(The end to this story took a long time to figure out. I have serious misgivings. Any suggestions are appreciated.)
The sugar in my çay had settled and turned to sludge at the bottom of the cup. I was aware of several things without knowing why: the cry of a corn vendor in the distance, the sweat on my forehead, the wires above me humming with energy...
“And that’s it. They never caught him. What do you think of that?”
Music from a passing car radio, the film developing inside...cuts on his fingers...
I thought for a long minute. Then for a longer minute I thought nothing. Then I spoke.
“Well, I think your story isn’t finished.”
“No?”
“No. A story is an answer. An unfinished story is a question, and a question is an unfinished story. What you’ve just done is ask me a question.”
“And what question is that?”
A tram ringing its bell the next street over. A rat scurrying down the gutter.
“The answer is No, Emre, in spite of everything you’ve said and done, I do not have it within me to hate you.”
Emre Çağan fished the lemon slice out of his cup of çay with his thick fingers. He put it to his mouth and loudly sucked the flesh from the rind. Tossing the cup behind him he walked toward me, then past me, and into the slow-moving crowd along the Sandemir marina.
The sugar in my çay had settled and turned to sludge at the bottom of the cup. I was aware of several things without knowing why: the cry of a corn vendor in the distance, the sweat on my forehead, the wires above me humming with energy...
“And that’s it. They never caught him. What do you think of that?”
Music from a passing car radio, the film developing inside...cuts on his fingers...
I thought for a long minute. Then for a longer minute I thought nothing. Then I spoke.
“Well, I think your story isn’t finished.”
“No?”
“No. A story is an answer. An unfinished story is a question, and a question is an unfinished story. What you’ve just done is ask me a question.”
“And what question is that?”
A tram ringing its bell the next street over. A rat scurrying down the gutter.
“The answer is No, Emre, in spite of everything you’ve said and done, I do not have it within me to hate you.”
Emre Çağan fished the lemon slice out of his cup of çay with his thick fingers. He put it to his mouth and loudly sucked the flesh from the rind. Tossing the cup behind him he walked toward me, then past me, and into the slow-moving crowd along the Sandemir marina.
The surprise ending really works. The distractions noted by the narrator - the rat scurrying in the gutter, etc. - succeeded in heightening the buildup and suspense, and the payoff didn't let me down. It begs the question of why the narrator didn't hate his new acquaintance, but that just shifts the question of motivation from the Turkish man back to the narrator. One technical flaw in the story; Oxford's defines "debutante" as "an upper-class young woman making her first appearance in fashionable society." You could get away with the genderless conjugation of the noun, "debutant", defined as "a person making a first appearance in a career or in fashionable society." I've never heard it used that way, but what do I know?
ReplyDeleteThanks, I'd been using that word wrongly for years!
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