A Useless Man

The Serpent in Alemdağ

The snow had already begun to fall when we walked into the theater. When we came out the square was covered in snow. A drop fell down my neck into my shirt. I shivered.

“Get your hand out of your mouth. Don’t bite your nails,” I yelled, and a couple walking ahead of us turned around.

They slowed down to get a better look at my face. I felt as lonely as I always did when he was with me. He’d come on Fridays. And the pipe-smoking plaster-cast sailor would be there, waiting to greet him.

The sun on the oilskin curtain made it exactly three. When I was absolutely sure he was coming, I’d let myself doze off. When he pounded on the door like he was scrambling up it, I’d hear it in my dream. I’d jump out of bed. I’d open the door. And there he’d be, ashen-faced, and breathing through the mouth. He’d pull a cigarette off the table and light up.

The world was far away. Here there was a cabinet, a mirror, a sailor cast in plaster, a bed, another mirror, a telephone, an armchair, books, newspapers, matchsticks, cigarette butts, a stove, and a blanket. The world was far away. There were planes in the sky.

Inside were passengers. The trains were running, too. Some brute signs a piece of paper and another gives him money. An evening coolness had emerged. And now the evening simits had come out into the world …

A simit vendor’s call floated through the room. The world was far away.

A ticket collector is stapling tickets; a man and a boy are poring over a newspaper. A strong young man is stretched out on the bench. A good-looking, powerful young man with dark eyebrows. To my right lies an emaciated creature with his hands stuffed in his pockets. The boy has stopped reading. His overcoat is rolled up under his head. He’s stretched out, too. I’m in the lower cabin of a ferryboat.

It’s Friday. School’s out. We live on Kirazlı Mescit Street in Süleymaniye. I’m around seventeen. I can remember the pine tree at the Münir Pasha Konak. That enormous pine in the high school garden that probably burned in the fire. The frescos in oil paint on the ceilings of the Münir Pasha Konak have long since turned to smoke and ash. The bedbugs burned, too. My bed and my blanket and my tears, all burned: the pools burned; the evergreens burned; memories, those memories burned; that sunburnt boy burned; the books that brought me here, all burned.

I have to find some imitation sheepskin to sew into my overcoat.

It’s Monday. I’m in the ferryboat’s lower cabin again, and again it’s snowing. Again Istanbul is ugly. Istanbul? Istanbul’s an ugly city, a dirty city, on rainy days especially. Are other days any better? No. They’re not. On other days the bridge is covered in bile. The back streets are covered in rubble and mud. The nights are like vomit. The houses turn their backs to the sun. The streets are narrow, the merchants cruel, and the rich indifferent. People are the same everywhere. Even those two asleep on the bed with the gilded frame — they’re not together. They’re alone.

The world is filled with loneliness. It all begins with loving another human being, and in this world, it ends the same way.

It’s so beautiful, Alemdağ. So very beautiful. And at this time of day, with those trees — they’re more than fifteen meters high … And with the waters of Taşdelen and the serpent … But on winter days the serpent’s in its cave. Let it be. The weather’s mild in Alemdağ. The sun rises through the trees’ scarlet leaves. Warmth descends from the sky in bits and pieces, piling up on the rotten leaves. The Taşdelen is a thin little stream. We refresh ourselves with a jug of its water and listen to it burbling through us as we undress and wash ourselves. We frolic in the water with all the other creatures who have come to drink here: a rabbit, a serpent, a blackbird, a partridge, and a goat that has escaped from Polonezköy to toast to our health.

And when the serpent cries “Panco, Panco,” the goat, the partridge, and the rabbit freeze as if they’re cast in plaster. And they’re white as plaster. I pull a sharp knife from my pocket and cut off a few noses; the others I slash just below the wing. Once the blood is flowing, they come to life again. They leave me and run off to Panco.

I can see Panco’s smile sliding toward the scar on his angry, bloodless face. He kisses the partridge on its beak and tugs the rabbit’s whiskers. A serpent coils around his wrist. He’s brought a ball, a football. I’m the goalkeeper. The other goalkeeper is the serpent. The rest are stretched out over the leaves, playing in the sun. For hours they frolic. When the ball flies into our goal, the serpent and I stand to the side and watch: We’re spoiling the game.

It’s so beautiful, Alemdağ. So very beautiful. Istanbul is covered in mud. Its taxi drivers keep driving through puddles, heedlessly splashing water over pedestrians. And heedlessly, the snow keeps seeping inside us.

A woman hurls a cat from the fifth floor. A woman and a foreign man stand over it.

There’s a light stream of blood running from its nose. The man says:

“Il est mort d’hemoragie, le pauvre.”

The cat was tossed from a fifth floor window, the woman tells me in Turkish. We push the cat closer to the thick, high wall behind Galatasaray High School; by now it’s clearly dead. The woman on the fifth floor throws coal into her stove. The weather’s so cold. If only it would snow. Even when it snows, there’s some warmth in the air.

When did Panco get back from Alemdağ? Here he is, walking past me. He’s with a friend. He acts as if he’s sidestepping a dead cat. Our arms graze against each other. Walls open. People hold grudges for years, but if they both feel the same way, they kiss and make up and say enough is enough. I turn around. Panco is still walking down the street with his friend, laughing. The pool of the Munir Pasha Konak was reduced to ash but the slimy green water is still there. You can’t see the bottom, but when I close my eyes now I can see the glimmering ten lira coins. Once we gave our friend, the future governor, fifty kuruş to jump into the pool with his clothes on.

Panco took his friend to a coffeehouse I’d never heard of. It was on the first floor of a building at the back of a little courtyard, this coffeehouse. Beside the front door was a little shop selling aluminum pots and plastic cups. When I saw them stepping through that door, curiosity got the better of me. I walked in behind them. I looked up, and there was a glass door in front of me. Beyond it was a large room filled with people playing backgammon and cards. There was a pool table in the far corner. Everyone looked up when I walked in. It must have been the sort of place with a regular crowd, because each and every one took a long look at me. No question of sitting down and ordering a coffee — it would be living hell. So I pretended to be looking for someone. Our friend Luka was there, at least. He was a mason, a painter. I could ask after him. He wore glasses. He was a Greek citizen, but really he was Albanian. I’d ask the owner about him. Then I saw Panco shielding Luka, with his own face averted. Then he looked right at me as if I were someone he was expecting, someone from long ago. He attempted a smile. Curse you, you cuckold. I turned around, but before I left, I glanced over my shoulder. Again, I could see his overcoat’s fur collar.

I felt better when I saw the fur. I cast my mind back to the rabbit, the partridge, and that warm and beautiful, wondrously slippery serpent. And the blackbird. And Alemdağ. And the waters of Taşdelen, and the rotting leaves, and the white sun hanging over them, quivering like jelly.