Summerhouse

Overture

The storm had come.

The wind in all its violence had swept away every trace of happiness along the dirt path that led to the mansion, leaving behind nothing but rage, solitude, and betrayal.

He entered the garden where the fragrances of honeysuckle, jasmine, and rose had once mingled together in harmony. Their musky scents seemed now to smell like a corpse just beginning to rot. As he climbed the steps of the veranda, a few of the boards creaked. He hadn’t noticed the sound before. But the wooden steps, at least as old as he was, had perhaps begun creaking that very same day. Everything was changing so quickly that he couldn’t keep up with the pace of time itself.

He stood at the door of a house that no longer felt like his own. Though he knew every nook and cranny of this place by heart, it suddenly felt entirely foreign to him.

Trembling, his whole body shivering as though he’d been left out naked on a cold winter night, he opened the door and entered.

Where was he? Whose chairs, paintings, and crystal glassware were these, whose photographs, harboring the hallowed memories of love in their silver frames?

He took one of the frames and looked at the face in the photograph. How happy he’d once been. How young, how handsome, how brimming with life. “Who is this?” he whispered to himself.

Whose face was this, far too happy to be his own?

He turned around in the half-dark. In the corner of the living room lay a shadow, immense and unmoving as a beached whale. He tiptoed to the ponderous shape.

The piano. The piano where, once upon a time, he had played the most beautiful of love songs.

This piano served no purpose now except to remind him of how old he was, how happy he had once been. Filled with loathing, he glowered at the piano, which seemed ever so briefly like a sealed coffin containing his memories. Now it was nothing more than a pathetic instrument, a piece of junk in the corner of an old house, waiting there to die.

“Was this the piano that played our song? It can’t be. It mustn’t be. It mustn’t . . .”

In the heavy silence that filled the house he heard a voice. He crept to the foot of the staircase.

The voice was coming from upstairs.

He made his slow ascent up the stairs. He leaned on the railing with every step, trying to keep his breath, his anger, under control. When he reached the top, he stood and listened in the faint light of the hallway.

It was Deniz. Deniz’s voice in the room at the end of the hallway. The bedroom.

And in that instant he heard his voice too.

Him. The man he loved. The man for whom he’d woven the most beautiful of tapestries. The other man smiling alongside his own young, happy face in the photographs downstairs.

That man. His husband. In the room too.

He crept down the hallway. Inside the room, their voices clamored in all their shamelessness. Dragging his weary feet along the hand-knotted rug, he reached the bedroom door.

Now he could hear every word, every groan, every gasp with ease.

In that moment he wanted so badly not to open the door; he wanted to turn around and run down the stairs, to leave that miserable mansion, to find a hollow in a tree and hide himself there, to slip into the ice cream shop on the square and buy a cone of strawberry ice cream, to sit until sunrise on the beach where they always swam. He wanted so badly to go back to two months ago, to return to a time when everything was peaceful, when everything was still normal.

But he couldn’t.

So he took a deep breath and slowly opened the bedroom door.


Two months earlier
THE FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY

“Fehmi . . . Fehmi!”

Fehmi awoke in their bedroom, the dark blue velvet curtains still drawn closed. He took slow breaths, the double duvet pulled up to his nose, and looked at the clock on his bedside table.

8:15.

“Fehmi, darliiiiing . . .”

Şener stood on the landing at the bottom of the stairs, wearing a cotton shirt, heavily starched linen pants, and orthopedic walking shoes, massaging lotion into his hands and waiting for Fehmi to respond.

He craned his head around the stairway and called out again:

“My love. I’m headed out soon. It’s time to get up already. We have to talk about tonight.”

Fehmi sat up in bed and put on his slippers. He looked at the ceiling and wondered: Talk about tonight?

Even before he’d gotten out of bed, even before he’d woken up from that deepest of sleeps, he had known there would be nothing at all to discuss about tonight. No matter what he might have said every day of every year for the past forty years, things were always just how Şener wanted them. That had been the case on their first anniversary, and nothing would be different today, on their fortieth.

Fehmi knew that the topic of discussion—what they were going to eat for dinner—had been decided at least a month earlier by Şener. His knives were sharp as the sword of a samurai and his apron billowed like a glorious flag.

Today was Thursday, and the market was being erected on Büyükada.

Şener would first pick up the freshest vegetables, which he had long since ordered; he would look in his notebook to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, leaving at least two check marks beside each item; he would go to the butcher or the fisherman he always frequented for meat or fish for whatever he had thought up for their main course, and, after a long process of ceremonial inspection, he would select exactly the cut he wanted; until, finally, he would come home to his kitchen. And as always, he would achieve something perfectly flawless, would present his work of art with well-rehearsed humility, would act as if this weren’t their fortieth anniversary but any old Thursday, and would receive all the praise rained upon him with exceeding politeness.

For forty years now Fehmi had never felt included at any point in any plans, all of which always proceeded step-by-step in this manner. Fine by him; he didn’t want to be included in the planmaking anyway. But Şener, who had an obsessive fixation when it came to celebrating special days, expected one single thing from him through these preparations: That he would get up early on the morning of their anniversary, that he would come downstairs before Şener went shopping, and that he would say a few things about the menu, which Şener had decided long ago even if he pretended he hadn’t yet made any such decision.

It was an indispensable anniversary ritual for Şener, the starting point of a great many other rituals particular to this day. But above all else, it was also how Şener chose to be in a relationship: asking his husband what he wants to eat before he leaves for the market, and cooking him what he wants!

This was one of Şener’s secrets to maintaining a happy family. Like the recommendations in women’s magazines: “The way to keep your man is by cooking him up some delicious little treats!”

Fehmi got out of bed. He took the lounge robe hanging above his bedside and slipped it on over his gray pajamas. His right leg was numb from sleeping on it all night, so he stood on his left leg and clung to the wall. Though he’d only just gotten out of bed, he was already out of breath. At this age he felt exhausted all the time, even when he woke up in the morning. It had been this way for so long now he’d gotten used to the feeling. Aging was its name.

Aging was like the elderly husband he’d lived alongside for so many years now; aging was like an imaginary friend. As the days passed it became less and less imaginary, its presence ever more tangible.

The sun stubbornly beat its way through the bedroom window, making itself felt despite the tightly drawn curtains. The room had been staged with great meticulousness and furnished with the utmost taste; only the bed was messy as Fehmi dragged his feet to the master bathroom. Şener had left the bedroom door cracked so he’d be heard more easily when he called out from downstairs. “I’m coming,” Fehmi grumbled as he passed by the door.

Having finally heard the answer he’d been waiting for, Şener took the shopping caddy from the front closet. He took a turn around the living room, drawing back and straightening out the tulle curtains that let the sunlight gently filter in. With a contented smile he surveyed the room, ensuring that everything appeared flawless.

The freshly cut flowers had been placed in their vases, and the throw pillows on the chairs had been arrayed side by side with such symmetry it was discomfiting. Not a single speck of dust survived his morning assaults. The walnut furniture, a perfect picture of debonair refinement, shone in the first sun of summer on Büyükada. A symphony of order, Şener would call it. I composed it myself. My most precious work.

He paused for a second. His eye caught on a tiny spot on the black piano in the corner. He swished over to the piano and took a handkerchief from his pocket, blowing on the impertinent blotch, then rubbing it away.

Yes, now everything truly appeared flawless.

Refined. Elegant. Gleaming. Just like him.

“A perfect spring day,” Şener said to himself as he returned to the kitchen. After the long winter, the freshness of the brand-new spring air always made him so happy. And because today was their anniversary, one of the most important days of his life, he felt even happier than usual. In His infinite generosity, God had given them this beautiful late spring day, filled with love, as an anniversary gift.

He entered the kitchen, where the cupboards were shabby but functional and the counters were festooned with practical little appliances, and crossed to the table, upon which fresh flowers had been placed not in a vase but an old pitcher. He had cut these flowers this very morning, placing them into the vases and pitchers around the house one by one with painstaking care and attention to the harmony and balance of their colors. If his life were a novel, its opening line would read, “Şener said he would cut the flowers himself.”

He checked the placement of Fehmi’s breakfast, straightening out the napkin and silverware. Since it was Thursday, Fehmi was allowed to have an egg. Şener had boiled the egg to perfection in a tiny pot and then covered it with a dish towel to keep it warm. He peeled away half the shell, placed it in an egg cup, and brought it to the table.

Fehmi was still in the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror after rinsing his face and pawing at his sagging cheeks. It was time for him to shave; his beard made him look older than he was. He wet his thinning hair and combed it back, then dried his face with the soft towel Şener had put out for him that morning. He peed, though it wasn’t easy. No matter how much care he took, it always hurt a little to pee. I need to have my prostate checked again, he thought, scowling at the prospect of an ailment as he left the bathroom and descended the stairs.

When Fehmi entered the kitchen, Şener stood at the counter checking his coin purse to make sure he had enough change. “Good morning, my love,” he said warmly when he saw Fehmi, as though he hadn’t been the one to wake him, as though Fehmi had thought, all on his own, to wake up early for once.

Fehmi walked straight past him with a cold “Good morning,” offering less attention and warmth than Şener had expected in return.

“I see we woke up on the wrong side of the bed yet again this morning,” Şener muttered as he returned to counting his change.

Fehmi sat down and picked up his egg spoon to dig into his breakfast. “And you’re cheerful as ever. Where do you get all this energy so early in the morning? I don’t get it. Normal people are usually grumpy when they wake up.”

Şener zipped up his coin purse and put it in his pocket before sitting in the chair opposite Fehmi. “What else should I do, Fehmi dear? What do you recommend? Should I wake up in the morning crying like normal people do?”

Fehmi knew all too well he couldn’t compete with Şener’s flair for exaggeration. For Şener, there were only ever two paths through life. Black or white. Freedom or death. Waking up happy or waking up in tears.

Şener was the kind of person who chose to wake up happy. He had gotten up two hours earlier, spending the minutes he regarded as his “private time” working in the garden, doing his exercises, and having a light breakfast in preparation for his special day. He preferred this over waking up in the morning crying, and truth be told, it suited him quite well. His eyes sparkled like two bright stars shining side by side.

Fehmi met those sparkling eyes as he bit into his toast covered in fat-free butter. Forty years together with this man, he thought. Forty years and this man had never wavered in his attention, his love, his commitment to and passion for the life they’d built together; nor had he lost any of his mettle, his joie de vivre, his routine flawlessness. And today was their anniversary, their fortieth anniversary. “You shouldn’t cry of course, darling,” he said, this time sincerely, tenderly, lovingly. “Why cry? You look wonderful this morning, as always. I’ve always been jealous of your energy, that’s why I’m picking on you.”

“Don’t be silly,” smiled Şener, getting up to pour himself more tea. It had been so long since he’d heard the word “jealous.” That word had long since exited his life. He felt a strange sense of relief, rather than disappointment, at the realization. Anyone who considered jealousy a form of love could not be more wrong. To the contrary, jealousy, lust, and obsession were poisonous feelings. Şener understood that long ago. When the two of them had first gotten together, he had of course been horribly jealous of Fehmi, but over time that feeling had faded away, had been replaced by other things altogether. Instead of jealousy, he preferred to know how Fehmi ate his eggs; instead of lust, he preferred having a man to bring him his sweater when he got cold; instead of obsession, he preferred to have command over how Fehmi drank his tea.

Şener dropped a wedge of lemon in his own cup of tea and returned to his seat. It had been years since he’d cut the feeling of jealousy, just like sugar, out of his life.

“Fehmi, darling,” Şener said gingerly, “you know it’s our anniversary today . . . You didn’t forget, did you?”

Fehmi took his napkin and wiped the egg out of his mustache, which had gone almost entirely gray but was still full as ever. He looked at Şener, smiling. “I might have grown old, but I haven’t quite lost my mind yet. Of course I remember. I think you’re confusing me with yourself.”

Şener let out a sharp, pleased laugh. “Oh, sweetheart. I’m not going to spend the morning of our anniversary arguing with you about which of us has lost our minds or is closer to having Alzheimer’s. You’re the one who usually forgets special days, that’s why I brought it up. You remember, my birthday . . .”

Fehmi glared at Şener. Yes, he had indeed made the careless mistake of forgetting Şener’s birthday once, just once, in their forty years together. Whenever something else had been forgotten over the years, that transgression was used as ammunition against him.

Şener understood from Fehmi’s gaze what he was thinking right away and changed the topic. “Oh, yes. Pardon me. Don’t worry, I’m not going to remind you of that business with my birthday anymore. I’m over it. I won’t say another word about it.”

But by now Fehmi had decided he wanted to be a brat. “That’s right, you won’t. In this house, what I say goes. I’m the man of the house, and if I tell you not to say another word, then there better not be another word out of you.”