A Short Sadness
Erendiz Atasü
(Translated by Stephen Clendinnen)
The hillside next to Anadolu Hisar inclined sharply down to where it met the Bosphorous. The thick covering of plants softened the hardness of the rocks… The beginning of May, the ridge was taken over by every shade of green and by the masses of purple flowers on the Judas trees. Silence… The twittering of the birds didn’t disturb the silence, just like a string of pearls on bare skin emphasizes the simplicity of a dress, the bird song intensified the silence. Behind the silence, from the plain below, came a dull hum. A monotonous drone made up of the sound of millions of human machines grinding away… It was far away, and for the moment, ineffectual. The Judas trees didn’t care about the rapaciousness of the city. The woman touches the pearl necklace around her neck, “I also don’t care” she thinks to herself. “But the trees will always be here, they will never disappear. When the branches of the Judas trees are bare they will still be here where they belong.” When the woman is far away from all this, the city still won’t matter. The smoke from exhausts, the gas erupting from mountains of rubbish, the sounds of people, all of this pressing down; the moans of the sick, the sobs of those abandonded… Who hears the cries of a hungry baby, or those complaining about the pains that the future brings…
“I also won’t hear them”, thought the woman, her hand still on the pearls. “Am I too dressed up?” she worried. Below was the cafe surrounded by countryside. She liked to take care in how she dressed in all situations; this is important for both herself and for the other person, isn’t that right? Her daughter doesn’t trouble herself over such things; she pulls on jeans, on her feet are espadrilles, her unruly hair pulled together into a rough pony tail, her face without make-up. “It suits her” thought the mother. She wanted to touch her child, but she didn’t.
Clink clink clink. The daughter stirred the sugar into her tea, the noise from the spoon bumping the narrow glass lasted for a long time, clink clink clink… “She’s sick of me”, the woman said to herself. She remembered her own youth; she had also tired of her own mother’s expectations.
“I wanted to show this to you,” she said to her daughter, “one of the few places where you can still see what Istanbul was like before it got so big.”
“Lovely,” said the young woman. “It’s really nice, so relaxing.” For a moment she took her hand off the spoon, shut her eyes and listened to the silence.
Clink clink, she once again returned to stirring her tea, it was as if the silence had been cut with a knife.
“I’m glad you like it,” said the mother, still fiddling with her necklace.
The young woman knew this tic of her mother’s from childhood – these gestures and this behaviour. If her mother had something important to say to someone – or rather something that she thought was important – firstly she would dress very fashionably, then she would take the person to a beautiful place, and once there, she would play with her fashion accessories and fail in any way to approach the subject she wanted to talk about. What was the need for all this beating around the bush!
The young woman all of a sudden asked, “What did you want to talk to me about?”
“That was out of the blue,” the mother said to herself. “She is always in such a rush.”
“Nothing, I just wanted us to enjoy this beauty together.”
“What do you mean nothing! We came so far just to do that?”
“Yes, I wanted you to the see these places where I spent my childhood again.”
“Mummy, I already know all this. Your house was in the side streets by the castle, also Kandilli Girls’ College was where you went, and there was a captain who was in love with you, you know the one who would blow his ship’s horn to send you his love.”
The mother smiled, her daughter can’t show that she was put out. Or possibly she wasn’t really offended? In the last few years maybe her daughter had learnt not to care too much about things. Motherhood was such a harsh task master, it makes you forget the concept of honour.
“No, I’m not going to talk about any of that. I just want you and I to share this unforgetable view.”
The daughter looked at her with a blank expression and said, “Good. Let’s enjoy it together then.”
The mother closed her eyes and enjoyed the breeze caressing her skin. Actually there was nothing sensible to say anyway… The hesitant answers, the relentless questions, it all made her more tired than she could bear. Anyway there wasn’t much time left, not enough time for bickering…
The daughter was suddenly concerned and stopped clinking with her spoon but the ruptured silence was not repaired; under the quiet an unseen gash opened up and deepened.
“You’re not sick or anything are you?”
The mother managed to smile.
“No.”
“Oh, that’s good.” The young woman had relaxed.
“So that’s the only crumb of sympathy that I’m going to see today,” said the mother to herself, smiling indulgently. “Is she really concerned about my health, or does she just think that she couldn’t fit the burden of an illness into her busy life?” Logic suggested that it is was the second reason. The mother didn’t listen to logic.
Her daughter worked hard, her son in law worked hard. All young people worked hard. To make some unknown group of people even richer. They didn’t know why they worked so hard, they thought that it was for a “better life.” In their vocabulary “better” meant “prosperous”. The differences between the meanings of these words had been erased in their busy lives. Actually, they didn’t work for a more “prosperous” life or anything like that. The reality was… they were on a tight rope – their lives that appeared problem free were on a very straight, narrow and well defined line, as if ruled by a ruler. And underneath was an abyss! But nobody had quite figured out what it was that was down there. So there they were, with their future growing more and more uncertain, fighting tooth and nail so as not to tumble into the frightening void and to somehow stay on the oh so narrow pathway of their lives…
Yes, yes, it would be best to use a short letter or a telephone call to explain the situation after she had left. It would be easier that way. Better not to upset anyone with all this.
The woman loved expansive moments – moments when the artificial structures that divide up time disolved, and the endlessness of life opened up… Like when the scent of the Judas trees went to the ocean, from there it opened up to the wide horizons of the Back Sea… It fell to the old to leave behind the hustle and bustle of the city, just like old elephants who withdraw to a quiet corner of the jungle to die. Away from where moths are forcefully dragged toward skyscrapers that seemed like mountains of light, to dance around them with what they think is joy… As the time left to the woman became less and less, so too did it become broader and clearer. And her perception deepend; she was able to realise when, by a trick of the light, what looked like mountains were actually fake. Really there were only buldozers, and a dance of death spinning around them…
In a small town on the coast of the Agean Sea; a nursing home with no shortage of compassion; that is the time when you feeling unhopeful unexpectedly get scraps of attention from your relatives… Life takes everything but honour from out our hands…
She had lost touch with lots of relatives; and instead moved in a spiral direction – a spiral drawn by forests, hillsides and the ocean – all moving together, like being drawn into a whirlpool… From now on she will not be wounded, from now on she will not be broken. Time is nothing to these things. There is only the silence of nature. Yes, it will be best to talk about it all after she has gone.
The old woman with a sudden movement took the pearl necklace off her neck and put it on her daughter. Her daughter was surprised.
“I want to give this to you as a gift. It suits you better than me.”
“But why?”
The daughter was deeply shaken; the pearl necklace looked out of place on her crumpled top.
“You really love this.”
“Yes, all the better. I want to give my daughter, who I love more than anything, my much loved necklace. What’s strange in that?”
Again the daughter hesitated. In the stillness it seemed for a moment that the hollowed out emptiness would be filled, but it was not filled. She was about to say “Are you sick?” but fell silent. She had just asked the same question already. Maybe she was deterred by the possibility of “yes” being the answer.
The mother smiled. The poor thing could think of nothing else to say other than “But why?” So different from the child she had been, who would natter on about anything. In her busy life her words had shot up high like jets and fallen down; and because she didn’t have time to stop, bend and collect them, she left them there. Let the words scatter like a broken pearl necklace.
“Look after it,” said the mother. “A momento from me, don’t let it break and the pearls scatter.”
“For goodness sake Mum, leave off with all these melodramatic words.”
The daughter’s terseness was a sign that she was thouroughly upset. For a moment the woman felt bad about upsetting her; but then stopped feeling bad. As soon as her daughter got to work she would forget this brief sadness.