Istanbul, Istanbul E-Book

Burhan Sönmez

• Herausgeber: Telegram Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 393

Beschreibung

Istanbul is a city of a million cells, and every cell is an Istanbul unto itself. After a military coup, four prisoners – the doctor, Demirtay the student, Kamo the barber and Uncle Küheylan – sit below the ancient streets of Istanbul awaiting their turn at the hands of their wardens. Between violent interrogations, the condemned share parables and riddles about their beloved city to pass the time. From their retelling of stories, both real and imagined, emerges a picture of a city that is many things to many different people. Their fears and laughter show us that there is as much hope and suffering in the city above as there is in the cells below. Istanbul, Istanbul is a poignant and uplifting novel about the power of human imagination in the face of adversity. 'A profoundly moving story about the transformative power of words in times of desperation' Ece Temelkuran, author of The Insane and the Melancholy 'A harrowing, riveting novel, as unforgettable as it is inescapable.' Dale Peck, author of Visions and Revisions 'A wrenching love poem to Istanbul told between torture sessions by four prisoners in their cell beneath the city. An ode to pain in which Dostoevsky meets The Decameron.' John Ralston Saul, author of On Equilibrium; former president, PEN International 'Ten days, ten stories and ten chapters, like Boccaccio's Decameron ... This novel will, I predict, itself become a classic.' Rosie Goldsmith

Leseprobe

İSTANBULİSTANBUL

Published 2016 in Great Britain by Telegram

Published by arrangement with OR Books LLC, New York

2016 © Burhan Sönmez

ISBN 978-1-84659-205-8

eISBN 978-1-84659-206-5

Burhan Sönmez has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs andPatents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade

or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A full cip record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound by CPI Mackays, Chatham, ME5 8TD

Telegram

26 Westbourne Grove

London W2 5RH

www.telegrambooks.com

İSTANBULİSTANBUL

BURHANSÖNMEZ

Translated from the Turkish by

ÜMIT HUSSEIN

TELEGRAM

CHAPTERS

1STDAYTold by the Student DemirtayTHE IRON GATE

2NDDAYTold by the DoctorTHE WHITE DOG

3RDDAYTold by Kamo the BarberTHE WALL

4THDAYTold by Uncle KüheylanTHE HUNGRY WOLF

5THDAYTold by the Student DemirtayTHE NIGHT LIGHTS

6THDAYTold by the DoctorTHE BIRD OF TIME

7THDAYTold by the Student DemirtayTHE POCKET WATCH

8THDAYTold by the DoctorTHE KNIFELIKE SKYSCRAPERS

9THDAYTold by Kamo the BarberTHE POEM OF ALL POEMS

10THDAYTold by Uncle KüheylanYELLOW LAUGHTER

Glossary

1ST DAY

Told by the Student Demirtay

THE IRON GATE

“It’s actually a long story but I’ll be brief,” I said. “No one had ever seen so much snow in Istanbul. When the two nuns left Saint George’s Hospital in Karaköy in the dead of night to go to the Church of Saint Anthony of Padua to break the bad news, there were scores of dead birds under the eaves. That April, ice cracked the Judas tree flowers, while the razor-sharp wind bit the stray dogs. Have you ever known it to snow in April, Doctor? It’s actually a long story but I’ll be brief. One of the nuns sliding and stumbling in the blizzard was young, the other old. When they had almost reached the Galata Tower the young nun said to her companion, a man has been following us all the way up the hill. The older nun said there could only be one reason why a man would follow them in a storm in the pitch darkness.”

When I heard the sound of the iron gate in the distance I stopped telling my story and looked at the Doctor.

It was cold in our cell. While I was telling the Doctor my story, Kamo the Barber lay curled on the bare concrete floor. We had no covers, we warmed ourselves by huddling together, like puppies. Because time had stood still for several days we had no idea if it was day or night. We knew what pain was, every day we relived the horror that clamped our hearts as we were led away to be tortured. In that short interval where we braced ourselves for pain, humans and animals, the sane and the mad, angels and demons were all the same. As the grating of the iron gate echoed through the corridor, Kamo the Barber sat up. “They’re coming for me,” he said.

I got up, went to the cell door and peered through the small grille. As I tried to make out who was coming from the direction of the iron gate, my face was illuminated by the light in the corridor. I couldn’t see anyone, they were probably waiting at the entrance. The light dazzled me and I blinked. I glanced at the cell opposite, wondering whether the young girl they had shoved in there today like a wounded animal was dead or alive.

When the sounds in the corridor grew faint I sat down again and placed my feet on top of the Doctor’s and Kamo the Barber’s. We pressed our bare feet closer together for warmth, and kept our hot breath near one another’s faces. Waiting too was an art. We listened wordlessly to the muffled clinking and rattling from the other side of the wall.

The Doctor had been in the cell for two weeks when they threw me in with him. I was a mess of blood. When I came to the next day, I saw he hadn’t stopped at cleaning my wounds, he had covered me with his jacket as well. Every day, different interrogation teams marched us away blindfolded and brought us back hours later, semiconscious. But Kamo the Barber had been waiting for three days. Since he had been inside they had neither taken him away for interrogation nor mentioned his name.

At first the cell, measuring one by two meters, had seemed small, but we had grown used to it. The floor and the walls were concrete, the door was of gray iron. It was bare inside. We sat on the floor. When our legs grew numb we stood up and paced around the cell. Sometimes when we raised our heads at the sound of a scream in the distance we examined one another’s faces in the dim light that filtered in from the corridor. We passed the time sleeping or talking. We were permanently cold and growing thinner by the day.

Again we heard the rusty grating of the iron gate. The interrogators were leaving without taking anyone. We listened, waiting, to be certain. The sounds died out when the door closed, leaving the corridor deserted. “The motherfuckers didn’t take me, they left without taking anyone,” said Kamo the Barber between deep breaths. Raising his head, he gazed at the dark ceiling, then curled up and lay down on the floor.

The Doctor told me to go on with my story.

Just as I was launching into my tale with, “The two nuns, in the thick of the snow . . . ,” Kamo the Barber suddenly gripped my arm. “Listen kid, can’t you change that story and tell us something decent? It’s fucking frigid in here as it is, isn’t it bad enough freezing on this concrete, without having to tell stories of snow and blizzards as well?”

Did Kamo see us as his friends or his enemies? Was he angry because we told him he had been ranting in his sleep for the past three days? Is that why he glared at us with such contempt? If they took him away blindfolded and ripped his flesh to ribbons, if they hanged him for hours with his arms outstretched, he might learn to trust us. For now he had to make do with tolerating our words and our beaten bodies. The Doctor held his shoulder gently. “Sleep well, Kamo,” he said, coaxing him to lie down again.

“No one had ever seen such heat in Istanbul,” I started again. “It’s actually a long story but I’ll be brief. When the two nuns came out of Saint George’s Hospital in Karaköy in the dead of night to go to the Church of Saint Anthony of Padua to break the good news, there were scores of birds chirping happily under the eaves. The buds on the Judas trees were about to burst into bloom in the middle of winter, the stray dogs to melt and evaporate in the heat. Have you ever known it to be as scorching as the desert in the dead of winter, Doctor? It’s actually a long story but I’ll be brief. One of the nuns staggering in the intense heat was young, the other old. When they had almost reached the Galata Tower the young nun said to her companion, a man has been following us all the way up the hill. The older nun said there could only be one reason why a man would follow them in a deserted street in the dark: rape. They ascended the hill with their hearts in their mouths. Not a soul was in sight. The sudden heat wave had made everyone rush to Galata Bridge and bask on the shores of the Golden Horn, and now that it was late at night the streets were deserted. The young nun said, the man is getting closer, he’ll have caught up with us before we get to the top. Then let’s run, said the older nun. Their long skirts and cumbersome habits notwithstanding, they sprinted past sign painters, music sellers, and bookshops. All the shops were closed. Looking behind her, the young nun said, the man is running too. They were already out of breath, sweat streaming down their backs. The older nun said, let’s separate before he catches up with us, that way at least one of us will get away. Each of them ran into a different street, with no idea of what would befall them. As the young nun dashed to and fro through the streets she thought she had better stop looking behind her. Remembering the Bible story, she fixed her gaze on the narrow streets to avoid sharing the fate of those who stopped for one last glimpse of the city from the distance. She ran in the darkness, constantly changing direction. Those who had said today was cursed were right. The mediums who took the heat wave in the middle of winter to be a portent of disaster had spoken on television, the neighborhood idiots had spent the entire day beating tins. Realizing after a while that she could only hear the echo of her own footsteps, the young nun slowed down at a corner. As she leaned against a wall in an unfamiliar street, it dawned on her that she was lost. The streets were deserted. Accompanied by a dog gamboling under her feet, she crept along very slowly, following the line of the walls. It’s actually a long story but I’ll be brief. When the young nun eventually reached the Church of Saint Anthony of Padua she found out that the other nun had not returned. She lost no time in relating her misfortunes, throwing the church into an uproar. Just as a search party was about to go out to look for the older nun, the gate opened and in she rushed, out of breath, her hair disheveled. She sank onto a stool, took several deep breaths, and drank two cups of water. Unable to contain her curiosity, the young nun demanded to know what had happened. The older nun said, I ran from one street to another, but I couldn’t shake the man off. Eventually I realized there was no escape. The young nun asked, so what did you do? I stopped at a corner, when I stopped the man stopped too. And then what happened? I lifted my skirt up. And then what? The man pulled his pants down. And then? I started running again. And then what happened? It’s obvious. A woman with her skirt up can run faster than a man with his pants down.”

Still lying on the floor, Kamo the Barber started laughing. That was the first time we had seen him laugh. His body rocked gently, as though he were frolicking with weird and wonderful creatures in his dreams. I repeated my last sentence. “A woman with her skirt up can run faster than a man with his pants down.” When Kamo the Barber started to roar with laughter I leaned over to cover his mouth. Suddenly he opened his eyes and stared at me. If the guards heard us they would either beat us or punish us by making us stand up lined against the wall for several hours. That wasn’t how we wanted to spend the time remaining before our next torture session.

Kamo the Barber sat up and leaned against the wall. As he took deep breaths his face turned serious and reverted to its usual expression. He was like a drunk who had stumbled into a ditch the night before and woken up with no idea where he was.

“Today I dreamt I was burning,” he said. “I was in the lowest circle of hell, they were taking sticks from everyone else’s fire and using them to stoke mine. But damn it, I was still cold. The other sinners were screaming, my eardrums burst and healed a thousand times over. The fire kept getting bigger and bigger but I couldn’t burn hard enough. You weren’t there, I searched every face, but there was no sign of a doctor or a student. I craved more fire, crying out and begging, like an animal going to the slaughter. The wealthy, the preachers, the bad poets, and cold-hearted mothers burning in front of me stared at me through the flames. The wound in my heart wouldn’t burn and turn to ash, my memory refused to melt into oblivion. Despite the fire that was turning metal to liquid, I could still recall my cursed past. Repent, they said. But was that enough? Were your souls saved when you repented? All you inmates of hell! Bastards! I was just an ordinary barber, who brought food home and liked reading books, but didn’t have any children. Toward the end of the time when everything in our lives went awry, my wife didn’t reproach me. I wanted her to, but she begrudged me even her curses. When I was drunk I told her what I thought when I was sober; one night I stood in front of her and said I’m a poor wretch. I waited for her to humiliate me and shout at me. I searched for a scornful look, but as my wife turned away I saw that the only expression on her face was one of sadness. The worst thing about a woman is that she’s always better than you. My mother included. You think I’m weird for saying these things, but I don’t care.”

Kamo the Barber stroked his beard, turning his face toward the light coming from the grille. Independently of his not having been able to wash for three days, it was obvious from his filthy hair, his long nails, and the stench of rancid dough that accompanied him on the first day, that he shied away from water even when he was outside. I had got used to the Doctor’s smell and grown quite protective of my own. Kamo’s smell kept imposing itself, like the foreboding of ill omen oppressing his soul. Now, after a three-day silence, there was no stopping him.

“I met my wife on the first day I opened my barbershop with a sign saying ‘Kamo the Barber’ on the window. Her brother was about to start school and she had brought him in for a haircut. I asked the boy his name and introduced myself: My name is Kamil, but everyone calls me Kamo. Okay, Kamo Ağbi, said the boy. I asked him riddles and told him funny stories about school. When I asked her, my future wife, watching us from where she sat in a corner, told me she had just finished secondary school and now worked at home as a seamstress. She averted her eyes from me and looked at the photograph of the Maiden’s Tower on the wall, the basil under it, the mirror with the blue frame, the razor blades and scissors. When I held out some of the cologne that I rubbed on the boy’s hair to her, she opened her hand and closed her eyes as she raised her small palm to her nose and inhaled. At that moment I dreamed it was me she saw under her eyelids, I wanted no eyes but those to ever touch me again for as long as I lived. As my wife was leaving the shop, wearing lemon scented cologne and her flower print dress, I stood in the doorway and watched her depart. I hadn’t asked her name. She was Mahizer, who had entered my life with her small hands, and whom I thought would never leave it.

“That night I returned to the old well. There was a well in the back garden of the house where I had grown up in the neighborhood of Menekşe. When I was alone I would lean over the top of the well and stare down into the darkness below. I never realized the day had ended, I never remembered there was another world that had no connection with the well. Darkness was serenity, it was sacred. I grew drunk on the smell of damp, I was dizzy with pleasure. Whenever anyone said I looked like my father, whom I had never met, or my mother called me by my father’s name, Kamil, instead of Kamo, I would run to the well, panting. As I filled my lungs with air in the darkness I would lean right down into the well and fantasize about plunging in. I wanted to break free from my mother, my father, and my childhood. Motherfuckers! My mother’s fiancé had made her pregnant then committed suicide, she had had me, even though it meant being disowned by her family, and named me after her fiancé. Even when I was old enough to start playing outside, I remember she would sometimes hold me to her breast, put her nipple in my mouth and cry. I tasted my mother’s tears instead of milk. I would close my eyes and count on my fingers, repeating to myself again and again that it would soon be over. One night as it was growing dark my mother found me leaning into the well and yanked my arm to pull me out. Just then the stone she was standing on suddenly slipped. I can still hear her scream as she fell in. It was midnight when they took her body out of the well. After my mother’s death I went to live in Darüşşafaka orphanage, and fell asleep spinning daydreams in dormitories where everyone told their own interminable life story.”

Kamo scrutinized us to see whether we were listening to his tale.

“During my engagement to Mahizer I gave her novels and poetry books. Our literature teacher at school used to say that everyone had their own language, and that you could understand some with flowers and others with books. Mahizer would cut out patterns at home and sew dresses, sometimes she would write poems on small scraps of paper and give them to her brother to bring to me. I used to keep her poems in my barbershop, in a box in the bottom drawer, with the perfumed soaps. The business was doing well, with the number of regular customers growing constantly. One day one of my customers, a journalist who had come in for a haircut and left with a big smile, was shot as he went out of the door. The two assailants ran to the journalist lying on the ground and, after firing another shot into his head, shouted, you either love or you leave, pal! The next day a large crowd gathered on the still-bloodstained street to pay tribute to the journalist. I joined them, in honor of the haircut, and went to the funeral. I had no faith in politics, the only political person I had ever felt close to was Hayattin Hoca, my literature teacher at school. Although he never mentioned politics we used to find socialist journals poking out of his files. My skepticism was absolute, how could politics, made up of people, change the world? Anyone who claimed that kindness would save society and make it happy didn’t know anything about people. They acted as though selfishness didn’t exist, the motherfuckers! The basis of human nature was self interest, greed, and rivalry. When I said these things my customers protested and argued hotly to try and make me change my mind. How can a poetry lover think such things, said one of my customers, as he waited his turn. He stood beside the mirror and read out loud several verses from Les Fleurs du Mal that I had put there. The violence showed no signs of abating, we heard people in neighboring streets getting shot. Once a young customer of mine rushed into my barbershop in a terrible state and asked me to hide his gun before the police caught him. I may have occasionally helped someone out, but that didn’t mean I gave a damn about politics. The only existence for me was saving up to buy a house, fathering children, and spending my nights with Mahizer. But somehow Mahizer couldn’t get pregnant. When we went to a doctor in the second year of our marriage we found out it was me who couldn’t have children.

“One night as I was closing up I saw three people attacking a man. It was Hayattin Hoca, my literature teacher from school. Grabbing my knife I rushed out to them and slashed their hands and faces. The attackers, caught unawares, retreated and disappeared into the darkness. Hayattin Hoca hugged me. We talked nonstop as we walked. We went into a tavern in Samatya. We told each other about ourselves. After Darüşşafaka Hayattin Hoca had changed schools twice, reduced his teaching hours and now spent more time on his political activities. He was worried about our country’s future. He had heard that I had gone to university to study French language and literature. But he hadn’t heard that I had dropped out in the second year because I had to work, it saddened him when I told him. When he asked if I was still interested in poetry I mumbled several verses from Baudelaire that I had memorized in his classes. He beamed at me proudly and reminded me of the time I had won first prize in the poetry reading competition. We clinked our glasses of rakı. Hayattin Hoca was happy to hear of my marriage, but he was still single. Apparently he had fallen in love with one of his students a few years previously but hadn’t declared himself, and once he heard that the girl had married after leaving school he had resigned himself to complete solitude. We drank until dawn. I recited poems from heart and he read out poems he had written for the girl he loved. I don’t know how I got home, it wasn’t until I had sobered up the next day that I remembered hearing Mahizer’s name in Hayattin Hoca’s poems.

“I didn’t go to Hayattin Hoca’s funeral a month later. He was shot in the head with a single bullet as he was leaving school. In his file they found a poem dedicated to me, about brave horse riders in a storm. A friend of his brought it to me. That night I clung to Mahizer and begged her not to leave me. Why would I leave you, my foolish husband, she said. I had brought home the box that I had kept for years in the soap drawer at the barbershop. I opened it and took out the scraps of paper with the poems that Mahizer had written me when we were engaged and asked her to read them to me. The scraps of paper smelled of rose and lavender. As Mahizer was reading the poems, I undid her blouse and sucked her breast. I wanted to suckle milk but I could taste the tears flowing down onto her chest. Three months passed. One night Mahizer cried again as she fired questions at me, her voice trembling. She asked who had shot Hayattin Hoca. He never took any liberties with me, she said. For several nights I had been talking in my sleep, saying he had deserved to die. Who else have I talked about? I asked. You mean there are more? asked Mahizer. I swore on my mother’s life. I had nothing to do with it, I said, words spoken in dreams don’t mean anything. I put on my coat and went out into the cold. What a delusion! My weary soul. Foolish old man. My soul that used to have wings of fire. It would take flight at the slightest impetus. Oh, gasping sick man, worthless workhorse. Is there anything in the world that won’t end in ashes? My soul, miserable, senile, bleeding wretch. Neither the zest of life nor love’s torrent can reach you now. Time skips a beat. As I breathe, I feel myself—my self—dissolving, losing my bearings. How did I reach the top of the well, how did I lift the stones and raise its cover, I wasn’t in my right mind. I leant down into the well and shouted. Mother! When you forced your breast into my mouth why did you give me tears instead of milk? Mother! When you clung to my puny body why did you feverishly repeat my dead father’s name instead of mine? I knew you were thinking of my father when you called me Kamil instead of Kamo. On your last night too you cried out Kamil. I knew the stone you were standing on was loose. You were bound to fall, mother! You said I was born thanks to my father, that I owed this life to him. Damn it! The dead were dead and gone! You didn’t understand how cruel the light was. The light only showed things from the outside. It stopped us from looking inward.”

Kamo the Barber said the last words as though he were mumbling to himself. First he bent his head forward, then tossed it back and banged it against the wall. “An epileptic fit,” said the Doctor, quickly laying Kamo down on the floor. He placed the piece of bread that we had been saving for our new cellmate, who could arrive at any moment, between Kamo’s teeth, to stop him from biting his tongue. I held his feet. Kamo had lost all control and was convulsing, his mouth foaming.

The cell door opened. The guard towering above us yelled, “What’s going on?”

“Our friend is having an epileptic fit,” said the Doctor. “We need something with a strong smell to bring him around, like cologne or an onion.”

The guard stepped inside, saying, “Tell me if your ass of a friend dies, so I can clear out the body.” But to be on the safe side he leaned over Kamo and checked his face. The guard stank of blood, mold, and damp. The reek of alcohol on his breath made it clear that he had been drinking before going on duty. He waited a while, then straightened up and spat on the floor.

As the guard was closing the door, I saw the face of the girl they had brought in today in the grille of the opposite cell. Her left eye was closed, her lower lip was split. It was her first day here but it was clear from the color of her wounds that they had been torturing her for a long time. Once the door had closed I crouched down onto the floor. Clinging to Kamo’s legs, I pressed my face down on the concrete so I could observe the guard’s feet from the crack under the door. The guard had returned to the girl and was waiting, motionless. I could tell because his feet weren’t moving. Hadn’t the girl left the grille, wasn’t she sitting in the darkness of her cell? The guard wasn’t swearing, he wasn’t banging on the girl’s door and threatening her, or bursting into her cell and throwing her against the wall. Meanwhile Kamo’s body relaxed and tensed alternately, he struggled to free his legs from my grip. He had stretched out his arms and was thrashing them against the cell walls. After a final convulsion Kamo’s spasms ceased and he stopped wheezing. The guard surveying the opposite cell left the girl alone and departed, his footsteps growing distant in the corridor. I stood up and looked out. When I saw the girl at the grille I nodded to her, but she didn’t move. After a while she went back inside, disappearing into the dark.

The Doctor leaned against the wall and stretched his legs. He placed Kamo’s head on his lap. “He’ll be able to sleep for a while in this position,” he said.

“Can he hear us?” I asked.

“Some patients can hear when they’re in this state, others can’t.”

“It’s not a good idea for him to tell us so much about himself, let’s warn him.”

“You’re right, he should stop.”

The Doctor looked at Kamo the Barber as though he were putting his own son, and not a patient, to sleep. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and smoothed his hair.

“How’s the girl in the opposite cell?” he asked.

“She has old scars all over her face, it’s obvious they’ve been torturing her for a long time,” I said.

I looked at Kamo the Barber’s tranquil visage. His customer was right to find him strange, how could a man like him love poetry? He was sleeping like a child exhausted from playing outside all day. Beneath his eyelids he was now leaning over his well, staring down into the darkness. He had held on to damp stones so many times he didn’t trust the stable ones, he descended with the aid of a rope he had lowered down into the well, and let himself go in the water. There Kamo is both north and south, he possesses the east and the west. His outside existence has been wiped clean, he has become a well in the well and water in the water.

“How long was I unconscious?” murmured Kamo, half opening his eyes.

“Half an hour,” said the Doctor.

“My throat’s dry.”

“Sit up slowly.”

Kamo sat up and leaned against the wall. He drank from the plastic water bottle the Doctor held out to him.

“How do you feel?” asked the Doctor.

“Shit, I feel tired but rested as well. I should have told you what I’ve got. It started in the spring right after my mother died. It didn’t last long, a few weeks later I was better. But they say the past comes back to haunt you. After Mahizer left me the fits started again.”

“Demirtay and I will take care of you here. I’m going to tell you something important, Kamo. It’s good to chat, but there are rules in these cells. We don’t know who is going to give in to the torture and confess all their secrets, or who is going to tell the interrogators whatever they hear in here. We can make small talk and share our troubles to pass the time, but we have to keep our secrets to ourselves. Do you understand?”

“Aren’t we ever going to tell each other the truth?” said Kamo. Gone was the tough man of a moment ago, in his place was this docile patient.

“Keep your secrets to yourself,” replied the Doctor. “We don’t know why they brought you here, and we don’t want to know.”

“Don’t you wonder what kind of a person I am?”

“Look, Kamo, if we were outside I wouldn’t want to meet you or be in the same place as you. But in here we’re at the mercy of pain, we’re constantly embracing death. We’re in no position to judge anyone. Let’s heal each other’s wounds. Let’s not forget that in here we’re the purest form of human there is, the suffering human.”

“You don’t know me,” said Kamo. “I haven’t told you anything yet.”

The Doctor and I looked at each other and waited in silence.

It was clear that Kamo the Barber selected each word carefully and weighed it cautiously before he spoke.

“My memory that I was just complaining about is like a greedy moneylender, it hoards every word. You, student kid, do you know that it was Confucius who was supposed to have said those words in that story you just told? In my barbershop, above the mirror, in line with the national flag, there was a poster of a half-naked woman. Those words were on the bottom of the poster. The girl was wearing a brightly colored skirt that she had pulled up. She was running as fast as her long legs could carry her, with her head turned shyly toward me and my waiting customers. In between her legs were the words ‘a woman with her skirt up can run faster than a man with his pants down.’ Sometimes my customers would stare at the girl’s beauty and think that couldn’t be true, fantasizing that if they ever got to be with her they would be so happy together they wouldn’t give a damn about anything else. When one day a writer customer of mine looked at the poster and sighed ‘Ah Sonya!’ we all heard him and thought that must be the young girl’s name. When it was his turn for a haircut the writer sat on the chair and launched into a long conversation. Eventually he started telling me about myself. He said I had a soul like the Russians. Seeing my surprise he repeated things I had said on his previous visits that he had retained.

“If I had been born in Russia I would either be a member of the Karamazov family, or live like an underground man, or be as wretched as Sonya’s father, Marmeladov. Everything the writer said about those Dostoyevsky characters was true of me. Dostoyevsky depicted them with the same mental condition, first Marmeladov in Crime and Punishment, then in part one of Notes from Underground, and finally in the whole of The Brothers Karamazov. There wasn’t a big difference between them, but it was big enough to take them on incredible journeys during their lives. Sonya’s father Marmeladov was a broken man, he knew he was pitiful, and was full of self condemnation. He was a miserable wretch who was a victim of his fate. Sonya adored her miserable father. Ah Sonya, that beautiful, destitute prostitute! Who wouldn’t commit brutal murders for her sake if it meant being worthy of her love? As for the Underground Man, he revealed his own wretchedness so he could expose the wretchedness of others, and manifested it as wrath. His obsession with finding people like himself, with holding a mirror to their faces, led him to tear his soul to shreds. The Karamazovs’ journey on the other hand was another thing entirely. They were at odds with themselves, with others, and even with life itself. They neither felt desperate like Marmeladov, nor regarded their wretchedness as a tool for exposing others like the Underground Man. Their wretchedness was their inescapable destiny, a constantly suppurating wound. They strove not to accept life, but to dispute it, and, when they suffered, to spill their blood and smear it over the face of life. That life has opened up a new page for me too now. Damn you! Take that look off your face, stop staring at me like those people burning in hell. I have lent you my ear for three days, listened to your stories and heard your groans after you were tortured. Now you can lend me your ears.”

Kamo gave us a contemptuous look, raised the water bottle to his lips again, and continued.

“I don’t know what lies ahead, will they release me, or take me away to be tortured like you? Pain turns the body into its slave, while fear does the same to the soul, and people will sell their souls to save their bodies. I’m not afraid. I’m still going to talk to the torturers and tell them the secrets I haven’t told you.

“I’ll tell them whatever they want to know, I’ll answer their questions by putting my whole soul in their hands. Just as tailors turn a jacket inside out and rip out the lining, I’ll rip out my liver and lay it open before them, I’ll tell them more than they want to know. At first they’ll be interested, they’ll write down everything I say in case it’s useful, but after a while the things I tell them will make them uneasy. They’ll realize that I’m telling them things about themselves that they don’t want to know. What people fear most in this life is themselves. They too will be afraid and will try to silence me, the men who tortured me to make me talk will hang me with my arms outstretched, give me electric shocks and soak me in my own blood to make me hold my tongue. They will be just as horrified by the truth as I am. I’ll tell them everything about myself and make them face up to the side of their own selves that they don’t want to see. They will stare in disbelief, like lepers who look into the mirror for the first time, they will retreat until they hit the wall, and because they can’t do anything to change themselves they will think the only solution is to smash the mirror, in other words, my face and my bones. But cutting out my tongue won’t do them any good, my groans will deafen them and imprison their minds in one single truth. Damn it, even in their own homes, they’ll wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and gulp down bottles of the strongest drink. But there’s no escape, the truth runs in your jugular vein. They either accept it or slit their wrists. They all have loving wives who will take them in their arms and comfort them, then light a cigarette and put it between their trembling fingers. They live in mortal fear of discovering their own truth. Now I know why they haven’t taken me away for interrogation these past three days. They’re afraid of me.”

Kamo the Barber was talking from the deepest pit, from the edge of the pit, from the darkest corner of that pit. He had hidden for too long, he had been crushed and was profoundly damaged. There was no way of knowing whether he had gone into hiding because he was damaged or if it was going into hiding that had damaged him. The darkness that was so dear to Kamo stifled me. When they blindfolded me and led me out of the iron gate they were taking me out of the world I knew. I appreciated the value of direction, I struggled to cling to the chaos of words in my mind. It wasn’t easy to think in the dark. Life was right beside me and I wanted to return to it.

Kamo was peering out of half-open, weary eyes. Even the tiny ray that was casting its light into the cell made him uneasy, perhaps that was why he wanted to sleep all the time.

“There was only one time when my mother didn’t tell me off for standing over the well,” he said. “That day she had dreamt of burning sticks. It was a sign that she would overcome something that was troubling her. Strange, the first time I ever dreamt of burning sticks was in this cell. What trouble could I have overcome while my past remained frozen?”

“This time will end too, just as the old days ended,” said the Doctor. “Your dream is telling you that you will get out of here and that you’ll be free again.”

“Free? Nothing has been the same for me since I lost Mahizer, there’s not a single stone inside me that’s not loose.”

“You’re tormenting yourself. Everyone goes through this kind of thing at some point.” The Doctor waited for a moment, before continuing. “You need to think positively in here, Kamo. Dream that we’re all outside. For instance, imagine we’re chatting on Ortaköy beach and contemplating the shore on the other side.”

The Doctor liked to take us out of here and transport us to the outside world. He taught me how to do that. It was better to dream about the outside world than to dwell on our troubles. Time, which stood still in the cell because our bodies were trapped, started ticking again once our minds went outside. Our minds were stronger than our bodies. The Doctor said that could be proven medically. In here we often dreamed about the world outside, for example we shared the happiness of people walking on the seashore. We waved to the people dancing to loud music on a boat near Ortaköy shore. We walked past lovers with their arms around each other. As the sun was setting on the horizon the Doctor bought a bag of green plums from a street vendor. Smiling, he offered me the first one.

Last week they pushed me into the cell, half-conscious. I was muttering incomprehensibly because my lips were dry. The Doctor, thinking I was asking for water, sat me up to try and give me water, and opened my eyes. “I don’t want water, I want green plums,” I said. We laughed about that for two days.

The Doctor asked Kamo if he too would like some green plums.

Kamo wasn’t impressed by the story. His mind didn’t work on the same plane as ours. “The past, Doctor,” he said, “our past . . .”

The Doctor brought down his hand that was poised in the air as though he were offering him a plum. “Our past is somewhere that’s too far away to reach. We should concentrate on tomorrow instead,” he said.

“Do you know what, Doctor, God can’t change the past either. God, the all powerful, rules over the present and the future, but can’t touch the past. Where does that leave us, when even He is powerless to change the past?”

For the first time the Doctor eyed Kamo with pity, then he smiled. “Every barber I know likes talking. They talk about football or women. Why do you talk about these things? If I were your customer I wouldn’t go back to your shop. Maybe barbers shouldn’t go to university, otherwise where would we men go to chat about football and women?”

“I’d still ask the same questions even if I didn’t have an education.”

“Think of it this way, Kamo. Your childhood with your mother was unhappy, but meeting your wife set you free of your past. The same thing will happen again, once you find new happiness in the future you’ll forget the old days.”

“New happiness?”

The Doctor took a deep breath. He rubbed his cold hands together. He looked up at the ceiling, as though trying to decide on the best way of dealing with a difficult patient in his consulting room. Just then we heard the heavy sound of the iron gate.

We looked at each other. We could hear the interrogators’ lighthearted banter as they entered. We listened hard to hear what they were saying in the corridor.

“Did he spill?”

“Give it a day or two and he will.”

“What was it today?”

“Electric shocks, hanging, high pressure water.”

“Did you get his name and address?”

“We know that already.”

“Is he a big shot or some little shit?”

“This old codger, he’s a big fish.”

“Which cell?”

“Number 40.”

That was our cell.

We piled our cold feet on top of each other, trying to get one last bit of warmth. At any moment we could leave and never return. Or we could leave sane and return mad, go from being human to animal without a soul.

“They’re coming for me,” said Kamo, turning to face the grille. “Perfect timing.”

The footsteps grew closer. The cell door opened. Two guards supported a heavily built elderly man by the underarms, they struggled to carry him. The man’s head had fallen onto his chest, his face and body a bloody mess. “Here’s a new friend for you.” The Doctor and I stood up, brought the man inside and lay him tenderly on the floor. The guards closed the door and left.

“He’s practically frozen,” said the Doctor. He examined him to see if he was still bleeding or had any fractures. Lifting his eyelids, he checked his eyes in the dim light. He took one of the man’s feet and started rubbing it. I took his other foot between my two hands, it was like ice.

Kamo the Barber said, “I’ll lie on the floor, you can put him on top of me, we have to protect him from the concrete.”

The Doctor and I held the man and lay him on Kamo’s back. We lay down on either side of him and held him. In the past people used to snuggle up to their cows and dogs to keep warm. The cell took us back to the beginning of time. We were embracing a complete stranger in an attempt to give him life.

“Are you all right, Kamo?”

“I’m fine, Doctor. It’s as though this man has been buried naked in snow.”

“Snow?”

“Yes, the day I was arrested it snowed nonstop,” said Kamo the Barber.

“Apparently winter has come early this year. The day I was arrested the weather was beautiful.”

I listened while the Doctor and Kamo the Barber chatted. They didn’t stop long enough for me to join in. For the past three days Kamo had either been ignoring or berating me. He occasionally referred to me as “student,” but more often it was “kid.” I was eighteen years old and would have liked him to treat me with at least some of the respect he showed the Doctor. When I was arrested I had a good idea of the trials that lay ahead of me, but I never imagined that a problematic cellmate would be one of them. Pain had no boundaries, you either resisted it or it defeated you, but I had no idea how to react to Kamo. When I was arrested one of the civil policemen kept calling me “kid,” as he crushed my fingers in the car. “It will be a shame to waste your life, kid, you’d better talk now,” he had declared. When I said “I’m not a kid,” he put his two hands around my neck and tried to choke me. The other policemen must have stopped him, either that or they were playing their usual tricks. They knew my real name and asked who I was going to meet. I was more surprised by their knowing the time and the place of the meeting than by their knowing me. “I’m not a kid, I’m a university student. I was on way to class, I don’t know what meeting you’re talking about.” “Why were you running away then?” As soon as I realized they were following me I took the first turn and started running. “I was late, I was just trying to get to class on time.”

Half an hour later they took me to the meeting place, the bus stop in front of the University of Istanbul library. They