Oya Baydar - The Lost Word

When she invited him to come and see her house, her naturalness, her recklessness and her self-confidence had amazed Ömer. A young, pretty — and respected — widow in a provincial town in the east of the east, who did not shrink from inviting a strange man to her house. So confident in herself, so comfortable. The confidence and comfort deriving from a conviction of her invulnerability.

Jiyan’s home … The large sitting-room that gave one the feeling of walking in a white cloud, cream-white curtains, white armchairs and the white carpet that covered the floor from wall to wall — for this reason one had to leave one’s shoes outside on entering — her study with its bookcases with glass doors and elegant desk, and now this room where they had lain beside each other naked, satisied and happy; her bedroom.

They were standing in her bedroom in front of the panelled mirror on which fairytale birds and the many-coloured flowers of the mountain pastures were intertwined. Jiyan was standing behind Ömer’s right shoulder. Her face, surrounded and shadowed by her black mane of hair that had fallen on to her shoulders, was reflected in the mirror. Ömer turned his head slightly back to the right and his lips found her lips straight away as though it were not the first time but the thousandth time, as though she were his wife of many years whose body’s every point and curve he knew by heart. As a sot but burning fire spread through his throat from his tongue and from there to his breast and towards his stomach he had thought of two things: Jiyan was the same height and she did not avoid his lips. Was it from indifference or from desire; at that moment he could not decide.

The long black hair spread out on the pillow of the woman wrapped in white embroidered linen sheets beside him now seems at that moment to Ömer, even more feminine, more sensual, more inviting than her naked body. A meddlesome sliver of light filtering through the folds of the tightly drawn curtains strikes her hair and roams through her curls. Without her hair her face would not be so attractive, thinks Ömer. The total change when she lets down her hair, her transformation into the likeness of a legendary goddess stems from this. The spell of this woman is in her hair. It’s as though the magic would be gone if she cut it. He thrusts his hand through her black mane. He winds her curls around his fingers. He wants to say to her, ‘My woman.’ There is a term of endearment associated with every woman, and he associates the expression ‘my woman’ with her. If he had a good voice, if he could sing, he would sing that folk song he loved in her ear so that only she could hear:

There is myrtle in front of your house

Oh, water doesn’t flow upstream, my woman …

Take the dagger, my woman, strike and let me die

Oh, let me be a slave at your door, my woman…’

Yet Jiyan is not his woman; he senses this. She has been the woman of only one person and she has always remained so. She is no one’s woman any more. She is mistress of her own body. She is a jet-black lynx that uses its body as it pleases, taking pleasure but not offering itself, not allowing the male to have the feeling of possession but not trying to possess. The moment you think you have tamed it, it reverts to wildness. He remembers the tone in the young woman’s voice as she said ‘my husband’. Had those men wanted to say that she was connected with her husband’s murder? It was evident that they had never heard the passion, the longing with which she said ‘my husband’; evidently they did not know her. In any case, even if they had known her they would not be able to understand her. The lawyer had said it was a ‘great love’. What was it that nurtured their love, made it grow and made it survive even after death? Jiyan’s loyalty to the husband she lost was intertwined with this land, the sufferings, the hopes of this land and its war. For this reason even if the object of love is absent it retains its power. As for me, I’m the stranger. The good stranger but from outside. Her relationship with me depends on the boundaries of her body and her desire and with me will vanish off the face of the earth.

Jiyan lies quietly beside him without touching him. She is tightly wrapped in the sheet, and her naked flesh does not touch his. Women cuddle up to a man after making love, especially the first time. As for men, they prefer the freedom of a satisfied body and enjoy being alone, withdrawing into themselves. Jiyan is like that now. I am the one who feels the need to touch her, embrace her and be tenderly caressed. A strange reversal of roles!

Jiyan gets up from the bed and goes to the adjoining bathroom dragging the white sheet she has wrapped herself in behind her. Ömer hastily gets dressed while she is in the bathroom. He wants to freeze and keep what they experienced as it is in his body, in his memory and in the centre of his feelings. Those moments should remain there. They should not flow into the present; otherwise the spell will be broken. He opens wide the decorated panels of the mirror and looks at his face. They say that satisfying love-making makes a woman more beautiful. It’s done me good, too. I don’t look at all old. He feels content in himself. The negative feelings inside him have vanished. If he weren’t embarrassed he could even whistle and sing songs.

Evening falls. It is evident from the light filtering into the room and gradually turning to a reddish-yellow that fades by the minute. The hum from the market gradually dies down. A distant call to prayer is heard. It mingles with the military’s more resonant orders for the flag ceremony and the marches. The cassette-seller opposite puts the Come to the Mountains, to the Mountains cassette in Kurdish that he plays every evening at this time in the cassette player and turns it up full volume. Ömer had thought that this town had no sound; now he begins to realize how the town lost its sound. Here the sounds are each other’s enemies, drowning each other and trying to silence one another. When the town’s own sound is silent, then only the noise of conflicting foreign sounds or nothingness remains.

When she came out of the bathroom and stood by my side, her raven hair was wet. It spread out in waves and curls on her forehead, face and shoulders. I feel the excitement of a teenager who has been united with the one he loves for the first time. There is not a sign of the annoyance, the lethargy or the regret felt after having slept with somebody on a whim or under the influence of alcohol — or sometimes with the laziness of not be able to say no, perhaps not to hurt the other person or their pride.

I watched Jiyan in front of the mirror trying to gather up her hair and attempting to wipe away any trace of love-making from her face and body. I did not know whether I should admire her ease and her naturalness, be amazed at it or be upset that what we had experienced should be for her such an everyday event. The water had washed from her all the traces, all the feelings of our love-making.

Was it nothing more than a sexual experience that an ardent young woman had had with a stranger who would pass briefly through her life, unimportant because it was fleeting, harmless and because he was a stranger?

When we spoke during the following days, you were to say, ‘We mustn’t forget how attractive Ömer Eren’s fame is. After all, all women like strong, famous and powerful men. You must admit that you took courage from your preconceived notions of the Orientalist to approach me. Weren’t women in the east females waiting ardently for their men, like courtesans? That east is not far away, even if it is only our east …’ Then you saw that I had become disgruntled and tried to correct yourself by saying, ‘But, still, what we experienced was a spring that appeared before me when I was in the desert without water. Thank you for wanting me and choosing me.’