Oya Baydar - The Lost Word

‘Spas dikim,’ answers Mahmut’s father.

‘Spas dikim,’ repeats Ömer. He strokes the child’s hair. She laughs. Murmuring a song she climbs off his lap and runs into the house.

The lad who showed the way seizes the opportunity and begins a repetitive passionless tirade. ‘If only our intellectuals came here and saw for themselves, if the press came, if they got to know us and reported that we are not dishonourable terrorists and separatists. We are Kurds, human beings. We just want our language and our identity. We want to live like people in the west.’

He pauses for a moment, not sure of the effect of his words. He wants to say something more persuasive. ‘This land, this country of ours, is not just death, mines and fighting. There are caves for tourists in these parts. There are ancient ruins ten thousand years old. How great it would be if people came — if tourists came to visit them.’

Mahmut’s father is silent. Ömer is silent, too, and his eyes rest on the youth’s broken fingers. The desperation for ten-thousand-year-old ruins and tourist attractions and the longing for so many things that don’t exist, the boy’s resignation and the pitifulness of his dreams upset him. The two men remain silent. The tea becomes an excuse for silence, a refuge.

After a while in a voice that has become heavy with the burden of these words, Hüseyin Bozlak says, ‘I lost one son on the mountain, the father of that poor boy over there. And now you’ve brought news of the youngest one. You said that he’s well. I trust he is. Do you know what it’s like to lose a son, beg?’ The strong eastern dialect and accent so perceptible at times when Mahmut was overcome by a wave of emotion and anger are echoed in the father’s voice. ‘God knows, I didn’t want any of them to take to the mountains. I always wanted them to study. In our parts some people see the state as the enemy and send their children off to the mountains. I didn’t want them to consider anyone, either Turks or Armenians or Arabs, as a foe. If you think of people as the enemy they will think of you as the enemy, too. I have always wanted my children to live decently with their families, to earn their living somewhere and be happy. Do you know what it means to lose a son? What cause is more sacred than life? Which war is more important than the well-being of one’s children? I’ve lost one son. Should I lose a second now? Do you know what it means to lose a son?

‘I know,’ says Ömer. The words ‘I know’ are uttered involuntarily and without thinking. Perhaps it was just for this that he came here: to say, ‘I know’, to be able to share the pain with someone who feels it in his heart, to be free.

‘I know. I had a son. He didn’t die, but I lost him all the same. Children don’t just go and get lost on mountains or in wars. Mine was overcome by the state of the world. He destroyed himself. Whereas I wanted him to fight, to conquer his own mountains. I wanted him to be better than me. I wanted him to champion my causes, to support my values. Rather than vegetating, I wanted him to fight for what he believed in, to have the courage to die if necessary.’ He is aware of the callousness and lack of love in his words and falls silent. Once put into words and uttered, harmless, innocent thoughts clothe themselves in flesh and blood and become guilt. He panics. What have I said? Did I say I would prefer Deniz’s dying? Like grief-stricken fathers at martyrs’ funerals saying, ‘I have another son, I will willingly sacrifice him for my country.’ What is the difference between my words and that mental attitude, those statements that freeze people’s blood?

‘Our children are not our mirrors that they should reflect our values, Ömer Begim. No value, no victory can be measured with a child or substitute for the life of a son.

To Ömer there seems to be reproach, disdain and pity in the other’s voice. He is ashamed of what he has said. He is astonished, too. Is this man really an ignorant and poor Kurdish villager? That is how we see him and how we think of him. We can’t ascribe what he has said to him. This is because we think we have the monopoly on eloquent and profound remarks. Only I can say such words or write the phrase, ‘Our children are not our mirrors that they should reflect our values.’ Mahmut’s father does not have the skill to use those sort of words, does he? Surely it should be me who asks ‘Which cause is more sacred than life?’ This is because we writers and intellectuals have been gifted with the word, so we assume we have the monopoly of profound thought.

‘We cannot know which life is more precious, which life is more superior, who is more heroic. You haven’t lost your son unless he is actually dead, Ömer Begim,’ says Mahmut’s father, as though reading Ömer’s mind.

What did they talk about for hours, there in front of the door of the wretched single-storeyed, blue-washed house, under the sun that the shade of the poplars couldn’t hide? Now, when he thinks about it, he is amazed that he was able to talk so openly and honestly about all those private and almost intimate subjects with this man that he had only just met. I hadn’t talked about Deniz with anyone; not even with my wife had I been able to share the sorrow that dwelt in both our hearts. To those who asked, I said, ‘He’s well. He’s chosen to live abroad, the rascal’, and changed the subject. I had declared my son missing long ago, and I was afraid of sharing the pain. Elif used to say, ‘Men don’t share their suffering even with their closest friends, because suffering seems to them like defeat. They are reluctant to show their weaknesses even to those closest to them. Men have no confidants, because to suffer is to them a disability.’ And now I’m sitting here and saying things to this man that I haven’t been able to say even to my wife. This is because, like a mute, he will keep whatever is said to himself, because I am not afraid of being scorned by him, because I’m the master. I can’t share my defeats with my equals, but I can share them with him without feeling wounded. Damn it! Am I such a scoundrel!

As the man speaks Ömer is amazed at how clearly, how well he expresses himself. His figures of speech are simple but apt. The metaphors he uses are striking, his sentences short and unequivocal. He remembers the father’s eyes filling with tears as he talks about his sons; as he asks repeatedly about Mahmut his anxiety about the answer he will receive, the fearful look; the tremor in his voice as he says, ‘When we stop saying “Every Turk is born a soldier and every Kurd a guerrilla” then there will be peace’; and the beseeching tone in his voice when he says, ‘If you see Mahmut again, tell him, begim, that if he can he should go to a big city. Please help him if you can. He should find work and lead a decent life. Tell him it’s his father’s wish, his last request. No offence, Ömer Begim, don’t take it to heart, don’t think I’m giving advice but don’t sacrifice your son. Don’t abandon him because he chose life. Look how the world is going to pot, drenched in blood. We are not Abraham that we should sacrifice our children …’ And then, when the time came for them to part, his holding Ömer’s hand between his own and looking long into his face as Ömer boarded the minibus that started off from the corner of Republic Square. And the reproachful parting words that he would never be able to forget for the rest of his life. ‘You just go off like this and leave us with our poplars, our crows and our snow.’

The loneliness left by the departure of the friendly stranger who had brought news of his son slips through the man’s words and settles like a mist over the small town. There is still time before the snow, but the poplars and crows stay behind like a symbol of the distance, the loneliness and the alienation. Looking out of the minibus window at Hüseyin Bozlak, his right arm crossed over his chest in a last show of respect for his visitor, he seems to perceive why he has come there, what he is seeking and where his path is leading. He suddenly understands that his road will not end here. The voice that will revive the word is here — albeit just a whisper. I haven’t yet heard the rousing choir. He has to go to the east of the east, towards the place where the voice is a scream that calls him with an irresistible power, like the voice of the sirens who seduced the sailors.