ABOUT THE AUTHOR

          Ulviye Alpay was born in Adana on 27 June 1951. She graduated from high school in Ankara. She started her literary career by writing children’s books.  Her stories for children, Pırpır, A Cat Roared, and Traveling Stories have been broadcast in the TRT (Turkish Radio and Television). In 1998, she was awarded the first price in TRT-GAP TV’s short story competition with her story named Tombala (Lottery). In 1999, she was the co-winner of the Yunus Nadi Short Story Award for Unpublished Works with her story A Blue Hello.
          In her stories, Ulviye Alpay tells about ‘the changes in the human soul, pressures of the community and society on the individual, and conflict-filled relationships between men and women’. She has dedicated Turbulence to Vedat Günyol and all the seamen who have perished at sea.
She has served at the board of directors at PEN and BESAM (Professional Association of Owners of Scientific and Literary Works). She lives in Istanbul.

 

 

TURBULENCE

            The freighter İncisu sails towards Shanghai at the last stage of a long voyage. Tired after long years on ships, Captain Ege Giritli frequently thinks of abandoning the sea, even resolves to do so, but then realizes that he cannot do so in fact.  One day in the uneventful voyage, Electrical Officer Volkan Atay, who has been under emotional turmoil for some time, drinks too much after dinner, and loses control. On Captain’s orders, they take the unconscious officer to his cabin.  After a couple of hours, it becomes evident that this is not a simple state of intoxication, but the acme of a crisis that has been building up for many years. Volkan Atay has been abandoned to an orphanage at a very young age, and has been sexually abused since childhood. When, at his teens, he finally runs away from the orphanage, he falls prey to an even worse environment of violence and abuse. Finally, he makes a fresh start buy buying decent clothes with money he has seized from a whore, and finds a job with the help of the owner of the hotel he stays at. He feels guilty because of having built this life with money stolen from that poor woman, and looking at the picture of her son, which he has stolen together with the money, he promises himself to pay her back sometime. However, when he learns one day that the whore was his own mother, whom he never knew, he receives another heavy blow.   
            Meanwhile, through Volkan’s incoherent babbling, Captain Ege has already learned more about his officer than he ever wished to. On the one hand, because of the responsibility he feels for a subordinate, he feels being drawn inside the sad story; and on the other, he is reckoning with his own life with his wife, from whom he has been separate for the most part. His wife is a strong woman; and raising two children all by herself, as well as her solitary struggle both physically and spiritually, has not crushed her. In a phone conversation from the middle of the ocean, the Captain learns that his wife has started to write a new novel about the love story between a mythological albatross and the daughter of the god of winds. The story of the albatross is in fact their own story, and tells about two lovers who can never live together in spite of a great love. The stories of the Captain, the albatross in the narrative, and of another real albatross seeking shelter on the ship will intertwine.
            As Volkan Atay’s crisis grows, the real reason becomes clear. He has had an intense love affair with Ivan, a Russian sailor he has met at the restaurant where he worked, and who has made him experience feelings the existence of which Volkan  was not even aware of. Because of Ivan’s love of the sea, Volkan has also started to work in the ships with the hope of meeting his lover again one day. However, on Ivan’s sudden death because of a freak accident at sea, Volkan has lost his will to live. In his intense grief, he identifies himself with a desperate albatross sheltering on the ship, and when the Captain, who has problems with the same albatross, shoots and kills the bird; Volkan feels crushed and throws himself to the cold waters. 
            Captain Ege is not willing to abandon one of his own in the sea. Although he is aware that Volkan’s chance of survival is indeed negligible in the cold and stormy weather, he turns the ship around with a very difficult maneuver, and they go to search for the man at sea. The struggle with the waves is impossible for the old ship, and when the engines stall, they are forced to make an SOS call. As a coincidence, the call is picked up by a nearby Russian ship, which comes in with hopes of a prize bounty at the open sea. The Captain orders all of his men into the lifeboats, and after he is sure they shall be saved, just like the albatross in the story, he goes on for his final reckoning with life, love, and the sea.

 

From the Back Cover:

            In a life without her, your roots are pulled out just like grass crushed under torrential rain. Sensations among two lovers arise with a godly sublimeness, and a divine love is born at the end.
            This novel, which tells the story of a long and unknown voyage, tells about the realistic, dreamlike companionship of the seamen, the ship, and the sea, the tragic end of a mysterious love sory, and the overlapping destiny of albatrosses and a captain.
            While each and everyone of them move among huge waves with the turbulence in their hearts, they survive by knowing that land and the beloved waits just a couple of steps away. Sometimes misconceptions encircle them like a spider’s web, and leave them to the cold and dark solitude of the ocean.
            Turbulence is also a witness to the eternal love of the daughter of the mythological and legendary King of Winds, Aiolos, and Keix, son of the Morning Star.

“He flew off, Keix, drawing S’s, and extended his wings towards Halcyone, his lover.
So familiar were those blue eyes that tried to stay above the waves.
He hailed that tired and awkward albatross passing by and flying away…”

 

Excerpts from Turbulence:

         Love is the desire to be loved. You want to be loved, and I want to be loved. You have fears that I don’t know about. For a moment he stopped and looked at the boy’s face. There was only pity in Ivan’s eyes. He tucked a lock of hair behind the boy’s ears. Volkan was very near the lover who embraced him, who smelled him like a flower, but he still could not overcome the apprehension in his eyes. Each movement of his body sensed that he was very happy in this man’s arms, that he was being drowned in pleasure; but he still had so many questions in his head. Although Ivan tried to disperse the clouds in the head of this young boy that he held in his arms, he could not succeed very well. I don’t know why, but I feel that you are in pain. Although I sense that you want to bond in essence, there are reasons preventing you. It might be having been hurt. Can you tell me I’m wrong?
         Volkan felt as if being swept off by a divine power. Ivan caressed the boy compassionately.
         I have always thought that love has a creative, a healing power in our lives. Of course I don’t deny the stress and the pain at the end. The lover tries to improve himself so as to be elevated in the eyes of his beloved. One questions, evaluates, observes, cares for one’s self as never before; as it is the beloved’s only wish to be appreciated by his lover.  I have danced for you last night. All I tried to do was to look nice, to feel nice, to make you like me. Volkan listened in silence. He could not take his eyes away from the beloved. Although he couldn’t understand parts of what was being said, he was sure they were beautiful words. Ivan was also silent. He weighed what he had just said. He did not want to lecture this boy or irritate him. All he wanted was to leave a nice feeling in this heart which had only been crushed and wounded so far, and to be remembered nicely.
         Even if not today, you can transform love into passion tomorrow. I know that you are desolate. If only you could know the richness in your soul, you can open for yourself a way festooned with flowers. This is not difficult at all, you know? You will have to have a little self confidence.
         The room was buried in silence for a while. Volkan had an uneasy feeling inside.
         “I don’t know, dear Ivan,” he said. “I’ve told you I’m but a worthless pebble. People take the pebbles in their hands to make them step on the sea, and take pleasure in throwing them as far away as possible. What is important for them are just the ripples on the water… who has ever thought about the pebble sinking to the bottom, can you tell me?”
         Ivan’s eyes were sad. “I have never known anybody as refined, as lucid as you are,” he said.
         They both fell silent. Ivan couldn’t resist. He took his lover in his strong embrace, pulled him towards himself, and kissed him. “I adore you always saying everything  straightforward, my honest and true darling,” he said.
         Volkan intertwined his legs with those of his lover. He held him very tight. His head fell on his lover’s chest like a rare dark flower. His lips lightly touched his lover’s nipples.
         The pleasure of this first intimacy had given him the greatest satisfaction he had ever known.

 

*        *        *

         Ege Giritli remembered very well a Saturday evening, years back. He was then the Chief Mate.
         “You sailors thrash about like a fish out of water when you abandon the sea,” the Captain’s wife had said. That evening, everyone but the Captain and his wife had laughed at these words. Again, every one of them, including himself, had affirmed them. The Captain, on the other hand, had objected, and how tired he was of the sea at the time. Ege Giritli suddenly remembered that the captain was now lost at sea, and he pursed his lips in pain.
         Now he himself was tired of the sea, his feelings were like these rising waters, he could bellow any minute from exhaustion. Still, he sighed a deep sigh in apathy. Looking for a long time after the albatross who, with its slim wings, sailed past like a ghost, he started to speak with irony:
         “What is it that you want? We’ve been sailing in the same direction since days.”
         The albatross went on drawing S’s outside the portholes without moving its wings. The captain watched it with a concealed admiration. He could not deny that the bird dispersed of the pessimism lurking in him. He could easily say that he and   this sea bird had a predestined friendship. Thus, he greeted him as if greeting a friend.
         The Albatross returned his greeting, and approached like an old friend.
         You are too angry… You have been shaken by all these goings on, I think you’d better stop drinking and go to bed. The Captain sighed deeply, and puffed…
         “I wish I could sleep. I can’t. I can’t go to sleep unless I pass out from drinking.”
         So you will drink until you kill yourself. The captain affirmed Keix sympathetically with his head.    
         “Hey, I begin to like you. You are not a stupid bird like they say you are.”
         Stupid bird!... who is stupid, I wonder, murmured Keix.
         “Did you say something?”
         Your philosophy of life, if you’d known how it interests me.
         “I didn’t get what you said.”
         I don’t know, either. It just came up. I would have liked to decipher you. For some reason, I believe that if I can decipher you, I will have achieved human awareness.
         “I take back what I have just said. You really are a stupid bird. If you believe that by deciphering me you will achieve human awareness… I laugh at that. Do you know, we have a fine saying. It is mostly used for idiots…”
         The captain offered the cognac bottle in his hand to Keix.
         “Drink, you feather-brained. Perhaps your numbed brain would fire up, eh?”
         No way! Your aggressive manners explain that you refrain from answering.
         The captain sighed deeply.
         “Did I decipher myself, do I know what is it that I really want, so that you can decipher me, Keix? Is it easy to decipher someone?”
         Keix squinted his eyes and drew back his shoulders.
         Look, you speak more lively now. Why are you always joking around? As far as I can understand, you do not take life seriously at all.
         “You will lose it if you take life seriously, but I always take my job very seriously.”
         Do you think you distinguish your job from life?
         “Doesn’t it have to be that way? My job on the one hand, all trivialities on the other.”
         What do you consider as trivialities?
         “Ah!...”
         Are you afraid of the storm?
         “Eh!... Enough is enough.”
         Are you afraid of the water?
         “You are annoying!...”
         You will reply these for yourself tomorrow, if not today.
         Ege huffed and puffed in desolation, and walked around in his cabin nervously. He downed the drink in the glass. For a moment he sat on the sofa. He put his elbows on the desk, and took his face between his hands. He was muddled. Then he took his hands off his face. Now he started to laugh uncontrollably.
         “Stupid bird, are you trying to question me? What would I explain?”
         He asked this in a serious, calm manner. “What do you want to learn? If you’d like, if you have time, I can open up my heart to you. If you’d like, I can tell you about my dreams, my thoughts, my job, my family, my children, the women and the whores in my life.” The captain nervously grumbled. “Do you also want to know how many times I have killed my wife in fits of jealousy on these voyages? The last time I killed her, even I don’t know how many times I have plunged the knife in her frail body. Her mauled body rests on the bottom of the ocean. No clues. A different meal for the sharks, eh? Don’t stay silent, say something…” The man needed to wet his lips with drink again. “Do you have such maddening secrets? Speak up, you stupid bird. If you can’t speak, sing with those stupid guttural sounds you make. Say something… Do you have such secrets, eh, do you?” The captain sat on the sofa, covered his face with his hands, and began to sob loudly.
         “The fact is, I am not worthy of her love. Why did she love me? What did she find in me? Why did she not abandon me till today? I have never understood this. I don’t know what is behind all this silence, all this acceptance. I could never learn about her secrets. She looks so simple. She is either very stupid, or extremely clever… She is a simple soul who never complains of anything.” The man took off his clothes in annoyance. He went into the shower. When he came out, the albatross was gone. He looked at where Keix stood a moment ago. “Is it easy to decipher someone, you feather-brained? Who has ever deciphered anyone? You want to start an evolution. Come on, decipher me if you can. I could not decipher anybody so far.” He licked his bottom lip as if chewing it. “Could I decipher myself, so that I can decipher another?”

 

*     *     *

 

         Captain Ege Giritli stared at the distance. His wife was as far away as a distant point. With each passing day the distance grew, but the damned woman was as strong as an atomic nucleus. He could never kill her; if he ever tried to do so, he was sure that she would be getting back at him as millions of, billions of pieces. “I will not rest easy in this world with or without her,” he murmured. The last thing to do now was to think about her.
         He stared at the horizon again. His wife was still there, distant as a point, staring back at him. She looked challenging. Come and get me if it’s easy, she was saying. Come and destroy me if you can! Ege chewed his lips and cursed inwardly. His was convulsed in anger. Volkan Atay, as much as you are a parasite, also so is my wife. Parasites like you also have such an irresistible fighting force that to tell you the truth, you are insufferable, damn you! You always want to be the center of attention. Just like you do now.
         Even in his anger, Ege could not turn his eyes away from the turbulent waters of the ocean. His face was flexed. He remembered the things that Volkan Atay had told him one night, while talking about the dramas in his life.  I think that all these things that you have experienced are lies, that you are slyly making fun of me. This is also a tactic. Bland tactics of a bland mind.
         Volkan Atay had very calmly asked, “What is real anyway?”
         “Reality is the lies you have been cooking up since days. You wish to distract us, to make fun of us. You are hungry for attention, are you not?”
         “No,” had said Volkan, and had fallen silent.
         “I don’t want to listen to this shit again. You will yourself blow up the bridge that you have been passing over since years, since no one else can blow it up or destroy it. Is that not so? You have to overcome your hate against people. Otherwise it will eat you up. This world behaves perfectly to no one. It has blown up some holes and gaps in all of us.”
         He didn’t know for how long he stayed silent after saying these, but the only thing he remembered was what Volkan had peacefully said:
         “Do you know what it means for me to live? You had to look at the mirror for a long time in order to understand this.” Then he had shriveled up in his bed… He looked like a dirty, filthy, oily, sticky, frail cormorant, but his dark eyes looked as sharp and ferocious as a wild animal newly to be domesticated. Then he had muttered confidently, “What‘s the trouble with you Captain, do you know?”
         He had opened his eyes wide and stared at the dark eyes of the man as if challenging him: “What? What is the trouble with me?” As if not wishing to touch something worthless, Ege Giritli had suddenly circled himself with his arms and sat back. He had thrown a nonchalant look down at Volkan Atay and said, “So tell me, what is my trouble?”
         “Because you see yourself as the most precious, most sublime specimen of humanity, you want everybody else to see yourself as such. In other words, you want to rule, and you want to be as untouchable as you wish. You are not satisfied with wishing for everything you say to be affirmed, you also dominate everyone you meet. In other words, you think you do.”
         Volkan Atay had stayed silent for a while, and then threw the ball to the other’s court by asking: “May I ask why you are laughing?” Captain Ege no more remembered why he was laughing that day. It must have been at the nonsense Volkan was speaking. But he remembered he had laughed aloud, had convulsed with laughter. He also remembered very well that Volkan had said, “This life isn’t easy at all.”
         Captain Ege thought aloud this time: “No, this life isn’t easy at all. When it’s too hard, take the shortcut to terminate it.  Poor man, just as you do now.”
         Foamy sprays from the sea rose with the wind all the way to the windows of the pilothouse. Turbulent waters beat the ship with heavy and shocking blows.
         The captain came round when the Second Mate said “Captain..”
         “Shut up!” he retorted angrily.

 

*     *     *