Oya Baydar: The Lost Word

He no longer wants to see and learn. He just wants to remember. Not immediately; recollection requires the healing power of time. But he wants to remember little by little for the rest of his life — however long that may be. He wants to make these recollections an essential part of himself. Everything is so fresh, so immediate and so poignant that it cannot possibly be a memory yet. He just tries to understand, accept and digest it.

I am returning on the bus in which I arrived. Is this coincidence, destiny or significant in some way? In a place where there are only two travel agencies perhaps this does not even warrant pondering. But, still, it niggles me. We are passing along the same road. Of course there is no other road. The mountains are the same mountains, the rivers, the valleys and the gorges are the same. We are stopped more times than when we came. We are searched with more suspicion, more roughly. We proceed along a mountain road with a ravine on one side, following the convoys of military vehicles heading for the border, the tanks and soldiers in combat gear, being stopped from time to time to give way to them; slowing down at checkpoints fortified with sandbags, barbed wire and machine-guns.

I’m returning along the roads I came along to the place I came from. To reach the starting point and complete the circle. When the circle has been completed I shall pause at that point and think about it. Why did I go all that way to reach the same point? I am not going to ask this question. That is because, when the road ends, the starting point will now be the destination. And I shall be the sum of all the roads I have left behind.

What was difficult was getting on the bus. He thought he could never do it. Now, with his head leaning against the window, his eyes almost closed and, having yielded to the drowsiness of relaxing after tension, his calmness and numbness almost turn into happiness…

They had not talked very much as he and Jiyan returned from the house in the village in the jeep driven by Diyar. All of them were tired from the long night they had spent. The three of them had eaten a simple supper on a large tray on the floor and they had not had a drink. Perhaps there was no alcohol in the country house; perhaps they had not wanted any, or it had not crossed their minds. Jiyan had made some herbal tea. She always drank this. Afterwards they had talked, about the country, the region, about the whole world, about everything; until very late, until daybreak. It was a good conversation. He was surprised that they had so much to talk about and share. He understood now, as they sat talking like old friends on cushions on the floor in the hall of the house and drinking herbal teas smelling of thyme, mint and linden, that the real words that were meant to be said and heard were crushed in the claws of his passion for Jiyan.

Talking to Jiyan like two old friends…

In fact, this was how it should have been from the time he came to town and first entered the chemist’s shop. And so, what did you do, Ömer Eren? Why did you feel the need to create a theme for a novel? Why did you succumb to the appeal of your heroine? The source of the word was not in Jiyan’s body, not in her unusual eastern beauty. It was other things that made her what she was. Later you gradually understood. But, still, it was the most beautiful feeling you have ever experienced. One of those few things that one can look back on with joy as one breathes one’s last breath. That evening after looking at the Hoca’s books and handwritten notebooks, just as they were about to leave the room, Jiyan had stopped at the door and said, ‘It’s time for us to go. Not because the Commander said so, and someone wanted you to. But because there is nothing left for you to do here, because there are people waiting for you, and because every extra day that you spend here will gnaw away at all the good things that, in such a short time, we have enjoyed to the full.’

Thinking that she called him here today to say these things and to say goodbye Ömer had remained silent. She must have thought that it would be easier to sign the decree for our parting in this magical, mystical atmosphere or, rather, this ‘sanctuary’.

He had only asked, ‘What did our relationship mean to you?’

‘I never thought about its meaning. Can love have a meaning? It was a passionate, exhilarating, unforgettable feeling that quenched the thirst in my heart and body. I’m happy I experienced it, and of course I’m a little sad. The sadness experienced after all good things that come to an end.’

‘It does not have to end. You are the one who wants it to end, who doesn’t allow me to speak, my woman.’

‘You are right. I’m the one who wants it to end.’

‘But why? If our parting makes you sad, why?’

‘What did the fox say to the Little Prince? He would cry when he went, but he would always remember him because the wheat fields would remind him of the colour of his hair. You are the one who made me read The Little Prince, Ömer Bey, who made me love it. I understood that book deep in my heart. You know as the Little Prince returns to his distant planet he gives all the stars in the sky to the Pilot. All the stars would seem to laugh because he would be on one of them and because he would be laughing at his friend from there. Come on, let’s play a game: when you return home and remember these parts you will see my face in everything to do with the east, and as you think about me trying to do something for people here you will feel what is happening here more deeply in your heart. Your interest in this land will overcome the political, conscientious, moral interest of the western intellectual and turn into a bond of passion, into feeling and love — in other words, what it should be. Like the Little Prince’s laughing stars, I will have given you mountains and cliffs of love and the towns for which Jiyan’s heart beats.’

‘I don’t want the land, mountains and towns. I want you. I want to hear Jiyan’s heartbeats not those of the towns.’

‘Jiyan’s heart can only beat here. Jiyan is beautiful here, as long as she is distant and free. That is why you were interested in her, that’s why you loved her. Because I belong here.’ She stopped talking for a moment, played with the curls of her tousled hair and added, ‘You told me that you had come to look for the word you had lost. I had not understood then, but now I do. You have found the word you were looking for. It has become easier now for you to leave here and go.’

Have I found it? How does she know that I’ve found the word?

‘Are we now going to put a full stop like this to all we have experienced? Will it be like a passing fancy, just another relationship between woman and man? You said that I have found the word. I don’t know yet. Even if I have, what good will that word be if it is not going to tell about you, to be told to you!’

‘It won’t just tell about me. It will tell about all of us. A word telling of one woman would be empty. Wasn’t it emptiness that dragged you all this way! You said, “putting a full stop to what we have experienced”. In my opinion what we experienced was a parenthesis. A parenthesis that explained our sentences, that rendered our sentences more meaningful and allowed them to be understood and broadened. We are not putting a stop; we are just closing the brackets.’

‘I love you. I should like this parenthesis to continue to the end of the book.’

‘I love you, too, very much. The brackets will close, but the narrative will carry on.’

The door of the room was open. They were discussing their lives as though they were speaking about what to eat, who was going to do the shopping and which books were going to be taken.

First they heard the sound of the dog and then footsteps.