Read Online Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale by Mario Levi - Free Book Online Page A

compensate for the suffering experienced in other circles and countries only in this way—by transforming the years of hardship into joy and self-complacency. One should not of course omit those who had been unsuccessful in their enterprises and had to watch the time pass them by. Relatives that had to stay in foreign lands knew such feelings all too well. Similar moments had been experienced in the past and would be experienced in the future. “What did you do there for so many years?” was the question to be asked. But to what extent did it question the inquirer so much as the person the question addressed? To decide on this was not so easy if one took into consideration the details involved. However, in this case, the question interested Moses in particular, who was walking on the shore of a city he was not familiar with, through streets strange and new, toward a future unknown to him. What have you been doing for such a long time? Eva, that little woman from Riga had clasped the hand of the man whom she wanted to consider the only man in her life and with whom she wanted to live. Why? Was it because she also had asked or had had to ask that question because she had felt that certain circumstances were inviting her? To tell you the truth, I can’t say exactly. For, I don’t want to advance toward those people whose sights I catch but a glimpse of from a distance despite my unwillingness to do so, setting out based on certain information acquired from my own sources that I had been imparted with by other people. Aside from these points and the potential feelings that they may have given rise to, all that I could know for sure is the piecemeal progression of the Bronstein family toward a city utterly alien to them. In this section of the story I would like to, partly because of this, imagine Moses casting a look at his watch in order to chart his own time in Odessa. What if Moses had already cast another look at it in that street and what if that look had shown him only his wealth, convincing him of his actual existence? One morning . . . just like at the moment of separation in Odessa . . .
    Those were the years when the number of cars was scant in Istanbul (for men that had immigrated from different parts of the world had brought with them different lifestyles), the years in which a longstanding decline was witnessed in many aspects of the community, notwithstanding the persistent survival of certain customs and conventions among certain people, the years when people stared at certain events from a distance without getting involved in them. Norbert was said to have been very kind to Moses in those days. With a view to seeing his dear cousin and wife comfortably settled in that sumptuous eight-room apartment at Taksim, furnished with antiquities and valuable paintings, he had spared no colorful expense . . . there was even a radio and a framed photograph of his children.
    Norbert and Moses held long talks during the days that followed . . . Long talks, tête-à-têtes . . . just like during their childhood and adolescence . . . It looked as if they wanted to prove to each other, for dissimilar reasons, that despite the adventures they had experienced all those years before, there had been certain things that had survived . . . Moses had spoken of Alexandria, of his prospects for the future, of his concerns about Jacob, of his ailments, of his failure in being a good father, and of his profession as a tailor; while Norbert had recounted his undertakings and successes, the Palace, the hectic days, and suggested that on such days new possibilities could be expected to dawn. He ended by reverting to the subject of the Jews in Istanbul, claiming that Yiddish was even spoken in the streets and advised Moses to remain in that city in which he had been living for years—where one could always find the means to eke out a living, where no one would ever be starving—instead of departing for London. This was, certainly, one of