The Guest Boy: A Memoir of War, Trauma, and Childhood
For all children.
I wish they grow up in a world full of peace, tranquility and love.
Childhood is said to be the most beautiful years of life. I remember that this is how Leon Trotsky began one of his books. (2022). It must be a true statement; if we think of human life as a whole, the first years of our lives are as irresponsible, free, and loving as possible. Is it only “irresponsible” or “sheltered” that makes our childhood so powerful? For example, are there not children who grow up alone or without a family? Don’t children who are unprotected or irresponsible, who, for example, start selling chewing gum or polishing shoes at an early age, or who have to work in the car industry in filth and rust, remember those years with similarly intense feelings, sometimes with tears in their eyes? How well this applies, for example, to the great writer Maksim Gorky (2014)…
In my opinion, there must be other things that make that period of one’s childhood special. Things related to the lack of adaptation of the human spirit to the world… Maybe they have to do with not taking evil for granted, being able to stretch when necessary, opening unconditionally, or getting less dirty…Colors are more vivid than ever in childhood; time passes with incredible slowness, almost penetrating the human skin. Pictures are deep and settle in the human soul without question… Perhaps this is why everything that seems “ordinary” to the average person becomes a magical, hard-to-replicate experience in the eyes of a child. So much so that these experiences leave a deep and lasting impact on their later life. When we try to recall them later in life, we feel emotions that can only be captured by chance and can only be touched under special circumstances. This is a priceless gift that the soul offers to the human child at the very beginning of life…
They lie side by side. One of them has his eyes open. I counted eight bullet holes in his chest…
…so we are talking about a very special way of life that builds tents by combining chairs, hides behind beds and sofas, invents all kinds of light games with a simple flashlight, creates a spectrum of colors from a broken CD, can be so happy that spinning a top is a source of pride, and, and, in short, creates a huge world from a pinpoint? Doesn’t this fragile but brave, fresh way of life, always ready to believe and accept unconditionally, bring a different power and joy to every object it touches? A person who animates the shadows on the wall with the light that enters her room, who writes stories, who stays awake until the morning with the light of a clock, who sleeps wrapped in her festive shoes, who feels indescribable happiness by hiding in packages and reading books for hours…
…surrounded and triangulated them. It was impossible to help. They narrowed the circle every second. We listened to the radio. In the morning there was no answer. When the radio went silent, we stopped listening. One of our friends fainted…
…so colorful was my childhood, an unspeakable riot of color and light. Everything seemed to have a penetrating, piercing, intoxicating color. Understanding the world in colors and symbols is a different feeling, not available to everyone. I wish I could have that experience again. You can get close enough to touch what you believe in. Especially if you’re used to it. You can even make movies in your own dream world.
As a child, I lived in a relatively sheltered world. We didn’t have much contact with violence, so maybe that’s why throughout my life I’ve tried to collect mostly happy memories. When we were children, all we had in our hands were little water pistols that we played with for hours. Their real power was in their colours. One of them, for example, was phosphorescent green. I loved it the most because its brilliant color would shine in the sun and illuminate the surroundings. In rainy weather, the colors on it would come out and shine mysteriously; those moments are among the most beautiful memories of my life. I may have seen that shade of green only once, but that color left such a deep impression on me that it still comes alive in my imagination. The shoes of our brother Batur, who got all the attention because he was the first one in our neighborhood, were the same colour.. He got an Adidas Torsion with an air sole, and if you had the eyes of a child, you could see their phosphorescent color from fifty meters away. These shoes with their eye-catching colors seemed to give brother Batur a new power and gave him some characteristics that other children did not have. The wheels of Ayça’s BMX bike were the same color; the phosphorescent green of that bike seemed to give it a different power, and you remembered it by its colors.. Maybe that was the reason why I tried so hard to befriend her the first time I saw her. I used to follow her and ride for hours; the increase in my heartbeat when I lost sight of her, or those moments when the wind hit my face as we joyfully descended the same slope, still make me smile… Then two more bikes were added to the team, a pink candy and a bright orange one; perhaps the colors of these new bikes were also beautiful, but the leadership of our team was still Ayça’s with her phosphorescent green wheels. She was the oldest; it was as if they had given her seniority with that color.
The green after the rain… That pure, wild, piercing green on a leaf…
My cousin’s Casio watch had the same color, and I always wanted to have one. It was a stunning green, especially at night; you could see it from across the room. That’s why I was always jealous of his watch; no matter how beautiful the watches I had, nothing could replace the watch that shone with that green light; it seemed to attract me with a glow that always struck me…
….in the morning there was a minute of silence in the schoolyard. A strange siren sound is ringing around us, echoing off the walls as if it’s penetrating us. It is such a sound that it gives people goosebumps.Especially me and some of my friends were very impressed. Immediately after that, a rumour spread. It turned out that the boy who played the siren had his arm cut off! Some people believed it, including me! Because in our children’s imaginations, it was actually such a violent sound, a sound that could hurt and even kill people… a sound that could rip off an arm. Actually, they say that the moment of silence only lasted a minute. But it didn’t feel like a minute to me. I remember praying for it to be over. And then I thought about how long the siren had been going on. What kind of a minute is that? I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such a “minute” in my life… Maybe they timed it wrong?
…then there’s a cherry tree in my memory. This is what red looks like… When it’s red, it’s cherry! A color that calls you, a color that captures you! Yeşim loved it there the most. The Major’s daughter. When the cherry tree began to bear fruit, we climbed up like cats. Fortunately, the tree was close to the ground, and our childish bellies were quickly filled. We were covered in red cherry stains, but we didn’t realize it, and we didn’t need to realize it. We were children, and childhood was wonderful. We also liked the ping-pong table across from the coal cellar. When the door was closed, we could enter through the broken window near the floor, jump down to the table below, and open the door from the inside. The door was not locked, but there was no handle on the outside, and I think they turned the key to open it. We spent so much time there that we learnt to play ping-pong like adults at that age. There was also a strong smell of chalk that accompanied the mouldy smell of files and caramels left in boxes. The evening sun would hit there first. Then there was the pavilion in the garden. If there had been a party the day before, which happened on weekends, and if the place hadn’t been cleaned up properly, which was the case at the beginning of the week, there were always bits of ash and cigarette butts all around us. This pavilion had not only a hexagonal ceiling ut also hexagonal walls, and the carved wooden windows were so tight that they could not be seen from the outside. There was also a grill carved into the wall, and we would sit in front of it and organise our own entertainment. Right next to the gazebo was a playground where we spent hours every day. Swings, a slide and a seesaw. Most of our memories are here. One day I swung Yeşim so fast that I couldn’t hold her when she came back. The swing hit my ear so hard that it knocked me down… Perhaps the best was the seesaw. It must have been because Yeşim and I were close in weight; we had a great harmony and balance between us. Sometimes the soldier brothers joined us. I will never forget one of them; I think he was from Urfa. Once he lifted me all the way up on a seesaw and didn’t let me down for a while. It was as if my head was touching the clouds. What did I feel? Just being close to the sky and a kind of flying feeling… I had experienced the same feeling when the power went out at the top of the Ferris wheel in Istanbul. You were not afraid. You weren’t afraid of those things…
….when I came home, my grandmother was heating water with a grey metal bucket on the coal stove. I hear the monotonous sound of slippers; the familiar, even blissful,, sound of the slipper sticking to your tiny, bare foot. Then I hear the sound of breathing. These are actually the effects of asthma, but I didn’t know that at the time. The sounds of breathing are getting closer and closer. Closer and further away. I am playing with a toy car that my grandfather bought last week. Maybe it’s a model that hasn’t been surpassed yet: the Golf Mk1. It is pistachio green colour, and now I see it even in my dreams. When he met us after school, he gave us two beautiful gifts from his pocket to make us happy. A blue-eyed doll for my cousin Ayşegül and a golf car for me… Along with a harmonica my father bought me for New Year and my mother’s handmade violin, it was the biggest gift of my life, but I didn’t know it at the time.
Childhood is not realizing it.
I play with the car for hours. I drive on the ground until my knees are punctured. When I drive my green Golf, I imagine myself growing up and going where I want to go. At the edges of the carpet, there are regular gaps, which I imagine to be roads. When I drive my car, I sometimes drive toward the stove because the carpet runs out after a while. Under the charcoal stove, a large sheet of newspaper was spread out so that the linoleum on the floor would not wear out. Sometimes my grandmother would put a bucket here, sometimes a piece of tile that she had heated. Sometimes there are pliers here, sometimes a piece of wood. Some parts of the newspaper are not visible, but I can read part of it. It must be from last week. Now that I have learnt to read, I read everything, maybe even unnecessary things… A picture frame, people lying side by side. It says, “Bloody raid, 35 dead. The subhead says, “Killed down to the chickens.” They wrapped them in little white cloths like sugar packets. Then they tied them together. Last week, my grandmother made such a dessert on a tray. I watched her carefully as she made it. She wraps the phyllo like this: from the beginning and the end… There is only one difference. This pastry is labelled “Guest Boy”. There are several of them. Their ages are written below: 6, 8, 4. The moment I see this newspaper page is actually a very important moment for me, but I am not yet aware of it.
Childhood means not being aware of such things.
That night, these picture frames come into my dreams. In the evening, I’m at home watching the Terminator movie with my father. This must have been the first time Terminator was shown on television. At the very beginning of the movie, a construction machine passes over the skulls on the ground in a dark and desolate future (actually it’s called dystopian, but I don’t know that yet). Childhood is not to know dystopia In order not to see this soulless, dehumanising scene, I quickly pull the blanket over me and close my eyes tightly. I close my eyes tightly and think, “What is death like? What is this thing called the end? And what is eternity? These concepts, which seem so foreign and distant to me, as if they belong to another planet, come to my mind in a flash.
Will those who die today be like this? And then what? What happens after that?
My childish mind can’t understand that!
That night I dreamt that the Terminator raided a village. He’s in the shape of a robot, but his eyes have a strange fire in them. He’s holding a gun in the shape of a Pelican watercolour kit. I don’t like this watercolour at all. Crayon smells so nice,, and it says Mon Ami,, and there are children wearing crowns like princes. But not watercolour… It doesn’t smell or stay where it is. It’s very difficult to draw with it. I always want to paint with pastels. My mum says, “Don’t be afraid; it will be better when you get used to it.” Fortunately, I got a beautiful shade of blue by mixing, and I paint the sea all the time. This is a practical and beautiful watercolour set with two floors and a water reservoir right next to it. It looks like a box when it closes and is easy to carry. And here’s the Terminator holding this watercolour set I hate. And his eyes are wide open. We live in a house. This house is a village house and has a large living room. However, I have never lived in a village. As if it was a dream, my grandmother is again heating water on the same stove with the same metal grey bucket. But this time there are other people in the house. “Guests in large numbers”. There are wide and very clean sofas on the floor. People are drinking tea in small cups. The men are talking seriously among themselves. Everyone stares at them unnoticed and with fearful respect, and no one interrupts them. When they are about to buy tea, one of the women who is watching them softly sidles up to them and takes the cups; that’s all! Next to my grandfather is a man I have never seen before, wearing a cap and a greying moustache. With one hand, without taking his eyes off the person he is listening to, he takes out a cigarette from the inside pocket of his jacket. I see that his plate is very shiny and his hands are calloused, misshapen and black in color. A long rosary made of eye-catching yellow ambers right next to a bowl in front of the ottoman. What a beautiful yellow, I think, and I immediately commit this image to memory. However, I have never seen yellow amber rosary beads or a tobacco case until that day… Nevertheless, I do not find it strange at all; in fact, all these things are even familiar to me in the dream… While observing, I am also driving my car with pleasure: a Green Golf! This time I am not playing alone, but there are other children with me. I haven’t seen them before, and I don’t recognize them. One of them has a runny nose all the time. Even though he sniffles every now and then, it’s always runny, and his lips are moist. He’s wearing a grey, oddly patterned sweater, torn in some places and now very stretchy. Next to him must be his older brother; he is better dressed. He has blue corduroy trousers, but the knees are patched. These are the children of the visiting family. The older one (the one with the velvet trousers) takes out a car from his pocket softly. It’s a black Volkswagen Beetle with a bell ring! When he pulls it backwards and lets go, the car starts to move with an insect sound and lights up. It seems to scatter small, red sparks around it.
Small, red sparks…
Thus, our attention is focused on our own game, and we are completely isolated from the “adult world”, increasingly detached from the darkness of reality. The guest boy’s car becomes the centre of everyone’s attention. Using the advantage of light and sound, the “guest boy”, in the language of today’s neighbourhood, “crushes us there”. As he prepares for the show by setting up his car, he is in a “seriousness” that is not expected from his age… He does not talk to anyone while he backs it up and leaves it while he determines his route. Nor does he take questions of praise! His attention is so intense that it pierces the rock; he seems almost undistracted. He doesn’t even hear the sounds coming from outside. Until the “elders” sitting around the sofa pulled us into a corner of a room of the house used as a cargo hold and locked the door on us!
We don’t understand what’s going on. It is a very clean and spacious room; there is even a trunk with white sheets, pillows and duvet covers piled on top of it, and the whole room “smells like Mommy”. This smell calms us down for a while,, and I even try to play with the car again. But the older guest child, as if sensing that there are situations that only other older children of his age can understand, and out of a desire to prove his courage, crawls under a curtain and looks out. Again he says nothing; he just shifts slightly… Then his brother, who had become grumpy and even started to cry, cuddled up to him. This time his nose is red and running well. When I see them looking out, I join them. Now all three of us are looking out from under the curtain with frightened eyes.
Outside, people are lined up like pearls. But they’re barely visible. Not a single star is visible in the air. Every now and then, the rickety light of a street lamp flickers on and off. A man, raising the index finger of his right hand, is nervously talking about something. He is pacing up and down. There is something on his shoulder, but you cannot see it. Sometimes he stops, angrily asks a question, and when he doesn’t get an answer, he gets even angrier and keeps walking. At the head of the pearl-like crowd, a man –– he must be the one with the yellow amber rosary beads who was sitting inside earlier –– stands one step ahead of the others. He has his hat in his hand,, and his neck is bent in front of him. Every now and then he feels like speaking, but he doesn’t dare. He is always silent and stares in front of him. Because the man in front of him is angry! Very angry! Every now and then he turns to look in our direction. That’s when I see his eyes. The eyes don’t exist. The place where the eyes used to be is empty, and somewhere inside they are glowing red-violet.
It’s the Terminator! He’s come to the village. He listens to no one and will never stop!
There is a brief silence. We continue to look out the window, our eyes wide with fear. Our emotions are mixed; both fear and curiosity are intertwined. Then, out of the blue, the Terminator and his entourage start shooting, and suddenly a terrifying roar fills the air. Small, red, glowing sparks fly everywhere, like an artist painting a gilded picture with brush strokes. The whole place is lit up, dot by dot, as if a great fire had been lit and sparks were flying everywhere. However, these dots gradually start to turn into a dimension that is too big to be real. Just like the bubbles that appear when you throw a stone into water; they get bigger and bigger and bigger. Moreover, they have no gravity, and after they grow a little, they just hang in the air. This surreal scene makes me feel as if I’m looking at a door that opens to a completely different universe, but a universe that is not quite so safe, as if hidden dangers and unknown beings are lurking behind that door. At that moment, one of those red bubbles comes and rests on the shoulder of the shooting Terminator. This moment is etched in my mind with the clarity of a photograph and becomes a recurring memory in my mind.
The Terminator suddenly turns to us, looks into the house and stares at us with an emotionless, sharp movement. He has the same red glow in his eyes, as if he is not in his right mind, which makes me even more worried… He points his gun at us, and at that moment it feels like time has stopped. His gun is my watercolour kit, but it’s a red, incredibly bright fire that comes out of this kit. The sparks of this bright fire colour seem to create a new and different fire dance every time. This fire is killing people. I take a deep breath because my heart is beating fast, but I still can’t calm down. The echo of an unrelenting fear that seems to last forever begins to echo inside me, just like the sound of the siren at school this morning that seemed to never end… I feel that I am on the verge of a great catastrophe. The Terminator looks at us, laughs and pulls the trigger, and I wake up in a daze, watching all this like an eye in the sky. Waking up from this dream is like returning to the weight of reality; the fear inside me does not go away; it continues to echo in my soul.
So much so that for years I have tried to wake up from this fearful dream, each time vaguely saying the following words to myself;
I wake up
I... want to wake up...
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