ROSETTA_MAGAZINE_201303

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Yekta Kopan
SLEEp TIGhT
By Yekta Kopan Turkey
(Now, I am only an echo waiting to be heard)
“You see, that’s how it is my dear father,
sometimes I am overwhelmed by depression
caused by reality.”
Oğuz Atay
(Letter to my Father)
From one angle, you haven’t died father.
You are alive through your works. The most
important works you left behind in this
world are your children: my older sister
and I.
Most of the people who say this are those
who are rather intent on forming big
sentences; the more enthusiastic about
it they are, the bigger the sentences get.
They say that your grandchildren are also
among your works. As far as I understand,
they are paying attention to genetic
continuity. I would have in fact loved to sit
down and talk to you about this; there is a
problem with my sixteenth chromosome,
father. My memory is so weak you wouldn’t
believe it.
However, there are more dialogues that
are directly concerned with your boy, me,
child; father. Following an intense clearing
of one’s throat, in a traditional tone of
voice, they say I will be the one to keep
your memory alive from now on. I’ll tell you
in advance so you don’t feel disappointed
later... It’s not possible for me to keep
your memory alive. I do not believe in the
carnies that rub my back and tell me you
are not dead. I believe in what I can see.
I threw handfuls of soil on you; I cried
bellowing as I looked at your cerement;
father, you died.
They told me you died on the phone. A
voice I never knew... How strange it is that
someone who randomly entered our lives,
you know the care worker we contracted
for you with whom you talked about real
estate prices and whom you forced to
comprehend football... You know the care
worker whom you cursed at and dismissed
when your pain kicked in, whom you flirted
with when the painkiller spread into your
body and eased you. The tall woman whose
eye colour appealed to you but whom you
still thought charged too much. You know
the care worker... She was the one who
called me. I shivered in that moment father,
I truly shivered.
I was naked in that moment. I was bucknaked.
You’ll laugh at that – or perhaps I expect
you to laugh – but that’s the truth. I was
getting ready to hop in the shower. I had
meant to go by Eminönü and get lost in
the old city on that Saturday morning. I
thought I would take some photos, go to
the Spice Bazaar and look at the household
appliances, both useful and not, displayed
all along the shop windows just because
you like them. Knives that slice potatoes in
one swoop of the blade into finger-shaped
sticks; battery-operated tweezers that
pluck nostril hair in a split second; bloodpressure
monitors and pedometers that
beep as you walk appeared before my eyes
and I recalled you with every sight of such
sort. I recalled how you said, “Not long left
now son, I’ll be over this soon,” and
I found peace in your voice. As the doctor’s
words went in one ear and out the other
I felt happy hearing the fake hopes that
came from you without questioning how I
comfortably placed reliance on them.
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Father, I felt so happy that I would converse
with the vendor at length and eat Şam
dessert telling him, “My father also loves
this, that’s why I am eating it.” My throat
would become treacly, my breath would be
knotted. Father, my breath always became
knotted...
Eminönü is a photograph of your
pertinacity towards vendors, I and the
world in the photo album of my childhood.
Whenever you insisted my breath would
become knotted and I could never tell you
but I hated the words you chose when you
insisted.
You remember, sometimes you stayed
in your underpants in the house and
my mother would start to nag? I always
wanted her to grouch more and to put you
to shame. Father, when I was a child and
averted my eyes from you I always had
very bad thoughts. What’s worse is I never
regretted it. I hated your white underpants.
So that morning, that Saturday morning,
just before the tall care worker woman
called me, I was sitting about in the house
buck-naked, without underpants, as if I
wanted to copy all those bad thoughts onto
my body.
I was going to wash. The water was hot. I
was naked when on that Saturday morning
a voice I didn’t know told me that you’d
died.