It
wasn't the flow of the river Moselle nor the obscure beauty in it's color, not
the houses painted to a morning yellow and it wasn't the tender wave on a beautiful
French girl's hair. It wasn’t the love that pours through a bottle of wine and
not the cries of the sun behind those gray clouds, no; it wasn't any of these
things that drove me to this place. I was brought here by a song. Yes! A song. And
yet, I had no idea of such deal until a certain moment. If you want to learn about the song of Metz,
stay with me on our small journey of my humble words.
My
name is September and I write stories. Stories of romance, mystery, regret or
of people, places; almost anything! The only kind of story I never wrote is
mine I suppose. But hey, this story is a part of me. The day that I arrived to
this city, the trees were so still and the rain was blurring the car
headlights. I never forgot how quite the wind was. You could hear the birds
dimnishing in the distance. It was right after the morning, I was welcomed by a
lady in black who obviously seemed to go along with the gothic architecture of
the city. I wonder what she thought about my disturbingly green umbrella. As I
arrived to my hotel room, all I did was to sit on a wooden chair which was
painted in red and watch the river pass by, almost for an hour. I have a rather
intimate connection with the rain. Sometimes I feel like it is talking to me,
just saying some forgotten or unsaid words. Maybe like a confession, that was
thought but never said. Not only words but maybe a feeling or maybe the sarcasm
from a laugh. And just maybe some of those unachieved expressions would dive
into each rain drop and lie there for a thousand years. And that is why
sometimes I collect rain drops on a bottle lid and I respectfully keep them on
my coffee table until they become one with the air, in the morning.
It
was late at night when I decided to take my first walk around the city. Backlit
in a distance, I was seeing the silhouette of a woman, elegant as she was,
talking in soft, fluent French but just as romantically fierce in the shape
that she could burn all those lights down in a flash. As she tiptoed on the
sideroad, I passed through her enchanting perfume into a narrow street. And in
front of a vinly shop, a drunk man was sitting by himself and mumbling this
rather curious song:
Come, the
girl in the green dress
Let me hear the snow in your eyes
And blue words on your lips
Now have turned into violets
And your flowers would blossom
Every Thursday in Autumn
And you hide, you hide
The sun beneath your ears
Every Thursday, every Autumn.
Though
the drunk man’s voice was creaking like the deck of an old ship, I could tell
each and every of those beautiful words. So I went forward, I confronted the man
and asked him questions about the song. Unfortunately he didn’t say much, all
he did was repeating this same song over and over again. But he did say one
thing, a sentence. “The water always sings”. With a small pity and a symphaty
on my eyes, I took the way back to my hotel room. Just before I slept, the last
thought in my head was the endless olive trees of my father’s hometown. Driving
all along them, would feel like a repeating a classical music; I dreamed it was
a piece of Gustav Mahler.
The
morning that I woke up to was dark and cold. I ringed up the curtains but I
could barely see outside from my steamy window. I brushed off the steam and
left a ghostly picture of my right hand on the freezing glass. I don’t remember
another morning being so speechless like this. The silence made me notice how
dramatic was the shattering light coming from the white crystals of my room’s
chandelier. Soon enough, the silence was broken by an extremely thin sound. It
was so skinny that I thought it was the buzz of a fly or the far sound coming
from a water pipe. Redundantly curious, I started following this bit of sound
like a dog chasing after a smell. And it took me to my table, where I left the
rain drops on a bottle lid. I remember being surprised that the rain drops were
still in place and not vapourized. As I got my left ear closer to the table,
the buzz became louder and more clear. Then I got even closer and magically, I
heard it; I heard the music. I heard the song. I stuck my ear to the lid as I
was hearing the soothing voice of a woman singing just the same song that I was
hearing yesterday from the drunk man. Come,
the girl in the green dress. Let me hear the snow in your eyes. And blue words
on your lips, now have turned to violets. And your flowers would blossom, every
Thursday in Autmun. And you hide, you hide; the sun beneath your ears. Every
Thursday, every Autumn. I’m not a man who believes in superstitious things
but there was no logical explanation to a song coming from five drops of rain.
Still, thinking of this voices fascinates me like no other female voice ever
could. You wouldn’t understand it if you didn’t hear it and no words could
describe exactly how charming it was. But if I were to describe it in sentences,
I would say “It is like a butterfly flapping wings but slowly on a silk thread,
and then gently like a ballerina, leaving it’s body to the empty space, to meet
a bouquet of perfectly white cotton flowers on the earth. And then it would
burst into pieces of gold dust, standing on mid air and then quitely
disappearing.”
A
couple of hours later, brushing the bewilderment off my face; I went out
searching for a local bar so that I could ask questions about this riddle which
had already started banging the walls inside my head. Right past the central
city, I came to a grand avenue with a merry go round in the middle. And just
across, there was the place called “Vivian’s Pub” where different groups of
people were just waiting or smoking infront of. For observatory purposes, I
stood infront of the pub and lit a cigarette. Standing there, I copied a cool
looking guy’s pose. Three guys, right next to the door were looking at the
girls that come out the door and one of them was occasionally spitting on the
ground, while two other men from a different group were having a deep conversation
about Turner’s paintings. Four girls a bit further from the door were out for
the smoke. I could tell that the blonde one was checking me out from time to
time. Soon enough, my cigarette was burnt so I let myself inside. It was an old
looking building with wooden, noisy stairs and dim lights accompanied by average
volumed bad music. There were many young people inside and I could smell the
drunkeness in the laughters. As the door opened each and every time, the women
in black stockings were turning their heads right and back like turrets.
Luckily I was able to find myself a seat at the bar when a drag queen madly
left his chair and ran to the door. I sat down and ordered a glass of red wine.
It was the first time I had ever sat on a bar stool. My French is not great.
I’m not too bad when I’m speaking but when it comes to understanding the native
French, it gets tough. But one thing I learned that was understanding “drunken”
French was a bit easier. I spoke with as many locals as I could and asked them
about the song. I didn’t mention them that I was hearing the “music” coming
from the rain drops since I didn’t want them to think that I’m a drunkard. And
yet, no one seemed to know about the song but one woman. She was a German lady
in her early forties and she was wearing a red blouse with a long-brown skirt.
She had a huge hat with black imitation roses on. Eventhough it was warm
inside, she never took out the hat. When I mentioned her about the song, she
seemed very surprised and a bit upset. Her blue eyes opened up like candles,
and her thin eyebrows climbed up as she straightened up her body and then
leaned forward to me. She asked me where I heard it from. She told me that this
was a song that her grandmother would sing while cleaning the house. The last
time she heard it she was just a small child and since then she never heard it
again until I sang it to her. I told her that I learned this from an old drunk
man on the street and really would like to know it’s history. Her grandmother
and mother were passed away long time ago so she said she couldn’t help much
but she could ask her father if he knows anything. She wrote her number on a
yellow match box and placed it in my shirt’s front pocket. “Call me in a few
days” she said and then left the pub.
Feeling a sort of joy for finding a lead,
I took the last sip from my wine and moved out and started walking to my hotel.
I really like to walk; whether if it’s a lonely walk or a walk with a fellow,
it’s quite enjoyable, especially in a place like this. Sometimes I take the
longer road and occasionally I even get lost on purpose just to have a longer
piece of walking. That night, I remember very well, it was 02:19am when I was
passing through a short-dark alley. The alley served as a back door to shops
which were long closed. To my right side, there were the fences that seperate
the waggon trains and humans. I heard a raven’s caw coming from the top of me. The
gaps between structures were filled with trashes. There was no light in the
environment except the moon. The blue, full moon was blinking through the
clouds. The dazzled stars were shimmering, when I was startled by the sound of
two loud steps behind me. Suddenly, I saw a black hand holding a white tissue.
Then he stuck it to my face with a great force. The last thing I remember was
letting it all go. I felt like I was just giving up on life like there’s no
future and within seconds, it was pitch black.
The
next morning, I woke up with a massive headache. I was trembling like a cello
string. I couldn’t open my eyes and I couldn’t make any sense of this deadly
cold. I was positioned sideways, my right arm was slightly hurting and I had
trouble breathing because of the terrible pain I was feeling on my throat. As I
slowly got my conciousness back and managed to open my eyes, it all revealed. I
was lying completely naked on a back alley, out in the cold and unconcious since
many hours. The first couple of minutes, I didn’t even remember what had
happened last night. With a lot of suffering, I managed got on my feet. My
clothes were nowhere to be found. Then I looked down and I saw the matchbox
which the German lady had given. It was just lying there like a lonely magic
spell. The first thing I did was to take it, light a match and burn the trashes
in the bin so I wouldn’t freeze to death. I stood next to the fire for a while so
I could get warmer and quickly got my mind up, left my worries for the future
and started thinking about what to do next. Infront of me was a shop’s green
backdoor. Trying so hard to be quiet, I took a peak through the door. There are
single moments in life that can change all the future. That morning, the moment
was the door being unlocked. As I looked through a small gap, I saw that I was
right behind the counter and the bartender was facing backwards to me. He
seemed to be drying the glasses with a white fabric. I waited and waited to
hear the sound of his footsteps moving away. Eventually the bartender not just
moved away but also left the shop. Without a second thought, I rushed inside in
a docking position and reached for the antique phone and dialed the number of
the only person that I knew in Metz: The German lady. As I explained her what
happened, she sounded surprised but not as much I thouht she would be. She told
me that she was in Saarbrücken at the time so she couldn’t come but she would
call the cops to come and get me, and she did. In fifteen minutes, the cops
came with a blanket and an invisible smile. They took me in their car through a
glare of blue lights. It was dull and quite in the station with a little bit of
radio buzz. While the officers were having hard time accepting that I didn’t
speak good French, I wasn’t able to explain myself good enough. It took 4 hours
and 21 minutes for the police to find an English translator. Then I spent 2
hours and 46 minutes telling about the incident. My wallet or my clothes
weren’t found anywhere. As I was leaving the police station, a young officer
asked me about the meaning of the tattoo on my back. I was mesmerized as I
replied him that I never had a tattoo drawn on my back. I stepped outside,
lifted my head and looked up to the sky. The sun was glimmering through the ever
passing clouds. I closed my eyes and it was there. I closed my eyes and it was
gone. Slowly I lowered my head to the plain position, blinked once, released my
shoulders and unchained my walk. As I arrived to the hotel room, I made a move
for the bed but collapsed onto the carpet like a tripping rugby player and fell
asleep.
When I woke up with my bones begging for a gentle touch, it was 02:16 AM. I walked to the bathroom
mirror to see the tattoo which was vandalised on my poor back. There were
geometrical shapes made only of lines, they looked like letters I’ve never seen
before. They could be asian or something ancient. I took a picture of the
shapes and early in the next morning, the first thing I did was to rush into
the library without even eating breakfast. It was painful turning down the
chocolate croissant I must admit. The library building was a very old one. I
always wondered why all these old libraries have the maroon feeling. The brown
color, the smell of oblivion, whispers and the old lady on a desk, reading a
book. Seeing it from the movies when I was younger, I dreamed of meeting a
lovely girl in a library one day. I even sat near to some beatiful girls, I
thought this was “helping” the faith. But it never happened. Yet I still
believe in faith. Because everything has
already happened. Not because somebody wrote it for us; maybe did but another
idea could be that we wrote it ourselves in a blink of an eye. Because time
does not exist, at least not in the way we think it is. What we call time is
only our slow perception of things. We born, live and die at the same moment.
You have already read my story and you haven’t even started yet. These thoughts
in your head have already appeared and got forgotten. The choices we will make
in the future are already made by our free will. That is why, things that are
supposed to happen; will happen.
Trying
to find a meaning for the tattoo, I have looked through dozens of books over
and over again. I found some minor similarities with Himyaritic, an old Arabian
language spoken until 6th century AD and some with the Phoenician which was
ancient language spoken in the Mediterranien. But none of them was an answer to
my riddle. I spent all my day in the library, cracking my head. As the lights
were turned off, I took my way back to the hotel. As the night fell, it was
raining so I opened my green umbrella. Rain and street lights is always a good
couple. I like the street lights. I watched the street lights from behind my
umbrella pointing it to the light, I watched the raindrops tapping on my
umbrella. Then suddenly, an idea; the idea that solved the riddle stroke my
head like a lightning. The rain drops were forming patterns made of dots. This
reminded me of something. So I took shelter under a bus stop, took the tattoo
picture out of my pocket and put a dot on the lines at every place where there
is a corner. Then on a clean sheet of paper, I wrote only the dots, leaving the
lines out. The shapes looked very similar to the ones that I saw many times on
medicine packagings: The blind alphabet – and I was right! I ran to my room and
translated the writing using an online translator. The writing said two words:
“German’s Gate”. The first thing that came into my mind was the German woman.
Thinking that her box of matches was the only thing I could find last morning,
could she have something to do with it? It could be many things since the town
was at the Germany border and was greatly influenced by the German culture and
architechture. I went down to the lobby hoping to ask the receptionist if he
knew anything about that. The “night receptionist” was a grumpy old man. He
would always wear brown and he never would smile. Slow in speech and fast to
finish a conversation. As I asked him about the “German’s gate”, he pointed his
finger to a man who just came in thorugh the swing door. Later, I was to learn
that he was an architect eventhough he looked nothing like one with his loose
and unsinged clothes and slaphappy walk. But when you talk to him, it would
turn obvious that his intellectual level was exact opposite of his look. Just
as I told him about German’s gate, he quickly replied: “Oh, you are talking
Portes des Allemands”. Of course it was, how couldn’t I think this? Portes des
Allemands meant German’s Gate in French and it was a castle made in 13th
century. I undserstood that somebody wanted me to get there, but not right away
and not so easily. How much curious I ever was, I needed the daylight for my
search so I went straight to bed.
In my dream that night, I saw my first love.
It was a moment we lived together. We were riding a bicycle built for two. I
was on the back and she was on the front. I was watching her back as we were
pedalling. Her hair in the wind and the shine of the evening sun on her cheek,
on that peaceful island. Her pink shirt. How she reached her arms forward and
narrowed her shoulders. And the thought I couldn’t put away; that we were too young,
this would eventually end and the moment would pass. But right there, I was
there. In that moment. I was, in the past. So I better live it and better
remember. Because tomorrow has already passed.
I
woke up with a banging sound on my door. (To be continued)
