“Has this room changed much?”
I looked at Anfi. A new expression had appeared in her eyes. I didn’t know what to make of it. It was like a moment of decision.
“It’s the same as far as I can recall.”
“Can you say what’s on the windowsill without even looking?”
I hadn’t even glanced in that direction since I first walked in. But I knew.
“A small coal-heated iron, a dark blue kerosene lamp, a miniature icon of Virgin Mary, and one of the Virgin Mary with Jesus. Let’s see... a small box with a blue bow, and inside of it—”
“You were always the one with the best memory. A kind of blessing. Now tell me, what’s in that box?”
“Yani’s hair.”
“You left him to the vultures. They didn’t find him for two days. His eyes, ears, nose, fingertips were all eaten away. Two days. It could have been five, or ten.”
I thought of saying something like, Hair holds up really well though, but then decided to keep it to myself.
“It was the barber from the next street over who dumped that glass into the hole. Everybody knew. A car drove by and scattered a bunch of stones, that’s how it broke. It was a big deal. Nobody forgets a window glass that size.”
“Anfi, is that why you invited us here? To talk about these things? It was an accident. I regret it. And I’m sure Avram and Kevork do too. It happened a long time ago.”
“We’ll have another coffee, won’t we?”
I looked at my watch. Quarter to 9. Anfi had said that Kevork and Avram would be here at 9. I had been looking forward to seeing them and rehashing the past, but now I wasn’t so sure. The idea of topping off the night in a meyhane still beckoned, though.
Google knew us, indeed. Avram was the producer of a popular television show in Canada. He lived in Ottawa. He was the honorary president of a gay club called The Diamond Gator. Kevork had studied interior design. He had lived in New York for several years before moving to Rome. He had his own studio. It seemed he’d made it big time. I had learned all of this within fifteen minutes, just after Anfi first called me a week ago.
“Let’s have our coffee. Come to the kitchen.”
I followed her with a resignation similar to the one I used to have when pulling down my pants in anticipation of a big, thick needle.
I was surprised when I saw the same beaded curtain still hanging at the kitchen door after all those years. It let out a surreal tone as Anfi passed through it. She had done her best to freeze everything as it had been forty years ago, but she couldn’t help the modern kitchen appliances: an electric kettle, a new oven, an electric lighter.
Anfi put water, sugar, and coffee in a cezve, which she then placed on the stove. Both of us were having our coffee with lots of sugar. As she stirred it in silence, I ran my hand over the curtain of beads. My senses perceived in its sound a cryptic message. Had I forgotten something? This thing that was happening, was it a moment of the past, lodged somewhere in my memory, thrashing, struggling to right itself in the present? A sliver, a shard, a splinter of a memory? When, after several seconds, the revelation failed to appear, I removed my hand.
“I replaced it twice. Fortunately those things became touristy, so they’re not hard to find.”
Though still relatively large, the kitchen felt smaller than it had in my childhood. I took a step inside and saw the black-and-white photograph hanging on the left wall. It was in a wooden frame, protected by glass. I knew it well, because my mother, too, had had a copy of the same photo. Four of the five women in the picture were grinning at the camera, with babies in their arms and several older children standing in front of them. March 1951, Tatavla. Barely two months old, I was the youngest of them all; Avram and Kevork were six months old. Yani was looking at the photographer from the bosom of his mother, wide-eyed. How new to the world we were.
“So, your mother died two years ago, huh? I remember when she moved to join her siblings in İzmir, after your father passed away. To think that was twenty years ago! She was a helpful person, very sincere, from the heart. She made a mean fava. Reminds me of those fava bean festivals, haven’t thought of those in a while. You never did care much for fava beans... So why didn’t you have any children? Your mother so desperately wanted a grandchild, as you know.”
“That’s just the way things happened. Monique, my wife, had two miscarriages. And then we never... And now we’re divorced...”
Anfi nodded sympathetically. “There aren’t many of us left from that photograph. Avram’s mother Rosa died five years ago. You remember the woman next to her, right? Rachel. She was so young when she died, the poor thing. From a brain hemorrhage. She just collapsed in the street. On Papaz Street. She was coming back from a visit to her cousin. Kevork’s mother was as healthy as a horse. You should have seen how she used to hike up Tatavla slope at that age of hers. And then she died too, of pneumonia. About three years ago. Maybe even four now. And those two boys, I forget their names. That blond one, and the one with those sparkling eyes...”
“Metin and Kirkor.”
“Right. They went into business together. Import, export. They kept it up for quite some time. Business was good. They stayed in Kurtuluş, in luxury apartments built on the old gardens. They had a two-story shop in Valide Çeşme. They always remained true to their roots. Their money evaporated during the crisis of ’99, though, so they took a third partner. Turns out the guy was connected with the mafia, and he killed both of them. In Bodrum. In public. In broad daylight. That girl to the right in front of Rachel married a Spaniard. I heard that she drowned somewhere near Barcelona. I didn’t know her family very well. She was just a girl next door who showed up whenever there was a camera around. Anyway, that’s fate for you.”
Our eyes met, and I waited for her to go on. The ill-fated girl’s name was Semra. She always gave us gum when we were little. She didn’t have a father, and her mother was always passing out. It was from her that I first heard the word vagina. I decided not to mention that just then. Anfi silently continued stirring the liquid, which was building to a bubbly cream at the top.
That unforgettable Sunday a black Buick had driven through the puddles and splashed mud on us. Our clothes were ruined. But Yani remained spotless. He just stood there with a grin on his face; he was holding a purple plastic water gun he’d won in a scratch-off a few minutes earlier. A single five-kuruş scratch-off and he of course got the biggest prize. Meanwhile, we’d emptied our pockets and won nothing but a few stale candy bars.
That was Yani for you. When my hand pushed him, it was on behalf of all of us. It was an act of envy. After all, he’d just fall in, make a face, and then come chasing after us with that water gun, right?