(This short story can be read as an interpretation of the mirror scene in the film “The Night of the Shooting Stars”[1])
No, you haven’t seen that film, my love.
You only know that film as far as I recount and from what I recount. But you lived that night much better than those who have already seen the film. Because so few among those who have watched it could reach this night; the night that we are living through; so few could dare to enter this room, a room like this.
We are not like that old woman and the old man in the film, who, after not being married for fifty years, but only coincidentally meet in a room, in the same room and spend the night.
Because, we have never postponed living.
Maybe our, your and my journey to Ithaca, contrary to the Greek Poet’s veiled argument in his lines, did not take that much time. However, you know from the lines of another poem of the same poet that I had sailed to you. In the Back-Room of a Noisy Coffeehouse, I gave my hand to you challenging my years, just in order not to be like that old man, who in his youth for the sake of the fake wisdom of waiting, clumsily wasted every opportunity that came over about love, then with the weight of those unlived moments whose eyelids were going down.
But at last we are in Ithaca. In a sense, maybe my journey also took years, like obeying the poet’s advice; in a sense, as expressed in the lines, like getting richer with all the things I have gained on the way. However, after a point, all our adventure is as if a challenge to that poem; because contrary to the great poet saying “Shall you not expect any richness from Ithaca...” , we know that all the richness is within this room, hiding in this night; we have always known it.
This information, was written in the prayers of our sect, which have not yet been included in the books.
At this moment we are so close to each other; looking into your eyes from one edge of the bed carrying us, I hear the first bells of the night prayers.
Now, this moment, can not be limited by only feeling you.
There is an embracing, a togetherness, but not only this.
Now you are in and even inside me, within the depths of me, you had entered through the doors which cannot be opened only by the keys of passion, and I am quenching my thirst with you; at first drop-by-drop, then as if the gushing out of a bold spring.
All the seas to Ithaca, are suddenly drinkable...
The fascists of Mussolini and the antifascists are having their last fight. The fields of Italy, in the last year of war, have already stripped off humanity, full of hopeless creatures. But in a house in the village of Saint Lorenzo, in a room, where a bed, a simple console and a little wall-mirror exist, there is still hope. Not being married for fifty years – yet been married to each other for some time- a woman and a man opened their eyes to their first common day with the first lights of the morning. Perhaps from now on they will stay together, perhaps their ways –willingly or unwillingly- will be parted again; perhaps they will not be able to share the eternity of a limited bed once more; the later scenes of the film, does not bring any clarity on this subject. But here is a certain point: Not being married to each other for fifty years, this woman and this man will live everything in common from now on. Because, waking up with the first lights of the morning, and walking towards the window in order to understand to whom belong the voices coming from the village square –unlike the night before, not caring whether they belong to fascists or antifascists-, the woman will stop in front of the mirror which is hanged on the wall between the window and the bed and broken on the right side below, for the first time in fifty years she has not been married. She will move the fingers of her right hand, which already turned purple by the years due to the grapes of Campon vineyards, through her hair maybe for the first time not harshly; but like stroking –stroking only once may end the tradition of a most established harshness-; maybe it was not until that day that in a morning, in a room where a man is present, those fingers, which have never been taken to head in order to put away the hair fallen on the forehead, will fail to find their way in a sweet inexperienced manner and touch the little oil-lamp of a Mary icon hanged near the mirror. But the woman, for the first time she has not been married for fifty years, unlike how she reacted when she suffered from the sparks of the hearth, will not crumple her face because of the hot oil of the oil-lamp. Just for a few seconds she will stop the journey of her fingers and have a look at the Mary icon, before she unites her hands...
THINKING THAT I HAVE NEVER LOVED LIKE TONIGHT SHOULD BE UNDERSTOOD AS A PRAYER COUNTERFEIT TEMPLES SHOULD BECOME VACANT AND EVERYBODY SHOULD BE ABLE TO LISTEN TO THEIR PRAYERS OF THE NEW TIMES IN ANY CASE IF THERE IS SOMETHING AS PRAYER TONIGHT I LEARNED IT WITH YOU BEFOREHAND THERE WERE PRAYERS INSIDE ME LOOKING FOR THEIR OWNER NOW THEY HAVE TURNED INTO THE PRAYERS WHICH HAVE FOUND THEIR GOD
In the half-darkness, for a moment, you straighten up to see your face in the mirror very near to the console.
I know what you are looking for.
You turn and look at me for a long time.
You find on my face what you could not find in the mirror.
Still in the half-darkness, a smile conquers your lips.
A joy of victory... There is something even the most expensive Venetian mirrors cannot reflect, but it is reflected on our faces when we share it with our looks. On our lips, as I said, is a joy of victory.
From now on our bodies will not be defeated by any shame, after all those times; again they are on our side. Sometimes with our fingertips we draw the map of these bodies; we do not let the job of finding who we are to those who would be “exactly” like ourselves in a society which is predicted to be much free and much beautiful. As tonight, having been able to reach this room, we turn all the curses that have been cast upon our sect to fulfilled prayers. We know that in no-book it was banned, the coming together of the bodies who have missed each other so much, and those frowning god icons cast between the bodies were all fake idols.
Now you have completely forgotten the mirror outside us; maybe the ones, who have come up to us, might be satisfied in the hotels of futureless nights under fake names with loves raised-up in greenhouses.
Tonight, in this room, we did not take shelter in the passions which people have been afraid of even defining and facing, not because of our days falling one after another.
No, we did not take shelter.
Because we were already ready for this night.
Because we had already read the stories written who knows how many periods of mourning ago.
We have already known that until today how many sails of enthusiasm have been destroyed by the wickedness of human tongue; if you and me try to be WE, how many phrases of hell will be engraved on the stones of lovelessness in the temples not dedicated to any god (we have already known it).
Tonight as we entered this room, and when you said we can turn off the light, there appeared on our faces a map of all the sorrow since the Mount of Olives.
Evidently, we were ready for the night so as not to take shelter in repentances on account of our bodies. The people of tomorrow, as we lived tonight as WE, will look into us as mirrors, it is when those who have always written the history of the supporters of the sun will remember the ones who have dismissed us from the flock, and closing the torture-rooms of bloody conversations, they will become US, too.
HOW MANY LIVES AFTER WE HAVE FOUND EACH OTHER DO YOU THINK IT IS THE BREAKING OF MANY REPENTANCES THIS EARTHLY PARADISE IS NOW ON ITS FEET IN THE LIGHT OF MORNING AND EVENING I WAS ALL THE TIME IN OUR TEMPLES YOU WILL NOT KILL SAID MOSES NOW THE SEAS OF PEOPLE BEYOND THE SHORES OF THIS ROOM THERE ARE ALWAYS BLOODY DAYS WAITING FOR THE NIGHT MAKES IT BEAUTIFUL WE WERE ALWAS WAITING FOR THE RAIN AND THE WETNESS OF YOUR LIPS TOUCHING ME WAS THE FIRST RESPONSE TO ALL THAT PRAYERS FOR RAIN WHICH GOD WAS IT THAT GAVE IT HAVE WE FOUND WHEN YOU FIRST EMBRACED ME IT WAS PARIS IN MY DREAMS ONLY THEN HELEN COULD HAVE SAVED TROJA ALONE MAYBE WE WOULD BE LEFT SPEECHLESS THE WAY FROM THE PREHISTORY TO YESTERNIGHT WOULD BE SHORTHENED THERE ARE BODY VOYAGES CONQUERING ALL DEATHS AND SHAMES
The woman’s hesitated hand will go on its way. Two small pinches of hair fallen on the forehead will be put backwards, slightly. And when the woman looking into the mirror, searches for a map drawn on her face by those fifty years, she will find the ways to the countries that she have never travelled before. A morning breeze creeping into her nightgown will refresh the newly-ploughed soil of her body. Afterwards sounds of gunfire will be heard coming from the outside, in contrast to the life, resisting in the room. Perhaps it is death, perhaps the herald of salvation. But the woman will never know which one, because she will not want to know. Turning her back to the window, she will look, into the room, to the bed, at the man in that bed, whom she has not been married for fifty years. She will think that everything, everything that happened that night was peculiar to that night only. Not minding, she will dive into the blue eyes of the man. The blueness of the sea that Moses had split, will cover all around. She will now think that all the seas of humanity outside this room are in blood. The sound of gunfire will become more frequent. The footsteps of the men coming upstairs, will be heard. The man will be straightened from the bed. He will move his hand towards the gun in the console. “Why?” will cry the woman, as she takes off her nightgown roughly. The morning breeze hanging about the room, can now trail on this body without any prevention. “No!” will repeat the woman. “I was able to pass in front of the mirror! No resisting with gun now. Now there must be something life wants to say against dying”. And the man will understand. He will pull the woman to himself with a fifty-year bridal longing. At this while the door will continually be kicked, kicked...
The film may not have ended this way. Actually, it did not. This is the end that I am telling you.
The actuality may be different.
But I could not have told you it in any other way.
Because now, as I am grinding your breath on my body, I could not have let the man in the film draw a gun.
A weak light....
The first lights of the morning or a car passing-by...
Now, by your side I learn that the name of the immortality in the old books was not-living.
Your breath is writing on my face, the poetry of life.
World is knocking at our door for confession.
Yet, in our room a nightwatch of love is just starting.
Time passes no more, as we gift it to each other.
I want to shout as, until now I was the night-watchman of extensive loneliness.
With the showers of yesternight the extensive loneliness is over, you say, we have passed through the mirror.
Now, the paradise, which we are sailing through on this bed as our raft, must be removed from all prayer books.
It should be removed, so that people can become the prayers of each other again.
AHMET CEMAL
No, you haven’t seen that film, my love.
You only know that film as far as I recount and from what I recount. But you lived that night much better than those who have already seen the film. Because so few among those who have watched it could reach this night; the night that we are living through; so few could dare to enter this room, a room like this.
We are not like that old woman and the old man in the film, who, after not being married for fifty years, but only coincidentally meet in a room, in the same room and spend the night.
Because, we have never postponed living.
Maybe our, your and my journey to Ithaca, contrary to the Greek Poet’s veiled argument in his lines, did not take that much time. However, you know from the lines of another poem of the same poet that I had sailed to you. In the Back-Room of a Noisy Coffeehouse, I gave my hand to you challenging my years, just in order not to be like that old man, who in his youth for the sake of the fake wisdom of waiting, clumsily wasted every opportunity that came over about love, then with the weight of those unlived moments whose eyelids were going down.
But at last we are in Ithaca. In a sense, maybe my journey also took years, like obeying the poet’s advice; in a sense, as expressed in the lines, like getting richer with all the things I have gained on the way. However, after a point, all our adventure is as if a challenge to that poem; because contrary to the great poet saying “Shall you not expect any richness from Ithaca...” , we know that all the richness is within this room, hiding in this night; we have always known it.
This information, was written in the prayers of our sect, which have not yet been included in the books.
At this moment we are so close to each other; looking into your eyes from one edge of the bed carrying us, I hear the first bells of the night prayers.
Now, this moment, can not be limited by only feeling you.
There is an embracing, a togetherness, but not only this.
Now you are in and even inside me, within the depths of me, you had entered through the doors which cannot be opened only by the keys of passion, and I am quenching my thirst with you; at first drop-by-drop, then as if the gushing out of a bold spring.
All the seas to Ithaca, are suddenly drinkable...
The fascists of Mussolini and the antifascists are having their last fight. The fields of Italy, in the last year of war, have already stripped off humanity, full of hopeless creatures. But in a house in the village of Saint Lorenzo, in a room, where a bed, a simple console and a little wall-mirror exist, there is still hope. Not being married for fifty years – yet been married to each other for some time- a woman and a man opened their eyes to their first common day with the first lights of the morning. Perhaps from now on they will stay together, perhaps their ways –willingly or unwillingly- will be parted again; perhaps they will not be able to share the eternity of a limited bed once more; the later scenes of the film, does not bring any clarity on this subject. But here is a certain point: Not being married to each other for fifty years, this woman and this man will live everything in common from now on. Because, waking up with the first lights of the morning, and walking towards the window in order to understand to whom belong the voices coming from the village square –unlike the night before, not caring whether they belong to fascists or antifascists-, the woman will stop in front of the mirror which is hanged on the wall between the window and the bed and broken on the right side below, for the first time in fifty years she has not been married. She will move the fingers of her right hand, which already turned purple by the years due to the grapes of Campon vineyards, through her hair maybe for the first time not harshly; but like stroking –stroking only once may end the tradition of a most established harshness-; maybe it was not until that day that in a morning, in a room where a man is present, those fingers, which have never been taken to head in order to put away the hair fallen on the forehead, will fail to find their way in a sweet inexperienced manner and touch the little oil-lamp of a Mary icon hanged near the mirror. But the woman, for the first time she has not been married for fifty years, unlike how she reacted when she suffered from the sparks of the hearth, will not crumple her face because of the hot oil of the oil-lamp. Just for a few seconds she will stop the journey of her fingers and have a look at the Mary icon, before she unites her hands...
THINKING THAT I HAVE NEVER LOVED LIKE TONIGHT SHOULD BE UNDERSTOOD AS A PRAYER COUNTERFEIT TEMPLES SHOULD BECOME VACANT AND EVERYBODY SHOULD BE ABLE TO LISTEN TO THEIR PRAYERS OF THE NEW TIMES IN ANY CASE IF THERE IS SOMETHING AS PRAYER TONIGHT I LEARNED IT WITH YOU BEFOREHAND THERE WERE PRAYERS INSIDE ME LOOKING FOR THEIR OWNER NOW THEY HAVE TURNED INTO THE PRAYERS WHICH HAVE FOUND THEIR GOD
In the half-darkness, for a moment, you straighten up to see your face in the mirror very near to the console.
I know what you are looking for.
You turn and look at me for a long time.
You find on my face what you could not find in the mirror.
Still in the half-darkness, a smile conquers your lips.
A joy of victory... There is something even the most expensive Venetian mirrors cannot reflect, but it is reflected on our faces when we share it with our looks. On our lips, as I said, is a joy of victory.
From now on our bodies will not be defeated by any shame, after all those times; again they are on our side. Sometimes with our fingertips we draw the map of these bodies; we do not let the job of finding who we are to those who would be “exactly” like ourselves in a society which is predicted to be much free and much beautiful. As tonight, having been able to reach this room, we turn all the curses that have been cast upon our sect to fulfilled prayers. We know that in no-book it was banned, the coming together of the bodies who have missed each other so much, and those frowning god icons cast between the bodies were all fake idols.
Now you have completely forgotten the mirror outside us; maybe the ones, who have come up to us, might be satisfied in the hotels of futureless nights under fake names with loves raised-up in greenhouses.
Tonight, in this room, we did not take shelter in the passions which people have been afraid of even defining and facing, not because of our days falling one after another.
No, we did not take shelter.
Because we were already ready for this night.
Because we had already read the stories written who knows how many periods of mourning ago.
We have already known that until today how many sails of enthusiasm have been destroyed by the wickedness of human tongue; if you and me try to be WE, how many phrases of hell will be engraved on the stones of lovelessness in the temples not dedicated to any god (we have already known it).
Tonight as we entered this room, and when you said we can turn off the light, there appeared on our faces a map of all the sorrow since the Mount of Olives.
Evidently, we were ready for the night so as not to take shelter in repentances on account of our bodies. The people of tomorrow, as we lived tonight as WE, will look into us as mirrors, it is when those who have always written the history of the supporters of the sun will remember the ones who have dismissed us from the flock, and closing the torture-rooms of bloody conversations, they will become US, too.
HOW MANY LIVES AFTER WE HAVE FOUND EACH OTHER DO YOU THINK IT IS THE BREAKING OF MANY REPENTANCES THIS EARTHLY PARADISE IS NOW ON ITS FEET IN THE LIGHT OF MORNING AND EVENING I WAS ALL THE TIME IN OUR TEMPLES YOU WILL NOT KILL SAID MOSES NOW THE SEAS OF PEOPLE BEYOND THE SHORES OF THIS ROOM THERE ARE ALWAYS BLOODY DAYS WAITING FOR THE NIGHT MAKES IT BEAUTIFUL WE WERE ALWAS WAITING FOR THE RAIN AND THE WETNESS OF YOUR LIPS TOUCHING ME WAS THE FIRST RESPONSE TO ALL THAT PRAYERS FOR RAIN WHICH GOD WAS IT THAT GAVE IT HAVE WE FOUND WHEN YOU FIRST EMBRACED ME IT WAS PARIS IN MY DREAMS ONLY THEN HELEN COULD HAVE SAVED TROJA ALONE MAYBE WE WOULD BE LEFT SPEECHLESS THE WAY FROM THE PREHISTORY TO YESTERNIGHT WOULD BE SHORTHENED THERE ARE BODY VOYAGES CONQUERING ALL DEATHS AND SHAMES
The woman’s hesitated hand will go on its way. Two small pinches of hair fallen on the forehead will be put backwards, slightly. And when the woman looking into the mirror, searches for a map drawn on her face by those fifty years, she will find the ways to the countries that she have never travelled before. A morning breeze creeping into her nightgown will refresh the newly-ploughed soil of her body. Afterwards sounds of gunfire will be heard coming from the outside, in contrast to the life, resisting in the room. Perhaps it is death, perhaps the herald of salvation. But the woman will never know which one, because she will not want to know. Turning her back to the window, she will look, into the room, to the bed, at the man in that bed, whom she has not been married for fifty years. She will think that everything, everything that happened that night was peculiar to that night only. Not minding, she will dive into the blue eyes of the man. The blueness of the sea that Moses had split, will cover all around. She will now think that all the seas of humanity outside this room are in blood. The sound of gunfire will become more frequent. The footsteps of the men coming upstairs, will be heard. The man will be straightened from the bed. He will move his hand towards the gun in the console. “Why?” will cry the woman, as she takes off her nightgown roughly. The morning breeze hanging about the room, can now trail on this body without any prevention. “No!” will repeat the woman. “I was able to pass in front of the mirror! No resisting with gun now. Now there must be something life wants to say against dying”. And the man will understand. He will pull the woman to himself with a fifty-year bridal longing. At this while the door will continually be kicked, kicked...
The film may not have ended this way. Actually, it did not. This is the end that I am telling you.
The actuality may be different.
But I could not have told you it in any other way.
Because now, as I am grinding your breath on my body, I could not have let the man in the film draw a gun.
A weak light....
The first lights of the morning or a car passing-by...
Now, by your side I learn that the name of the immortality in the old books was not-living.
Your breath is writing on my face, the poetry of life.
World is knocking at our door for confession.
Yet, in our room a nightwatch of love is just starting.
Time passes no more, as we gift it to each other.
I want to shout as, until now I was the night-watchman of extensive loneliness.
With the showers of yesternight the extensive loneliness is over, you say, we have passed through the mirror.
Now, the paradise, which we are sailing through on this bed as our raft, must be removed from all prayer books.
It should be removed, so that people can become the prayers of each other again.
AHMET CEMAL
[1] “La Notte di San Lorenzo”(org.title) Italy, 1982. Vittorio & Paolo Taviani, dir.s (translator’s note)
translated by Aslı Özgen
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