“Thanks, but my refrigerator’s already crammed full,” replied Cemile Abla, placing her bags on the ground on either side of her. “Give it to someone else, it would be a sin to waste it.”
“No way, it’s for you. Nobody else knows how to cook it right. They’d make a mess of the poor thing... So, you want me to bone it or you want to do it yourself?”
Cemile Abla took a deep breath, turned her eyes to the clouds, exhaled, and answered, “I’ll take care of it. Thanks.”
It was said that nobody along the entire Bosphorus could clean a fish as well as Cemile Abla. It was from her father that she’d learned to work a fish so deftly. On her way home from school, she used to stop by the stand that once stood on the right side of the pier. There she would remove one squirming, restaurant-bound fish at a time from the shallow tubs of water and cut off their heads and tails before scaling and skinning them; the bigger ones she would bone as well. When she was still too short to reach the counter, she’d prop herself up by standing on an old cheese tin. Then she’d run home and watch cartoons for half an hour, munching on some bread and jam that her mother had prepared for her, before starting on her homework. Actually, if she’d gone straight home instead of stopping by the fish stand, she would have had an extra hour to watch cartoons. But she was more fond of the knives and the fish than she was of TV. With each day her fingers grew a little more used to the tools, her wrists stronger, her movements more graceful. Nothing could take the place of that odd feeling she would get. Every now and then her teachers would scold her because her hands smelled of fish, but it was worth it just to see the proud smile on her father’s face as he watched her working at the counter. And it wasn’t only her father who held her in such affection; she’d become the apple of everyone’s eye, all the way from Ortaköy to Sarıyer. Awed by her love of fish and her skilled mastery of the knife, each and every fisherman, young and old alike, saw Cemile Abla as his own ideal daughter, sister, or even wife. And the fact that her father was the famous Ali Reis didn’t hurt either.
The scrawny boy was off in his own little world, watching a sports car drive by, when Captain Hasan slapped him on the back of the neck. “Get off your ass and help Cemile Abla with her bags!” he yelled. “You some kinda idiot, boy? Do I have to tell you everything? And wrap that fish up.”
“There’s really no need, Captain Hasan, I can carry the bags myself,” said Cemile Abla. “They’re not heavy anyway.”
But she knew what would happen. The man would insist, and once again she wouldn’t be able to say no. Cemile Abla was annoyed with herself. Sometimes she even hated herself for giving up so easily, for acquiescing to things she really didn’t want to do. But no matter how hard she tried, she could never manage to say no when people persisted with her. She became horrified, thinking that if she said no she’d be thought rude, or that she’d insult the other person, or hurt their feelings; she’d get a lump in her throat and her palms would grow sweaty. She wouldn’t be able to look the other person in the eye; she just couldn’t stand the thought of how that person’s eyes would dull with disappointment as soon they heard the word “no.” And so that was her constant dilemma. She’d have to drink that third cup of coffee despite her heartburn, go shopping with the girls even if she preferred to do so alone, go picnicking at Kilyos with her old neighbors even though she really didn’t feel comfortable wearing a swimsuit.
Simply because she loved them so much, because they made such a fuss, because they insisted.
Actually, these things were the least of her troubles. What really got on Cemile Abla’s nerves was how her friends pressured her to get married, how they were constantly introducing her to potential grooms.
In her youth, Cemile Abla used to love to walk to Bebek and get a cherry-vanilla ice-cream cone, sit on a park bench with a dog-eared Sait Faik book, and just relax. But nowadays, in front of the ice-cream stands stood long lines of bronze, blonde-haired girls, pot-bellied boys, and odd, shaggy dogs of a sort she had never seen before. Cemile Abla had begun to feel like a stranger in her own land, as if at any given moment she might be caught and deported. But instead of worrying herself over nothing, she’d made a resolution not to venture beyond the cemetery, the boundary of white marble separating Rumelihisarı from Bebek, during normal waking hours. She would go for walks in the wee hours of the night, once the fancy dining high-lifers and the bar brawlers had hopped into their cars (which were usually parked on the sidewalk and nearly toppling into the sea) and gone home, once all the apartment lights had been turned off, once all the dogs had stopped howling.
What she liked most about these walks was the fishermen. Because of the wall of wedding boats blocking access to the shore, not many fishermen, other than Captain Hasan, stopped by these parts anymore. But there were a few who, as if by some unspoken agreement, would draw their boats ashore in the shadow of Hisar on moonlit nights and, if they happened to be in the mood, reminisce about the old days for hours on end. Sometimes they’d lean on the old cannons at the base of the towers. It made Cemile Abla happy to see them as she walked along the deserted sidewalks and the asphalt roads now devoid of passing cars. She’d join them when invited; there was no need to insist. She would join them not because she couldn’t say no, but because their conversations reminded her of her father. She’d sit down on the old blanket they’d have spread out on the ground, sticking her legs out to the side and bending them just so, and then she’d cover her knees with the edge of her topcoat and sip on the half-full tea glass of undiluted rakı that they’d offer. It was during those hours that the fishermen, so reticent during the daytime, would wax talkative; they’d discuss sea currents and schools of fish, they’d tell stories about the adventures of Ali Reis, ask Cemile Abla how she was getting on, and then, when dawn began to break, they’d get back into their boats, their minds at ease, knowing that they had done their duty and tended after the daughter of the great man who preceded them. Then they would head out into the foggy waters of the Black Sea.
Cemile Abla had one condition for the potential grooms who came to meet her. They had to meet at her home, not outside. And they had to come after dark (she had no intention of falling prey to the tongues of those pint-sized gossip mongers playing ball out in the streets), but not too late (She didn’t know yet if these new neighbors of hers were the snoopy sort or not). Sure he can come over, we’ll drink some tea and chat and get to know one another, she’d say. And then we’ll see. Having so thoroughly enjoyed their first visit, the gentlemen would want to meet a second time. By the second visit, however, they did not have to be told: It would become blatantly obvious that Cemile Abla had absolutely no intention of marrying. Disappointed and resentful, they’d go back home, and after a few days, all they would recall was the delicious cake, the tarts, and the faint smell of fish.
Luckily, Cemile Abla had so far encountered only two obstinant potentials. The first was a lawyer with a single, long eyebrow. He drank his tea warm with four heaps of sugar. For some reason he just hadn’t been able to find a proper companion and, because his heart could no longer bear his mother’s griping, he had decided to take care of the matter as swiftly as possible. After all, his mother — may she live long — was on her deathbed (as she had been for years). And so from now on he was not going to be picky; he was willing to overlook small defects. On his second visit he informed Cemile Abla that he was going to take her to kiss his mother’s hand and discuss engagement plans. An apartment in Üsküdar was ready and waiting for them; they could sell this ramshackle house with its creaking wooden planks and put the money in the bank. The three of them, mother, son, and daughter-in-law — may they live long — would come together and build a happy little nest of their own.