The Backstreets by Perhat Tursun

Author:Perhat Tursun
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: LCO004000, LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Asian / General, FIC019000, FICTION / Literary
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2022-09-13T00:00:00+00:00

Just then I passed over a dim line on the road with my left foot and immediately, a feeling of threat welled up inside me. I quickened my steps, wanting to find another line to pass over with my right foot. But it suddenly seemed as though there were no lines anywhere on the road. What was the line I had crossed with my left foot? I looked back and not only the lines but everything seemed to have disappeared in the fog. It felt like the bottom had dropped out and as though I wasn’t coming from the other end of the street but rather from infinite nothingness.

I looked for the numbers in front of other people’s doors, standing there for a long time without anyone talking to me. I felt guilty for standing there without permission. I couldn’t get over this guilt because it felt as if I were looking furtively at their nakedness. Since this place was a road, no one had any right to object if someone were standing there for a long time. I said this to myself, trying to banish the fear in my heart and steel my resolve. I just couldn’t get over these worries. There was no common-sense rule about whether someone stands there or not, but the purpose of the road was not that of standing, but rather directly related to walking. In any case, everyone knows that each part of the road belongs to the families whose houses face it. For us, if you speak about the “front door” of a home, it is clear that you are referring to the owner of the home. If you don’t include the owner’s name, the door doesn’t really exist in reality—it becomes an abstract concept.

I stopped in front of a creaky wooden door whose slates were falling apart. The color of the door was probably blue, but since it was so old, it had faded to a light gray color. I suppose it could have been green before, because once upon a time people thought that green was an indication of spring and fertility. They thought that this desire might become true in reality through artifice—so people painted their doors and window frames green, one after another. But a painted thing had no relationship with the crops. If green remains in the fields, it does indicate spring and fertility, but if other things remain green, they signify death and decay. To me this sort of green door seemed to have given in to death and interior decay and thus become very blue. Were I to jump through it, I felt like I would be entering into a time of savagery.

The number on the door was written in two different ways. One was quite faded and seemed to have been written a long time before, while the other was painted with a kind of flawed paint that distorted the original shape of the numbers. Thus it was very difficult to read both of them.

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