HERE COMES THE POSTMAN

   Back in my childhood days fathers used to have stamp collections. Collecting foreign stamps was a popular hobby in those years. There were also stamp stores. The big colorful stamps of African and Far East countries sold in these stores were much sought-after by those who wanted to enrich their collections. I don’t have very clear memories of those years but I seem to remember going swimming at the Altay Sports Club on the seafront, the Kordonboyu; greeting the postman with the song ‘Here comes the postman, waving hello’ as soon as I caught sight of him; and playing in the back yard of our building.

   Postmen used to be like family friends. They wouldn’t just slide the letters under the door, they would ring the doorbell. The receiver of the letters would engage in small talk and never forget holiday tips. The new apartment buildings with individual postboxes bearing the apartment number gradually wiped out this warm relationship. Nowadays nobody knows the postman who brings him telephone, electricity, water and gas bills, credit card statements, bank receipts and invoices.

  When I left Izmir to study in France I hadn’t felt very homesick. ‘There are people waiting for me in Izmir’ I thought. ‘My children, my parents, my siblings, my friends. They will definitely keep in touch.’ There were some who said ‘The letters will gradually dwindle, you will forget to write’, but the whole time I was in France I wrote long letters to my friends, I tried to describe my life there in detail. On the little grey postbox bearing my room number the previous tenant, a Japanese girl had stuck a scrap of paper saying ‘Dear Person After Me, please give my letters to Peter living in room…!’ in broken French; I had left the note on the box until I left. Ah, the good old days!

   Writing letters was then the only way to communicate, it was a necessity. I will go so far as to say writing and reading letters was almost a rite. A ceremony. Imagine how past generations wrote letters. First you would get the dip pen. You had to check the nib, if it was brittle because there was dried ink on it, you had to wash and clean it first or else replace it with a new nib. Next you checked the ink in the inkwell to make sure it hadn’t dried; then you had to get some stationery that wouldn’t blot; after clearing the table on which you were going to write your letter you would find the guide sheet to put under your unruled stationery, a sheet of ruled paper with thick lines, so that those who read your letter would think ‘How neat! Look at those lines, all of them are spaced equally’; finally you would get the cardboard to go under the guide sheet and only then would you be ready to start writing…

   The letters of famous writers are special. They reflect a vast cultural background. Reading a master’s letters to a friend is pure bliss. Here is what Fethi Naci wrote following the second printing of Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s Letters in 1992 by Dergâh Yayınları:

‘We Turks like to talk rather than write. At this rate I believe our chances of reading published letters will grow even thinner: The increasing number of telephones and the development of the telephone network will certainly make communication easier, but it will also further decrease correspondence.” His observation in 1993 has presently been confirmed. A pity!

   Today mobile phones, internet correspondence, video conferencing have certainly made communication easier and correspondence has further decreased, in fact we don’t ever write letters anymore. Whereas letters were written to friends, the person writing the letter would write with complete freedom, without self-censorship. Letters were a means for baring one’s soul, for heart-to-hearts.

   Nothing persists unchanged. Young people today declare they are in love with someone without having seen nor heard a person, based on words they see on the screen. The letter that has most moved me is the one Lidia reads to her husband Giovanni in that wonderful scene at the end of Antonioni’s ‘La Notte’. Let’s read it together:

   Lidia: “When I awoke this morning, you were still asleep. As I awoke I heard your gentle breathing. I saw your closed eyes beneath wisps of stray hair and I was deeply moved. I wanted to cry out, to wake you, but you slept so deeply, so soundly. In the half light your skin glowed with life so warm and sweet. I wanted to kiss it, but I was afraid to wake you. I was afraid of you awake in my arms again. Instead, I wanted something no one could take from me, mine alone…this eternal image of you.” (As Lidia reads she gets caught up in her feelings. Giovanni stares at her as if trying to figure out who the person described in the letter is.)

Lidia: “Beyond your face I saw a pure, beautiful vision showing us in the perspective of my whole life…all the years to come, even all the years past. That was the most miraculous thing: to feel for the first time that you had always been mine, that this night would go on forever, united with your warmth, your thought, your will. At that moment I realized how much I loved you, Lidia. I wept with the intensity of the emotion, for I felt that this must never end, we would remain like this forever, not only close, but belonging to each other in a way that nothing ever destroy, except the apathy of habit, the only threat. (Silence, Lidia has a lump in her throat.) Then you wakened and, smiling you put your arms around me, kissed me, and I felt there was nothing to fear. We would always be as we were at that moment, bound by stronger ties than time and habit...”

  Giovanni asks his wife Lidia: ‘Who wrote that?” Lidia looks at her husband and after a moment’s pause, says, ‘You did.’ Lidia has laid bare the truth: There is no more love between them. Giovanni is oppressed by this truth; he looks at his wife, devestated. He tries to hug her and forcibly kisses her, Lidia tries to free herself. ‘La Notte’ ends with Lidia reading this letter. That evil lurking in the marriage is the habit brought on by living together.

  Letters had to be carefully opened. I used to cut the envelope with a small pair of scissors, a fruit knife or a letter opener. I look at the stamp and examine it. I prefer not to read it right away; first I prefer to listen to some music, then lie awake a long while, hold the letter in my hand, read my name penned by my beloved, open it carefully. A knock on my door, my mother pokes her head in: Dinner is ready. The guests are already there. I have to quickly comb my hair, touch up my makeup and welcome the guests with a smile. I don’t have much time. I open the letter just before I turn out the light in my room. ‘Dear beloved,’ only one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight lines – exactly eight lines – and I read the signature below. I kneel on the floor and try to pry out the lowest drawer which is stuck and will not open. Mother mustn’t realize, she mustn’t find it… I have to be quiet. But… as luck would have it! The tied stack of letters comes undone, the letters slide and scatter, I clumsily tie them together and force it behind the drawer. Then the drawer gets stuck again. I push it closed with my whole weight but without a sound, lock it and hide the key in my secret corner. And quickly come out of my room.

  Thinking that once upon a time people were sensitive on the subject makes me happy. How about you?

Raşel Rakella Asal

April 5, 2012