He had it all stored in his memory, every verse of it.
At the end of the specified verses, the imam halted for a split second or two, swallowing the taste left behind in his mouth from all those sacrosanct words. Then he started reciting again. It was precisely this undulating rhythm that touched the female mourners' hearts; none of them understood a word of Arabic. Even when they broke down and sobbed, the women were always careful not to cry loud enough to overpower the imam's voice. Never did they weep too softly either, by no means forgetting, not even for a moment, that this place they were all jammed in was an oliievi.
Next to the imam, in the second most respected place, sat PetiteMa, her diminutive body looking like a dry prune left in the sun, shrunk and wrinkled. Every newcomer kissed her hand and expressed their condolences, but it was hard to know if she really heard them. For the most part, to every one who kissed her hand, Petite-Ma eyed them in return. But now and again, to this guest or that, she responded with a set of questions. 'Who are you, my dear?' she inquired of relatives or lifelong friends. 'Where have you been all this time?' 'Don't go anywhere, you naughty girl!' she scolded complete strangers. And then, in between her remarkable silences and silencing remarks, her face retreated into complete blankness and she blinked in furtive panic. At those moments she failed to grasp why all these people were here in their living room and why they cried so much.
The divan was still; the women were in constant motion. The divan was white; the women wore mostly black. The divan was soundless; the women were all voice-as if doing the exact opposite of the dead was a requisite of living. In a little while, each and every woman jumped to her feet and bowed her head obediently. Their faces alert with grief and reverence but also nosiness, they watched the crippled imam leave the room. As she walked him outside, Auntie Banu kissed his hands and thanked him many times, after which she tipped him.
As soon as the imam left, a piercing shriek ripped the air apart. It was emitted by a chubby woman nobody had ever seen before. Her cry escalated in piercing decibels, and in next to no time her face was crimson, her voice grating, and her whole body shaking. So miserable was her state and so palpable her pain that the others watched her in awe. The woman was a performer, paid beforehand to come and cry at the house of the dead, wailing for people she'd not even seen once. Her wail was so touching that the other women couldn't help but break down.
Thus finding herself surrounded by a swarm of mourning strangers (even her mother looked like a stranger at this point), Armanoush Tchakhmakhchian watched the swirl of women shift and part. In complete harmony and unfaltering shifts, guests exchanged seats with newcomers. Like birds of a feather they perched on the armchairs, the couch, and the floor cushions, so close that their shoulders touched. They wordlessly greeted and stridently cried; all these women who could be so quiet on their own yet so loud when they grieved collectively. By now Armanoush had detected some of the rules of the rite of mourning: There was no more cooking in the house, for instance. Instead, every guest came with a tray of food; the kitchen was jammed with casseroles and saucepans. There was no salt, no meat, no liquor in sight, and no appetizing smells of baked goods. Just like smells, sounds too were controlled. Music was not allowed; no TV, no radio. Thinking of Johnny Cash, Armanoush looked around for Asya.
She spotted her sitting on the couch with a bunch of neighbors, her head held high, distractedly tugging at a curl while looking at the dead body. Just when she was going to make a move toward her, Armanoush saw Auntie Zeliha sit next to her daughter, and with an unreadable expression say something into her ear.
So there was the dead body, lying on the divan.
And among a group of ceaselessly wailing and weeping women, Asya was sitting quietly, the color draining from her face.
'I don't believe you,' Asya said without looking directly at her mother.
'You don't have to,' Auntie Zeliha muttered. 'But I finally realized, I owed you an explanation. And if I don't make it now, there will be no other time. He's dead.'
Asya slowly rose to her feet and looked at the body. She looked hard and intently so as not to forget that this body washed with green daphne soap and wrapped in a three-piece cotton shroud, this body now lying motionless under a blade of steel and two coins of darkened silver, this body given holy water from Mecca and scented with sandalwood incense, was her father.
Her uncle… her father… her uncle… her father….
She lifted her gaze and combed the room until she saw Auntie Zeliha, now sitting at the back with an unresponsiveness that even freshly cut onions could not touch. As Asya gaped at her mother, it dawned on her why she hadn't objected to her daughter calling her 'auntie.'
Her aunt… her mother… her aunt… her mother….
Asya took a step toward her dead father. One step and then another, closer. The smoke intensified in tandem. Somewhere in the room Rose wailed in pain. So did all the women in an endless chain. All were interconnected in a sequence of reaction and rhythm, each and every story woven into those of others, whether their owners recognized it or not. There was a lull in every wailor perhaps, in every communal grief there was someone who could not mourn with others.
'Baba..' Asya murmured.In the beginning there was the word, says Islam, preceding any and every existence. Be that as it may, with her father it was just the opposite. In the beginning was the absence of the word, preceding existence.
Once there was; once there wasn't.
A long, long time ago, in a land not so far away, when the sieve was inside the straw, the donkey was the town crier, and the camel was the barber… when I was older than my father so that I rocked his cradle upon hearing his cry… when the world was upside down and time was a cycle that turned around and around so that the future was older than the past and the past was as pristine as newly sowed fields…
Once there was; once there wasn't. God's creatures were as plentiful as grains and talking too much was a sin, for you could tell what you shouldn't remember and you could remember what you shouldn't tell.
Potassium cyanide is a colorless compound, the salt of potassium and hydrogen cyanide. It looks like sugar and is highly soluble in water. Unlike some other toxic compounds it has a noticeable smell.
It smells like almonds. Bitter almonds.
Should a bowl of ashure be decorated with pomegranate seeds and drops of potassium cyanide, it would be hard to detect the presence of the latter for almonds are among the many ingredients.
'What have you done, master?' Mr. Bitter croaked as he broke into a sulky grin, as was expected of him. 'You intervened in the way of the world!'
Auntie Banu tightened her lips. 'I did,' she said, tears running down her cheeks. 'True, I gave him the ashure, but he is the one who chose to eat it. We both decided it was better this way, far more dignified than to survive with the burden of the past. It was better than not to do anything with this knowledge. Allah will never forgive me. I am ostracized forever from the world of the virtuous. I will never go to heaven. I will be thrown directly into the flames of hell. But Allah knows there is little regret in my heart.'
'Perhaps purgatory will be your abode forever.' Mrs. Sweet tried to offer some solace, feeling helpless as she witnessed the master cry. 'How about the Armenian girl? Are you going to tell her about her grandmother's secret?'
'I can't. It is too much. Besides, she wouldn't believe me.'
'Life is coincidence, master.' It was Mr. Bitter again.
'I cannot tell her the story. But I will give her this.' Auntie Banu opened a drawer and took out a golden pomegranate brooch with seeds of rubies buried inside.
Grandma Shushan, once the owner of this brooch, was one of those expatriate souls destined to adopt one name after another, only to abandon each at every new stage of her life. Born as Shushan Stamboulian, she then became Shermin 626. Next she was Shermin Kazanci, and after that, Shushan Tchakhmakhchian. With every name acquired something was also lost in her forever.
Riza Selim Kazanci was a shrewd businessman, a dedicated citizen, and also a good husband in his own way. He had been astute enough to switch from cauldron making to flag making at the beginning of the Republican era, right at a time when the nation needed more and more flags to adorn the entire motherland. That is how he became one of the wealthiest businessmen in Istanbul. His visit to the orphanage took place sometime around then, as he intended to see the headmaster for potential business arrangements. There in the dimly lit corridor, he saw a converted Armenian girl, only fourteen. It wouldn't take him long to find out she was the niece of the man he most adored in this world: master Levon-the man who had taught him the art of cauldron making and who had taken care
