THE TURRET SHELL (Wenteltrap)

By Sait Faik

In the summer the seashore is most beautiful when it is less crowded. We were in the
month of June. There wasn't even a whiff of a wind. Above the beach, which was
covered with pebbles, there were rocks and cliffs as fertile as the fields with pine trees
growing here and there. Over the cliffs yellow sweet-briar, green thistles and pink
heather grew in abundance. The sun came down like a torrent through this ferrous
earth and flowed into the distant beach as if it were flowing into a lake. I was filled
with an irresistible temptation I couldn't control. I slid over the goat-path half
crouched. I threw my jacket, my trousers, my underwear over the pebbles, the way a
sleepy man throws his things; in one minute I was in the sea.

I remember that my heart had beaten fast when I had lain on the pebbles. I closed my
eyes feeling the sky inside them. I felt as though a warm body was hugging me and
the fragrance of virgin lips was warming up my sensuality; these were not
thoughts, they were feelings. The breezes that suddenly blew from unknown places
caressed the hair on my chest and I felt as though something was being crushed
between my arms. Sometime later I thought I felt lighter and had gotten rid of many
of my burdens. I got dressed. Presently I was walking along the deserted shore.
Everything was faraway; there were no ferries in sight. There was only a cloud of
smoke over the sea. I climbed over the cliffs. Below, the water was full of shadows,
transparent and shallow. I saw a shadow out in the sea. It looked as though it were a
black sail about one fathom long and as wide as the width of my body and its shadow
had fallen on the sea. The seagulls were alighting on this shadow. All of sudden I saw
the shadow plunging into the depths. Then, again, it surfaced and spread out on the
sea, a little farther. This was a skate. God knows why this fish laid his big flat body
over the lukewarm waters of the sea and moved around like this! And why the
seagulls thought this fish was dead and attacked it... And why this creature played
games with them. Again I went down to the beach accompanied by my solitude, the
birds and the fishes. I was walking amid knee-high grasses. Suddenly, I saw a man
standing in the sea up to his waist. His complexion was very dark. He had a
handsome and strong body. Now and then little waves hit his waist and receded. I
could see that he was stark naked. He was making his ablutions. His dark shaven head
was turned toward the deserted shores across from him. He didn't hear my footsteps.
He was
reciting something very loud, but I couldn't discern it well. He plunged into the sea
three times and came up three times jumping up, up to his private part. I went nearer
him. As he rubbed his body he was saying, "Euzü Billahimineşşeytanirracim, Allah...
Allah..." Most likely he didn't know any other prayer.

The man was feeling the poison and the after taste of the dream he had seen the
previous night settling slowly in his body like a sediment. His name was Mehmet. His
father's name, too, was Mehmet; that is, he was Mehmet the son of Mehmet. When he
saw me he yelled: "Keep out!"

Then closing his private part with his hand he came to the beach. He pulled on a pair
of long, hand-woven cotton drawers. He folded its bottoms carefully and tied them in
knots. After winding the waiststring twice around his waist he made a knot for that
too. After sitting down and drying his hands on his drawers he lighted a cigarette.

He wondered why his parents, who lived in a hut heated with cattle manure, on the
plains of Çankiri didn't send him a letter if they were still living. His son Emin, a slip
of a boy, was he taking care of the house? was he sweeping the streets of the town?
what was he doing? Satan fools us when we are in a strange land away from home.
We wade in the sea. We look at the turret shell we find among the pebbles, with open
eyes, like looking at a mystery of nature and say: "'Oh, God! We cannot question your
divine reason, but what creatures you' ve created! Creatures with houses as strong as
the concrete on their backs. Creatures with houses made of stone. My God, such a
mystery, you're so great! Creatures with stone houses... houses without people...
people without houses."

When Mehmet, who worked in a place that made cinder blocks, got an answer to his
letter from the village we wrote another letter. When he slept over the stones and
dreamed -- with blue and green flies around his mouth-- it would be like he
was in the village again and white girls like white clouds mounted on his shoulders.
His ears were filled with songs, ballads and tales. Mehmet would wake up, cursing
the flies settled on the particles of fish stuck to his rotten teeth under his bushy
mustache. He would jump into the sea. He would paddle like a dog as he did in the
river. He would have three dips in the sea. "Euzü Billahimineşşeytanirracim! "

Mehmet was thirty-two years old. In winter he went back to his village. His son,
Emin, met him in town and they walked together to the village. His mother had died.
His father had become all white-haired; he was ninety-two years old. Mehmet took
out seven pieces of gold from his belt and gave them to his father. His father kept
these seven pieces of gold for seven years. When he died seven years later, Mehmet
tied four pieces of gold into his son's drawers' waiststring and
sent him to Istanbul. He kept three pieces of gold. It was trying times and one had to
look far ahead, not backwards.

The day after Emin left, Mehmet was sitting down facing the hearth with a crackling
fire made with three pieces of cattle manure briquettes. His wife cried every night
looking at the sheepskin that Emin used to lie on. Mehmet was looking
absentmindedly at the hot embers of the manure briquettes. He was as pensive as he
was when he had taken the turret shell in his hand. He was visualizing the creatures
with stone houses whose mystery was unfathomable. He thought he had plunged in
the water three times and come up three times A tear drop came down from one of his
eyes. "Euzü Billahimineşşeytanirracim!"
Then he felt ashamed in front of his wife who was standing sheepishly by the door
and looking at him, "Woman why are you crying?" he yelled, "Open the door, let the
smell go!"

The smell was the smell of the Turkish village that had penetrated into every nook
and cranny of the room. Maybe, it was also the smell of Emin's absence... When the
door is opened it may, or it may not go away.

The woman opened the door. The light of a bright winter day flowed into the room
like a stream which had found its course. For a long time the husband and the wife
couldn't see anything with their bleared eyes. Then, far away, a very white road
shined on the bare hills: the road to Istanbul.

Translated by Nilűfer Mizanoǧlu Reddy