Oya Baydar - The Lost Word

‘They would find us.’

‘Let them. Let them find us. Let’s live happily like this until they do.’

‘It’s all right at the moment, but when hunger pounds on the door and it gets cold…’

‘Let it. What is the point of living a hundred years if you have a dull life in captivity, without love!’

‘Why on earth should our love run dry, my woman? Why on earth should we be captive?’

‘Isn’t every day of our lives a gift anyway? If my father had not shown mercy and let me go, I would have been dead by now. If you had been shot in the head and not in your shoulder, you, too, would have been dead. What do we have to lose?’

That’s how my love used to talk. Her words wrenched his insides. He knew that his woman was being ironic, that she was full of life and that she wanted to live and let live — not die.

‘If anything happened to you what would become of our Hevi?’ he would ask, to catch her weak spot.

They had believed in the miracle of Hevi. Hevi, like Jesus, was the son God had sent for peace on earth. They had no right to harm Hevi.

After that they had come down from the mountain. To raise Hevi without fear and to meet the sea. Then Hevi was shot. A stray bullet had killed God’s peace envoy. And now…

Mahmut walked along the street that passed in front of the park rapt with emotion in the memories of their fairytale days.

The days were long; the first days of summer … Tired of the heat people had rushed out to the streets, the parks and the squares. Everywhere was crowded and lively. A flood of cars, buses and minibuses flowed down the wide avenue with a hum that numbed his brain and deafened his ears. Disoriented, aimlessly, pointlessly and without a destination, he walked down the wide pavement of the avenue not knowing which side of the unknown city he was in.

Young and old, children, men and women, women with and without headscarves; people holding hands, walking arm in arm, in groups and on their own passed by him. Young couples passed by; families passed by. Beggars, children selling tissues and chewing-gum, soldiers in uniform, smartly dressed gentlemen, youths in jeans, young girls with bare midriffs in tight trousers, veiled women of every age, poorly clothed and smartly dressed men and women people passed by. People from the capital city’s shanty neighbourhoods, the poor working-class districts had sallied forth into the streets to take a breath of fresh air and enjoy themselves with a cone of ice cream, a toasted sandwich and a drink of ayran. Mahmut walked among them, with them. He walked in this crowd, feeling the security of being one of them and longing to be so. He tried not to think about what had happened, and he succeeded. He found distraction in looking at people and watching them. They were all different; all from another world. If one of them were to look at me and wonder, ‘Who is he? What is he? What does he do?’ would that person guess the fix I’m in? No, of course not. One cannot know a person from the outside. They cannot know what a person conceals within.

Mahmut strolled leisurely along the wide crowded pavement of the avenue. He came to a large square with a pool and fountain in the middle. The square was crowded and bustling. People were sitting on the benches around the large round pool and those who could not find a place sat at the edge of the pool or on the surrounding grass. Children had jumped into the shallow pool with cheerful screams, making a game out of avoiding the revolving jets of water. Mahmut sat at the edge of the pool and began to watch them. He took no notice of the droplets of water that occasionally reached him. The drops that fell on his neck, hair and shoulders cooled him down. He stopped himself from thinking about what had happened and what was going to happen. If he thought about it he would go crazy. He became engrossed with the fountain, the water and the children. In his imagination he brought Zelal and Hevi and sat them down beside him. He hugged them.

If I came here with Zelal we would embrace each other like that young couple sitting on the bench opposite and look at the water, children and people. We would buy ice cream and halva wafers. Zelal would be happy. Hevi would be with us. He would get into the pool like these children. His mother would be worried that he would fall in the water and get soaked. And perhaps some poor bloke like me, a lonely man, would watch and envy us, as I am doing now.

He grabs hold of the trouser suspenders of a little boy beside him leaning right over the pool to prevent the boy falling in. The little one frets and struggles. ‘Let me go, amca! Stop it!’ The child’s father comes and thanks him and takes his son away from the pool, pulling him by the hand. How can the father know that I have a deadly weapon in my pocket. How can he know that tomorrow — tomorrow, perhaps now, here — that I am going to kill his child, his woman and him? How can he know that he has thanked Azrael?

Dusk has begun to fall. The square gradually empties. The coloured lights that illuminate the fountain come on. The drops of water fly about in the air and fall colourfully on those sitting at the edge of the pool. Against the backdrop of the sky that turns from a milky blue to indigo, from where he sits Mahmut can see Ankara Citadel. A huge flag waves over it. He feels the weight of the telephone that the man gave him in his shirt pocket. The telephone might ring at any moment. What if I turn it off or don’t answer when it rings. ‘The girl is in our hands!’ ‘The girl is in our hands!’ How long have they been after us? And, more significantly, who are after us? Do they know that Zelal is in hospital? Or do they just know about Zelal and are bluffing? He has the feeling that they are approaching zero in the countdown. Six … five … four … three … two …

I must call the writer abi . Why don’t I do that? Is it because I’ve got him mixed up in this trouble? Oof! Mahmut’s chest tightens as though it has been squeezed in a vice. He slowly dials Ömer Eren’s number on the mobile that the latter had given him. He had said when he handed it over that Mahmut should call him if he were trouble. If I don’t call him now when will I? When we’re dead and gone? From the other world?

The phone is either off or out of range. There is no signal. It would be best to text a message. He’ll get it when he switches on the phone. He keys in, ‘SOS. We’re in a tight spot. Urgent.’

A middle-aged man with a thin, sickly face comes over to the edge of the pool and squeezes in beside him. ‘Could you make a little room for me, kardaş?

Mahmut shudders. Is it one of them? Are they going to give the order in person and not by phone? He moves a little to one side to make room.

‘It’s evening, and it still hasn’t cooled down,’ says the man.

The voice is soft and friendly. There is no need to be frightened. He feels the need to talk to this man, to explain everything to him. If he can only talk to someone about it, share and confess so that he can be rid of guilt’s deadly loneliness. ‘Indeed it hasn’t got any cooler, kardaş,’ he says to continue the conversation.

‘Where are you from? Because you look like a person from our region.’

‘Which is is your region?’ How keen our people are on finding a fellow citizen! He lies. ‘I’m originally from Sivas.’

‘From the city itself?’

‘No, from Zara.’

Why did I dream up Zara? A trick of the memory! On the mountain there was a boy from Zara. He fell as a martyr in conflict later. He was so young, inexperienced, full of faith. How beautifully he described his homeland as we sat around the campfire.

‘Even if we’re not fellow citizens we’re neighbours. I’m from Kemah. And I always think, especially when the heat is really bad like this, why the hell did we leave and come here? Right now there must be a gentle breeze blowing there. Did you migrate here, too?’