The Bastard of Istanbul (47 page)

With the onion under her nose, Auntie Zeliha closed her eyes, looking like an avant-garde statue that had no chance of being exhibited in a mainstream museum:
The Woman Who Couldn’t Cry and the Onion.

Auntie Zeliha opened her jade green eyes and sniffed a tear. The onion had worked.

“Good!” Auntie Banu nodded. “Come on, everyone, we need to go into the living room. The guests must be wondering where their hosts are, leaving their dead alone!”

So said the sister who once used to play “mom” to Auntie Zeliha, singing her half-made-up lullabies, feeding her cookies on cardboard boxes turned into imaginary tables, narrating stories that always ended with the pretty girl getting married to the prince, cuddling and tickling her, the sister who made her laugh like no one else.

“All right!” Auntie Zeliha agreed. “Let’s go, then.”

So they ambled into the living room, the four aunts in the front, Armanoush and Asya following behind. In harmonized steps, they entered the room full of guests, the room where the body was.

Sitting in the corner on a floor cushion, her light blond hair covered with a scarf, her eyes puffy from crying, her plump body squeezed in among strangers, was Rose. She instantly gestured to Armanoush, calling her to her side.

“Amy, where were you?” Rose asked, but before waiting for the answer, she hurled other questions at her: “I have no idea what’s going on here. Could you find out what they’re going to do with his body? When are they planning to bury him?”

Having barely any answers herself, Armanoush inched closer toward her mother and held her hand. “Mom, I’m sure they know what they’re doing.”

“But I’m his wi-fe,” Rose faltered over the last word, as if she were starting to doubt that.

They had laid him on the divan. His hands were placed with the two thumbs tied together on his chest, where a heavy blade of steel lay so that the corpse would not swell up. Two large coins of darkened silver were placed on his eyelids so that they wouldn’t flip open. On his mouth they’d poured a few spoonfuls of water from Holy Mecca. Beside his head, in a copper plate, bits of sandalwood incense were burned. Though no windows were open, not even slightly ajar, the smoke in the room revived every few minutes as if fanned by an undetectable breeze sneaking in from somewhere behind the walls. When it perked up like that the smoke zigzagged around the divan, dissolving finally into a grayish whiff. But now and then the smoke followed a distinct route, descending closer and closer to the corpse in circles within circles, like a marauder bird going after its prey down on earth. The smell of sandalwood, as sour and sharp as it was, became so intense that everyone’s eyes watered. Most didn’t mind; they were crying anyway.

There was a crippled
imam
squeezed into a corner. In utter absorption he swayed the upper part of his body as he read the Qur’an aloud. There was a rhythm to his recitation, a beat that went up and up and then suddenly came to a halt. Armanoush tried not to pay any attention to the stark disparity between the
imam
’s diminutive body and the stoutness of the women surrounding him. She tried equally hard not to eye the void where the man’s fingers were supposed to be. On each hand the
imam
had only one and a half fingers. It was impossible not to wonder what had happened. Was he born like that, or had they been chopped off? Whatever the story, the incompleteness of his body was one reason why all these women were so at ease next to him. In his imperfection resided the key to his perfection, in his lack of wholeness the secret of his holiness. He was a soul of thresholds, and like all souls of thresholds, had something eerie about him. He was both a man and yet so holy you could not possibly regard him as one. He was a holy man and yet so crippled you could not possibly disregard how mortal he was. No matter what, the crippled
imam
was in no need of fingers to turn the pages of the Holy Qur’an in his mind. He had it all stored in his memory, every verse of it.

At the end of the specified verses, the
imam
halted for a split second or two, swallowing the taste left behind in his mouth from all those sacrosanct words. Then he started reciting again. It was precisely this undulating rhythm that touched the female mourners’ hearts; none of them understood a word of Arabic. Even when they broke down and sobbed, the women were always careful not to cry loud enough to overpower the
imam
’s voice. Never did they weep too softly either, by no means forgetting, not even for a moment, that this place they were all jammed in was an
ölüevi.

Next to the
imam,
in the second most respected place, sat Petite-Ma, her diminutive body looking like a dry prune left in the sun, shrunk and wrinkled. Every newcomer kissed her hand and expressed their condolences, but it was hard to know if she really heard them. For the most part, to every one who kissed her hand, Petite-Ma eyed them in return. But now and again, to this guest or that, she responded with a set of questions. “Who are you, my dear?” she inquired of relatives or lifelong friends. “Where have you been all this time?” “Don’t go anywhere, you naughty girl!” she scolded complete strangers. And then, in between her remarkable silences and silencing remarks, her face retreated into complete blankness and she blinked in furtive panic. At those moments she failed to grasp why all these people were here in their living room and why they cried so much.

The divan was still; the women were in constant motion. The divan was white; the women wore mostly black. The divan was soundless; the women were all voice—as if doing the exact opposite of the dead was a requisite of living. In a little while, each and every woman jumped to her feet and bowed her head obediently. Their faces alert with grief and reverence but also nosiness, they watched the crippled
imam
leave the room. As she walked him outside, Auntie Banu kissed his hands and thanked him many times, after which she tipped him.

As soon as the
imam
left, a piercing shriek ripped the air apart. It was emitted by a chubby woman nobody had ever seen before. Her cry escalated in piercing decibels, and in next to no time her face was crimson, her voice grating, and her whole body shaking. So miserable was her state and so palpable her pain that the others watched her in awe. The woman was a performer, paid beforehand to come and cry at the house of the dead, wailing for people she’d not even seen once. Her wail was so touching that the other women couldn’t help but break down.

Thus finding herself surrounded by a swarm of mourning strangers (even her mother looked like a stranger at this point), Armanoush Tchakhmakhchian watched the swirl of women shift and part. In complete harmony and unfaltering shifts, guests exchanged seats with newcomers. Like birds of a feather they perched on the armchairs, the couch, and the floor cushions, so close that their shoulders touched. They wordlessly greeted and stridently cried; all these women who could be so quiet on their own yet so loud when they grieved collectively. By now Armanoush had detected some of the rules of the rite of mourning: There was no more cooking in the house, for instance. Instead, every guest came with a tray of food; the kitchen was jammed with casseroles and saucepans. There was no salt, no meat, no liquor in sight, and no appetizing smells of baked goods. Just like smells, sounds too were controlled. Music was not allowed; no TV, no radio. Thinking of Johnny Cash, Armanoush looked around for Asya.

She spotted her sitting on the couch with a bunch of neighbors, her head held high, distractedly tugging at a curl while looking at the dead body. Just when she was going to make a move toward her, Armanoush saw Auntie Zeliha sit next to her daughter, and with an unreadable expression say something into her ear.

So there was the dead body, lying on the divan.

And among a group of ceaselessly wailing and weeping women, Asya was sitting quietly, the color draining from her face.

“I don’t believe you,” Asya said without looking directly at her mother.

“You don’t have to,” Auntie Zeliha muttered. “But I finally realized, I owed you an explanation. And if I don’t make it now, there will be no other time. He’s dead.”

Asya slowly rose to her feet and looked at the body. She looked hard and intently so as not to forget that this body washed with green daphne soap and wrapped in a three-piece cotton shroud, this body now lying motionless under a blade of steel and two coins of darkened silver, this body given holy water from Mecca and scented with sandalwood incense, was her father.

Her uncle . . . her father . . . her uncle . . . her father. . . .

She lifted her gaze and combed the room until she saw Auntie Zeliha, now sitting at the back with an unresponsiveness that even freshly cut onions could not touch. As Asya gaped at her mother, it dawned on her why she hadn’t objected to her daughter calling her “auntie.”

Her aunt . . . her mother . . . her aunt . . . her mother. . . .

Asya took a step toward her dead father. One step and then another, closer. The smoke intensified in tandem. Somewhere in the room Rose wailed in pain. So did all the women in an endless chain. All were interconnected in a sequence of reaction and rhythm, each and every story woven into those of others, whether their owners recognized it or not. There was a lull in every wail— or perhaps, in every communal grief there was someone who could not mourn with others.

“
Baba
. . .” Asya murmured.

In the beginning there was the word, says Islam, preceding any and every existence. Be that as it may, with her father it was just the opposite. In the beginning was the absence of the word, preceding existence.

Potassium cyanide is a colorless compound, the salt of potassium and hydrogen cyanide. It looks like sugar and is highly soluble in water. Unlike some other toxic compounds it has a noticeable smell.

It smells like almonds. Bitter almonds.

Should a bowl of
ashure
be decorated with pomegranate seeds and drops of potassium cyanide, it would be hard to detect the presence of the latter for almonds are among the many ingredients.

“What have you done, master?” Mr. Bitter croaked as he broke into a sulky grin, as was expected of him. “You intervened in the way of the world!”

Auntie Banu tightened her lips. “I did,” she said, tears running down her cheeks. “True, I gave him the
ashure,
but he is the one who chose to eat it. We both decided it was better this way, far more dignified than to survive with the burden of the past. It was better than not to do anything with this knowledge. Allah will never forgive me. I am ostracized forever from the world of the virtuous. I will never go to heaven. I will be thrown directly into the flames of hell. But Allah knows there is little regret in my heart.”

“Perhaps purgatory will be your abode forever.” Mrs. Sweet tried to offer some solace, feeling helpless as she witnessed the master cry. “How about the Armenian girl? Are you going to tell her about her grandmother’s secret?”

“I can’t. It is too much. Besides, she wouldn’t believe me.”

“Life is coincidence, master.” It was Mr. Bitter again.

“I cannot tell her the story. But I will give her this.” Auntie Banu opened a drawer and took out a golden pomegranate brooch with seeds of rubies buried inside.

Grandma Shushan, once the owner of this brooch, was one of those expatriate souls destined to adopt one name after another, only to abandon each at every new stage of her life. Born as Shushan Stamboulian, she then became Shermin 626. Next she was Shermin Kazancı, and after that, Shushan Tchakhmakhchian. With every name acquired something was also lost in her forever.

Rıza Selim Kazancı was a shrewd businessman, a dedicated citizen, and also a good husband in his own way. He had been astute enough to switch from cauldron making to flag making at the beginning of the Republican era, right at a time when the nation needed more and more flags to adorn the entire motherland. That is how he became one of the wealthiest businessmen in Istanbul. His visit to the orphanage took place sometime around then, as he intended to see the headmaster for potential business arrangements. There in the dimly lit corridor, he saw a converted Armenian girl, only fourteen. It wouldn’t take him long to find out she was the niece of the man he most adored in this world: master Levon—the man who had taught him the art of cauldron making and who had taken care of the needy boy that he once was. Now it was his turn to help master Levon’s family, he thought. And yet, when after numerous visits he would finally propose to her, it wasn’t kindness that guided him but love.

He was convinced that she could and eventually would forget. He was convinced that if he treated her nicely and dotingly, and gave her a child and a magnificent home, she would bit by bit forget her past and her wound would ultimately heal. It was just a matter of time. Women cannot keep carrying the burden of their childhood once they themselves give birth to a child, he reasoned. Thus, when the news arrived that his wife had abandoned him to go with her brother to America, he at first refused to believe it, and then ostracized her. Shushan disappeared from the annals of the Kazancı family, including from the memories of her own son.

Being named Levon or Levent made little difference to Shushan’s son. Either way, he grew up to be a dour man. As gentle and polite as he was outside his house, he was cruel to his own children, four girls and a boy.