We're Happy

1

WRITING a letter came much harder to Turgut than lying pure and simple. He looked down, past his breath condensing in the cold, and shifted his thighs where the bedstead was already digging its iron edge into their undersides through the thin mattress shiny with dirt. He nibbled the wood away from his pencil lead – when were the English going to take up click-click plastic propelling pencils? - and hunched over the paper again.

Life without wife is like fifty without five... If he could get Emel over from Istanbul and marry her, his uncle would take him back, so he would be sharing a room with her, not with Adnan against the other wall and Engin with the sweaty feet taking his turn in the very bed he sat on. He’d write something about the great job he had – say he had good hopes of promotion, the confidence of his boss, all that stuff…

The thought nudged in of the kebab house where in half an hour he’d be treading around: spitting the meat, making the salads, slicing the bread, lighting the fire, mopping the floor, scouring the spits, hacking at the baked encrusted grime - everything Mustafa could set him to, hour after hour filling up the spits and carving at them under the scorn and contempt of the drunken Londoners, white, brown, black, before the last ones shouted, sang and staggered away in the first light of dawn back in summer, though now, months later, they lurched off in the dank darkness, soon to chill Turgut again, with no warm fire to go home to, once the fat man had pulled a roll of notes from his pocket, peeled off a greasy banknote, and thrust him away with it.

How many times had he wished to lift his kebab sword high up gleaming in the sun - well, in the fluorescent lights anyway - and then bring it hissing down to bite into Mustafa’s neck with a deep sucking sound, and tear its way through while the blood gushed and spattered all over his precious floor! But then he wouldn’t know what had happened to him. It would be better if he were kneeling there, dabbling the tiles with his shaken-off sweat, while he squealed and gibbered for mercy, and could see the blade come down in reply! ...

But what was the use of such thoughts? About as much use as asking the man for more money had been the evening before. Mustafa had held him up to the ridicule of the whole kitchen. They had all joined in chortling at his expense, even though they had many a time grumbled together with him. That was when he had decided to try to start his good fortune from the opposite end, by getting Emel to bring herself over.

Turgut heard the first tremulous murmur from up the railway line and laid his pencil aside. The window before him darkened and the room shook in the rumble and roar of the carriages whizzing past. In the gloom his head nodded to the rhythm of the wheels. Then the light returned, and the vibration diminished to the quivering and buzzing of the window-frame b,efore stilling completely, while the noise shrank away down the track.

But the scene before him was no more inspiring than before. Was it so m,uch better than Istanbul, was it anything to regale a fiancée with, the walled-off backyards filled with overflowing, overturned rubbish bins, the fast food packaging swamping the broken birdcage, the rusting bedstead, the abandoned bits of bicycles and car engines, the rabbit-hutch, the doll torso, the broken glass heaped on the concrete or spiking the wall before the railway line, and the gaudy graffiti daubed on the higher fence on the other side and swirling about on the lower reaches of brickwork around the dead windows of the derelict warehouse? Football team stuff, gang names, obscenities worse than anything in Istanbul – and Emel knew English; she had learnt it at the Nimtax factory. He reminded himself she wouldn’t be coming here - she’d get him away from it too. That was the whole point. Everything he saw he wanted to blank out from his mind. Writing was even more difficult when you had to make it all up.

Turgut composed himself and wrote a few more sentences. His job, his prospects.... He glanced across the room at Adnan’s bed, and the edge of the dark shape just visible underneath, the box of cameras and video recorders and car stereos, though Adnan’s threats had always kept him from looking closer. That whole side of the room was sacrosanct - in any case, Adnan said he was moving out, getting his own place, expanding, and did he, Turgut, want to help him with business, shift things a bit faster? Maybe if he risked it just for a short time... He had thought of asking Adnan for the money as a loan, but something told him that if he got in that deep with Adnan he might never get out. Turgut wrote some more.

If he could only get her over... He remembered their parting at Istanbul airport, their decorous embrace under the approving but watchful eye of her family. Then he had thought that getting the money for her ticket would only take a few weeks. He could forget that, at least while he was at Mustafa’s!

So he was going to tell her she’d have to buy the ticket. And bring along a bit extra, too, as he was worth it. He was standing on the edge of enormous prospects, he wrote – that’s what had left so little cash at the moment. But it was a moment she’d have to seize, because if she didn’t get him, there were plenty of girls in London! He cudgelled his brains at how to state her danger without implying his fickleness. Maybe just say they were there, waitresses, barmaids, dancers, singers, at his beck and call. …

But he knew it was more likely he’d lose her if she stayed over there. That was one more reason she had to come soon. The days turned into weeks and months, the memories faded, and - the thought chilled his blood. Emel was very pretty, Istanbul was full of men, and one chance meeting, a few words of flirtatious fun, might end by giving him a pair of horns as high as minarets. He remembered that English teacher she had talked about. That might happen again, and more. He gnawed his bristled lip. He’d kill the man. He’d have to kill her too. Then where would that leave him? Stupid! How could he kill them anyway, if they were in Istanbul and he still in London?

His real fear he could hardly name to himself, let alone write to Emel. Girls were nice to look at – so why did his glance stray to boys? He knew he wasn’t top pure and simple, he couldn’t stand the idea of doing anything with one, he dreamt about girls sometimes as well, but this awful forbidden nature of the other sucked him into these dreams of pretty boys, of hard-muscled young men, of girls who turned into men, till he woke up in a bed drenched with sweat. And those were only the dreams he remembered. He knew there were others, so shameful his mind blotted them out. But he was only a bit confused, and surely it had a lot to do with sharing a tiny room with Adnan and Engin. If he settled down with Emel he was sure her presence, her beauty, her kindness, her consideration would save him.

Things would work out if he could get Emel to come. His uncle would give them a room together after the wedding, she could get a job too, and soon they’d have enough for a flat. The documents wouldn’t be any problem. Adnan had said it was all just a matter of knowing the right people. She could be a waitress or work in a Turkish grocer’s. Then there was that place Nedham, the cosmetics factory where she always told him she had a job waiting. He’d put that in too...

2

‘SEE what that post is, Emel,’ shouted her mother from her place squatting at the floor-level sink when she heard the dog barking outside up above and the crunch of boots retracing their way from the reach of its jaws.

Emel wiped her hands on the cloth where it flopped over the edge of the breakfast tray and left her younger brothers and sisters crouching round tearing off bread to eat with the white cheese and olives, between sips from their glasses of tea. She stepped carefully round them to reach the door, and put on street shoes for the concrete steps to the threshold.

‘Is there any more bread?’ called out Sibel the youngest to her mother.

‘Yes, of course,’ said Fethiye Hanım. Sibel was the only child of her second marriage, and of the eight she was the only one who hadn’t left school at twelve. None had wanted to stay on except Emel, the eldest, who had had to start work when her father died. ‘Where are you, Emel? Come on, I have to open the shop up in a moment.’

Fethiye rose from the sink, and was rubbing her back with one hand and reaching for the bread knife with the other when Emel came back in, hastily stuffing an envelope up her sleeve. ‘What, it was for you? Get this bread sliced. Who should be writing to you, anyway?’

Emel began slicing the loaf nearly through, so that the eaters could easily tear pieces off. ‘It’s Turgut,’ she said. At the age of twenty-seven Emel had never even in the privacy of her own mind questioned her mother’s right to find out about her life, though she didn’t have to tell her everything, or tell her unasked.

‘Long enough he’s kept you waiting. What does he say?’

‘I’ll tell you later,’ Emel muttered, with a gesture towards the doorway, and her brothers and sisters sitting beyond, no doubt avid for any gossip with their breakfast. The glance she had been able to give the letter told her it needed much more before becoming family property.

‘When are you going to marry him?’ called out Sibel amid giggles as Emel carried the bread in. She blushed and told them to be quiet. She had almost finished her breakfast anyway, so rather than get her knees back under the tray, she returned to the kitchen, and busied herself drying the dishes, till the time came to clear up. She picked up the breakfast things and laid them down in the kitchen except for the salt and sugar, which she put away, and the things for Sibel’s lunch box. Then she went back to the tray her brothers and sisters were shifting their limbs from, bunched up the cloth, and took it out, staggering a little as she put the wooden shoes on before clomping up into the yard. She edged past Panter on his chain and shook out the cloth for the chickens pecking past his reach. All this while the edges of the letter dug into her wrist.

The shop keys clinking on her finger, her mother shuffled out past her as she returned. Downstairs again, she picked up the tray and rolled it behind the storage chests. The sound of Uncle Hamit coughing came from his bedroom as she straightened his daughter’s school uniform; he would eat in the teahouse later. After Sibel had left, Emel told the others what to buy on their way back from work or looking for work. When they had gone, she fingered the edge of the envelope, but she pushed it further up her arm before squatting to finish the washing up. She then went upstairs to relieve her mother in the shop, and only then, when she was alone there, did she pull out Turgut’s letter. She pressed it to her lips and read it, her brows narrowing with concentration.

There were few callers at the Şeker Büfe to disturb Emel. Only once or twice did she have to weigh out the sugar and make up orders. The rest of the time she had for company only the background hubbub of west Istanbul: the traffic, its rumble and the shriek of the horns, the shouts of children, and the roughly amplified voices of street vendors as they bellowed out their potatoes and onions from slowly circulating lorries. She read and reread the letter. She smiled at the news of Turgut’s successes, but when she read his requests she frowned, and bit her lip when he explained the need for urgency. She pondered, her free hand fingering the rings on the other, and the space for the wedding ring, or stroking her lips and chin or coiling her hair. By the time Sibel returned from school for lunch, and then took over and released her for half an hour, Emel had the beginnings of a plan.

Tell her mother about it or not? Better to do so. In a perfect world, Peter would send the money, she would get the ticket and leave, and the family she left behind would be none the wiser. But it might not be as simple as that. At the very least, she ought to prepare them for letters of puzzlement, anger and despair after she had gone to join Turgut. Peter had friends too, who could work a lot of damage. … And her mother knew Turgut’s letter had arrived, so she was bound to ask about it over lunch.

She faced her mother across the tray. Waiting for her on the cloth was bread, and a bowl of cacık, cucumber and garlic in thin yoghurt; her mother ladled her out some baked beans with wispy flakes of meat before returning to her own dishes and eating uninterruptedly, for Emel knew better than to come between her and her food, and it was not until she had swallowed the last piece of bread smeared with the final driblet of the tomato sauce before her daughter ventured, ‘Let Sibel wait a little longer. I want to talk to you.’

‘It’s about that letter, isn’t it? I thought you’d never speak. “Has the girl gone dumb?” I wondered.’ She chuckled. Such wrong-footing of her daughter was fun to Fethiye Hanım, who was only thirteen years older and had had two husbands to compare, Emel’s father Muzaffer and his brother Hamit. ‘When’s he sending your ticket?’

‘That’s what he’s writing about - but himself he’s doing fine.’

‘Wait,’ said her mother. She shifted her bulk forward on her cushion and stretched out her mottled red hands. Emel sprinkled them, and then her own, with rosewater from a plastic bottle. Her mother wiped her face and sat back with a sigh of contentment as she tucked her headscarf round her neck before saying ‘Well, if he’s doing so well, where’s the ticket he promised?’

‘He’s had to pay a lot of money to start a business, and also to buy a share in his restaurant, so his prospects are really good, but it took all his money, so he wonders if I can pay.’

Her mother snorted. ‘Well, can you? To London? A lot he knows about you!’

‘No, but I wondered – Turgut will pay you back later –’ she had to start with this suggestion, though she knew the response it would provoke – ‘if you and Uncle Hamit could borrow the money.’

‘Borrow money? Have you taken leave of your senses? You know the debt we’re under. Every spare lira we have goes to pay off that taxi firm.’ Three months before, Hamit had written off the taxi he was driving. ‘Your uncle doesn’t get much from looking after that teahouse. And the rest of you – it’s lucky we don’t get deeper into debt every month. Let that Turgut get his boss to advance him something. Or wait a bit longer if his prospects are so bright.’

‘Maybe he can wait, but what about me? There are girls in this restaurant working under him, he said. Six waitresses, and he knows the singer. And he’s living at his uncle’s, who wants him settled in marriage. And he says he knows Nedham need a lot more workers.’

‘Ah, Nedham. Sometimes I wonder why I don’t get a job there myself.’

‘But it’s going to be their last intake for a long time, he says. I must hurry.’

‘Well, hurry, but as for money from us, forget it. You know that. If he loves you, he’ll wait.’

Emel had anticipated her mother’s response, but not the resentment it had provoked in her. This had nearly carried her past the point for revealing her second card. ‘This ticket of mine: suppose somebody else paid?’

Her mother eyed her suspiciously. ‘Who could that be?’

‘No, but just supposing somebody else paid, that would be all right, wouldn’t it?’

‘Well, if your honour was safe - but you can’t ask a question like that unless you have somebody in mind who will pay. Who is it?’

‘You remember Nimtax?’

‘What about Nimtax?’ It was three years and more since Emel had been made redundant from the detergent factory on the ridge. ‘You know we can’t get any help from those managers. They’ve got their own friends to look after. Or is there something you haven’t told me about?’

‘No - you know my English lessons there, my teacher, Mr Peter?’

‘I remember his letters.’ They had annoyed her because she couldn’t work out their mishmash of Turkish and English. ‘It’s been a while since he wrote, though. Why should he pay for you?’

‘He can pay. He’s in Saudi Arabia now. He has the money.’

‘He has the money, but why should he give it to you?’

‘Out of friendship.’

‘Arkadaşlıktan!’ Fethiye repeated, her tongue sharper with suspicion. ‘What did you do with him? What did you let him do? This money’s going to be some sort of reward, is it? Was that what was in those letters of his?’

‘No, no!’ Emel realised her plan had gone off track. Her mother wouldn’t believe her. She should have known. She thought of Peter’s constant avowals of love, his pleas to her to marry him, his descriptions of the fine life they would have together. And she couldn’t admit to the letters she had written to get in contact again, even though there was nothing in them. ‘There was nothing in it. It wasn’t like that - it was only friendship.’

‘Maybe it was only friendship. But what now? He’s a man. For the price of a ticket to London he’ll want something in return. I think we should talk this over with your uncle.’

‘No - not yet.’ She knew she wouldn’t get anything useful out of her uncle, who would throw up his hands in horror at the first hint that people might talk about him in the teashop, and laugh behind their hands at his stepdaughter offering herself to a gavur, an infidel. ‘When Aunt Emine returns.’ Her aunt, her mother’s younger sister, would know how to present it. She knew more about the world. Her husband had been in England. If she suggested something, Emel’s mother would agree to it, when she would turn it down coming from her daughter. At the moment her aunt was in Sinop for a family funeral, but Emel decided to go to her when she returned, beg for her help, reveal her plan, and get her to persuade her mother to fall in with it.

In the shop that afternoon, Emel thought a lot about Turgut, but memories of Peter kept seeping in. First it was his kindness that had appealed to her, his eagerness to help and give her his time, when everyone else at Nimtax had continually been hurrying her along with messages and angry when she was a moment late. Peter had suggested she teach him Turkish on Saturdays, and she decided on a pastane as the venue - she remembered her excitement, how she had put on lipstick and lied to her mother, and brought out her old school textbook and pondered how she would teach him over the tea and cakes - until he had moved from touching her knees and stroking her legs to putting his arm round her where people could see, and she had protested that he was only like her brother. Then she heard from some office conversation that he was married, so she had stopped the meetings, though she couldn’t help meeting and talking to him.

There - he had deceived her, so why not she him?