Читать книгу Endgame - Ahmet Altan - Страница 10

V

I rented a really nice place. It was fully furnished, and decorated like the home of a nineteenth-century aristocrat, with carved cabinets, large mirrors, velvet wingback chairs and beautiful carpets. But it didn’t feel overcrowded and the arrangement of furniture lent the place a peaceful air. A mountain breeze was always drifting in through large, bright windows, fluttering the curtains.

I always had breakfast on the veranda, between carved wooden columns, looking out over the sea, which was light green where it met the golden sand of the beach. It grew darker in the distance, occasionally flecked with white. The palm trees and the red oleanders and the station dome shimmered in the sunlight.

The caramel-coloured floor tiles helped keep the house cool. In the morning I would walk through the house barefoot, looking out every window, gazing at the olive groves, the mountains, the vineyards. I would look out over the town and the sea, taking in the palm trees and the oleanders, and then I would wander among the jasmine, the roses, the bougainvillea and the lemon trees in my garden; it was a paradise without an Eve.

Remzi and I became good friends and he rushed over whenever I needed help. He even found a woman to take care of the house. As Hamiyet fluttered about the house, cleaning and cooking, she wore a smile that was always changing but never absent, one of those smiles that I could never quite define, a smile that intimated a secret sin, never shared in either happiness or grief.

But she spoke to the furniture.

She would whisper to cabinets, tables, chairs, sharing her secrets with them. Once I caught her arguing with a broom. But when she wasn’t talking to the furniture she would give me all the gossip from town. More and more I started to feel like I had come to a den of sin, and as I got to know the people I could put faces to the stories.

Hamiyet was a tall, powerful, busty woman, and she wasn’t shy. She’d roll her skirt up over her calves when she mopped the floors; and when she leaned over to pick something up, her breasts sometimes slipped out of her blouse. She never seemed to mind.

I was full of energy when I woke that morning.

Hamiyet was prattling away with the plates and the tablecloth, and the eggs she had made for my breakfast. It had rained the day before but the sun was shining in a bright blue sky, and the scent of wet grass and dirt, the fruit trees and the flowers was in the air.

I’d told the woman to meet me if she liked my books but I was beginning to have regrets.

I hadn’t had a meal with a woman for such a long time. I was a lonely man. It seemed like no one in the world knew I still existed. And there wasn’t even a splash when I released a new book. I was unhappy and angry, but I did my best to stay in touch with people. I tried to make peace in the hope of driving away a grudge people didn’t even know I carried in my heart. But I had walled myself up in a monastery, and I was reluctant to venture outside. I had settled into a life of seclusion.

I was weak and fragile and this made me angry. I was full of anger and self-loathing, and I felt sorry for myself. Swinging back and forth between two very different states of mind, I either wallowed in defeat or I was drunk on the dream of an imminent victory, a commander setting out on one last adventure, rallying the troops, crying ‘I’ll show the world yet!’ But then I would suddenly find myself steeped in the sadness that comes with inevitable defeat.

‘If you like the books …’ I had said to her, because I wanted her to read them, someone to read them, someone to say something. I wanted to end this oppressive silence. A buried resentment drove me to say it.

Normally I’d never mention my books to a woman before the first date.

I was frustrated for having told her, but no one notices the anger that rages inside me, the ungrounded fear and loathing. The bravado of a beaten man.

It wasn’t easy facing these truths. I was on the verge of giving up and just not going.

But I was dying to see if she’d come.

I wanted her to like my books, and I missed those conversations you have on a first date, when every word is loaded, and anything can happen. I wanted to feel alive again, I wanted someone to admire me, someone who could lead me back to the world of people. I wanted to break down these walls built by arrogance and fragility. I needed someone, but I was afraid to admit it.

In her presence I knew that I’d become another man, whose confidence would rise with every sentence. A woman’s voice would change me. I would become a garden swirling with all the scents that come after rain. I knew that much.

If she came everything would change.

The hours dragged by. I followed Hamiyet around the house. I collected fruit in the garden, watched the doves build nests above the veranda and flicked snails off the trees.

I arrived early and sat down at one of the tables under the magnolia tree in the garden.

Slowly the place filled up with customers. Bigwigs in dark suits alighted at tables like black birds. They were both a frightening and comical sight to behold, with their dark suits and loosened ties and enormous bellies, sweating in the heat. From time to time they’d look over at me suspiciously, making me feel like an outsider. I felt like a zebra among lions.

Then everyone turned to the door. She was there, looking out over the garden.

The black birds were staring at her hungrily. But she didn’t seem to notice.

She greeted everyone in the garden as she came over to me, even exchanging a few words with some of the men, and for a moment it seemed their lust was compassion. They were calmed by her innocent expression, the coy and child-like look in her eye, her grace and the polite distance in her voice. They even seemed a little ashamed, and they wanted to protect her.

I felt the same compassion too, and the lust.

She had the power to tame these savage birds. In an instant. It was impressive to watch.

But I saw something else.

She wore two different smiles on her face, one on top of the other, and when she moved her lips you could almost see the other smile – a self-satisfied, ironic and belittling smile, the real emotions hidden beneath a gentler smile.

That’s when I understood her most dangerous ability: to suddenly inspire compassion. Unhappy with his creation, God sent prophets to spread compassion and to preach against the dangers of lust. It was one of their main messages. But it went unheeded because God, master of contradictions, planted in the human heart a wild desire, a spark left by his awesome powers, that humans were destined to battle – God wanted so much to happen – and most were overwhelmed in the face of this power; if only in their dreams, the most pure of heart, committed the sin in their dreams. And although we could not obey the prophets’ words we learned how to act in the face of sin, we learned how to face it down or take flight, if we do not eventually fall prey to it.

Compassion is another story.

Closing the doors on lust, God flung open a door to compassion. We travel easily on the road to compassion, with no doubt in our heart, determined and never afraid.

The enigmatic smile on her face told me she knew the power of compassion. Her compassion was a kind of Trojan Horse – a God’s compassion – and doors were flung open and she rode in with a conscience veiled. All lustful thoughts had been banished.

God wouldn’t say it but I will: ‘Be careful of the compassion of a beautiful woman.’

Some conceal selfishness and beauty with compassion, and they have the power to devastate and destroy.

It was an idea I wanted to include in my new book, a new message from a prophet, and I wanted God to know.

On second thought I realised that if I did a reader might issue his or her own Godly declaration.

‘Mortals, beware the conceit of authors.’

A lust that inspired my conceit, and her compassion.

We were gladiators in the arena. I knew so much. But knowing so much did nothing for me.

I was helpless.

She was wearing a white dress with dark blue polka dots and chic sandals, red nail polish on her toes. I wanted to have her.

Then and there.

My emotions were locked away behind stronger walls but she could portray a range of emotions on her face whenever she wanted. That was something I simply couldn’t do.

And her counterfeit emotions were displayed so brilliantly that hardly anyone could detect the smallest trace of what she was truly feeling.

When she flashed that innocent, vulnerable smile, even the truth behind was blinding.

As she sat down whispers rippled through the garden like a breath of wind. They were trying to work out who I was.

‘I’m starving,’ she said.

She had a beautiful smile.

The waiter hurried over to our table and she ordered nearly everything on the menu.

‘Is all that for both of us?’ I asked.

‘Oh no, I’m just really hungry.’

‘Hard to believe you’re that hungry,’ I said.

‘I love to eat.’

‘Seems so.’

She put her bag down on the chair beside her, a small leather bag with a little golden chain on the handle.

‘Did you read the book?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘I’m here, aren’t I?’

‘It wouldn’t be a sin to say you liked it.’

‘I’m not a real reader. I don’t think my liking it would really mean anything. Does my opinion really matter?’

I wanted to reach out and grab her by the shoulder and say, ‘Tell me.’

‘Did you like it?’ I asked, calmly.

‘I did.’

‘You hesitated. Did you really like it?’

‘I loved it.’

‘Then why don’t you just say it? Say it like you just ordered all that food. You’re allowed to speak about books in the same way, with the same appetite. It’s not bad manners.’

A bashful smile fell over her face and for a moment she looked like a little girl.

‘I really liked it. You write beautifully. And you have a thing about writers and women. You know a lot about them.’

‘What did you like most?’

I wanted to talk about it, her favorite parts, memorable chapters and sentences. I wondered if she had specific comments to make. Did she really think that I was a good writer? Was she a real fan?

I’m not satisfied with light praise.

No writer ever is.

It is easier to accept a flat-out rejection than faint praise, which is much harder to bear.

Beneath a writer’s confident and tough exterior, there’s a fragile heart ready to break when there’s even the slightest absence of excitement in someone’s voice.

I can be with a woman who hasn’t read my work, I’ve been with many; but I could never be with someone who finds my writing mundane; and I certainly couldn’t make love to a woman who felt this way.

‘There were some very touching moments.’

‘Which ones?’

As she looked at me I wondered if she pitied me or if she understood that I valued her opinion deeply. I didn’t know. But she had really read the book.

‘Did you finish it?’

‘I was up all night … I was very impressed. How can you do that?’

I leaned back and felt the stress leave my body. I had become desperate. I desperately needed this woman, who hadn’t read a book in years, to praise my work.

It was pathetic but I was overjoyed to hear what she had to say.

‘I undress, stick my head in the fridge and then I write.’

‘What?’ she said, incredulously, her eyes wide open in surprise.

‘No, that’s not how I write,’ I said, laughing. ‘That’s what Marquez said. But it seems like a terrible method.’

The waiter arrived with our food and soon the table was covered with salads, stuffed mussels, chicken liver, meatballs, pastries and fried aubergine.

‘Are we really going to eat all this?’ I asked.

‘I’m hungry.’

And she really was. She had an incredible appetite. We settled into a comfortable rhythm as we ate. Almost in a whisper, she recounted what she remembered from the book, as if sharing a secret with me, something that had really happened, speaking about the characters like they were real. ‘If you liked it that much, why don’t you read more?’

She leaned over the table and said conspiratorially, ‘I’m too easily swept away. I get the real world and the fantasy world all mixed up. I can’t distinguish what happened here or there. It’s a jumble in my head.’ Then she added, ‘You know, it really scares me sometimes.’

I was beguiled by her innocence and her vulnerability and I felt something like love. But at the time I had no idea what had prompted the feelings. She had the power to erase all the preconceptions I had about her. The moment she stepped into the garden she had made me forget.

She could do that.

‘I read all the classics when I was a kid. My mother encouraged us to read them. I was lost in Anna Karenina. For a while I really believed I was living in a Russian palace.’

It occurred to me that I didn’t even know this woman’s name. She’d never told me and I’d never asked.

‘I don’t even know your name,’ I said.

‘Zuhal. My grandfather chose it.’

There was a ripple of movement and I looked up to see a man walking into the garden. He was wearing a dark suit, long black pointy shoes, a loose tie, and a tough but serene expression on his face. He wasn’t handsome but he had that rough look many women found attractive. There was a certain confidence in the way he walked and the look in his eye told me that he was a ladies’ man. A group of men trailed behind him, their heads lowered. He was clearly a powerful man and respected in a man’s world. Although he was younger than most of the other men in the garden, they all greeted him with respect. Waiters rushed over to him.

He suddenly stopped at our table and put his hand on Zuhal’s shoulder, as if I wasn’t even there, and asked: ‘How are you?’

Zuhal had sensed his arrival before I had and she knew who he was – that was all too clear. And though she didn’t look up, she blushed when she felt his hand on her shoulder.

‘Fine,’ she said, looking up.

‘You’re eating a lot. There won’t be anything left for us.’

They were roughly the same age, maybe he was a year or two older, but the self-assurance in his voice gave me the feeling that no one there could have questioned his authority; he had the air of superiority an older man shows a younger lover, almost a fatherly love.

Zuhal had just tamed a garden of savage birds with a smile but now she was a shy little girl.

‘I was hungry,’ she said, like a student giving a teacher a bad excuse.

‘Be careful now or you’ll put on weight …’

He looked me over for a moment, memorising all the details of my face and the way I looked at him. He would learn everything there was to know about me in less than five minutes, at least everything that was known about me in town.

‘Who’s that?’ I asked, after he had left, unable to conceal the distaste in my voice.

‘The mayor.’

‘Why does he treat you like you work for him?’

‘We were lovers. We met at university,’ she said, pushing her plate away.

‘And now?’

‘We’re not together any more.’

She narrowed her eyes.

‘But I’m still in love with him.’

Her frank and sudden confession was devastating; I was reduced to nothing. But then again I knew that a woman would never share such a thing with a man she’d just met unless she felt something for him. In that moment she seemed so preoccupied that she wouldn’t have noticed if I got up and left.

We were silent.

I couldn’t know what she was thinking, apparently about the man. I wanted to ask her why she’d just told me her feelings for him. A moment earlier she’d been my greatest fan. How could she betray me so suddenly?

She had stopped eating. I asked her if she was finished and she nodded. ‘I’m full,’ she said.

‘I wouldn’t take him seriously.’

‘I know. I just don’t feel like eating now. Ready to go?’

We paid the bill and left.

She walked straight out of the garden, looking down at the ground.

Not one of the men was looking at her now. It was strange. They acted like she wasn’t even there.

There was a nervous energy in the air.