an ominous shadow. For a long, prickly minute the man stood there in the middle of the traffic, looking perplexed. Finally, when yet another carful of fans whisked past him singing the anthem and his buddy impatiently banged the drum with his hand, it occurred to him to grab his cell phone and stick from the road. After giving the coffin in the hearse one last look he turned around and climbed back into the cab. This time he did not pop out the window again, but remained inside, subdued.

Armanoush and Asya couldn’t help but smile.

“You must hold the most revered profession in this city,” Asya proclaimed to the driver, who had been watching the whole scene with them. “Your shadow can terrify even the most hot-blooded rabid fan.”

“No,” the driver said. “It pays so little, you have no coverage, no health insurance, no right to go on strike, no nothing. I used to drive large lorries in the past, long-distance transportation, you know. Coal, petroleum, butane gas, industrial water . . . you name it. I transported them all.”

“Was that better than this?”

“Are you kidding? Of course it was better! You load the cargo in Istanbul and head to another city. No boss to butter up, no supervisor to bootlick! You are your own master. If you feel like it, you can linger on the road provided the boss does not ask you to deliver the cargo too fast. In that case, you gotta drive with no sleep. Other than that, it was a clean job. Clean and dignified. You didn’t have to bow to anyone.”

The traffic began to accelerate and the driver shifted gears. Before long the soccer fleet veered right toward the stadium.

“Then why did you quit that job?” Asya wanted to know.

“I fell asleep at the wheel. One moment I am speeding down the road. The next moment there is a terrible blast, like it is Judgment Day and Allah is summoning us all. When I open my eyes, I find myself inside the kitchen of this shanty house by the road.”

“What is he saying?” Armanoush whispered.

“Believe me, you wouldn’t want to know,” Asya whispered back.

“Well, ask him how many dead he carries in his hearse per day?”

When the question was translated, the driver shook his head: “It depends on the season. Spring is the worst time of all; not many people die in spring. But then comes the summer, the busiest season. If it is above eighty degrees, it gets pretty hectic for us, especially the old. . . . They die like flies. . . . In the summer Istanbulites die in droves!”

He paused broodingly, leaving Asya with the semantic burden of the very last sentence he had constructed. Then he glanced at a pedestrian in a tuxedo shouting orders into his cell phone and exclaimed:

“All these rich people! Huh! They stockpile money all through their life, what for? How foolish! Do shrouds have pockets? It’s a cotton shroud that we are all going to wear in the end. That’s it. No chic clothes. No jewelry. Can you wear a tuxedo to the grave or a ball gown? Who holds the skies for these people?”

Asya had no answer to offer, so she didn’t attempt one.

“If nobody’s holding it how could we possibly live under this sky? I see no celestial columns, do you? How can one play soccer in these stadiums if Allah says ‘I am not holding the sky up anymore’? ”

With that question still hovering in the air, they turned the corner and finally reached the Kazancı domicile.

Auntie Zeliha was waiting for them in front of the house. She exchanged a few words with the driver and tipped him.

The Volkswagen, the silver metallic Alfa Romeo, and the Toyota Corolla were lined up in front of the house. It looked like everyone had arrived before them. The house was full of guests, all waiting for the coffin to be unloaded.

Upon entering the house Asya and Armanoush encountered a jam-packed, all-female space. Though the majority of the guests were clustered in the living room on the first floor, some were momentarily dispersed to the other rooms, either to change a baby’s diapers or to scold a child, to gossip a bit or to pray, now that it was time for the afternoon prayer. With no bedroom to retreat into, the girls headed to the kitchen, only to find all the aunts there whispering about the tragedy that had befallen them, as they prepared trays of
ashure
to be served.

“Poor Mama is devastated. Who would have thought all the
ashure
she had cooked for Mustafa would be served to his mourners? ” Auntie Cevriye said, standing near the stove.

“Yeah, the American bride is devastated too,” Auntie Feride remarked, without lifting her gaze from a mysterious stain on the floor. “Poor thing. She comes to Istanbul for the first time in her life and loses her husband. How creepy.”

Sitting at the table, listening to her sisters while smoking a cigarette, Auntie Zeliha said softly, “Well, I suppose she will go back to America now and remarry there. You know Allah’s share is three. If she married for a second time, she has to marry for a third time. But I wonder, after one Armenian and one Turkish husband, what will her third choice be?”

“The woman is mourning, how can you say such things?” asked Auntie Cevriye.

“Mourning is like virginity.” Auntie Zeliha heaved a sigh. “You should give it to the one who deserves it most.”

Aghast at what they had just heard, the two aunts flinched in stupefied amazement. It was in that instant Asya and Armanoush entered the room, followed by Sultan the Fifth, meowing in hunger.

“Come on, sisters, let’s give the cat something to eat before he devours all the
ashure
,” Auntie Zeliha said.

Just then Auntie Banu, who had for the last twenty minutes or so been working at the counter, brewing tea, slicing lemons, and listening to the ongoing debate without ever interjecting, turned toward her youngest sister and decreed: “We’ve got more urgent things to do.”

Auntie Banu opened a drawer, pulled out a huge, shiny knife, grabbed an onion lying on the counter, and cut it in half. She then cupped one half of the onion and pushed it toward Auntie Zeliha’s nose.

“What are you doing?” Auntie Zeliha jumped in her chair.

“I am helping you to cry, my dear.” Auntie Banu shook her head. “You wouldn’t want the guests inside to see you like this, would you? As much of a free spirit as you might be, even you need to shed a tear or two in the house of the dead.”