The River, By Furuzan

THE RIVER By Fűruzan, 1970 (From Parasiz Yatili, pages 50-59)

Her older sister was brought in from the other side of the river to work as a cook in the big house. It was springtime. The air was becoming redolent with the smells of oranges of the south. The lady of the big house lived in Istanbul. The climate of this town with its rattling horse-drawn carriages had not been agreeable for the short-haired and heavy-legged lady. She was the daughter of a governor from the old times. Although she was older than her husband, some people said that she was more passionate than a fifteen-year old girl. This seemed to be true until she announced that she could no longer stand to live far away from the sea. Yet to please her they had even installed a bathroom with a marble sink in the village house. They had also bought song birds for her. People kept wondering whether the lady was a virgin at the time of her marriage. In that part of the country virginity was the most valuable guarded secret in those years. Certainly the lady had an upper-class background. Her father was not a climber from the lower ranks. He was westernized. He knew two foreign languages: Persian and French. He played the lute. All his life he had been a squanderer, and by the time he was appointed to this southern town all he had to live on was the salary he received from his job. The inheritance from his father and the years of affluence provided by his wife were things of the past. The governor’s wife was getting on in years. Her dull white skin had become oilier. She never went out anymore. She was quite content to receive visitors at home and listen to their domestic gossip. But Mr. Governor, in this town too, had been consumed with youthful passions. All that was left of the handsome blond Sıtkı of the former days was a pair of shaded green eyes. In those days men with sun-tanned skins were not considered handsome. The only son of the family who owned the mansion with the magnolia trees in Mühürdar used to powder his face. He was given the nickname of Powdered-Tevfik. Oh, what a pale and sensitive-looking male beauty he was! Before, it was so difficult for the governor to find a woman he liked, but now the girls in his office seemed like Houris to him. His youth was gone and his age showed in everything he did. He kept dreaming about the legs (full of red patches because of the cold) of their maid. He and his wife had been sleeping in separate bedrooms for the past nine years. His wife had learned to wash with cold water and to look virtuous from the French nuns in the school she had attended. Later on she had acquired an innocent look in her eyes bordering on stupidity.

2 The governor didn’t know when his wife had lost interest in sex. He carefully hid his womanizing sprees from her. He never wanted to hurt her feelings. Over the years his indifference had become quite obvious. As they were lying in bed on a frosty night in a Western Anatolian town, the governor asked his ever silent and ever passive wife: “Do you think I don’t love you?” “No,” the wife answered, “Of course, you love me, I am your wife.” The governor’s wife had not made much use of the French she had learned at school. The governor had not even once seen her reading something. She had been obliged by family tradition to learn a foreign language. When they were married she had come to him as a tall girl with big dark eyes -- the daughter of a rich family with all the trappings of a high style of living. Their acquaintances used to say, “The governor’s wife knows French as well as her mother tongue.” But it was doubtful if she even knew Turkish well. However, her virtuous silence had given her an air of superiority in her social milieu. Only an outsider could see that her silence was her refuge to hide her dullness. On their wedding night the creamy tautness of her legs and her silence were very exciting -- especially her silence. Many, many years had gone by; and unfortunately she had become nothing more than an accessory to her husband’s high official post. She was no longer a real woman of flesh and blood. “Father, how can you do this to me - to live all my life in this provincial town with people I have nothing in common with? You may say that you live in the same situation with my mother here. But it isn’t the same thing. Her family was equal to yours. You married someone from a well-known family with means from Istanbul. She was educated and beautiful. Is it the same thing for the governor’s daughter to become the wife of a provincial landlord?” Indeed the daughter didn’t resemble the mother at all. She did not have the intense silence of her mother. She was twenty-eight years old. She was living with her aunt. In those days to be twenty-eight felt scary and hopeless. When she was twenty-one she was engaged to a naval first lieutenant. The young man was the darling of the young girls in Moda. In his white uniform he was like a seagull. They stayed engaged for two years. Ah, the slopes of Heybeli Island full of pine needles… the embarrassment of traveling on the ferry with rumpled skirts… the soothing sentimentality of the first tangos... The governor’s wife collapsed in the armchair in their living room when she read the aunt’s letter announcing the breaking off of the engagement. “Ah, it is your sister again! She has ruined my daughter. Just think about what it means to break off after two years of engagement. Ah, this girl isn’t like

3 me at all.” It was the first time the governor thought about his daughter naked; this nakedness he would never get to see irritated him. In the engagement photos they had sent the man was holding her very tight. His wife said: “You are the father, you must tell her to come here.” The daughter didn’t come back for another three years. She insisted on living with her aunt, an old lady who had belonged to the staff of the Seraglio. They lived in a house with a large living room and a garden with pine and magnolia trees. The aunt kept saying “all men are the same.” In the evenings, the young woman hung out at the Lebon pastry shop and drank tea and ate petit fours in its dimly lit corners. She looked wonderful as she sat in the luxury-class section of the Kadiköy ferry, exposing her legs in shiny silk stockings. As she complained about her bad luck she was also waiting for a suitor to show up. But when an elderly rich diplomat appeared as the only suitor she turned him down. And then she reached the age of twenty-eight -- in those years it was considered a ripe age. Now her father was saying that “the agha is definitely from a good family. In that region they are known as Topakoğlus. Formerly they were called Topakzades.” The upper parts of her back had already started to accumulate layers of fat. The fight she put up lasted only for three months. She could no longer say no to the village called Topakköy and its many acres of land that produced crops in all four seasons of the year. There was a splendid wedding at the Taksim Municipal Casino. People talked for months about the sumptuous food served at the wedding. A French woman singer (her name was Avril) sang sentimental love songs. It was the first time the mother and the daughter were able to share similar feelings at the same moment, but for different reasons. Women with flushed faces from too much drink were gazing at themselves with dreamy eyes in front of full-length mirrors. When the party ended, the bride didn’t even make eye contact with the people who were shaking her hand. “Governor’s daughter, no spring chicken, eh! But she’s beautiful. Was she a virgin?” “Oh, if the pine trees in Heybeli Island could talk! How about the Lebon pastry shop?” “There was no way out other than marrying a farmer.” The governor was back at his club playing the usual games. There were some whisperings about his womanizing but they were kept discreet; after all, he was a real gentleman. When he was drunk he kept talking about love; this was interpreted as a remembrance of a heart-breaking affair in his past. But, truly, nothing of that sort had happened in his whole life.

4

One night as he entered his wife’s room she asked: “ Sıtkı Bey, what’s the matter?” It was a sultry summer night redolent with orange smells. The river bed had dried up. The wife’s room smelled of lemon-scented eau de cologne. There had been no love making in that room; it was too cold and orderly to allow any feelings of warmth. He asked: “Do you love me?” She answered: “Of course, I am your wife, I am the mother of your daughter.” *** The older sister brought the girl from the other side of the river when she was there on her leave. She told her: “Come with me. Those Istanbul people have left: the old lady, the lady and the two maids. They won’t come back. Yusuf Agha will visit them there.” The kitchen was on the second floor of the house. It was very large. These dark, four-storey houses formerly belonged to the Armenians. They stood in a row by the river. Their roofs were beautifully decorated with carved wooden eaves. The old brass knobs were still on the doors although new bells had been installed. In the kitchen a white-washed chimney-hood stood over the work counter. Large shiny tin-plated pots were arranged on the shelves according to their sizes. The iron stove, its doors decorated with bird figures, warmed the large kitchen nicely. The older sister was busy cooking non stop. She told the girl: “Take your hair down. Don’t make so many braids. Just make two braids and let them hang on your back. You don’t have to cover your head. There’s nobody in the house. The manservant doesn’t count. You’ll be in charge of serving dinners.” The girl said: “But the agha!” The older sister answered: “Come on, you’re only thirteen, he’s old enough to be your grandpa.” The girl couldn’t keep her mind off the other side of the river: her two aunts who were professional mourners, the taste of the bulgur pilav and the smell of the damp wood floors. Her aunts were famous as the best singers of dirges for the dead. They were even asked by the traditional wealthy people to come to their houses. When the aunts, clad in their long black garments, returned home

5 exhausted with their red swollen eyes (how on earth could they cry for the dead they didn’t even know) -- they would look at the girl and say, “Oh, the house we visited was good. Plenty of food to honor the dead. We saved some for you too. We’re not hungry. Make our beds.” In their two-room house all they had for furniture were a few rag-filled cushions that served both for sitting and sleeping. A picture of Kaaba hung on the wall. The sacred picture was draped with black cloth. The members of the household, the aunts and the sisters, lived moving quietly over the straw mats spread on the floor. Their life depended on earning a few coins here and there. The aunts used to give the coins to the girl and tell her to go to the grocer’s to change them into bills. The grocery store was dark. A blind cat with rheumy eyes hung around and inside the store it smelled like rotted hay. Holding the coins in her hand, the girl would wait silently by the counter where the scale was. The grocer would say “Aha! Your aunts have ripped off the people at the Castle Gate again!” Later she found out that ripping off meant begging. The oldest aunt said: “What can we do? There aren’t so many dead anymore, they don’t call the wailers at all. Shall we die of starvation? People give us alms to keep the evil eye out, to ward off bad luck.” When the girl said, “I won’t go to the grocer’s to change the coins,” they beat her up saying, “Are you counting on your sister? She got herself a job with the rich people but what good has it done for us?” The night when the older sister said, “Tomorrow I’ll take her along with me,” the older aunt took the Koran out and read it at the top of her voice for many hours. The older sister said: “You must have money buried somewhere. We’re leaving. I’ll take a couple of her rags, the rest is yours.” “Good, you’re leaving, but won’t you ever come back?” “No.” “And if the people from Istanbul come back?” “They won’t come back.” If the lady comes back she won’t have this girl.” “I said she won’t come back! I am leaving everything to you.” “Ah, look what she’s saying! She’s leaving two bags of rags… that’s all, that goddamn infidel... you cruel wretch.” “You have money buried somewhere.” When they started on the road the sun wasn’t up yet. The houses looked as though they had grown out of the mud. The girl was scared. The older sister told her that they were going to a palace so large that she had never seen anything like it. (What was a palace anyway?) Here it always rained in winter. The ground was always muddy. But over there the streets were paved with stones. You couldn’t even count the variety of dishes served in that house. “Do they have dates too?” “Ah, dates, that is nothing, my silly girl! You’ll eat and drink and get a little plump.” The houses were very beautiful. The girl was more stunned by this than seeing the bridge. What was a bridge? After all everybody could walk over it, but these houses, so many of them. They were all so big and belonged only to Yusuf

6 Agha. When he closed the door that was it. Nobody could go inside. “She was beautiful; a lily-white lady. She knew how to be a lady. But she didn’t feel at home here.” “Is Istanbul more beautiful than here?” “There can’t be a place more beautiful than here. But when a woman doesn’t get along with her man every place is like a prison for her. A man is everything. What’s a woman? A suffering creature. She was both rich and ladylike. She wore brilliant diamond rings on her fingers. She had cut her hair short, but hair is the treasure of a woman.” All day long the girl sat by the kitchen window and watched the flowing river. Her sister wouldn’t give her any work. The girl said: “I can crochet.” “No, no, your face is so pale. You’re only skin and bones. Eat, drink and rest a while and put a little flesh on your bones. Anyone who saw you would think you’re only ten years old, but you’re old enough to get married.” There was more work in the kitchen on the days Yusuf Agha came back from the farm. They fried lamb livers to a turn. All sorts of salad greens, thinly sliced red peppers, every kind of food would be there. The girl was eating non-stop. The hidden hunger buried deep inside her bones was coming out in the open. In the mornings her sister made her drink molasses: “Drink it, girl, you’ll have strong blood.” Then one day she took her to the bathroom and washed her, scrubbing real hard. She sprinkled violet-scented perfume in her hair. She removed the hair from her legs with a depilatory. “You’re dark, you have too much hair, we have to use a depilatory from now on. Anyway, it is a sin in Islam to go around with all that hair.” One evening the older sister said: “Go upstairs, heat the water to wash agha’s feet.” The girl did everything silently. She poured the water into a wrought-copper basin. She placed the gold-embroidered towel on her arm and waited. When she entered the room she knew where Yusuf Agha was sitting but her embarrassment prevented her from looking in that direction. “Come over here, daughter.” The girl put the basin in front of him. She took the dark colored socks off his feet. Next to the agha’s enormous feet her hands seemed so tiny. She lathered the soap and started washing agha’s feet. He said: “You’ve grown up since I saw you last.” One of her braids kept falling over her shoulder. The big bony feet were in the basin but the girl hadn’t asked her sister how long the washing should go on. The agha watched her silently and when he said “that’s enough,” she felt a

7 light sweat trickling down her back. As she was walking out the agha said: “Tell your sister I’ll drink alone tonight. She should put the raki in the cooler.” “Did he ask for raki? Ah, he must be in a good mood. Look at this house, this big house. For many years it was run by the lady from Istanbul. She didn’t even produce a child. And the reason was she didn’t like the agha. She was the daughter of a governor, so what? Her father’s gambling and womanizing had forced them to live here. But most of the income coming from these lands go to them. A barren woman isn’t a woman. Her loins were frigid. She was like an orange bitten by frost. She ruined the best years of the agha. They say a man’s virility shows in the back of his nape. The agha had such a vigorous and powerful posture seen from the back. If a woman doesn’t know how to be a woman then the man will find another woman who does.” The older sister stood by the stove and poured the thick olive oil into a shiny skillet. Some flickering pale lights became visible on the other side of the river. The girl wondered if her aunts were still begging in their black garments under the heavy lukewarm rains. Whenever she thought about them she could hear the same tune she once heard as she passed by the Castle Gate. Oh! What a beautiful kitchen this was, smelling of butter and cumin! It was warm, filled with piles of fresh vegetables and rings of sausages. The brightness of the bunches of bananas was wonderful. And all those walnut-filled sweets she ate sitting by the window facing the river… Her older sister said: “Wash the radishes and put them up next to the salad greens. Don’t cut the scallions too much, just snip off the tips, that’s enough. Don’t make a big pile of the Circassian chicken on the platter. The table has to have a little of many different kinds of food. This is the proper way to prepare a drink table. Pull the lace curtains back and open the windows so the sound of the water can be heard. The lady from Istanbul used to do that. Yusuf Agha wants it exactly like that. Rub your hands with coffee grounds. It’ll take away the onion smells. The weight of Yusuf Agha’s flabby and sagging belly felt slippery. He had placed his hands on her sides as if they were glued. The girl thought about the first time she saw these rooms full of rugs and gilded furniture. She was astonished and she had secretly touched everything with her fingertips. Her sister had told her that the lady had furnished the house like the house of a Sultan in a fairy tale. The ceilings were decorated with pictures of clusters of grapes. She wondered what the ceiling of this room was like with her eyes tightly closed.

8 There were white grapes scattered among purple grapes. But, why did they paint the leaves purple? She felt like she was getting smaller and smaller. That year it had rained a lot and the river was very full. The swollen carcasses of dead animals floated in the river and got stuck in the bends. They were large cattle. Faraway, where the mountain ranges stood, the clouds were passing, bringing the cold air to the north. Translated by Nilűfer Mizanoǧlu Reddy