Oya Baydar - The Lost Word

The Commander was alone. He was composed and respectful as always. He stood up from his chair and stretched out his hand from behind his desk and bade him sit down. Ömer remembered that the first day they had met the Commander had got up from behind the desk, come over to him, shown him to a place and then sat down in his own chair again; not like a superior but like a host welcoming guests of consequence.

Contrary to what he expected, there were not the awkward, silent moments, and the formal enquiries after his health did not drag on. The coffees without sugar were ordered straight away. What needed to be said was said, as the Commander put it, ‘in plain, soldier language’, without prevaricating and hiding behind polite, meaningless sentences. It had been quite some time since Ömer Eren had arrived. He had been given suficient time and opportunity to scrutinize the area, its problems and the people in situ. The Commander said, ‘You can be sure that we have given no other civilian such extensive freedom of movement. You are one of our most prominent writers, and I have no doubts about your patriotism. We wanted you to see things with your own eyes, to evaluate things in your own mind.’ Of course it was their duty to provide the country’s eminent intellectuals with such opportunities, and the army and state were extremely grateful to him for taking the trouble to travel so far to see things for himself. However, as reflected in the media, tensions were increasing in the region. The ‘ceasefire’ was, as always, just a tactical diversion. There was reliable intelligence that the separatist terrorist organization was about to attack, and at times like these — the Commander felt the need to lower his voice as he was saying this — it was impossible to separate the good from the bad, and it was not certain how and from where provocation would manifest itself. From the sake of the writer’s safety, it would be better for everyone if he were to leave the region as soon as possible.

For a moment Ömer thought of mentioning the note left in his room and saying, ‘There are others beside you who want me to go.’ Then he remembered his words ‘It’s impossible to separate the good from the bad’ and remained silent.

‘Is that an order, Commander?’

‘Let us say a request and a friendly warning, if you like.’

‘I understand.’

‘Now, relying on your tolerance and confidence, as a friend I’m going to tell you something in all honesty. Something that I should not tell you, something you should not hear from me.’

Ömer felt like saying, ‘If you like, don’t tell me.’ Whether it was because he was afraid of what he would hear or whether he had doubts about the veracity of what he was to hear, he did not know.

He just said, ‘Please go on, sir.’

‘I don’t want you to misunderstand, to construe this as our interfering in your private life. Besides, we might be wrong. But, still, I wanted to warn you about the lady chemist. We get far more intelligence leaked to us than we can deal with. We get overwhelmed by what we know and learn.’ He stopped talking. It was as though he were waiting for permission to carry on.

For a moment Ömer thought about not giving his consent, thanking him and getting up. Then he was overcome by his curiosity and his emotions. ‘I would not wish you to be overwhelmed by what you know.’

‘Jiyan Hanım is a very unusual woman. She is a mystery to everyone, even to our intelligence units. Her secrets are hidden in the depths of this land. I’m telling you, swearing on my honour, that we have no evidence to prove for whom she is working and who her inside and outside connections are. It’s as though some invisible force is protecting her. Clan relationships, especially since the war has escalated in the region, have become so complicated, so thoroughly confused, that even we cannot work them out. I can’t even claim that we completely understand the militia clans who cooperate with us. The shield provided by the clan that protects the lady chemist is important, of course, but it does not explain everything. What is more, the clans are gradually disbanding. They are dabbling in politics and are to an extent losing their former power and unity. You know they always talk about the ‘deep state’; well, in these parts, there are systems even deeper than the deep state, and it is not known who is pulling the strings.’

He stopped talking again. He looked down trying to avoid meeting Ömer’s eyes. It was evident that he was deliberating what to say. Then he lifted his head as though he had come to a decision and spoke looking straight into the other man’s eyes. ‘There is no one who remembers the woman’s birth and her childhood. It is as though she suddenly appeared when she was sixteen or seventeen. And after that she studied abroad. She calls all of her father’s wives “Mother”. The woman who appears to be her mother on her birth certificate, let us say her real mother, is dead. We know nothing about her.’

‘Couldn’t she have been adopted? Or could she have come into the family through the exchange of brides — you know, what they call berdel? They say that in this region there are people who do not know how many children they have or remember their names.’

As soon as he had had spoken he was sorry; he was ashamed of himself. I said, ‘this region’, displaying all my white Turkishness. These strange lands that we believe harbour every disease known to man! I used the Commander’s language. I betrayed Jiyan. I got caught up in the story, and I began to contribute to it. Instead I should have shut the man up immediately.

‘If that were the case, it would be known. Here such relationships cannot be hidden. It’s out in the open. It’s just the right subject for you, Ömer Bey. These are the kinds of things that happen in novels, don’t they? They never seem very plausible when one reads them.’

‘Thank you for your suggestion, but there is something I still find difficult to believe. Let us say this scenario is true. What does it matter to the state whose daughter she is? I mean, what is the objection in the political sense? Or what has it got to do with me?’

‘Let us say danger rather than objection. I have a hunch that the lady’s husband was murdered because he learnt some of the truth. And his wife did not prevent his execution. She could not. At least she kept quiet.’

The Commander using the term ‘lady’ when he talked about Jiyan annoyed Ömer almost more that what he actually said. It was the macho culture’s language of bogus respect that used the word lady in contempt, like an insult.

‘Now I’m really confused. Where does this information fit in the Jiyan Hanım legend?’

‘It seems I should speak more openly. I’m not saying that the chemist had her husband killed. There are those who believe that that’s what happened, but there can be no condemnation without evidence and proof. I say that she could not prevent her husband’s murder and, most importantly, that although she knew the murderers she did not denounce them. She did not denounce them because…’

‘I can tell you that she still loves her murdered husband. She is still attached to him.’

‘That’s true. As far as I have heard the man was an important Kurdish sympathizer. He wrote books and so on. He did his doctorate in France. He lived for many years in Europe, in Sweden, I think. They say that he had a great influence in the chemist’s development. There was a difference of more than twenty years between them. It is true that she was attached to her husband. However, it fails to explain everything. I haven’t delved very deeply into the subject. According to the reports I have read, her husband was a Kurdish nationalist. However, he was against violence. I’m a soldier, Ömer Bey. I’m involved in the war and the security side of things. I keep my political judgements to myself. However, I can tell you this much: in this area such a person is the target of every hawk from every section.’