EYE CONTACT

It seems her tears were pouring into her heart drop by drop.
At the same time as she was making coffee for me, she was
searching for proofs, key words and ways to tell me her immeasurable
sensitivity and if the language of words could not express all, she
resorted to mimicry and arm and hand gestures. She was devastated;
she was shot right there! She was thumping the left side of her chest
with her right hand. She was hurt so much she thought she would drop
dead right there. But, thank heavens, she is alive and well and looks
better and livelier than she did when I knew her ten years ago. The
cup of coffee is placed in front of me; then with a flurry of activity,
hot sandwiches are offered. As she continues to describe her
heartbreak with sign language she leaves a perfectly sliced chocolate
cake on the table. All this display of hospitality shows that she wants
me to believe her. I can’t say it is because she had missed me so much
because ten years ago we were only acquaintances. In a foreign
country and in a foreign business office we used to run into each other
as we went from one room to the other. We exchanged obligatory
greetings as the only members of a two-person ghetto; we pretended
close interest in each other although there was no real basis for it.

“Ah, is that you? How are you today? You don't know how
happy I am to see you again. Oh, are you ill, your face looks a little
pale to me? My goodness, would you tell me what these people call
currants?”
 2

Our office was a place connected with international culinary

arts. More precisely it was the publishing and public relations center
of these arts; my knowledge of them was nil, but I worked there
because these publications required illustrations with photos and
graphics.

Anyway, my meeting this acquaintance years later in the lobby

of a five star hotel is absolutely the most crucial point of our story. It
seems she is in charge of the menus of this hotel full of international
tourists; she also organizes weekly events featuring the cuisine of dif-
ferent countries, festivals and so on. Such is life: hearts are bleeding,
faces are ashen, but the search for delectable food to please the palates
goes on; the palate desires that this search should continue forever.
Otherwise, after saying "my tears were pouring into my heart drop by
drop,” why are all these varieties of cookies, cakes, hot dishes, cold
dishes, cheese, meat, walnut, and hazelnut filled, soft things, crisp
things, lemon, orange, strawberry, pineapple, cinnamon and mastic
flavored things offered just for dropping in for a cup of coffee? When
I met her at the lobby of the hotel she said, "Ah! It is so wonderful to
be able to talk again, just like we used to do in our ghetto. Now that
we are in our own country, I won't let you go. My house is just around
the corner, I was leaving anyway, you must come to my place for a
cup of coffee." She wouldn’t hear a thing. She had tried new tastes
from the cuisine of a far, faraway country and insisted that I, too, try
them.

And, her heart was broken, she had to tell somebody about it.
 3

If she didn't share her bewilderment with someone she could burst
into pieces. She was already shattered when she brought the coffee in
a hurry. But her eventual gushing out, her effort to prove the depth of
her misery, and her use of gestures to indicate the intensity of her
inner voice took place after this first step. The problem, creating such
a turmoil, that was revealed in the first step was caused by two words
put side by side: eye contact.

Our taste expert was so hurt, so distraught because her delicious

new cookie could not be tasted because of this "eye contact" thing…
She said, "I always found the proper time to ask my customers what
they thought of this dessert or have they like this soup as a requisite of
my profession. But I wish I had never asked that woman! I saw the
two of them as they were paying their bill at the cashier's. As the man
was waiting for the transaction to be completed, encouraged by the
woman’s lady-like and serene appearance, I approached and asked her
what she thought about the cookie served at breakfast that morning
and if she liked it. She looked at me with a faint smile, and answered,
'I had made eye contact with a strange man and could not taste the
cookies; it was not possible... ' Have you ever met a woman like this?
I am revolted! How can one make eye contact with a strange man and
keep staring at him, to the point of neglecting my cookies? Just think
about it! Yet, I had the wrong impression that this woman was some-
one with a discriminating palate. I wish I had never asked. How would
I know she was man-crazy? Furthermore, there was a gentleman with
her who obviously put her on a pedestal.”
 4

Meanwhile the taste expert was putting in front of me some

cinnamon cookies, after that almond pastry, followed by a cake
flavored with some kind of liqueur. The taste expert keeps asking me:
"How do you like this one? Isn't it baked just right? I used my own
home-made liqueur made with the rind of tangerine just picked from
the tree. Do you like it?" I am forced to provide all the answers to her
questions, as she goes on and on... "That morning I had used juniper
berry essence for the cookies I introduced -- a delightful taste and
aroma! But the woman stands there, looks out of the window and
makes eye contact with a man, just imagine that! And I, all these
years, had considered women honest and sensitive creatures. Well,
what more can I say?”

“Wait, wait! Why are you getting up, is it because that woman
answered me like that. I haven't even started telling you about the
gentleman who was with her. It was like that when we were abroad, I
was never lucky with men. Of course I did not make eye contact with
that gentleman. We did not stare at each other. But, how is it possible
that that woman in her elegant room on the top floor of a luxury hotel,
with her man at her side, sitting by the window at a sumptuous
breakfast table could make eye contact with a strange man? Where do
these strange men spring from, like pleasures and nice diversions of
the breakfast table, and moreover they materialize in front of the
window almost waving hands? Do they appear on special order? Just
try to fathom….”
 5

My stomach is upset, I have to get back home. I cannot

visualize a face or a type for the woman who made eye contact with
the man behind the window, and I don't have the desire to adjust my
lenses to the taste expert just because I happened to have this
opportunity. I have to go. Ok, then, who was the well-mannered
gentleman who was with the woman? How about the other one? What
was he doing there by the window? Were there flowers and a
champagne bucket beside the special cookies on that sumptuous
breakfast table? What was the woman wearing? If it was a robe was it
made of silk or velvet? Was the weather fine, rainy, or stormy? What
was the outcome of the eye contact? If I had not bumped into the
taste expert in the lobby of a hotel would all these questions come up?
And if I hadn’t visited her for coffee, would these become so
entangled? Also, how to explain my impression of the man as a
brooding person and of the woman beside him as having an enigmatic
smile?

So many questions can surely lead to a discovery.

I dashed out. I wanted to get back home by the ferry. I thought I

would have soothing dreams; but I walked at a quick pace up to the
five-star hotel I had left a while ago. I lifted my head and viewed the
façade and sides of the skyscraper. I was also thinking about the
situations, places, objects and even “the cookies" with their vibrations,
aromas and tastes that created these questions; if I could photograph
them one by one and then arrange them, then scramble and rearrange
them until I shouted "Eureka," then the encounter in the lobby
 6

would have been worthwhile. And just at that moment what do I see?
A scaffold on the side of the hotel that goes up and down from the top
floor to the middle and lower floors. On the platform stood a robust
man with a bucket and a brush. The scaffold stopped at each floor in
front of each window for a while and the man cleaned one window,
then moved and cleaned the next window. If the curtains were open he
could see inside the rooms. It is afternoon now; the man must have
started his work in the morning. It is still very cold outside, especially
when he gets near the upper stories the cold wind becomes more
debilitating, but the young man must have cleaned the upper story
windows this morning. Go on, go on, don't stop, do the next one.

Here, here! Now one can see clearly the scaffold with the man
standing on its platform sliding towards the large windows in front of
the building after quickly finishing the work on the upper floors on the
side of the building. There are three picture windows next to each
other. The cold wind is penetrating the window cleaner’s flimsy
windbreaker and making it blow up like a balloon. I hope he won’t be
blown away. It is obvious that the poor man is freezing. The strong
wind sprays the water from his brush to his face and hands. He
hurriedly cleans the two large windows with the wide view of the city.
The scaffold does not linger there. Then the scaffold continues on to
the third window and is stuck there. The brush, the rag, the spray are
all there. The skyscraper considered the scaffold’s platform its own
property, but so does the window cleaner. He is planted there. Then
the window whose curtains are wide open, with the beautiful view,
must have been this window. Right by the window, surely, is that big,
 7

round breakfast table with fresh flowers, the taste expert’s delicious
cookies hot rolls of all kinds. Was there a champagne bottle? Well,
that is unknown, but at the table there is a simple and modest woman
looking about thirty-five years old whose demeanor seems to be
enhanced by these qualities and a fortyish man who is smiling at her
as they sit facing each other – that is for sure. Does the man look as
though he just came out of the shower? Perhaps his hair is still wet,
and he has casually thrown a simple pajama jacket on his shoulders. Is
the woman wearing a lustrous satin robe that uncovers her bosom?
Oh, no! she must be wearing a bright blue sweat-suit. They are sitting
comfortably in the armchairs by the table. There are many newspapers
and magazines on the stool by the table. They thumb through them,
they exchange a few words, then they go back to their breakfast. They
drink a delicious, perfectly brewed tea that is steaming in their cups. Is
it possible that this too is one of the marvels of the taste expert? Why
not? Everything is possible in life. Ah, look, look, the scaffold is still
lingering in front of the window. The wind must be getting chillier
because the window cleaner’s breath is steaming up the glass of the
window; the warmth, comfort and abundance on the other side must
have looked more overwhelming and bigger in his eyes. The moment
the woman at the table turns her head and makes eye contact with the
window cleaner is also the moment when she offers the man a plate
full of hot, flagrant rolls; her hand remains suspended in the air.

They say that a good lens does not only record the forms, the
light, the shadows and the colors but it also records the sounds and
even the words. As if caught red-handed with the plate of rolls
 8

suspended in the air, the woman puts the plate down quietly and tells
the kindly man who was looking at her lovingly and tenderly: "Oh,
dear brother, I made eye contact with the workman who is working up
here in this weather. I didn’t know what to do!" She must have said
something like that. The window cleaner, too, must have been trying
to block out the effect of eye contact and with a jealousy aroused in
him makes the scaffold descend in a helter-skelter manner. Yes, we
can see it, he is lowering the scaffold.

Well, now it is clear that the man and the woman are neither
husband and wife, nor the protagonists of a secret tryst. They are
brother and sister. A brother around forty and a sister around thirty-
five. By no means can they be considered well-to-do. To stay
overnight in a five-star hotel and to sit at a fabulous breakfast table
(they had not expected such luxury) is simply a way of defending life.
First of all these two siblings have no one but each other. There are
many people who love them, but they can’t do anything about the
months-long imprisonment of the brother. Perhaps the best thing to do
was what the sister had come up with…

The sister worked and lived in a city other than the city where
her brother was imprisoned. In one of her visits to the prison she
found out that after many months of incarceration her brother would
be allowed to go out one night provided that he returned to the prison
at the same hour the next evening. In one of her previous visits the
sister had asked him, "My dear brother, what have you been missing
most, what would you most like to have? What can I do for you?
 9

Please, ask me to do something for you." As she kept insisting like

that wouldn’t her brother say something like this: "I would like to
have a leisurely breakfast with you at a nicely set table as we used to
do when we were children." Well, then what was the crime of this
intelligent and serious gentleman that resulted in his imprisonment for
many months? Apparently his crime was to think and to express his
thoughts both by talking and by writing. His most recurring subject
was known as his advocacy of special protection for people, groups
and organizations that defended and saved human lives in an
atmosphere of peace and friendship instead of supporting the
individuals, groups and organizations that owed their existence to
warlike activities and weapons of destruction.

The sister dashed to the five-star hotel before the twenty-four

hour leave of her brother and, with the money she had saved from her
modest income, reserved a room with a beautiful view on the top
floor, with breakfast included. When they entered the room her
brother was so astonished and said "My dear, what is all this? What
did you do?” She smiled and answered, "Go ahead, have a good bath,
sleep well, you'll find out in the morning, my dear brother. You were
unjustly deprived of your rights." It can be guessed that it was
something like that... And when they sat together in the morning at
that clean and orderly breakfast table, as they used to when they were
children, they never expected that the sister would make eye contact
with the window cleaner who envied this way of defending life which
was going to end just a few hours later.
 10

As the window cleaner was moving his scaffold angrily to the

lower floors against the wind, against the chilly air he kept shouting,
"Oh, look at what lives they have! They are enjoying themselves on
top of so much food and drink, how comfortable! When I made eye
contact with that woman I should have broken that glass, I should
have hit that table with this brush. I should have messed up everything
they had!..." At that same moment the brother was hugging his sister
who wanted so much to offer him these good things, saying, "Thank
you so much, but we owe a breakfast to the window cleaner."

by Adalet Ağaoğlu
Bad Nauheim Klinik,
August 1997

Translated by
Nilűfer Mizanoğlu Reddy