Oya Baydar - The Lost Word

‘East: the distant land where our fathers — civil servants and soldiers — did their compulsory service. The land of migration where officer families living in outposts and garrisons deployed all along the borders think that the howling of jackals is an enemy raid; where children hide under their bedcovers in fear; where the snow does not melt in the north and where scorpions scorch in the heat in the south; the land of those magical, suspect languages — Kurdish, Zazaki, Armenian, Syriac, Arabic and Georgian — the distinctive spicy food that has the taste of bulgur and is consumed with homemade raki; where the impoverished smugglers, the brave and innocent old-time bandits, the Mehmetciks, and the guerrillas are killed in minefields or in battle — so many killed, continuously being killed — the land of rebellions, deportations, wars and migrations. That distant land that has become more than a region or a climate in whose mirror we test our fears, our enmities, our friendships and our beliefs in life and man; and not being able to stand the stress we prefer to forget and accuse instead of being accused. A fountain in which we hope to wash clean our wounded, frayed, enlightened consciences. The last refuge in which to hide our fear and tiredness, to dress the wounds of defeat after the working class that was buried beneath the debris of the times deserted us — or was it we who deserted them?’

He must write this down. He must write it in more lyrical language, with deeper thoughts and an infinitely large heart but sincerely and with genuine feeling. He must write it looking into his own heart and finding the word once more. He must not mind who reads it, how well it sells or who condemns it, and he must take the risk of losing his reputation and becoming nothing. He must write the story of real people, not the east desired by the west that is bored with itself, satiated but which has failed to achieve happiness; the west that looks for peace in mysticism, in the deserts, at the tops of mountains, in Buddhist temples and Hindu shrines. Not the unnatural fiction that the literature market operating according to supply and demand requires, the stories without people, the fairytales of the well-to-do, sick and tired, wealthy westerners sitting on their pots of money who leave everything behind and find happiness in poor lands.

He knows that he has to question frankly, without fear, the reason for his losing the word and the fact that he has not been able to write for some time. He feels that the query ‘Who would be interested in our story apart from a few dinosaurs?’ lurks behind his fear of his reputation sinking, of not being on the bestseller list and losing his readers and is a trick, a self-deception. He recalls the German war correspondent committing suicide, leaving a note saying, ‘I have not a single line left to write.’ Had he not been able to write because of the suffering he had witnessed, or was it simply because he had dried up?

Now, making his way in a decrepit old coach in a yellow-grey light between soldiers minesweeping in the eerie high mountain passes, their lives entrusted to the mercy of their commander, the militants in the mountain and to the Devil, too, he is seized with doubt that he will be able to find the word — the true words that he wants to say — and that he will be able to tell the real story that he wants to tell. He is not quite sure of the virtue of the path he has taken in pursuing a scream that cleaved the night, that he will be able to find what he is looking for — or that he even knows what he is looking for. He almost regrets setting off on the journey. He feels like a drink. Damn it! I always used to be prepared. Well, I was taken unawares. Homemade roki and similar delights — they are all left behind, past memories.

There is no sign of alcohol on the shelves or the counters of the makeshift shops that line both sides of the road where they stop for a break. The shops sell anything and everything from vegetables to wheat, cheese to soft drinks and hardware to prayer mats. He doesn’t have the courage to ask. But still he consults the driver.

‘ Abi, there isn’t any. Don’t even bother looking for it! You can’t find it round here. Oh … if you want white stuff, I mean powder, that’s easy to find. It’s all over the place. The military police know where it is and so do the guerrillas. If you need some …’

‘I don’t do white stuff or powder. I want a drink for … You know, my throat. Also my gums are all inflamed. I expect I’m developing a cold. That’s why I’m looking for alcohol.’

The driver doesn’t seem to have swallowed the line. He grins in a friendly manner. Ömer is sorry that he has told a fib, buys a bottle of water and returns to the coach. In this place where he has come in pursuit of a scream he is as foreign and as nervous as a tourist. ‘Being the other one of those we have otherized …’ That’s a good phrase; I must make a note of it. Now and then he finds good phrases and notes them down. But they are all empty words; not one of them is the word he is seeking. Perhaps all that I have written until now was just words … empty words, nonsense.

As he looks for his notebook in the many pockets of his hunting vest he remembers his mobile phone. Much of the time there is no signal out in the countryside. Particularly in the gorges and when they go between the mountains they are out of signal range and service. Just as these parts are out of our personal service area … There is a tiny envelope icon on the screen. You have a message. The first text is from Elif: ‘I’ll be seeing the boy.’ He doesn’t even look at the messages from his publisher, his editor and from the International PEN or from a society to which he has promised to give a talk. He returns again and again to his wife’s message: ‘I’ll be seeing the boy.’ Ordinary words: the burden, the poison and the pain of which both of them know well.

The disturbing woman at the coach station had whispered that they killed the child. The whisper had turned into the young man’s scream that had pierced the night and the cowardly, furtive tranquillity of oblivion. ‘They’ve killed the child! Zarok kuştin!’

Which child? Had he decided at that instant to remember the child? No, it was later, it was while waiting for news of the woman being operated on, leaning against the wall smoking cigarette after cigarette with the young man in the stuffy corridor of the emergency ward half lit by a dim light, where patients lay on broken benches and where their relatives with worried, anxious faces looked round hopefully each time a door opened …

This matter should have ended after he had made sure that the seriously wounded patient was operated on immediately by giving his own name and using the name of a professor he knew and after he had completed the hospital admission procedure and left some money as well. At most, he should have given his mobile number and as a conscientious, responsible citizen gone on his way. This was the natural thing to do — and it was also in keeping with his character. However, there he was pacing up and down in the hospital corridor with Mahmut — he had finally learnt that the young man’s name was Mahmut — whose face was overcast with fatigue and suffering, waiting for the outcome of the surgery.

Mahmut looked in his mid-twenties: he had a fine, swarthy, open face in spite of his stubble, and he was handsome despite his dishevelled appearance. He was also silent, scared and alien. When speaking he looked not at one’s face but at a point beyond, like people who are guilty or shy. It was quite obvious that he was from the east, but he did not have a strong eastern accent that would make him difficult to understand apart from a shortening of the long A’s and the slightly guttural G’s and also the emphasized separation of syllables. It took Ömer some time to understand that the youth’s silence, his evasive glances and his ill-at-ease manner stemmed from insecurity.