Dying is Easier than Loving, page 48
They never brought the subject up this again, but Ragıp Bey asked some officers he knew and learned that Efronia’s husband had been well liked by his colleagues and his men and that he was a truly courageous officer. In a strange way this increased Efronia’s esteem in Ragıp Bey’s eyes.
When he was alone he thought about Dilara Hanım, now when he was bored he put his coat over his shoulders and walked in the garden, the aching within him had not eased, but when Efronia came he forgot his troubles and his past.
One day as Efronia was changing his bandages she said, “Your wound is closing.”
“You’ll be returning to your unit soon, colonel.”
Ragıp Bey didn’t say anything.
“The war is over.”
Then Efronia paused and added,
“And I’m not going to worry about you . . . And anyway I’ll be going back to my own hospital soon . . . The wounded are being discharged one by one . . . We’ll be able to relax until these crazy soldiers start killing each other again.”
Ragıp Bey couldn’t control the excitement in his voice.
“When are you going?”
“Don’t worry, colonel, I won’t go until you’re discharged.”
Then Efronia smiled.
“Were you sad that I was going to leave?”
That evening as darkness fell a light rain began, Ragıp Bey opened the windows, outside there was a smell that told of the coming of spring, the rain fell with a soft whisper, he felt a strangeness that surprised him but he couldn’t figure out what it was, for a moment he thought it might have to do with the weather getting warmer, later he felt that some things were rolling within him, some things were getting mixed up, some things were changing form, that confusion lasted a minute or two and then a reality that surprised him was reflected brightly in his mind. He missed Efronia. He was waiting for her to come.
The feeling that came after that was even more surprising. He felt a deep anguish not because he missed Dilara Hanım but because he missed Efronia . . . Even though it had caused him pain for so long he wanted this yearning to continue, he wanted the pain to continue. He was weary of his own emotions, he’d struggled to escape himself, but now just when he was about to be free he was saddened by the prospect of freedom. Beneath the thick shell of his anguish, his soul had struggled to change itself without letting him know, it was only after he’d changed that it revealed itself. As Ragıp Bey realized later, “Sometimes the pain you suffer for one person prepares you for another person.”
He’d long since accepted that he would never see Dilara Hanım again, but as long as he missed Dilara Hanım the relationship continued, at least in his mind, he’d become accustomed to this relationship, this yearning, this pain, all of these emotions had become an important part of his life, he’d lived with these emotions for a long time. Now realizing that he missed another woman was like a real parting for him, it was a moment like the scab of a wound coming off, the wound was closing, but it hurt Ragıp Bey that this wound he was so accustomed to was closing.
This parting in his mind, this breaking away, caused him so much pain that he suddenly wanted to go to Dilara Hanım, to see her, to hold on to this pain. He knew that if he didn’t go that very moment he would never see Dilara Hanım again, that he would part from her in that hospital room, and this shook him deeply.
Osman, watching him writhe in his hospital room, looked on with an air of condescension towards humanity’s misery, as these miserable creatures live they have no idea what the future is preparing for them, they think that the moment they’re in is endless, they don’t know how life is playing with them, how amused it is by them. At that time Ragıp Bey didn’t know about the terrible events he would live through with Efronia, or how he would meet Dilara Hanım again in a time of darkness, he had decided that he would certainly never see Dilara Hanım again.
Ragıp Bey had no idea about the future or about what meeting Efronia, who would soon enter his room, would bring to his life, he was leaning out the window smoking a cigarette, feeling the deep melancholy of the moment when he could see with an almost lucid clarity that he was breaking away from the past and becoming attached to the future. He could also sense that this melancholy was temporary and that the delight concealed beneath it would emerge into the open and grow stronger by the day.
Suddenly he heard Efronia’s cheerful voice.
“What’s this, colonel, you haven’t even turned on the lights . . . Here you are moodily smoking in the dark . . . Are you sad that you’re going to leave the hospital?”
Ragıp Bey quickly turned towards her.
“I was just lost in thought . . .”
Efronia turned on the lights in the room.
“Spring is coming, colonel . . . I could smell it in the garden just now . . .”
“Yes.”
Efronia could hear the strangeness in Ragıp Bey’s voice and suddenly became serious.
“Are you alright? . . . Do you have pain anywhere? Or did you do something to your wound, did your wound open again?”
“No, no, I’m fine . . .”
“So what’s the matter with you then, colonel?”
“There’s nothing the matter with me, I just got lost in thought as I was smoking a cigarette . . .”
“Come on, come on . . . You’re such a liar, colonel, I realized that from the very first day . . . Come on, tell me why you’re upset, you’re upset because you won’t see me again . . . He suddenly felt melancholy because he’s not going to see Efronia again . . . What can we do, colonel, that’s life . . . You meet people, then you go your separate ways.”
“Perhaps we’ll see each other again . . .”
“Where would we see each other . . . If you think that I’m going to join your unit just so I can see you, you’re very much mistaken, let me tell you . . .”
Ragıp Bey looked at Efronia without saying anything.
“Put on your coat, let’s go out into the garden,” said Efronia, “there’s a very lovely spring rain . . . We can sit in the pergola for a while.”
They went out into the garden together without speaking, there was a fresh smell, the smell of the rain had blended with the smell of the earth and of the trees that were coming back to life.
They sat next to each other on the wooden bench. Efronia suddenly shivered and wrapped her black cape around her. The pale light from the hospital that filtered through the dry vines that had not yet come back to life struck her face, illuminating her eyes and her lips and leaving the rest of her face in darkness.
There was a strange melancholy in her eyes and a lively cheerfulness in the curve of her lips, it was as if her eyes and her lips belonged to two different faces, it might not have been so noticeable if her entire face could be seen, but seeing them separately like this, the two separate emotions could be seen quite clearly.
After they’d sat in silence for a time, Efronia realized that she was going to have to take matters in hand.
“Yes, colonel . . .”
“Are we going to see each other again?”
“If you want to see me again you’re going to have to say so openly, you’re not going to see me by asking questions whose meaning is so vague.”
Ragıp Bey liked it when Efronia spoke like this, the way she was always in command of the situation, this combination of authority and a cheerfulness whose source he couldn’t determine. He couldn’t keep himself from smiling.
“You mean it won’t happen unless I say something . . .”
“No, it won’t.”
“What am I supposed to say?”
“Say whatever you want to say.”
“Fine . . . I’d like to see you.”
“Holy Mother of God, it took a lot for you to say that . . . Was it that difficult for you to say this?”
“No it wasn’t . . . So, how are we going to see each other?”
“I looked at your papers, you’re going to be going back to Çatalca . . . I’ll come to Çatalca, we’ll find a place to stay nearby . . . And anyway when you come to Istanbul it will be easy for us to see each other.”
Ragıp Bey couldn’t contain himself.
“What will people say?”
Efronia took Ragıp Bey’s hand between both of hers.
“I don’t even care what people say . . . I’ve paid my dues to both people and God . . . I’ve been through hell, no one can make me live through anything worse . . . If you care about what people say you can just go and leave me right now.”
“And if I do go?” Ragıp Bey asked with a laugh.
“Then I’ll break every finger on your enormous hand one by one.”
Ragıp Bey laughed so loud that his laughter echoed throughout the hospital garden. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d laughed so fully.
“You can be scary.”
“Yes . . . If you knew how scared you should be you would have fled a long time ago.”
Efronia nestled against Ragıp Bey, she was very soft.
“Tomorrow morning when you’re discharged from the hospital, leave your belongings with me . . . The following morning you can go from there to the vicinity of Çatalca . . . After you’ve left your things, let’s go to Kağıthane . . . Spring is coming . . . We’ll wander around a bit . . . It’s been years since I’ve been anywhere . . . I’m not even sure if Kağıthane is still there . . . You can stay the night with me, I’ll cook for you . . . You’ll see what kind of cooks Armenian women are.”
Ragıp Bey couldn’t contain himself.
“What about the neighbors?”
“You weren’t afraid of the Bulgarian army but you’re afraid of my neighbors? The courage of heroes is a bit strange . . .”
“I was thinking of you.”
“Don’t you worry about me . . . I’ll be fine.”
“Fine . . .”
They listened in silence to the sound of the rain on the leaves.
“I’m glad the war is over,” said Efronia softly, “I wouldn’t have been able to send you to war.”
“I’m not supposed to worry about you but you’re going to worry about me?”
Efronia’s voice sounded very anguished.
“You’re a man, men don’t know how to protect themselves . . .”
Ragıp Bey’s voice changed, perhaps for the first time since he’d met Efronia he was speaking with his true voice, his true identity.
“I’ll protect myself, Efronia . . . I’ll protect you too . . . There’s no need for you to fear anything . . . Anything.”
“I won’t be afraid.”
Ragıp Bey noticed that her voice sounded strange and he turned and looked.
Efronia was crying.
“Why are you crying?”
“I’m just being silly, I’ll get over it . . . Don’t look at me . . . Women cry from time to time, did you know that, colonel? We occasionally cry to make you look more courageous and heroic, to make you look sterner . . . Just a little favor . . .”
Ragıp Bey could see Efronia’s eyes in the light that filtered through the vines, they were still wet, the moisture made them seem large and clear.
Efronia wiped her eyes.
“That’s enough . . . Don’t worry, colonel, I don’t cry often . . . Just once in a while.”
She was quiet for a moment, then she stood.
“Stand up, colonel, you’re still the hospital’s property, I’m in charge of you, I can’t let you get cold.”
Ragıp Bey stood as well.
When they went into the hospital, Efronia asked in her usual cheerful manner,
“Are you going to be able to find your room on your own, colonel?”
Ragıp Bey laughed.
“I imagine I’ll find it.”
When he got to his room he sat on the bed. He lit a cigarette. He opened the drawer next to him. He took out the letters and looked at them for a long time as if he didn’t know what to do.
Then he got up slowly and put the letters carefully in the pocket of the jacket that was hanging on the wall.
31
At almost exactly the same time, at Dilara Hanım’s mansion in Nişantaşı not very far from the French Hospital, another conversation about “the war has ended” was taking place. As Monsieur Lausanne said, “When it begins, as it continues and when it ends, war possesses the power to change people’s lives,” the lives it had changed as it began were going to be changed again as it finished.
On account of that spooky web of intelligence gathering particular to women, Dilara Hanım had learned that Ragıp Bey had been wounded and was being treated in the French Hospital, when she first heard this she thought he was going to die and it occurred to her to rush to the hospital right away, but when she learned that the wound wasn’t deadly she decided to wait.
What she was waiting for was a little note that said, “Come.”
For nights she fantasized about this, she’d even decided what she was going to wear when she went to the hospital, she’d set those clothes aside in a different part of her closet so she could get dressed and go right away if he should suddenly summon her.
That note never arrived.
She observed Ragıp Bey’s slow recovery with both hope and disappointment. She was aware of Efronia’s existence but she couldn’t quite figure out if there was anything going on between the nurse and Ragıp Bey, when she learned that she was a nurse who took close interest in her patients she thought that it might be a nurse-patient relationship.
All of the emotions that were thought to make love what it is were present, yearning, desire, jealousy, but there was also another emotion that could damage even the greatest love; the desire to be independent.
On the one hand she wanted to be with Ragıp Bey for the rest of her life without ever parting from him, on the other hand she knew that a relationship like this would kill her soul and her independence and leave a bitter taste in her mouth. If she hadn’t had that desire for independence, Dilara Hanım would have gone to the hospital and “taken” Ragıp Bey, the reason she didn’t make a move despite her great desire to do so was this duality within her.
If Ragıp Bey had summoned her or come to see her, she might have given up on her desire for independence, but that desire wasn’t going to go away on its own.
“I never understood why they think this is a feeling particular only to men,” she said to Osman, “this is a feeling that everyone has, some feel it more, some feel it less, like all feelings it was distributed to people in different amounts. I got a larger share, a part of me is happy about this, another part of me thinks that it was a curse.”
That evening she greeted Monsieur Lausanne with some disquiet, she knew what he was going to say to her.
Monsieur Lausanne said what she’d expected him to say in the middle of dinner.
“The war is over, madame.”
“I know . . . You sound as if this makes you sad.”
“You can appreciate better than I that every event reverberates in people’s lives in a different manner . . . Of course it’s good that the war ended, young lives will be saved, fewer will die . . . But it carries a very different meaning for me . . . I have to return to my country . . . My ship sails tomorrow morning.”
Monsieur Lausanne paused and waited for Dilara Hanım to say something. Dilara Hanım didn’t say anything.
“Sometimes you can be merciless, madame.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Do you know that your silence is deadly?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I know what I want you to say to me, you know as well . . . The question of interest here is what you want to say . . . In fact your silence says it all . . . But, oh, this ridiculous hope . . . Lovers and poets never lose hope . . . Isn’t hope the reason they spend their lives with knives in their backs and somehow can’t take those knives out?”
Lausanne paused and smiled.
“That was a somewhat dramatic way to put it, madame, I’m aware of that . . . But to tell the truth one is disturbed by the mortification of hanging on to a hope . . . At least it disturbs me. I’m not like that. I’m not one of those people who hang their lives on the hook of hope . . . Perhaps this is a professional habit, I like life and people to be open and clear.”
“Women as well?”
“Especially women . . .”
“Have you met many women who are open and clear?”
“Madame, you mock me.”
Dilara Hanım suddenly became serious.
“No, I’m not mocking you, Stephan, sometimes a person can’t be open and clear, because feelings aren’t open and clear like that, you know this better than I do . . . The human soul is not an item of news or an event, a single murderer isn’t always guilty of a murder . . . What can I say to you? Yes, I enjoy you being in Istanbul, seeing you, talking to you, laughing at your jokes, listening to what you have to say . . . If you were to have remained in Istanbul I would have been very pleased, when you leave I will be truly saddened . . . But is all of this enough to make me ask you to stay? I don’t think so . . . And you don’t think you need to learn my thoughts before deciding whether to stay or go . . . If you’d found that it was enough you would have stayed without asking me . . . But you’re asking . . . Because this isn’t enough for you either . . . The reason you can’t stay without asking is the same reason I can’t ask you to stay . . .”
When Dilara Hanım finished speaking, there was a silence, they both became pensive, again it was Dilara Hanım who broke the silence.
