Oya Baydar - The Lost Word

As Jiyan explains, Ömer watches her language change to the local dialect — from her rather high-flown formal Turkish to her harsh eastern accent, favouring the present tense instead of the past perfect continuous. She is about to speak her own language, Kurdish, without realizing it.

‘Let me tell you what you really want to know. When I met my husband I was twenty-three years old. I had gone to see my elder brother who had settled in Sweden. I first saw my husband at my brother’s house. He was very much in love with me. He was almost my father’s age. And I loved him greatly, beyond measure. It shouldn’t have happened, but it did. It was a love story that the dengbej had not told. We told this story by living it.’

Don’t tell me any more. Let’s be quiet together. Let’s go outside and listen to the silence of the deserted village in the remaining twilight.

He thinks he has said this but he knows he has not uttered a word.

‘He taught me that my living here wasn’t enough to make me a native. He taught me my history, my language and my identity and to look through the eyes of this place. He taught me to love this area and to be at peace with my identity. He taught me not to be hostile to other identities while being reconciled to my own, not to be cruel by taking refuge in our oppression. He taught me hope. He taught me to express feelings and thoughts that I sensed but could not formulate into words, that I recognized but could not express. He said, “We are going to try what is difficult. We will choose to be on the side of humanity and life and not on the side of persecution and tyranny.” He said, “Being persecuted does not give you the right to be cruel.” I loved him so much.’

Another of the age-old most deep-rooted themes of the literature of love, thinks Ömer: love that cannot be regained or is lost through death … You can deal with everyone or everything but not with a dead person. Death rivets, intensifies and increases the feelings that should erode with time or at least become normal. You have to put up with the residue of the dead.

‘We used to stay in this house. He used to stay here all the time. He used to work here. I used to go back and forth to the town. He was not afraid. He used to say that he was of no harm to anyone, that no one would do anything to him. His room is inside. His books, his things are all as he left them. His last articles were on peace. He used to say, “We have always approached peace through politics. From now on we must approach it through conscience.” He was preparing a major book on the subject, a kind of manifesto. It was the fifth year of our marriage. He was here alone. There were two men with him from our clan whom I trusted implicitly. Well, like servants, like bodyguards … I was in the town, at the chemist’s shop. I was on duty that night. I received the news the next morning that he had been murdered.’

She stops speaking. She gets up and lights one of the gas lamps standing on the small table just next to the half-open door. ‘I like these,’ she says. ‘We could use methane gas lamps or propane mantle lamps, but I like these.’

The lamp smokes, and a smell of kerosene evocative of former days pervades the room. She adjusts the wick. A pale, mournful light falls on her face.

‘In the past, in my father’s time, there was a generator, and we had electricity. When the village was evacuated it vanished, too, along with other things.’

Finally he has the courage to ask the question. ‘How did he die? You spoke of an unsolved murder. Why are they involving you in this business?’

‘He was shot in this house. The pistol that my father had given me as a present to protect myself if necessary had disappeared. In any case, I had never used the weapon. And the two men I trusted had run away. In my opinion, they were abducted. They picked up the track of one of them a few years later in an area some way off. Another unsolved murder … Not even the trail of the other was ever found. This is why the clan is implicated. My husband was shot from behind, in the neck with a bullet that came from my missing gun. There was no evidence. Everyone knew that I was on duty that night at the shop. The people thronged around the courthouse door to testify. However, it suited some people’s purpose to create suspicion. Ammunition for blackmail. “If you go too far, we’ll ruin you!”’

‘But didn’t you look into the truth of the matter?’

‘We did try. It got lost in the murk. What he wrote last would not suit the purpose of any of those bearing arms. His proposals for a peaceful solution were no good to those who fed on war. What is more, his opinions carried weight, and he was respected in the region. He had begun to have influence on the cadre. He dreamt of a society where peace did not exist just as a concept in articles and speeches.’

‘Would it be possible for me to read what he wrote?’

‘Although his Turkish was very good, he wrote in Kurdish in order for our language to develop, be more widely acknowledged and become emancipated. If there were time I would translate them for you.’

‘What do you mean if there were time? I have time. I’m not going anywhere, even if everyone — from the Commander to a bunch of anonymous djinns — tells me, “You’ve outstayed your welcome!” I’m not leaving you, and I’m not going anywhere.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure. People sometimes have to go, despite themselves. They have to leave.’

‘What do you mean, my beloved? What’s going on here? What are you trying to tell me?’

‘You were looking here for the mystery behind the obvious, for the voice behind what was heard. You had convinced yourself that you would find what you had lost here. You said so. But, look, in reality neither the land nor I have any special secrets, hidden voices or concealed words. Everything is clear. The ways of the normal south-east, the ways of the normal Kurdish woman are like the “normal native of my land” … That when stripped of the mystery that you’ve imbued us with become ordinary and have no attractions left.’

‘I’m not after your secrets or anything like that. It is you whom I love — not your secrets. I’ll stay here with you. Who can stop me? You can translate your husband’s writings for me, and we will work on them together in Turkish. I told you that I had come to find the word I had lost. Perhaps the key to the word I’m looking for is in his writings.’

Jiyan gets up. The enchanting jangling of her anklet can faintly be heard. She takes the gas lamp that she had left on the table and stands before one of the doors opening on to the hall.

‘Come,’ she says. ‘I want you to see this room.’

In the pale light of the gas lamp he sees a wall full of books, then a couch covered with a kilim and a desk with drawers full of papers and notebooks.

‘This was his study. I could not bring myself to change anything after his death. In any case, what’s the point?’ She opens one of the drawers of the desk and selects a notebook there. ‘Here are his last writings, the ones I mentioned.’

Ömer thumbs through the thick bound notebook with pages handwritten in Kurdish. ‘Now I’ll need to learn the language.’

Jiyan takes the book and randomly opens a page. She reads it, translating it into Turkish:

‘People create legends. This is because we need legends and epics to uplift us. By wrapping ourselves up in legends we can escape life’s cruelty and deprivation. We can commune with our legends, overcome being crushed and become heroes. All societies need heroes, not to be crushed or humiliated, in order to resist. The epics of our dengbej unite with the stories of mountain bandits; Dersim meets Cudi. In our territory the mountains are the symbol of mutiny. The epic of the mountains is passed on from generation to generation. And every new generation rewrites this saga.’