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Chapters (38)
  1. Cover
  2. Half Title
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright Page
  5. Contents
  6. Preface
  7. 1 Kurban:
  8. 2 I Am an Orphan, Press Me to Your Chest
  9. 3 What Has That Got to Do with It, Dad!
  10. 4 I Am Grown Up, Dad
  11. 5 The Weight of Your Coat
  12. 6 “We’ll Ask Someone for Our Name, and She’ll Tell Us”
  13. 7 The Seal
  14. 8 Whose Blood Is That on the Photo?
  15. 9 The Smell of Bread or Blood?
  16. 10 What’s Left for Us
  17. 11 A Drop of Water
  18. 12 Just Let Go
  19. 13 Turkey at the End of Its Rope
  20. 14 Hearts in the Palms of Our Hands
  21. 15 The Burnt Smell Inside Us
  22. 16 The Quilt
  23. 17 Where Are Our Dead?
  24. 18 Mothers Sniff Out Their Lambs
  25. 19 The Soul of a Word
  26. 20 Three Kinds of Truth and Us
  27. 21 The Country Doctor
  28. 22 The File Under My Arm
  29. 23 The Country of the Forgotten Dead
  30. 24 The Coming of the Fiancée
  31. 25 The Lie
  32. 26 Why These Scars?
  33. 27 The Municipality Man Who Drew a Gun
  34. 28 Tell All Your Friends, I learned How to Die
  35. 29 God Willing, He Is Dead
  36. 30 Come Along, Let’s Start off by Saving Ourselves
  37. 31 A Whistle Out of Chestnut
  38. Glossary

19 The Soul of a Word

19

The Soul of a Word

In her book Leyla Neyzi mentions a story by N. Kazancakis: Passing through a village two travelers pick a strange flower off a fence. A very beautiful flower. The village children gather round. The two travelers ask them:

“What’s the name of this flower?” The children:

“We don’t know but Aunt Lenio does.”

“Run and call her over.”

A child races off to the village center. Patiently the travelers wait and a little later a child returns.

“Aunt Lenio has died.”

The travelers’ hearts contract. They are not only thinking of the death of Aunt Lenio but also of the death of a word.

The soul of a word.

Words are not only a meaning that comes when certain letters are put together in a particular order. For example, the word “flower” is not just a physical flower. Or the word “letter.” Is a letter nothing more than a piece of paper stuffed inside an envelope?

Why do we shiver when someone says the word “photograph”? Because it’s more than just a picture.

*

For example, when you say the words compos mentis what comes to my mind is a little prayer book hanging around the neck of a frail, thin-faced child sitting silently between two gendarmerie on a worn-out bench that was gifted from the municipality in a long, narrow corridor of the health clinic. He left a neighboring town where he was working as an apprentice and came here. He took a rifle and right in the middle of the coffeehouse he killed his father who had been raping his little sister for some time. Now you have to examine the boy and write the report. Is he compos mentis?

Was he cognizant of what he was doing when he killed his father? Did he do it consciously and resolutely, and of his own free will? Everything you write down on that piece of paper will be a guideline for this unfortunate child, as thin as a branch, to determine how long he might rot in jail. So he is compos mentis. Aware and responsible.

A matter of distinguishing good from evil, the straight from the crooked.

So then I have a question for you: take a good look at your life and the decisions you have made. How many of us could write such a report with a clear conscience?

*

And then there is the “virginity test.” Every time I hear those words I always think of those faint carbon stains our veteran secretary inevitably left on those tissue-like pages we used in those days, pages that were never unblemished, when I would go into her room to have tea after I had examined the patient. There is a mother waiting for me at the door with an indescribable fear swirling in her big green eyes, who tightly takes hold of my hands.