A Useless Man

A Story about Springtime

A holiday, an awakening, a miracle, a folly. It’s never going to come, and then it does. Springtime answers to all these descriptions, and many others, too … Birds and butterflies, poppies and meadows, green grass and blossoms, mimosas and oleanders, dandelions and the sound of water, gypsies and lambs … You can find them all in a classic springtime, and there’s even room for the tendril of a vine. Of all the memories I’ve lost, the most important is the sunlight in April and May.

Of all the seasons, spring is the one that a man over forty cannot face without some sadness. Where has she gone, that girl whose hands went suddenly pale? That wind that turned her pale? That fast-beating heart? They’re right, the ones who divide life itself into seasons. We each have our spring, our summer, our autumn and winter. For us, spring comes much later than it does for animals. A horse has its springtime when it’s one. Well, all right, maybe two. A lamb can become a ram at six months. But a child can’t really understand springtime before the age of twenty. Any taste of it before then is a false spring. That’s the sort of story I’m writing here: it’s about one of those false springs.

Exactly thirty years ago, I was twelve years old and living in an Anatolian city. My father was a civil servant. We’d arrived in this city in late summer. We’d struggled through a bad winter — snowdrifts as high as a man. Then one day, spring came. The snow melted. The snow melted, but it wasn’t the sun’s doing. It was the rain’s. In Anatolian cities, spring begins with an afternoon deluge. In the mornings the sky is a bright blue, and the sun looks as cold as if it’s sparkling on snow. Toward eleven, a black cloud rolls in — it could be from the east, or the west, or the north. Ten minutes later, it begins to pour — pour like water from a glass. And that’s it, for the rest of the day. Great lashes of rain, one after the other. Through my window I could see a dark green pasture, known in the vicinity as “Black Meadow.” I would never have felt the urge to burst out of the house screaming like a madman if not for that play of colors on the meadow that, like the sea, soaked up every pigment of the sky.

I had been in poor health all winter. Every time I went out into the cold, my head would spin. Then there was this strange, oppressive stretch of rain and black clouds, with three gloomy days for every bright one, but there was also spring, filling the air with the aroma of earth and meadow, people and barns, and all I wanted to do was shout and cry and then lie still.

One morning I was gazing at the ceiling. The clouds hadn’t rolled in yet. The sky was still sparkling. I lay on my mattress, wondering how long it would be before the rain came. Just then a bright bird flew through my room. I sat up in bed. It flew past again. Then, on the wall to my right, I saw a band of light flicker and disappear. Then it vanished. I rubbed my eyes. When I looked again I could see a bright circle, shaking and trembling. It seemed to be trying to pin itself to the wall. This was light reflecting off a mirror — it could be nothing else.

I jumped out of bed to look out the window. Our upper garden looked out onto the garden of the house beneath us. The light on my wall must have come from a mirror somewhere over there. She was sitting on a wicker mat among the peach blossoms. Behind her she had placed a chair. She must have been sixteen or seventeen. I did not leave the window. When the light from her mirror touched my eyes, I didn’t shield them with my hands. I looked straight in front of me, eyes unblinking.

The next day I, too, had a mirror in my hands. When the light from my mirror hit her eyes, she’d avert them, smiling faintly. This game never lasted longer than half an hour. She would race back into her house with rain dripping from her hair, and I would return to my bed. The next day would bring another beautiful morning, and it would always be her mirror that arrived first, racing across my room to hover trembling on the wall, as if looking for a hook to hang from. And again I would look straight into her mirror light, my eyes unblinking; as she shielded her beautiful eyes, we would together gaze at mine. Then the clouds would roll in, with the afternoon deluge. Nothing else interested me, and that is why I paid no attention to the horse carriage that stopped outside our house one morning. Only my mother caught me playing with my mirror. She had an odd expression on her face as she took in the garden, the girl, the light from the mirror, and the mirror in my hands.

“Come on now,” she said. “Get dressed.”

We got into the carriage. Behind us, they’d tied on two trunks to carry our belongings. My father had a new posting. Off we went. As we passed through a forest, the sun came bursting through the clouds, lighting up the new leaves on the trees, and then disappeared. And, with a pang, I remembered the mirror light that I would never see again. I burst into tears. My father asked:

“What’s wrong with this one?”

I buried my head in my mother’s scarf. I have no idea what she conveyed to my father, if not with her hands, then with her eyes, but neither said a thing. Somehow knowing that no one had the courage to stop me, I cried my heart out.

And now, whenever a light happens to pass across my window in the springtime, I remember that day with the sweet sadness we all share at that time of year, with a restless beating heart. Thirty years have passed since that day. Never once have I flashed a mirror in anyone’s face, and never once has anyone flashed a mirror into mine. But if a light happened to pass through my room on a spring day, as fast as a swallow, I don’t know what would become of me.