The hidden warning and the word family drew a thick curtain between him and the roulette, him and the room, him and her. Adem plunked the chips in a box, cashed them in and strode out. An acquaintance gave him a lift half of the way and he walked the remaining half.
There were piles of rubbish on the streets of East London; rotting waste was strewn everywhere, randomly scattered. The world had gone berserk. Everyone was on strike: firemen, miners, bakers, hospital workers, bin men. No one wanted to play the game any more. No one but the gamblers.
It was four in the morning when he reached the house on Lavender Grove. He smoked on the sofa, the cigarette turning to ash between his fingers, the pile of money warm and loyal next to him. Sixteen thousand, four hundred pounds. Since everyone was sound asleep, he couldn’t tell his family about his victory. It would have to wait. He lay wide-eyed in the dusky living room, seized by a sense of loneliness so profound as to be insurmountable. He could hear the rasp of his wife’s breathing. And his two sons, daughter, even the goldfish . . . All wrapped in a mysterious serenity.
This he had noticed while doing his military service back in Turkey. When more than three people slept in a narrow place, sooner or later their breaths would become synchronized. Perhaps it was God’s way of telling us that if we could just let go of ourselves, we would all eventually be in step and there would be no more disputes. The thought was new to him and he enjoyed it for a while. But even if there was a harmony somewhere, he could not be part of it. It occurred to him, the way it had on other occasions, that he was a man just like any other, no better and no worse, but that he was failing the people he cared about. He wondered, for the umpteenth time, whether his own flesh and blood would be better off without him.
Unable to sleep, he left the flat at dawn. He carried the money with him, though he was aware that it was a foolish thing to do. Hackney was full of muggers and thieves who would not mind breaking his ribs for such a large sum. His walk changed to a lope, and he flinched and went cold each time a stranger approached him on the street.
At the United Biscuits Factory he was treated like a king. They had all heard. During the lunch-break his brother Tariq popped in to congratulate him – and to ask for a favour.
‘You know how my wife is,’ Tariq said, his voice dwindling to a confidential whisper. ‘She’s been nagging me for ever about the kitchen.’
Tariq had a theory about British kitchens: that they were deliberately made tiny and gloomy so that everyone would have to make do with takeaways. The architects were accomplices in the conspiracy, and so were the politicians, the councils and the unions, all duly bribed by the restaurant owners, and on and on went his diatribe.
Adem nodded amiably, even though he sensed his elder brother would borrow from him as much as he could, and, after spending a limited amount on his kitchen, would keep the rest in his savings account. Tariq was always hoarding and scrimping. It was hard to believe this was the same man who in his youth had generously supported his two brothers. When their father passed away, Tariq had worked hard, taking care of Adem and Khalil. Over the past years, however, he had become increasingly frugal, snipping toothpaste tubes to squeeze the last drop, clipping coupons from circulars, switching off the water heater, reusing the tea leaves, getting everything second-hand and forbidding his family to buy anything without asking him first, though when they did he always answered, ‘There’s no need.’
Drawing in his breath, Adem said, ‘Do you ever think of our mother?’
On an ordinary day Adem could never have brought himself to speak like this. But now that his brother had asked him for a favour, he felt he had the upper hand. He deserved to hear a few memories in return for a handout. Yet the question was so unexpected that for a moment Tariq seemed at a loss as to how to answer it. A deep wrinkle formed between his brows, extending towards his forehead, where there were several white patches, a skin disease from childhood. When he spoke his voice sounded hard, gruff. ‘Why would I do that? She was a good-for-nothing.’
Don’t you want to know if she’s alive, whether she had other children, how she’s doing, whether she ever missed us? Adem wanted to ask and almost did. Instead, into the ensuing hollow of silence, he said thickly, ‘I’ll stop by your house tonight and bring you the money. Tell my sister-in-law she’ll have her dream kitchen.’
After sunset, it occurred to him that if he gambled and won again, he would have twice the money he had now. Then he could lend money to Tariq, and to others, and wouldn’t even have to ask for a penny back. Motivated by a noble cause, he went to the basement in Bethnal Green and saw the woman with blue eyes. Again he watched her watch the ball spin around the wheel. Again he played big. And he lost. Everything.
***
Shrewsbury Prison, 1990
I had never stammered before in my life until that Tuesday. The 14th of November 1978. The day I decided to get myself a knife.
We were in the school canteen. Me and my mates. Blue plastic trays, shepherd’s pie, jam roly-poly, metal jugs of water, the usual patter. One minute I was making jokes, the next I was tripping over words like a prat. It happened just that suddenly – so fast that everyone thought I was having them on.
We were talking about the next day’s game. Chelsea were playing Moscow Dynamo. Arshad – a short, stocky Paki who dreamed of playing defence for Nottingham Forest – said he would bet his new Doc Martens that our boys in blue were going to win – a walk in the park, he said – but we all knew it was just bollocks.
Upset at not being taken seriously, Arshad turned to me with a twinkle in his eye and grinned, like he always did when he wanted something.
‘Hey, you gonna give me that puddin’?’
I shook my head. ‘Nn . . . not on yo . . . uuur . . . nn . . . neee . . . nelly! Fo . . . forr . . . gett . . . itt.’
He stopped and stared. Others did too, as though they were seeing me for the first time. Then someone mentioned this twat in another class who stuttered so badly nobody talked to him. Assuming I had been mocking him, they broke into laughter. I laughed too. But deep inside I felt a surge of panic. I pushed my tray towards Arshad and gestured with my head that he could have what was left. I’d lost my appetite.
When the break was over, I returned to the classroom in low spirits. How could I have developed a speech impediment, just like that? Nobody in my family stammered. Weren’t these things supposed to be genetic? Maybe not. It could be a blip; a one-off. A temporary psych-out, like a bad trip. Maybe it would go away as suddenly as it had appeared. I had to find out. So I put my watch in my pocket and approached two girls to ask the time. But the only thing that came out of my mouth was a strangled sound.
The girls giggled. Airheads! They must have thought I had a crush on them. I turned away, my face burning. Out of the corner of my eye I could see my girlfriend watching my every move. When the history class started, Katie threw me a note.
Maggie, Christine, Hilary. If boy, Tom.
I crumpled the paper and slipped it into my pocket. Immediately, she hurled another ball. What’s up with you?
I shrugged, meaning it was nothing important. But even if Katie got the message she didn’t look convinced. So I wrote her back: Tell you later!
Throughout the entire class, I was worried sick the teacher would ask me something. I would become the butt of jokes for ever. Fortunately, there were no questions. As soon as the torture was over, I grabbed my rucksack and headed to the door. I decided to blow off the rest of my classes and go home early for once.
*
It was three thirty when I reached our house and rang the bell. As I waited for the door to open, my eyes slid to the name beside the doorbell:
ADEM TOPRAK
My sister, Esma, had written this in her flowery handwriting. Against her better judgement. ‘We live here as well,’ she grumbled. ‘Why write only Dad’s name?’
Esma was a f
rail girl but she always expressed herself with giant ideas: equal opportunity, social justice, women’s rights . . . My friends thought she was either barmy or a Communist. If it were up to her she would have written instead:
THE TOPRAK FAMILY
Or else,
ADEM, PEMBE, ISKENDER, ESMA, YUNUS & THE GOLDFISH
Either way I didn’t give a toss. I, myself, would have left the nameplate anonymous. That would have been more decent, more straightforward. It would be my way of saying nobody lived here. Not really. We didn’t live in this flat, only sojourned. Home to us was no different than a one-star hotel where Mum washed the bed sheets instead of maids and where every morning the breakfast would be the same: white cheese, black olives, tea in small glasses – never with milk.
Arshad might some day play in League Division One, for all I knew. He could fill his pockets with pictures of the Queen and his car with gorgeous birds, but people like us would always be outsiders. We Topraks were only passers-by in this city – a half-Turkish, half-Kurdish family in the wrong end of London.
I rang the bell again. Not a peep. Where on earth was Mum? She couldn’t be at the Crystal Scissors. She had quit her job days ago. I was the head of the family since Dad had gone off and I didn’t want her to work any more. She cried a lot but didn’t resist. She knew I had my reasons. People were gossiping. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. So I told her to stay home. I had to put out the flames.
Nobody at school was aware of what was going on. And I wanted it to stay that way. School was school, home was home. Katie didn’t know a thing either. Your girlfriend was your girl, your family was your family. Certain things had to be kept separate. Like water and oil.
It occurred to me that Mum might have gone to get the shopping or something. I had to have a word with her about that too. I took out my key, put it in the keyhole and turned it back and forth, but it didn’t budge. The door was bolted. Suddenly I heard footsteps down the corridor.
‘Who is it?’ came my mother’s voice.
‘It’s mm . . . me, MM . . . Mum.’
‘Iskender, is it you?’
There was a trace of panic in her voice, as if something bad were about to happen. I heard a whisper, low and rapid, and I knew it wasn’t my mother. My heart started to pound and I felt the air go out of me. I could neither move forward nor go backward, so I kept struggling with the key. This went on for another minute, maybe more, then the door opened.
My mother stood blocking the entrance. Her lips were curved up in a smile, but her eyes were oddly sharp. I noticed a strand of hair had come out of her ponytail and one of the buttons in her white blouse was in the wrong hole.
‘Iskender, my son,’ she said. ‘You are home.’
I wondered what surprised her more – that I was home almost three hours early or that I was her son.
‘Are you all right?’ my mother asked. ‘You don’t seem well, my sultan.’
Don’t call me that, I wanted to say. Don’t call me anything. Instead I took off my shoes and pushed past, almost knocking her over. I went straight to my room, slammed the door and put a chair in front of it so that no one could get in. I climbed up on the bed, pulled the sheets over my head and concentrated on breathing – the way they had taught us in boxing class. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale . . .
Outside, there were secretive noises: the floorboards creaking, the wind blowing and a drizzle falling on the city. Amid the mixture of sounds, I could hear our front door opening and someone stepping outside, quiet as a mouse.
She used to love me more than anything – her first child, first son, roniya chavemin.* Everything was different now. Ruined. A tear rolled down my cheek. I slapped myself to stop it. But it didn’t help. I slapped again, harder.
I listened to her feet coming down the corridor, soft and steady as heartbeats. She stopped by my door but didn’t dare to knock. I could sense her movements, touch her guilt, smell her shame. We waited like that for God knows how long, listening to each other breathe, wondering what the other might be thinking. Then she was gone – as if she had nothing to say, no explanation owed, as if my opinion didn’t count anyway, or my anger, or my pain. She walked away from me.
That’s when I knew what Uncle Tariq had told me about my mother was true. That’s when it occurred to me to buy the knife. Wooden handle, folding blade with a curved point. Illegal, of course. Nobody wanted to get into trouble with the Old Bill by selling a flick-knife, especially to a bloke like me. But I knew where to get one. I knew just the man.
I wasn’t gonna hurt anyone. I only wanted to scare her – or him.
Iskender Toprak
Picnics in the Sun
Istanbul, 1954
Adem had spent his entire childhood torn between two fathers: his sober baba and his drunken baba. The two men lived in the same body, but they were as different from each other as night from day. So sharp was the contrast between them that Adem suspected the drink his father downed every evening to be some kind of magic potion. It didn’t morph frogs into princes or dragons into witches, but it changed the man he loved into a stranger.
Baba (the Sober One) was a stoop-shouldered, talkative person who liked to spend time with his three sons (Tariq, Khalil and Adem), and had the habit of taking one of them with him wherever he went, a random lottery of love and care. The lucky boy would accompany his father to see his friends, on strolls along the Istiklal Avenue and, occasionally, to his workplace – a garage near Taksim Square where he was the head mechanic. Big cars with complicated names pulled in there either for repair or parts. Chevrolet Bel Air, Buick Roadmaster, Cadillac Fleetwood or the new Mercedes-Benz. Not every man in town could afford these models – their owners were mostly politicians, businessmen, casino patrons or football players. On the walls of the garage there were framed pictures in which the mechanics beamed next to their influential customers.
Sometimes Adem would escort Baba to the local tea house, where they would while away the day sipping sahlep,* linden or tea, and watching men of all ages play backgammon and draughts. Politics was a hot subject. That, football and the stories in the tabloids. With a general election coming up, the tea house was abuzz with fervent debates. The prime minister – the first democratically elected leader in the country’s history – claimed that his Democratic Party would win a landslide victory. Nobody could possibly guess that he would indeed get re-elected for another term, at the end of which he would be hanged by a military junta.
On such languid afternoons, Adem would imitate Baba (the Sober One), smacking his tongue on a sugar cube, holding the tea glass with his little finger raised in the air. There would be so much smoke around that when they returned home his hair would stink like an ashtray. Frowning ever so slightly, his mother, Aisha, would rush him to the bathroom. He wished she wouldn’t do that. It made him feel grown-up to have the smell of tobacco in his hair. When he confessed this to his father one day, Baba laughed, and said, ‘There are two things in this world that make a man out of a boy. The first is the love of a woman. The second is the hatred of another man.’
Baba (the Sober One) explained that those who knew only the former softened into wimps and those who knew only the latter hardened like rocks, but those who experienced both had what it took to become a Sword of Steel. As skilled artisans knew, the best way to solidify a metal was to heat it in fire and cool it in water. ‘So it is with a man. You need to heat him in love, cool him in hatred,’ concluded Baba, pausing for his lesson to sink in.
It worried Adem that he never had emotions this profound, but he kept such anxieties to himself. That same year he had his first asthma attack – a malady that would disappear in his teenage years, but never really abandon his body, chasing him throughout his life.
From time to time, Baba (the Sober One) would bring home leftovers from a slaughterhouse near by – chunks of meat, bones and entrails. On such occasions, he would bo
rrow his manager’s pick-up van, taking the family on a barbecue picnic. Adem and his two brothers would sit on the bed in the back, boasting about how many sausages or calves’ feet they could eat in one sitting. Baba in the front, with his wife sitting next to him, would make jokes, and, if in an especially mellow mood, would roll down the window and sing. The songs would invariably be tearjerkers, but he rendered them so merrily no one could tell. Their van loaded with pots, pans and linen, their hearts light and gay, they would head to the hills over the Bosporus. It troubled them that there was a cemetery in the vicinity. Yet there wasn’t much they could do. So it was that since time immemorial the dead in Istanbul had resided in the greenest areas with the best views of the city.
Once there, the boys would look for a suitable spot in the shade. Before sitting, however, their mother would pray for the souls of the deceased, asking their permission to spend time on the land. Fortunately, the dead always answered in the affirmative. After a few seconds of waiting, Aisha would nod, and spread out the mats for everyone to sit on. Then she would light the portable stove, and set up everything needed to prepare the food. Meanwhile, the boys would romp happily about, destroying ant colonies, chasing crickets and playing zombies. As the smell of sizzling beef filled the air, Baba would clap his hands, indicating that the moment had come to open his first bottle of raki.
Sometimes he would start slowly and gradually pick up the pace. At other times, he would set off fast, downing three glasses in the time it would normally take him to finish one. But, one way or the other, by the end of the lunch he was always a few sheets to the wind.
No sooner had Baba emptied the first bottle than he would start to show telltale signs. He would scowl more often, cursing himself, and every few minutes would scold the boys over something so trivial nobody could remember what it was afterwards. Anything might annoy him: the food was too salty, the bread stale, the ice not cold enough. In order to soothe his nerves, he would open up a second bottle.