Oya Baydar - The Lost Word

‘Ömer Eren, our famous writer. He’s helping us,’ said Mahmut.

‘Çima?’ asked the girl. Then she repeated it in Turkish so that the man standing at the door with flowers in his hand would understand. ‘Why?’

Mahmut and Zelal looked at Ömer, and Ömer looked into his heart. Why?

‘Can’t a man help those who are in trouble?’

There was silence. The air in the hot hospital room, where the synthetic, light-coloured curtains could not keep out the sun, became even more oppressive.

‘He can,’ said Mahmut.

The girl turned her head the other way again and said nothing.

Ömer did not give up. He tried to pierce the girl’s shell, her armour impervious to emotion.

‘I know suffering and desperation, too. People need each other. Evil can come from people, but so can kindness. I was there when you were shot; I was waiting for my coach. Should I have boarded the coach and left? Is that what you would have done? You were suffering. I wanted to share it, to ease it. That’s all.’

Was that really all? I might not have followed these people and missed my coach if it hadn’t been for the pain of my son and the terrible memory of Ulla who had come from the North Sea to be blown to pieces in the middle of Istanbul. I would have pressed a few lira into the boy’s hand, boarded my coach and gone my own way. But if you have ever once felt another’s grief in your own heart as though it were your own grief and if you have felt responsible for it, it is only then that you understand what grief is. And after that you can never pass it by. If it hadn’t been for the grief of my son I wouldn’t be standing at the bedside of this obstinate, angry, suspicious Kurdish girl.

‘It happened to someone very close, someone like my son … A bomb exploded as they were passing by, and his young wife — a foreigner who had come from far away — was blown to pieces. They couldn’t even find all the body parts. She left a very small child behind.’

‘Which group was it, abi? Did they find out? Did anyone claim responsibility?’ Mahmut’s voice reveals more than concern; he is worried, anxious.

‘What does it matter? It was just one of those armed organizations that claim to be left-wing. Anyway one of their militants also died in the explosion — a young woman.’

‘For a moment I was afraid it was one of us.’

Taking advantage of the boy’s unguarded remark Ömer tried to make a point. ‘It could have been one of yours; it could even have been you. Once you are involved in this business, once you seek salvation in violence and weapons are regarded as a solution…’

‘There comes a moment when there is no escape except through weapons and death. If others kill, there’s nothing for it but to kill, too. If they come at you and get the better of you, then you defend yourself with weapons.’ It was the first time the girl had said so much.

Ömer wasn’t expecting such words or such a harsh voice emanating from that slender body, that pallid, soft, beautiful face. He was surprised and disappointed. ‘Blood does not get washed away with blood,’ he said weakly. He was aware that these weren’t his own words, his usual mode of expression. He had made an attempt to talk in a way the girl would understand — to talk down to her. As soon as he realized this he felt uncomfortable. It was an ill-conceived attempt at empathy … The pretence of talking in the other person’s idiom for the sake of political correctness … And without really knowing the other person or getting a response … The endless futile endeavours of the western intellectual…

‘If we have to talk in proverbs, they also say, “Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches” or “Fire burns the place where it falls.” It wasn’t that person close to you, your son, who died but the foreign girl. If they had killed your son you would have born a grudge. You would have gone after them. You would have wanted to kill them,’ she replied.

‘All the same, our writer abi wouldn’t have wanted a feud,’ said Mahmut trying to soften Zelal’s words. ‘Feuds aren’t for intellectuals. All those killings, all that blood over all those years … What has changed? We are trapped in our fears, our enmities. We kill each other while listening to the same songs, some in Turkish, some in Kurdish.’

‘If you really want to help, take us somewhere far away where nobody will find us. Where we won’t be subject to a code of honour, organization or the state … Take us to the sea,’ she said in an abrupt tone of voice that did not suggest a polite request.

‘I will do what I can. Just get well and fit enough to leave the hospital.’

‘The doctor said it would be about ten days, abi.’

‘If they let me go in ten days, it will be seventeen days in total. What day is it today?’

‘Wednesday.’

‘So it was Thursday when I came here. That means I will be discharged next Sunday or Monday at the latest. That’s still a long time.’

Ömer counted on his fingers and was amazed. Without any hesitation to work it out, the girl had told them the day she was admitted to the hospital and the day she would be leaving.

‘She’s a very fast calculator,’ said Mahmut proudly, laughing at Ömer’s puzzled face. ‘Ask her to do some mental arithmetic if you like. She’ll work it out straight away. It’s a gift from God.’

‘No, don’t tire her needlessly. Once things improve, we could start a business for you; say, a small shop in a summer resort by the sea. Zelal could take care of the accounts there.’

‘Why are you doing all this? You are not family. You’re not a relative. You aren’t even Kurdish. Why?’ asked the girl once again in the same sceptical, suspicious tone.

He searched for something to say but he couldn’t find anything. ‘Because I’m a storyteller. I write stories. Perhaps I will write your story one day.’

‘Even if you are a storyteller, you are a storyteller of another world. You can’t write our story. You can understand it in your mind, but you can’t feel it in your heart. Even children won’t listen to a story that doesn’t come from the heart.’

She’s a strange girl. Mahmut is naïve, but she is clever, sharp and uncompromising. She won’t meet anyone halfway. She looks like a beautiful cat. Ömer realized that he had gone beyond pitying the girl and had started to feel a curious interest in her, even respect for her. ‘Perhaps you are right, Zelal. You ask me why I bother about you. I’ve been asking myself the same question ever since the night you were shot. To help those in difficulty and so on, that’s all true; but I think my main purpose is to write my own story, to find my own word, as it were.’

‘Then why don’t you look for your tale in your own land among your own people?’

Good question, he thought. Perhaps the girl doesn’t realize the significance of what she has asked, but this is the question I must answer. ‘My own land has dried up. My own people have changed. Perhaps I have changed — not them. I have become a stranger to them, to myself. I have lost my tale. Every storyteller wants to tell his own tale. But when the source runs dry, you build your hopes on new springs to quench your thirst. It’s complicated. What I’m trying to say is this: don’t dismiss my help, and don’t be suspicious either. I’m doing this more for myself than for you.’

‘If you are a storyteller, a bearer of the word, then tell me a tale of escape. Let it be a good story. Let it end well. Let lovers be reunited, brothers be reconciled, travellers arrive safely, babies not be shot and killed. As it is only a story, let no one be unjust, no one oppress or kill anyone.’ This was how Zelal spoke, as if she were telling a story, reciting a poem. Her voice had mellowed; it sounded sad and tired. It was the voice of a child asking her mother to sing a lullaby or tell a bedtime story.