Oya Baydar - The Lost Word

‘No, I came to study,’ says Mahmut. As soon as he says this he feels so depressed he could cry. If only I had come to study. If only I hadn’t been constantly suspended from school for singing Kurdish songs, for lighting a bonfire on the campus and jumping over it at Newroz, for being stubborn and telling the gendarme who teased me with his gun while checking identity cards at the crammer door, ‘You’ve asked for my identity card three times before I’ve even got to the class door.’ … Lies, empty dreams, how good they seem sometimes to a person’s heart. What a refuge they are at times when a person can’t cope with reality. ‘I came to study.’ What a neat phrase. Perhaps I should say ‘I’m studying medicine. I’ve two years left before I become a doctor’ and really make the most of it!

He decides against it. Such a dream, such a lie, seems too difficult to maintain — even for him. He remains silent, and so does the man. Realizing that their conversation is at an end the man says goodbye, gets up and walks off towards the road. Mahmut gazes after him. Who is he? What is he? What does he think? What are his worries, his anxieties? When I press a button, a key, and kill him, what will pass through his mind at the last minute?

That will not do. A man who is going to carry out a terrorist act must not think about before and after. Just like military service. A soldier doesn’t think about an order; he doesn’t argue about it. He just carries it out. A guerrilla does the same. War does not go with thinking. But I am not fighting, I’ve rejected war, I ran away. War had dreams and legends that kept the warrior alive. I ran away from them all. I ran away from the myths of the most beautiful young heroines, each one an Amazon, who washed their long black hair and their bullet wounds in crystal streams; from the legend of commanders, comrades, confidants in death, waving the flag of liberation with their last breath, at the moment of death, and who sacrificed themselves to bind the wounds of their soldiers, to save their comrades; from mountain tales, from heroic epics and from dreams of liberation and knights in shining armour. Those legends last for generations by being nurtured; to stay alive people take and give back strength to them. Our legends protect us from the painful thorns of reality, from the aridness of naked thought that kills enthusiasm. We feel protected by our myths and dreams. We are purified and ennobled by our legends and our epics. We measure ourselves against them and become heroes. Until the spell is broken.

He realizes that he has been sitting there like that for hours. If someone were watching him they would be suspicious. He tries to get hold of the writer once more. His phone is still not responding. Night has fallen. A slight breeze has blown up. The force of the fountain has lessened. The water no longer spouts into the air and falls in great drops; it just trickles feebly. He must go home and try to reach the writer. He must find a way. Tomorrow morning early, before dawn, he must find a way to smuggle Zelal out of the hospital. I can’t go home. I cannot spend the night all alone in that strange house. You are blowing this out of proportion, Mahmut, my son. You will just press a button, click! That’s all. If you were a bus driver and you had an accident and the passengers died, it would be the same, wouldn’t it? A button, a click — that’s all. If you want to live in peace with your woman then happiness has to have a price.

Mahmut imagines being born in a different place at a different time. He used to think about this in his childhood, too. One day he had asked his teacher, ‘If I hadn’t been born in our village, if I had been born in a big city, for example, and if, for example, my dad had been a gendarme commander or a general, would I still have been me?’ The teacher had laughed loudly, and had said with an endearment, ‘You wouldn’t, Mamudo. Then you would have been Mahmut the general’s son. How do you think up such questions? You’re a remarkable child!’

Who decides who will be born where and whose son you will be? Is it Allah? I thought Allah was just. I thought he was the one who spared and forgave? I was a remarkable child, true. I used to ask lots of questions. Didn’t I take to the mountain because I asked questions? And, again, didn’t I run away from the mountain because I did? And, now, am I not hesitating for the same reason? My religious-knowledge teacher used to say that God did not like those who asked questions. The organization doesn’t like them either, although it tries to act as though it does. As the leadership emphasizes the importance of democracy and debate within the organization, it is encouraged, even provoked. But in a secret, sneaky corner of their consciousness those who ask questions are considered dangerous, their minds confused. The day will come when such people question the leadership and the cause itself. Those who ask questions lose their belief and their faith. The more they lose their belief, the more the questions will increase. The hand of those who ask questions will tremble. You see, my hand is trembling. When the signal to begin is given then it will tremble even more.

‘The girl in your hands’ is lying in a hospital bed. She lies there unprotected, helpless and quite alone; with no assurance or support other than me. And I have been sitting here at the edge of a pool talking to myself. I’m asking questions of life and death in terms of Zelal’s life. If the man had come and said her life will be granted in return for yours, things would be easy. I don’t even know how many lives it will cost for Zelal’s life to be spared. When I press the button, the key or whatever, click … how many lives will be lost? Everything is easier when you don’t see a victim in front of you, a person like yourself of flesh and blood. An air-force pilot, for example, who doesn’t have the heart to squash an ant, who cannot smack a child, may drop a bomb on an entire city. I do not even know where they are going to plant the device. In a deserted place, at the most crowded point, in a shopping centre, the subway network? I don’t know. I’m merely expected to go to the place they designate and press a key on this elegant pink ladies’ phone. So easy, so simple. Isn’t Zelal’s life worth it? Isn’t our Hevi worth it? Isn’t leading a quiet, happy life for the rest of your days in a small seaside town worth it?

But if something should go wrong? It won’t! Why should it?

Night really has fallen. The sky is navy, but the lights of the city obscure the stars. If you have ever lain on your back on moonless nights in the village or on the mountain and looked at the sky, stars fall on one like a torrent. At night Zelal and I would lie in each other’s arms and watch the stars. Zelal used to say, ‘Look, the evening star. As night advances and meets the morning, then it appears right on the other side. It becomes the morning star.’

‘Where did you learn that?’ I’d ask astonished.

She would answer, ‘From my teacher at school’, and I was surprised. The stars are difficult to distinguish from here, but he can see the evening star. It is the brightest one. He now knows that tomorrow before the day breaks it will be the morning star.

Just as he is about to get up from where he has been sitting, a little dog appears at his feet, a poodle with curly white fur. It has a red leather collar round its neck. Without being invited, it approaches and begins to sniff his feet and pull at his trouser leg. Standing on its hind legs and licking his hands, it wags its tail. Mahmut strokes the dog. He feels the heat of the animal, trembling with happiness and the softness of its curly fur under his hand. Warm, soft tears begin to trickle down his cheeks. He is surprised at them. I’m crying. I haven’t cried for God knows how many years — although I did weep when they told me we had lost Hevi.