The Writer

“Let me go Turkan. Let me go already! Why don’t you just…”

His cellphone slipped from his hand onto the wooden table. The small chair under him had swung again, almost tumbling him down. He looked around to see if there was anybody. The waiter was gazing the other way, and the alley was still empty. He took his phone back to check the time. It was exactly eleven.

“How much is this tea supposed to be?” 

He stared into the empty glass on the table. “Three? Four?” Then he put a banknote under it, thinking it would be a bit more than enough. He called the waiter’s attention with a gentle god bless: “I’ve put five liras under the glass,” he said. “Hope that’s enough?” The waiter smiled gently. “It must really be just a bit more than enough.” He thought and put his dirty blue mask on to keep the rest of his talk hidden.

“Why are you still texting me? Let go of me already!” He said as he walked past the alley with cobblestone pavements, and checked the empty cafés left and right as he quickly reached another alley with cobblestones, and cafés that actually had people in. 

The church-bell was ringing.

Nothing had changed about the scene in fifteen minutes, except the people waiting at the café opposite the church were now slowly leaving their seats for the rite. Same two Armenian guards with white masks on were standing in front of the church, and they were still doing their best to look intimidating, albeit fruitlessly. The one on the right -the bulkier one- watched the man as he approached towards them.

“It’s eleven. Can I come in now?” He asked.

“Well, the community has just started coming in.” The guard pointed the people opposite the church with his head. “We need to see how many people will come.”

“But you told me to come at eleven, and now it’s eleven…”

“Yeah…” He paused, fixing his stare on his mask. “Can you come by ten minutes later? Then I can tell you whether you can join or not.”

He smiled, but it went unnoticed by the guards. The sign on the iron gate behind the guards stated that this church wasn’t any ordinary church, but the “Armenian Catholic Church”. And there was a statue of a cock standing right on top of this particular church, facing south. It was pointing the Orthodox Church beyond.

“I can’t wait that much. I need to join the rite.” He said.

The bulky guard shrugged. Both looked at the other guard. He shrugged as well.

“If you’re not letting me in, I am going to the Orthodox.” He said, with his right hand pointing at the same direction with the cock on top of the church.

He looked at both bodyguards in turn. They both shrugged again. “It’s up to you.” Said the bulkier one. 

“It’s at your peril.” He answered, smiling even more: “You’re not letting me join in, so I’ve got to go to the Orthodox.” Now his smile didn’t go unnoticed, but they had no other option than shrugging yet again, so he started walking away.

“Did… did you see his feet?” The bulkier guard asked his friend as the man faded away. His friend shook his head. “Guess I need some coffee,” the bulkier man thought.

The walk to the Orthodox Church was twenty minutes. He came across with the elderly people of the community leaving the church as he was getting in: The rite was over. “Wish I’d come here first.” He thought as he stole a candle from the table on the entrance. “Better late than never.” He whispered and went inside. There were still people there, going in and out of the priest’s cabin. Stealing the fire from a lit candle, he lit his own one and stuck it inside a pot where ten, twelve candles stood together. With all these coarse sand laying around inside the pot, it really looked like a cat litter.

He opened his hands in front of his chin, looked inside his palms, and prayed a brief prayer: “My God,” he said. “You know the issue. Thanks for that. Amen.” He fondled his face with both of his hands and sat down on a stool in the corner. “I know this stool,” he thought; “I used to sit here, and Turkan used to…”

“Well, she couldn’t really handle the situation that well.” He thought. She seemed to have understood the reason behind why he wanted to part ways. “I understand.” She’d kept saying. “I really do. You are right. I will go, it’s just this quarantine…” It turned out she really didn’t understand much. He kept thinking:

Two weeks after she’d gone, she made a surprise visit. She told him about this witch doctor her father took her to. Apparently, according to the “hodja”, to whom she seemed to believe wholeheartedly, he was possessed. 

It was a witchcraft that was performed by someone in his family to break them apart.

“And who is this someone?” he’d asked. The grasp of his cup was intense. “My mother? Grandmother?”

“Yekta, you need to listen to me.” She insisted. “Remember all the times we were together.”

Yekta was standing up behind the kitchen table where she sat, barely enjoying his warm coffee. “I am listening Turkan.” He said.

“So, we all have our ones-with-five-letters.” She said it very quickly.

“The Genie.” He said.

“Don’t say that!”

“All-right.”

“Listen to me. Please listen.” Pressing her right foot on the floor, she pulled her stool closer to where he stood. This movement seemed to have taken a lot of effort for her. “She put on a lot of weight,” Yekta thought. “She looks like a chicken now.” This idea really entertained him.

“The hodja looked at the water and saw it. I swear. He said that someone in your family fed the stray cats with livers to do a witchcraft. As a result, my…” She paused, and went on quickly: “…my one-with-five-letters and your one-with-five-letters have changed places.”

“Uh-huh.” Yekta stretched his arms a bit and squared his shoulders.

“Listen!”

“I swear I am listening.”

“No, you’re not!” She seemed to have forgotten about the cup of coffee in front of her. Her gaze was fixed on Yekta.

“So, you want your genie back?” Yekta asked.

“Stop the mockery! This is a serious situation. You need to listen to me.” She paused to take a very, very deep breath, and went on: “Because my one-with-five-letters and your one-with-five-letters have changed places, we got bored of each other.”

“OK, I got it, but…” He bit the left side of his lower lip and inhaled deeply. “Why didn’t God protect us from this craft? Maybe it was his will to exchange our genies, and break us apart? Did you consider that?”

“Because, you know, we were living in sin. You know, we were…” Now she noticed her coffee. “Yekta, you need to clean yourself too. Do you understand?” Both her plump, white hands moved over her cooling cup of coffee without touching it.

“Yes, but I am always abluted, and I also pray.” Yekta slightly swung his left hand open in front of his chin and looked inside it.

“Are you having alcohol?”

“Not really.” Yekta held his cup tight and looked inside sternly. “You know, one or two glasses of raki on Saturday evenings…”

“No! You need to stop drinking entirely until the craft is broken. This is serious! Just listen to me. You’ve got to understand this!” She swung her hands open too, but her gaze was still fixed on Yekta.

“I am listening.”

“I understand you. I couldn’t stand seeing you either. But I did what he said; now you see, I can easily talk to you. You need to clean yourself as well!”

“Yes, but I am clean. I told you. I ablute all the time!”

“But you are having alcohol!”

“That’s because I am Albanian, don’t you know? Friday, mosque; Sunday, church; Saturday, raki. We observe all the rites.”

“Can’t you just stop drinking for some time? At least until the craft is broken?”

“What a Fascist!” he thought. He was revisiting this scene for the third time on his way home. “Where did all the cats go?” He wondered as he went inside his apartment.

Without changing his clothes, he went into the toilet and abluted. Then he walked into his room and performed the Dhuhr. In the end, he opened both his hands, now in front of his nose, and prayed another brief prayer: “My god! You know the issue. Thank you for that. Amin.” He fondled his face with both of his hands.

After folding his thin praying rug and putting it on his wardrobe carefully, he changed his clothes and wore his summertime uniform; a white t-shirt with blue stripes and faded shorts. He went to his workplace, which was next room. Sitting cross-legged on his armchair, he opened his laptop. 

There was a small ceramic figure next to his laptop; a black Berber man in a loose white shirt and a red salwar, sitting cross-legged, holding a large, golden bowl on his lap with both of his hands. Inside the bowl, there was a half-burned palo santo. Yekta lit the burned tip of it as he watched his cursor on the last word he’d written on the document. He twirled the palo santo in front of his nose seven times with his right hand. The cursor appeared and disappeared seven times, signalling the word it was on: “sword”.

“Uuu-goooh!” he sang as he twirled it each time. Then he put it back into the Berber man’s bowl.

“Hurry up U-goh! We shall finish this before they take you back!”

And he started to write.