Oya Baydar - The Lost Word

Zelal had said, ‘If you don’t hear the voice in your heart, you won’t have any words left to say.’ As your heart becomes calloused, and an arrogant, indiferent, selfish, heartless choir deafens your ears, you stop hearing the voice of the people. If the word does not reflect the voice of the people, their scream, it is doomed to remain empty and hollow, like the last things you wrote. Or you become silent and lose the ability to write at all. As is the case at this moment.

He asks himself why he is looking for the word here. How will the voice that rises from this ruined, destitute world be transformed into the word? He doesn’t know. He must try to find it if he doesn’t want to be condemned to silence. He will risk it. He will try.

There is only the name of the neighbourhood — Republic District, Number 17 — on the address that Mahmut has written on a piece of paper, not the name of the street. Perhaps he forgot to write it; perhaps there is no need for street names around here. The broad street, Flag Avenue, that cuts through the town, leads to a small square, Republic Square, in the centre of which there is a lead-coloured bust of Atatürk on a concrete plinth; barbed wire drawn taut around the statue and surrounding it limp, faded daisies, dead in patches … On a hot, dry midday in late June the square is quiet, almost deserted. The shops around the square are shut. The door and windows of the ramshackle single-storeyed building with the sign ‘Internet Café’ are wide open.

He walks in. Several young teenagers are seated in front of computers, playing games, cursing and quarrelling.

‘Hi, guys!’ he says. ‘Is there a Republic District round these parts?’

‘Yeah, this is it. It’s the area around Obligation Square. Where are you looking for?’

‘Number 17, but I don’t know the street.’

He reads out Mahmut’s father’s name from the piece of paper in his hand.

‘My elder brother would know him. He’ll be here in a minute. Are you from the state? Who sent you?’

‘I’m not from the state or anything like that. I’m a relative. I happened to be in the area, so I thought I would drop by.’

The boy looks at him suspiciously, mistrustfully. ‘You are not one of us. What are you looking for? Why would you come here?’

‘Why not? Isn’t this our country — yours and mine?’

‘It is my land and your colony.’

A bigger boy sitting at the computer says to his friend, ‘Cut it out! Let’s see what the gentleman wants. Let’s wait for your brother. He’ll be here soon.’

‘The shops are closed, and the streets are deserted. Is it a holiday or something?’

‘The shutters are down in protest. And it’s Friday. Some have gone to the mosque for prayers, while others have made that an excuse so that it can’t be said they closed their shutters in protest.’

‘So why are the shutters down?’

‘It’s because there’s so much persecution. There are so many deaths, bombs going off. They sent word from the mountain that the shutters must come down.’

‘Then why didn’t this place close?’

‘This isn’t a shop. This place is always open. This is where everyone learns what they should do.’

‘Shut up, damn it!’ the older boy intervenes. ‘You’d better talk to our big brother, abi.’ A young man walks in. ‘Why, here he is. Now you can ask him what you want to know.’

The young man looks at the stranger mistrustfully, suspiciously, from under his brow.

‘Selam!’ says Ömer in greeting.

‘Aleykümselâm!’ says the young man. His voice is unfriendly, questioning.

‘I was looking for someone.’ Suddenly Ömer decides to tell the truth. ‘I’m looking for someone to bring them greetings and good news from a relative. Republic District, Number 17. Hüseyin Bozlak.’

The youth peers at the stranger. He doesn’t wear spectacles but stares at Ömer as if he were looking over a pair. ‘What relative? Where did you see him? Where did you meet this relative?’

It’s best to stick to the truth, just as it happened. ‘I met his son in hospital.’ It’s true up to this point; but now a few lies become necessary, a rather different story. ‘He was wounded. They brought him to hospital. That’s where we met. He asked me to go to his parents and tell them he was all right.’

‘Are you a doctor?’

‘No, I’m a writer. I had gone to visit a doctor friend of mine.’

The young man continues to look at him suspiciously, distrustfully, strangely. He says, ‘As far as we know his son is in the mountains.’

‘I don’t know where he is. But a young man I met at the hospital gave me this address. You seem suspicious of me, but you may have heard of me. My name appears in newspapers and on television from time to time. I mean, I’m telling you this not because it’s significant, but perhaps you’ve heard of me.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Ömer Eren.’

The boy puts his thumb and forefinger to his temple as though wanting to draw strength from his fingers and is lost in thought. ‘Yes, you were the one who spoke on our television. You said that Kurdish shouldn’t be banned, the mother tongue must be taught, and things like that.’

Did I really say that? We say such things for the sake of political correctness and to make ourselves feel good. And then we forget. He cannot remember appearing on the broadcast that the boy calls ‘our television’. However, they might have taken the interview from another channel and rebroadcast it. It is best not to spoil things, not to elaborate. The important thing is to win the young man’s confidence.

‘I don’t know. I can’t remember where I said that, but I have said it. That’s because it’s true.’

The young man’s look of apprehension and mistrust disappears and his brow lifts. His face lights up. Now he resembles Mahmut, a laughing Mahmut, a happy Mahmut. ‘You’re telling me, abi! Why, of course! Ömer Eren. I should have recognized you!’ It is clear that the youth does not know Ömer Eren. However, he remembers someone friendly defending his rights, his language on what he calls ‘our television’. He wants to believe that the person facing him is that man.

‘I’ll take you to Hüseyin Dayı. One of his sons died on the mountains, and they didn’t even give him the body. He constantly worries about his other son. What a good thing you came, that you’ve brought good news and that he’s in good health.’

Ömer’s heart feels like lead. What good news have I brought?

They go out on to the street. This time he looks more carefully around him. The shutters of the shops are closed. There is not a sign of life in the ones that have no shutters. Pieces of paper, plastic bags flying around Atatürk’s bust on the plinth in the middle of the square, crows landing and taking off, the sense of abandonment, melancholy…

‘Why do the boys call this Obligation Square?’

‘There’s nowhere else to go. That’s why. Not another street, no cinema, no fairground … In the past tightrope walkers used to come, men on stilts, magicians and conjurors used to turn up. Once, even a mermaid came, my father told me. Since the war no one’s been. Children, young people, the unemployed gather around this square. That’s why it’s Obligation Square. They spend time at the internet café when they have a few kuruş , or they hang around the statue.’

‘How old are you?’

‘I must be twenty-two. I did my military service in Uşak. I didn’t take to the mountains. I enlisted. Everyone condemned us. They condemned my father and me. However, they didn’t say anything out of fear. I enlisted, but if I had known then what I know now … I was beaten a lot. We people are good shots. Did you know that, abi? Look at my fingers.’