The Time of Mute Swans by Ece Temelkuran

Author:Ece Temelkuran
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Published: 2017-09-27T04:00:00+00:00

Beware the Enemy Within

Grandma’s whole face is crying. When she sits on the edge of the hot marble stone, her boobs fall to her knees. We have cloths wrapped around our waists; Grandma, me, Jale Hanım, and Feride Abla. Sometimes a drop of water lands on Grandma’s head, but she doesn’t know. The ceiling is so high and round, and it drips water on Grandma.

There’s a lady, real skinny, with black hair and brown skin. She has a special cloth for scrubbing. She gets the women all foamy, gets them to scream: “Ohhh! Ohhh!” When they’re washed and scrubbed clean, she wraps them in cloth and has them sit on the edge of a white bench made of stone, so they’re all lined up in a row, like dolls. When the dark lady walks, her wooden clogs go takka da takka da. She has a cloth wrapped around her head, and it’s tied in a butterfly on the tippy top. Her skin hangs off her legs, that’s how skinny she is. Her face is hiding behind her wrinkles. That’s because she works in a hamam and “sweats buckets.”

When you go “ooh” and “ahhh” in the hamam, the wet walls and the high dome and the slippy slidey floor all talk to each other. Maybe that’s why Grandma is so quiet. She doesn’t want noise. Her eyes are dry, but water comes running out of all the tiny lines on her face. Everyone’s talking and laughing, but Grandma sits there, her head to one side, like a quiet bird. I’m playing with the water. I scoop it out of a basin with a copper bowl and pour it over my toes, a little at a time. Now my feet are as white as the stone Grandma’s sitting on. And wrinkly, too. I think my big toenail looks like a TV.

Jale Hanım brought stuffed vine leaves and baskets of fruit and other “goodies.” They’re eating and laughing. The dark lady turns Jale Hanım over and over, scrubbing her head to toe with a cloth.

“They kidnapped Bobby last week. I wonder who did it?”

“Jale Hanım, our whole country has turned into Dallas. Never mind what’s happening in Texas!”

“You’re right. Our country’s become a regular Çıfıt market.”

“Do you know what ‘Çıfıt’ means, Jale Hanım?”

“How am I supposed to know? It’s just an expression.”

“‘Çıfıt’ means ‘Jewish.’”

“You’re kidding!”

“No, really. It’s an old word for Jewish. And did you know that this place, Şengül Hamam, used to be in a Jewish neighborhood?”

“There were Jews in Ankara? I thought that sort of thing only happens in Istanbul: Armenians and Greeks and what have you.”

“There are still Jews here, too. But the Christians are gone. I wonder where they went? Maybe their ghosts still wander around.”

“You’re creeping me out! Don’t talk like that. We’ve got enough dead on our hands as it is. Don’t go and conjure up ghosts.”

“They say the spirits of the dead pile up, layer after layer, right below us, like a big ball of wool.”

“We’re in a hamam, for goodness sake.

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