Free Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale by Mario Levi

diffidence buried deep within her and to her inability to act otherwise? All these things might be equally valid. Nevertheless, despite her taciturnity and elusiveness, we do know certain things in connection with her years at the French college Notre Dame de Sion . The memorabilia dating from those years provide us with some clues with reference to the history of that introvert, of a person whose introversion got deeper and deeper.
    Can we speak, at this stage, of that relationship that is not so easy to be shared as one would wish? Different voices conjure up the past in certain people differently, with different words, with white lies associating different episodes in the mind. One can formulate an idea under such circumstances about the attitude that people adopt toward life. I must confess that I have my suspicions about the accounts that Juliet gave regarding that remote past. To my mind, in narrating the incidents of those days, she must have omitted certain passages, details and places. Monsieur Jacques remained silent; he did not speak . . . Or perhaps, he preferred to be oblivious of certain things . . . I find this quite natural and justifiable. There was also the account given by Uncle Kirkor, jack-of-all-trades and master of none, who had once served as a factotum in a shop. Because of what he narrated one could infer certain interesting clues that might give the story more sense. One had to be able to read between the lines, however . . .
    To be able to read between the lines . . . to know how to listen properly . . . to take the challenge of listening and spending all due effort . . . We were accustomed to transfer to our time what different witnesses had conveyed. We had tried to bring to life once more the different witnesses with their different voices and perspectives . . . witnesses we never forgot and could never forget for the sake of our lives . . . It so happened that we had also come across such predicaments on certain days and at unexpected moments in the truly believable stories of others. All these reminded us of a story lived in missing fragments, personalized in the course of time, one which assumed meaning as time progressed; a story perpetuated despite certain people. This is the story that commenced when Olga—despite all the shortcomings of her own life, convinced that she could rely on her wildest dreams, having derived her impetus from the fascination she had created among her surroundings thanks to her excellent dissertations, and who had been praised by the nuns not only for her achievements at school, but also for being a young girl prepared to confront the problems she would encounter in future with probity and discretion—encountered Henry Moskovitch on her graduation day, at a time when she secretly considered herself already a graduate in many respects. It was one of those evenings; a harbinger of summer . . . a Rita Hayworth film was on at the Melek movie theater . . . There was a common ground for certain songs that they associated with each other; a common ground where they modulated from one key to another . . . even though that ground conjured up different worlds of sentiments, concealed in different eras. Just remember the times when you conversed with people in alien surroundings, filled with unaccustomed glances, completely indifferent to the words exchanged. At such times, you would not be conscious of the fact that another life was in your sights, one which would gradually absorb and enslave you, while you were preparing gingerly to recieve that person through intricacies that seemed insignificant to you. In general, all things experienced are exclusive to that moment, to that very touch, because, certain relationships wait for that precise moment and place. Then one starts penetrating into that magical world, often without return . . . Olga’s story, whose sole richness was based on her dreams about Henry, son of Isaac Moskovitch, partner of Norbert Feldman, who had