The Art of Loving a Tangerine Peel
Between Fındıkzade and Çapa bus stops, which I passed by countless times, I treaded through days more bitter than a paper cut. The scent of quince lingered around, refusing to leave me for days on end. I saw you for the first time when the street sweeper Hakkı, parked next to you with his handcrafted trash cart, threw rubbles into the garbage truck, lingering with the hope of a conversation.
In defiance of those who were hurried by the urgency of the minute and hour hands, you had imprisoned your time inside a snail's shell. You must have been so engrossed in reviving the remnants of past time left behind by the snail amidst the sounds of ambulances that you didn't notice me. Anyway, I said to myself, I won't bother, I'll come another time.
Two days later, I came to you during the evening call to prayer. The call to prayer, without waiting for the tram to pass, wove its way through the distracted people on the street and the car wipers, threading through the hopes of the child on the corner, gathering the scattered scent of tangerines, and arrived beside us in a breeze. I read hundreds of books, searching for just one word to say to you in that moment, but found none. You understood. “Wait a moment,” you said, gently raising your head, “When the elders speak, all creatures fall silent.” So, I fell silent too, settling six steps away on the staircase you called home, and began to listen with you.
The mosque stood diagonally across from us; its dome filled with the voice of the muezzin. On one side, a bank; on the other, a liquor store. “If people are loveless, the streets fill with banks.” said a delicate poet. May he rest in peace, for heartache filled my heart to the tip of my tongue. I couldn't hold it in, nor let it out. And then, my heart broke. I couldn't bear it any longer and stood up, leaving you there as the muezzin began with “La ilahe…” Later, I grew angry with own my heart.
It didn't take long for me to come by your side more often, of course. Conversations with you were always beautiful. Lately, your Kangal, who shared meals and troubles with you, and declared himself your protector, would accompany me every day to the tram stop, growling at every man passing by, which would always make you laugh so much. You had such a beautiful laughter. You loved so beautifully.
Remember how Barış Manço said, he who doesn't love beautifully isn't a person? You loved that half-peeled tangerine in your hand so beautifully that one day I exclaimed, “Forget about giving me fish, leave catching fish to the regulars on Galata Bridge. Teach me how to love tangerine peels.” It smelled of linden.
“To love tangerine peels is like embracing. When they embrace each other, a second heart appears in people. Right on their right side,” you said.
My heart twisted inside me. A rusty thud echoed from my left side to my right. You heard it too, I know. If you hadn't, the ghosts of memories wouldn't come visiting, and you would gladly open your door to my ghosts as well, I know this too.
You whispered, “Explaining it to someone cheapens it, doesn't it? What do you expect from them, to ease that pain?” You tried to convince yourself and me, didn't you? Or perhaps you just wanted to evoke Leyla Erbil. Whichever it was, Of course I don't expect them to ease that pain. Just listening is enough. Those that weigh on the mind, bring tears to the eyes, knot in the throat, and settle in the heart, when they try to fit into the confines of words, they diminish until all those pains turn into birds. I am turning into a bird, is what I wanted to say. I didn't say it. It didn't come from within me. I was already deceiving myself enough.
You fell silent too. Our conversation, insulated from human voices and car horns for a while, gave way to silence, and all those sounds were reborn in a cacophony. The linden tree behind us, as it loaded its scent onto the wind, didn't hesitate to offer us a bit of its fragrance. After a while, as if it were inevitable to say it, you murmured, “A heart burdened with the weight of conscience becomes talkative. When a person cannot say 'I love you,' they end up placing their entire past in someone else's hands. Choose those hands wisely.”
That day, an untimely spring day, after those words, gently relinquishing to the wind in memory of those tiny green existences, you departed from my side, accepting life as it is. But I couldn't accept it, you see; accepting that this was our final meeting was too difficult.
The next day, I found the paper you placed a tangerine on to keep it from flying away. Among a plethora of memories, you left behind just one line of yourself:
The heart, exiled from people, now beats within a bundle. It's best to remain silent.
After you, I dreamed of exiling one from consciousness for ages. Your presence visited me less frequently. Isn't pain merely a memory after all, waiting to be erased?