The Bastard of Istanbul (35 page)

Auntie Zeliha must have sensed her name being mentioned for she gave them a wink, lifted her glass of
rakı,
and toasted: “
Şerefe!
” They all followed suit and clinked their glasses as they echoed: “
Şerefe!
” This word, as it would soon turn out, was some sort of a refrain that was repeated every ten or fifteen minutes. Another hour and seven
Şerefe
s later, Armanoush’s eyes were glowing with alcohol. With amusement she watched an albino waiter bring in the hot dishes—broiled striped bass on a bed of green peppers, basil-marinated catfish with creamy spinach, charbroiled salmon with field greens, and stir-fried shrimp in spicy garlic sauce.

Armanoush giggled tipsily before she turned toward Aram and asked, “Tell us, you must have some tattoos too. Auntie Zeliha must have tattooed you.”

“No way,” Aram said behind the veil of wispy smoke curling up from his cigar. “She doesn’t let me have one.”

“Yeah,” Asya added. “She won’t permit him to have a tattoo.”

“Really?” Armanoush said in surprise as she turned to Auntie Zeliha. “I thought you were fond of tattoos.”

“I am, indeed,” Auntie Zeliha replied. “It is not the tattooing part that I am opposing but the design he asks for.”

Aram smiled. “The tattoo that I would like to have is a gorgeous fig tree. But, unlike other trees, this one is upside down. My fig tree has all its roots up in the air. Instead of the earth, it is rooted in the sky. It is displaced but not placeless.”

They were all silent for a few seconds, watching the flickering light of the candle at the table.

“It’s just that the fig tree . . .” Auntie Zeliha lit the last cigarette in her pack and unintentionally blew smoke in the direction of Asya. “The fig tree is an ominous sign. It does not bring good luck. I am fine with Aram’s wish to have his roots up in the air, but it is the fig tree that I object to. Should he choose it to be a cherry tree, for instance, or an oak tree, still with its roots up in the air, I’d tattoo him right away!”

It was then that four Gypsy musicians, all dressed in silky white shirts and black trousers, entered the tavern with their instruments— an
ud,
a clarinet, a
kanun,
and a
darbuka.
There was a general excitement among the customers who, having eaten and drunk their fill, were more than ready to sing.

When the musicians materialized by their side, Armanoush felt a pang of shyness. But to her relief they didn’t force her to sing. It turned out that Asya wasn’t much of a singer either. They listened to Auntie Zeliha accompany the musicians with a mellow contralto—a voice that sounded nothing like her usual cigarette-tainted, husky tone. Armanoush noticed that Asya glanced in her mother’s direction with a look of inquisitiveness.

When the leader of the band asked if there was a particular song they would now like to request, Auntie Zeliha elbowed Aram flirtatiously, and exclaimed, “Come on, ask for a song. Sing, my nightingale! ”

Blushing, Aram leaned forward, coughed, and then whispered something in the leading musician’s ear. Once the band had embarked on the requested melody, much to Armanoush’s surprise, Aram started to sing along—not in Turkish, not in English, but in Armenian.

It flowed slowly, forlornly, while the tempo picked up with a distinctive rise of the clarinet and the hard-to-contain
darbuka
in the background. Aram’s voice soared and then fell in mellow waves. Initially his voice was diffident, yet it became increasingly assertive in its tone.

Armanoush held her breath, failing to understand all the words but feeling mourning deep in her heart. When she raised her head, she was intrigued by Auntie Zeliha’s expression. It was a look that embodied the fear of happiness that only those who had unexpectedly, unguardedly fallen in love could wear.

When the song was over and the musicians had moved to the next table, Armanoush thought Auntie Zeliha would give Aram a kiss. But instead she tenderly squeezed Asya’s hand, as if acknowledging that her love for a man had allowed her to better comprehend her love for her daughter. “Sweetheart,” she murmured, a hint of anguish creeping into her tone. But if Auntie Zeliha was planning to say something to her daughter, she was quick to beat the urge. Instead, she took out a new pack of cigarettes and offered her one.

Seeing her mother have sentiments so near the surface was far more surprising for Asya than being offered a cigarette by her. She lit hers and then her mom’s. As the smoke slowly coiled between them, daughter and mother smiled at each other awkwardly. They looked startlingly similar from this angle and light, two faces molded by a past that one knew nothing about and the other chose not to remember.

It was precisely then that Armanoush felt the pulse of the city for the first time since she had arrived in Istanbul. It had just hit her why and how people could fall in love with Istanbul, in spite of all the sorrow it might cause them. It would not be easy to fall out of love with a city this heartbreakingly beautiful.

With this recognition she raised her glass in a toast: “
Şerefe!
”

S
hall I go inside and tell them to quiet down?” Auntie Feride asked. She was standing in front of the girls’ room, her gaze fixated on the knob.

“Oh, leave them alone!” Auntie Zeliha exclaimed from the couch where she had collapsed. “They’re a bit tipsy and when you’re a bit tipsy you listen to music loud.” To make a point she then exclaimed: “
LOUD!
”

“Tipsy!” bellowed Grandma Gülsüm. “Mind you, why are they
tipsy
? Is it not enough that you always bring disgrace to this family? Look at that skirt you are wearing. The dish towels in the kitchen are longer than your skirts! You are a single mother, a divorcée. Hear me well! I have never seen a divorcée with a ring in her nose. You should be ashamed of yourself, Zeliha!”

Auntie Zeliha raised her head from the cushion she had been hugging. “Ma, for me to be a
divorcée,
I would have had to have gotten married first. Don’t distort the facts. I cannot be called a
divorcée
or a
grass widow
or any of those sticky terms you have in reserve in your glossary for unfortunate women. This daughter of yours is a sinner who wears miniskirts and she loves her nostril ring and she loves the child she gave birth to out of wedlock. Like it or not!”

“Is it not enough that you spoiled your daughter and forced her to drink? Why did you also have to make the poor guest drink? She’s Mustafa’s responsibility; she is your brother’s guest in this house. How dare you spoil the girl!”

“My brother’s responsibility! Yeah, right!” Auntie Zeliha laughed morosely, and she closed her eyes.

Inside the girls’ room, meanwhile, Johnny Cash was playing full blast. The two girls were sitting side by side at the desk staring at the computer screen, with Sultan the Fifth curled between them, his eyes half-closed. The girls were so absorbed in the Internet that neither of them heard the argument outside their door. Armanoush had just logged on to the Café Constantinopolis, determined to take Asya with her this time.

Hello everyone! Haven’t you missed Madame My-Exiled-Soul? she typed.

Our reporter from Istanbul is back. Where were you? Did the Turks gobble you up? wrote Anti-Khavurma.

Well, one of the gobblers is with me right now. I want to introduce you all to a Turkish friend of mine.

There followed a pause.

She has a nickname, of course: A Girl Named Turk.

What was that? Alex the Stoic couldn’t help asking.

It’s a reinterpretation of the title of this Johnny Cash song. Anyway, you can ask her yourself. Here she is. Dear Café Constantinopolis meet A Girl Named Turk. A Girl Named Turk meet Café Constantinopolis.

Hello! Greetings from Istanbul, Asya wrote.

There was no response.

I hope the next time you too will come to Istanbul with Arman . . . Asya realized her mistake only when Armanoush slapped her hand . . . with Madame My-Exiled-Soul.

Oh, thanks. But frankly, I am in no mood for a touristy tour to a country that has caused so much suffering for all my family. It was Anti-Khavurma again.

Now it was Asya’s turn to pause.

Look, don’t get us wrong, we don’t have anything against you, OK? joined in Miserable-Coexistence. I am sure the city is nice and scenic, but the truth is we don’t trust the Turks. Mesrop would turn in his grave if, Aramazt forbid, I would forget my past just like that.

“Who is Mesrop?” Asya asked Armanoush in a voice barely above a whisper, as if they could hear her.

All right. Let’s start with the basics. The facts. If we can make it thru the facts we can then talk about other things, decreed Lady Peacock/ Siramark. Let’s start with this touristy Istanbul trip. These magnificent mosques you show to tourists today, who was the architect behind them? Sinan! He designed palaces, hospitals, inns, aqueducts. . . . You exploit Sinan’s intelligence and then deny he was Armenian.

I didn’t know he was, Asya wrote puzzled. But Sinan is a Turkish name.

Well, U R good at Turkifying the names of the minorities, replied Anti-Khavurma.

OK, I see what you are saying. True, Turkish national history is based on censorship, but so is every national history. Nation-states create their own myths and then believe in them. Asya lifted her head and squared her shoulders and continued to type. In Turkey there are Turks, Kurds, Circassians, Georgians, Pontians, Jews, Abazas, Greeks. . . . I find it too oversimplistic and far too dangerous to make generalizations of this sort. We are not brutal barbarians. Besides, many scholars who have studied the Ottoman culture will tell you it was a great culture in many ways. The 1910s were a particularly difficult time. But things are not the same as they were 100 years ago.

Lady Peacock/Siramark countered instantly. I don’t believe the Turks have changed at all. If they
had,
they would have recognized the genocide.

Genocide is a heavily loaded term, wrote back A Girl Named Turk. It implies a systematic, well-organized, and philosophized extermination. Honestly, I am not sure the Ottoman state at the time was of such a nature. But I do recognize the injustice that was done to the Armenians. I am not a historian. My knowledge is limited and tainted, but so is yours.

You see, here’s the difference. The oppressor has no use for the past. The oppressed has nothing but the past, commented Daughter of Sappho.

Without knowing your father’s story, how can you expect to create your own story? Lady Peacock/Siramark joined in.

Armanoush smiled to herself. So far everything had gone just like she had imagined. Except Baron Baghdassarian. He had not responded to anything yet.

In the meantime, Asya, still fixated on the screen, typed, I do recognize your loss and grief. I do not deny the atrocities committed. It’s just
my
past that I am recoiling from. I don’t know who my father is or what his story was like. If I had a chance to know more about my past, even if it were sad, would I choose to know it or not? The dilemma of my life.

You are full of contradictions, replied Anti-Khavurma.

Johnny Cash wouldn’t mind that! interjected Madame My-Exiled-Soul.

Tell me, what can I as an ordinary Turk in this day and age do to ease your pain?

Now this was a question hitherto no Turk had asked the Armenians in the Café Constantinopolis. In the past, they had had Turkish visitors twice, both heatedly nationalist young men who had popped up out of nowhere, apparently with the intention to prove that the Turks had done nothing wrong to the Armenians, and if anything, it was the Armenians who had rebelled against the Ottoman regime and killed the Turks. One of them had gone so far as to argue that if the Ottoman regime had really been as genocidal as claimed, today there would be no Armenians left to talk about this. The fact that there were so many Armenians lashing against the Turks was a clear indication that the Ottomans had not persecuted them.

Until today the Café Constantinopolis’s encounter with the Turks had basically been a fuming exchange of slander and soliloquy. This time the tone was radically different.

Your state can apologize, answered Miserable-Coexistence.

My state? I’ve got nothing to do with the state, Asya wrote as she thought about the Dipsomaniac Cartoonist prosecuted for drawing the prime minister as a wolf. Look, I am a nihilist! She stopped short of mentioning her Personal Manifesto of Nihilism.

Then
you yourself
can apologize, barged in Anti-Khavurma.

You want me to apologize for something I personally had nothing to do with?

So you say, Lady Peacock/Siramark wrote. We R all born into continuity in time and the past continues to live within the present. We come from a family line, a culture, a nation. Are you gonna say let bygones be bygones?

As Asya’s eyes raked the screen she looked baffled, as if in the midst of a presentation she had forgotten her lines. She stroked Sultan the Fifth’s head absently a few times before her fingers went back to the keyboard again.

Am I responsible for my father’s crime? A Girl Named Turk asked.

You are responsible for recognizing your father’s crime, Anti-Khavurma replied.

Asya seemed confused by the bluntness of the statement, briefly irritated but also intrigued.Within the glow radiating from the computer, her face was pale and still. She had always tried to distance her past as far as possible from the future she hoped to attain. In the hope that, whatever the memories of times past entailed, no matter how dark or depressing, the past would not consume her.The truth is, as much as she hated to admit it, she knew the past
did
live within the present.