The Melody
“Now she ate and drank, but didn’t know who she was. A whole eighty years of life forgotten.”
AUGUST 5, 2025
Gulshirin ran frantically through the trees and benches. A few other caretaker girls followed and calls of “Eji, Eji” rang out in various parts of the garden. The caretakers, who’d come to Turkey to look after young children and the elderly, were Uzbek, Turkmen, and Kyrgyz.
“Eji, Eji,” Gulshirin gasped, her breath catching in her throat. Images of police cars, crowds of people, and Eji’s son come in search of the missing woman flashed before her eyes. As though from the weight of them, she collapsed on a bench. Amidst dozens of twenty-five story buildings, grass had been laid down on the soil and a park with trees and flowers had been built. In the middle of the park, three pools of various sizes had been dug and the reflection of latticed bridges fell on their blue surfaces. Benches had been installed on a bright-green square where the caretakers and children sat all day in the shade. Older children played football on the square and kids of six or seven rode bicycles and toy vehicles around it. The space between the high-rises was filled with children’s screaming and caretakers’ “No!”s and “Don’t!”s in Turkish.
A thousand curses on the day I agreed to care for her, Gulshirin thought. Caring for a newborn is a thousand times easier.
A call had come: groceries being delivered from the Migros supermarket. Keep an eye on Eji-xola while I run home, Gulshirin had told the others, but when she returned the old woman was gone. Busy chatting, the caretaker girls had lost track of her. Eji, who was not in her right mind, had wandered off who knows where.
Gulshirin’s knees shook uncontrollably and her arms and legs stiffened. She pictured the old woman’s lifeless body lying on the ground. Policemen coming to cuff her. They’d accuse her of getting rid of the old woman with malicious intent.
A thousand curses on the day I agreed to care for her, Gulshirin thought. Caring for a newborn is a thousand times easier. You fill its stomach and it sleeps and sleeps. Never wanders off like crazy old Eji.
Just then, Gulshirin’s phone rang. Her heart stopped. But thankfully it wasn’t the old woman’s son. Instead, “Sevinch Daughter” appeared on the screen. But Gulshirin didn’t have the heart to talk to her daughter either. Her daughter was calling to say she’d finished the pickling. Gulshirin had sent her money to make various kinds of tomato, cucumber, eggplant, and cabbage preserves and salads, and she was calling to say they were all done.
In the time Gulshirin had been caring for Eji-xola, she’d grown accustomed to her. The old woman’s real name was Elonora, but her whole family called her Eji. For nearly thirty years, she’d taught French in an elementary school. And now that she’d finally retired she was laid up with this illness.
Could the old woman have returned to the park benches? She looked hopefully through the trees. But she didn’t see Eji-xola at the benches on the square.
Under American law, Gulshirin had heard, a person who’s worked as a schoolteacher for fifteen years can’t run for president. The Americans have it right, she thought. Elonora had taught so long that her memory had failed her. Now she ate and drank, but didn’t know who she was. A whole eighty years of life forgotten. Her apartment, building, and the park bustling with caretakers and their charges — all forgotten. Sometimes she recognized her son, who lived with his family in the high-rise next door, sometimes not. When she was in a good mood, she’d speak fluently with her son in Armenian. It was strange, Eji had forgotten nearly everything, but not the Armenian language. Her mother tongue. Gulshirin would hear her singing sometimes. The first time, she’d call Eji-xola’s son excitedly.
“I think your mother is recovering!” she’d said. “She’s singing songs in Armenian and French!”
“Don’t call me at work. I’ll come when I’m free,” he’d replied.
After that, Gulshirin never called him again, even when Eji sang in Armenian.
She was still shaking. A police car screeched by on the road behind the high-rises, sirens wailing. It stirred up old memories of the police and she jumped.
Could the old woman have returned to the park benches? She looked hopefully through the trees. But she didn’t see Eji-xola at the benches on the square. Just then, some of the other caretaker girls appeared from behind a green wall of foliage.
“Eji-xola is nowhere to be found.”
“In half an hour, where could she have gone?”
“Could she have wandered into the underground garage?”
The caretakers huddled around Gulshirin, sitting down beside her.
“I’ll go check the path back to the apartment,” she said, and got up.
Stepping onto the path, Gulshirin heard the notes of a piano. From the building next door to Elonora’s where her son lived. Before, Eji-xola had lived on the first floor of that building with her son. But when, at the age of eighty, the old woman could no longer manage, she’d been sent to live in a rental apartment with her caretaker. Her son and daughter-in-law had made this decision without her. Gulshirin, raised in an environment of traditions and customs, couldn’t stand the idea of an old person being shipped off to a rented apartment. Back in her village, people would just look in on the elderly mothers and mothers-in-law of their neighbors.
The piano had been Elonora’s and on holidays and birthdays, she’d played it, singing her songs in Armenian and French.
Gulshirin’s vision cleared and brightened. Maybe the old woman had heard the notes of the piano and gone toward it, maybe she was wandering around now unable to find the door. Gulshirin took off running, slapped in the face by the branches of ground-skimming willows. And who did she see but Eji-xola sulking on a bench by her son’s balcony overlooking the park. Tears rolled down her pale face. She was humming some Armenian song to the piano’s melody. From the balcony’s slightly open door, the piano’s pleasant tones ascended to the blue sky.
✺ Published in “Issue 31: Fiction” of The Dial
