“Terrible,” I said.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Honestly, nothing at all. Oh, who knows. Who can say?”
We fell silent.
When she finally spoke, she seemed to have come closer.
“What’s there, on the surface of the moon?” she asked.
“On the moon?” I said.
I gave it some thought. Then I told her whatever I could remember from school.
“There’s nothing on the moon … It’s empty, meaningless, dead … There is no atmosphere, nothing that can support life. Even the light we see up there is false. It doesn’t radiate its own light … What you see is a reflection of the sun’s light … No, there’s nothing there … Nothing … It’s cold, or maybe it’s not even that … Where there is no atmosphere, can there even be such a thing as heat, or cold?”
“So there’s no life on the moon?”
“There’s no air, as I just said!”
“Fine. But how about if you took your own oxygen?”
“Look, that part I don’t know. Maybe you could last for a few hours, or a few days … It might be possible to stay there long enough to see a bit of the place, and satisfy your curiosity …”
She looked up at the moon. It felt as if she were resting her head on my shoulder. Or maybe it was the moonlight that made me believe this was so.
I succumbed to the light:
“My lovely,” I said. “Have you taken leave of your senses? How could there be anyone up there living on the moon? The only ones who can live there are lovers. They meet for an evening, and two become one. And then they fly up to the moon together. And most of them get there. If I were to take hold of you, if you and I were to fall to the bottom of the sea, never to return, a host of other creatures would come to our rescue and fly us straight up.”
What a lovely laugh she had. I had taken everything I’d learned in geography class and turned it on its head. And that was how I came to find the courage to hold my beloved’s hand.
I managed not to laugh. The postman laughed a great deal. But something in his face had changed. He was no longer curious. He no longer wished to know what secrets lurked in people’s hearts. He put it like this:
“They’re all alike. But I used to think that the man with the dog was different. There were things about him that seemed unique. Oh, the tragedies I dreamed up for him! He certainly kept me guessing. When all it was was love. But I just couldn’t see it — how a man who kept his own company and talked only to his dog could be like you or me. Now I can read the letters I carry without even opening them. I already know them all by heart.”
And off he went up the hill.
The Last Birds
Winter came with the winds — the poyraz and the yıldız poyraz, the maestro, and the dramaduna, the gündoğusu, the karayel, and the batı karayel. It took up residence on one side of the island while summer lingered on the other, a wistful nomad who had yet to gather up her things. I have no wish to sing my own praises, but I do believe I am the only man on the island who fully appreciates this fresh-faced beauty as she wavers (passport in one hand, a pouch of gold pieces in the other) between staying and going.
All around me, they were making their preparations for six or seven months of cold. But I, in my idleness, was playing hide and seek with my nomad. Whenever I caught up with her, I held her in my arms. Sometimes she hid in the shade of a pine. Sometimes I would find her in the grass, next to a bush — as radiant as if she had never left.
On this side of the island, where summer is so slow to close her tattered bundles, the only structure standing is a little coffeehouse.
It is no larger than a small balcony, just five or ten meters above a quiet bay. Ants still wander over its wooden tables. Flies perch on the edges of coffee cups. There isn’t a sound. Then from somewhere in the sky comes the humming of a plane. I only imagine the passengers as I write these lines now. There were other planes, earlier on. But this is the first time I’ve stopped to think about the passengers who are soon to disembark at Yeşilköy, who may already have done so by the time I finish these two lines.
The proprietor is a surly man, more like a cantankerous civil servant than the proprietor of a coffeehouse. It’s the last job in the world he would have chosen, but he was in poor health and his doctors told him to take it easy. I have very different reasons: I stayed away from the job because I couldn’t find the right coffeehouse. What I had in mind was a coffeehouse in the country, or a village. With only three or four regulars … I can’t think of a more beautiful life. What could be more beautiful than a life spanning fifty or sixty years, if it began and ended in such a place?
The underwear strung up between two trees will never dry in this warm weather. It’s overcast and still. A cat is up on the tabletop. Will it keep grumbling at my dog? Those holey socks draped over the chairs are as dark as cherry stones … The vine leaves are greener than ever. The ones in our garden are already dry.
The sea is racing off to the Bozburun Peninsula. What part of Istanbul is that, hovering in the distance? Why is there no sound?
Another plane flies overhead. Our island must be underneath a flight path — they are always going right over us, or just to the left. The cat’s stopped grumbling. My dog’s eyes are closed. Now I can hear the crows. Time was when birds would flock to the island at this time of year. They’d fill the air with their chirping. They’d swarm in flocks from tree to tree.
For two years now, we haven’t seen them.
Or have they come and gone without my knowing?
Toward autumn I’d see families — all sorts — heading toward the highest hill on the island with cages in their hands. I’d shudder at the sight.
The older ones carried strange, shit-colored clubs.
When they reached the edge of a green meadow, they’d set down their cage. Inside was a decoy bird. Placing the cage beneath a little tree, they’d smear birdlime all over its branches. The wild birds would hear the decoy’s lonely cry — for friendship, for company — and swoop down to help, while that bunch of bruisers kept watch from the shade of a neighboring tree. Then slowly they’d come back out into the open to walk toward the cage, the decoy, and the swarms of wild birds. Four or five would manage to break free of the birdlime and while they were flying off to be caught on yet another patch of lime, these men would gather up their quarry. Each bird a miracle of nature. Each yielding no more than a drop of flesh. Then and there, they’d break their necks with their teeth. And then pluck them alive.
There was one in particular, I’ll always remember him. This one brought boys with him to do the job. He’d prepare the birdlime on Saturday night … The bastard’s name was Konstantin. He had an office in Galata. A grain store. He was a broad-chested man, with thick, hairy wrists; his smile was oily and unctuous; his nose was covered with moles and his nostrils flared. A shock of unruly hair, and mincing footsteps.
If only you could see him, wrapping his fingers around those golden brown feathers, and sinking his glittering chrome teeth into the bird’s neck. Already tasting the pilaf he would sprinkle with its drop of flesh.