that the Blue Mistress was fond of the cat.
‘Why do you call the cat “Garbage”?’ asked the Blue Mistress. The animal had immediately sensed who to get attention from and started rubbing against her feet. The Blue Mistress grabbed it with her two hands and lifted it up, directing the same question this time to the cat in the sugary syrupy voice women use when admiring babies: ‘Why do they call you Garbage? Tell me why, my beauty? How could one call such a beautiful cat Garbage?’
‘Perhaps because this Mister Garbage never leaves the garbage dump,’ Cemal remarked with joy. Now that Garbage provided a means for him to communicate with the Blue Mistress, it seemed cuter to Cemal than ever. ‘There is probably no other street cat in all of Istanbul as fortunate as this one. Not that he has an outstanding beauty, look at his face for God’s sake. Have you ever seen a cat with such dirty looks? It is as if he was going to be a snake but could not find the appropriate skin. But he still finds a way to get people to like him. Does he have an irresistible charm or what? How does hemanage to wrangle food out of whomever he visits? But do you think he’ll be satisfied? Never! He eats his fill and then ends up in his kingdom: the garbage dump. I swear I would not have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. We had just rented this place, were in the middle of the final preparations, dog-tired from working all day long and hungry like wolves. We decided to order food from the chicken place. You know how huge their portions are, don’t you? Rice, salad, fried potatoes, all come heaped high. Well, let me cut to the chase. There was some mix-up and they had sent an extra chicken. We didn’t return it as we thought we could eat that one as well. Of course, we couldn’t. Everyone could barely finish what they had in front of them. Especially Celal, he pecked at it like a bird. As we were eating, guess who picked up the scent and showed up? I didn’t know then that they called him “Garbage”, but along he comes, begging food so desperately you’d think the poor thing had been starving for days. So we put the extra chicken in front of him and may the curse of God befall me if I’m lying, he gobbled that chicken down so ferociously you’d think a pack of Dobermans were chasing him. Not a single bone was left behind. Can you imagine, he devoured a plate of chicken heaped full right in front of our eyes. Back then the “Cat Prophet” lived in Flat Number 2. Had you heard of him? Another nut! He had some twenty, thirty cats. The whole place smelt of cat piss. Still, even that was better than the stink of this garbage. We were talking about that before you arrived. I was just saying to Celal, we live in so much garbage, we’ll soon start to peck like roosters. Right, Celal?’
Celal shook his head in agreement.
‘After all that he had wolfed down, this Mister Garbage here went after the cat food of the Cat Prophet, but her tribe must have given him a sound beating for he returned with his tail between his legs for our leftovers. We put out the fried potatoes which he pretended not to like much but he finished them off all the same. At that point we all stopped working towatch the animal; we placed bets on when he was going to explode.’
Not only the women lined-up by the mirror but also the manicurist and the apprentices who had heard this story at least forty times were all ears listening to Cemal. He may not have been as fine a hairdresser as his brother, but when it came to garrulousness, he beat everyone hands down. His linguistic aptitude was amazing. If he were picked up from here and dropped off in a country he could not even place on a map, he would learn their language in a flash just to be able to understand what was being spoken around him and then put in his two cents’ worth. Likewise, in just five years he had been able to repair his Turkish, which had lost its lustre during the long
‘Why do you call the cat “Garbage”?’ asked the Blue Mistress. The animal had immediately sensed who to get attention from and started rubbing against her feet. The Blue Mistress grabbed it with her two hands and lifted it up, directing the same question this time to the cat in the sugary syrupy voice women use when admiring babies: ‘Why do they call you Garbage? Tell me why, my beauty? How could one call such a beautiful cat Garbage?’
‘Perhaps because this Mister Garbage never leaves the garbage dump,’ Cemal remarked with joy. Now that Garbage provided a means for him to communicate with the Blue Mistress, it seemed cuter to Cemal than ever. ‘There is probably no other street cat in all of Istanbul as fortunate as this one. Not that he has an outstanding beauty, look at his face for God’s sake. Have you ever seen a cat with such dirty looks? It is as if he was going to be a snake but could not find the appropriate skin. But he still finds a way to get people to like him. Does he have an irresistible charm or what? How does hemanage to wrangle food out of whomever he visits? But do you think he’ll be satisfied? Never! He eats his fill and then ends up in his kingdom: the garbage dump. I swear I would not have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. We had just rented this place, were in the middle of the final preparations, dog-tired from working all day long and hungry like wolves. We decided to order food from the chicken place. You know how huge their portions are, don’t you? Rice, salad, fried potatoes, all come heaped high. Well, let me cut to the chase. There was some mix-up and they had sent an extra chicken. We didn’t return it as we thought we could eat that one as well. Of course, we couldn’t. Everyone could barely finish what they had in front of them. Especially Celal, he pecked at it like a bird. As we were eating, guess who picked up the scent and showed up? I didn’t know then that they called him “Garbage”, but along he comes, begging food so desperately you’d think the poor thing had been starving for days. So we put the extra chicken in front of him and may the curse of God befall me if I’m lying, he gobbled that chicken down so ferociously you’d think a pack of Dobermans were chasing him. Not a single bone was left behind. Can you imagine, he devoured a plate of chicken heaped full right in front of our eyes. Back then the “Cat Prophet” lived in Flat Number 2. Had you heard of him? Another nut! He had some twenty, thirty cats. The whole place smelt of cat piss. Still, even that was better than the stink of this garbage. We were talking about that before you arrived. I was just saying to Celal, we live in so much garbage, we’ll soon start to peck like roosters. Right, Celal?’
Celal shook his head in agreement.
‘After all that he had wolfed down, this Mister Garbage here went after the cat food of the Cat Prophet, but her tribe must have given him a sound beating for he returned with his tail between his legs for our leftovers. We put out the fried potatoes which he pretended not to like much but he finished them off all the same. At that point we all stopped working towatch the animal; we placed bets on when he was going to explode.’
Not only the women lined-up by the mirror but also the manicurist and the apprentices who had heard this story at least forty times were all ears listening to Cemal. He may not have been as fine a hairdresser as his brother, but when it came to garrulousness, he beat everyone hands down. His linguistic aptitude was amazing. If he were picked up from here and dropped off in a country he could not even place on a map, he would learn their language in a flash just to be able to understand what was being spoken around him and then put in his two cents’ worth. Likewise, in just five years he had been able to repair his Turkish, which had lost its lustre during the long
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