The Old Woman -
Article Written by Engin Akyurek
(English by Engin Akyurek Universal Fans Club.)
Valor has been lost whence guns were invented (1). Encyclopedias have gone away like flying coupons when Google was founded. Our search engines (i.e encyclopedias) that we got for 180 coupons (2) began to turn yellow inside cardboard boxes. Our decorative information sources (i.e. encyclopedias) left our living rooms and abandoned us. The information we had on our phones started stinking like the Maltepe Dump in our hands. That is, the curved blade (or a scimitar) in its holster shall rust.
Rising clouds of dust, a car had passed by us. Hakan, telling the expensive price tag of the car with his always smiling face, had said "Look at the car; it is a diesel car." It was nice to have nothing to talk while going to school. The road was dusty, our shoes were the ones bought for Bayram celebrations. Talking about cars while walking had tarmacked our dusty roads. If you want me to describe the roads that we walked, there were empty lots between some buildings. An empty lot meant a ball, a game. Hakan and I had looked at each other. Our stares were like the stares of the two people who wanted to kick a ball. He had already crossed the ball with his stares and at the same time, throwing his bag aside, he had run towards the lot as if he was expecting me to score a goal. Metin, Ali, Feyyaz (3) meant scoring a goal. I had run to the lot right after him to play soccer.
Turning my tie, which looked like a sewing pinhead, into a captain band by tying it around my biceps, I had passed the ball to Hakan. Our sweaty armpits and neck had created an adolescent tension. In our second period, our geography teacher could tell countries' geography by looking at our faces. Hakan could turn into African deserts with his sweaty face, and I could be the most reddish parts of the world atlas. We hadn't known with whom we were playing soccer; everybody was excited to kick the plastic ball passed to them. It was as if we weren't playing soccer but throwing a javelin.
We were happy and we had the physical comfort of not attending the first period. And this easy manner was not related to our first period being a Physics class. It was the dirt field equivalent of the pleasure of ditching the school. And another truth was that passing ball to each other could become as official as a certificate of residence since we were from the same neighborhood. Kicks to my trousers were the seal of the kids from other neighborhoods. I had rolled myself over to bottom of the wall when I sweat bullets after all those running and kicking. I was like I was making a rosary with the drops falling from my nose to my mouth using my tongue. I was so thirsty that I hadn't even realized the old woman who approached me. When a person gets thirsty, the life gets silent as well.
"Son..." she said. When I raised my head, I saw a person with two compassionate eyes and an old body looking at me.
"Yes, ma'am," I said.
"Son, please don't think that I am a beggar."
Her telling me that she wasn't a beggar was actually kind of a homing pigeon (an indication) of how she would want something. The old woman's husband had passed away last year and her useless son had spent all her retirement income. She had ended up in the poorhouse and had even needed help of a little kid like me sweating bullets. The things which the old woman told me had created tsunamis on my thirsty tongue. I had gotten sad, which proved that one could get sad when one was thirsty.
The old woman had wanted money for her medicine. I was a student and my lunch money couldn't even create a placebo effect let alone afford her medicine.
I had yelled "Hakan!" When Hakan raised his head and saw us, he had understood the situation and come next to me right away. The old woman had also told Hakan her story, finding the strength from me, without getting tired or being embarrassed. As if our sweaty faces weren't enough, our eyes had gotten sweaty, too, because of what she told us. Were we too sentimental or had the old woman created a "Kemalettin Tucu (4) scene" in our minds? Hakan and I had caught each other's eyes again. This time, I had thrown a glance at him. We had to help the old woman; at least, we should buy her medicine. I had already forgotten my thirst. My sweat cooled my body down and created a colder weather. Hakan and l were throwing stares each other's way to find out what we could do but we couldn't score in this single-goal post soccer game that we played with our eyes. Hakan, taking my arm, had said "You, go get your penny bank, and I will bring the money that my brother hid." I guess, what he said had created a "Robin Hood" effect, I said "Ok." There was a problem, though. The first period was a physics class and my mother had kept my penny bank in the living room which was the most central part of the house. Hakan's smiling face, with a seriousness that wasn't expected from him, as if he already solved the problem, had said "We tell our parents that we forgot our homework. That way, you can get your penny bank, and I can get my brother's hidden money." Why couldn't I think such a simple plan? A jealous conceit as a result of not being able to solve simple things had visited my body for a couple of seconds.
"Ma'am, you wait here, we will be back," I had said. The old woman, letting her old body sit on a rock, had stared at us with a look that she could wait forever.
The old woman's last look had greased our heels and we had run to our homes. I had brought my penny bank and Hakan had stolen his brother's money. Would we be up to no-good in the future, too, by stealing our children's money? While we were going back, Hakan had have a new idea. Our neighbor Sister Nesrin was a nurse who worked at the community clinic at the next street. We would take the old lady to the clinic and have her treated. This was Hakan's day but I had have the idea of exchanging coins for bills and putting them into an envelope. We had gone to the clinic, taking the old woman who was waiting for us. The old woman who obeyed whatever we told was the youngest voice of our conscience.
While Hakan was talking to Sister Nesrin, I had put the money into the envelope that we purchased from an office supply store and given the envelope to the old woman. The old lady had been moved to tears and broken my penny bank once again. Hakan, sticking his head out of the clinic's window, had said "Come, come!" The clinic looked like a World War II postcard with babies crying and children infected with mumps waiting in line.
Sister Nesrin had told us there was a long queue and therefore we had to wait a little. She hadn't forgotten to ask why we weren't in the school, either. When we got out of the clinic, we couldn't see the old lady in the garden. We had checked the restroom, the corridor, even the field in which I sweated bullets. We had thought that the old lady was embarrassed and therefore didn't want to be hurt. We were bad kids. We had embarrassed her. We were inconsiderate kids who stole money from our siblings; who were penny bank robbers of today and real bank robbers of the future.
I want to stop my writing here and tell you something. I can hear that you call us idiots. I know that this is not a story worth telling today. Are we wiser today? The curved blade in its holster shall rust.
The next day, we had told our story to our class mates. I don't know if it was because we didn't have much to do, everybody had been interested in the old woman's story. Hakan and I had stopped by the dirt field every day in the hope of seeing her there. We both had missed the old lady. If we could find the old lady, we had many friends who wanted to help and who could steal from their parents. Even our teachers in the school had wanted to help.
After all these years, the simplicity of this story and our life experience were the proof of how that old lady fooled two adolescents. Our experience, our sufferings, our happiness had stolen the innocence of this story and labeled us as idiots. The wiser we had gotten, the more foolish we had become and our experience had retired our conscience.
While we were going to school, we had always stopped by the dirt field. The rock that the old woman sat had been like the shrine of Geyikli Baba (5). It is true that, calling our classmates, we organized a mystic travel to that rock. We were the helpful thieves pointed at during breaks.
Every story needs some time to end. We had stumbled across the old woman whom we looked for in another neighborhood after months. We had whooped when we saw her. We had finally found her. We had questions for the old woman. Had she bought her medicine? What had happened to her retirement salary and her useless son? The old woman who saw our happiness could run away if her feet had allowed her. We had said "Where were you ma'am?" The old lady gaped at us and couldn't say anything. Hakan, relaxing his smiling face, had told everything. And I had asked her if she took her medicine. The meaning of the old lady's stare and surprise was an information that was valid today. I don't even want to talk about how her face looked like when I told her that the principal would help her. From the principal to the neighborhood artisans, everybody knew her story. Even our neighborhood's young men had a plan to beat her useless son. The story had been exaggerated and changed his useless son to a drunk who beat his mother. Creativity and gossip knew no limits in such kind of situations.
The old lady was keeping quiet and was not answering our questions. Thinking that she was embarrassed, we were answering our own questions. We were like the candidates of candidate in municipal elections. We were going to buy chairs for the old lady even though we didn't have a credit card.
The old lady tidying up her headscarf which completely covered her hair had said only a single sentence:
"Son, where do you live?"
Ah, the old lady!
Edited by SaraFatma - 8 years ago
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