“Turkish women took off the veil ninety years ago. No daughter of mine is going to betray the rights the great commander-in-chief Atatürk bestowed on the women of this country.”
“Yeah, women were given the right to vote in 1934,” Auntie Cevriye echoed. “In case you didn’t know, history moves forward, not backward. Take that thing off immediately!”
But Auntie Banu did not.
She remained head-scarved, and having passed the test of the three Ps—penitence, prostration, and piety—declared herself a soothsayer.
Just like her appearance, her techniques of clairvoyance underwent profound change throughout her psychic trajectory. At first she solely used coffee cups to read the future of her customers, but in the fullness of time she gradually employed new as well as highly unconventional techniques, including tarot cards, dried beans, silver coins, rosary beads, doorbells, imitation pearls, real pearls, ocean pebbles—anything, as long as it would bring news from the paranormal world. Sometimes she chatted passionately with her shoulders whereupon, she claimed, sat two invisible djinn, dangling their feet. The good one on the right shoulder and the bad one on the left shoulder. Though she knew the name of each, in order not to utter them aloud, she simply called them Mrs. Sweet and Mr. Bitter, respectively.
“If there is a bad djinni on your left shoulder, why don’t you throw him down?” Asya asked her aunt once.
“Because there are times when we all need the company of the bad,” was the answer.
Asya tried a frown and then rolled her eyes, gaining no effect with either gesture other than a childish face. She whistled a tune from a Johnny Cash song, which she liked to recall on various encounters with her aunts: “Why me Lord, what have I ever done . . .”
“What are you whistling?” Auntie Banu asked suspiciously. She didn’t know any English and was deeply distrustful of any language that made her miss something obvious.
“I was singing a song that says as my eldest aunt you are supposed to be a role model for me and teach me right from wrong. But here you are giving me lessons on the necessity of evil.”
“Well, let me tell you something,” Auntie Banu decreed, looking at her niece intently. “There are things so awful in this world that the good-hearted people, may Allah bless them all, have absolutely no idea of. And that’s perfectly fine, I tell you; it is all right that they know nothing about such things because it proves what good-hearted people they are. Otherwise they wouldn’t be good, would they?”
Asya couldn’t help but nod. After all, she had a feeling Johnny Cash would be of the same opinion.
“But if you ever step into a mine of malice, it won’t be one of these people you will ask help from.”
“And you think I will ask help from a malicious djinni !” Asya exclaimed.
“Perhaps you will.” Auntie Banu shook her head. “Let’s just hope you’ll never have to.”
That was that. Never again did they talk about the limitations of the good and the necessity of the unscrupulous.
At or around that time Auntie Banu once again remodeled her clairvoyant reading techniques, and switched to hazelnuts, roasted hazelnuts more often than not. Her family suspected that the origin of this novelty, as with most other novelties, might have been pure coincidence. Most likely Auntie Banu had been caught gobbling hazelnuts by a client and offered the best explanation that had come to her mind: that she could read them. This was the belief shared by all in the family. Everyone else had a different interpretation. Being the holy lady that she was, rumor had it in Istanbul, she did not demand any money from her needy customers and instead asked them to bring her only a handful of hazelnuts. The hazelnut became a symbol of her bigheartedness. In any case, the oddity of her technique only served to further augment her already bloated fame. “Mother Hazelnut” they started to
“Yeah, women were given the right to vote in 1934,” Auntie Cevriye echoed. “In case you didn’t know, history moves forward, not backward. Take that thing off immediately!”
But Auntie Banu did not.
She remained head-scarved, and having passed the test of the three Ps—penitence, prostration, and piety—declared herself a soothsayer.
Just like her appearance, her techniques of clairvoyance underwent profound change throughout her psychic trajectory. At first she solely used coffee cups to read the future of her customers, but in the fullness of time she gradually employed new as well as highly unconventional techniques, including tarot cards, dried beans, silver coins, rosary beads, doorbells, imitation pearls, real pearls, ocean pebbles—anything, as long as it would bring news from the paranormal world. Sometimes she chatted passionately with her shoulders whereupon, she claimed, sat two invisible djinn, dangling their feet. The good one on the right shoulder and the bad one on the left shoulder. Though she knew the name of each, in order not to utter them aloud, she simply called them Mrs. Sweet and Mr. Bitter, respectively.
“If there is a bad djinni on your left shoulder, why don’t you throw him down?” Asya asked her aunt once.
“Because there are times when we all need the company of the bad,” was the answer.
Asya tried a frown and then rolled her eyes, gaining no effect with either gesture other than a childish face. She whistled a tune from a Johnny Cash song, which she liked to recall on various encounters with her aunts: “Why me Lord, what have I ever done . . .”
“What are you whistling?” Auntie Banu asked suspiciously. She didn’t know any English and was deeply distrustful of any language that made her miss something obvious.
“I was singing a song that says as my eldest aunt you are supposed to be a role model for me and teach me right from wrong. But here you are giving me lessons on the necessity of evil.”
“Well, let me tell you something,” Auntie Banu decreed, looking at her niece intently. “There are things so awful in this world that the good-hearted people, may Allah bless them all, have absolutely no idea of. And that’s perfectly fine, I tell you; it is all right that they know nothing about such things because it proves what good-hearted people they are. Otherwise they wouldn’t be good, would they?”
Asya couldn’t help but nod. After all, she had a feeling Johnny Cash would be of the same opinion.
“But if you ever step into a mine of malice, it won’t be one of these people you will ask help from.”
“And you think I will ask help from a malicious djinni !” Asya exclaimed.
“Perhaps you will.” Auntie Banu shook her head. “Let’s just hope you’ll never have to.”
That was that. Never again did they talk about the limitations of the good and the necessity of the unscrupulous.
At or around that time Auntie Banu once again remodeled her clairvoyant reading techniques, and switched to hazelnuts, roasted hazelnuts more often than not. Her family suspected that the origin of this novelty, as with most other novelties, might have been pure coincidence. Most likely Auntie Banu had been caught gobbling hazelnuts by a client and offered the best explanation that had come to her mind: that she could read them. This was the belief shared by all in the family. Everyone else had a different interpretation. Being the holy lady that she was, rumor had it in Istanbul, she did not demand any money from her needy customers and instead asked them to bring her only a handful of hazelnuts. The hazelnut became a symbol of her bigheartedness. In any case, the oddity of her technique only served to further augment her already bloated fame. “Mother Hazelnut” they started to
Similar Books
