Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale (68 page)

Marcel, Rachael’s atheist older brother, who prided himself on having remained faithful to the codes of the
Galatasaray Lycée
, and who, after many years of practice as a pharmacist had retired to devote his time to the reading of books of philosophy, had given me when I was enrolled in the French High School, among the books of Voltaire—which, to his mind, would contribute to my French—that breviary with a silver jacket as a ‘precious family relic,’ saying: “This book is important in that it was my brother’s bedside book; my brother who had died in agony. The contents may not interest you but it had served its purpose.” At the time I had no idea about the meaning of the word ‘atheist,’ although I had a vague idea that it connoted something blameworthy. Marcel Algrante was a person who commanded respect thanks to his erudition and life experience. However, this manifestation of respect had kept him somewhat aloof from the usual currents of the day, perhaps due to his aberrant views. Could this be interpreted as a sort of betrayal never openly expressed and doomed to remain dormant? I cannot say for sure whether Madame Roza’s remark at seeing this book had shed a ray of light to his remoteness; Madame Roza, who had recalled a school teacher’s comments: “It’s a pity I cannot bring myself to believe in God, in your God, which grieves me so much,” saying: “Atheism brings endless anguish to man, I’m afraid. However, everybody has in him an innate religious sentiment. Hadn’t I told you that no one could be an atheist against one’s better judgment?” All that I know is the affection I entertained for this quirky individual at a time when I was trying to re-establish the connection in contrast to the attitude of the family members. I had succeeded in expressing this sentiment by saying, when we had met, that I would be giving the book its due, at a time when he spoke of developing his talents, of a ‘brotherhood temple,’ the meaning of which was far from clear to me, and with which I was far from familiar. To believe in a probability to the bitter end . . . This probability found its true meaning in the impression that that book made on us. It was as though this gift would serve to perpetuate one’s life in another. I think I had understood what Marcel Alagrante had meant by ‘another God.’ These little touches were responsible for that little affection and solidarity between us. These touches would, in time, be responsible for my considerable progress toward that individual. The time would come when I would be attaching the great value that that book deserved. However, for this, I had to fit in their places in my story, the anecdotes that Monsieur Jacques was to transmit to me upon his return from his visit to that small town to see his elder brother and nieces. What had been transmitted were ‘their days there,’ their apparitions. Biarritz was a city that experienced the bewitching beauty of the ocean. The coastal habitation of Rachael and Nesim was a flat above their shop. The brine that clung to the shop window necessitated wiping every morning. The English tourists used to climb the heights to have a view of the huge billows, some measuring more than a few meters. The sight was overwhelming especially in stormy weather. He had been among its regular spectators. He recalled the sea of his youth when he used to accompany his mother to the swimming complex for women at the Golden Horn. He hadn’t acquired mastery in swimming and so he dared not go far from the shore. The sight of the billows scared him even from afar; he associated them with death. The town was near the border. They often crossed over the border and visited the Basque Provinces. He had acquired a smattering of Spanish. To observe that his vernacular had some currency in a foreign country had pleased him. The warm feeling that this had engendered in him was to survive over many years, coupled with its lies and delusions. The two brothers had strolled along the beach at Biarritz recalling the experiences of their youth. Nesim appeared to be content with his actual life; he looked happy. He loved his wife and children. He no longer missed Istanbul. It hadn’t been so easy at the beginning, but he had got used to this sort of life. He had succeeded once again to feel at home in a foreign land. He did miss a few things and a few flavors. However, what made life worth living was yearning and longing for the things one loved, the rest should be considered mere residue of experience. Every departure and separation came at a price. What was important was his discovery of a new life in a small town on a distant coast. He had turned his back on the cities that had attracted him through their legends long ago. No, he wouldn’t go back, he just couldn’t. He had new surroundings, new acquaintances, a new family, and a new language. His squat figure had earned him the nickname ‘Le petit Turc.’ That was his identity there. When he thought of the struggle he had put up in settling there, he felt happiness mingled with some trepidation. Now and then he gave recitals to his neighbors just like he used to do in Vienna and sang old Spanish songs and romances. He was loved and respected. The incidents in Germany, whose language was his vernacular, upset him in a way. However, he had decided not to speak his mind. “Tomorrow will be another day,” he said, “a day will come when even ‘they themselves’ cannot but avow the devastation they would cause.” Who would have guessed that those billows would rise and fall at such a distance?

Enrico was about to fall into a well

Among the things that Monsieur Jacques had imported from Biarritz were also the memories of long nocturnal
tête-à-têtes
with Rachael. Those were the nights when Nesim retired to his chamber with his dailies and magazines. The main topic of discussion was Enrico. Rachael had recounted what she had done for her brother, to be precise, what she wanted, but failed to do for him, mentioning that she would never forget how they held each other’s hands so tightly. She had held him, a wounded boy, by the hand trying to cross the border of that little world. She had wanted to be the elder sister of a person doomed to remain a boy. That was another world that others could not understand so easily. In that small town she seemed happy in her own way; there were people around her whose hands she grasped with different feelings and expectations. She felt he was living in his own reality among her family members whom she could no longer abandon. She thanked God every night before going to bed for having blessed her with such a life, although she was filled with regret when she thought of Enrico whom she had abandoned within those borders. In her daily prayers she asked to be pardoned for this transgression. Certain nights seemed interminable to her; she was unable to sleep, and when she dozed off, she had nightmares. In one of those nightmares she had seen her brother with that book in his hand stammering incomprehensibly. She took it to be a favorable sign. Whatever the past experiences may have been it was not too late for certain new ‘exploits.’ This was a way of inquiring into the state in which Enrico may have been. He had understood this. Notwithstanding, he had withheld certain important things from Rachael; he had merely stated that life had dispersed the members of the family and even the nearest relatives failed to communicate with each other. He could not bring himself to tell her that Enrico, after having stammered incomprehensible syllables in his room one night, had stretched himself on his bed, and, in a lethargic manner, had said
“
Rahelicas, me esto cayendo al pozo” (Rachael dear, I’m falling into a well, hold my hand tight!) before expiring. He had promised Marcel Algrante, who had described these hours in their minutest detail, that he would not disclose them to anybody. He didn’t doubt that through this lie he had discovered a truth, the truth of that day. Rachael would never be ready for the storm that this truth might provoke.

This death was not the only death that he would keep secret. Different deaths at different places would have to be kept quiet.

Rachael was to hear of Enrico’s death much later. I don’t know to what extent this stratagem had been successful. To the best of my knowledge, Monsieur Jacques was in no better position to know. Notwithstanding, Rachael, despite the fact that she tried to convince herself that everything seemed to be alright, her intuitive power was making her restless. Toward the end of that night she said: “I cannot forget what I did to him.” In this sentence there was concealed not only her wish to preserve her disloyalty in her memory, but also her desire for it to be consigned to oblivion. She could not have expressed this any better. This recollection would remain indelibly stamped on her mind. He had taken in his arms this woman whose self-sacrifice had made many a soul more than happy; she had sought happiness in the eyes of those she loved. She had made a vow: what she had done for her brother would be known and acknowledged by everybody one day.

To forecast a brewing storm

The Biarritz days would be the last days in which Monsieur Jacques would be able to see his family members at the other extremity of Europe. Years had to go by before Ginette came into the world as a ‘surprise child’ after two charming French girls. On his way back, he had sojourned to San Sebastian in the Basque Provinces before proceeding on to Italy to observe the splendid panorama that fascism displayed in Rome. An emotion, difficult to describe, had overwhelmed him, like many people. Was this due to admiration? He couldn’t tell. In order to understand it better he had to have a closer look at the situation. This was his philosophy on board the ship which had weighed anchor from Naples and was en route to Istanbul. A storm was brewing whose effects would also be felt in the waters of the Bosporus in due course, which people could not predict at the time. In the meantime there would be wars, peace, deaths, the collapse of countries, and people would be immigrating to unknown destinations without understanding why. Theirs were different lives, lives in different times. For us, for those of us who had stayed behind . . . Well, a gap opened wide between us and those people, regardless of the experiences and accounts that came to light; a gap never to be filled. Now we are busy speaking of a gap we are at a loss to understand, using our own language, in the languages of this world. I wonder whether those that remained behind, in that age can understand our language. The answer to this question was certainly concealed in that breach. Are the words, the words that engendered in us so many lives waiting to be discovered so that we can re-edit what has already be expressed?

You could not snuff out the dark

I wish Marcel Algrante, with whom I could never develop an intimate relationship, knew that I had been keeping guard over that breviary he had made me a gift of in one of the drawers of my cabinet, at a place quite different from the places it is usually kept, in other words, its correct place. Here, a latent attempt at self-exposure can be witnessed once more; extravagant or willfully conspicuous behavior which cannot be repressed and reveals itself all the more in certain relations and snapshots; the same pattern of behavior marked with attempts to reproduce it defying all inclinations to consign it to oblivion . . . with a view to carrying on one’s life in the company of our resentments . . . to perpetuating our existence despite our deficiencies . . . The result remains the same, though; one cannot interfere with it, it seems. The child does not want to get lost in the dark, it cannot abide for long in the body of a stranger; it is reluctant to find a shelter within him. On the other hand, the adult, the mature person, cannot do away with that child; he cannot avoid seeing its images in his dreams, nor can he remove it from the apprehensions he could not account for. Thus, we stand exposed to endless questions begging for answers. Would you not be disposed to do for that little child what you would do for others? Would letters you wrote hoping to convey to others the moments and the people you have left behind, as they are reflected on your history, in their echoes and visions not carry express concern? This may have been the effectual cause that had induced me to pen the story of Nesim and Rachael, which holds true also for ‘that letter’ expressive of compelling evidence . . . even for that letter which enables us to timidly touch that aspect of life which we will never be able to understand and describe properly . . . even though that testimony ‘there’ be a testimony to be shared and never forgotten. That letter was the only one Monsieur Jacques had succeeded in unearthing among the heaps of letters that his elder brother had left in which he spoke of his life and which was given to me in spite of all concerns. The lines that would inform us of Nesim’s experiences in Paris and give us clues about whether his view of Istanbul had been mislaid or simply lost. Life had caused him to meet people who would interpret certain emotions wrongly. He had to endure the consequences of betrayals originated from unreserved confidence invested in other people. In other words, he had learned how to be prudent. Thus, it was possible to look for the real cause of his preference for speaking cursorily about the affective attitude of those letters in this insecurity. However, this letter was different; it had not been written by Nesim; it did not include the exchange of intimate feelings; it looked like a story finished and concluded. The author of the letter was Enrico Weizman, the newspaper seller who had been with Nesim on their death march to the concentration camps. The letter had been mailed in 1945 from Biarritz, addressed to Monsieur Jacques. The account had to be put to paper by someone, even though the words were not sufficient to reflect the actual truth. I believe that the writer, the reader, and the person who had posted it had believed in the veracity of its contents. The same questions had arisen in me as well at a time when I had been hearing the sound of the steps pointed toward death. I wonder if the words, the words to which we could have access, the words that enable us to convey the experiences we had of those camps to other people contributed slowly to our longing fostered in many a text. Would I be able to understand what had been left, abandoned or lost ‘there’ by the help of words with their equivalents within me? Would those recollections allow us to restore in a new text those experiences in defiance of those witnesses? The experiences had expressed that certain moments could not be narrated in those texts, that the words would fall short of justification. However, I believed that, daring to repeat the same wrongs despite all the restrictions imposed, I had felt that I had to try, or at least observed that I had tried. It appeared that I had to try despite the stares of other people which we could not easily escape, for a story which I believed had not been written yet in the geography of my emotional life, and which had not yet been exhausted. Following these words I could perhaps follow this new voice to those letters that would enliven in me, my own genuine letters . . . Then . . . the time that followed belonged to other hours, other discoveries and silences.