Madonna in a Fur Coat Read online

  He came to work punctually, ate lunch in his room, and in the evening he would pick up a few things at the store and head for home. I invited him to the coffee house a few times, but I couldn’t get him to come. ‘They’re waiting for me at home!’ he’d say. So he’s a happy family man, I thought, rushing home to his wife and children. Later I discovered that it wasn’t like that at all, as I shall chronicle in due course. His long years of hard work did not stop him from being despised at the office. If our friend Hamdi found the tiniest typographical error in one of Raif Efendi’s translations, he’d at once call the poor man in, and sometimes he’d come over to our room to upbraid him. With other clerks he was always more circumspect; knowing that each and every one of them owed their jobs to family connections, he had no wish to cause trouble for himself. If he allowed himself to go red in the face and rail against Raif Efendi in a voice loud enough for the entire building to hear, simply because a translation was a few hours late, it was because he knew the man would never find the courage to stand up to him – that much was easy to see. Can there be any sweeter intoxication than exerting power and authority over one of your own kind? It is, nevertheless, a rare pleasure, to be calculated with care, and enjoyed only with a particular sort of person.

  Now and again, Raif Efendi would fall ill and absent himself from the office. Most often it was a common cold that kept him at home. But a long-ago bout of pleurisy had made him exceedingly cautious. A light case of sniffles and he would shut himself away, and when he came out again, he’d be wearing many layers of vests. He’d insist on keeping all the windows in our office shut, and when evening fell, he’d wrap himself in scarves up to his ears, not leaving the office until he’d pulled the collar of his thick, worn coat as high as it would go. But even when he was ill, he did not neglect his work. A messenger would deliver to his home any documents in need of translation and collect them a few hours later. Even so, whenever Hamdi or the director gave him a talking to, they seemed to be saying, ‘And don’t forget how much mercy we show you, you snivelling child! No matter how often you call in sick, we still keep you on!’ They never lost an opportunity to throw it in his face: if the poor man came back after an absence of several days, they would, instead of wishing him well, make barbed remarks: ‘So, how’s it going? You’ve knocked this on the head at last, I hope!’

  In the meantime, I too had begun to lose patience with Raif Efendi. I did not spend much time at the office. I spent most of my time going with my bag of documents from bank to bank, or to the several government ministries whose orders we’d taken; every now and again, I’d stop by my desk to organize my documents before going through them with the director or his assistant. But even so, I’d come to despair of this tiresome blank of a man who sat so lifelessly across from me, endlessly translating, unless he was reading the German novel he’d tucked away in his drawer. He was, I thought, too timid ever to dare to explore his soul, let alone express it. He had, I thought, no more life inside him than a plant. He rolled in every morning like a machine and did his work, only stopping to read those books of his with needless caution, and then he’d buy a few things at the store and go home. As far as I could see, this numbing routine had, over many years, been interrupted only by his illnesses. According to my new friends, he had lived like this for as long as anyone could remember. No one could remember his ever getting excited about anything. Even in the face of unfounded and uncalled for accusations, he would give his superiors the same calm, blank look; when he asked a secretary to type up a translation, and later, when he thanked her for having done so, he would always do so with the same foolish smile.

  One day another translation was late, simply because the typists gave little importance to Raif Efendi’s work. Hamdi came into our room, looking very stern: ‘How much longer will we have to wait? I told you it was urgent. I told you I was about to leave. But still you haven’t translated that letter from the firm in Hungary!’

  The other, rising swiftly from his chair, cried: ‘I’ve finished my translation, sir! The ladies just haven’t found the time to type it up. They were given other work to do!’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you that this letter took priority over everything else?’

  ‘Yes, sir, and I told them that too!’

  Again, Hamdi raised his voice: ‘Instead of talking back to me, just do your job!’ On his way out, he slammed the door.

  And Raif Efendi followed him out, to go and plead with the typists once more.

  Meanwhile, I thought about Hamdi, who had not graced me with a single glance during his performance. Soon the German translator came back in, to bow his head over his desk once again. As always, his composure astounded and infuriated me. He picked up a pencil and began to scribble something on a sheet of paper. He wasn’t writing: he was drawing. But not in the unthinking manner of an angry man. I could see the hint of a self-assured smile beneath that blond moustache, and at the corners of his mouth. His hand was moving swiftly across the page. He kept narrowing his eyes, to look at it more closely. I could tell from that confident smile of his that he was pleased with what he saw. Finally, he put down his pencil, to study it more carefully, while I stared at him, unabashed. For now he was wearing an expression I had never seen before. The sort of expression that people wear only when they are grieving for someone. My surprise made me curious. I couldn’t keep still. I was just about to stand up when he rose from his chair, and went off to find the secretaries again. In one leap, I was at his desk, I reached for the page. Then I froze, bewildered.

  For here was a sketch, the size of a palm, of Hamdi. In a few masterful lines, he had captured the man’s essence. Perhaps someone else would not have seen the resemblance; perhaps, looking at it line by line, the resemblance disappeared, but for someone who had just watched Hamdi hollering in this same room, there was no mistaking him. The mouth was an unspeakably vulgar rectangle, howling with an animal rage. In the eyes – two dashes – I could see both the desire to bore a hole through the object of his fury, and the frustration of failing to do so. The nose, squashed against his cheeks, made him look even more savage … Yes, this was the man who had stormed into this room only minutes earlier, or rather, this was the likeness of his soul. But this was not what had left me stunned. Since coming to this firm, many months before, I had made a string of judgements about Hamdi. Sometimes I had tried to make excuses for him, but mostly I’d been thinking ill of him. Unable to find the old friend in the man of consequence, I could see neither. But now Raif Efendi had summed him up in just a few well-placed lines, and I could no longer see Hamdi in the same way. Despite his wild and primitive expression, there was something pitiable there too. Nowhere had I seen the line between cruelty and wretchedness so clearly drawn. It was as if I were seeing my friend of ten years for the first time.

  At the same time, and in one flash, this drawing explained Raif Efendi to me. For now I could well understand his unwavering serenity and his reluctance to form relationships. For how could a man so intimately acquainted with his surroundings, and so clear and sharp in his observations of others, ever know anger or excitement? What choice did a man like this have, in the face of small-minded attacks, but to stand firm like a rock? Our longings, our disappointments, our fits of rage – we succumb to them when something unexpected happens to us, something that seems to make no sense. Is it even possible to shock a man who is ready for anything, and who knows exactly what to expect from anyone?

  Even so, there remained something about Raif Efendi that troubled me. There were, to my mind, a number of contradictions that the sketch did not explain. The fineness of its execution was anything but amateur. It spoke of long years of practice. There was more here than an eye that could see through to the essence of things. There was also a deft hand that could record that essence in fine and elegant detail.

  The door opened. I made to return the sketch to the desk, but I was too late. As Raif Efendi crossed the room with his translation of the letter from the Hungarian fir
m, I offered my apology: ‘It’s a lovely sketch.’

  I thought he’d be taken by surprise, and be worried that I might give him away. Nothing of the sort. With his usual vague and distant smile, he took the sketch from my hand.

  ‘For a time, many years ago, I was interested in art,’ he said. ‘Every once in a while, I sketch something, just to keep my hand in … silly little things, as you can see … just to kill time …’

  Crumpling up the sketch, he tossed it into the wastepaper basket.

  ‘The secretaries typed this up very fast,’ he murmured. ‘There are probably some mistakes in it, but if I sit down now to read it through, I’ll make Hamdi Bey even angrier … And he’d be right … Best if I take it to him now.’

  With that, he left the room. I followed him with my eyes. ‘And he’d be right,’ I said under my breath. ‘And he’d be right.’

  From that day on, I took an intense interest in everything Raif Efendi did, no matter how trivial or absurd. Eager to know more about his true identity, I seized every opportunity to speak to him. He gave no indication of having noticed how much more sociable I’d become. Courteous though he was, he remained, nevertheless, aloof. While on the surface we seemed to be making friends, he never opened himself up to me. Especially after I had met his family, and saw at first hand the duties this family placed on him, I became even more curious about him. The closer I got to him, the more puzzles he threw in my path.

  It was during one of his customary illnesses that I made my first visit to his house. Hamdi was about to send off a porter with a letter that needed translating by the next day.

  ‘Give it to me,’ I said. ‘It will give me a chance to say hello.’

  ‘Good idea … And while you’re there, try and find out what’s wrong with him. He’s really stretching it this time!’

  This had, in fact, been one of his longer spells of sickness. He’d been out of the office for more than a week. One of the porters told me where to go: a house in the İsmetpaşa district. It was the middle of winter. I made my way through the streets as night began to fall, passing through narrow streets whose broken pavements seemed a world away from Ankara’s asphalt boulevards. There was one hill, one valley, after another. After a very long walk, having reached what seemed to be the edge of the city, I turned left. Entering a coffee house on the corner, I got directions to the yellow, two-storey house, which stood alone amid empty lots piled high with rocks and sand. I had been told that Raif Efendi lived on the ground floor. I rang the bell. A girl who looked to be about twelve answered the door. When I asked for her father, she pursed her lips and grimaced, somewhat theatrically.

  ‘Come in,’ she said.

  The inside of the house was not at all what I’d expected. In the hallway that seemed to have been turned into a dining room, there was a large winged table. On the side there was a glass cabinet filled with crystal glassware. On the floor was a fine Sivas carpet. From the kitchen next door, there came the aroma of food. The girl took me into the sitting room. Here, too, the furnishings were fine, even expensive. Red velvet armchairs, low walnut side tables and leaning against the far wall, an enormous radio. Fine cream-coloured lacework adorned every table, and the back of every chair. Hanging from a wall was a plaque in the shape of a ship, on which was written a prayer.

  A few minutes later, the girl returned with coffee. She was still wearing that spoiled and mocking smile. When she came again to take my cup, she said, ‘My father’s not well, sir. He can’t get out of bed. He’s invited you inside.’ As she uttered these words, she seemed to be telling me, if only with her eyes and eyebrows, that I was not worthy of this polite gesture.

  I entered the room where Raif Efendi lay in bed – to be shocked again. It bore no resemblance to the rest of the house. This small room looked more like a boarding school dormitory, or a hospital ward, with its row of white beds. A bespectacled Raif Efendi was sitting up in one of them. He struggled to greet me. I looked for a chair. The only two I could see were covered with woollen pullovers, women’s stockings and hastily discarded silk dresses. On the side was a puce-coloured wardrobe stuffed with carelessly hung dresses and suits, and knotted bags. The disorder in this room was overwhelming. On a tin tray on the bedside table was a dirty soup bowl that had clearly been sitting there since lunchtime. There was also a jug, sitting alongside a large assortment of medicines, some in bottles, others in tubes.

  ‘Sit down here, my friend!’ he said, pointing to the end of his bed.

  This I did. He was wearing a brightly coloured women’s cardigan with holes at the elbows. His head was resting against the white metal bedstead. His clothes were hanging from the other end.

  Seeing me look around the room, the head of the household felt compelled to explain: ‘I share this room with the children … They make a terrible mess of it … It’s a small house, after all, we can barely fit into it.’

  ‘Is your family quite big?’

  ‘Big enough! I have one older daughter, studying at the lycée. And also the daughter you’ve seen. And then there’s my sister-in-law and her husband, and my two brothers-in-law … we live here all together. My sister-in-law has two of her own children. We all know how hard it is to find housing in Ankara. If we lived separately, we’d never manage.

  At this point the doorbell began to ring, and from the commotion that ensued, I deduced that some other member of this family had just arrived. After a time, the door opened. In walked a portly woman aged about forty whose short hair fell over her face. She went over to Raif Efendi and whispered something into his ear. Before he could answer, she pointed in my direction.

  He introduced us. ‘A friend from the office,’ he said first. And then, ‘My life companion.’

  Turning to his wife, he said, ‘Take it out of my jacket pocket!’

  This time the woman did not lean in to speak. ‘I didn’t come for money, for goodness’ sake! Who is going to go and get the bread? Here you are, still in bed!’

  ‘Send Nurten then. It’s only a few minutes’ walk.’

  ‘Do you really expect me to send that little child to the store at this hour of the night? It’s so cold out there. What’s more, she’s a girl … And anyway, even if I asked her to go, do you think she’d listen?’

  Raif Efendi thought for a moment; then he nodded, as if he had found the solution. ‘She’ll go. She’ll go!’ he said. Then he resumed his old stare.

  After the woman had left the room, he turned to me and said, ‘Even buying bread is a problem in this house. Whenever I fall ill, they can’t find anyone else to do it!’

  Dutifully, I asked: ‘Are your brothers-in-law still young?’

  He looked at me without answering. It was almost as if he hadn’t heard me. But a few minutes later, he said, ‘No, they’re not young at all! They both have jobs. They’re clerks, like us. My brother-in-law’s sister set them up at the Ministry of Economic Affairs. They never completed their studies. Not so much as a middle school diploma between them!

  Stopping short, he asked: ‘Did you bring me something to translate?’

  ‘Yes, they need it by tomorrow. They’ll be sending a porter to collect it tomorrow morning.’

  He took the documents and put them to one side.

  ‘And I’m worried about this illness of yours.’

  ‘Thank you … It’s gone on a long time. I don’t dare get up!’

  There was a strange light in his eyes. As if he were trying to figure out if he still held my interest. I was ready to go to any lengths to convince him that he did, for this was the first time I had seen the slightest flash of passion in the man. But in no time he had resumed his old blank expression, his old empty smile.

  With a sigh, I rose.

  And suddenly, he sat up straight and took my hand. ‘Thank you so much for coming, my son!’

  There was warmth in his voice. It was almost as if he understood how I felt.

  Indeed, it was after this visit that we began to draw closer. I wouldn�
�t go so far as to say he treated me differently. It would never even cross my mind to say he was comfortable in my company, or that he began to open up. He was the same quiet, withdrawn man he’d always been. There were, in fact, evenings when we left the office together, and walked as far as his house. Sometimes I’d go inside with him, and drink coffee in the sitting room with the red chairs. But on those occasions, we would talk only about trivial matters – how expensive it was to live in Ankara, and how bad the pavements were in İsmetpaşa district. Only rarely did he mention anything about the family, or the children. From time to time, he’d say, ‘My daughter got a bad mark in arithmetic again!’ before moving on to another subject. I didn’t feel I could ask him to explain more. I had not, after all, formed a very favourable impression of his family on that first visit.

  After leaving the patient, I’d passed through the hallway, where two boys aged fifteen or sixteen were in a huddle with a girl of about the same age, and without waiting for me to turn my back, they began whispering and giggling. I knew there was nothing about my appearance to laugh about. But like the empty-headed teenagers they were, they made themselves feel important by laughing at anyone who happened to pass. Even little Nurten had to struggle to be accepted. During my subsequent visits, I saw more of the same. I was myself a young man, still in my twenty-fifth year, but I was constantly being brought up short by this new habit among people my age and younger: seeing a stranger for the first time, they’d look at him with blatant curiosity, as if they had never seen anything like him. It was clear to me that Raif Efendi’s domestic situation was not at all pleasant: they treated him as if he were expendable, and always in the way.

  Later, when I’d been coming and going for some time, I got to know these children better. And they weren’t bad people at all. Rather, they had nothing, absolutely nothing, inside. All their impertinences came from that. It was the yawning void inside them that drove them to deride, scorn and ridicule others, for this was their only source of satisfaction, their only way of knowing who they were. I’d listen to the way they talked to each other. Vedat and Cihat were the youngest clerks in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, but all they ever did was to run down everyone they worked with. When Raif Efendi’s older daughter, Necla, spoke, it was only to criticize her classmates. They were forever ridiculing others for the way they walked or the way they dressed, even though they themselves did much the same.