The House in Smyrna (6 page)

Our house became the saddest in the neighbourhood, filled with the silent suffering of a family that knew it was going to lose its only daughter, and the suffering of that daughter, who believed she'd found happiness. She didn't want to tell you anything, dear brother, because she wanted you to keep believing in a world that no longer existed. Her only moments of happiness were when she received letters from you with news of Brazil, your job, your health, and your friends, and she wanted the feeling to be reciprocal. ‘I don't want him to know anything,' she kept telling me, ‘because what good would it do? Or do you want him to leave his new home to come visit a sister who isn't long for this world? We can't be selfish,' she insisted. ‘Each of us must meet our fate.'

But now, dear brother, I no longer have any reason to hide it from you, as she is no longer among us. I know how much sadness this will bring you, especially because as her twin, you were closest to her. I feel the same pain, and I know how heavy it is. Especially when I think of her sweetness, her grace, and everything she still had in front of her, everything we had yet to do together. Nothing saddens me more than this future that no longer exists.

Our parents are not the same anymore. They stare off into space, as if they've lost their way in the world. I'll never forget Mother standing by the coffin, all in black, with a scarf over her head, like the day you left, but this time singing songs of grief all morning. We all know, even if we haven't been through it ourselves, that there is no pain worse than that of losing a child.

I could carry on for many pages, telling you the details of these long months in which we merely waited for her to die, but I'll spare you this excess, because the truth has been spoken, and it's all that matters. Time will take care of the rest. For now, there is nothing we can do except pray for our dear sister and ask that she be in peace, wherever she is.

Much love,

Sabi

When I woke up I was wet, your hand under my skirt, my knickers pulled aside. We were driving around Italy, from north to south. I woke up as if from an erotic dream, but it was your hand, your curious fingers. You were driving fast, with only one hand on the steering wheel, staring at the horizon. I pretended I was still asleep. I curbed my urge to change position, to spread my legs a little or sink further into the seat. I didn't move, but my body was a whirlwind inside. I wonder if you suspected that I was awake. Your finger went faster and faster and I didn't think I'd manage to stay still for long. It was early autumn, the leaves already turning orange. I tried to picture where we were, if we were in the countryside, near the beach, if someone could see us from the highway, if we might get caught in our little misdemeanour. I pictured the situation itself: the two of us in the car, me asleep, you with one hand on the steering wheel, the other touching me. Your finger went faster and faster and I couldn't contain myself.

Shrivelling more and more by the day, my devastated body is no longer mine. It is nothing but viscera, tripe peeking through the cuts where my skin has been gouged away. The stench of sulphur is stronger, and the burden bearing down on my body has become inertia, listlessness. I can smell the worms preparing for the final banquet. I know they are on their way, already anticipating the great feast that will soon begin. Shortly they will be wiggling through me, making new perforations in this body already riddled with holes. With my last iota of energy, I take the typewriter that is pressing down on my belly and place it on the ground. Then I take the two tips of the sheet bunched up at the foot of the bed and pull it over me, covering myself entirely, like a burial shroud.

I couldn't sleep. Whenever I shut my eyes, I knew what it was like not to see, and I didn't want to. I spent nights fighting off sleep, inventing ways to keep my eyes wide open. Even if the room were dark, there would be some faint light coming from outside. Sometimes I'd turn on the lamp and spend the night reading. You didn't even notice. There were so many injections, you were on so much medication that, come night, you'd crash. Meanwhile, I did what I could to stay awake, because I was afraid to wake up and discover that something had changed. When you woke up, my heart would start to race. Can you see what time it is? We always did the same test. In front of you was a wall clock with large numbers. If you were able to tell me what time it was, everything was okay. Then all we had to do was wait for another day to pass.
I knew the battle was coming to an end and it was time to lay down my weapons. Your fear peaks when you're in the midst of the fight, but when you know there is nothing more you can do, it fades. I wasn't afraid anymore.
I was beside myself, I'd never felt so panicked. It was worse than if I had lost my own sight: it was you who was losing it, and there I was, unable to do a thing. I wanted to understand exactly what you were feeling, to be in your place.
In my place? And what would you have done?
I don't know, but I wanted to know what your pain was like and I couldn't. My heart was filled with anxiety. Whenever I closed my eyes, I felt a little of your suffering. It seemed so enormous that I'd open them quickly. It wasn't fair that you should have to go through that.
I won't say I didn't suffer. That would be a lie. But I also felt the deepest joy in that hospital. The two of us in that same room for two weeks. I had never felt love so explicitly before. Every gesture, no matter how small, had the intensity of a declaration. Devoid of fear and angst, I could feel everything you had to offer me. Love. Is there any greater joy? You lying next to me in the hospital bed, against the rules. You reading me that epistolary novel, remember? The two of us playing cards, when I was still able to. You letting me win, as parents do with small children. You keeping tabs on my drip. You telling me about your adventures. You making sure the nurses followed the doctor's orders to a T. You giving me sponge baths, applying ointment to my vagina, touching my body covered with sores, riddled with holes, filled with pus, with its acidic smell, its smell of death. You touching me without disgust, as if my body were yours, ours.
It's true, you're right. I didn't know the extent of our love either. It was as if we stretched it a little each day and the further we did, the more we understood that it would go as far as we wanted it to. It had no boundaries, no limits. It was a presence that was stronger than the vulnerability of the flesh. It was timeless, and only later, after I'd stopped fearing your death, did I understand that, back then, it was still mixed with pain. Now I know the precise meaning of that love. Now, Mother, it is me who carries you in my belly.

I was leaving the bathroom when you forced me back in. Facing the mirror, I admired the reflection of your face as you nudged my legs apart.

I was ambling along in Istanbul's scalding heat when I came across a cucumber stall. An elderly man was skilfully peeling them and selling each one for a few cents. Small, medium, and large cucumbers. Whole, with nothing but salt. I was amazed — it was the first time I'd seen anything like it. At the same time, nothing could have been more familiar: salted cucumbers, to be eaten as rabbits eat carrots in cartoons. When I was a girl, I refused to eat lunch or dinner without first having a cucumber, whole, with salt. For an afternoon snack, a cucumber. I'd like one, please, I told the man.

How big?

Small, I said. They're the best, crunchier.

I asked if I could have my picture taken with him, behind the stall. It was funny: the man was serious, focused, his long moustache following the closed contour of his mouth, while I wore a goofy grin, pleased with my discovery. I began to think that, yes, the trip was for a reason. The past wasn't my grandfather's alone, it didn't belong only to those who had emigrated. The cucumber was proof.

After his sister's death, his younger brother wrote him a few more letters, all tinged with the dried blood of the departed. He no longer looked forward to the postman's visit. That is, until the day his brother wrote, not to talk about the household in mourning, but a decision he'd made:
I'm coming to Brazil, to join you. My time has come.
Happiness inflated his chest, made him feel light and fresh, like a rain shower on a hot summer's day. He would receive Sabi in the land that was now his, and he'd help him to get established, to grow as he had grown. Yes, he could help his brother make something of his life, and the thought filled him with enthusiasm. Good news at last!

On the day of his brother's arrival, he didn't go to work, asking an employee to cover for him (by this time he already had his own hardware shop). He rose early, showered, dabbed on his best fragrance — as if he were going to court a woman — and put on a suit and tie, because he wanted to greet his brother in style. He was so nervous that his stomach churned and he could barely eat breakfast. He hurried out, wanting to arrive at Praça Mauá before ten o'clock, when the ship was due to dock. He spent almost two hours in the blazing sun, staring anxiously at the horizon, trying to catch sight of a large ship like the one that had brought him to Brazil years earlier.

He was almost nodding off on a bench in the square when he heard the whistle he was waiting for: it was him, his brother, arriving. He raced to the edge of the pier to wave so his brother would know he was there. While the hull of the ship made waves in the water, he waved and shouted: Sabi, Sabi! His brother waved back with his felt hat. How different he was, all grown up. A man already!

After a long embrace, they kissed each other on the cheeks, both dripping with sweat. They laughed, cried.
Mazel tov
, they repeated, wishing each other good luck, luck in their new land. Sabi seemed mature, and was willing to do whatever was necessary so as not to regret his choice. My grandfather was proud of him; his feelings toward his younger brother were fatherly. He knew he'd have to help and look out for Sabi a lot, but he didn't mind. On the contrary, it gave him a renewed vigour, a happiness he'd felt few times in his life.

He helped Sabi carry his suitcases and accompanied him to immigration, where Sabi filled in forms and presented his documentation. He had taken out Brazilian citizenship, which made it easier for Sabi to get a visa. It took a while, nevertheless. The queue was long, and the questions, interminable. But when they finally exited, Sabi holding his papers, they left the bother of the wait and the heat behind. They had too much to tell each other to worry about bureaucratic trifles. He wanted to know how their father, mother, and brother were, how the voyage had been, if Sabi was okay, and if he was willing to start work the next day. Sabi wanted to know how things worked in Rio de Janeiro, where he was going to live, if it was hard to learn Portuguese, and if he could start work the next day.

But there was no hurry; there was plenty of time. They had their future in front of them, together — a future graced with good fortune, unexpected events, love, families, and work, lots of hard work. Like all futures, it would also bring pain and loss, but what did it matter at that moment? All they wanted to do was catch up, be brothers again, make up for all the time in which they'd missed each other. And plan the future, even if later it turned out to be different than they'd imagined.

I don't know if there was a specific moment when the fights started. Perhaps they were always inherent to us. Just as we couldn't live without each other physically, we also couldn't live without fighting. Sometimes we hurt each other. We almost always broke up. You almost always did the breaking up, because I wouldn't have known what to do with my body without yours. In all truth, you wouldn't have either, but it was a part of your act to show me that, unlike me, you could live well on your own — you would live better on your own. Every time you thought I was getting too clingy, you'd say: this isn't working, I don't want this, you ask too much of me, I need some time, we both need to live our own lives. I'd get desperate, and shout: my life is yours, my life is ours. And for hours we'd play out what to an onlooker was just an act, but to me was death itself. Until eventually the spiteful words gave way to sweet words. And the sweet words transmuted into sweet (desperate) kisses, sweet (desperate) touches, and sweet (desperate) caresses. Then we'd make (sweet, desperate) love, like never before. We'd devour each other as if we'd just met, as if we held no grudges. Our sweaty bodies on the bed, the room smelling of sex. After a long time we'd have a cold shower, and it would be as if we were two children, as if we'd never fought, as if we'd never broken up, as if we'd always belonged to each other, as if we always would belong to each other.

At the entrance, none of the women spoke English. It was evident from their sideways glances that my presence was unusual: they didn't get many foreigners there. Nevertheless, it didn't take too much gesticulating to make them understand that I wanted to come in. It had taken me a while to find a traditional Turkish bath, frequented only by Muslim women. On the bus, I had approached a woman and timidly asked if she could recommend a nearby
hammam
. They're for tourists. Turkish women haven't gone to
hammams
for a long time, she laughed. Embarrassed, I went to find a place at the back of the bus. But before getting off, almost as if regretting her indelicacy, she handed me a piece of paper with a name on it:
Yildiz
. You'll find what you're looking for there, she said.

The woman at reception pointed at my clothes, indicating that I should take them off. I did as two girls beside me did, removing my garments one by one, leaving on only my underwear, and placing them on a shelf in the corridor that led to the baths. A woman who spoke a few words of English came over to ask if I wanted one of the services she was offering: a massage or exfoliation. It is part of the Islamic cleansing ritual to scrub the skin to remove what is dead. I accepted both. She took me by the hand and led me through the curtain into the baths. I got a shock: it was nothing like what I'd imagined. Of course I hadn't expected to find myself in a five-star hotel — after all, I'd chosen to go to a traditional bath — but I had no idea it would be such a mess and, above all, so dirty. Scattered about the floor were hairs, empty shampoo bottles, and soap wrappers, and the room was awash with dark water. The heat was infernal. I hesitated for a second and almost did an about-turn: I'm so sorry, but I have to go, I forgot I have to be somewhere. But I controlled the impulse and told myself: if these women are here, looking so alive and happy, why can't I be? If I really wanted to experience their world, I'd have to leave mine at the door.