They fell quiet. Peri curled her toes and pressed her slippered feet on the carpet, sensing it would be wiser to change the subject. The mention of her elder brother had darkened the already dim mood, like a cloud that drifts across the pale moon. ‘What about heaven and hell?’ The trials and tribulations of hell had been a constant refrain throughout her education. The idea that her father might find himself in the abode of the damned with its boiling cauldrons, its punishing flames and its dark angels called zabanis terrified her.
‘Well, I’m not really heaven material, no? There are two possibilities: if God has no sense of humour, I’m doomed. Express train to hell. If He has one, there’s hope, I might join you in paradise. They say they have rivers flowing with the best wine!’
A wave of alarm swept over Peri. ‘But what if Allah is as stern as Mother always says He is?’ she whispered.
‘Don’t fret, we’ll have a plan B,’ said Mensur. ‘Make sure you put a pickaxe in my grave. I’ll dig a tunnel out of wherever I end up!’
Peri’s eyes widened. ‘Hell is so deep, if you throw a pebble it takes seventy years for it to reach the bottom. Mother told me.’
‘I’m sure she did.’ A silent sigh. ‘Here’s the good thing: a year on earth is only a minute in the afterworld. One way or another, I’ll come and find you.’ His face brightened. ‘Oh, I almost forgot. I’ve got something for you!’
From his leather bag Mensur produced a wrapped package – a silvery box tied up with a golden bow.
‘For me?’ Peri studied the package.
‘Aren’t you going to open it?’
There was a notebook inside. A beautiful, hand-stitched turquoise notebook with sequins and a mirrored mosaic on the cover.
‘I know you’re curious about God,’ Mensur said pensively. ‘I can’t answer all your questions. No one can, frankly, including your mum and that cuckoo preacher of hers.’ He downed the rest of his raqi in a single swallow. ‘I have no sympathy for religion, or for the religious, but you know why I’m still fond of God?’
Peri shook her head.
‘Because He is lonely, Pericim, like me … like you,’ Mensur replied. ‘All alone up there somewhere, no one to talk to – okay, maybe a few angels, but just how much fun can you have with the cherubim? Billions pray to God, “Oh give me victory, give me money, give me a Ferrari, do-this-do-that …” Same words over and over, but hardly anyone goes to the trouble to get to know Him.’
Mensur topped up his glass, a flash of sadness in his eyes. ‘Think how people react when they see an accident on the road. Straight away they say, “Oh, heaven forbid.” Can you believe it! Their first reaction is to think of themselves, not the victims. So many prayers are carbon copies of one another. Protect me, love me, support me, it’s all about me … They call it piousness; I call it selfishness in disguise.’
At this, Peri cocked her head to one side, eager to console her father but without a clue as to how. The house sank into a quiet so delicate a puff of air would have tipped it over. Peri wondered if her mother, behind walls and from her bed, was listening to this conversation and, if so, what was going through her mind.
‘From now on when you have a thought about God – or about yourself – write it down in your notebook.’
‘Like a diary?’
‘Yes, but it’ll be a special one,’ said Mensur, perking up. ‘A lifelong diary!’
‘But there won’t be enough pages.’
‘Exactly, the only way is to erase previous writings. Do you get it? Write and erase, my soul. I can’t teach you not to have dark thoughts. Never really figured it out myself.’ Mensur paused. ‘But I was hoping you could at least rub them out.’
‘So that I can have new dark thoughts?’
‘Well, yes … new dark thoughts are better than old dark thoughts.’
That same night, as she sat up in bed, Peri opened her diary and wrote down her first entry: I think God comes in many pieces and colours. I can build a peaceful God, all-loving. Or I can build an angry God, punishing. Or maybe I’ll build nothing. God is a Lego set.
Put up and pull down. Write and erase. Believe and doubt. Was that what her father really meant? In the end it hardly mattered, for that was what Peri, harking back to that day years later, decided she had heard. Her father’s teaching would solidify what she already suspected about herself: that, while some people were passionate believers and others passionate non-believers, she would always remain stuck in between.
The Polaroid
Istanbul, 2016
The tramp lunged at Peri, swinging the knife so swiftly and recklessly it was a miracle she was able to dodge it. The blade missed the side of her abdomen by inches but sliced her right palm open. She let out a piercing wail, her voice cracking with pain. Blood streamed down her wrist, dripping on to her purple silk dress.
Her heart pounding in her ribcage, sweat pouring down her forehead, she pushed the man with all her might. Not expecting resistance he lost his balance, swaying momentarily – a respite Peri used to knock the knife from his hand. Enraged, he hit her in the chest with such force that for a horrible moment she couldn’t breathe. She thought of her daughter, waiting in the car. She thought of her two young sons, watching their favourite TV show at home. An image of her husband swam into her head: at the dinner party surrounded by other guests, checking his watch every few minutes, sick with worry. The realization that she might never again see her loved ones brought tears to her eyes. How stupid it was to die like this. People faced death defending their countries and their flags and their honour; she, defending a fake Hermès bag with a misplaced grave accent. But maybe it was all equally meaningless.
The tramp punched her again, this time in the stomach. Felled, Peri coughed, nearly all her strength drained out of her.
She summoned up a last reserve of willpower. ‘Stop it! I tell you, stop now!’ Peri shouted as though reprimanding a misbehaving child. She was trembling; her body seemed to refuse to listen to the orders from her brain not to panic. ‘Look,’ she whispered hoarsely, ‘if you hurt me, you’ll be in serious trouble. They’ll put you in jail. They’ll break your …’ She wanted to say ‘your spirit’, but instead she said ‘your bones’. ‘Trust me, they will do that.’
The tramp sucked upon his teeth. ‘Whore,’ he said. ‘Who do you think you are?’
Nobody had ever called Peri a whore before and the word pierced her like a splinter of ice. She made another attempt, opting for reconciliation. ‘Keep the bag, okay? You go your way, I go mine.’
‘Whore!’ he repeated, stuck inside the oath.
His expression darkened; his eyes became thin fissures in his face. He drew in his breath, aroused by his own thoughts. Beyond the alley, a car approached the opening, its headlights briefly carving a tunnel of escape. Peri wished to shout for help, but it was already too late. The car had disappeared. They were plunged into shadows again. She took a step back.
Catching Peri by the neck, the tramp shoved her down. Her hair came loose; the pin that had been holding the bun ricocheted off the ground. A tiny, metallic sound. When she fell backwards, her head hit the asphalt from the impact. Strangely, it didn’t hurt. From down here the sky seemed impossibly far and resembled a sheet of bronze, unmoving, solid, cold. She tried to get up, her hand leaving bloody prints. In a flash, he was on top of her, struggling to tear off her dress. A sour smell emanated from his mouth – of hunger, cigarettes, chemicals. It was the stench of decay. Peri retched. The flesh trying to penetrate her flesh was that of a corpse.
It happened all the time in this city that encompassed seven hills, two continents, three seas and fifteen million mouths. It happened behind closed doors and in open courtyards; in cheap motel rooms and five-star luxury suites; in the midst of the night or plain daylight. The brothels of this city could tell many a story had they only found ears willing to listen. Call girls and rent boys and aged prostitutes beaten, abused and threatened by clients looking for the smallest excuse to lose t
heir temper. Transsexuals who never went to the police for they knew they could be assaulted a second time. Children scared of particular family members and new brides of their fathers-or brothers-in-law; nurses and teachers and secretaries harassed by infatuated lovers just because they had refused to date them in the past; housewives who would never speak a word, for there were no words in this culture to describe marital rape. It happened all the time. Canopied under a mantle of secrecy and silence that shamed the victims and shielded the assailants, Istanbul was no stranger to sexual abuse. In this city where everyone feared outsiders, most assaults came from those who were too familiar, too close.
In the ensuing minutes in the quiet of that alley, as though waking from a dream only to find herself ensnared in someone else’s nightmare, Peri’s perception of the events splintered into disparate layers. She fought back. She was strong. He was too, unexpectedly so from his gaunt frame. He headbutted her, knocking her unconscious for a few seconds. She could have given up, so sharp was the pain, so irresistible the urge to let despair take over.
That was when she saw a silhouette out of the corner of her eye. Soft and silken, too angelic to be human. She recognized it – him. The baby in the mist. Rosy cheeks, dimpled arms, sturdy, plump legs; wispy, golden hair that had not yet turned dark. A plum-coloured stain covered one cheek. A cute little infant, except he wasn’t. A jinni. A spirit. A hallucination. A figment of her wired, fearful imagination – although this was not their first encounter.
Unaware of the apparition behind him, the tramp swore under his breath as he grappled with his trousers. Impatiently, he tugged at the rope around his waist that served as a belt. He must have knotted it too tightly; he was unable to untangle it with one hand while holding Peri with the other.
The baby in the mist gurgled with delight. Through his innocent eyes Peri saw the folly she had been sucked into, the laughable misery. She chuckled. Loud and bold. Her reaction puzzled the tramp, who paused for a fleeting second.
‘Let me help you with that,’ Peri said, nodding towards the cord.
His eyes sparkled – half disorientated, half distrustful. A flicker of condescension crossed his face. He had managed to scare her and he knew, from past experiences, fear was all it took to bring someone, anyone, from their lofty position down to their knees. He pulled away – merely an inch or two.
With all her might, Peri launched herself at the man. Caught by surprise, he tumbled rearwards and fell on his back. Lithe and agile, she jumped and kicked him in the crotch. He keened like a wounded animal. Peri felt nothing – no pity, no rage. One always learned from others. Some people taught beauty, others cruelty. She couldn’t tell whether it was because the intoxicant he sniffed earlier was working its way through his body, weakening him, or because she was fortified by some wild and unknown energy, but she felt powerful. Unhinged. Dangerous.
She rammed her foot into his face, all her strength focused on that single action. A sickening sound rang out – the crack of a nose being broken. The sight of his blood, this time in abundance, instead of terrifying her goaded her to hit him harder. Before she knew it, she was kicking and punching him everywhere.
The tramp clutched his stomach, his coat rolled up, revealing an emaciated torso underneath. Listless and light, he endured the beating as if he were tired of the chasing, the stealing, the struggle and the pettiness of it all.
‘You son of a bitch,’ Peri said under her breath. In all these years she had never cursed aloud, not since Oxford, and it felt – like the last time – surprisingly easy, sweet.
The baby in the mist glided past. As evanescent as a whisper; a figurine made of the finest silks and gauzes. He was not smiling any more; his features, carved from honey-coloured wax, were unmoving. Nor did he seem to judge what was happening. He was beyond such things, from outside this realm. Swiftly, and once again having helped Peri, he vanished. The vapour dissolved into the evening’s gathering darkness without a trace.
All at once, Peri stopped hitting the tramp. A rising breeze stirred her hair, a shrieking seagull – perhaps a distant descendant of another seagull that had in the aeons of time swallowed a poet’s tongue – circled above, angry at something or someone in this city of crowds and concrete.
The man was panting, every breath like a sob. He had blood all over his face and his upper lip had split.
I’m sorry, Peri thought and almost said it aloud, the words catching in her throat. In that instant, as though conditioned, she recalled a voice, loving and reprimanding at the same time. Are you still apologizing to everyone, my dear?
If Professor Azur had been transported to Istanbul, that’s what he would have said to her now, most likely. How bizarre it was that the past came flooding in at the very moment disorder breached the banks of the present. Random memories, repressed anxieties, untold secrets, and guilt, plenty of guilt. All her senses dimmed, the world became a blurry backdrop. Engulfed by a feeling of placidity, almost a kind of numbness, that separated her from everything else, including the pain from a place in her body she couldn’t locate, Peri remembered things from her life that she thought she had forever left behind.
The tramp started to weep. Gone was the Emperor of the streets, the beggar, the addict, the thief, the rapist … all his roles had been stripped away, leaving behind a boy crying in the dark for a comforting touch that would never come. Now that the effect of the glue had fully worn off, physical pain had replaced hallucinations.
Peri approached him, the blood pulsating in her ears, horrified at what she had done. She would have offered him help had her daughter not arrived just then.
‘Mum, what happened?’
Fast as an arrow, Peri turned back. She composed herself, trying her hardest to gather her thoughts. ‘Sweetheart … why didn’t you wait in the car?’
‘How much longer could I wait?’ Deniz said, but whatever reprimand she had in mind instantly vanished. ‘Oh my God, you are bleeding. What on earth happened? Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ Peri said. ‘We had a bit of a scuffle.’
The tramp, now deadly quiet, staggered to his feet and stumbled over to a corner, showing no more interest in them. Mother and daughter picked up the handbag and as many of its scattered contents as they could find.
‘Why can’t I have a normal mother like everyone else?’ Deniz muttered to herself, as she scooped up credit cards off the ground.
It was a question Peri could not answer, and therefore did not try.
‘Let’s go,’ Deniz said.
‘Just a second.’ Peri’s eyes cast around for the Polaroid, but it seemed to have disappeared.
‘Come on!’ Deniz yelled. ‘What’s wrong with you!’
Leaving the alley, they hurried back to their car. The Monte Carlo Blue Range Rover was waiting for them, miraculously unstolen.
The rest of the ride continued in silence: the daughter picking at her fingernails, the mother with her eyes fixed on the road. Only later would it occur to Peri that they had not retrieved her mobile phone. Maybe the tramp still had it in his pocket; maybe it had fallen out during their struggle, and somewhere in that alley it was flashing and ringing – yet another cry that went unheard in Istanbul.
The Garden
Istanbul, 1980s
The first time Peri saw the ‘baby in the mist’ she was eight years old. The encounter would change her forever, intertwine itself through her life like a vine through a young tree. It would also be the beginning of a series of experiences that, though familiar because of their similarity, would become no less frightening over the years.
Unlike most houses in the vicinity, the Nalbantoğlus’ was surrounded by a lush garden on four sides. It was at the back that they spent most of their time outside. That was where they hung red peppers and aubergines and okra on strings to dry in the sun, prepared jar upon jar of spicy tomato sauce, and steamed sheep’s heads in cauldrons on Eid al-Adha. Peri would try hard not to look at the sheep’s eyes, open and unblinking.
Her throat would tighten at the thought that whoever ate those eyes would also ingest the horror they had witnessed seconds before being slaughtered. The idea was doubly disturbing, since she knew it would be her father who would consume the delicacy that evening at his raqi table.
It was also here that they piled up raw wool; then aired, washed and beat it with sticks before stuffing it into mattresses. Occasionally, a bit of fluff would break free from the rest and gently fall on to someone’s shoulder like a feather from a shot pigeon.
When Peri had confessed to her father that the raw wool reminded her of dying birds and that the eyes of sheep stared at her accusingly, Mensur had smiled and given her a peck on the cheek. ‘Don’t be so sensitive, canimin içi,* don’t take life too seriously’ – as if he himself were any different.
A wooden, unpainted fence – with posts so wide apart that it resembled a mouth with missing teeth – separated their property from the outside world. Of all the activities in the garden, Peri’s favourite, after the games she played with other children, was the day of communal carpet washing. How she longed for that time to arrive, which would happen every few months. The weather had to be clement – neither too dry nor too damp, the carpets sufficiently dirty, and everyone in the right mood.
One such day, all the carpets and rugs had been rolled up and dragged outside, where they were laid out on the grass, side by side. Handknotted, flatwoven or factory produced, there were about twelve of them to wash. Thrust into a universe of symmetrical knots, central medallions and hidden symbols, the children of Mute Poet Street leaped back and forth with squeals of laughter, sailing across oceans and into ports on their flying carpets.
Meanwhile, in a separate corner, an uncovered cast-iron cauldron boiled on an open fire. Bowls of water were drawn from it and poured on to the rugs to soften the fabric. Next each would be soaped, brushed, scrubbed and rinsed. Again and again. Not all the women took part in the drudgery. Peri’s mother, for one, stood to one side, finding the job too tedious and too messy for her taste. Others, the brave and the diligent, had already turned up their shalwars and skirts, their faces flushed with the importance of their mission, their hair no longer contained by their headscarves, their bare feet flattening the deep shag-pile of the rugs as though trampling through a field of young barley.