Oya Baydar - The Lost Word

Whenever he thinks of that day he is cut to the quick. The joy of the success, the happiness and hope of being able to send his son to university on his father’s tired face grown old before its time. My son will have a good career; my son won’t go up the mountain; he will be a doctor; he will take care of sick people; he will earn money. The lightness in Mahmut’s own heart of having made his father’s dreams come true, the pride of having been a good son and the feeling of thinking he had managed to succeed. And then … He decided to eat the third kebab of his life. He turned with a decisive step towards the door of the shop.

This was a much smaller place, next to the Dersim Kebab House and the Urfa Kebab Shop, with a few tables — an unassuming place. He thought that small places like this would be more attentive as well as cheaper and was pleased. At the back, at a table near the grill two men were eating hastily without lifting their heads from their plates and without saying a word. He sat down at the table right by the entrance not to be choked by the fumes from the grill.

‘Adana or Urfa?’ asks the runt of a boy hovering around. He refrained from asking what the difference was. He said, ‘I’ll have an Adana and an ayran as well.

On one side was the heat of the fire and on the other the summer heat. Despite the rotating fan on the ceiling it was suffocating inside. The door was wide open, but it was as though flames came in from outside instead of a fresh breeze. Luckily the water in the plastic bottle that the waiter left on the table was ice cold. He filled two glasses one after the other and quaffed them thirstily. Refreshed by the cold water he calmed down and relaxed as he waited for his kebab. He was absorbed in watching the passers-by. Once Zelal was better and back on her feet they, too, would wander around arm in arm like this through the city. They would sit in a café, like those with tables on the pavement, in one of those crowded, smart places with flowerpots all around. They would eat ice cream, drink tea and chat light-heartedly.

The boy turned on the small television on the wall to the right-hand side of the door in the corner opposite his table. ‘We’ll get the results of the match. Those thugs have got it in for our team again. We’ve dropped from the league,’ he said furiously. Mahmut was not interested in who had got it in for whom or who the thugs were.

When the boy brought the kebab the television was broadcasting national news. ‘Breaking news: Separatist terror strikes our seaside towns. With the coming of the tourist season, terror has reached the sea. Three people died, two of them foreigners, and two people were seriously injured, while many were slightly hurt in the atrocious attack carried out using a remote-controlled bomb. We will continue to keep you up to date with information from our local correspondent. We are showing the first images, some blurred in parts and would ask you not to allow children to watch.’

Bodies with missing and severed limbs lying on the ground. Attempts had been made to blur the horror of the images — but were unable to hide them. The screams and the moans of the wounded. Blood spreading over the hot tarmac and splattered on the Mediterranean plants in the vicinity. People rushing around confused, helpless and horrified. A burning minibus … Blood, flames, blood, death, pain, blood, blood…

The kebab boy let forth another cry of ‘Bastards. You should hand them over to the people, they would tear them to pieces in an instant. Oh, man! Oh, to be there now, I’d be after those bastards and then…’

Mahmut shuddered to the core. Despite the heat, a cold sweat broke out on his back and neck. He opened another shirt button. The television went on to foreign news. The attractive female broadcaster was relaying international stories with a set face that revealed her dimples. ‘We are informed that following the suicide bombing yesterday in Iraq at a Shiite tomb, at least nineteen people were killed and many wounded in the bomb attack on a mosque where Sunnis were performing their midday prayers.’ Immediately after that followed the news of a suicide bombing in Israel directed at a bus stop where small children were waiting after school: ‘The latest news is that while three young pupils were killed instantly there are more than ten seriously wounded … Hamas has claimed responsibility for the attack. In the Lebanon, too, there is no respite to the bloodshed. Last night the Lebanon was shaken by the news of a fresh assassination…’

‘Turn that thing off!’ Mahmut shouted and was startled by his own voice.

One of the men from the table at the back said in support, ‘We’re fed up. too. For God’s sake, turn it off!’

The boy threw in yet another ‘Bastards!’ to no one in particular. What’s the world coming to, abiler? You just let me get hold of them! I’d show them no mercy! Just let the ones we have here swing, wipe them out. It doesn’t matter whether they are terrorists or villagers. These bastards are all the same, abi.’

‘That’s enough,’ said Mahmut, this time in a calm but firm voice. ‘We’re feeling depressed enough as it is. We don’t want to listen to you in this heat.’

Realizing that his assistant had gone too far, the proprietor took the situation in hand. ‘Shut up, you twerp! Stop blathering on. Everyone’s had enough!’

Mahmut looked at the plate in front of him. The long köfte on the skewers, the onion and bean salad, the vermicelli pilaf all made him feel sick. He had no appetite. It was as though a rock was stuck in this throat and had blocked his gullet and windpipe. He filled another glass of water from the plastic bottle and sipped it. However much he tried, he wouldn’t be able to eat it. So he was not meant to have the third kebab of his life. Just as he was about to call out to the boy, ‘Give me the bill and I’ll go’, his eye caught on a man coming through the door.

He’s either someone I know, or I’m mistaking him for someone I know. I think I’ve seen him recently. The cold sweat returned and spread all over his body. For some reason he remembered those two strangers waiting at the bus stop as he was going down to the road to go to the hospital. He trembled with the fear of a trapped animal.

In an instant the man scanned the kebab shop with his keen eyes. Then, without pausing, he walked straight towards Mahmut’s table. He pulled out the chair opposite and sat down without asking.

‘How are things, heval? How are things, Comrade Mazlum?’ he asked like an old friend who has come across one of his comrades-in-arms years later.

His code name was Mazlum. A good name, unassuming and gentle. It hadn’t even been two months since he had stopped being Mazlum and changed back to his own name, to being Mahmut. I had almost forgotten. People erase what they want to forget from their memories.

‘You’ve mistaken me for someone else, kardaş,’ he says. ‘I’m not Mazlum. I’m Mahmut.’ He tries to gain time, to work out who the hell this guy is.

‘It doesn’t matter. It’s all the same to us whether you are Mazlum or Mahmut, as long as it’s you.’ He calls out to the waiter in a confident voice. ‘Son! Give me one and a half portions of Urfa and a coke.’ He looks at the plate in front of Mahmut. ‘You haven’t eaten. Have you lost your appetite?’

Mahmut remains silent. He cannot say: I’ve lost my appetite, the television robbed me of it and then you came and deposited yourself in front of me. He makes as though to get up. The man prevents him by putting his claw-like hand on his knee. ‘Hele bise, me hin du-sê qise ne kirî ye, ma tu kûderê ve dicî? Just you wait a minute. Where are you off to before we’ve even had a few words?’