Waiting for the fear, p.9
Waiting for the Fear, page 9
I woke up the next morning at dawn. (As a lesson in nature appreciation, I briefly watched the reddening sky and ash-colored clouds. Just like people did physical exercises every morning, I could do fifteen-minute nature appreciation demonstration exercises. Good.) No, God! The glass had cracked; and in a single night. I hugged myself and started pacing in front of the crack like a pain-stricken hospital patient. I needed to tell someone what happened.
I waited in the rear garden until I heard the rumble of the combination motorcycle-sidecar. But what could I tell the errand boy? (He was already suspicious.) Taking my bread and newspaper, I tried to start up a conversation. I pretended to look at the paper. (I’d in fact recently begun to throw my papers in the kitchen cupboard without reading them.) Did you hear? he said, they’re registering everyone today. No kidding! And what are they registering everyone for? They’re holding elections for neighborhood mukhtar and they have to register the voters. (Good. In that case I’ll make sure I’m home. Ha-ha.) The bastards! How dare they ask me for my vote! And after they bungled their construction permits and never checked up on their crumbling foundation pits . . . Wait, I’ll show them. Are the candidates coming along? No; this is a civil servant’s job. He proudly lifted his head: My boss might be the next mukhtar. May he take a drubbing!
By the time they arrived—God damn it!—I’d already forgotten I was expecting them. (My memory worked for only half a day. I needed a doctor to look at it.) What’s more, I was sitting haplessly on the toilet, I couldn’t get up; still, I pulled my pants halfway up and ran to the door. (One can’t run very fast like that.) When I saw the car, it was already pulling away. (I bet the greengrocer-bakkal and God knows what else must have provided it.) I ran after them, fastening my buttons and buckling my belt right there in the street. I couldn’t wave them down. Couldn’t I? I sat down on the curb to catch my breath; I started to cry. Not like that wailing people do, but softly, with actual tears. (I never did anything noisily.) Then the combination motorcycle-sidecar appeared around the corner and stopped in front of me; I quickly wiped my tears and told the errand boy what happened. Don’t be upset, he said. I’ll let them know, they’ll register you. He handed me some paper. I wrote my name, my age, my mother and father, et cetera; I didn’t put everything down. They wouldn’t know the difference; they’d lock me up somewhere later anyway.
I threw away the glass, I was too scared to replace it. I thought for a long time about everything that had happened, starting from the first day. How many had it been? I’d stupidly failed to write that down too. Too late. I was rusting away here; even my memory was getting rusty. The loneliness corroded it. But of course! I had no one to talk to. Soon enough, I’d only remember what the errand boy and I discussed. I needed to speak, to shout, to learn. I should do a correspondence doctorate. I should become a correspondence lecturer, then a correspondence professor. I should be cultivating my painting skills and cultural knowledge via correspondence. I should become a correspondence faculty member at a university; and maybe after a while I could start holding classes there. But most of all, I should speak. I stood up. I’ll start right now, I thought. Say something. I’d nearly forgotten how to speak. I needed to express myself, to speak up. I needed help.
I! I shouted, as loudly as I could. Then I repeated my name several times. I, the victim of a secret sect, am withering away like a houseplant. I, who don’t know how to look after a houseplant, can’t even look after myself. Accused of wanting solitude, I’ve been condemned to it. I oppose this verdict with all my strength. I can’t take the loneliness anymore, I want to be among people. One needs enemies too. (To understand the value of one’s friends.) Here I am, alone, broken-down, unable to cook, unable to read, unable to learn English or love nature. (I should have been doing half-hour speaking drills each morning after my fifteen minutes of nature appreciation demonstrations.) I’ve learned nothing new, and I’ve forgotten the things I already know. I can’t even judge the accuracy of my own thoughts anymore. I explain things to people, but I no longer see any response in their eyes? I’m forgetting everything, even how to punctuate? I don’t know when to use an exclamation mark anymore? Moreover, I haven’t been able (or have been unable) to learn how to suffer or experience actual fear. I don’t even know which phrase to use. I’ve become a loner, but the lone victim of my loneliness is me. (And now I’ve used the word “lone” three times in the same sentence.) I accept my defeat? I call upon the forces of the secret sect to withdraw. I’m tired of eating canned foods and not being able to read. I swear that if you grant me my former life I will fill the house with potted plants, and at the risk of getting the floor wet and causing an insect infestation I will care for them too. I’ll love nature and people, I’ll work to benefit the homeland, I will oppose no system. I’ll treat everyone kindly, get married, have children, change their diapers, and patiently tell them fables at night so they’ll go to sleep, and I’ll listen to their tattling and take an interest in them, an actual interest!
Speaking like this stirred me up, my eyes filled with tears. I’d had quite the effect on myself. (Whereas when it came to others, I had none.) I’d made a very touching speech about myself. I collapsed into the rocking chair in a verisimilitudinous fluster of exhaustion . . . but things didn’t change (even though I waited some time for them to change). No miracle ensued. Everything stayed the same. The household objects didn’t care, nor did these people who must have possessed spiritual powers, so I rebelled against their indifference by flying into a rage. (And still nothing happened.) With that, I decided to exact my revenge by taking to drink. I barely had the strength to stand, but I went around the entire house to gather all my alcohol; I lined the bottles up next to my rocking chair. And I drank in the most detrimental way, I drank without a meal or any mezzes, you bastards! And I didn’t stop. (Still, no one moved a muscle, they just couldn’t be bothered to intervene.)
Drinking made me feel sorry for myself, which was who I’d recently been downright ruthless to. I drank knowing full well how bad drinking was for me. I didn’t throw up like I usually did because I hadn’t eaten anything. (I felt like it a couple times and ran to the bathroom, but nothing came up.) I kept drinking and ruining myself. I watched myself with cloudy eyes as I melted away. I would destroy their entire system, they’d see. I wouldn’t lock the door anymore or put my keys in the vase; I’d wear my coat but no shoes, I’d become a tramp. Since there was no one around I could ingratiate myself with, I’d abandon all my principles; I wouldn’t wash the dishes after breakfast. And most importantly: I would perpetuate my existence; I wouldn’t forget how to speak or think, I’d work as hard as I could. I rocked to my feet and did my second speaking drill that day, because I truly had no intention of forgetting who I was, what I knew, or what I had or hadn’t done. To wait around in fear, or wait for the fear, was pointless; because I knew the radius of the Earth and how Istanbul had been conquered. Do you all understand? There are three forms of governance: autocratic, monarchical, republican. That’s it, anything else falls under these three categories. The Earth is an oblong sphere and there’s this force called gravity, understood? (I was shouting.) I’d hoped to go to university after high school; if my father hadn’t died, if I hadn’t suddenly gotten so tired. My mother too, she wanted me to continue my studies and become a man, to earn my own money; which is why I chose to be self-employed and ultimately failed. (No matter, it doesn’t matter.) I could have been a civil servant and I still would have failed; then again, becoming a civil servant means you’ve made it. Or that’s what I’ve been told. A civil servant works for the public, which is why we call it the public sector; I’m in the private sector. I wanted to make so much money; but you all know in this world only savvy people make any real money. I’d tried to be savvy too. Which is why I read so much. I knew some things. Now I’m desperately trying not to forget them.
Balzac and Stendhal were two of France’s greatest novelists, the Romantic writers for that country of forty-two million people. The novel can also be classified into two categories: Romantic and realist. Don’t believe anyone who says Balzac was a realist; the true realist was Zola, who died from coal-gas poisoning. Balzac was poisoned too, albeit by ten thousand cups of coffee; a debtor, he failed in the private sector just like me. Kafka failed in the public sector. Balzac wouldn’t move into a house unless it had two doors, so that he could elude the creditors. (This I understand very well.) The ancient Greeks were good too. Aristotle and all of them (who else was there?), yes, and there was Plato, who had a theory about the state and a book called The Republic. (Enrolling in correspondence university had done me some good. If only I could have attended the graduation ceremony!?) Although philosophy gets classified into many branches, materialism and spiritualism are more or less the only two kinds. The first deals with matter, the second doesn’t. The greatest philosopher is Kant, who never married. There are other big ones: Hegel, Spinoza, Descartes. The last of these three questioned everything. Then there are the two Bacons; but Francis Bacon wasn’t from France, he was English. And if there hadn’t been a Bacon (which Bacon?), scientific advancement would have stalled. I should also say a word about myself. I think I like the spiritualists more; but I get annoyed with some people who harbor Romantic views and I end up defending materialism and one of its stems, dialectical materialism: thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Ha-ha. Marx too was a philosopher. (That’s enough of that for now).
Although despised, I am a citizen. The following are a citizen’s rights: One: to go wherever one pleases—that is, the freedom to travel. I still haven’t managed to go anywhere, I never had the chance, I was always so busy trying to make money without ever getting out of debt. There’s also the freedom to choose—that is, elect—whatever one wants; but the person you elect may not win the election, because in this country we have democracy. I almost forgot: democracy, plutocracy, aristocracy (what other “ocracies” were there?). The duties of a neighborhood mukhtar are the following: preparing the election logbooks, and one of the three powers of the Ministerial Cabinet is executive. It has legislative and judicial powers too. Buenos Aires is the capital of Argentina. I’d always wanted to go to London most. England is the cradle of democracy. One time, when I was working with an airline, I reserved a complimentary ticket for myself, which still didn’t offset the amount of foreign currency I’d need for the trip. (Keep talking, keep talking, that’s good, it’s sharpening your memory.) There are three types of memory: visual, auditory, and tactile. The best is tactile—learning by writing. (It’s good to do a little writing now and then. Wait, let’s see if I can write down the names of twenty philosophers, fifteen novelists, ten heads of state, and twenty poets all in one sitting. Do it later, just talk about yourself for now.) When I was little, I got the mumps. I also had chicken pox. I never got typhoid. (Forget about what you didn’t get.) An aviator, that’s what I wanted to be when I was four years old, my father was a clerk for the Court of Appeals, my mother was a housewife, that’s what we put down on the election registry and census list, she received a private education, meaning she received none, education falls into three categories: (enough already). But why not, of course it does: primary, secondary, and higher education. I completed secondary, which is to say I graduated from high school, Kâzım Cemal High School, and Kâzım Cemal was one of the first ministers of education. In my final year, I failed one class but otherwise held my own, talked to two girls, went out to eat twice with one of them, kissed her hand (don’t discuss your personal life, but so what? Why not? You’re the only one in the room). The birth of a child is a chromosomal matter, and there’s that thing with the sperm, the theory of inheritance is Mendel’s. People always used to compare me to my father. I do resemble him, which is why I never grew up, I’m an outcast, from now on I’ll wear my muddy shoes at home, I won’t wear any slippers either, I’ll never take my shoes off, I’ll do none of the things you’ve told me to do, because I’m exhausted, because I’m confusing everything, because even a real-life secret sect has managed to track me down, whereas a woman I can love, plenty of money, and human intimacy haven’t. It was three years and four months ago that I turned bitter and temperamental and stopped liking everything; realizing I could never make any money or love people, I went far away so that no one could find me. And everyone took me seriously, no one came; they only sent the secret sect. Having deviated from an official religion, sects are considered false by holy books, preachers, religious teachers . . . no, those are cults; the only bad thing about a sect is its secrets, today we distinguish between religious and secular affairs, but just because we have laws now doesn’t mean crime has disappeared. Every crime has a punishment, and crimes committed against people have many; from two months to nine months, ten months, one year, eternity . . .
I suppose I got tired after a while because I didn’t say all this out loud, I said some of it in my head. I eventually fell asleep. (Maybe I dreamt the things I’d said.) When I woke up, I hadn’t moved. (I hoped to have at least changed my position after making all that noise.) I stood up, observed nature a little (the same sun, that same red glow), and spoke out loud (repeating myself); that didn’t work. I had a headache. I needed to pull myself together; of course, what I really needed was a doctor. The errand boy came back, and I told him to get my telephone reconnected; I persuaded him by pulling a large bill from my wallet and handing it to him. And I didn’t sit around waiting for the telephone to work. (Quickly thinking backward, I realized I’d accomplished more than I thought, I hadn’t wasted my time. If only everyone had as much as me.) I read up on secret sects. (I’d come across the names of a few books somewhere related to the topic and had the errand boy get them for me. My tips had begun to make him smile. When it comes to money, the human portion can’t resist.) First, I looked into cults: It was depressingly dull what these people were after, all their suffering was about reaching God. Cleansing the soul, freeing the self from the vices of the flesh, being one with Him, seeing His face wherever they looked, these were the sorts of vague goals they pursued, and they exhausted themselves by doing it through the most impossible means. These cults were all connected, but the truth is they didn’t get along. Were that many people really congregating just so they could cut or not cut their hair or abstain from water on specific days? And over the course of hundreds of years? And what about the bad aspects, where were those? On the surface they were all about love, ethics, beauty, but there had to be some badness somewhere. Secrecy engendered it. And why did they keep falling out with one another? (Was it over the number of steps along the path to God?) These cults were hopeless. Sects were religious branches too; like how democracy is divided into three. Fine, but why was the letter I’d received signed UBOR-METENGA? Why hadn’t they used their name? Seeing how they’re a secret, you’re not likely to find them in a book, I said to myself. But my dead-language-expert friend deciphered it. Or was this statement from the secret sect a hoax? Perhaps UBOR-METENGA really did consist of one person, like I’d initially thought. Perhaps this was his name. Perhaps all bad people ended up alone (like me). This unfortunate UBOR-METENGA, abandoned and alone, was taking his pain out on me. Perhaps he was an Indian migrant; perhaps the secret police had repatriated him for acting suspiciously, and as he was being deported by train he’d found his chance to write this letter. How did it get to me? Perhaps he’d seen another dark-skinned Gypsy like himself at the train station, some child scrounging for coal. He’d handed him the last of his money: Give this letter to someone far afield, my boy, someone lonely and hopeless like me; make sure it’s someone like me, though, because our kind should only do harm to each other. (I liked this sort of denouement. I closed my book and thought for a while: it was good, I should have been a storyteller.) But as I scanned the chapter on magic, I fell into despair: evil people had been congregating too. I kept reading; I got the feeling these religions and sects weren’t just concerned with the hereafter, nor were they satisfied with the simple thought of oneness with God. I saw how they picked their victims, choosing them to feel superior, to tangibly observe how they’d arrived at a higher plane of existence. And they found these victims among the most miserable people, people who paid no attention to this world or the next one, who sold their downtroddenness for a little bread money, these were the people they took advantage of, punishing them for the rottenness of their souls. They considered those unaware of their own victimhood the very representation of evil here on Earth. They dismembered them on the riverbanks and in the cool air of dark caves. The disabled, the insane, the oblivious, they all allowed themselves to be dragged across the ground as symbols of evil just to provide their indigent families with a few cents. Intentionally or not, evil acts were being committed so that goodness could be felt. Same as was done to me. Briefly treated like kings, the weak knew from the outset they’d be killed; and the respect they were shown, it was as if they had no idea. They’d apparently seen me as a human being too for a time; it wasn’t my fault, and they’d said so, they were the ones treating me like a man. (Now I understand everything.) Then I suddenly felt the same pain that so many dark or light-skinned eccentrics must have felt hundreds of years ago as they were being hauled off to their deaths. In fact, they too were treated well; but at least (like me) they were given the chance to live a little; they needed the strength to be sacrificed, and it was granted. Only someone named Jesus had been more or less aware of his circumstances; Jesus too poured his efforts into literature, allowed for a time to compose a handful of tales we call parables and miracles today so that he could bravely meet his death, so that he could tell us how it all happened and distract himself along the way. (My circumstances didn’t depend on what I wanted.)
