(Image credit: u/sdzk on Reddit)
Chapter 4: the Wreckage
(Chapter 3 may be found here)
THE BACK PORCH – Onur and Oya dashed out onto the back porch, nearly running into the pair of stoner boys fleeing the scene of Beren and Firat at each other’s throats. Behind them followed all manner of gossip-mongers, rubber-neckers, and other onlookers who delight in the spectacle of conflict which adds meaning to the meaningless life of Turkish graduate students abroad.
Beren was in the midst of a furious condemnation of her Kurdish adversary: “Just another macho Kurdish man trying to use his Kurdishness to shut up women! You haven’t listened to a word I said but you expect me to bow in reverence to you!”
Firat, for his part, was not sparing Beren the full force of his own self-righteous potential: “You Turks are all alike! Rainbow flags and Venus symbols and ‘the man-state’ and ‘the patriarchy’, all this bullshit to look like you’re something you’re not, because the second you’re reminded who we are and who you are, each and every one of you show your true Kemalist face!”
Onur had wrapped his arms around Firat but so far was failing to drag him towards the door. Oya was pleading at Beren’s side, while Beren’s bloodshot eyes flared wide, as if a monster revealing its most fearsome form for battle: “What Kemalist?! You don’t know me! What do you know about me?! How dare you!”
Oya, seeing that neither party could be reasoned with, turned to Onur: “Please Onur, get Fırat out of here!”
As Onur dragged Firat off, the latter, spraying flop sweat everywhere as he resisted, screamed back at Beren in Kurdish: “Ez te nas dikim! Ez te pir baş nas dikim!”
Onur pleaded with Firat as he pulled him into the crowd: “Fırat, please, nobody understands what you’re saying. Yalvarıyorum, gel biraz yürüyelim. Vallahi hata yapıyorsun. Hadi, let’s go.”
Firat’s physical strength was not enough to resist Onur, but his determined rage had yet to subside: “Bıraksana lan beni! She wants to argue with me, and I want to argue with her! This is what we both want!”
THE STREETS OF BOSTON – About a half hour later, the exhausted pair were walking aimlessly through the deserted streets, chainsmoking in silence.
The street lamps cast such dramatic shadows on Firat’s angular face in such a way as to make him look even more intense than before, although his breathing had returned to normal and he showed no signs of trying to return to the field of battle. Onur looked on him with pity. Finally, Firat broke the silence:
“I was out of line, wasn’t I?”
“You were, but it’s too late now, isn’t it?”
Firat stopped suddenly and flicked his cigarette onto the highway, pausing to extract and light yet another: “Were you having a good time?”
Onur laughed, remembering that he hadn’t gone to the party to babysit his returned friend, but to get laid: “I was, yeah. I think I got pretty far with Ayşe before you flipped out.”
Firat coughed on his cigarette out of surprise: “The headscarved girl?”
Onur giggled, almost girlishly, at his friend’s reaction: “Yeah, that’s my new thing. I’m into headscarved girls.”
“Sahi mi? Ciddi olamazsın.”
“I’ve never been so serious. I’m turning down girls I would’ve sold my mother for a few months ago because they’re uncovered. I really want to get with a headscarved girl.”
Firat stared at his friend’s round, boyish face, and contemplated this new and terrifying revelation. At parties Onur always went girl-crazy and said things that defied logic, but this was somehow beyond his expectations.
“But why not just get with an uncovered girl and have her wear a headscarf in bed?”
Firat attempted to return to his cigarette, but found it had gone out at some point after the coughing.
Onur had to remind himself that men like Firat could never understand his refined sexual tastes. He leaned over and relit Firat’s cigarette: “Fırat, think about it logically: why would I want girls to put on more clothes in bed? The point is to get headscarved girls to take off their clothes. It’s one more article of clothing to remove.”
Their eyes met and they both burst out laughing. The laughter grew louder and louder, letting out relief at being able to talk properly, casually. The laughter drowned out the feelings of loneliness. And then the laughter shook something inside Firat that he had been trying to keep chained down, and the tears and wails burst forth.
A white Bostonian walked past, staring in confusion at the sight of the two men locked in an emotional embrace. Firat couldn’t stop crying, like a baby, pleading without words. Onur hugged his friend as if the hug could protect him from his feelings.
“Fırat, please. What’s wrong? You’ve always had a temper, but this was really bad.”
“I know, I know.”
“Oya told me you and Yuki broke up. Is that what’s bothering you?”
Suddenly the tears stopped, a quick sniff and Firat’s tough exterior covered up his exposed sadness once again.
“Fırat, it’s okay. It’s hard. I remember my first breakup…”
Firat pushed Onur away, and for a moment Onur thought Firat might strike him.
“Your high school girlfriend isn’t the same thing. Your life will never be the same thing as my life, Onur.”
Onur flinched as if Firat had in fact struck him. But the shock of the sentiment soon subsided when he considered what Firat meant. Of course, it wasn’t the same.
Firat stared up at the street lamp, and sucked at his cigarette as if he were actually drinking it. He threw the cigarette butt onto the ground, hoping it would shatter. He turned on his heel and began to walk away.
“Look, Fırat. I know Beren. She’s really one of the good ones. Okay, she’s not as politically conscious as me or Oya, but she’s not like you think she is. You were being unfair to her.”
Firat turned back, his face a mask of stoic rejection: “I don’t care about Beren. I don’t need people like her in my life.”
Onur had had enough: “Who do you need, Fırat? Who do you need?”
FIRAT’S HOUSE IN JAPAN, MONTHS EARLIER – In a small, non-descript office, with walls devoid of decoration, and chairs and tables all of the same empty, glossy wooden exterior, Firat sat at his laptop, working. To the side lay some books in Japanese for his dissertation. The Skype ringtone rang out from his laptop. He looked at the incoming call: Oya.
Excitedly, he clicked the green button to see Oya’s face pop up. “Oya! How are you doing?”
“Fırat! I’m good, how’s your dissertation going?”
Firat smirked at the inevitable, meaningless question: “Okay, you know. My advisor says she’s noticed a sharp decline in the quality and quantity of my work since the beginning of the semester. How about you?”
The video of Oya’s face skipped but her audio came through clear: “My dissertation? It’s frozen, you know. But the strike is going really well, so maybe that will lead me back to writing, in a roundabout way.”
“İnşallah,” nodded Firat. “Hey, how’s…”
Just then he heard the sound of the door opening. “Yuki’s home!”
From the other room came Yuki’s singsong voice: “Yuki is home!”
Through the computer speaker, Oya asked: “Is Yuki home?”
At that moment, Yuki strode through the office door and rested his head on Firat’s shoulder to see Oya. “Hello, Oya!”
Oya’s face lit up at the sight of the two lovebirds. A thick-bearded Kurd in a sweater vest, with his thin-moustached Japanese lover in a band t-shirt in those characters she couldn’t read. Yuki’s tan skin was covered in sweat, but Firat seemed not to mind.
“How was work, Yuki?” asked Firat, planting a soft kiss on Yuki’s cheek.
“Very good, canê.” replied Yuki. “I am going to start the dinner. No pork this time!”
“Wait a second, Firat, you don’t eat pork?” asked Oya, shocked.
“No pork! He eats other, you know, haram things!” laughed Yuki, provoking Oya to laugh with him. Firat turned red and for a second thought of closing Skype to escape the shame.
Yuki blew Oya a kiss and disappeared from the room.
“So things are going really good?” asked Oya, pleasantly surprised to see Firat kiss Yuki in front of her for the first time.
“Yeah, yeah they are.” confirmed Firat. “We’re like a married couple already. He’s the wife, and I’m the useless one.”
Oya laughed. “Oh Fırat, you have no idea how nice that is to hear.”
THE STREETS OF BOSTON – Onur had been watching the anger fade back to sadness in Firat’s face as the two stood in silence under the streetlight, doing nothing, saying nothing.
“Fırat, Yuki’ye noldu?”
Firat turned his face away from his friend, and crouched down, balling his entire body up and saying nothing.
“Wasn’t this what you wanted? You were far away, away from anyone from the country, you were with a guy who liked you and was kind to you…”
Firat again said nothing, showed nothing, did nothing.
This was too much. Onur cared about Firat like a brother, but he was also a brother who had cockblocked him with petty and misplaced anger on their first night back in the same country together.
“Would you fucking say something? Where’s that bravery you showed Beren earlier? Fucking talk to me!”
Firat finally stirred, but only to ball his hands into great fists and begin pounding at his own skull, hoping to beat out the feelings and questions and ineffable contradictions.
Onur flung himself onto his friend and pulled his fists to the side. The two of them lay sprawled on the sidewalk, motionless, in a strange embrace.
Silently they lay there, for long enough that Onur began to check Firat’s face to see if he had passed out. He hadn’t. Firat stared up at the sky, blinking on occasion, trying to sort through his own thoughts:
“I’ll tell you what happened. But I’m out of cigarettes.”
“Me too.”
“Okay, we have to go buy some. I have to smoke if we’re going to talk.”
Worker's Spatula 