"Why me?" Auntie Zeliha asked while forcing herself to consider the possibility. "Why don't you choose my eldest sister? Banu will be more than happy to learn the secret. I am the last person you should teach magic to."
"This has nothing to do with magic. The Qur'an forbids us to practice magic!" Petite-Ma retorted, looking slightly affronted. "You are the right person. You have the determination and spirit and fury."
"Fury? But what do you need fury for? I could have been the perfect candidate if this were about hurling obscenities at obnoxious people, but I doubt I would be of any use when it comes to helping others." Auntie Zeliha broke into a grin.
"Do not underestimate the good in you," Petite-Ma replied.
It was then that Auntie Zeliha unleashed a remark to end the subject once and for all. "I am not the right person for this task. I might be a confused agnostic, but at least I've got the balls to stay one!"
"Wash your mouth out with soap!" Grandma Gulsum flashed a scowl, overhearing the discussion.
But Auntie Zeliha entirely avoided the subject after that. Half of her family was staunchly secularist Kemalist, the other half, practicing Muslim. While the two sides constantly conflicted but also managed to coexist under the same roof, paranormality, crosscutting ideological divisions, was deemed to be as normal in their lives as consuming bread and water on a daily basis. This being the general framework, Auntie Zeliha, for her part, had chosen to spurn both sides equally.
Consequently, after all these years, Petite-Ma remained the one and only lead pourer in the Kazanci domicile. Lately she felt obliged to stop the practice, however, when one day she found herself with a blazing hot pan of melted lead that she didn't know what to do with. "Why are you handing me a boiling pan?" she asked in visible panic. They had gently taken the pan from her and, ever since then, never entrusted her withh the task. But now that the topic had come up once again, all heads turned toward the old woman to see if she was following the conversation.
Being the object of all the attention at the breakfast table, PetiteMa raised her head and looked curiously back at her family, while continuing to chew loudly on a piece of sucuk. She gulped down her bite, belched, and just when she seemed to be slipping off into her own world once again, shocked everyone with the clarity of her memory.
"Asya, my dear, I will pour lead for you and crack whatever evil eye might have clustered around you."
"Thank you, Petite-Ma." Asya smiled.
When Asya was a young girl, Petite-Ma had on a regular basis poured melted lead to ward off the evil eye around her. The truth is, given the weedy toddler that she once was, Asya seemed in need of a little boost at the onset of her mortal life. For some reason she used to frequently trip over and fall down, face-first, cutting her bottom lip each time. Suspecting the evil eye, instead of the toddler's yet unbalanced steps, they would hand her to Petite-Ma.
At first the ceremony had been a fun game for Asya, amusing and exciting, and also somewhat gratifying since she was flattered to be at the center of so much attention. She remembered taking great pleasure in every paranormal feat as a child, back when she was still young enough to have faith, not necessarily in magic, but in her family's ability to command destiny. She used to enjoy every detail of the rituaclass="underline" sitting cross-legged on the prettiest rug in the house while a blanket would be stretched above her head, feeling protected and well hidden inside this peculiar tent, listening to the prayers uttered from all sides, and finally, that sizzling sound, like a shriek, the sound of Petite-Ma pouring melted lead into a pan full of water, as she kept repeating: "Elemtereft~ kem gozlere ~i~. Goz edenin gozune kizgin fi~. "
The lead would quickly solidify into ever-changing shapes. If there happened to be some evil eye in the vicinity, there would always materialize a hole in the lead in the shape of an eye. To this day Asya didn't remember an occasion where there wasn't one.
When all had been said and done, even though Asya had grown up watching Auntie Banu read coffee cups and Petite-Ma ward off the evil eye, she had eventually inherited her mother's skeptical agnosticism. She had deduced that it all boiled down to a matter of rendition. If you were looking for purple unicorns, it wouldn't take you long to start seeing them everywhere. In a similar vein, if there ever was a rapport between divinatory material-be it coffee cups or poured lead-and the process of interpretation, it ran no deeper than that between the desert and a desert moon. Though the latter needed the former as background scenery, it undoubtedly had an autonomous existence of its own. A desert moon existed outside the desert. Likewise, what the human eye saw in a piece of gray lead could not be reduced to the shape that materialized there. If you looked long and devotedly enough, you could even come across a purple unicorn there.
But despite her lingering disbelief, now that Petite-Ma remembered the routine, Asya did not intend to object. Her affection for Petite-Ma was too profound to turn the offer down. "All right." She shrugged. She was also confident that the old woman would probably forget the issue in a matter of minutes. "After breakfast you will pour lead for me, like in the old days."
The door of the bathroom downstairs opened just then and Armanoush joined them, looking sleepless and worn out, despondency showing in her beautiful eyes. This was a different Armanoush, barely connected with the world around her and somehow older. She walked in slowly and cautiously.
"We are very sorry for the loss of your grandma," Auntie Zeliha said after a brief silence. "You have our most heartfelt condolences."
"Thank you," Armanoush replied, avoiding everyone's eyes. She grabbed an empty chair and sat between Asya and Auntie Banu. Asya poured tea into her glass, while Auntie Banu served her eggs and cheese and homemade apricot marmalade. They also gave her the eighth simit, not having broken the habit of buying eight simits from a street vendor every Sunday morning.
Yet Armanoush looked at the food indifferently. She stirred her tea distractedly for a few seconds, and then turned to Auntie Zeliha and asked, "Can I come to the airport with you to pick up my mother?"
"Sure, we will go there together," Auntie Zeliha said, and translated her words to the rest.
"I am coming too," Grandma Gulsum interjected.
"Okay, Mom, we'll all go there together," Auntie Zeliha said.
Asya blurted out: "I am coming too."
"No, miss, you stay here," Auntie Zeliha responded with a tone of finality. "You stay and have your lead poured."
Asya stared at her as if to say: What the hell was that? Why was she left out? If there ever was any degree of democracy and freedom of speech in this house, it was reserved for everyone but her. When it came to matters about her, the domestic regime automatically metamorphosed into sheer totalitarianism. Asya sighed with a look that bordered on despair. Then, without knowing why, but somehow goaded by a sudden urge to put pepper in her food, she grabbed the ceramic shakers. A fleeting uncertainty crossed her face as she dismissed the ugly snowman and grabbed the ugly snowwoman, and with that, sprinkled way too much salt on the last bites of her scrambled egg.
During the rest of the breakfast Asya remained remote and reserved. Watching her from aside, Auntie Banu rose to her feet after a while and asked, her voice sopping with compassion, "Why don't you and I go out shopping, sweetheart? We can leave after breakfast and be back in two hours. It'll be fun!"
"But first-" Auntie Banu perked up in midsentenc e-" come and help me in the kitchen to dole out the ashore."
Asya nodded her head in surrender. What the hell? she thought. What the hell…?
The kitchen smelled like a popular diner might on a busy weekend afternoon. The scent of cinnamon pungently outweighed all others. Asya took a scoop and started to dole out ashore from a huge pot into small glass bowls, one and a half scoops in each. She wondered why Auntie Zeliha didn't want to take her along to the airport. There certainly was room in the car. It crossed her mind that perhaps Auntie Zeliha was trying to keep her away from the visitors. Asya had noticed that her mother was not thrilled with the news of Mustafa's return after twenty years.