CROWS AND SEAGULLS

CROWS AND SEAGULLS Everyone has a childhood trauma, İbrahim. Me, I just got bored. Why, brother? Because the world used to smell good. Now everything smells like shit. Is that why you came up here? If you end your life, will everything smell good again? No. I just won’t have to smell it anymore. Why, brother? Why isn’t the point. Some things don’t need reasons, İbrahim. People hunt for reasons in everything. But sometimes you just do it. Like me. I’m bored. So terribly bored. Bored of evil? Did they do you wrong? Or did you do wrong? I’m the kind of man who changes his path so he won’t startle birds. But evil? I don’t know. Maybe I’m a terrible person. Doesn’t a person know the wrong they’ve done, brother? Look, I stole a wallet the other day. Isn’t that evil? But it fed me for two days. Evil is still evil, even when it comes with a good excuse. Do you have a cigarette, İbrahim? No, brother. Never touched one. If I give you money, will you go buy some? No. I swear I won’t leave you up here. I won’t do anything until you get back, I promise. But you promise too. No police. No bringing anyone else. Tonight it’s just the two of us. All right. If I bring them, will you stop? Let me tell you a story. A young man once decided to kill himself, but he didn’t have the courage. He couldn’t hang himself, because he was afraid of suffocating. He couldn’t jump, because he was afraid of heights. He couldn’t swallow pills. He thought he couldn’t bear the pain of cutting his wrists. He wanted to die, to escape his suffering as soon as possible, but he believed every method had its own barrier. So he didn’t do it. Then he got married. He had two children. The children finished university and married too. When the man turned eighty-seven, he bought a gun, pressed it to his head, and pulled the trigger. Do you understand me, İbrahim? Once you truly decide to die, you’ll pull that trigger sooner or later. Brother, please. Death isn’t something to joke about. You take death too seriously, İbrahim. Because it is serious. No. Living is serious. Living is the plague of modern times. Death isn’t such a grave affair. It’s raining, brother. …Then we’ll get wet. You were in your thirties. I don’t know if those are a person’s best years, but you were in your finest form. Your clothes, your scent, your shave, immaculate. You looked like the actors in movies I’d never been to. Your mind was clearer than ever. You were only tired, and no one seemed to notice. When I found you, you were on the rooftop of an abandoned building, sitting with your legs dangling over the edge. Even like that, you looked flawless. At first you didn’t want me near you. Did you want to be alone? Were you afraid of me? I was fifteen, and I was already used to being unwanted. When I understood what you meant to do, I stayed. I don’t know why. Maybe I just wanted to be there. In that moment it felt like you were the one who deserved life most. Maybe I should have died instead of you. Me, with nothing left to live for, filthy and homeless, sleeping in streets and stairwells. Death suited someone like me, didn’t it? Forgotten. Tossed aside. Feared. Stinking. No one would care if I vanished. Not even the third pages of the newspapers would spare a line for the suicide of a glue-sniffing street kid. Even your perfume couldn’t cover the rot on me. If I could go back and tell you how a child ends up like that, I’d start with the beatings. At home, from my father. On the street, from older boys. From everyone. I’d tell you about not being sent to school, selling tissues on corners, wiping car windows, then having the few coins I earned ripped from my hand. Getting beaten for earning too little. Getting beaten, always beaten, and finally thrown out onto the street. Should I have killed myself instead of you? It was a little past midnight. I was living in the same abandoned building you climbed. It was autumn. Winter was coming, and for people sleeping in ruins like that, winter is a nightmare. Your romantic snow is our horror. Of course I didn’t tell you any of this. That night we were speaking of your troubles. Tell me, brother, if you want. Even if I can’t fix anything, maybe it helps to talk. Do you read books? I’m not very good at reading and writing. When I collect paper I find plenty of books, though. I never understand why people throw them away. But I’ve never opened any of them. Except once. I read something and kept it in my head. What did it say? It was short: “The rich start wars, the poor die in them.” Sartre… I don’t know who that is. But he said it well. I don’t have money, and the rich are killing me. That isn’t exactly what he meant. How do you know, brother? I think that’s exactly what he meant. We’re fighting a war for bread, and the rich started it. They always wanted more. Stuffed themselves full. They carry more money than they can fit in their pockets. And we, the poor, die for a piece of bread. Because of them. Because of their hunger that never ends. You’re not entirely wrong. I hadn’t thought of it that way. Anyway, İbrahim, go now. “Go now.” How easily you said it. I thought you were different. No one has ever said stay to me. No one has ever said come. It was always: get the hell out of here. Swearing, shouting, fists. And you didn’t want me with you either. Even with death this close, my presence annoyed you. You said, “Some things don’t need reasons,” but if you’d asked, if you’d wondered why I was on the streets, maybe it would have healed something in both of us. We’re both ghosts of the city. They don’t see you when they pass. They fear me when they pass. I couldn’t say any of it. I only lowered my head and went quiet. Could you kill a fly, İbrahim? Yes. It’s a pest. No. You can, because you’re strong enough. All right then, could you kill a lion? How would I kill a lion, brother? What about a person? Why would I? No. I couldn’t. You’re wrong. Under the right conditions, you could. And yourself, İbrahim? Could you kill yourself? It’s a sin, brother. A great sin. And why would I want to die? Look at you. Why do you want to die? I don’t have any of what you have, but life is still a beautiful thing. You could. Either you’d be brave enough, or cowardly enough. And you’ll never know which one you are. Cowardly, I think. And you’re a coward too. There’s a beast in my head, İbrahim. It’s straining at its chains. My brain will burst from the pain. I knew you were in pain. I could see it. But I couldn’t understand it. Were there pains greater than being hungry in the street? You had money in your pocket, a car under you, a warm house, meat now and then, friends. What more could anyone want? The rain thickened until it soaked us through. You didn’t care, because you thought you’d be dead in minutes. I cared. I was cold. I was hungry. I was shaking. Still, I didn’t want to leave you alone. You had chosen to go. You had decided. I didn’t know how to turn you back. I was fifteen, and I didn’t know how that night would end. Do you think it’s time, İbrahim? No, brother. Not now. Not yet. There are still so many beautiful things to do. Please, come down. Let me show you where I sleep. Not now. Not today. Not like this. I’ll be your friend. You can come by sometimes. Don’t do it. Please don’t. No, İbrahim. Go. Brother, let me tell you my life, just a little. Then you’ll change your mind. Brother, don’t! You stood. You climbed onto the low wall of the terrace. The rain made the night feel even more alive. Your hair shone. I thought, can death suit a person this well? You were calm. And by then I was calm too. Part of me wanted to run and grab you. Another part wanted to set you free. I set you free. When you let yourself go, I thought you’d beat your wings like a bird. As if you might rise into the sky. I waited. It didn’t happen. You drifted down, gentle, almost graceful. I ran to the wall and looked over. You lay motionless on the pavement. In an instant the street filled with people. Their screams split the air. Your death had made you visible. I’m twenty-seven now. They gave me twelve years. They would have given me twenty-four, they said, but because I hadn’t yet turned fifteen, they cut it to twelve. People testified. They saw me up there, on the roof, looking down after you. Your death had made me visible too. Still, they didn’t see the tears in my eyes. They didn’t hear the sound I made when you fell. The police didn’t believe it was suicide. You pushed him, they said. They told me they’d looked into your life. You had a normal life. A good job, a house, enough money. No reason to kill yourself. They didn’t understand you. They didn’t. But they said I had a reason to kill you: the money in your pocket. Only twenty-two lira and ten kuruş came out of mine. I didn’t take your money. I didn’t take your life, I said. They arrested me anyway. For twelve years I thought of one thing only: the way you glided down, like a white seagull. That’s when I understood that seagulls get cold too, and that even if I was only a child, the darkness in me would never be washed clean. Just like crows. - deri