He Decided to Go to Kuzguncuk 

A moth disappeared into the gut of a swallow that traced transparencies above everything founded and fixed. At a point on the arc of the swoop, the moth was taken into darkness.

The story to follow was told across an ocean. My grandfather took the train from Paris to visit his cousin, Maxim, in Geneva, he rarely traveled without my grandmother. The two cousins ate moussaka in a Turkish restaurant, then my grandfather said, “I’d like to see Istanbul again before I die, let’s go.”

Apparently, this wasn’t a sudden decision — he had brought a map of Istanbul with the intention of enlisting Maxim. He placed a fingertip on the neighborhood of Kuzguncuk, across the Bosphorus from the old city, at the location of the dock and a marble fountain where, as a boy, he waited for his father, who would return by ferry after closing his jewelry shop for the night.

Maxim told the story years ago to Serge, who finally told me as I watched the swallow. 

So, they went to Istanbul and walked through the district. My grandfather told Maxim, “This was my grade school run by German Lutherans, can you imagine, a boy named Abram singing choir hymns — Oh, that I had a thousand voices to praise my God with a thousand tongues!”

My grandfather was my age as I heard this. Is a man truly a trace of the world he traces? It was 1967, the Armenians were gone, the Greeks were gone, and the Jews. Then he began to weep — in his youth, when a funeral procession rolled down Icadiye Street, people came out of their houses to pay respects, no matter their messiah.

As Serge and I conversed on our cell phones, another call buzzed, one new message. When I was a child, my grandfather would take me to the Clam Box for lunch by the beach. He would ask me about my girlfriends while gulls peered at our food from above. I would ask him about the war and his internment in the camp near Lyon, where he sometimes translated, under duress, for the Vichy. “Those Lutherans saved my life by teaching me German.” He liked to say, “There are only three questions to ask in your life.” 

I thanked Serge for sharing this fragment about my grandfather — but even the dead-eye swallow tells the story over and over in its swoop and dive. The third question: what is about to return?

ξ

Ron Slate has published two poetry collections, The Incentive of the Maggot and The Great Wave. He is the editor of On The Seawall: A Community Gallery of New Writing, Art and Commentary. He lives in Aquinnah, MA.