The next day, when I arrived at the coffeehouse at the normal time, I saw that something strange had happened. The old man had arrived two and a half hours before schedule. Once again, I took the table right behind him. Suddenly he turned with a smile to look me straight in the eyes.
“Yesterday evening,” he said. “I hung my prayer beads right there, on my chair … and now I’ve lost them.”
So much emotion on his face: he was bursting with hope, and with worry. He was agitated. His usually sallow skin had gone pale. That five-millimeter beard of his was quivering.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “What a terrible shame.”
“Only yesterday, I took them to the Bedesten to sell them. They offered seventy but I wouldn’t take it. I wanted eighty. If only I’d taken their money,” he said.
“They were valuable then, I take it?”
“Of course. They were amber. The purest kind, too: Balgami!”
“I’m sure you’re right. They were very handsome indeed.”
“You probably saw me holding them last night.”
“To tell you the truth, I wasn’t paying attention.”
All at once, his expression changed. Suddenly I was the enemy. I could see the hatred burning in his eyes.
“I’m going to the police,” he said.
“You should,” I said.
For a moment, I thought he was going to say: “You took them. I know full well. Hand them over.” He even looked as if he were going to say it. I kept my cool.
Again his expression changed.
“If I ever find the man who took it, believe you me …”
“It won’t be easy!” I said.
Without raising his eyes, he bit his lip.
Day after day, he came to the coffeehouse early. He never greeted me, but as he took his usual seat, he’d make it clear he’d seen me. Without so much as a glance in my direction, he would read his paper, and everything about him — his pallor, his fury — told me that he was sure I’d stolen his prayer beads. When I got up to leave, he would follow me with his eyes, as I caught him doing a few times when I pretended to have forgotten my cigarettes on the table and went back to get them.
The other night we were seated at our usual places. He was reading his paper, and I was scribbling down a few thoughts. Then, suddenly, I looked up. The coffeehouse has mirrors running along its walls, and I was looking into one of them. This man wasn’t looking at me, this I could see, but I could also see why from his vantage point he would be driven to accuse me — and stranger still, when I looked at the way I was sitting, I could see something in me of the brazen thief who could pull off this sort of thing and still keep his cool. So I took a close look at myself. Yes, I did look as if I’d stolen his prayer beads. You know how children will sometimes insist they didn’t do something bad. And they really haven’t. But there’s something in their face that says they did. It’s because they haven’t done it that they can’t look natural. So that’s what I was like. Like one of those children.
Things remain very strange between me and the old man. Last night, a friend came by my house and left behind a set of prayer beads made out of seashells. I passed in front of the coffeehouse holding them in my hand. I didn’t really notice what was going on inside. I was heading to the tram stop just a little further on. Then, suddenly, the old man was there next to me. In the dark he must not have been able to see my prayer beads clearly. From the corner of my eye, I could see him staring at those prayer beads. I didn’t even have to turn in his direction. I just kept clicking those seashells. If you saw how furious he was as he walked off. Just the way he turned his humpback on me, I could hear what he was thinking: “And now you’re taunting me! You have no shame!”
The worst of it is that I hardly ever go to that coffeehouse now, and if he’s there sitting at the window when I do, I act as if I have something hidden in my pocket when I pass by. Sometimes I have to struggle to keep myself from smiling. Or I whistle. And even if I don’t, I still feel like I’m hiding something in my pocket. And I see him thinking that maybe he should just go to the police and tell them. But then he’ll kill the thought. “You son of a dog! He’s doing that on purpose! Would he do that if he had any prayer beads in his pocket? And I’m sure that bum has long since pawned it off. May you see the benefits!” I’m the worst kind of man. I’m a thief, without stealing a thing.
I feel bad for that poor old man, too. I even go so far as to look into his eyes, as if to say I’ve stolen his prayer beads and feel no remorse. That’s a terrible thing to do, I know. I know it, but I can’t help myself. He’s the one who makes me feel like this. You’d think that after doing all this I might feel just a little guilty, but no! What if I told you that sometimes when I pass that coffeehouse, I look all around me, sometimes surreptitiously, sometimes very openly, moving my head from side to side — and I laugh, in a way that would make anyone who saw me wonder if I was crazy or who knows what else? If I told you that, what would you say?
Milk
I did something just now that I haven’t done in years: I drank milk. The steam in that shop, the smell of milk — it took me back across four decades — returned me to my cradle, reducing me to tears and lulling me to sleep. Yes, it’s the truth I’m telling you. It had been years since I’d got up early and years since I’d last drunk milk. There was a time when I started each new day with milk. How greedily we all clung to our mother’s breasts back then. How monstrous those toothless gums on her nipples. How sad that we have no memories of our mothers’ milk or our first sight of the world, through eyes made blurry by the tears we shed for milk …
We begin our days with milk and we finish them with wine, but this morning, from the moment that first cry rose up in me, from that first pang of hunger, I knew those days were over. Over and done with. The moment I walked through the door of the dairy shop, my old life abandoned me. And this is what I said to the flotsam that tried to come in after me: my first cry, my cradle, my mother’s milk, my loves and hates, my public face, my private life, my days of wine, and rakı, and cards, and women, and lust, and my many fine days in the company of friends. This is what I said to the child who was crying for milk — the child I never knew, and would never learn to know:
“So we’re leaving you here, outside. You say you wanted to drink milk? Nonsense! We’ve had our fill of milk! What sort of man are you anyway? Shame on you. This is the last straw. This is where we part. You’ve sunk so low as to bring me to this shop. It’s all over between us …”
Turning around, I cried:
“Get lost!” And off they went, toppling over each other in the wind.
I walked into the shop like a man reborn. And how I longed to shout out the good news. I was beginning a new life! From now on I would wake up fresh as a newborn to the fragrance of hot and foaming milk, and its white mist would fill my nostrils until at last I sneezed. The milk I had taken from my mother’s breasts would come out through my nose. I would have my breakfast at a dairy shop that was foaming with the fragrance of milk. My new life would begin here. I would ascend to a world steeped in the scent of milk. After forty-two years of burning my nostrils with hot olive oil I would be delivered to this faraway land of peace and freedom, this land of milk, to begin anew.
My hands are cracked, my skin as dark as earth. I’m proud and I’m free, because at long last I have vanquished the monster in the cradle, and to mark this glorious day I shall drink in the milk foaming in my bowl like a man whose beard has gone white.