Oya Baydar - The Lost Word

She tries to dial the number that Deniz has provided. Her fingers are trembling. He doesn’t have a mobile. The number must belong to a friend of his. Isn’t it very late? It doesn’t matter!

The telephone is answered immediately. ‘Mother!’ says Deniz. This is the taking-refuge-in-his-mother voice when he was ill or in trouble in his childhood. Tears trickle silently down her cheeks. She is crying not for the Gasthaus being burnt and the distressing news that she is about to hear but for the way her son says ‘Mother’ in that helpless childish voice.

‘What’s happened, Kitten? Is it true?’

‘The Gasthaus burnt that day, the day you left. They set fire to it. We saw the flames as we were returning from the Big Fish competition. They saw you leaving the island, the captain had already told me. You know there were those neo-Nazis on motorbikes. They suspect them.’

‘The boy … how is the boy? Bjørn? How are the grandmother and grandfather? How are you?’

‘Now everyone is a little better. Only Kurt, you know, our dog, he was tied up — he could not escape. They set fire to the place while the others were at the festivities. Even though Bjørn doesn’t quite understand, he’s still very sad. He says that the Devil has punished us because we took Princess Ulla away from him. He is convinced that you were Princess Ulla in disguise.’

‘How are you, Son? How are you, Kitten?’

What a long time it’s been since I said ‘Kitten’ to him. It feels as though he’s snuggled up to me again, just like the old days. It’s as though I’ve found my lost son.

‘I’m very, very, very well, Mother Cat…’

Elif begins to sob. I know your ‘very, very, very well’. Your helplessness, your loneliness and your fears … My fugitive son who has taken refuge on a foreign island. My dear son has been struck yet again in the place in which he took shelter.

‘We must meet straight away, Deniz — right now or at the latest tomorrow morning. I’ll come to Oslo on the next flight or to Bergen. I’ll rent a car, and I’ll be there very soon. Or would you prefer to come here? You and Bjørn? Immediately! You must come immediately!’

She sobs. She doesn’t feel the need to hide her emotions from her son.

‘Don’t cry, Mother Cat. Please don’t cry. It wouldn’t be right for you to come. The people here might feel uneasy. If we set out tomorrow morning early we’ll be in Copenhagen by the evening.’ A silence … ‘Do you remember the unknown deserter, Mother? He had a poem: “You have nowhere to go but yourself. The violence of the age will find you everywhere.”’

‘I remember it.’ She gives Deniz the address of the hotel.’I’ll be here the whole time. I’ll be waiting for you.’

She calls Ömer. Again and again. ‘The person you are calling is unavailable.’

The person you are calling is unavailable. The person she is calling is right now among rocky mountains in a green haven. All phones, the past and the future are out of range of the fate of the world and his own.

The place the young man who brought him here pointed at and said, ‘Here we are!’ must be Jiyan’s refuge. The family home that she talked about with longing, that she called a mansion and then become ashamed of the arrogance of the word, trying to change it by saying, ‘That’s what they call the fairly large houses of the governors and aghas in our parts.’

She had told him that the villages had been evacuated, had complained of no longer being able to visit them. Perhaps I am the one who remembers wrongly, perhaps she might have said, ‘I don’t feel like going to that house since they evacuated the village.’

As he gets out of the jeep Ömer takes a quick glance at his surroundings. Higher up, towards the slope, are dilapidated mudbrick houses, deserted ghost huts. All of them have merged with the mustard-coloured slope; have become one with the yellow earth and the grey rocks. At the point where the road they drove along ends stands Jiyan’s family home amid trees and greenery, as though protecting the deserted village; like a door to the village or a secret gateway.

Large dogs appear around them, growling and showing their teeth. Ömer stays where he is without moving. They had taught him to do this in his childhood. When you see a fierce dog you must stand still. Two villagers, or guards, appear with sticks in their hands and weapons in their belts from behind the garden fence woven with brambles and thorns. They drive the curs away.

‘Here we trust our dogs more than our guards,’ says Diyar. ‘They don’t have any vested interest. A stranger is a stranger as far as dogs are concerned, but with people one never knows. Jiyan trusts our men implicitly. If she hadn’t trusted them so much my father might still have been alive.’

What does the stepson mean? He remembers the Commander’s words: ‘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.’

Just as he is about to ask Diyar what he meant by his remark he sees Jiyan leaning against one of the supporting posts of a veranda that runs the length of the front of the two-storied mansion of stone and wood. Instead of descending the few steps and walking towards them, she waits for them to approach without moving. Perhaps this is the custom. The head woman or hanımağa, whatever, does not walk towards her guests; visitors approach her as a mark of respect. Even though, in the town, she ignores the customs, here on her own ground, in her own kingdom, in her evacuated, deserted paternal home, she follows the traditions.

‘I had begun to worry,’ she says holding out her hand and giving his a friendly shake.

‘We’ll speak about who has been worried about whom another time. After the events of last night surely you could have sent news?’

She holds his hand and squeezes it in her palm. ‘I’ll explain. I needed to get away from the town for a few days and stay here on my own.’

She is wearing clothes similar to those worn by local women. A long green skirt, a wide-cut pomegranate-red thin tunic jacket of shiny silk, open in front, with a narrow bright-yellow blouse under it. Those colours again: red, green and yellow!

‘Is this some sort of rebel zone? I see that you have hoisted the flag.’

She smiles with the sad smile that defines the dimple at the right of her lip. How I’ve missed this smile, this dimple, this hair and this face. No, this isn’t the longing of a few days; it is the panic at the thought of not seeing her again.

‘In spring, as the yellow daisies and red poppies open in the green grass we don’t have any need of cloth flags,’ she says as they enter the house from the veranda.

Ömer looks around to see Diyar. The man is not there. He has silently disappeared. It’s as though he has gone to earth. One of the fierce-looking dogs that was growling before wags its tail in a friendly way and follows them. It is obvious that it has sensed that its mistress is not in danger and has relaxed. Ömer sinks on to the cushions on the floor of the hall. If he didn’t stop himself, he could bury his head in Jiyan’s lap and go to sleep. He is exhausted. Jiyan is not sitting beside him; she is some way off. She puts her legs together under her ample green skirt. His eye catches on the silver anklet on her right ankle. He wants to stroke her slim graceful ankle — not with desire but as one touches the statue of a goddess with the expectation of being exalted.

‘Well, this is my sanctuary,’ says Jiyan, ‘This is the house I told you about.’