Oya Baydar - The Lost Word

She looks at the people filling the square, the fishing nets draped from all sides of the small yellow hut next to the quay, the fish-shaped colourful balloons, fishing vessels especially decorated for the day, the grey-blue sea, the blue sky with little white clouds scudding by and the ruins of the castle on top of the cliffs behind, the Devil’s Castle. Here I have neither my husband, nor my friends, my relatives, my students or my own people. I don’t even have my mice or my test animals. My son is distant, a stranger. The little boy doesn’t understand our language and I don’t his … She feels completely alone, and if she were not embarrassed she would cry like a lost child.

Deniz comes over to her. With genuine enthusiasm he tells her about the Big Fish contest that is about to commence. ‘The Big Fish race isn’t in fact a real contest. It’s just a festival tradition and one of its highlights. Nets are thrown or lines are cast into the sea. Sometimes an old boot is caught or a piece of dritwood. After the jury have got tanked up on booze, they announce whoever they want to be the winner. You never know, your son might be the winner — and then you will swell with pride, Mother!’

He realizes that his joke has upset Elif as soon as the words have let his lips, and he panics. He knows that every word he says, every efort to made to correct his gaffe, will make the situation worse. There is a crushed, desperate, apologetic look in his eyes.

Ever since his childhood she has never been able to resist this look. When he was just six months old she had seen the shadow of it in her baby’s eyes. Why should a baby look so sad even though he didn’t have any aches and pains or worries? Did he feel something lacking in his little heart? she wondered. Was it something I failed to do?

Again that look. That look that has become even deeper, hidden too deep to fathom. She glances away from her son. ‘Go on then. Don’t be late. Go and join your friends! Which boat are you going out with?’

‘That one in the middle; the one painted blue and white.’

‘A nice boat. It looks big, too.’

‘You never know, we might catch the biggest fish. I have spoken to my friends, and this time we are going to take it seriously and catch a real fish. Bjørn really wants our boat to win. We’ll celebrate together this evening.’

This time she sees the hope of victory in her son’s eyes. Elif knows this look, too. The downy velvet light of his optimism, his wish to believe that bad things will not occur. Deniz has another look: the look of pride he felt in success. His eyes would become slightly moist and flash brightly. She had noticed this look for the first time at a ski resort they visited when he was seven or eight, when he came second in skiing, at which he was in fact no good, and a medal of shiny chocolate foil was hung round his neck; and another time, when he received his diploma the day he graduated in third place, although no one expected it, from that elite school famed for its strictness … The child who wanted the success expected of him but who shrank from the price to be paid.

When he came home like a defeated soldier, leaving his education, his school, everything behind, she had asked her son, ‘If you had wanted you could have done it. There was nothing to stop you succeeding. You had everything you needed. Why didn’t you do it?’

‘So I didn’t have all I needed to succeed. Sometimes that everything that I think I have is not enough.’

‘What was lacking, Deniz?’

‘I have thought about this from time to time. Perhaps I didn’t have a strong enough drive. I mean, a case of so what if I study? So what if I succeed? Father is successful and you are, too. You seem to be, and you are considered so. Well, what is the result, Mother? What does success do for you? More important, what has your success cost you? How many little lives have you ended? How many creatures have you killed? What and who did my father sacrifice? What did he give of himself to become Ömer Eren, the bestselling author?’

‘Don’t be silly. Success ensures respect in society, ensures recognition. Apart from all that, it ensures that a person is content. It bolsters a person’s self-confidence and happiness.’

‘That’s because your society has been conditioned to worship success and victory. People trample over one another for victory, for success. They step on one another and try to advance. They even kill each other. I don’t want that sort of success. You can say our son was not successful. It’s just one of those things — and that’s that. I want a simple life. I want to be just an ordinary normal person.’

‘Stop rambling! You make excuses for the things that you cannot do and philosophize about failure. However, to philosophize a person has to have experience and a valid concept of the world,’ she had said cruelly. Now, when she recalls this conversation, she is upset and amazed that she could have been so obtuse, so horrible. She hopes that he cannot remember the discussion, that he has forgotten it long ago. But, damn it, he does remember.

‘Once you spoke to me of success. When we started speaking about catching the big fish, about being first and so on, for some reason I remembered that conversation of ours. You said that I had wanted success but that I hadn’t made enough of an effort. So much water has run under the bridge since then. Years have passed. But you were right. Do you know that? At the time I hadn’t been able to tell you what was lacking, and I said a lot of stupid things. Now I know.’ He stops talking. He waits for his mother to respond.

‘What was it, dear?’

‘I think I had no confidence. Is that right? Is it self-confidence? How terrible! I’m forgetting my Turkish.’

‘Yes, you could say self-confidence.’

‘I think I didn’t have enough self-confidence. Look, now I’m saying, “I think”. I always used to look at your faces — especially at your face — when I said something, wondering whether I had said it right, whether you would approve. Ever since childhood I have not been able to believe in myself. I didn’t want to show it, but the world around me used to frighten me. I sensed I wouldn’t be able to cope with it. Then I saw that the world really was frightening and savage. War, violence, blood and death … It was not for me at all. I would never have the stomach for the ight that even you weren’t able to overcome.’

He laughs briefly, unnaturally, to lighten the mood and to disperse the regrets that are beyond retrieval. ‘When your son returns with the most enormous fish then you will see what success is!’

No, there is neither resentment, nor mockery, nor revenge for the wounds opened by his mother’s bitter words of years ago. It is spontaneous. He just wants to catch a large fish. If he catches a big fish and comes first, he really will get great pleasure. He and Bjørn will be happy. Hadn’t he asked late the previous long night, ‘What is happiness, Mother?’

A flood of love wells within her, and she blinks back her tears. She hugs her son like a cheerful villagewoman sending her man off to the sea for the great hunt.

‘Well then, the best of luck. What do they say when fishermen go out to sea. Have a good catch?’

‘Yes, I think so, but here they say, “Skittfiske!”‘

‘Well, off you go. In that case, Skittfiske! ’

She gazes after him. She watches him walking slowly towards the quay, lurching from side to side and boarding the fishing boat; greeting those at the quayside with the air of a sea captain who is about to cross the ocean. She stands there surrounded by this foreign sea, in this foreign clime, with a turbulent breast and a scream stifled in her throat unable to share in the festival for which she feels no joy and which has no meaning for her.