(3)

She couldn’t see his eyes in the dark. Her voice was trembling. In the words there was a shivering of a candle flame before being blown out. Her voice while she was saying ‘sorry’ was just like a sizzling.The next words suddenly faded away:

 ‘and i even haven’t kissed you yet’

 The reason for my suspicion was not coming from the structure of her sentence . No.

 ‘ İ would like to stay a few  longer…but i am sorry ,i am leaving. And i even haven’t kissed you yet.’ İnside was an earthquake shaking. İt was the nature of emotions. But why had she chosen the furthest point to the light? had she wanted to hide her eyes, was it because they entered to her neighborhood? Many months later, this reluctance was so strange. That rushing hereafter was more strange.They used to say good bye late some nights and so she didn’t need to run.

            He walked. He was closing to the center of suspicion. İt was over there , in front of the tobacco shop. A few minutes ago. ‘Were you at home yesterday afternoon?’ Her delayed answer was not clear enough: ‘Maybe’. And suddenly she had pointed to the magazine hanging on the  display  window of the tobacco shop just after having looked around as if she was looking for something. ‘oh, there is the Picture i mentioned you about, the portrait of Garry Cooper. She had never mentioned about that before. No, never. İf, just after saying ‘Maybe’, her eyes had focused on the cover of the magazine before looking around as if looking for something , this chat might have been by chance.What had she looked for? A shield against a new question. She had possibly found the Picture and escaped answering. Her unnecessary rushing was an escape from questioning. She is undubtedly concealing(hiding) something.

(4)

            He was closing off the street slowly. He wanted to embrace the honor of suspicion which had won a new victory just to put out the increasing grief inside him. But it was useless.

Simerenia. ‘Women are beautiful,kind, pure.and  mysterious there’ İt is useless,..vain. 

            İf there were the ugliest and the most honest woman of the world , he could bend forward her just here in the middle of the street. He was walking looking at just only the eyes of the people passing by, in a mood of unconsciousness of grief caused by an honesty desire spreading in his body. Just like all the stranger eyes understanding being watched, insensivity of proud on most of these glances were sticking on the weaknesses that boredom could create and it was coming into existance to an abstract eyelid which hid all their sprits.All eyes had the effort to hide.

            He gave up hoping. ‘ ı am sorry..ı am leaving. And ı even haven’t kissed you yet’. İn the last word the lie had suddenly got out of breath. Lie doesn’t breath longer even in the most skilled mouths. The sentences shorten even at the peak of a poweful persuation.

            She is just like her mother.this similarity increases his hatred, but not enough to open a gate in his sprit to lose his passion. His present hatred is maybe to lower his beloved darling’s share , because it concerns all the mankind. She is human being and a lier just like everybody around.

            And that woman coming across? Why not? She is coming closer.How touchy she is. İt seems she is showing a difference in her surrounded mood noticed by her shy and broken body motions bringing all her secret feelings into light. Those eyes drowned in tears every day,wrinkled eyelids are apart from self controll and ruined. They are tired ,exhausted. But both beautiful.Without pride and lie.Moving slowly …approaching.

(5)

            She approached.She is not a worker girl, her steps out of practice; Her clothes ragged, she is not a house wife either ,.And not a streetwalker, without make-up. She approached to one step distance. The power of curiousity locked their eyes eachother. Small and black eyes.They started shining with the sharpness of attention.

            Both hesitated.

            Because people still didn’t leave the cinemas the street was lonely. Courage in both eyes.They are going to talk.Tension of hesitation. Shaking. Decision.

            -Would you mind if ı ask you something?

            The woman drawed her head back narrowed her eyes. A myopic.

            -I think I know you. Your name, please?

-Samim.

The woman ;, was resembling the miniatures of Nigari with her plain face, cleaned from the differences between the rough and the smooth sides in the darkness; slender long and black eyebrows ,almond shaped eyes lost in thought of remembering.

-I know

-From where?

The woman didn’t answer.The profile is lost in thought .She doesn’t smile as for she is not a streetwalker. On her was an old tailleur. Nothing is beautiful in her face except the seriousness.

(6)

                                   -What will you ask?

And this time was Samim’s turn to delay the answer.They walked together.Their Glances were both touching eachother and escaping.

-What will you ask?

-You will find it strange at the very first time.

And asked after a short period of hesitation.

-         Did you tell any lies today?

The woman stopped. She directed the astonishment on her thin and long face to him. Pockmarked. Her thin lips following her gentle nose with a secret harmony could get a beauty mark if her skin weren’t  rough. Her eyes grew and shrank below her eyebrows of which one of them raising and moving down with a sensible feature.She got her astonishment over and smiled.

-You are really strange.

She was looking around. Samim understood. He could only wish for a dim and lonely place. They turned into one of the streets ahead. A small door on the right. They went down a narrow and dark stairs. Nobody at the cloakroom. A waiter ran towards him and took his coat. Nobody was in the saloon either. İt was an early hour for the place. The lights were not on. The tables were being prepared for the night. They sat to a side.

-         Do not turn on the lights. Bring us the menu, please.

The waiter left. The woman was keeping her eyes on Samim.

           -Why did you ask? Wasn’t that strange,suddenly and in the middle of the street.And why did you look at me so a second ago? This happens to me for first time in my life. Nobody gazes at me in the street. İ am not beautiful. I am a tailor. İ go to houses for work.

(7) İ graduated from technical school. Today i turned a dress inside out in a customer house and sewed a blouse . İ was late and tired. You looked at me so strangely. Did  you resemble me to somebody? Why did you ask so suddenly… confused me.But i feel something. But i don’t know what..  Did i tell any lies today? Of course i did. i might have told, possibly. İ don’t remember. For example i told i knew you , but i didn’t. İ told this lie just to meet you. İ didn’t want you to pass by. İ can’t expect any hope from you. İ can’t expect any men. But you looked at me so differently. İ wonder why.İf i didn’ t, i wouldn’t come here.İ never go places like this . İ am not a  woman of attraction  because i can’t be. Who dares look at my face?You gazed at me so for the first time? Please tell why?

            - İ am going to.

            -You are grieved. İ told i feel. Did someone lie you, break your heart?

            -A drink?

            -İ don’t know the drinks, What would you like? Did someone break your heart?

            -Let’s drink whisky. You can have your dinner later. İ don’t want anything to eat.İt was meaningless to stop you in the street. Of course it confuses you. Suddenly İt came to my mind . You felt right. I am in a deepness of grief. This is not a manner of undrunkenness.

            -Maybe it’s nice İt is a very different situation for me. But ı still can’t understand what you are expecting from me.

            -Foolish images.This is me. İ dream much. İ am going to tell you all. Don’t feel offended. I needed your mediation to talk to myself loudly. Are you willing to play this role? And one more thing; i supposed you were the the most honest woman of all.(8)

             -İ am not.

- The  sentence explains everything: İ wished i loved you for a second. İ felt so.This sense shone and passed through me. İt hasn’t passed away yet. But it is going to . İ have got such imaginations. İ have got my Simerenia.

- Who is she , your darling?

- No, not my darling. İt is a country, Simerenia, an unexisting place. My invention. The times ı get bored i travel there.

            -That’s so nice. take me there with you.

            - No lies in Simerenia.

-No women?

- People are just shadows. They communicate with no speech. They don’t keep anything from eachother.The moment ı saw you i resembled you a Simerenian lady. You have just got your sprit in your clothes. Your face is a flavor. You are full in your eyes. No pride and lie. I want to love you. This is a dream. You are not existing just like Simerenia. İ create you according to my desire. Mind you don’t tell your name. We won’t see eachother anymore in the future..

İn the miniature of Nigari,there was a race of astonishment and joy to fill in eyes full. The skin of the face was tightening and the previous paleness was changing into a light pinkness colouring the feeble hopes of a woman who had come to the edge of  a weak probabilty of being loved for the first time in her life. The whisky recovered her and and let Samim go on.

            (9)-You got it. They told me lies, all the women. Love of a man means all women. Fifteen or twenty minutes haven’t passed since we said good bye. She was so close to me today. İt was a day that i was least in doubt about i was being loved. She could put my doubts to sleep by this dream. She told me for the first time, very first time that she was very sorry for she couldn’t kiss me. For the first time! And my first suspicion was born at that moment.We should inspect the farther of every alteration in love, shouldn’t we?

            - How am İ to know, i haven’t loved anybody ever since.

            - Every alteration is a danger in love. But to be sure, safety is kept in uneasiness and nightmare of being suspicious about everything. To find something, we should check out EVERYthing, isn’t that right? This word, ‘every, ’ is the only safety kid, and gives you the blief that what is looked for will be introduced  by any means. İf it weren’t so, suspicion would drive us crazy .

            - did you meet her recently?

            - İ met her the day she was born. Twenty two years ago.

            - Your relative?

            - Dont’t ask about that. İ can’t explain. What’s it to you? A girl. İ ‘ll take her to Simerenia. But They won’t except, She lied. She hid from me whether she was at home or not yesterday afternoon and skipped to another chat. The lie would get weaker if she didn’t play this game. İ noticed it. Maybe there is someone else in her life.İ hope it is so. This doesn’t grieve me. Being deceived even doesn’t. İ can’t stand the lie itself. Hiding an unfaithfullness or just a pin or an innocent opinion are all the same things for me. Maybe the last one is worse. Because , look, in this case the lie seperates the personality of the one who tells lie from the one who has been deceived in an ugly and magnificent loneliness and without the weapon of suspicion, creates a mountain even Ferhat* can’t destroy between the lovers. Got it? Lies without benefits are worse. İ would  rather believe a betrayal lie .Suspicion of lovers (10) is a spy that does not many times leak into the sprit of jealousy but into the desire of pure honesty and soul of the lover in the name of a horrible isolation that prevents the souls to unite in passion. On the contrary, an overly well known judicial lie of a lawyer trying to prove with the perjurers that the murderer was on the Kadeş ferry at quarter past eight, or what so ever, just three days before the war between two enemy counties ,a political lie of a diplomat, saying the relations between are stronger than ever  that day,or, for example; a facial lie of a gentleman, with a smiling face,  wellcoming a boring visitor, a social lie of oneself in his sorrowful mood saying he is allright as a reply to a stranger’ s kind question, a posession lie of a rich telling he is in financial difficulties to the man who asks to borrow some money,or…quess what ….. a medical lie of a doctor listing the efffective influences of an ordinary gargle to a fatal patient, or….. for instance…. A softening lie of a telegraph note informing a death occasion by pretending to have poor hope for a serious sickness, and moreover, an election lie of a party leader giving his word with promises to do the things that he already knows he can’t ; or, a calming lie of a friend to a coward telling the expected danger is not so serious, and one more; the lie of  the management to the applicant saying that there is hope to  be an open position in the permanent staff next Monday, Tuesday or until Wednesday evening, or; commercial lie of an unpreferred newspaper writing they are proud of their increasing prestige although the reality is just the opposite, and in short (11)here it is; marketing lie of a Merchant and tradesman,saying that he sells his products at no profit, putting the locally produced on the market with an ‘American made’ label, hiding the bruised strawberries at  the bottom of the basket or exploiting the carelessness of the first influence by writing on the price label the numeral 8 bigger and 99 smaller in the number 899, make up and beauty lie of women, thousands of kinds of love, slander,exagguration and pride lies; all these are imaginative lies that come on earth for the need of creating a harmony image especially by hiding confusion on the basis of nature and society. And sometimes this image creates the harmony itself, when it reaches to its highest degree, prepares the main material of beauty in art.

Though Samim could see that the attention of the lady which had expanded her pupils to their maximum extend was meaningless except for trying to fill up the gaps belonging to her perception, as he found out on his listener  the concrete excuse of escaping from being a mad talking to himself , he was addressing her with constant eyes.

-                                             And my darling, she is in effort of hiding whether she was at home or not yesterday afternoon, ah if only it is something different from the effort of hiding and  come to light. Then the rival will be a visible being as a target to our hatred and we know where to shoot our bullet; if it is not so,The desire of hiding the truth will mean a rebellion to love of her personality trying to keep her freedom in privacy and we can no longer shoot at the target. This second probability upsets me more. The hiding of the rival in the first probabilty  drives the suspicion crazy thus it opposes the second possibility. Suspicion, just like a hound jumping up from its place and scurrying around the possibility zone of the secret reality is one of the most inevitable and horrible fevers of the truth madness. But it is really terrific.

As far as i know myself, i have been living in this terrifying chrisis.İs this the passion for truth? Maybe? Or an unresistible evil desire to search which,unconsciously,enjoys to increase the possibilities of making mistakes, thus it enjoys searching rather than finding out. Maybe both. İ don’t know. Sometimes i am going crazy feeling  all those horrible times of struggle just in one ingot(külçe) sense and i ask to myself: What the hell were you looking for in the torture of the crazy investigations of suspicion and wonder in love or thought lasting till the break of dawn.

Neydi sevkeyleyen amalini beyhude yere

En çetin yollara, an huşku haşin sadmelere

Neydi ruhunda o illet ki,muharris, müzmin,

Doğruluk hubbu hakikat mi? Fakat sen delisin!

 

The woman let her eyelids droop languorously.

-oo, i liked that.

- really?

- believe me!

-i beg you don’t tell me any lies tonight, just only tonight , i’ll make your statue, put it in my room and adore you everyday.don’t even tell me any reasonable lies.

- my dear, i won’t.

- ı will not see you once more, but i will never ever forget you.

(13)

A red light was turned on in one corner of  the bar  and first a rapid and a sorrowful rhythm and following after were some aimless melodies sounding like one of the sonats of Beethoven started playing on the piano. A customer group was coming inside. The lights were turned on.

      Samim sat up straight.

                       - Let’s not stay here any longer. Shall we go somewhere  else?

 

-                       -Shall we go  to  my flat? İndeed my mum is sick. İ can’t stay out late. She is so sick, gone into a coma.

-İn coma ,why didn’t you tell that before? İsn’t there anybody accompanying her?

                        -No, nobody. The landlady sometimes comes up to look after. The doctor says she   can’t live more than a couple of days. She suffers from uremia. She doesn’t disturb us. She always sleeps and won’t wake up one day.

                        Having emptied a heartfull of mercy on the woman’s face through his paralised eyes, Samim called the waiter.

 -Wrap a bottle of whisky and four bottles of soda and bring with the bill.

They bought somethings from a corner shop on the way. The woman kept him standing on the corner of a dark and dirty street for a long time. Then she rushed through the thick and black night by  unexpected nimble actions of  her tender body and took him to a two storey stone building . There was a half open door on the right side of the ground sofa,lit by a dim and bare light and it seemed to be an interested resident behind the door. Passing through a dense air keeping the memories of an ugly past in a rotten smell special to these houses , they went upstairs stepping on their tiptoes. There were two other doors on both sides of the narrow corridor.(14) They stopped in front of the left door. The woman put her thumb on her limps and pulled him into the room on the right. She took the packages and the light from his hands.

-         Oh dear, sit down please, let me set the the table and check my mum.

               There were no furniture in the room  except for an old wooden table leaning against the wall between the two windows, a piece of dry bread and olives on a newspaper covered on it, on the left side, a bed stead with cushions stuffed with dried grasses which hopelessly efforts with its faded and dirty cover to look like a sofa and on the opposite, a blanket and two pillows on the floor and there was nothing private that could relate this room to a human being. Neither a family photo on the wall nor a sewing box and not even a forgotten handkerchief in the room. The room as like as a street belonging to everybody had a common smell in its atmosphere which mixed and inhaled the breaths of  people who are not aware of eachother. The only exception in the room that could refer to a single human being for a short period of time were the olives on the table giving the clue of a poverty scene lived that day.

                                    Samim knew that the flashes of  the  beloved coming  through  his  mind  from the bottom of his soul every so often by changing her tricks was a degree of passion. With a mood of being ready at  anytime, the image could lead the way, not missing any moments of the sprit being about to empty his mind  from the outer influences. And the present situation was the same. He had to to talk about his strange adventure when  they meet tomorrow. İt is strange, maybe shameful. But this shame had the more shameful excuse of suspicion .  Confessing both of them might cause her tendency to secrete herself  be more intense ???? .(15) Confessing only why he came here would leave his meaningless behaviour   without reasons. Telling non of them would be to commit the offense of keeping her inside solitary, which he never forgave. He thought of leaving the place immediately. There was no difference between the going on and leaving unfinished of a started adventure referring to the true nature of the starting point of this story. He would not touch the resident of this room even with his little finger. The woman meant only two ears for him and her listening to Samim even without any understanding would at least gift him a physical reason to put his thoughts in words.

                                    She came in with a tray and somethings in her hands, covered the table with a big cloth., put the glasses, bottles and appetizers on the table.

                                    Samim was always standing up. They started drinking. The woman held his hand and sat him down near her.

                                    -Talk to me darling,ı like your chat.

Samim pulled his hand.

                                    - I  am  going to talk to her about this night. I must mention her my suspicion. Otherwise ı will be ignoble.

                                    -Tell    her  everything.  Don’t keep, show your virtue..

                                    - but    you  don’t  think the rest. İf she is innocent my suspect will break her heart, if she is not, then she’ll be more cautious about her secret. İn any case hiding oneself in love is a defence, got it?

                                    -Tell  me simply. Sometimes ı don’t understand your words.

                                    -look ; you are oneself and ı am one. İf we are keen on eachother our uniqueness will be threatened.

                                    -Why ?(16)

                                    - Because we are all unique,we want to stay unique and break our chains to be free .

                                    - Then,  why do people want to live so sensible relations?

                                    -it is because we are both unique and  together  with different people. At the time we want  to stay unique, we desire to introduce ourselves to others too. İn this conflict between our uniqueness and  unity , our  jealous or innocent secrets become a defence which save our ego being melted in the beloved’s climate. We protect ourselves in the castles of our secrets and   when we get bored of loneliness we again fall into the deep well of our souls. Was that clear enough?

 

                                    - İ understand just a little bit. Not much. İ feel sorry for you when i see you so. What shall i do? İ am not feeling well enough to feel yourself cheerful. What a pity! They’ve hurt your feelings ,that’s why you are so sad.

                                    - Have you ever had a madding depression?

                                    - oo my poor darling,

                                    -A mist comes in over the furniture. That table and that wall are made of a shaped  thin smoke which has been pressed at maximum level. That lamp is on but it doesn’t give light.

                                    - Never  mind  darling. Forget about that. One more whisky?

                                    - Listen.  That  lamp is on but it gives no light. Do you quess what it is like? The inner darkness of our soul leaks outside and sticks everywhere just like a lambblack and darkens everything..İt is ..do you know the moment you are about to sneeze by a tickle in your throat. Your self control is about to break down. Your wish to prevent it tries  hard , it endures but drains of strength.(17)

                                    -Here you are honey, would you like soda?

                                    -İt is  the moment we perceive the catastrophes belonging to us and others. That moment makes us everybody everything and everytime.

                                    -Drink slowly, give your glass.

                                    - We suffer like the slaves of Egypt rising the pyramids. We wait ready for the bloody ambitions of the furthest lands , of the furthest times. we live the rebellions. After the major battles of the history, through the stream of centuries we become the darness covering the rising hands to the sky of the human generations  from the bloody pits (çukur) .

                                    Oh, it is terrifying.

                                    - We are in the graves. We fall into worms of the soil coming from the noses of the 40 day corpses. We unite the typhoons and tornados which had sunk thousands of ships. Pombei has ruined inside us. All the volcanos spew out their lava inside our hearts.

                                    - You don’t taste anything.

                                    - I don’t want to. Listen, we feel the waving from exhaustion of billions of unfortunates coming from work tired throughout the centuries like wilted tulips bending their stems through a light air flow, just like you. The sufferings of a world war to happen 100 years later is inside us. Moreover, we can sense the moments our earth breaks out of the sun billions of years ago and it comes to a state of a frozen sphere billions of years later be added to this misery. But we never know them. These kinds of disasters do not exist in our conscious. But they are inside us unrelated to time and place. They have  changed us into a misery mist in a way we can not imagine what part of our body  it has covered and how it succeeded this. We can not be aware of it . And when our heart is broken, all the people consisting both the gentles and the stone hearteds, we all sense  a moment which makes us grow pale during an inner shudder recording all the calamities the world and the alives suffered and will suffer.

                                    -Ah, that’s really true.

                                    - They have broken my heart. A heart is broken with the all the hearts of all times . if he finds himself alone, this is because he is deprived of a skill which can’t go further than the roots of his ego.İf he finds himself together with the others, this means he is a poet. For some people, even including the poet himself , it seems there is not much more than a social grief that relates him to a definite community according to the  the couplets of Namık Kemal. However, even at the sorrow moment of the simplest heart expect for the histories of the past and the future and the tragedy of existance and grasp the sprit of this couplet.

                         Baisi şekva bize hüzni umumidir kemal

                        Kendi derdi gönlümün billah gelmez yadıma

                                    Even if he remembers, what he supposes as ‘his’ is in fact everybody and everything. They ‘ve broken my heart? They have broken our hearts. Notice! What changed you to look so sad and with such an admiration ? Because your heart has been broken with mine.

-         Yes, that’s true, definetely true.

The woman was just about to hold his hand but she stopped when she saw his recovering . She begged him looking at his glass half full.

-                    Don’t drink anymore.

- Everything is strange to me tonight. I have never felt so before. I don’t speak much. Was it because I accepted you as a foreigner? Maybe I supposed you were not existing. I talked to myself loudly. This happens to me sometimes but not so extremely.

-                    Do not drink.

-                    Let me go on. İt makes me sleep maybe. I slept very little last night. You will not know what to say if you learn the cause of my depression was such a tiny mess. I couldn’t explain it to you. She ran her eyes around in front of the tobacco shop. That’s all but enough. Do you know why? A seed hides a tree inside. Got it? Nothing is simple.You can find the biggest inside the smallest. İf you succeed to investigate you can get millions of results.

-                    I never think that deeply

-                    It seems to be like that. You may not think but you can not stop feeling.

-                    Maybe

-                    Your sorrowful mood proves everything.

-                    Yes I am. But I am a simple girl.

-                    You are pretty.

-                    I am not . I am ugly.

-                    You are not ugly You are sincere. How old are you?

-                    Twenty seven.

-                    Haven’t you ever got married?

-                    No.

-                    Do you have any idea about the males? Haven’t you ever been together?

-                    Never.