Melek! Her name meant Angel. She lived two houses down on the left, on
the hill leading to Kasimpasha, a naval port in Istanbul’s Golden
Horn district. Melek’s family were Muslims. Mine were Christians.
Melek’s father, Vehbi Ender Bey, worked at the Istanbul’s
administrative centre. He was kind, talkative, and ready to help anyone
in need. Pervin Hanoum, Melek’s mother, stayed home. She was warm
and sincere, never indulged in gossip, and was on good terms with both
her Muslim and Christian neighbours. Inside the house she wore colourful
outfits and left her short curly hair free, but, when she went out, she
covered her head in a dark silk scarf, and wore long-sleeved dresses and
cardigans. The Enders kept the fast during Ramadan. At the Sacrificial
Feast they had a lamb killed and distributed its meat to the neighbours.
I loved to visit Melek. She was fifteen, four years older than me. An
only child like me. There were no girls her own age in the neighbourhood
to spend time with, so she adopted me as friend and playmate. She had
long black hair, straight like her father’s, that fell in two braids
to her shoulders.
Melek taught me how to dance. We would tango, waltz, and rumba at the
Enders, to the music of late afternoon radio broadcasts. We played five
stones and checkers by the Ender’s porch. On the first of May, we
would gather wild daisies and chamomile from the nearby virane and try
to braid flower wreaths but without much success.
Back then, in 1947, the only amusement park nearby was at Yenishehir.
It had a Ferris wheel and some caique boat-swings, with a few itinerant
vendors scattered around the fair grounds. On sunny weekends or official
state holidays, her father would take us there. He would walk around while
we rode on the rides. I hated the Ferris wheel, with its rusty cars dangling
in mid-air. I preferred the huge red and green boat swings. Each boat
held six to eight people, with the taller youngsters sitting at each end.
Melek sat me in front of her and steadied her feet on the floorboards
as she told me in a reassuring voice, “Just hold the bars tight,
Erato.” And she would push with her strong legs and swing with the
other riders as the boat flew high in the sky.
On the way home Vehbi Bey would buy us keten helva, a chewy, almond-flavoured
cream sandwiched between papery round waffles, and a simit, a big, flat
bagel covered with roasted sesame seeds.
Sometimes I was invited to go with them to a movie. And when Melek paraded
with her school for the Gençlik Bayrami, my father took me to Istiklâl
Caddesi to watch as she marched with her class behind the school brass
band. People, mainly youngsters, crowded the sidewalks. Everyone was waving
small paper Turkish flags (a white crescent and star on a tomato-red background).
I wanted to wave one too, but my father’s deep frown brought me
to my senses. “We live in Turkey. We have Turkish friends. We speak
Turkish with them. But we are Greek! Never forget that,” he used
to say.
Rarely did Melek venture out alone. Her father almost always accompanied
her, even when she went to school. I would see her, dressed in her shiny,
satiny black uniform with the starched white collar, holding her leather
schoolbag in one hand, the other on her father’s arm. Vehbi Bey
would go with her to the red tramway for the ride to her school. She often
returned home with him.
I considered myself more fortunate. I was allowed to go to school by myself
and was even entrusted with small errands to the grocer or the newspaper
strand. My only sorrow was that I could not go to my classmates’ parties,
nor invite friends home after school. Because we had “no space” said
my mother, but I knew it was because we could not afford to entertain.
When I asked Melek whether she felt embarrassed by her parents’ overprotection,
she shrugged her shoulders. “I know it’s because they love
me so much. So I don’t mind. But when I fall in love, I don’t
know how my beloved will communicate with me,” she added with a
smile.
Melek was not like the girls in my class at school. She was mature, intelligent,
sincere, caring, warm, open yet reserved. She made me feel grown up, free
to talk to her about everything. Sometimes we discussed religion, very
superficially though. At other times we talked about our respective customs.
She wanted to become a nurse (not a doctor: she said she couldn’t
bear the thought of being responsible for a patient’s life or death).
I wanted to become an archaeologist. The ancient temples and relics evocative
of past civilizations, spread throughout the country, fascinated me. Melek
and I would visit those sites together when we grew up. She listened with
fascination to the Greek myths I told her and then she would tell me about
the Dede Korkut Turkish legends.
She felt that she was already a woman, because she had her period and
her breasts had started to point visibly beneath her dress. She was ready
for love and a family. I was still a “child” and my chest
was flat as a board. I admired and envied Melek and wondered when I would
be like her.
She liked to read Turkish romance novels, which she passed on to me. I
considered myself luckier than her in this matter. I could also read Greek
translations of French novels by Dely and Max du Vezit, my mother’s
favourites. I would read her stories with happy endings, stories with
fierce, rich and powerful lovers who swept poor heroines off their feet
and into lives of bliss. These were very different from Turkish novels
which were full of pain and longing and honour killings, very much like
the accounts filling the front pages of the newspapers. We both cried
over H¦çk¦r¦k, a Turkish love story where the heroine, Leyla, dies
and her beloved, Shahin, goes to the after world to search for her. He
will either bring her back or remain there with her forever. We both believed
in eternal love. ‘He’ became her hero: tall, muscular, strong. ‘He’ would
love her forcefully and passionately, making her tremble with longing. ‘He’ would
follow her to the hereafter to be with her eternally. We both wondered
about that “hereafter”. The story did not describe it but
we thought it might have been worse than life on earth since Shahin was
determined to bring Leyla back or, if he couldn’t, sacrifice himself
to stay there with her.
“
What do your holy books say about the hereafter?” asked Melek.
“
Well, not much either,” I said. “Just that it’s a nice
place, always sunny I think, where there is no pain and no longing. Where
angels, and Jesus and His Mother dwell. What do your books say?”
“
That paradise is an exquisite huge garden with streams and meadows and
fountains and flowering trees and luscious fruits and beautiful maidens,
called houris, whose purpose is to entertain and please the rightful men
that stay there. I don’t like that part. I would prefer to have
my own lover and to please each other exclusively. I think there are also
winged angels and I suppose our Prophet is there too. But I have my doubts.
If it were true everybody would prefer to be dead and live there rather
than here. Which is not the case. They say there is also hell. I don’t
know. I guess we don’t know because no mortal has come back to tell
us what it’s like. Listen, if I die before you, I promise I’ll
find a way to let you know what it’s like. Maybe I’ll come
to you in a dream, or something.”
I looked at her, annoyed. I did not like the turn this conversation had
taken.
“And promise me,” continued Melek, “that if you die before
me you’ll do the same.”
I shivered. I hated thinking of death and the afterlife. “Believe and not
investigate”, my mother used to say, and I did abide by her advice. Yet,
Melek was my friend so I had to promise to let her know if I died first… God
forbid.
It was a gorgeous, hot, summer Sunday morning, not quite eight o’clock.
Melek was excited about the family excursion to Florya Beach. The day before
she had helped her mother prepare fried meat patties, stuffed vine leaves, and
potato pancakes for their picnic.
An early riser too, I stood by our open window, eating my buttered toast sprinkled
with sugar. Our next door neighbour, the officer Zabit Bey, and his wife Y¦ld¦z
Hanoum, were already sitting on their porch drinking their coffee. “Güle,
Güle!” they called and waved to the Enders as they walked by. They
were hurrying to catch the earliest train to Florya so they could secure a choice
cabin with a picnic table beside the beach.
My mother joined me at the window. “Güle, Güle! Have a good time!” we
shouted.
The Enders turned their heads almost in unison, smiled, and waved back before
turning the corner. I felt a pain in my heart that I could not explain.
Just after lunch, as I was changing the damp cloth around the earthenware pitcher
on our windowsill, I was surprised to see a white van with the red crescent on
its side turning onto our beaten earth road. “Mama, a can kurtaran,” I
shouted. Then, “God! It’s going to Melek’s house,” I
howled.
Mother threw the blouse she’d been sewing onto the divan and ran to join
me at the window. “Wait for me!” she called as I turned and ran frantically
for the door.
I saw a gurney covered in a white sheet being pulled out of the ambulance and
Vehbi Bey opening his front door. Attendants pushed the gurney through the door.
“
Upstairs, in the first bedroom to the right,” an ashen-faced Vehbi directed
in a hoarse voice.
Behind them, two men supported Pervin as she stumbled into the house. Her head
was bowed. She stared lifelessly through eyes that were puffy and red.
Y¦ld¦z joined us, and she and my mother helped Pervin to lie down on the sofa.
Mother was speechless, trying to take everything in.
“
What happened?” asked Y¦ld¦z.
“
Evlâd¦m! My child! My life! My Melek” moaned Pervin, barely above
a whisper. She seemed to withdraw into a trance, mute, her body shuddering with
uncontrollable dry sobs.
Vehbi appeared in the doorway. He looked like a ghost. Trying to control his
trembling body, he lowered himself slowly on a chair and, hiding his face in
his hands, in an almost inhuman voice wracked by sobs, he told the story of the
accident. The dense crowds at Sirkeci Station had moved back to make room for
the incoming passengers. The wave of bodies had crushed Melek against a wall.
One moment Melek was beside him, the next she was pinned to the wall and slipping
down on the cement floor. “She didn’t even shout.” He pushed
his way over to her, but by the time a doctor responded to his screams and the
ambulance came, it was too late. Her chest was crushed, she could not be revived
... “Please, take care of Pervin,” he said, at last, in a lost voice. “I
will see to the rest.”
The officer, our next door neighbour, was in the room now. He hugged Vehbi. “I’ll
come with you,” he said simply.
Slowly, I climbed up the stairs to Melek’s room. A tall, thick white candle
burned on her night table. She lay on the wrought-iron bed, her cheeks shadowed
by her long black lashes. Her skin was whiter than the crisp sheet that covered
her. Hesitantly, I touched her cheeks. They were cold and hard, like parched
hides. My hand stopped in mid-air as I tried to touch her breast, to feel if
her heart was still beating. I could not believe my eyes, my touch. I felt empty,
disbelieving. My mind was full of what she would miss. No nursing. No travels.
No lover. No lover’s kisses. No hero to rescue her. No hero to join her
in the hereafter for eternity.
Was there really a hereafter? Would she find out what it was like? I remembered
our discussions. H¦ck¦r¦k had not described it clearly. Nor did my Missal Was
it really more beautiful than our earth? Inhabited with angels and dead loved
ones and prophets and Jesus and His Mother and Muhammed? Jesus had said there
were many “dwellings”. What did He mean by that? A separate one for
each religion? Like states with a leader for each group? Jesus for Christians,
Moses for Jews, Muhammed for Muslims, Buddha for… No, I could not think… And
where would God be? Hidden? Melek believed Allah had no human face. He was an
almighty force. I could not understand that. I have no memory of how long I stayed
by Melek’s side, dry-eyed, numb.
Then I was gently pushed away by several older women in white, who had come to
prepare Melek for her burial, which had to be within the next twenty-four hours.
They would undress her, wash her, rub her skin with aromatic oils, then chant
in mourning.
I went downstairs. The living room was crowded with neighbours and relatives
who had heard the tragic news. The family doctor was there too, sitting beside
Pervin.
I felt my mother’s hand on my shoulder. “We can’t do anything
more. Let them rest. They are surrounded by loving people. We’ll come tomorrow.
Pervin will need us then,” she said as she pushed me gently out. Tears
glistened on her cheeks.
Next morning, we returned to the mourning family. Y¦ld¦z had prepared sweet,
floury kashik helva, shaped like spoons. My mother brought simigdalenio—semolina
helva, sprinkled with cinnamon, pine nuts and brown-skinned almonds, to take
the bitterness out. The house was full of people, all talking in whispers. Melek,
dressed in white, now rested in a simple birch coffin, her long hair combed straight
down over her shoulders.
A group of older women, dressed in mourning white, their heads covered in billowy
scarves, chanted in melodious unison the haunting Mevlud, the Prophet’s
birth hymn, as a symbol of Melek’s rebirth in the Master’s presence.
When they finished, a bearded Imam in a round white cap began to read in Arabic
from a small Koran. The air was heavy with the aroma of frangipane and the rose
water that was sprinkled on our palms turned up to heaven as we prayed.
All was murmurs and tiptoeing.
Pervin sat on a chair beside Melek, caressing the stone-cold cheeks of her only
daughter. She was also dressed in a long white cotton dress, her hair covered
in a white muslin scarf. She rocked to and fro, whispering sweet, unintelligible
words to Melek. When she saw me, she gestured for me to approach, and drew me
to her breast. “Gel k¦z¦m,” she murmured. “You also lost your
companion. See how beautiful she is?”
I nodded, speechless, and put my head on her shoulder. I had yet to realise that
I had lost a companion, a friend. I was preoccupied with how Melek felt. With
where she would go now.
Pervin hugged me and kissed me lightly on the forehead. Then she pushed me gently
away with a sigh. Her eyes were dry, empty.
Soon it was time to move Melek’s body out of the house. The coffin cover,
draped in shimmering white satin with a green runner embroidered in golden Arabic
letters, was lowered over Melek and the men raised the coffin onto their shoulders
to carry it out.
Pervin jolted forward, screaming, “Melek! Evlâd¦m! My Chidl!” She
tried to follow them down the stairs and out the door, but hands restrained her.
Pervin struggled, screaming, “No! No! Let me go with her!”
The door closed.
The men-only procession walked slowly up the hill to the Emin Djami mosque.
I touched my mother’s arm. “What will happen now?” I asked
her. She looked at me, startled by my question. Then she explained in a low voice: “The
coffin will rest outside in the mosque’s courtyard while the service is
conducted inside. Then they will continue to the Muslim cemetery for the burial.”
“
Why will the coffin rest outside?”
“I don’t understand why the coffin is not allowed inside the mosque,” she
answered in a whisper. “But, that’s their own ritual.”
Inside their house, Pervin mourned, shrieking and beating her breast with her
fists. “Allah¦m! Do you exist? How could you do this?” She sobbed. “How
could you let me give her flesh and life and then snatch her from me? Only fifteen!
No time to live yet. Draped in a shroud instead of a wedding dress. Never to
be loved by a man. Never to experience the pain and bliss of childbirth. The
only child we had. She was as good as an angel. They say you are a God of mercy
and love. Where is your mercy? Where is your love? Why did you let this happen?
Why don’t you want me to follow her body to her last resting place? It’s
unjust! You’re unjust! I’m her mother! I am the one who should be
with her. Why? Why?”
Y¦ld¦z put her arms around Pervin’s shoulders and rocked her like a baby. “Hush.
. . Shush,” she whispered in Pervin’s ear. “Do not blaspheme.
This is why we women are not allowed to follow our dead. Because we cry and wail.
Instead we should rejoice that Melek has joined the Master; she is in Cennet
with him, she bathes in His light. She is with angels—”
“
Rejoice! How can I rejoice when my child, my life, has been torn from me! What
God wants that?”
Y¦ld¦z continued to rock her, stroking her hair, repeating, “Hush. . . ”
It must not have been very long, although it seemed like an eternity to me, before
the men returned.
“
She is sleeping in Light now,” said Vehbi Bey, embracing his wife tenderly,
as if she might break. “An angel amidst angels,” he murmured, trembling,
caressing Pervin’s hair.
I imagined Melek resting deep in a ditch, shovels and shovels of earth pouring
over her, covering her. There would be darkness, no light there! Where were the
angels? I shivered..
I could not abandon this image of darkness covering Melek in the cold
earth. I couldn’t sleep that night. The terror of death gripped
me. I prayed for Melek to come and soothe me. If an afterlife existed,
she would come. I hoped. Maybe as a ghost, maybe in a dream. I waited… and
waited… and waited…
Melek! I still wait... |
