My Father’s Books

The Meaning of the Silence

190 The Mean­ ing of the Si­ lence When my broth­ ers were ap­ proach­ ing adult­ hood and our only sis­ ter was ready to be en­ gaged to be mar­ ried, my ­ father was once again ­ gripped by the East­ ern dream, like the one he had when he left Con­ stan­ tin­ o­ ple in the twen­ ties; he could not im­ a­ gine that his­ tor­ i­ cal ­ events would di­ verge so much from the ­ course he had pre­ dicted for them. He had been cer­ tain that one day he would re­ turn to Con­ stan­ tin­ o­ ple, would re­ sume his for­ mer East­ ern time, would re­ turn to the smell of the dried hon­ ey­ suckle blos­ soms and of the faded flow­ ers in the white jas­ mine gar­ dens. He could not be­ lieve that time would be sus­ pended for­ ever ­ between him and Con­ stan­ tin­ o­ ple, that he would never again re­ turn to that city. In fact, the coun­ try in which he set­ tled was the first to be freed from Sta­ lin­ ism and ­ opened to the world, in­ clud­ ing, of ­ course, Con­ stan­ tin­ o­ ple. My ­ father could go there when­ ever he ­ wanted. But be­ fore he went, mer­ chants and black mar­ ket­ eers ­ traveled there, and they de­ stroyed the pic­ ture of Con­ stan­ tin­ o­ ple that he had im­ a­ gined and that was se­ cured for­ ever in his soul. His chil­ dren ma­ tured and were ready for ad­ vanced stud­ ies. As soon as one would grad­ u­ ate and begin to work, the next child would be ready to go. And so on in order . . . The whole fam­ ily ­ seemed to be in con­ stant flux al­ most to the end of my ­ father’s life. Per­ haps, deep ­ within him, he lived with the il­ lu­ sion that at least one of his sons would leave, to con­ tinue stud­ ies in Cairo or Con­ stan­ tin­ o­ ple, to re­ con­ nect with my ­ father’s youth. It was dif­ fi­ cult to carry out such a plan in the Bal­ kans, in the coun­ try that had ­ fenced 191 it­ self in. Nev­ er­ the­ less, my ­ father fed our il­ lu­ sions of set­ ting off after his lost dream, es­ pe­ cially when it be­ came our time for study or mar­ riage. He ­ wanted to con­ nect at least one of us, a vain hope, with his East­ ern dream, while oth­ ers, more dis­ turbed Sta­ lin­ ists than Sta­ lin him­ self, con­ cerned them­ selves with the dream of ­ Father’s na­ tive land, the last in the Bal­ kans to de­ stroy the giant mon­ u­ ment to Sta­ lin. His na­ tive land was con­ demned to the great­ est iso­ la­ tion in the Bal­ kans, in the world. It was cov­ ered en­ tirely in bun­ kers. Yes, my ­ father was sure that even there the winds of de­ moc­ racy would blow at some time, but he did not live to see it. My ­ father could not force his way on us, but some­ thing un­ spoken re­ mained in his life, some­ thing that he ­ keenly ­ wanted to tell us. His si­ lence re­ mained the great­ est nar­ ra­ tive of our lives. ...