Oya Baydar - The Lost Word

They were children who loved each other and conquered their fear through one another. Ulla forgot her loneliness in being an orphan and the agonies of her childlike soul through the fairytale prince who came from the sea and who appeared at her door one evening. When the stranger arrived at this haven where he longed to be a nobody, he found Princess Ulla who was happy with this. Because his little woman never asked, never wanted anything more than for him to be with her and never expected him to be different from his true nature, he was no longer obliged to invent dreams that had become a burden to him, to make up lies that he could no longer bear. The two children neither pondered on the meaning of life nor worried about the rest of the world. They believed that life was wonderful and worth living. And with that belief they made their life, the island and the sombre guesthouse a place to be lived in, beautiful and cheerful.

Ulla painted colourful pictures on the gate and the garden wall of the cottage: plump fair mermaids, Koi carp of all colours with gauzy tails, flowers that had never grown on the island, spring blossom, fairies, little candy-coloured houses in pink, blue, green and yellow … They overcame Grandfather’s resistance and had the house painted a bright deep yellow. Deniz became first a guest on the deep-sea fishing boats, then a cabin boy and finally a sought-after member of the crew. There he was hard-working, strong and efficient. When he wasn’t at sea he helped the grandparents with the Gasthaus, where he was willing and eager if incompetent. The good fishermen of the island, who were quiet and tough on the sea and cheerful and rowdy on land, adopted the stranger who had come to share their lives. Ulla’s grandparents liked him because he had drawn their granddaughter out of her solitude and her melancholy and rescued her from solitude. She had never known her father, and her mother had gone far away in a fishing boat when she was three years old. They were curious as to why the stranger had arrived on their island, but they never enquired or had any doubts about him. And he told them, ‘I came here on a trip with my parents when I was very small. I hadn’t been able to climb up to the ruined castle then, so I promised myself I would come back to see the Devil’s Castle when I grew up. Now I’ve arrived!’ He told them about the old German, the unknown deserter, whom he could hardly recall but whom he had heard about so often from his mother. They were surprised that he could remember; happy, too.

He was looking for a burrow, a shelter where he could hide like a wounded animal, but he found more than that. He had never belonged anywhere until then, and now he had found a place where he could belong. He loved the people, Ulla’s grandparents, the fishermen, the villagers, the little wooden church’s old priest who had known the unknown deserter, the young teacher who was curious about the Muslim religion and eastern culture, and Jan the Bear who was so proud of producing the best moonshine…

I loved them all with a love that was without fear or obligation, because they accepted me, didn’t expect me to be anything other than myself. They were happy with me; because when I was with them I didn’t feel inferior. And perhaps it was also because, deep inside, I secretly enjoyed feeling superior to them. I don’t know if love is the right word, but for the first time since my childhood I felt relaxed, at ease and happy. Mother would call it ‘the happiness of pigs’. This island where people made do and were happy with small, simple things was a refuge far from the cruel adult world.

Their baby would be born in this sanctuary and grow up in safety. The flames of a world set on fire would not reach them; nobody would be able to hurt him or push him around. Their child would not have to share the fate of the one behind barbed wire in Iraq whose wounded captive father with the sack over his head had tried to protect him so frantically and hopelessly. He would not feel the weight of the world’s suffering or humanity’s sins. He would not have to account for them. Nobody would force him to settle this account or weigh down his conscience. He would be as natural as a beautiful animal, free as nature — and be himself.

Then Bjørn was born. It was three days after the Gasthaus’s white-faced, blue-eyed Alaskan husky gave birth to two beautiful puppies; the day that the fishermen had succeeded in rescuing baby whales beached on the shores of the island and floating them back out to sea. When the grandfather, Ulla’s Bestefar, who was anxiously waiting at the door of the delivery room heard the baby’s first cry, the cry of life, he shouted with joy, ‘There! Another baby has been rescued today!’ He was even happier when he found out it was a boy. He said, ‘Let his name be Bjørn’, without consulting anyone. It was then that Deniz realized they hadn’t thought of a name for the infant. Bjørn was a good name — so why not? In that language, the bear was the symbol of strength, of nature. Why not?

Bjørn came with the spring, when the dwarf snowdrops of the north were beginning to bloom, seagulls were sitting on their eggs and wolves were happily suckling their cubs. The days were growing longer, the darkness was getting shorter, and the sun was preparing to visit the north. Ulla pressed her son to her huge breasts and nursed him. Deniz carefully took his son in his arms and cuddled him as though he were the world’s most precious object; afraid of hurting him, looking at him as though he had seen a miraculous creature. Both felt the joy of having a living thing that belonged only to them, one they would love and who would love them back.

‘So how are you?’ asked my strange mother who wore masks on her face and over her heart to conceal her feelings and who tried to hide the trembling in her voice behind her brisk impersonal tone. Good question! How am I, really? How am I on this small, remote, solitary island, one among thousands of Norwegian islands, big and small, facing the North Sea; Ulla’s island, Ulla, who was scattered into pieces with the happiness of red tulips reflected in her eyes?

Elif is looking at the stranger in front of her, as though she is trying to recognize him, afraid of recognizing him, hoping she is wrong … If only the stranger would say, ‘You are mistaken’ or ‘You must have mistaken me for someone else’ or ‘I don’t understand your language’ and then turn around and go. But there he stands with an astonished, questioning look shadowed by sadness; a look that had already settled in his eyes when he was a small infant.

Is this my son? This thick-set ageing Norwegian villager with a long beard who looks like a fisherman. Is he my son? This is a nightmare that has dragged on! A nightmare that I haven’t been able to wake up from for years, one I can’t forget, that follows me and adheres to my heart, my mind, my emotions … ‘Will you be seeing the boy, too?’ you asked during your phone call at dawn. Well, the boy is standing in front of me. No, I won’t tell you everything. I’ll say his poor health is not in evidence. I’ll say he’s fine; he’s happy. And perhaps he is.

My son, our son, is standing in front of me, and I can’t put my arms around him and breathe in his smell, feel his warmth. I love him like an animal loves her young, so naturally, so sensually and instinctively it’s more than I can bear. However, I can’t express it in words. I can’t show it. The son we lost is standing in front of me, and I can’t bring him back to life — to our life, to the place where he should be. I can’t even reach him.

Deniz hugs his mother. He feels her trembling in his arms. Then the little boy, his eyes wide with excitement, approaches them with a strange crab-like walk. Stroking the boy’s straw-coloured hair that shines under the wan yellow lights, and trying to make his voice sound as natural as possible, Deniz says, ‘This is Bjørn, Mother.’ Then in Norwegian, ‘This lady is my mother, Bjørn.’