1
I still remember the day Naci[1] Zara's file landed in my super-secure inbox like it happened yesterday. Behind my back was a hard pillow adorned with Tibetan sky patterns; on the coffee table, where I stretched out my swollen legs, laid the golden pits of the plums I'd just devoured with my bated breath; on the other side of the sofa was our kitten, Hundun, engaged in a relentless struggle with its own tail; on the radio was a voice from the nineties, singing "Bù zhǐshì péngyǒu[2]" and in my womb was my son who would never be born. Outside, heavy July rain was pummeling the city's concrete streets. Selfless grandmothers and grandfathers, sworn to be hand fans for their grandchildren, had escaped to the scooter parks beneath the buildings as if the elixir of youth had been suddenly injected into their legs. The green garden at the center of the complex, which was becoming more dilapidated with each drop falling from the sky, was left to the patience of African snails and our native, squishy earthworms. Water splashing against the metal roof of the outbuilding housing of the security guards sparkled and rippled beyond the garden's boundaries. The two long metal poles we used to hang laundry swayed from the balcony ceiling like a cradle, clashing against each other. The sky grumbled like an old lady snarling at a street vendor who tried to cheat her. Mosquitoes sought warm, humid new spaces in defiance of the suddenly foul weather, and smoke-colored clouds sparkled momentarily across the sky like mischievous children who couldn't give up their firecrackers on festival days.
What happened? Are you
bored already? Did my descriptions weigh heavily on the minds of the most
impatient generation that history has ever known, the relentless children who
aren't used to challenges, who expect action every ten seconds, who, when they
don't find what they're looking for, move on to the next entertainment with a
flick of their finger? Did I exaggerate a simple rain? What could be more
natural, more ordinary, and, some might say, more despicable and devastating
than the torrential rain in Shenzhen in July, the flooding, and even the
traffic chaos? But what can I do? If nature itself exaggerates without limits,
if it's always chasing one madness after another, if even its simplest form can
shake already-settled souls, is it my fault? I am responsible for recording
what unfolds before my eyes, the sounds and sights that shake my heartstrings,
with such anxiety and tremors that I feel as if I'll never experience them
again. I so desire that you too will tremble within. May this unique moment I've
experienced transcend time and space, causing a tornado in the hearts of those
who, thousands of years later, have never even heard of Shenzen, and stirring a
movement in their bodies. May these images, coursing through my consciousness
like a virus, live on in other consciousnesses nestled on the inaccessible
fringes of the universe and history, becoming immortal, remaining ever-living.
Since my body cannot survive this mortal life, may my consciousness, clinging
to life in the minds of others like a pearl clinging to an oyster, remain
there, always speaking, murmuring, sparking forth curses at the most unexpected
times, like the blade of an axe striking a stone, seeking and creating paths to
immortality, adorning and polishing what exists, and enhancing its power. May
people, when they read my writing, feel a wetness on their heels, a cool relief
on their shoulders, a faint itch on their lips, and a spring breeze on their
bare chests. Let them hear the sound of rain in their ears, enough to make even
the numbest lovers long for love. Wouldn't that be good? Besides, does
literature have any other mission than this? I should focus on it, hone and
develop my talents in that area, push my boundaries when the time and place
come, and even surpass them! If Naci were here now, he'd agree with me. Perhaps
the act of writing could be accomplished with fewer words, with less effort. I
don't know. After all, I'm a rookie, just starting out, a novice in this field!
An apprentice who will never become a master, a slave with no ambition for ownership,
a dreamer who prefers flowing stream to a calm lake. You could call mine a kind
of midlife crisis, the final straw brought to me by boredom and material
comfort. Paper cutting[3], calligraphy, or dancing
with my peers in the park aren't for me! I'm just trying. Maybe after I write
my first and last story, I'll lose my enthusiasm and get rid of this problem.
Until that day comes, I can't save any effort. Besides, isn't it common for
beginners to overdo things, exaggerate, and mess up? If you don't like it,
suppose that you haven’t read this paragraph. I won't interrupt again, I
promise.
I'd risen from my seat,
swaying like a well-fed bear cub, and had securely closed the door and window
to prevent the water from the balcony into the living room. Just in case, I'd
spread a few of my husband's old clothes on this side of the threshold. The
profound silence that then filled the house, the sudden cessation of the hum
from outside, giving way to a motionless solitude, had at first surprised me,
then brought me some relief. Yes, I was alone; now, like Clark Kent entering a
phone booth as a reporter and emerging as Superman, or Dr. Jekyll evolving into
Mr. Hyde at night, I too could transform, allowing my inner spy to possess the
soon-to-be-mother housewife. I wouldn't have to attend to anything else for at
least two and a half hours. The meat I'd taken out of the freezer for dinner
was thawing on the kitchen counter, and the vegetables I'd bought from the
grocery store at the entrance to the complex were being disinfected in soda
water. My husband wouldn't be home for three hours. This meant I could pore
over the file to my heart's content, memorize every detail of my new
assignment, and even find information online about some topics I wasn't
familiar with. And half an hour before my husband arrived home, I'd slip into
the kitchen and return to my loving, hardworking, beautiful, and charming self.
Oh, my naive husband,
oh, the kindest, the nicest, most gentleman in the world, who never had the
slightest doubt about his wife's work... I could never blame you for seeing
everyone around you as "the inside is the same as the outside"! On
the contrary, I often blamed myself for not being like you, for keeping a
secret from you my entire life, and for luckily avoiding detection despite the
small mistakes I made. And it wasn't just you who were unaware of my second
life. My family, your family, our mutual friends... Everyone knew me as a
smart, hard-working, and enterprising woman who made small profits from home,
buying goods from wholesale stores on Nan Hai Boulevard and selling them
nationwide, and running a small shop with a small assistant. My name is Lai Zi
Ran[4], I am a trader who deals
in wholesale buying of clothes and exporting some, and at home I am a diligent
housewife who has created a perfect life with her husband!
Frankly, most of the
time, I couldn't believe I could carry a second identity in my soul like heavy
remorse. I often thought, "Let me climb this hill, I am going to let go of
my burden, and flap my wings to find my freedom," but the hills never
ended, nor did the weight of the burden on me ease. Oddly enough, for years, I
followed the people I sometimes saw on television living two separate lives—
men with two families in two different cities, unaware of each other; serial
killers who raised three children on the money they earned as accountants while
murdering dozens of innocents; financial advisors who, claiming to make a
fortune for their friends, actually work as motorcycle mechanics and collect
money from people; pyramid scheme scammers who advertise Bitcoin with lavish
performances in giant halls, only to swindle billions of dollars and vanish a
few years later—with an envy I couldn't even admit to myself. How was it that
they didn't feel a pang of conscience? How did this immense secret they carried
within them not take over their bodies, leak out like black vinegar seeping
from cracks, and ruin everything? I'll never know the answer to that question.
Perhaps what made me different was that, like a teacher, a nurse, or a soldier,
I was led to believe that I was working for the welfare of my people. I wasn't
a seductive woman who cheated on her husband, a vagrant who gambled secretly
and squandered her family's fortune, or a scoundrel who spent every penny she
could on drugs. My duty was sacred, my goal was clear, and my heart was pure.
There were times when I couldn't believe this last one, but isn't it, as you
Turks say, "Even a judge’s daughter can have those little issues!"?
Besides, is the past a scrapbook so we can find and erase the things we don't
like? Every sentence you delete from a previous page can cause the next pages
to burn down. Therefore, I owe nothing to anyone. From now on, I can write as I
wish, listening to all the voices within me, embracing all the colors, without
shame or embarrassment, and believing with all my heart that, even if there is
a small possibility, one day Naci will read these pages.
First, I went through
the security checkpoints, which included three separate passwords, facial
recognition, and fingerprints. So much so that if I mistyped a single letter
while typing these passwords, the system would lock me out for two hours. If I
made a similar mistake on my second try, I'd find myself answering to the Head
of the Shenzhen Provincial Intelligence Bureau. Fortunately, I'm not clumsy;
and if I were, why would they give me this job? I'm cautious, curious, and
suspicious. The first thing I look at when I enter a room is where the exits
are. Walking down the street, I know every camera, dead-end street, and
pedestrian walkway by heart. When I talk to people, I look them in the eye,
focusing not on what they say but on what they don't, probing their souls as
deeply as if I were examining a historical scroll from the Tang Dynasty I'd
stumbled upon in the archives. Just as I'm a good cook, I'm also a good
tracker. I can stalk my target for hours without ever getting bored. So much so
that sometimes, when I'm out shopping with my husband or a close friend, I feel
the nagging annoyance of not following someone. I sweat all over, my mind is
confused, and I wait for a sign from the sky, like a castaway in the middle of
a vast ocean, unsure which way to swim. Indeed, following someone is easy; you
don't use your mind, you don't make decisions, you don't face any dilemmas. The
only difference from a guided missile is that your goal isn't to destroy your
target; on the contrary, it's to follow, to obtain the information you need,
and to ensure your target is alive. The lies I tell are so consistent, so
convincing, that even I occasionally send myself notes to remind myself which
story I'm telling and for what purpose, so they don't interfere with reality.
The notebook I keep as a diary is a coded record of which lie I told, and to
whom, on which date. As a spy, my greatest fear is that someone will treat me
like a spy. Ours is a profession that, when identified, self-destructs. In the
back of our minds, we have our second identity, those secrets we keep hidden
from everyone. Meanwhile, with a childlike enthusiasm, we keep the spoiled
self-consciousness of, "I wish I could tell everyone I was a spy, so
they'd be stunned, gasp in utter amazement, and their mouths would drop
open." The gravity of our walking secrets, even from those closest to us,
saddens us like the spoiled children of rich families who aren't allowed to
show off their newly purchased, expensive toys to their friends. It irritates
the tranquil, subterranean pools deep within our souls even when the time and
place are the most inappropriate.
One way or another, we
were human too, after all, each of us made of flesh and bone, impatience and
weakness, loyalty and betrayal, and even chatter, when necessary, born from a mother
and made by a father. How I longed, though; on one of those winter nights, as I
hugged my husband tightly, gently caressed his chest with my free thumb, and
placed my warm tongue in the orbit of his earlobe, to say, "I'm going to
tell you a secret, but don't get angry and don't tell anyone, okay? It'll stay
between us until the day I die." In the early years, I even imagined his
responses in my head and wrote a few scenarios.
- I'm going to tell you
a secret, but don't get angry and don't tell anyone, okay? It'll stay between
us until we die.
- I'm very sleepy, you
can tell me tomorrow morning.
- Why are you so boring
like this? I am going to sleep.
- Don't forget, I will
ask you tomorrow morning.
- I already forgot!
Or
- I'm going to tell you
a secret, but don't get angry and don't tell anyone, okay? It'll stay between
us until we die.
-Don't tell me, let me
guess. You're not actually a young woman. You've been under the knife seven
times and gotten to this point with tons of plastic surgery...
- Don't make me laugh,
I've already eaten too much watermelon, I'm going to pee in my pants!
- So I knew?
Or
- I'm going to tell you
a secret, but don't get angry and don't tell anyone, okay? It'll stay between
us until we die.
- Let me say it before
you do, but don’t be angry. Promise?
- What? Do you have a
secret too?
- Of course there is,
do you promise?
- Well, yeah I promise!
What else can I say?
- I have a mistress,
and she is five months pregnant…
- You animal. Is this a
joke?
- If it's a girl, we'll
name her Zı Ran... Ha ha ha... Stop, don't hit my arm!
When you carry a secret
inside you like a bitter poison for years, this is the pickle-like result. When
I was alone, I always ended up talking to my secret, not to myself. Lying on my
back on sleepless nights, watching the dance of light on the ceiling, irritated
by those who slipped through the crowds at train stations and took my turn in
the queue, but finding it unnecessary to fight, seeing other strangers who
looked like you in parks and tagging along just for the fun of it, pacing the
rough pavements of misty streets right behind your shadow at night, and most of
all, watching you helplessly from afar, drunk as hell, throwing up in the
bushes by the roadside—you never learned not to mix wine and beer!—unable to
approach you from behind, unable to pat your back with my warm hands warmed in
my pockets, unable to lean in and whisper, “It’s over, it’s over, you’ve threw
it all out!”…
And here's your file
before me. Your great-grandfather emigrated from Sivas to Giresun in the early
twentieth century, your registry is in Görele, not far from the Black Sea, but
you're an Istanbul native, born and raised there. You studied mathematics at a
reputable university and speak fluent English. You're about to start teaching
at one of Shenzhen's most prestigious high schools. Wow, wow, wow! You'd better
stick to that. You also write. Essays, poems, short stories, and so on. So,
you're a class of people who know how to hide things, and you claim to be able
to see the world through other people's eyes. This means, our job is both easy
and difficult! Their investigation into you hasn't yielded a satisfactory
answer to the question of whether you're a nationalist, a conservative, a
democrat, or anarchist. They haven't been able to definitively determine what
you believe in or oppose, whether you hold negative views about our country and
will work to spread them, or which side you believe is right on TTXT[5]. You had the potential to
poison the young minds of our high school students, and you might even use your
job as a cover to achieve other ends. Therefore, every step you took was
monitored, all your correspondence and conversations were reviewed with a spy
program installed on your phone, and when you left your phone somewhere,
physical surveillance was needed to record who you met with, who you
befriended, and what you argued about. My previous assignments had included
tracking a businessman from Siirt, a retired officer from Erzurum, a journalist
from Kayseri, and finally, an actor from Yozgat. Except for the last one, all
of them were monotonous, lacking in excitement and depth, and I almost had to
get myself caught just to get over with it. Their only interesting aspect was
that, when combined, they created a striking pattern. It was as if with each
assignment, I was moving a little further west, a little further away from
China. That was the question I asked myself the day I came across your file. I
wondered if my next assignment would be a sunflower oil merchant from Edirne?
No, if I had a next assignment, perhaps I would have had the opportunity to
test this prediction and ultimately accept or reject my hypothesis, but you
were my last. A long, long assignment that lasted almost 18 years, as deep as
the oceans, as high as the Himalayas, as hot as the inside of volcanoes, and
painful as the toothaches of the winter nights.
Ahh, Naci, you were 28
when I met you. Just like you said to that advertising woman you met at the
bar, you were the perfect age. Since it couldn't be 6 or 496! That day, I
thought to myself, "What kind of dorky flirtation techniques does this guy
have?" That they actually worked was a whole other mystery for a woman
like me, who, despite the intervention of others, had finally married her high
school sweetheart. That's where I first saw you in person. I was sitting in the
corner behind the door, drinking lemon-soda, and you were sitting at the bar
with your Canadian friend—the baby-faced guy who'd resorted to Traditional
Chinese Medicine because his hair was falling out—making plans to bike to
Beijing. You had jet-black, thick, and curly hair. Your beardless and
mustache-free face exuded the innocence and joy of a university student. You
were five years younger than me. With your smile, your movements, your restless
body, you weren't much different from a middle schooler who'd just finished his
homework and thrown himself onto the basketball court. The three or four chairs
between us were filling and emptying. When the music stopped, I could hear
every word you spoke, and at other times, I read your thin lips. You traced
your fingers over the map like a commander preparing for conquest, excitedly
saying things like, "If we go together, we can stay in double-bed hotel
rooms; we can make the trip cheaper," to your friend. You'd finished your
fifth beer and was about to order your sixth when that girl appeared next to
you, fixated on the crooked map you'd drawn on napkin paper. Her excuse was to
refill her beer, but her true intentions were clear. "See me, talk to me,
hunt me so I can be a gazelle you'll find hard to capture, and you can be proud
of yourself," she said with the uninterpretable language of a female body
desperate for attention. Inwardly, I prayed to the gods I didn't believe in,
urging you to stay away from that woman and avoid falling into this trap. But
my prayers didn't come true, probably because I didn't have enough faith or
because the gods didn't find me sincere enough. But in the end, I got what I
wanted. You had lunch with the girl twice and gone to the movies once. The food
was fine, but what was that ridiculous movie? I know you passed out in the 14th
minute and woke up in the final scene from the activity signals on your phone.
For all I know, your potential lover, who devoured a huge bag of popcorn on her
own, must have been stumped too. You hadn't seen each other again after that.
You were a little upset. Not because she wasn't responding to your messages,
but because you'd become so attached to a relationship that was clearly
destined to fail. For days, you'd written short self-criticisms in your
notebook, along the lines of, "Why am I like this? Why can't I resist
sweet poisons?" Blaming yourself for your weak willpower, you'd had minor
breakdowns. But I'd known this from the start, so I’d have struggled less.
Thankfully, the breakup didn’t shake you too much. And I didn't know back then
that it wasn't the endings of such superficial relationships that would truly
shake you. In relationships, as in so many other things, there were vast
differences between us. These were differences that needed to be understood,
not overcome. It would be unfair to expect an old-world devout like me, who
would pick the second, if not the first, flower she saw in a garden, put it in
her hair, and then close her eyes to all the other plants in the garden, to
understand you at that first glance. But I didn't give up, don't worry. I
didn't give up, I didn't tire, I didn't complain. I struggled and struggled,
trying to find my way in the middle of a desert where the sand dunes were
constantly shifting, and to reach the oasis that would cool me down, even if it
were late.
And yet it didn't work,
Naci! I encountered nothing but mirages in the endless curves of the long, thin
line you left behind. As I crawled on my knees, belly, and elbows in those
curves, I always talked about you, I became one with your reunion. I made room
for you even if only for your dreams in the rough caves of my womanhood, but
you could never enter through that wide threshold. You managed to fit with your
childish frame into the narrow tunnels of my mind, where no one else could fit,
but you couldn't even take a step closer to my body, which shattered like glass
every evening and was put back and glued together every morning. I always saw
your silhouette on the wet sidewalks softened by the moonlight, but on the
rough surfaces of the same sidewalks that resembled tree bark, you never saw
me, you never noticed me; You never once shared with me the shy smile you
generously distributed to those petite girls you met at your school, whose
names you couldn't even be bothered to learn despite having worked on the same
floor for years. The tide incident that occurred between us was just like my
unborn child, the son I lost a few weeks before birth, never seeing his
mother's face. I was close to you; you were even farther from yourself. I was
the lively world, you the desolate, dark moon! I was the expectant mother who
looked at her swollen belly like a pot and had rosy dreams, you, the blessed
face whose arrival had been heralded. Yes, I had waited for him for months too,
dreaming of the day he would look at me and smile, I longed for the moment he
would call me "mom" with every cell in my body. Neither he could look
at my face, nor you! Neither could he love me, nor you! From him, all I have
left is a six- or seven-year-old friend, whose plump cheeks, red as tomatoes in
the cold weather, never grew up, and whose eyes sparkled like wet tomatoes.
From you, a desolate city, a cold planet, and a terrifying desert night where
scorpions and snakes swarmed. You were both lame baby rabbits stranded on the
opposite bank of the Yangtze River. Following you, I'd run downstream, brushing
aside the twigs that crossed my path with hope and love, ignoring the thorns
that tore and bled from my skin. Sometimes I was surprised by your closeness,
occasionally filled with hope at the narrowing riverbed, but ultimately, I
couldn't change the ill fate of my adventure, which ended in the East China
Sea. Do you know what was most painful, Naci Hoca[6]? On sleepless nights, the
silky face of that six- or seven-year-old boy meets the spots on your unshaven
face, your eyes appear on his face, his lips on yours, my mind goes blank, and
at the end of all this confusion, I find myself crying silently, my elbows on
the cold railings of the balcony at three o’clock in the morning…
[1] Pronounced as “Naa-gee”.
Turkish male name. It means “saved from hell, deserves heaven”.
[2] You are more than just a friend to me.
[3] 剪紙: jiǎnzhǐ: An
artistic activity with roots dating back to the invention of paper. It plays an
important role in decorating homes during holidays and special occasions.
[4]It is read as "Lay Zı Ran." To prevent the reader from
reading the "ı" sound as an "i" sound, it will be written
as "Lai Zı Ran" in future sections.
[5]Tibet, Taiwan, Xinjiang, Tiananmen
[6] Hoca: Teacher in Turkish.
“Naci Hoca” sounds like “Naci Laoshi” in Chinese.
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