table-even his wife-considerately leaned back to listen to whatever his theory might be.
'This cafe is called what it is called because the word Kundera is a code. The gist of the issue is not what the name is but what the name is symptomatic of?'
'And what would that be?' asked the Nonnationalist Scenarist of Ultranationalist Movies, a short, gaunt man with a beard dyed ash gray ever since the day he concluded young women preferred mature men. He was the writer and creator of a popular TV series, Timur the Lionheart, which featured a hefty, robust national hero capable of mashing entire battalions of enemies into a bloody puree. When asked about his tacky TV show and movies, he would defend himself by arguing that he was a nationalist by profession but a true nihilist by choice. Today he showed up with another girlfriends comely, eye-catching woman but without much depth. This he didn't confess to her, but within male circles they had a specific name for shallow females like her: 'appetizers'-not the main course, of course, but good to snack on. Bolting cashews from the bowl on the table, he guffawed as he put his arm around his new girlfriend: 'Come on, tell us what that code is!'
'Boredom,' the Dipsomaniac Cartoonist said with a puff of smoke. Coils of smoke ascended from all sides as people smoked like chimneys all around, and his wispy puff lazily joined the thick, gray cloud hovering over the table.
The only one who didn't smoke at the table was the ClosetedGay Columnist. He detested the smell of smoke. Every day when he went home he immediately took off his clothes to get rid of the stinky odors of Cafe Kundera. Still, he did not object when others smoked. Neither did he stop going to the cafe. He came here regularly both because he enjoyed being part of this motley group_ and also because he was secretly attracted to the Dipsomaniac Cartoonist.
Not that the Closeted-Gay Columnist wanted to have anything physical with the cartoonist. Even the thought of him naked was enough to send shivers down his spine. This wasn't about sex, he assured himself, but about kindred spirits. Besides, there were two big obstacles that blocked his way. First, the Dipsomaniac Cartoonist was strictly heterosexual and the chances of him changing seemed slim. Second, he had a crush on that morose girl Asya a fact that everyone but she had noticed by this time.
So the Closeted-Gay Columnist did not harbor any hopes about having an affair with the Dipsomaniac Cartoonist. He just wanted to be close to him. Every now and then he felt a sudden shudder when the cartoonist, while reaching for a glass or an ashtray, accidentally touched his hand or shoulder. Still, in the itch to assure everyone that he had absolutely no interest in him, or in any man for that matter, there were times the columnist treated the cartoonist distantly, denigrating his opinions out of the blue. It was a complicated story.
'Boredom,' the Dipsomaniac Cartoonist remarked when he had knocked back his cafe latte. 'Boredom is the summary of our lives. Day after day we wallow in ennui. Why? Because we cannot abandon this rabbit hole for fear of a traumatic encounter with our own culture. Western politicians presume there is a cultural gap between Eastern Civilization and Western Civilization. If it were that simple! The real civilization gap is between the Turks and the Turks. We are a bunch of cultured urbanites surrounded by hillbillies and bumpkins on all sides. They have conquered the whole city.'
He threw the windows a sidelong look, as if afraid that a throng of folks might ram them with their clubs and cannonballs.
'The streets belong to them, the plazas belong to them, the ferries belong to them. Every open area is theirs. Perhaps in a few years this cafe will be the only place left for us. Our last liberated zone. We rush here every day to seek refuge from them. Oh yes, them! God save me from my own people!'
'You are talking poetry,' said the Exceptionally Untalented Poet. Since he was an exceptionally untalented poet, he had the habit of likening everything to poetry.
'We are stuck. We are stuck between the East and the West. Between the past and the future. On the one hand there are the secular modernists, so proud of the regime they constructed, you cannot breathe a critical word. They've got the army and half of the state on their side. On the other hand there are the conventional traditionalists, so infatuated with the Ottoman past, you cannot breathe a critical word. They've got the general public and the remaining half of the state on their side. What is left for us?'
He put the cigarette back between his pale, chapped lips, where it remained throughout his continued grievance. 'The Modernists tell us to move forward, but we have no faith in their idea of progress. The Traditionalists tell us to move backward, but we do not want to return to their ideal order either. Sandwiched between the two sides, we march two steps forward and one step backward, just like the Ottoman army band did! But we don't even play an instrument! Where can we possibly escape to? We are not even a minority. I wish we were an ethnic minority or an indigenous people under the protection of the UN Charter. Then we could have at least some basic rights. But nihilists, pessimists, and anarchists are not regarded as a minority, although we are an extinct species. Our number is lessening every day. How long can we survive?'
The question hung heavily above their heads, somewhere below the cloud of smoke. The cartoonist's wife, who was a jittery woman with full, somber eyes and too much umbrage welled inside, and who happened to be a better cartoonist than her husband but far less appreciated, gnashed her teeth, torn between picking on her partner of twelve years, as she would like to do, and supporting his frenzy no matter what, as an ideal wife would do. They sincerely disliked each other and yet all these years they both. had clutched at their marriage, she with the hope of revenge, he out of hope that it would get better. Today they spoke with words and gestures stolen from each other. Even their caricatures were analogous now. They drew deformed bodies and invented twisted dialogues involving depressed people dropped into sad and sarcastic situations.
'You know what we are? The scum of this country. A sorry soggy pulp, nothing more than that! Everyone but us is obsessed with entering the EU, making profits, buying stocks, trading up their cars, and trading up their girlfriends….'
The Nonnationalist Scenarist of Ultranationalist Movies fidgeted nervously.
'This is where Kundera enters into the picture,' the Dipsomaniac Cartoonist continued without noticing the gaffe. 'The whole idea of lightness permeates our lives in the form of a meaningless emptiness. Our existence is kitsch, a beautiful lie, which helps us to defy the reality of death and mortality. It is precisely this-'
But his words were cut off by the jingling of the bells as the door of Cafe Kundera opened with a blast and a young woman walked in, looking tired beyond her age and pissed off.
'Yo, Asya!' the scenarist yelled, as if she were the muchawaited savior who would terminate this daft conversation. 'Over here! We're here!'
Asya Kazanci offered a half smile and her forehead furrowed with an expression that said, Oh well, I can join you folks briefly, what difference does it make anyway, life sucks either way. Slowly, as if saddled with invisible sacks of inertia, she approached the table, gave everyone a toneless greeting, took a seat, and started to roll a cigarette.
'What are you doing here at this hour? Aren't you supposed to be at ballet now?' asked the Dipsomaniac Cartoonist, forgetting his soliloquy. His eyes flickered with consideration-a sign that was noticed by all but his wife.
'But that's exactly where I am: in my ballet class. And right now'-Asya stuffed the rolling paper with tobacco-'I am doing one of the most difficult jumps, meeting my calves in the air between forty-five and ninety degrees-cabriole!'
'Wow!' The cartoonist smiled.
'Then I make a turning jump,' Asya continued. 'Right foot front, demi plie, jump up!' She grabbed the leather tobacco pouch and held it in the air. 'Turn a hundred and eighty degrees'-she ordered as she rotated the pouch, sprinkling some tobacco on the table-'and land on left foot!' The pouch perched next to the bowl of cashews. 'Then repeat the whole thing one more time to go back to the starting position. Emboite!'
'Ballet is like writing poetry with your body,' muttered the Exceptionally Untalented Poet.
A sullen torpor set in. Someplace far away churned the sounds of the city, an amalgam of sirens, horns, shouts, and laughter accompanied by the squeaks of the seagulls. A few new customers came in, a few customers left. One of the waiters fell with a trayful of glasses. Another waiter fetched a broom and as he swept the glass off the floor, the customers watched nonchalantly. Here the waiters changed frequently. The working hours were long and the pay not great. Still, no waiter had resigned to this day; instead they would get themselves fired. That's how it was in the Cafe Kundera; once you stepped inside, you remained fastened to it until the place spat you out.
In the following half hour some people at Asya Kazanci's table ordered coffee, the rest ordered beer. In the second round, the former drank beer and the latter drank coffee. And so it went. Only the cartoonist stuck to cafe
