Sine Ergün

Translated from Turkish by Ümit Hussein

THE LONG JOURNEY

                                   “And I do not value solitude at all.

I do not value myself when I’m alone.”

Peter Handke, The Left-Handed Woman

            The woman would not have chosen the man, nor the man the woman to accompany him on a long journey. When it was time for them to leave they looked first at each other, then all around them, and, having no other option, set out together.

         They followed familiar roads until they left the city. When they reached the city’s borders, they saw it was surrounded by silver soil. There was a narrow path before them. The man advanced quickly, pausing occasionally to survey the area, while the woman walked without altering her pace, with drab curiosity.

         The road neither narrowed nor widened. From the first day it was so narrow they could touch one another when they walked side by side, an option they strongly rejected. When the sun came out, the soil shone so brightly it was practically impossible to make out a single path. At night, first the stars and then the earth would light up and go out, blurring into one another. Who knows how much time passed in that way. After a long while the man said, Everyone’s left; they went on, to the sound of their own footsteps, A long time ago, said the woman. Why did they leave us behind? I couldn’t decide who to go with, said the woman, I didn’t notice them leaving, no one told me. The woman paused. Haven’t we walked enough for today, she said, No, we might be able to catch up with them.

         First the path, then all the soil turned into a shade of red never seen before. They continued walking, without spotting a single footprint. After countless days the man said, Your silence is getting on my nerves, You’re silent too, said the woman, if you spoke I’d listen. Again they walked for days.

         When they reached the waterfront they weren’t thirsty, they drank. They sat down for the first time since setting out. They touched the red soil for the first time. When I was a child I killed a bird, said the man, I didn’t kill it, my friend killed it, he wasn’t even my friend, we just happened to be together that day. He said let’s eat it, we plucked its feathers, but still, when I bit into it I kept getting feathers in my mouth. Why did I go along with him? He stood up, reached out towards the water, drank, and turned, in anger, Why didn’t they take us? I, said the woman, couldn’t decide who to go with, You think you’re superior, that’s why, said the man, that’s the reason why you’re lonely, while you’re walking I watch you all the time, you think you’re more superior even than the earth you tread on. Your silence is getting on my nerves. I’d be better off by myself, at least then I’d know I was on my own. I’m sleepy, said the woman, I think I’m going to have a dream.

         In her dream the woman was moving through the depths of the water. There was no sign indicating where she was headed. She just knew.

         In his dream the man was at the tip of a slope. He knew he could fly. That was all.

         When they woke up the woman was talkative, the man silent. I gave away all the books I loved, said the woman, I’ve never given away anything I loved, said the man.

         The woman said, after this the path will disappear and we’ll have to choose where we go. You’ll to want to go in one direction and I in another. It won’t matter where we go, what matters is that we stay together. The path will vanish, said the man, I’m going to want to go in one direction and you in another. If we go our separate ways, then so be it. What matters is where we’re going.

         The red soil turned irremediably black, while the sky turned spectacularly white. When night fell, not a single star came out, nor did the moon. And if there were a path before them, it had disappeared from view. The man found the woman’s hand within the cloying darkness and pulled it, This way, he said, the woman was undecided, she followed, they continued.

         When the stars slowly began to appear within the relentless darkness the man could not contain his cry of joy. Releasing their hands, they looked first at the sky, then at each other. The woman told the man that the stars had once been a large family all living together, but had separated after a quarrel that no one wanted to talk about and, to avoid causing each other any more heartache, they had promised not to go within more than a certain distance of each other, and spread themselves out in the sky. The man listened to the story, distracted, Let’s go, he said.

         By the time the earth regained its color, enough time had passed for them to forget what shade it had been. The straight road curved up a hill. They walked. They saw a tiny hut on the other side of the hill. They went in. It was the woman’s house. It was the man’s house too. But they didn’t remember that. They sat down. Enough time for blue veins to sprout on their hands.

         A noise. A dull thump. At first it seemed to be coming from far away, then from themselves. The man stood up, he paced around the room. He listened to the room, to himself. When he headed for the fridge door he knew he would find a man curled up into a ball inside. It took you so long, said the man-who-came-out-of-the-fridge reproachfully, fighting for all he was worth to get out. I was about to freeze to death.The man sat down again, the man-who-came-out-of-the-fridge sat with them. His coldness shrouded first the room, then their bodies.

STATUTORY DECREE

Although everyday life was disrupted during the first few days of enforcement of the Ban on Stepping on the Street by Statutory Decree, over time everything returned to normal.

From the very first day, nothing changed for those whose journeys consisted of merely going from one parking lot to another, and they were delighted to see the back of the pedestrian traffic. As for everyone else, they travelled to work via ropes suspended between apartment buildings. Although it took longer than it used to, somehow they still managed to fulfill their daily obligations.

Naturally the population hadn’t taken the ban lying down. Many a columnist had used strong language to criticize the City Council’s decision, on the grounds that the streets were an important part of city culture, and called for the people to take to the streets in protest. However, the ban itself and the severity of the measures the City Council took against anyone who flouted it, made it impossible for any protest to take place. The need to get to work overcame even the ban’s fiercest opponents, and people found ways of carrying on with their lives without stepping on the street.

Enough time passed for people to forget that stepping on the street was, in fact, banned. With time, the notion of setting foot on the street acquired the status of one of those surreal tales that grandfathers tell their grandchildren.

Like everyone else, Selim, who worked on the top floor of the city’s tallest skyscraper, had never set foot on the street. The closest he had come to the ground was when he had descended to a distance of some ten meters on a day when the ropes had grown slack in the heat.

One day, as he was smoking on the skyscraper’s roof terrace, he spied a bird. Given that he saw more birds than people in his day-to-day life, he was used to them, but this bird was unlike any of the others he had seen. Its wings were so tiny it was a miracle they had managed to carry it that high up. There was a black mark on its head. It eyed Selim without moving. Then it started flying to somewhere above them and was out of sight in an instant. In the days that followed the same incident recurred countless times.

That day Selim arrived at work with a rope with a long hook attached to the end. When he went up to the roof terrace the bird was there again, staring at him, waiting. They gazed at each other for a while, then once again the bird flapped its wings towards the same destination and vanished out of sight. Selim swung the rope in the air. And with a sharp clang it hooked onto something. From below it looked as if the rope was hanging in mid-air, but, as it was hooked onto something, it must have led somewhere. He started climbing. He disappeared out of sight.

The next day no one noticed that Selim wasn’t at work. In the days that followed, one of his colleagues noticed the rope on the roof terrace hanging in mid air, climbed up and he too disappeared out of sight. With time the number of people in the city tossing ropes up into the sky and disappearing increased.

When a ban on climbing up into the sky was issued by Statutory Decree there was hardly anyone left in the city.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU

It was morning when she reached the city. She could hardly remember anything. She had got on the bus and gone straight to sleep.

She got off the bus. She entered the station. There were a few lone individuals sitting on the metal seats in the center of the glass enclosed building. No one spoke to anyone. Yet there was a low murmur. She went out. She walked. She walked for a long time, in fog so thick she could barely see her footsteps. It was an effort to make out the buildings. They were all tall, greyish yellow, without balconies.

She made out the light, Hotel, she entered, One night she said, the man handed her the key without a word, she paid and went up to the room. Greyish yellow walls, a bed, a blanket, a table, a mirror. She locked the door and left the key in the lock. She drifted off to sleep.

She woke up to the sound of the telephone. I’m going to ask you to vacate the room, said the voice. Why, she asked. Did you come here for a rendezvous, we don’t allow rendezvous in this hotel. She didn’t remember if she had gone there to meet anyone. Why, she repeated. I don’t know, said the voice, you don’t look like the kind of person who’d come here. What kind of person did she look like, she didn’t ask. She looked in the mirror, recognizing first her eyes, her nose. Then her lips, her wide forehead, her eyebrows, her cheeks. As she continued looking her face changed, instead of looking at her, the eyes reflected in the mirror searched the room uneasily. Her nose began to grow indistinct, her eyes disappeared into their sockets. All that wasted effort, she thought. When she drifted off to sleep, fog had shrouded the room.

Once again she woke up to the sound of the telephone ringing. You need to vacate the room, said the voice. No, she replied. I’m not asking you, vacate the room. She would not, besides, she couldn’t. She looked in the mirror, she tried to recognize her face through the fog, there was nothing there. How long had it been, what had she looked like before, she couldn’t remember. But still, no one could evict her from the room for not looking like anyone. She drifted off to sleep.

She woke up to the sound of knocking at the door. Vacate the room, said the voice on the other side. I’m not going to ask where you came from, I’ll give you your money back, I’ll even pay you extra if you like, as long as you leave. No, she said, but she couldn’t hear her voice. If you don’t leave I’ll smash the lock, you’re leaving and that’s final. I’m telling you for your own good, people like you shouldn’t come here. She waited. She heard the footsteps growing faint. She drifted off to sleep.

She woke up to the sound of talking. It’ll cost you, said a voice, this is a sturdy lock, I don’t care, said the other voice, as long as you break it. Under the blanket she waited for them to smash the lock. Some time later she heard the sound of footsteps in the room. She must have climbed out of the window, said the voice. How, asked the other voice. I don’t know, said the voice, all that matters is that she’s left.