Oya Baydar - The Lost Word

A young woman approaches him calling the dog’s name. She scolds the puppy, gently, tenderly, like ticking off a child. ‘I’m sorry, he’s disturbed you. He’s a good dog. He does it out of love and trust.’

‘It doesn’t matter. He didn’t disturb me. I like dogs.’

He is afraid of the woman seeing his tears. He doesn’t lift his head. He follows the young woman and her pet with his eyes as they slowly move away. The dog’s vitality, the dog’s heat, its tail wagging with happiness and high spirits … He scans the surroundings. Even though the square has become less crowded, it is still busy, animated. The vendors selling phosphorescent tops sparkling like fireflies in the semi-darkness, phosphorescent balls and flashing hairbands with butterflies for girls have taken the place of the sellers of halva wafers, the fortune-telling stands with rabbits and the children with trays hung round their necks selling all kinds of knick-knacks from lighters to biros.

A tiny little girl with a glittering phosphorescent crown on her head comes running to the edge of the pool. ‘Look, amca, I’m a butterfly,’ she says with delight and leans over the water. The phosphorescent band falls into the pool. Mahmut plunges in his arm, fishes the band out of the water and holds it out to the child. Her mother and father come storming over. As they drag the girl away by her arm Mahmut can hear them scolding her. ‘Haven’t we told you not to speak to strangers!’

True, very true. Children must not talk to strangers, they must not even go near them. There are deadly weapons in strangers’ pockets. Especially those Kurds, Arabs, terrorists with their eastern faces! What does my face look like? He tries to look at himself from the outside. It’s not frightening. A little eastern but not frightening. Since he has had his beard shaved, it could even be called soft-looking. I have a time bomb in my pocket. No one would be able to tell by looking at my face.

Looking at my face … Looking at his face … The face of the night marish man appears before his eyes. Since he first saw him, unconsciously he has been wondering where he has seen him before, and he realizes that this thought has been scratching away at his brain ever since the kebab shop. Zelal’s face wanders around the most secret labyrinths of his memory and appears in all clarity in front of his eyes. Like photographs superimposed on one another, the face of the nightmarish man conceals Zelal’s face. It becomes the negative of the photograph. He remembers Zelal’s words: ‘Our complexions were not similar. He was swarthy, but they used to liken me to my brother. My mother used to say, “Mesut is the Arab version of you.”‘

A little shriek like ‘weeeee’ or ‘waaaaa’ bursts from between his teeth. Traitor! Xayin!

Now he understands why the man seemed both familiar and a stranger; why, although he reminded him of the hevals, he cast an undefined cloud of suspicion that Mahmut could not put a name to and whose origin he could not explain. He was going to make me carry out this terrorist act. In addition to the ‘martyr’s funerals’ and the suicide attacks in tourist areas there was to be a horrendous explosion in the capital! The golden link to be added to the chain of excuses and opportunities to swoop down on us … The inevitable rise of the informer, the greatest gift that he could have from his masters: a new face and perhaps a new life. Imagine! What is going on! Who gives the orders and who controls these operations? Who profits from bloodshed?

Mahmut is amazed but also relieved. Even if they traced us through Zelal, she was a means to trap me. Mesut Abi would not harm her. He could not. He was going to get me to do the job by saying the girl is in our hands. Well, we’ll see…

He has another quick look around. No one is interested. Everyone is in their own world, living their own summer night’s dream. He grasps the phone in the left pocket of his shirt with his right hand. The device is hidden in his palm. He dips his hand into the pool as though he is playing with the water. The phone slowly slips from it and sinks into the water. Tomorrow morning someone will see it and fish it out of the water. They will think that a woman sitting by the edge of the pool had dropped it.

He gets up and walks off with decisive steps. He stops a passing taxi and gives the name of the hospital. Security is tight at the main gate at this time of night. The door to the Accident and Emergency Department is always open. From there he will find a way to reach Zelal’s floor. If that doesn’t work, if they don’t let him in, he’ll curl up in a corner of the garden and wait until morning.

Either tonight or early tomorrow morning he will smuggle Zelal out. He will try to find the writer abi. After all he hasn’t died. He has hasn’t been buried, has he? Of course he will answer his phone. Let’s say he doesn’t. Let’s say that they are once more totally alone in the world. They will take to the road again, dragging a whole lot of trouble behind them. They have no option. After that … There is no ‘after that’; he doesn’t know what will happen after that.

She awoke as though someone had prodded her. It was as though she had heard a familiar voice. A man’s voice. Was it her father or her brother? Someone had called out. It wasn’t Mahmut. She would recognize his voice immediately, and she wouldn’t be startled by Mahmut’s voice.

She tries to accustom her eyes to the darkness of the night. For some reason the night light next to the sick woman isn’t on as usual. The room is in darkness. She must have dreamt it. She attempts to remember her dream.

It was a bad dream. In fact she has been having bad dreams for days. In her dream she was looking at the village from a high hill. It was night and it was dark. A dog had sunk its teeth into her skirt and was trying to pull at it, growling. Or was it a wolf rather than a dog? It was a savage, horrible creature. As she tried to chase the cur away she had fallen. She had seen the animal’s huge jaws, its savage pointed teeth directly over her face, and she had tried to shout, but she had not been able to. She heard a noise from the direction of the village. Perhaps she had woken up to that sound.

Zelal searches the room with her eyes. The woman in the bed near the door is sleeping, snoring lightly. The door of the room is closed. The window right beside the bed has been left slightly open for air. She can see the sky from where she lies and the top branches of the mighty trees in the hospital garden. Dawn has not quite broken, but it is not far off. A faint red glow is rising from the east.

Since they moved her bed over to the window the evening before she is able to see the sky, the clouds, the stars and the birds that perch on the branches at the tops of the trees. Today, I will watch the birds and the clouds and pass the time until Mahmut arrives. What a good thing we changed our beds around. It is much more pleasant in front of the window; at least one can see the birds and the stars. She thinks about her elderly room-mate. The woman is breathing fitfully. What a cold, miserable cow she had been; then how suddenly she had changed. When she saw how frightened I was, she thawed out. Perhaps she was ashamed of how she had behaved. If a person has a conscience they feel another person’s suffering. If they feel it once then they will find it difficult to do anything horrible. So the woman does have a conscience.

It’s black in the village and on the mountain at this time of night. Adults threaten to leave naughty children out in the pitch-dark street. The redness of dawn heralds the end of fear. Here the city lights do not admit that darkest moment immediately before dawn.