If there hadn’t been the others to whom he had to endear himself and ingratiate himself, and if he hadn’t been surrounded by people expecting him to conquer the world, there wouldn’t have been any lies. The lies were innocent, the expression and manifestation of dreams. In the land of wakeful dreams, as he went from one joy to another, from one love to another, from one success to another with a childish smile on his face that gave him a somewhat idiotic expression, his step was as light as a feather and his heart a cloudless deep-blue sky. Then one day, when he realized from the blows of arrogant kings and princes holding the scales of right and wrong, true and false, that he was forced to return to this cruel world, that he was nothing but a dreamer lost in his dream world; and that the curtain had finally come down at the end of the play, he put on indifference, insensitivity and silence as protective armour. Nothing could pierce his armour, reach his heart or affect him any more.
When the day came to face up to the truth, and he said in an icy voice, ‘All the achievements I told you about were nothing but lies’, he was surprised to see that they didn’t believe him. They in turn were amazed at how calm, distant and indifferent he could be. He didn’t object when his mother insisted that he saw a psychologist. He didn’t even feel the need to withdraw into his shell. In any case it was empty; it was an endless, bottomless, black hole that swallowed all emotion, pain and joy. Didn’t I really feel anything, or was I just suppressing my feelings? No, I didn’t feel anything. I was empty inside.
The last psychologist from whom his mother expected miracles had told him, ‘This is your safety valve, your defence mechanism. You wouldn’t be able to endure it if you felt anything. This is how you protect yourself. Your instinct for survival still fights back. That is good.’
To live; to live like the weeds, trees, flowers, a field mouse, a cat, a tortoise or a fish … To be a harmonious part of nature, of life and the universe … He knew that this philosophy of life was not one he had chosen but one he had accepted. And he was trying to live it on a razor’s edge as though it had been his own choice. Still all alone, without letting on to anyone…
Like the wounded, defeated soldier of a routed army he returned home from the foreign university town where they had sent him. What was home? My mother, my father, the cat, houseplants, shelves full of unread books. And what hurt him most was their never asking for an explanation. It was their smothering him in a circle of understanding and care instead of accusing him and being angry that he found disturbing and embarrassing. He wasn’t the good-for-nothing son who had disappointed them but the defeated sick child. His mother, who always criticized, always wanted more, always expected success, was now quiet and looked at his face with thoughtful moist eyes. His father acted as if nothing had happened; as though his son, who had been studying abroad for years, had successfully completed his education and returned home and was now looking for a job. He had struck bottom. As a family they were all part of a big lie. They were like actors who were trying to play their parts well in a badly written play.
Deniz had felt relieved when Ömer said in a light-hearted jocular voice that wasn’t at all convincing, ‘All right, we understand. You won’t get the Nobel Prize, but at least you can testify to the suffering of this world with your camera.’ His words carried all the sadness, disillusionment and betrayal that weighed on his heart. Perhaps these weren’t his father’s exact words. No, he wasn’t that cruel, but, well, it was something along those lines. Whichever way you looked at it, it said that he had been discarded. A new unbearable load that he immediately threw into his black hole and discarded. He couldn’t bring himself to say, ‘I don’t want to testify to the sufferings of this world. Pain cannot be witnessed. It can only be fought — and I’m not ready for such a fight. I’m not ready for any fight.’ For a moment he even imagined that he could return to his dream world and succeed, that he could become an internationally famous war photographer. A very short moment that was shattered into pieces and disintegrated when reality struck … Hadn’t his mother said, ‘If there’s nothing you can do, go and be a human shield?’ No, no, mothers didn’t say such things; Mother Cat would never say that. No, she hadn’t said anything like that, but I know as surely as if I had heard it with my own ears that the thought went through her mind.
Triumph or death … Aim for triumph even if there is death at the end. They were willing to have a dead son rather than one who had not been successful. For them, a child who had been sacrificed for what they regarded as the right causes — science, the revolution, peace, whatever they might be — was not considered lost; whereas in their eyes and their hearts I am the lost son.
He is exaggerating, and deep down he knows it. He is freed from humiliation, his feeling of guilt and shame by exaggeration. Blaming others turns his humiliation into anger, his guilt into victimization and his shame into self-confidence.
In those days when we were still in shorts we were not lost. We were their hopes as we were dragged to private crammer academies and made to study without pause or sleep for entrance examinations to the most select schools; trained like racehorses to be the most successful in the most prestigious establishments. ‘A lot of work has gone into children like you, and you have to make it worth while. You are privileged children, especially in a society such as ours,’ Elif used to say. She would give examples of her own students, talk about children who were successful in spite of being underprivileged, for whom no effort had been made but who had studied and been successful under very difficult conditions, and she would praise them enviously. He remembers how depressed these oft-repeated words made him feel even as a child.
Of course he hadn’t wanted to become a nobody, as his mother expressed it. Who would? However, he hadn’t quite understood what being a nobody meant. It would have been good if what they called ‘success’ had come naturally, but he neither had the will nor the strength to compete for it. He had studied very hard and memorized everything to get the high marks necessary to make his parents happy and win their favour. However, they always scorned his efforts and wanted better school reports. Even the teachers at school said they expected more from the son of Elif and Ömer Eren. He was unable to understand this at the beginning; then he found it unjust and cruel and rebelled against it.
Elif used to say, ‘Too much ambition is not a good thing. However, its absence makes one lazy and passive, distances one from success.’ I had no ambition, no passion. I never wanted to be better than others. Perhaps because I knew I couldn’t, or perhaps I didn’t want to force myself, I didn’t have the power. I had no desire to be the best. What I wanted most was to be loved. I wanted to have friends who loved me and girls who showed me attention. I wanted to live my one and only little life quietly, full of love and happiness.