A Useless Man

The Samovar

“That’s the morning call to prayer, my son. Wake up or you’ll be late for work.”

Ali had finally found a job. He’d been going to the factory for a week. His mother was happy. She knelt down on her prayer rug and said her prayers. Entering her son’s room with the Supreme Being in her heart, and seeing his dream rippling along his smooth face and long, supple form — a parade of machines, electric batteries, and light bulbs, a purr of oiled metal and diesel motors — she’d been reluctant to rouse him. Ali was as flushed and damp as if he’d just come home from work.

As it rose out of the mist, the chimney of the Halıcıoğlu factory seemed to crane its neck, like a rooster. How proud it looked as it gazed out at the first glimmers of dawn on the shores of Kağıthane. Any moment now, they’d hear the whistle.

At last Ali woke up. He embraced his mother. He pulled his quilt over his head, as he did every morning, leaving his feet unprotected. His mother bent down to tickle them. Her son jumped up, and when she fell back onto the bed with him, giggling like a girl, she could count herself as happy. There weren’t many who could say that. Was it not the very modesty of their existence that lit their souls? What could a mother wish from a child, or a child from a mother, if not happiness? Arm in arm, they went into the dining room. It smelled like toasted bread. How beautifully the samovar was bubbling. It put Ali in mind of a factory where there were no strikes, no accidents, no sorrows. A factory that brought forth only fragrant steam and the joy of morning.

Ali loved the samovar, and he loved the salep kettle that stood outside the factory. He loved the sounds: the Halıcıoğlu Military Academy’s trumpet and the factory whistle which went on for so long it could be heard the length and breadth of the Golden Horn. First they would awaken the flames of desire in him, and then they would put them out. That is to say, Ali was a bit of a poet. And while an electrician working in a big mill has as much space for poetry as the Golden Horn has for transatlantic liners, well — Mehmet, Hasan and I — we’re all a bit like Ali. In each of our hearts, a lion sleeps.

Ali kissed his mother’s hand. Then he licked his lips as if he’d tasted something sweet. His mother smiled. Every time he kissed her he would pass his tongue over his lips in exactly the same way. In the little garden outside, there was sweet basil growing in pots. Ali picked a few leaves and rubbed them in his palms, breathing in their fragrance as he stepped out into the street.

The morning was cool. Mist swirled over the Golden Horn. Ali’s friends were waiting by the rowboats at the pier. All four were strong young men like him. Together they crossed over to Halıcıoğlu.

Ali has fire in him today, and joy, and fervor, and it will all go into his work. But he’ll take care not to outshine his friends. For them he’ll be honest, he’ll take care not to show off. Otherwise he’d be putting on airs. His boss was once the only electrician in Istanbul. A German. He had taken a shine to Ali. He’d taught him all the tricks of the trade. If Ali had gained the respect of those who were just as able as he, it was because he was so agile, so fast, so playful and so young.

By evening he could go home happy, knowing that he was just the sort of friend his friends most needed, and just the sort of worker the bosses most trusted.

After embracing his mother, he was off to the coffeehouse across the street to see his friends. He played a hand of whist and then moved on to watch a game of backgammon. Then he headed home, to find his mother performing her evening prayers. And he knelt down beside her, like he always did. He turned a somersault over her prayer rug. He stuck out his tongue. When at last he had succeeded in making her laugh, she sat up to greet him.

“Ali, my darling, it’s a sin!” she said. “My boy, it’s a sin, so you mustn’t!”

And Ali replied, “God will forgive us, Mother.”

And then in a soft and innocent voice, he asked, “Doesn’t God ever laugh?”

After supper, Ali curled up with a Nat Pinkerton novel and his mother went back to knitting him a sweater. And then they laid out their bedding, heavy with the scent of lavender, and drifted off to sleep.

Ali’s mother woke him up at the morning call to prayer.

How beautifully the samovar was boiling in the room that smelled of toasted bread. It put Ali in mind of a factory where there were no strikes, no accidents, no sorrows. A factory that brought forth only fragrant steam and the happiness of morning.

Death came to Ali’s mother with a guest’s soft footsteps. It settled into the shadows, like a pious neighbor bending over to pray. In the morning she had made her son tea and by evening she had prepared two pots of food. Then, tugging at the edge of her heart, she felt an ache; hurrying up the stairs in her evening muslins, she could feel her worn body going soft, and moist, and limp.

One morning, when Ali was still asleep, she was standing over the samovar when all at once she fainted. She fell into a nearby chair. She fell, oh, she fell.

It was some time before Ali began to ask himself why his mother hadn’t come to wake him up. Only then did he realize how late it was. The windowpanes had muffled the sharp, shrill blast of the factory whistle: it came to Ali’s ears as if through a sponge. He jumped out of bed. At the door to the dining room, he stopped. He gazed at his dead mother, her hands flat on the table, as if asleep. And that was what he thought at first, that she must be asleep. Softly, he walked over to her. He took her by the shoulders. It was when he put his lips against her already cold cheeks that the first shiver went through him.

When we are confronted with death, we become great actors. Great actors, nothing more.

He threw his arms around her. He carried her to his bed. He pulled the quilt over her, tried to warm her body, which had already grown so cold. He tried to breathe life into her lifeless form. Later, giving up, he laid her out on the sofa in the corner. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t cry that day. His eyes burned and burned, but not a single tear. He looked at himself in the mirror. At the moment of his greatest sadness, could he not be granted a face other than the one he saw staring back at him? It was the face of a man who had lost no more than a night of sleep.

All of sudden, Ali longed to grow thin, go gray, all of a sudden he longed to double over in agonizing pain as his face withered away. Then he looked again at the body. It didn’t frighten him at all.

On the contrary: her face was as tender and kind as before. Her eyes were half open; with a firm hand he closed them. He ran out into the street. He told the old woman who lived next door. The neighbors came running into the house. He headed for the factory. By the time he boarded the caique that would take him across the Golden Horn, he seemed at peace with her death.

They’d slept side by side under the same quilt, shoulder to shoulder. In death they were just as close. In the same way death had come to his gentle mother, it left; with a guest’s soft footsteps, it carried away her compassion and her warmth. She was just a little cold. We have nothing to fear, he thought. She was just a little cold. That was all.

For days, Ali paced the empty rooms of the house. He spent his evenings sitting in the darkness. He listened to the night. He thought about his mother. But he couldn’t cry.

One morning they came face to face in the front room. How bright and peaceful this empty vessel looked, sitting there on the oilskin tablecloth, flashing copper sunlight. Picking it up by the handles, Ali moved it to a place where he couldn’t see it. He collapsed into a chair. The tears came now, like silent rain. And the samovar never boiled in that house again.

From then on, Ali’s life revolved around the salep kettle.

In Istanbul winters are harsher along the shores of the Golden Horn; the fog is denser. As they make their way to work in the early morning, over broken pavements and frozen clods of mud, the city’s teachers and drovers and butchers and even the occasional student will often stop off for a few minutes outside the factory to lean against its great wall and sip salep sprinkled with cinnamon and ginger.

They cradle their glasses of salep, these rheumy fair-haired workers, these teachers and drovers and butchers and impoverished students. The steam passes through their woolen gloves, to warm their grateful hands. They lean against the great wall, dreaming of rebellion and steaming like mournful copper samovars, as they sip the salep that will later warm their dreams.