06/03/2016

As part of this Ömer Seyfettin translation project, I asked Copilot to make me a drawing of the Turkish nationalist writer. The photograph on the left depicts a true image of the author where as the one on the right is a drawing produced using Copilot. Although some of you may reason that the Copilot production is in the style of a drawing and the image on the left is a black and white photograph that has been modified through photo colourisation, I am almost certain that you can see that the two portraits do not represent the one and the same man. So the same difference goes for everything we as humans can "create" and/or "produce" using AI, a mere bastardisation of reality. Now, please keep this in mind each time your hand goes to Copilot or any other AI app. Or indeed, the same applies when you decide to utilise Google Translate or any other translation software to do the work of a professional translator. 

It was not love or romance... You know that hand shrouded in mystery – the one we call “coincidence” – the very same that writes history, makes merry go-around, and encourages people to nest? That’s the hand that brought together Rose Mayer and me. I was about to turn twenty and living in one of the second-class hotels of Izmir with my little dog Cotton. One day a blond French girl with large blue eyes moved in across the corridor. I could read the sadness on her face. I asked the hotel owner who she was and he told me:

- She fell in love in Paris with an Armenian doctor and followed him here. His family wouldn’t accept her, they kicked her out. Poor thing is waiting for the steamship that will take her back to her homeland.

How the human heart stirs in its early twenties! I worked up this simple adventure in my mind’s eye. I began to empathise with the sorrows and woes of this poor girl with her big blue eyes bloodshot from crying. I had a hunch that she was waiting for money rather than the steamship because I was secretly following her; she was walking to the French Post Offıce each day to enquire about incoming letters. Our paths crossed on the stairs and corridors and each time we carefully studied each other’s faces. Then commenced the mutual salutations, “Bonjour, bonsoir.” After a week we had become friends. She told me about what had happened to her with teary eyes. I consoled her, I philosophised about life. She wasn’t as naive as you may assume. She understood it all, she was a realist. At the same time, she valued her virtue greatly and gave priority to the idea of becoming a docile housewife over any other happiness imaginable. I too enjoyed a tranquil life. We had become a couple before the month was out. She didn’t return to Paris even though her family sent her money. She became one with me. We rented a small flat inland from the second quay. Oh how sweet are the marriages made with freewill! I was over the moon... I sensed the fluttering of a dove drunk on joy, a sensation I had shut away for longer than I could remember. Rose really didn’t like going out or wandering the streets. From dawn till dusk she did housework, tirelessly cleaning everything from top to bottom with all her might. Her interest in cleaning was intense, verging on insane. Us three, including my dog, we were bathing three times a day. In the evenings we went to Cafe du Paris or to the cinema. Upon our return home, dog-tired Rose would clean the undersides of our shoes with bleach and as if it weren’t enough to wash Cotton’s paws, some nights she even would soap up the poor bugger spick-and-span from head to toe.

Albeit, what is happiness other than a dream? Ours didn’t last long either. We woke up one day with deep sorrow. Cotton was really sick. He wouldn’t eat, drink or play. He was always lying down, losing weight, and shedding away. Rose and I were as hopeless as one another. She kept saying,

- The poor thing has tuberculosis!

We visited who knows how many veterinarians. They prescribed cinchona¹ but we couldn’t get him to drink it. Nothing worked, not even laxatives. Back then I had a friend called Rahmi. I had introduced Rose only to him. He used to visit us on Sundays. He saw the disaster we were up against, and how sad Rose was for Cotton.

- Have you taken him to a vet?

- Yes, we have.

- Which one?

I listed the names of all vets in Izmir. I even attempted to praise one of them for his prowess and scientific knowledge. And although this vet was Muslim he could play the violin, the santoor or the mandolin, one of those instruments we have long forgotten about.

- If you don’t want to lose your dog, old sport, find a European vet and pay a visit.

- What difference is there between a European and an Asian vet?

- Much, he said laughing.

- What do you mean?

- You’ll see what I mean when you take your dog to one.

I considered his recommendation as a paradox. But as you may guess, a drowning man will clutch at seafoam! In times of hardship and despair, what agreeable consolation to build hope upon the most hollow and rotten foundations!

Rose began to chime a familiar tune:

- We are not boycotting anyone, let’s take him to a European vet, perhaps Rahmi is right.

[¹] Translator’s Note: Cinchona is a genus of flowering plants known for its medicinal properties, particularly as a source of quinine, historically significant in treating malaria.

I asked around and found an elderly Italian vet in La Punta.² He was a specialist in cattle plague. I took poor Cotton’s corpse-like body into my arms; he couldn’t even open his eyes. I headed to the vet’s residence. Just as I got there, he opened the door. An old man with a white, forked beard. Hat on head, walking stick in hand, I gathered he was about to go out.

- What is it that you want?

- The dog is sick.

He left his hefty walking stick by the side of the door. He took Cotton into his arms with his shaky, bony hands. He examined his eyes and mouth. Then he sniffed his fur. He run his fingers through the white fur. He responded pensively:

- Put a handful of fleas on him, he’ll get better!

- What do you mean?

- Fleas, son, a handful of fleas.

He handed Cotton back to me. I took him into my arms. I got annoyed all of a sudden. This insolent, demented old man was making fun of me.

- Won’t you prescribe any medicine?

The old man repeated his impertinent advice accompanied by denigrating laughter:

- A handful of fleas! Don’t wash him anymore. Let the fleas live on him. This is his cure.

I got angry.

- Are you making fun of me?

- Why would I? I told you the truth. He needs no other medicine...

- You demented old sod!

- What did you call me? Demented old sod?

- Yes, you demented old sod.

I got so annoyed that I was about to strike his old bones.

- Dare to call me a demented old sod, eh?

- Demented and insolent! I brought you my sick dog out of the goodness of my heart and you just blabber on about fleas!

[²] T.N: Referred to as La Punta (meaning “the cape” in Italian) in Ottoman times this area of Izmir is currently known as Alsancak.

You know that condescending, static sneer Europeans wear on their faces when they are met with pitiful ignorance... The old Italian vet scanned me from head to toe with such a smirk and responded with his foreign accent:

- Get lost you dim-witted man, you understand nothing! Go and do as I say, if he is better you will bring me my fee. If he doesn’t improve, you’ll come and spit in my face.

He pulled the door behind him without waiting for my response and briskly walked away from me. I found myself on the curb wondering if I should take on his advice.

On one hand I was getting angrier and angrier with the old man who belittled me as a “Turk” and brushed me away, and on the other, I was raging against myself for taking this mockery so seriously. I arrived back at home. I told Rose about the impertinence of the old vet.

- Perhaps he’s serious, we can try once, she said.

- Are you a fool? I laughed nervously.

- There’s hope.

- Very well.

But where would I find fleas? In a house cleaned top to bottom twice a day, there were no fleas body or soul! The next day I took Cotton’s still body into my arms once again. I went to visit the shop of one of my friends dealing in the fig trade. I told him I needed to find some fleas.

- In our stock room you’ll find not a handful of fleas but legions of them.

We left Cotton in the stock room with a loaf of bread and closed the door behind us. A day later I went to the same shop to see Cotton. We opened to door to the stock room. Cotton had come back to life; he was up and about. When he saw me he began to jump as he did on his good, old days. Oh how I cheered! I embraced him and headed straight home. When Rose saw that our dear doggie had come back to life she was delighted, even more so than me.

- Careful not to let his fleas dart off!

- How can we keep them on him?

- Don’t wash him.

- I won’t.

Rose gave in for a week. She did not wash him. Cotton was so lively and had such an appetite that he wasn’t full even if he ate his own body weight in food. I regretted that I mistook the doctor’s advice – the effectiveness of which we were yet to figure out - as mockery. I had even gone as far as to insult him. However, flaws that are acknowledged are always forgiven. I began to get restless thinking about my need to apologise to this old man who had given us our happiness back and also to pay him his dues. One morning I got up and went to his house. This time a young handmaiden opened the door. She led me to the old man’s small study adorned with tulle curtains on the windows. He was lying down on a Morocco leather chaise longue and puffing on his white porcelain pipe. He lay still.

- How’s the dog, better?

- He is, I said.

- See what an empty-head you are! I tell you what to do, you think it’s joke!

I placed a lira on the table next to him. I couldn’t hold myself back on my way out, so I turned to him.

- But, monsieur, the vets we went to before prescribed all sorts of medicines and none of it worked. How come the fleas were so effective?

- You can’t wrap your head around that.

- But why, monsieur, am I not a man?

- A man at best, but another kind. An ignorant man!

- But I studied.

- You studied as much as your vets? They give dogs medicine to drink! Sacristi!

I began to talk to him in French. I was resolved to understand how and what kind of effect the fleas had on Cotton. The old European began to laugh. He made me sit down opposite him. He spoke in his medley of Italian French:

- Open the giant ears of that empty head and listen!

This command made me shudder to my core that I nearly felt my ears elongate and dangle. With his right hand he took turns caressing the two strands of his forked beard. He began to unravel as if he was lecturing:

- You want amulets... You want to feel the breath of a true believer upon you... You want medicine... Whereas to diagnose an illness you first need to find out what’s causing it. Once the cause is found as is the cure. Your dog is sick. Why? Did your vets think about that? No... But he’s just sick! Needs medicine... No, you have to find the cause. God has not created any animal, any bodily organ on earth without its task. Even the worst creatures, the most harmful microbes have their place. Four-legged animals are exceedingly lazy, so God put fleas on them. Why? So that when they wake up they get restless and can’t go back to sleep. So that the flea bites make them scratch and move about which enables them to get exercise. And what did you do? You washed the dog. You put cologne on him. He was liberated from his fleas. He began to sleep comfortably. He woke up and went back to sleep. He was no longer hosting the creatures that would keep him awake once he was up. All that sleep took away his appetite. He got an upset stomach. He stopped eating and drinking and moving about. His body filled with toxins. He got sick. If you hadn’t put fleas on him for another month he would have died of hunger and exhaustion!

The old vet explained to me what a crucial role fleas play in the living world and then told me all about flies, mice, all whizzing creatures, and cats. As it turned out mother nature was inflicting young calves with a species of sticky blood-sucking flies on a part of their body – like at the base of their tails and out of reach for their noses to rub against – just to make them run around. I was listening to Darwin’s truths. The vet then moved on to the role of various different organs. He told me about the importance of hair, moustaches, eyelashes, and eyebrows. I was completely taken aback when he told me that the beard was a secondary tool for digestion.

- Ah, you Turks, you cut off all the organs necessary for the body and life. You mess with the order of it all.

- Like what?

- For instance, you shave your armpit hair.

- What are they for?

- Just like the hair in your nostrils and ears, they too have a purpose. There are no muscles in the armpit, just a thin layer of skin. The nerves in your armpits are connected to your lungs. Nature put a natural fleece there to protect the lungs from the hot and the cold.

Within half an hour I learned all about the natural oars of our bodies, and the astonishingly important role played by other important organs that we readily remove from our bodies. The optimistic mysteries of life could not possibly make any sense to the pessimistic and faith-bound mind of an Asian. I accepted that my friend Rahmi was right from the get-go about European vets. Rose changed her mind about washing Cotton. Before long, the fleas of our dear dog took over the entire apartment. So much so that not even we could sleep in till noon as we used to. From then on, we were forced to rise before the sun and sit down to breakfast in the dark.