Oya Baydar - The Lost Word

What is it twisting my insides? Is it my son who has deserted life, who has been trapped on this lonely island? Is it the distance that I feel has grown and deepens day by day between Ömer and myself however hard I try not to accept it and however much I try to deceive myself? Is it the fear of losing him? Or despite my paper being met with praise and applause at the last symposium and the offers I received from important universities for visiting professorships, could it be my inadequacies and limitations that only I am aware of? If I were to tell this to someone else they would think it was false modesty; they would think that I want even more applause, more recognition. Yet I know how far I can go, where I stand and that I am no genius. If I were to tell Ömer, he would say, ‘Perfectionism is your incurable fillness, my girl. If you were in my shoes, you would not like anything you wrote and you would not produce even a single novel.’ Ömer, like most men who are considered successful, is self-satisfied and does not work meticulously. If what he writes sells well, is well liked, that is enough! Am I doing him an injustice? Why hasn’t he been able to write recently? He obviously has his own problems. There is something that he worries about, that stops him writing. How little we share things, how little we speak now. Everyone has loaded up their heavy bundle and is dragging their donkey along their own path: me to the east and you to the west…

Outside the weather is clear. It’s going to be a fine day. What a strange climate. You can’t trust the weather even at the beginning of July. If the night’s storm had continued, if it had rained the fish festival would not have been any fun. All that hard work would have been for nothing. She catches herself: as if I care about the fish festival on this bloody godforsaken island! What she does care about are the decorations going to waste that her son has prepared all night long, clumsily but with enthusiasm, patience and care, and little Bjørn who has been looking forward to the festival being disappointed…

She goes down to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. She cannot pull herself together in the morning without drinking a large cup of strong coffee, a pleasure or an addiction that Ömer never shared with her. He has tea for breakfast or a good soup.

Breakfast had been prepared on the long wooden table in the middle. Yellow unsalted local cheese, another type of cheese resembling lor, wild strawberry jam, practically raw salted fish in separate small dishes, black bread beside the toaster with board and knife and coffee in a thermos. There was no one around. She recalls the solitude of that December evening years ago when, by some strange chance, they had first set foot on this island which she has begun to think is bewitched.

She was not in the habit of having breakfast as soon as she got up in the morning. Leaving the fine china cup to one side, she filled a large mug that was hanging on a hook on the wall with coffee. The smell of it was good; it was full of memories. With her coffee in her hand she went out of the wide wooden door at the side of the house that faced the sea. She breathed in the smell of salt and seaweed. Well, this is different from what we are used to, but this is another type of beauty. A dull, slightly misty sky, milk-blue, grey, sometimes navy water, and a light that is yellow at sunrise and verges on purple rather than pomegranate red at sunset. Serene, solitary nature that smoulders and does not blaze, that does not evoke violence, passion and ambition, whose colours do not flare up or compete with each other. In this land there is nothing harsh other than the storm that has long since died down, the waves that have settled down and retreated, and the granite rocks. It is impressive and beautiful, but if I were to stay longer than three days I would suffocate here. We are Aegean, Mediterranean people. We miss the hurly-burly, the burning sun, the dazzling light. We cannot stand solitude, a lack of people.

As she goes out of the door of the Gasthaus on the seaside and walks towards the sea, she spots him. When she faces the sea he is sitting with his back to a rock on the cliff to the left of the house. He has his head between his hands, his face turned to a point below. He seems to be talking to someone there; someone he can see but Elif cannot.

She shivers. A hot wet snake breaks away from the nape of her neck and sinks into the bottom of her spine. In the vast loneliness of the desert, perched on a broken-down wall or a rock of marble, the Little Prince is speaking to the snake under the rock; one of those terrifying poisonous cobras that can send a person to his star in one bite.

He tells him it’s the right day but not the exact place and that he shouldn’t be afraid, as he won’t feel any pain, even if he looks a bit like he’s dead. He won’t really die … He tells the snake to try to understand that his planet is far away and his body is too heavy for him to carry it so far … It will be fine, as he shall watch the stars and they will give him water … He stops, because he is crying, and he sinks to the ground in fear. He continues, ‘You know … the flower I told you about … I’m responsible for her’ … He stands up, takes a step, and a flash of yellow strikes silently close to his ankle …

Deniz’s favourite book, The Little Prince, the last chapter that the child never tired of listening to and had repeatedly made her read, the scene where the Little Prince makes the snake he meets in the desert bite him so that he can return to his own world … The boy would open his eyes wide every time and listen with bated breath as though he was listening to it for the first time, and sometimes he would cry.

She panics. It is as though the snake is lying coiled up just under the rock, the place that Deniz is staring at. ‘It’s the right day but not the exact place … My planet is far away, and I cannot carry this heavy body that far …’

Elif rushes towards the cliffs. There is a fence between the Gasthaus garden and the cliffs. She does not know how to get over the fence and reach the cliffs. Presumably you have to go around from the back somewhere. She panics. I have to get there before the snake keeps its promise, I have to prevent it biting! The Little Prince had said his body was very heavy and he couldn’t carry it. Deniz’s body is also very heavy. He cannot carry it. Not only his body but also the sadness in his heart weighs him down. He cannot carry it. The snake must be stopped. He must not feel the need for the snake’s help: he must stay a little longer on the planet earth. The fox must not abandon his friend so quickly: you know the fox that had told the Little Prince to tame him, and, when the day came for them to part, said that he would cry, but when looking at the wheat fields he would remember the Little Prince’s wheat-coloured hair. And then what will the pilot whose plane had crashed in the desert do without the Little Prince? No, he mustn’t be abandoned.

She hears her own voice, like a muffled cry: ‘Deniz! Deniz! Deniz!’ … Her voice reverberates on the rocks.

‘What is it, Mother? What’s happened?’

Now it is Deniz’s turn to panic.

Elif slumps to her knees on the other side of the fence before she can cross to the rocks. She does not even notice that Deniz has rushed down the cliff, grabbed Bjørn, who has been playing below the cliff, in his arms, got the boy over the fence and then jumped over himself and reached her side in agitation.

‘What is it, Mother? What’s happened?’

She buries her head in her arms and begins to cry shaking with sobs. Deniz does not know what to do and kneels down beside his mother. With clumsy pats and timid touches he tries to calm her.

Bjørn asks in amazement and rather anxiously in Norwegian, ‘What is the matter with Farmor?’