Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale (62 page)

Of which religious order had Jerry become a member?

I had already observed that certain encounters eventually opened the door to those places put off
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, and that, whether we wanted to or not, by following those encounters we found ourselves obliged to go on living. This already associates in me the blurred and the silent, and, at the same time, the indelible image of individuals who had been waiting for me in those places. The remaining heroes of our story—whom we understood better and better with every passing day by smothering certain things in our darkness which we could not reveal to anyone, thus having an insight into their essence, discovering their enigmatic labyrinths—had penetrated other individuals for the sake of this waiting. Essentially we owed our growth to those details we learned in those unanticipated moments. Those unanticipated moments moved us back to ourselves. Monsieur Jacques’ visits to the shop grew less and less frequent after that ‘quake.’ These were the first days of his introversion during which he seemed to be in search of a new man. Indulging in the rediscovery of the truer days of a creed, he would, in the course of those days, aspire to embrace the magic of this creed, of an arcane language. He had realized that Jerry was dead, dead as a doornail, and would never come back to the land where he was born and raised. This was an important fact. One ought to review once again all that had been experienced. Certain things had to be enshrined in one’s memory. Time was needed in order to have access to what certain individuals had left within us. Jerry had informed us years ago of his intention not to return; he desired that people would consider him to be dead and gone. That weak boy needing protection had found a shelter in that place, in the world he had been looking for. To shoulder this reality was not so easy. The expectations of the future had opened up a large gap. One could understand, under the circumstances, his desire to be considered nonexistent. This was just what happened, or to be precise, how he decided to find his own place in life. Monsieur Jacques had been obliged to embark on a venture and to prepare for a fight with his past, with the man he had nourished within him. The similarity of his story with the separations and settings of other lives lived elsewhere had shed some light on his path. The heroes of the past had left in his custody a great many photographs related to this sad affair which was to remain forever inscribed on his memory. However, what had been divorced from this time, from those deaths and separations that seemed interminable, were things his real family had been trying to build up. The beginning of the fight, or resistance, started at the point where people became conscious of this reality. One might speak of similar feelings in relation to Madame Roza’s experiences. However, she had never lost hope, and kept trying to find a point that had escaped the notice of those who had had to shoulder that secret and of those who had preferred to turn a blind eye to it as she had a profound belief in the prospective return of her son. The most concrete expression of this fact was her fervent prayer every morning and night; that their son might be happy in their prosperous home one day. This firm faith should be given the credit it deserved; it had to thrive despite all that had gone on before. Jerry was alive. He simply lived elsewhere and led a different life. He was under the watch of her God; boosted by this conviction, she thought that she served to promote the betterment, welfare, and effectiveness of her son, even from afar. This was the visible aspect of the impressions created by Monsieur Jacques and Madame Roza. On the other hand, there was still the hidden face of the moon, a subject often treated by poets. Yes, the hidden face of the moon or those inaccessible experiences. The face not capable of being reached, viewed, or approached. Nonetheless, what seemed damaging was this desperation, but it was also a source of inspiration at the same time for the poetic imagination. As for Berti, I believe he was a person who had a natural talent for understanding Jerry, unlike the rest of the family members, who hadn’t a mind to do so. He had never been able to wipe out that brotherly affection for him despite the lack of gratitude to which he had often been subjected. This affection was nourished by a secret yearning for him. It was a yearning I could never ignore, a yearning that had always been present throughout this long tale. This yearning might have been but the leftovers of a sentiment emptied of its contents and ripped of its true meaning, if one considers the fact that others make us what we actually are with all our deficiencies, inescapable solitudes, and exiles. We had no other choice but to go on living with these leftovers. We had no other choice but to learn how to carry on with our lives despite these leftovers, to transform our passions, resentments, and self-reproaches into new experiences and to lose them in new individuals. These leftovers were the remnants of great upheavals which had assumed meaning in their homeward journey, a meaning that had been concealed. Solitude, absolute solitude had never been our lot. Berti, being the faithful custodian of bitterness, had chosen irony to alleviate his yearning. With reference to his brother’s life in the wake of that letter from America—to his brother whose years of youth he had provided me with ample information in a laconic style—he told me he had gone there to study economics at Harvard, gotten married, and become a Mormon. We had taken our shelter once again in that irony that gave one resolution to carry on one’s life with heartache to the bitter end. I was one of the participants in the sensation created and boosted by this irony. To what extent was what had already been told correct? What had been the beginning and the end of that thing called truth? Berti’s reserve in discussing this connection was understandable; on which I was not in a position to make any comment. Reserve should be considered a defense, a resolution to stay stranded on one’s island. I had to have recourse to Juliet’s account of the story in order that I might fill in the gaps related to the parts left in the shadows. I had not lost confidence in Jerry, I didn’t want to. However, he was for me nothing other than a prospective hero in a story, a dramatic hero, an outsider, capable of reminding one of happiness attainable through deceptions. A couple of details could easily transform him into a ponderable and accessible individual. I had confidence in my instincts. The image suggested by words subject to transformation over time was calling me to a new chamber. Now, I wonder if, by what I could glean along my path after my contact with so many people, I have been transposed to the right and reliable place. I feel a shudder run down my spine. All I can find in the sentences which I have access to now is ultimately muteness and desolation, of which I have a fair knowledge. It seems to me as though I have crossed the border that Berti had delineated through his words and protective coloring. However, this may have been his intention. What he did not want was to be the narrator of this aspect of his life. The Harvard episode was not a secret to be kept inside. Having graduated from Saint Joseph’s French college, he had shown signs of his intention to depart to a completely different place and atmosphere, namely America. This was a delayed reaction provoked by his schoolfellows, and especially by the strict discipline of the friars who had been instrumental in showing him the darker side of life. His first letters had been overenthusiastic. This was followed by a long hiatus. To know the reality of life and its diverse aspects came at a price. After all, great work demanded sacrifice and anguish. The long silence that followed his first letters was broken by an unexpected letter in which he intimated that he had gotten married, that he was happy, and ultimately had a family. Monsieur Jacques, in great perplexity, had sent Berti to America. Berti, who had spent a couple of weeks with his brother, had come back with a short account of the whole story. Jerry had
married a widow twelve years his senior who had three children. He was happy, or seemed to be so at least. He was living in the countryside on a ranch. Istanbul for him seemed a long way off for various reasons. This marriage had seemed to the members of the family as a tie that was sooner or later destined to be broken. Monsieur Jacques, to whom this alliance had seemed a betrayal, could not help making the following comment: “The Rogue!” he vociferated, “He did it with the wind in his teeth!” In this human cry was concealed a defeat rather than anger. Following this, Monsieur Jacques had once more found himself incarnated as a version of himself temperamentally disinclined to talk; of a Monsieur Jacques who was conscious of the things that he had lost. On the other hand, Madame Roza had concluded that a spell had been cast upon her son and had devised a plan to break it. In her venturesome efforts, she had put more weight than had been her custom on prayers for her son in that distant land. She had rummaged through the cabinet drawers of her son in the hope of discovering things that had escaped her notice before. She had not neglected seeking aid from a sorcerer Berti used to refer to. Her reverting to such an expedient was of course kept secret over the years that passed. Madame Roza never revealed the identity or the whereabouts of that sorcerer. Only once had she mentioned that she was a master of levitation and conversed in cant. Under the circumstances, there should be no doubt that a spell had indeed been cast over Jerry. The breaking of this spell, the communication with a voice ‘beyond’ might take years. Under the circumstances, the rest of the family members were obliged to consolidate their old links and form a united front. In this front, everybody should choose the part he or she was supposed to play. The key to the mystery was to be found out one day; the spot where it was kept hidden would be discovered. Every progression had its course to run, inexorably changing a person’s life. Berti had listened to all of this, with looks expressive of his preference to remain outside this controversy. Monsieur Jacques had responded with a curt saying: “Io no me creyo en estas vaziyuras” (I don’t believe in such nonsense!) Madame Roza had to endure in secret, the resentment she felt for having been left in the lurch on this long and arduous path, and she struggled with her son’s ‘spell’ till the end of her life.

It looked as though everybody had eventually protected or tried to protect Jerry, that they were conscious of the fact that he had deposited a part of himself in his new surroundings and that he valued his marriage. Under the circumstances, one had to consider, through a different perspective, the identity of the person to be protected. However, when I recall what Juliet had told me about it at the time, I cannot help thinking, barring all these options and the possible consequences thereof, that I’m almost capable at present of establishing a connection (which may be deemed to be due to a rather simple reason) between this and the fact that one could not probe into the heart of the matter, or, to put it otherwise, the fact that the reality of what had happened had been preferred to be kept undivulged. Monsieur Jacques had, in the course of that secret meeting that had brought the family members together, said: “We’re bound to keep this ruined state of ours within the family.” I can understand the feeling that this short sentence may have given rise to. When the right time came, people who stood wide apart would have to face this hushed ruin. Once more, heartache was being put off; mourning was being tried to be made more bearable through postponement. Nevertheless, I must not forget to note that those days were pregnant with another coming marriage, namely, the marriage of Berti and Juliet. What had remained with me revealed some other important images. Based on these remains, I can attain another image that seems to cover up both a new hope and a new mourning. Those must have been the days when wedding preparations had been carried out as they should. I feel bound to say that I had run into a traditional play at the point I had arrived. I had tried to observe from different angles the looks that attributed meaning to it. There were moments when our identity as spectators got mixed with our identity as performers; moments when we took up our identity as performers instead of filling our identity as spectators; and there were other moments which we wanted to perceive but were intertwined and lost in one another. Those looks dictated the story of those who wanted to abide in their satisfaction with those small victories. The identity of that person whose mystery of unreality was an enigma was destined to remain unsolved. The fact that a hat or a dress worn or a little gift presented in the synagogue had been the cause of so much talk for such a long time, or, which is more important, the existence of eyes that can perceive certain details properly were of more consequence. It was precisely for this reason that sorrow had tried to be buried in a play about happiness. It may be for this reason that other lives in other lands were built up wrapped in a secret melancholy in defiance of those realities. Madame Roza, on one of those days when the wedding dress was being tried on, was reported to have said, addressing the people who had told her that they were sure that the wedding party promised would be flawless, that she, as a mother, hoped that Jerry’s turn would come next. This was the most concrete evidence of her unwillingness to acknowledge his other life in another place. Jerry’s actual marriage could not be considered to have been consummated legitimately. It should be appraised as a passing fancy like the Cambridge affair of her first born. An ordinary affair, a fancy which would pave the way to a man’s proper matrimony that was meant to last a lifetime. This was, in a way, a cry addressed to himself in his own silence in a foreign language, expressing his wish to believe, and to convince himself of the correctness of what he had undertaken. Immersed in his own silence, to cry, to try to cry despite all the extraneous circumstances surrounding him . . . Apprehensions that were attempted to be hidden gave a different depth to this silence. She feared that Jerry might have fathered a child. Another mother meant another child, and, what is more important still, another world. To be able to trace the genealogy of the family was getting more and more difficult. Even so, she felt obliged to try to withstand it to the bitter end . . . A child might create difficulties for his return to the family. No return, no reunion was impossible. But what was appalling were the lacerations inflicted that never scarred. To dispel his mother’s apprehensions, Berti had said to her with a smile that she should not worry on that account. To begin with, there had been no child so far, and that most probably there never would be. Such a child was unimaginable in a land where a boy had taken refuge to escape from his past and where his intention had been to lose himself. Berti’s smile concealed a truth to which Madame Roza would never have access. When one thought of the location Jerry was in, one could do nothing but smile. There was no end to the smiles that expressed endless nuances of despair. Madame Roza had had no other question to ask. She felt her question had already been provided with an answer; yes, the answer she had been anticipating was given. By the way, there was a sentence which could have ambiguous meaning. Notwithstanding all the contingencies that could lead us to different stopovers in the light of a diversity of meanings, this sentence caused Madame Roza to remain outside its reality. All this I had learned from Juliet years later, on one of the days when the family had been shattered because of that serious dissension. According to her, Berti had withheld from his mother a very important fact about Jerry; a fact far more important than a prospective child, who, if he was ever to exist, would likely imply to her a secret which would sweep her off her feet . . . a secret imparted solely to Monsieur Jacques. This comparatively insignificant, but all the more important secret, capable of describing an entire life could not possibly be borne by a single individual who wore his heart on his sleeve. Those who had had similar experiences, who had had the daring to face them, could easily understand this. However, this step was not far from being conceivable if one recalled the things that those relations had deprived them of, although it required further clarification. Berti, who might have felt a secret wry joy in communicating to his father the reality about Jerry, had attempted to get even with his father and retaliate against the wall of impediments which he had once raised before him. There was no way of doing away with certain evils; this had been a perennial reality. Perhaps this was the reason for our inability to smother the shadows that loomed within us.