Sait Abasiyanik - A Useless Man

We ripped open the envelope. We didn’t hurry to read it. First we went and got an envelope. We addressed it to the same editor, at the same paper. Then we went to the beach and settled ourselves beside a lone boulder.

On a sheet of paper folded in four, we found the following lines:

Esteemed Sir:

I am sending you this humble story as a contribution to your short story competition. Please feel free to publish it if you like it. With all my respect .

On another piece of paper folded in two there was this story:

(The name was lyrical, even sensual!)

Moonlight

Once upon a time I was in love. I am counting on you to understand why! How could anyone not fall in love with her! (There followed a torrid description, which we passed over quickly.) I was living in a village on the other side of the Sea of Marmara. Every evening, we’d travel back together. I won’t lie to you. My feelings for her were not entirely normal. By which I mean to say they were not as they should have been. When we fall in love, we should feel as if we’ve been struck by lightning. We should resolve to do whatever it takes, to win our beloved’s heart. A love like this has its charms, but it’s not for me. First I need a little bit of encouragement. After that, things are easier. Until I am again encouraged, and then I feel as if I’ve been caught in a trap, and from then on, I am trying to escape. Until there is a third bit of encouragement. Then it’s all over. I’m madly in love .

And now it had happened once again. The second time I saw her, I knew I was heading for parts unknown. Never again would I see the place of my birth or the beloved country where I had made my life. A great sadness fell over me. I almost said an “indescribable sadness,” but here I am, describing it .

Everyone and everything I loved was falling away: my language, my homeland, my mother, my father, my house, my garden, and my friends. And oh, the tears I shed as they gathered round me, saying, “You’re leaving us! How can you do this to us? Shame on you! Can it be true? Are you really going to abandon us, just like this? We never expected this of you … Are you really leaving us? Are you never coming back? Are you actually leaving us for … her? For this woman? Take a good look at her now. Take a good, long look. You won’t regret it!”

The ferry cuts through the calm waters, the stars trail behind. The passengers become their own shadows. And on we sail. I want the journey to go on forever. I pay no heed to the warnings my loved ones keep whispering in my ears .

Who first introduced us, I cannot say. Neither can I say how this came about, or on what pretext. I’ve forgotten everything and everyone but her. Were there stars in the sky above her? Ships in the sea? … Even the sun did not exist, because it wasn’t there that night. Even the moon! This pale slip of a shadow, hardly visible by day had only been with us for fifteen days — and how could we be sure that it existed at all? There were moments when I forgot even this. How beautiful the face of this earth! Such lies it conjures up! Lies can be made of all the things we know to be true — the moon, the stars, and birds, and whistles, and violins, and ships! Oh, such beauties we can find on the face of the earth! And oh, my beloved! And oh, the things I could do, if she and the world were both mine! The third time, I sought her out. She half recognized me, half didn’t. I was crushed. The fourth time, I gave her a casual wave, in passing. But inside I was churning, like a river joining the sea. “Let it go,” I told myself. “Just keep your distance.” The fifth time our paths crossed, I didn’t even say hello .

I went up to sit at the bow. The moon that night was lovely. Was it full? I’m not sure. All I can remember is that there was the moon, and my beloved. How flat those two words are. But what a history they carry. It could only have been a moonlit night when Adam first fell in love with Eve. There were many more to come in the centuries that followed! But there is no one on this earth who could have been unhappier than I was on that moonlit night. Not even the lover caught in the midday sun. Not even the man standing at his window, puffing miserably at his cigarette. The word itself does not begin to describe it. But never mind. There’s no need to look for a better one. A man in the moonlight is a man walking the thin line between misery and bliss. Did you know, for instance, that love has two sides, like the moon itself? Think, perchance, of the lover who commits suicide on a moonlit night. He’s a happy man! Miserable enough to find the joy in death, but happy in the knowledge of the joy that death will bring! (“This part’s awful!” I said to the postman.) On the night in question, that was precisely my line of thinking. In my mind, I could feel death’s cold lips pressing down on me. But here, before me, was a woman with warm lips, and a body smooth as marble. “Hello,” she said. She sat down beside me. “How are you doing?”

“Terrible,” I said .

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Honestly, nothing at all. Oh, who knows. Who can say?”

We fell silent .

When she finally spoke, she seemed to have come closer .

“What’s there, on the surface of the moon?” she asked .

“On the moon?” I said .

I gave it some thought. Then I told her whatever I could remember from school .

“There’s nothing on the moon … It’s empty, meaningless, dead … There is no atmosphere, nothing that can support life. Even the light we see up there is false. It doesn’t radiate its own light … What you see is a reflection of the sun’s light … No, there’s nothing there … Nothing … It’s cold, or maybe it’s not even that … Where there is no atmosphere, can there even be such a thing as heat, or cold?”

“So there’s no life on the moon?”

“There’s no air, as I just said!”

“Fine. But how about if you took your own oxygen?”

“Look, that part I don’t know. Maybe you could last for a few hours, or a few days … It might be possible to stay there long enough to see a bit of the place, and satisfy your curiosity …”

She looked up at the moon. It felt as if she were resting her head on my shoulder. Or maybe it was the moonlight that made me believe this was so .

I succumbed to the light:

“My lovely,” I said. “Have you taken leave of your senses? How could there be anyone up there living on the moon? The only ones who can live there are lovers. They meet for an evening, and two become one. And then they fly up to the moon together. And most of them get there. If I were to take hold of you, if you and I were to fall to the bottom of the sea, never to return, a host of other creatures would come to our rescue and fly us straight up.”

What a lovely laugh she had. I had taken everything I’d learned in geography class and turned it on its head. And that was how I came to find the courage to hold my beloved’s hand .

I managed not to laugh. The postman laughed a great deal. But something in his face had changed. He was no longer curious. He no longer wished to know what secrets lurked in people’s hearts. He put it like this:

“They’re all alike. But I used to think that the man with the dog was different. There were things about him that seemed unique. Oh, the tragedies I dreamed up for him! He certainly kept me guessing. When all it was was love. But I just couldn’t see it — how a man who kept his own company and talked only to his dog could be like you or me. Now I can read the letters I carry without even opening them. I already know them all by heart.”