Translation Review - The University of Texas at Dallas

Buenanoche had noticed how a certain soothing
atmosphere reigned over the Academy. Perhaps only those
who felt settled inwardly and reconciled to sorrow could
exist here, she thought. She had always felt lost in places
where she didnʼt see people raging in a warped, passionate
quest to be transformed — where she didnʼt hear crowds
screaming in a desperate, painful struggle. She thought
she should tell the director that this garden perpetuated the
notion of an alternative way of life and was too removed
from the world.
As she put her thoughts into words, Buenanocheʼs eyes
were seeking everywhere — on the hill slopes, in the trees
waving in the wind, on the roofs of the workshops, and in
the glow from the sea and the clouds — for the bird in the
book the director had given her. The picture had left her
spellbound. It was mentioned in the diary she found among
the documents, in unforgettable words: Skycrow — who
had appeared one spring day, and then vanished.
When the heavily laden rainclouds shadowing the
bright scene of the sea, the valley, the garden, and the
blossoming almond trees broke at last with a deafening
crash, Buenanoche shut herself up in the library of the
Academy and settled down to study the archives. The
growing emptiness she felt — of things that would forever
be unknown, standing alone in their own light — became
more painful.
During their cheerful companionship, the young
director told Buenanoche that ever since he had taken the
offi ce two years ago, he had been searching for the lost
documents about the beginnings of the Academy. On the
day she left Gümüşlük, she remembered this and her heart
shivered. As she sped ever farther away, leaving behind
mountains and plains, she again became aware, bitterly
now, of how the boundaries of her soul, her being, had
melted away. Later on, however, seeking relief from the
painful twitches that presaged her return to city life, she
was struck by a thought that relaxed her and freed her from
her shuttered feelings.
A while after she returned home, Buenanoche sent two
letters to the director. They had been written at different
times but folded together and mailed in the same envelope.
In the fi rst letter, vibrant with feelings from her recent visit
there, she spoke of pain, the quest for beauty, and a book
she had just started reading. In the shorter second letter,
she related her impressions of two periodicals published by
the Academy: Winter Discussions and The Task of Living.
She believed that the ideas they expressed would remain
meaningless as long as their imprint was not felt on the
fl esh.
Finally, Buenanoche sent a third letter, informing the
director that it was she who possessed the lost documents
from the early years of the Academy. While still a child,
she had come across the papers in a wooden chest.
Secretly, every day, she would run through them. What had
impressed her most back then was how love and confl ict
had crept into the letters and diary. Among the letters lay
one that left its fateful mark on her because it forced her
to think about meaning. It had been written by her mother
but never mailed. Her motherʼs recent death had left her
shaken, and being invited to the Academy had revived her
feelings about the chest.
“Iʼve come to realize that you have as much right to
these papers as I. Iʼve kept them in memory of my mother,
who lived with your grandfather for some time before I was
born, in the wooden house on the grounds of the Academy.
Some of the photographs Iʼll be sending you were taken
while that house — a structure of such unadorned beauty
that it wrenches the heart — was being built. Expressing
a simplicity that defi es time, this wooden house is, in my
view, the most beautiful one in the garden — standing off
in a corner, heedless of the metal-roofed stone houses and
buildings with glistening glass walls.
“The afternoon discussions we had in that house meant
something altogether different to me. I was thrilled as I
looked out the windows and imagined that the same crows
still fl ew over the same hill. Iʼm sure you can guess how
I felt. Your grandfather made the chest and the wooden
fi gures in it. Itʼs a comfort to think that they will be kept
safe in the Academy museum.
“From the letters, Iʼve gathered that your grandfather
was a sensitive and irritable man. Seeing you work late
in the deep silence of the Academy library, I felt that you
had inherited your grandfatherʼs passionate temperament
and his gift for imaginative work, just as I inherited my
motherʼs passion for holding onto memories. I felt even
more deeply moved when I saw that you had revived the
energy workshop set up by your grandfather, which had
been closed for so many years.
“My fi rst full study was on action words. I had just
then started thinking about energy and discovered that our
inadequate knowledge of it blocked our perception in any
number of ways. Your courage in changing the course of
your life impresses me deeply.
“Your grandfather and my mother disagreed on what to
do when the Academy faced the threat of closure. While he
adopted an attitude much like Galileoʼs, my mother was all
for open struggle. Apparently, it was these differences that
40 Translation Review