Labyrinth Read online

  We go into the lounge and sit down; I sit on the sofa where I was before, he sits on the armchair by the fireplace. He casts his eyes around the room. After sniffing the air, as though this were his first time in this house, his gaze drops to the ground. He notices, before I do, a trail of blood going from the parquet in the kitchen to the rug, and from the rug to my foot. What happened to your foot, he says. The reassurance vanishes from his voice. I just broke a glass in the kitchen, I must have stepped on the broken pieces when I came to open the door. He stands up. Before I can so much as blink, he has marched into the kitchen and returned with a cloth, cotton wool, and a bowl of water. He bends down in front of me. He lifts first one foot, then the other, cleaning each one with the damp cloth. One is fine, but he removes a jagged piece of glass from the side of the other. He cleans the cut and compresses it with the cotton wool. He brings me a pair of socks and my slippers from the bedroom. Aware of the pain in my ribs, he helps me put the socks on. Seeing that I’m still in my pajamas, he asks, Have you had breakfast? I got up late this morning, I haven’t eaten anything yet. In that case let’s go out, the fresh air will do you good. Out? He means the out that I looked at last night after getting out of the ambulance, when I stood in the gardens of the apartment block and saw the sky shrouded by hazy light, and the balconies. I can’t place myself anywhere in the world I have seen once, the remainder of which I attempt to piece together with what little information I have in my head. If someone told me I was in a dream I’d believe them. Last night I dreamt that everything was rippling, as though floating in water, and flowing back and forth. Records, paintings, voices, faces, names. Nothing stays still, and nothing touches anything else. It isn’t clear which era the objects are from. Are the singers whose pictures I saw on the album covers alive or dead? Are the people whose names I remember living, or have they remained in bygone eras? I’d better not go out today, I say, using the cut on my foot as an excuse. Okay, I’ll just nip out and get a few things from the grocery store. After he has cleaned the broken glass in the kitchen and had a quick look inside the fridge, he goes out. Because Bek has a place in the outside world where he belongs, going out isn’t an issue for him. Whereas I regard even my own face in the mirror as a stranger. I’m like a blank sheet of paper. I have no inside and no outside. My east and west are hazy, as are my south and north. No matter where I step, I feel as though I am about to tumble into a void. I spend my days waiting for night to fall. After I have taken my medicine with a glass of water I close my eyes, hoping my past will come back to me while I am asleep; I start counting. Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three…. I wonder if the directions, the names and paintings in my past existence are all in the right place. Was I in the right place in the past?

  Bek, who returns laden with groceries and shows me each item before putting it away in the cupboard so I’ll remember it, serves breakfast on the table in the lounge. He tells me I like fried eggs. Cheese, olives, tomatoes, honey, beef salami. He pours tea. As he waxes lyrical about the beautiful weather outside, as though describing a holiday resort, he keeps a close eye on my food preferences. Our band members phoned just now while I was in the grocery store, they want to see you. I thought it would do you good to go out with them. I said let’s all go to Theodora’s Tavern tomorrow night. You must be dying for a drink. He laughs. I turn my head and look at the bottles in the wooden cabinet. I must be a heavy drinker, look, the cabinet’s full. No, you never overdo it. You’re an occasional drinker, who savors the taste. You can hold your drink. Unlike me, who gets legless every time. Last month we went to Theodora’s Tavern again for some food and drinks, and when I got legless you were the one who took me home. I sang belly-dance music to the taxi driver. Really? I’d love to be able to remember that. There’s no need for you to remember it Boratin, I’ll give you a repeat performance. He laughs again. He didn’t laugh once when he visited me in the hospital. There he had seemed more upset than I was, whereas here he seems happier than I am. If I ever manage to catch up with my past I’ll feel very close to him, I’ll believe in him as well as in myself. Bek, I say, did I choose and buy the furniture in this house? You bought some of it, but you inherited most of it from your landlady. How long have I lived in this house? You moved in three years ago. We came to see it together. You liked the views of Beyazıt Tower and the lighthouse from the balcony. The landlady liked you too, she said you reminded her of her grandson, and let you have it there and then. She was an elderly Greek lady. She was moving out to go and live with her son because she was too old to live by herself.

  I look at the figurine of Mary and Jesus on the mantelpiece. I know their names, but can’t remember my landlady’s. Mary isn’t crying. The look on her face is sorrowful but tranquil at the same time. The sorrow is hers, but she has borrowed the tranquility from the lifeless face of her son lying in her arms. Should we think of that as life’s greatness, or life’s inconsistency? Bek, how long has that figurine been there? That figurine, he says, it was there when you moved in, your landlady left it, like she left a lot of things. Did I ever take any notice of it before? No, this is the first time I’ve ever heard you mention it, as far as you’re concerned it’s just a simple ornament, that’s it. Simple? If I knew the kinds of things I used to care about before, then I’d have a much easier job working out what kind of person I am. Does anyone live here with me, I don’t even know that. No, there’s no one else Boratin, you live alone. Have I always lived alone? Last year a girl moved in with you for a few months, but since she left you’ve lived by yourself. Where is she now, did we split up? Yes, after you broke up she packed her bags and left Istanbul. I stop dead when I hear that. It takes me more by surprise than learning that I was a musician in my previous life, or that I’m from a wealthy family. How did I take the break up, would you say my ending up like this had anything to do with the girl? No, I doubt it. You weren’t too cut up about finishing with her. You didn’t write a single verse about her, you didn’t feel the need to pour your heart out when we were out drinking. You’ve moved on. How have I moved on, like the Mary in that figurine? As Mary clutches her son in her arms, her lips are tightly sealed. All her words are stashed inside her marble mouth. I’ve been staring at her all morning, I can’t take my eyes off her. Her face is beautiful, the turn of her neck, her gaze, the expression on her lips. Beauty sits on her face like the purest form of truth. As these thoughts run through my mind, I have no idea what to believe. And what I am most suspicious of is time. I don’t know if Mary is still alive. I wonder if death eventually freed her too of all her troubles. It’s been a long time, says Bek, they lived two thousand years ago. Nowadays they’re part of a religious legend. To confirm the size of past time to myself, I think about numbers. So, it’s been as long as all that, I say, doesn’t time fly. Bek gives me an odd look. It’s the first time I have seen an expression on his face that’s neither concern nor happiness. I ask if I’m interested in religion. Religion? No, you’re interested in art, in music. You don’t believe in anything else. You play the guitar and sing and leave everyone in Istanbul’s blues bars openmouthed. You’re the best member of our band by a long shot. We only play with you so we can complement your songs and be an appendage of yours. I’m not just saying that to make you feel better. You know that, as a nation, we either praise someone to the heavens or drag their name through the mud. Do we? Yes, there’s no in-between. But I’m telling you the honest truth Boratin, you’re a brilliant singer and songwriter.

  I stare at the records and the multicolored guitars. I would be just as fascinated if they were fishing lines, or blunt axes, worn out with use. If they took me to a different house and said I was a fisherman or a woodcutter, I’d accept that too. People’s past fate can be anything under the sun. Who knows when I put up the record covers on the wall. Delta Blues. I wonder why the Submarine cover underneath them is handwritten and not the original print. That’s the name of our band Boratin. You’ve been working on our first album for some time. Yo
u did the lettering on the album cover yourself and put it up there. I realize that Bek believes in me, and not only that, he loves me. And he desperately wants me to believe in him too, and to be the person he wants me to be. He tops up our tea glasses. He takes his cigarette packet out of his pocket and lights one. He’s curious to see if I’ll take one too. I don’t hesitate. I pull out a cigarette and light it. The first drag leaves a bitter taste in my throat, but the second feels good. Bek smiles. I wish I’d told you you don’t smoke, he says. You might not have touched them. You mustn’t rush when it comes to life Boratin. To tell you the truth, there’s nothing worth rushing for. Just let it flow, and meanwhile, do whatever takes your fancy. I’ll always be with you. I’ll help you. For example…. Bek takes a drag from his cigarette and thinks. The list of things he could help me with must be long, or maybe quite the opposite, there might not be all that much to be done. Tomorrow, he says, let’s sort out one or two things. Your credit cards and your mobile phone are unusable. Let’s go to the bank and get you some new cards. We’ll get you a new phone. I can’t follow his next sentences. He talks about the cards and numbers and institutions I’ll need so I can have an existence outside this house, in the street. Since this morning I’ve been under the impression that a guitar and a bottle of wine, plus my medicine, were all a person like me (what kind of person is that?) needed to live. Nothing else. I don’t want anything from anyone and I don’t want anyone to want anything from me. Whoever knows where I live can come and see me whenever they like, anyone who feels like it can telephone me. Boratin, your landline is working, isn’t it? I phoned you but you didn’t pick up. Was it you who phoned? Yes, it’s only ever me or your sister who phone you on your landline. My sister? Yes. I turn my head and look at my phone sparkling in its wrought gold holder, looking as though it’s about to ring at any moment. I am overcome by an inexplicable surge of pity, when I haven’t even felt pity for myself for the past week. There was more than one call this morning, my sister must have been the other caller. Boratin, this telephone was here when you moved in. Because everyone uses mobiles no one’s got a landline anymore. You didn’t have yours disconnected because your sister prefers phoning you on your landline.

  4

  As I trudge slowly up the street, I overhear a young man and woman walking ahead of me talking about death and happiness. If you want to be happy, says the woman, you need to find something to commit to, a belief, or a lover. But if you want to find truth, then follow death. The man and woman both have hair that comes down to their ears, cut straight. They’re wearing identical boots and watches. Their voices sound the same, like twins. They stop when they come to the door of a secondhand book dealer. They remove their sunglasses and hang them from their top buttonholes. The plaster in the bookseller’s is peeling and everywhere the paint on the wooden cornices is cracked. The shop window hasn’t been cleaned in a long time. Compared to all the other buildings, this shop, which no one would give a second look, is old. The letters on its signboard have worn away. With a dusty record player, an old gramophone with a broken tonearm, and some randomly scattered books fading in the window in the autumn sunshine, a spider’s web hanging snugly in the top corner of the window looks like the newest item in the shop.

  The two young people enter and greet the book dealer with the warmth of people who know one another. After a few minutes of small talk, they check their wristwatches. Were they early, or late? The book dealer glances at a wall clock framed in wood and realizes it has stopped. He looks first at the hour hand, then at the minute hand, goes to the wall, and opens the door of the clock case. He asks the young pair what time it is, it’s ten to three, adjusts the clock to the right time, and turns the winding crank. He steps back and surveys it as though admiring a valuable painting. The clock is working. I too step softly over the threshold. I greet the people inside. Instead of the clock I look at the books on the shelves. Take your time browsing, says the book dealer, if you need any help give me a shout. Okay, I say. I don’t know why I came in here. Perhaps it was the young pair’s conversation that intrigued me, or maybe I wanted to see what a secondhand book dealer’s looked like. The book dealer turns around and shuffles back behind his counter. He rolls up his shirtsleeves. He spreads out a velvet cloth on the dusty counter. He straightens out the creases with the palms of his hands. He opens the drawer of a cabinet beside him. He takes out a book and places it on the velvet cloth. The book’s striking, worn cover brings to mind a rare piece of fragile antique porcelain. He dons his glasses. Lovingly, he runs his fingers over the book. If every secondhand book dealer spends an entire lifetime awaiting just one book, and all the books he has acquired over the days and years only gain significance once it arrives, then this book dealer looks as though he has been united with that one book. The one that everyone has spent their whole lives dreaming about since the fall of the empire. Hunters—knowing that rare books lay scattered alongside dispersed families and ruined mansions, under the dust of the empire that collapsed years ago (how many years ago?)—frittered away lifetimes yearning for books that were often mentioned in newspapers but somehow never found. They even sullied their hands with blood for the sake of those books. For example, the handwritten The Sky with the Sun at Its Center, said to have been destroyed in the fire of the Library of Alexandria; or Methods for Curing Lovesickness, the last Sanskrit copy of which is presumed to have been in a caravan that was raided on the Silk Road; or Endless Laughter, which threw its readers into fits of laughter before they had even finished reading it, causing them to die in agony. All copies save one were consequently collected and burned by order of Queen Marguerite of Navarre, who had only one conserved in the treasure chamber. I believe that what I have before me now is a book of that caliber, says the book dealer, a work without equal.

  The young pair moves closer to the counter, they stroke the velvet cloth but, fearful of damaging the book, keep a deferential distance from it. The beauty of a book, says the book dealer, lies in the fact that no other book can arouse the same feelings in you. That’s why you can’t compare good books. Not wanting to keep them in suspense any longer, the book dealer starts to read the first page. As he reads, the young pair gaze at the book up close, transfixed, as if they alone have had the good fortune to uncover a wondrous secret. They listen with hunched shoulders and outstretched necks. They forget about the outside world, as though the sight of their reflections in a lake has paralyzed them, their hair almost brushing against invisible water. They had heard that in the beginning was the Word, now they can hear from the book dealer’s voice that in the end too there will only be the Word. Life is comprehending the word. And when the book dealer’s slow-moving lips eventually say that death too consists of words, the young pair raise their heads and gape at him. If a book states that on the very first page, who knows what promises all the other pages might contain. When I hear that death consists of a single word, I slip out the door quietly. They don’t notice me. I stand in front of the shop. I contemplate my reflection in the window. If I could detect a stirring in my face, or a twitch in my eye, I would be able to decide what to think. Everyone needs a past it seems, and now everyone is trying to create one for me. The past is like a train that grows distant and vanishes into the darkness. If you don’t remember where you traveled on it and which stations you got off at, then you won’t know who you are either. Why am I standing in the middle of this street instead of in some other country, and why is the body I’m gazing at in the shop window this age, rather than some other age? This is my body, with its wavy hair and broad shoulders. It’s no one else’s. I know that. I may have doubts about the phone in my house or the guitars lined up in a row, but I have no doubts about this body. It’s the only asset I possess. I run my hands through my hair. These hands are mine, they move when I want and lie still when I want. My eyes see the world, my ears hear the noises in the street. I feel hungry. My broken rib frequently makes its presence felt. While my past abandons me and my mind gets
off that train and stands by itself, my body stays faithful to me. It isn’t just now that my body is mine, it was mine before, I have no doubt about that. I have a past that this body carried. I move closer to my image in the shop window. When I notice the crowd reflected in it, I turn and look behind me. People are walking up and down the street. The atmosphere is lively and bustling, like a bird market. The sound of telephones. Different ringtones. I place my hand in my shirt pocket and touch the new phone that I bought from a vendor this morning. I look at a young couple walking by me, then at a woman in a flowery skirt holding her son’s hand.

  I have been out since this morning. Hesitantly treading the streets of Istanbul. I study the faces I see entering and exiting state buildings, banks, shops. The cars racing past me and the people rubbing shoulders with me in the crowd make me uneasy. I had assumed that everyone in the street would pity me and look at me with compassion, as they had in the hospital. But no one even notices me. It’s clear that the officials’ smiles, the ink in the signatures scrawled on paper, the people who look identical in the silence of the queues in front of glass doors, all carry different worlds inside them; perhaps they are waiting for the sound of a train that will wake them one night. As I walk up the street behind the woman with the flowery skirt and her son, I wonder if the fortunate or the unfortunate people in this street are in the majority. Which of the two am I closest to? The good fortune of having jumped off the Bosphorus Bridge and stayed alive, or the ill fortune of having lost my memory? On my last night in the hospital, the patient in the next bed said the opposite: Maybe you’re unfortunate to still be alive and fortunate to have lost your memory. The boy walking in front of me drops his biscuit. His mother bends down and picks it up. They take a left turn. When I follow them onto the street, I find myself suddenly emerging into a square, in front of the Galata Tower. The moment I see it I realize it’s the Galata Tower. Was it a place where I used to come often in the past? All the tables in the nearby cafés and restaurants are full. The autumn sunshine is generous. I can feel several eyes in the crowd on me. Boratin! Boratin! When I turn and look I see a flustered Bek running towards me. Where did you disappear to, he says, I went into a shop to get some cigarettes, I thought you were waiting outside.