Oya Baydar - The Lost Word

Holding her hand, Bjørn drags his grandmother to the middle of the square by the quay. The square is surrounded by stalls of fish, food, decorations, fishing tackle and drink and with the fishing nets she and Deniz decorated during the night. The area in the middle of the square that has been set aside for the young people to dance, the fishermen and the musicians to show off their skills and for races and competitions to be performed is still empty. Bjørn stands right in the middle of the square without letting go of Elif’s hand. No one notices them at first. and then slowly they begin to take an interest. Bjørn shouts, ‘Look, look at us! Attention please!’ Elif, even though she does not fully understand, senses the gist of what the boy is saying. Then the boy shouts, as though he will burst his lungs, as though he is letting out his final scream, ‘This is my father’s mother! Look, farmor, farmor, pappamor! I love her!’

She hears the scream and — how strange, as though it is in her own language — she understands. She feels that she is suspended in the air at a point of infinity. The last conscious moment before death must be a moment like this. This is a film, no, a scene from a musical: in the middle of the decor of a fairground erected in the square by the quay that is licked by a beguiling sea clothed with a semblance of innocence and calm is a tiny very blond child challenging the whole world and clinging to the hand of a slim middle-aged woman whose face is well cared for but who looks fatigued in jeans and a white T-shirt. A scream piercing the ears of those surrounding the square and winding round their hearts, passing the quay, the sea and the square and reaching the castle perched on the cliffs and from there mingling with the ocean’s waves; the scream of a child weary of waiting for Princess Ulla. ‘This is my father’s mother! Grandmother! I love her.’

She tries to observe the scene with the eye of an outsider. She sees herself for a moment as a witch to be burnt later in the village square or, like Mary, waiting for the angel to fly her to heaven with the child. Both are different images of the same feeling, the same phenomenon. How strange! She leans down and takes the child in her arms. I used to take Deniz in my arms like this and hug him him tight. She feels the boy’s heart fluttering like a little bird. Opposite, behind the beer stand, Deniz is watching them, smiling. I hope to goodness he doesn’t try to come over. Then the picture would be gooey, intolerable. Deniz does not come. He stays where he is behind the stand. As she walks slowly towards her son with the child in her arms cheerful voices rise from the crowd. She does not understand the words but senses they are some kind of greeting, a welcome. Then, a different sound is heard from the corner where a group of youths in strange attire and with motorbikes have congregated — cars cannot enter the island but they don’t say anything about motor cycles — ’The foreigner’s mother! The foreigner’s mother!’ She understands what they are saying and that they are not friendly. With the child in her arms she turns to the direction of the noise and regards the small group dressed in leather, tattooed, some of them skinheads, up and down with marked contempt and disgust on her face. Just as she is about to swear in English she catches sight of Deniz. She notices the anxiety and panic on her son’s face and walks quickly over to the other side of the square to join him.

‘Until now nothing like this has happened on this island. In any case, these bastards aren’t from here. They must have come from the other side,’ says Deniz as though in apology.

‘They are the same everywhere. Whether Turk or Norwegian, German, English or Greek … The primitive prejudice and their grudges are always the same. Everyone is a foreigner in this world! Everyone is an enemy to one another.’

‘They are frightened, Mother. Always the same fear. People are at a loose end. They are afraid of their future in this savage world. The more they fear, the more aggressive they become. Don’t worry. Don’t take any notice. Norway is the last country where skinheads and fascists will prosper. This place will not shelter such people.’

He strokes the blond head of his son who draws close to them. ‘You don’t say my father’s mother; you say Grandmother. Not pappamor farmor.’

‘But she’s a foreigner. You’re a foreigner, too. The older boys on motorbikes said “the foreigner’s mother”. Didn’t you hear them?’

‘We have talked about this before. Everyone is a foreigner to each other. On our island the youths on the motorbikes are also foreign, because they are not from here. If we go to a different country we are considered foreign because we are not from there. To be foreign doesn’t mean being bad. Am I bad, in your opinion?’

The boy jumps up at his father’s neck. ‘You are the very, very, very best pappa. When Princess Ulla comes she’ll marry you, and the three of us will be very happy.’

Elif can only understand the words, Princess Ulla, daddy and foreigner. The deep love between father and son simultaneously warms her heart and makes it ache. Perhaps this was what Deniz needed, this unconditional love, this trusting surrender, to be there for a tiny person, to bear responsibility for him.

They linger in front of stalls selling junk food — which really appeals to the child — along with fish, biscuits and other things to eat as well as toys. She buys Bjørn a huge remote-controlled pirate ship and a large red car that works on a powerful battery system. The car has been put out not because there is much hope of a buyer on this quiet, small island but to make the display more impressive. The boy cannot believe that the car is his.

‘But you said that this car was just for decoration, Daddy. You said that no one would buy it. Granny bought it for me. Look! Or is Granny a magician?’

‘She’s not a magician but perhaps a bit mad.’

At the risk of upsetting the child’s frenzied joy Deniz tries half-heartedly to protest. ‘There was no need for this, Mother. You never bought me such expensive toys. You were always against such ostentatious consumerism. Haven’t you gone a bit over the top?’

It dawns on Elif that she has paid all this money for the toy car not merely to please the child but to leave the Nordic peasants’ mouths gaping, to gain respect for her son in the eyes of the local people. So you despise us as foreigners, do you? Particularly because we are easterners, Turks, you ignorant fishermen! Well, the expensive toys that you haven’t been able to sell for years we buy without even bargaining — just like that!

She feels that she has been caught red-handed. I’m obnoxious. I’m like those Arab sheikhs who think that the more money they fritter while shopping in London and Paris, the more respect they will gain.

The boy has already got behind the wheel of the red car. He is racing round the middle of the square in the magic car that his fairy grandmother from far away has brought him on her magic carpet from a distant fairytale country. Elif puts the pickled herring with onion and lemon that Deniz has handed her into her mouth, screwing up her face, and tries to swallow it in one go. Deniz is getting ready his beer and akevitt stall made of wide planks of wood thrown over beer barrels. In due course he will hand over the stall to someone else and board one of the boats that have been made ready to take part in the ‘Biggest Fish’ contest and head out to sea. On this distant forgotten Nordic island the summer or fish festival is in full swing. What am I doing here at this festival? Why did Ulla die? Why is Deniz here? Every island, every community, needs foreigners. Is it to prove their own local identity, to strengthen their tribal self-confidence? And what about Bjørn, the boy taking his irrepressible joy for a ride in his red car? Where is his real home? Is it the fairytale country that he has created in his broad imagination? That vast country to which Princess Ulla will one day surely return, where he and his father will defeat the Devil and settle down in the crystal palace that is waiting for them…