A Useless Man Read online

  Copyright © Sait Faik Abasınayık

  English translation copyright © Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe, 2014

  Copyright © Darüşafaka Cemiyeti & Yapı Kredi Culture, Arts and Publishing, Inc, 2002

  Copyright © Kalem Literary Agency

  First Archipelago Books Edition, 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Archipelago Books

  232 3rd Street #A111

  Brooklyn, NY 11215

  www.archipelagobooks.org

  Distributed by Random House

  www.randomhouse.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Sait Faik, 1906-1954.

  [Short stories. Selections. English]

  A useless man : selected stories / Sait Faik Abasiyanik;

  translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe. –

  First Archipelago Books edition.

  pages cm

  Includes bibliographical references.

  ISBN 978-0-914671-08-4 (alk. paper)

  I. Sait Faik, 1906-1954–Translations into English. I. Freely, Maureen,

  1952- translator. II. Dawe, Alexander, translator. III. Title.

  PL248.S288A2 2014

  894′.3533–dc23 2014030520

  Cover art: Abidin Dino

  Archipelago gratefully acknowledges the generous support from the Turkish Cultural Foundation, the American Turkish Society, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism through the TEDA Program, Lannan Foundation, NYC’s Department of Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

  v3.1

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  The Samovar

  My Father’s Second House

  The Silk Handkerchief

  The Bocha

  Wedding Night

  The Barges

  Nightwork

  Who Cares?

  On Spoon Island

  The Hairspring

  A Useless Man

  Papaz Efendi

  Valley of the Violets

  The Story of a Külhanbey

  The Little Coffeehouse

  I Just Don’t Know Why I Keep Doing These Things

  Milk

  Fire Tongs and a Chair on a Winter’s Night

  A Story about Springtime

  Sinağrit Baba

  Four Plusses

  Carnations and Tomato Juice

  By the Beyazit Fountain

  Rage: A Human Habit

  from A Cloud in the Sky

  The Last Birds

  Barba Antimos

  A Serpent in Alemdağ

  Dolapdere

  Yani Usta

  Death of the Dülger

  I Can’t Go into Town

  The Boy on the Tünel

  His Uncle’s Coat

  Kalinikta

  In the Rain

  Loneliness

  Translators’ Afterword

  Glossary

  The Samovar

  “That’s the morning call to prayer, my son. Wake up or you’ll be late for work.”

  Ali had finally found a job. He’d been going to the factory for a week. His mother was happy. She knelt down on her prayer rug and said her prayers. Entering her son’s room with the Supreme Being in her heart, and seeing his dream rippling along his smooth face and long, supple form – a parade of machines, electric batteries, and light bulbs, a purr of oiled metal and diesel motors – she’d been reluctant to rouse him. Ali was as flushed and damp as if he’d just come home from work.

  As it rose out of the mist, the chimney of the Halıcıoğlu factory seemed to crane its neck, like a rooster. How proud it looked as it gazed out at the first glimmers of dawn on the shores of Kağıthane. Any moment now, they’d hear the whistle.

  At last Ali woke up. He embraced his mother. He pulled his quilt over his head, as he did every morning, leaving his feet unprotected. His mother bent down to tickle them. Her son jumped up, and when she fell back onto the bed with him, giggling like a girl, she could count herself as happy. There weren’t many who could say that. Was it not the very modesty of their existence that lit their souls? What could a mother wish from a child, or a child from a mother, if not happiness? Arm in arm, they went into the dining room. It smelled like toasted bread. How beautifully the samovar was bubbling. It put Ali in mind of a factory where there were no strikes, no accidents, no sorrows. A factory that brought forth only fragrant steam and the joy of morning.

  Ali loved the samovar, and he loved the salep kettle that stood outside the factory. He loved the sounds: the Halıcıoğlu Military Academy’s trumpet and the factory whistle which went on for so long it could be heard the length and breadth of the Golden Horn. First they would awaken the flames of desire in him, and then they would put them out. That is to say, Ali was a bit of a poet. And while an electrician working in a big mill has as much space for poetry as the Golden Horn has for transatlantic liners, well – Mehmet, Hasan and I – we’re all a bit like Ali. In each of our hearts, a lion sleeps.

  Ali kissed his mother’s hand. Then he licked his lips as if he’d tasted something sweet. His mother smiled. Every time he kissed her he would pass his tongue over his lips in exactly the same way. In the little garden outside, there was sweet basil growing in pots. Ali picked a few leaves and rubbed them in his palms, breathing in their fragrance as he stepped out into the street.

  The morning was cool. Mist swirled over the Golden Horn. Ali’s friends were waiting by the rowboats at the pier. All four were strong young men like him. Together they crossed over to Halıcıoğlu.

  Ali has fire in him today, and joy, and fervor, and it will all go into his work. But he’ll take care not to outshine his friends. For them he’ll be honest, he’ll take care not to show off. Otherwise he’d be putting on airs. His boss was once the only electrician in Istanbul. A German. He had taken a shine to Ali. He’d taught him all the tricks of the trade. If Ali had gained the respect of those who were just as able as he, it was because he was so agile, so fast, so playful and so young.

  By evening he could go home happy, knowing that he was just the sort of friend his friends most needed, and just the sort of worker the bosses most trusted.

  After embracing his mother, he was off to the coffeehouse across the street to see his friends. He played a hand of whist and then moved on to watch a game of backgammon. Then he headed home, to find his mother performing her evening prayers. And he knelt down beside her, like he always did. He turned a somersault over her prayer rug. He stuck out his tongue. When at last he had succeeded in making her laugh, she sat up to greet him.

  “Ali, my darling, it’s a sin!” she said. “My boy, it’s a sin, so you mustn’t!”

  And Ali replied, “God will forgive us, Mother.”

  And then in a soft and innocent voice, he asked, “Doesn’t God ever laugh?”

  After supper, Ali curled up with a Nat Pinkerton novel and his mother went back to knitting him a sweater. And then they laid out their bedding, heavy with the scent of lavender, and drifted off to sleep.

  Ali’s mother woke him up at the morning call to prayer.

  How beautifully the samovar was boiling in the room that smelled of toasted bread. It put Ali in mind of a factory where there were no strikes, no accidents, no sorrows. A factory that brought forth only fragrant steam and the happiness of morning.

  Death came to Ali’s mother with a guest’s soft footsteps. It settled into the shadows, like a pious neighbor bending over to pray. In the morning she had made her son tea and by evening she had prepare
d two pots of food. Then, tugging at the edge of her heart, she felt an ache; hurrying up the stairs in her evening muslins, she could feel her worn body going soft, and moist, and limp.

  One morning, when Ali was still asleep, she was standing over the samovar when all at once she fainted. She fell into a nearby chair. She fell, oh, she fell.

  It was some time before Ali began to ask himself why his mother hadn’t come to wake him up. Only then did he realize how late it was. The windowpanes had muffled the sharp, shrill blast of the factory whistle: it came to Ali’s ears as if through a sponge. He jumped out of bed. At the door to the dining room, he stopped. He gazed at his dead mother, her hands flat on the table, as if asleep. And that was what he thought at first, that she must be asleep. Softly, he walked over to her. He took her by the shoulders. It was when he put his lips against her already cold cheeks that the first shiver went through him.

  When we are confronted with death, we become great actors. Great actors, nothing more.

  He threw his arms around her. He carried her to his bed. He pulled the quilt over her, tried to warm her body, which had already grown so cold. He tried to breathe life into her lifeless form. Later, giving up, he laid her out on the sofa in the corner. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t cry that day. His eyes burned and burned, but not a single tear. He looked at himself in the mirror. At the moment of his greatest sadness, could he not be granted a face other than the one he saw staring back at him? It was the face of a man who had lost no more than a night of sleep.

  All of sudden, Ali longed to grow thin, go gray, all of a sudden he longed to double over in agonizing pain as his face withered away. Then he looked again at the body. It didn’t frighten him at all.

  On the contrary: her face was as tender and kind as before. Her eyes were half open; with a firm hand he closed them. He ran out into the street. He told the old woman who lived next door. The neighbors came running into the house. He headed for the factory. By the time he boarded the caique that would take him across the Golden Horn, he seemed at peace with her death.

  They’d slept side by side under the same quilt, shoulder to shoulder. In death they were just as close. In the same way death had come to his gentle mother, it left; with a guest’s soft footsteps, it carried away her compassion and her warmth. She was just a little cold. We have nothing to fear, he thought. She was just a little cold. That was all.

  For days, Ali paced the empty rooms of the house. He spent his evenings sitting in the darkness. He listened to the night. He thought about his mother. But he couldn’t cry.

  One morning they came face to face in the front room. How bright and peaceful this empty vessel looked, sitting there on the oilskin tablecloth, flashing copper sunlight. Picking it up by the handles, Ali moved it to a place where he couldn’t see it. He collapsed into a chair. The tears came now, like silent rain. And the samovar never boiled in that house again.

  From then on, Ali’s life revolved around the salep kettle.

  In Istanbul winters are harsher along the shores of the Golden Horn; the fog is denser. As they make their way to work in the early morning, over broken pavements and frozen clods of mud, the city’s teachers and drovers and butchers and even the occasional student will often stop off for a few minutes outside the factory to lean against its great wall and sip salep sprinkled with cinnamon and ginger.

  They cradle their glasses of salep, these rheumy fair-haired workers, these teachers and drovers and butchers and impoverished students. The steam passes through their woolen gloves, to warm their grateful hands. They lean against the great wall, dreaming of rebellion and steaming like mournful copper samovars, as they sip the salep that will later warm their dreams.

  My Father’s Second House

  I had no idea why we went to that village house that day, to find a meal of duck, bulgur and semolina helva waiting for us in the kitchen. As I stand lonely and forlorn at this hotel window, watching the trams pass below, I still cannot say what it was that prompted our quiet evening visit to this village house, where we seemed to be expected.

  In the neighboring village, they had already called the evening prayers. We’d watered our horses. Ever since leaving the city, my father had been in a foul mood. Everything seemed to bother him – the cloudy skies, the dusty roads and ditches. One word from me and we would have turned around, to race back through that quiet borough at a full gallop, the street dogs barking in our wake. Once we were home, with our horses safe in their stable, my father would have gone off to the town teahouse, and I to my room. To say nothing seemed to hold more promise. I kept the frown on my face, too. When my horse stumbled – only once or twice – I could see the wind ruffling my father’s eyelashes. He didn’t even blink. Had our eyes met like this on any other day, he would have mocked me with a fixed, false smile. His own horse never stumbled. When we reached that village house, there was a boy waiting for us. He was as delicate as lace. He took charge of our horses. Thinking that I was admiring the carnation he’d fastened to his cap, he offered it to me. Whereas I’d been looking at his eyes, which made me think of wet hay, and his face, which was the same color. Who knows, maybe he gave me the carnation because he knew he could never offer me the rest. Just then, my father turned his back. First I sniffed the carnation. Then, after I’d placed it between my cap and my ear, I saw my father looking back at me. He wasn’t smiling. But he wasn’t frowning, either. His face was without expression. He was oddly calm. I could have taken offense, it seems to me. I fixed my eyes on a male turkey. How big it looked in the half-light, with its featherless red neck. This creature must be very strong, I thought.

  “Come on now, you fool,” said my father under his breath.

  The boy set off slowly with the horses, leaving us to enter the house.

  We were met at the door by the sharp scent of hay and a faint hint of dung. Stepping toward the churn, we got a strong whiff of ripe yoghurt. We ascended a small staircase. And there, on a wooden balcony that looked like a pulpit or the sort of stage that a preacher might use for a public address on a national holiday, we found an old woman praying. My father paused on the fifth step, and I stopped two steps behind. We had taken our shoes off at the door; walking through the house in our woolen socks, we made no noise, I now realized. When this woman finished her prayers and stood up, she would suddenly find herself face-to-face with my father. When she saw his enormous shadow looming over her in the twilight, she would, I thought, scream loud enough to bring the whole village running. Nothing like that happened. Because we were standing on her right, she saw us as soon as she rose to finish her prayer. What I noticed first were the old woman’s lips. As she stood there, blinking calmly, I looked at her eyes. Then I noticed the prominent bones in her temples. As she turned to the other side, my heart began to race, race like the wind. If only I had been close enough to smell her headscarf. It was made of that fine white muslin. The same as my grandmother’s. The face she turned toward us now was soft and motherly. Gesturing at the door opposite with the same tenderness, she said:

  “Ömer Ağa! Fatma’s waiting for you inside.”

  And my father said, “Of course! And how are you? You’re looking well, Granny.”

  The woman nodded; we went across to the room opposite. Here we found a young woman. She was singing a folk song to the night. When she saw us she rose with a smile.

  In this room was the aroma of overripe fruit. In the light of the gas lamp, the red in the pattern of the Kocaeli kilim seemed to bubble, like some odd sort of jam.

  With each new twist in this strange journey of ours, I became more curious, I was alert to every detail; but now my father turned to me and said:

  “So, my son. You can go outside now. You can help Emin. And make sure the horses urinate before you put them in the stable.”

  The horses had urinated and were safe in their stables. They’d been given dry hay. Emin was still at the stable door. He was stripping a branch with a penknife. I went to sit next to him. H
e didn’t look up. Thinking I might say something about the branch he was whittling, I noticed the anger in his hands. My eyes on the branch, I asked:

  “What tree is that from?”

  He didn’t answer right away. He had cut his finger. He licked the wound for some time with his pink tongue that was as sharp and pointed as a cat’s. Then he opened his cherry colored lips.

  “It’s from a dogwood,” he said.

  The conversation ended there. This fresh-faced child was as warm as a summer evening at the water’s edge, and yet he seemed to regret our first moment of intimacy. A rough female voice called to us from the house. We went inside to eat roast duck, bulgur and semolina helva at a low wooden table. The towels were made from a thick cloth. There were wooden spoons. They had set out forks for my father and me. Not long ago, they informed us, there had been a strange and terrifying game of hide and seek with some wild boars in the cornfields, in the light of the moon. A pig had attacked a child the same age as Emin, splitting his stomach in two. The old woman told us the whole story, very slowly, naming the neighbors who owned the pasture where the incident occurred, naming the child, naming the hunters, one by one. My father wore an expression that told me he knew all these people. Emin kept looking at me. It was just us three at the table with the old woman. The young woman served us. Only when she put the pans on the table could I see the henna on her hands. We ate on the balcony where we’d found the old woman praying. After supper we went up to the top floor of the house, to a room with a stove. After he had lit this stove, Emin kneeled down on a black sheepskin rug. A moment later, he lay down on it and stretched himself out. The rug was just a little too short for him.

  The old woman was half asleep on the cushions. I was lying next to her. My hand was in hers. Sleep passed through her hand into mine like a yellow sickness, closing my eyes. I could feel her submission, and her suffering, as I pried my hand free. I found a new place for myself, a bit further away from her, and closer to Emin.