Cabi Efendi, who took pride in his knowledge and expertise, was one of those wise men who read only life itself! All the neighborhood people considered him the world’s foremost scholar. With his white round beard, short stature, and portly frame, he could be seen wandering as if rolling along in the most unexpected places. He would collar anyone he met, caressing them with his tiny plump hands, dispensing advice, and allowing everyone, young and old alike, to benefit from his knowledge and wisdom. He would not read newspapers any more than he read books. He claimed that these scraps of paper, which he called “penny traps,” were filled from beginning to end with lies, and would say, “I do not believe in anything I have not seen with my own eyes!” He had believed in bicycles, gramophones, cinema, telephones, automobiles, airplanes, and submarines only after seeing them with his own eyes.
One spring morning, as the sun rose over the quince trees of old in his garden, Cabi Efendi appeared at his door. He walked a few steps and stopped. He looked around. Grass had sprouted on the ground, and the spindly plum branches were covered with pink and white blossoms. He was pleased. He raised his crooked nose upward to the left. He sniffed the air deeply. “What grace, what beauty, O Lord!” he murmured. Allah must surely have created springs to make His servants love the world! Every year, spring appeared to people weary of winter, rain, mud, snow, cold, and blizzards like a fairy bride from a dream, sprinkling “consolation, warmth, and hope” upon their dormant spirits, then would slip away with its butterflies, flowers, and fragrances, leaving them “unawares” in the hell of summer… “But I won’t be fooled,” he said, “it’s all a dream… In a few weeks, neither these flowers nor these fragrances will remain!” He deliberately trampled with his feet the bright diamond droplets of dew on the grass that had fallen from the sun. As soon as he stepped into the street, his eyes caught sight of sparrows chirping as they ate what the night-passing vegetable seller’s and milkman’s horses had left on the broken pavement. He did not stop. “One man’s waste is another’s blessing…” he said. Despite himself, his independent mind tried to extract wisdom from this irrelevant incident. Willingly or unwillingly, he remembered bees and humans. Indeed, it was the same. Only the sizes of the parties differed. In one case, the producer was small and the consumer large; in the other, the opposite; the producer large, the consumer small… He walked on. Now where would he go! He always decided this after setting out. He considered going to Çırpıcı, Veliefendi, Balıklı, Eyüp, or Sütlüce. No… From behind the wall whose shadow he was walking in came a sharp rooster’s crow. Cabi Efendi immediately raised his head to the sky. He looked carefully. There were no clouds. The weather was very clear. “One should no longer trust roosters either,” he said. “What can you expect? They’re giving forty hens to each one. The poor things’ nerves are shot. They don’t know why or when they crow.” He stopped and scratched his beard. The weather did not look at all like it would turn bad. Where would he spend this beautiful day? How long had it been since he had crossed to Üsküdar! “I’ll visit the tekkes too,” he said. He walked on again, waddling. He reached the main street. He jumped on the Topkapı tramway. It was full of pious foundation and customs clerks and such. First, he eavesdropped on them. They were all talking nonsense, even jostling and joking with each other. Cabi Efendi closed his eyes so as not to see these shameless behaviors. He was so bored that… he almost said, “My God, why didn’t you put lids on ears too!” At Sirkeci, he opened his eyes with an “oh.” In the very heart of the city, he slowly crossed the Bridge, which was the pride of the district. He bought a ticket for the Üsküdar ferry. He went up on deck. The weather was truly very, very beautiful. From within the pitch-black smoke emitted by the smokestack, flocks of clean white seagulls passed through unstained, and in the middle of the deep blue sea, the “Maiden’s Tower” sparkled like a flame of foam. Cabi Efendi thought that although he had traveled around Istanbul every day for fifty years, he had not yet gone there. What was it like inside? Who had built it? What was in it now? When it was built, didn’t the southwest wind blow in Istanbul? Many more such questions assaulted his active mind. “Let me go there today. Let me understand the truth…” he said. Until the ferry docked at the pier, he made his travel plan. He would come by land to the Harem pier, and from there take a rowboat to the Maiden’s Tower. But absent-mindedly, while passing through the street from Ahmediye to Karlık Hill, something strange caught his eye. He stopped. He immediately forgot about the Maiden’s Tower and such. He looked, looked, looked.
“This is unbelievable…” he said. A somewhat dark, clean, spacious carpenter’s workshop… Inside, a comfortable, forty-something, thick-mustached, plump man… With a chisel in his hand, he was working; but in front of a large, delicate workbench made of white marble! Cabi Efendi rubbed his eyes, thinking “I must be mistaken.” He looked carefully. No. The workbench was made of marble! “Could it be wooden planks painted white?” the suspicion clouded his mind again. He looked. He looked. Could there ever be a carpenter’s, a joiner’s workbench made of marble? If there was… there must surely be a special reason for it! Cabi Efendi thought that marble was much more expensive than wood. He scratched his head and beard. No doubt, this place used to be either a boza shop or a pudding shop. Later, this carpenter who came must have found the marble counter ready. He laughed. “Lazy fellow!” he said. “Who knows how many chisels he’s ruined. Can anyone work on marble?” Suddenly he felt his advisory impulses swelling. Everything had a method, a rule. Those who violated methods and rules were certain to suffer loss. He could not restrain himself. Involuntarily, he entered through the open door of the shop. He asked the carpenter, who looked at him as if to say “What is it?”: “You just recently took this shop, didn’t you?”
When he received the answer “No,” he asked again:
“All right, say you took it long ago. But before you, a pudding seller used to sit here, didn’t he?”
“No.”
“Then a boza seller?”
“No.”
“Then who sat here?”
“No one… I had this shop built myself.”
“Well, what is this marble counter doing here?”
“I had it put in.”
Cabi Efendi opened his eyes wide. He looked at the carpenter with even sharper attention.
“Are you crazy, son?” he said.
“No.”
“Would a sensible man move a chisel over marble?”
“Why shouldn’t he?”
“Your chisel might slip by accident. Both the marble would be ruined, and the chisel…”
“I never let my chisel slip.”
“How many years have you been a carpenter?”
“Twenty years.”
“How many years have you been working on a marble workbench?”
“It’s been fifteen years…”
Cabi Efendi approached the workbench. The carpenter was laughing, and his fat cheeks were reddening like apples above his thick mustache.
“In fifteen years, have you never accidentally slipped your chisel?”
“I haven’t.”
“By accident… just once…”
“Not even once. If you want, come and see…”
Cabi Efendi took out his glasses from his pocket. He put them on. He looked. He looked. On the surface of the wonderful marble workbench, there was not even a faint scratch. Then he turned to the carpenter. He scrutinized him thoroughly from head to toe. He did not look at all like such a clever man. He asked again: “So you’ve never struck your chisel wrong until now?”
“You see for yourself…”
“How is this possible?”
“Because I am a first-class master. I see very well where I’m going to strike. I never make a mistake. I have confidence in my hand’s skill, that’s why I had the workbench made of marble.”
Cabi Efendi could not stand it. “Son, this is not because of the skill in your hand!” he said.
“Then what is it from?”
“From your thoughtlessness…”
“From my thoughtlessness?”
“Yes.”
The carpenter’s thick black eyebrows knitted together. He gently placed his chisel on the marble workbench. He frowned. In a manner that suggested insult, he asked Cabi Efendi: “What do you know?”
“How would I know? If you had any thought, you couldn’t use your chisel so carefully all the time.”
“How do you know I have no thought? Whatever happens, I know where to bring down my chisel. I never err. I am ‘the master of my craft.’ Now then, enough chatter!… Take your cart and get to your business…”
Cabi Efendi was terribly upset. When he was speaking sweetly with him, the fellow suddenly changed and became rude upon hearing the truth, which deeply annoyed him. Before he could take off his glasses, he left the shop looking sullenly ahead. “Master of your craft, eh… You fool!…” he ground his teeth. He shook his head. It was an ailment in him to seek the cause of every incident. It was another ailment to show and make even the subjects of the incidents themselves accept the cause he found. Now this fool was attributing his infallible attention, which was the result of his thoughtlessness, to the skill of his hand, and considered his thoughtlessness a “virtue” for himself. He turned quickly. He shouted to the indifferent carpenter who had started his work from the door:
“Master, be careful tomorrow. You won’t be able to strike your chisel in the right place. You’ll break your marble workbench…”
He did not wait for an answer. He walked immediately. He turned into the opposite street. He entered the nearby shops one by one. He gathered much information about the carpenter with the marble workbench. He learned that his name was the famous Ali Master. He lived in house number seven, single-story, painted with red ocher, adjacent to the Valide-i Atik Garden. He had just married. He had a young wife… All his neighbors were united in praising the skill in his hand. “He has never driven a wrong nail in his life. He trusts his chisel. There is no equal to him in Istanbul. Even in Europe, there is no carpenter like him who works on a marble workbench,” they said. While inwardly saying to all of them, “Tomorrow you’ll see his marble workbench,” outwardly Cabi Efendi nodded his head, saying “true, true…” There was still plenty of time before noon. Thinking over the plan he had devised to make Ali Master break his marble workbench, he entered the courtyard of Yenicami. It would suffice to make this thoughtless fellow think for just a moment! Cabi Efendi had much experience. He knew like religion that the tiniest thought could bankrupt the greatest attention. By repeating one of these experiences on this thoughtless fellow, he would force him too to accept this truth. Having completed his plan in his mind, he entered the butcher’s shop across from the mosque courtyard. He bought one of the cut, skinned lambs. He gave it into the apprentice’s hand. He went to the Russian’s oven. He asked how many hours it would take to roast a lamb.
When he received the answer “Two hours…” he immediately had a large earthen pot brought too. He had the lamb thrown into the oven. He himself leaned against the dirty shutter of the shop. He filled his short pipe. He lit it. For exactly two hours there, like a stone of patience, without making a sound, he watched the smoke from his pipe. When the lamb was cooked, he found a porter. He gave him the pot. He went ahead. He climbed the slope leading to Çavuş Creek. He found the Valide-i Atik Garden. When he saw the single-story house painted with red ocher adjacent to the garden, “Ah, this is it…” he said and walked on. He knocked on the door knocker. From inside, a thin, shrill woman’s voice said, “Who is it, let me see, who is it?”
“Me.”
“Who are you?”
“Isn’t this the house of the famous Ali Master, the carpenter with the marble workbench?”
“Yes.”
“The master roasted this lamb. He sent it. Take it.”
The door opened halfway. Two thick, white, bare arms took the lamb pot inside with whiter hands, then shut the door quickly, slamming it as if angered by some unknown thing. Cabi Efendi smiled.
“Tomorrow, the marble workbench…”
He rubbed his hands together. His eyes caught the faded inscription above the low door, which had slammed the wind into his face like a mighty slap that had missed.
“Seven, seven…” he nodded his head. Early in the morning he would see that the marble workbench was broken. For this reason, he did not cross to Istanbul. He went straight to Hacı Hüseyin’s inn at Atpazarı. He rented a clean room. He would spend the night in Üsküdar.
It was the famous carpenter Ali Master’s habit to come home late. Upon entering the door, he would sit straight down at the table. This evening, when he collapsed at the head of the table, he was astonished. He said to his wife, “What’s this?”
“This lamb, where did it come from?”
“Should I ask you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You sent it today.”
“God forbid…”
“God forbid?”
His wife was the late former Kasımpaşa imam’s stepdaughter. She got angry very quickly. She turned bright red again. She planted her hands on her broad hips. She twisted her face: “God forbid, eh?”
“Well, so I stole this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did my friend send it?”
“I can’t know that either!”
“You sent it during the day. Now you’re forgetting and picking a fight?”
Ali Master said, “I never forget anything.”
“Come on, you senile man… I was washing laundry. A man came. He said, ‘Is this the house of Ali Master with the marble workbench?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘He sent this lamb with me.’ So I took it.”
“What kind of man was he?”
“Do you think I look at every Tom, Dick, and Harry… I didn’t even see him.”
“What was his voice like?”
“Do you think I listen to every Tom, Dick, and Harry’s voice… I swear I didn’t hear it…”
“?”
“!”
The husband and wife had a good fight over this lamb. Ali Master could not put a bite in his mouth, not from this exquisite lamb, but from the other dishes either. Who on earth had sent this lamb? He was dying of curiosity. Could it be a spell to ruin his home and hearth? He could not drink his coffee or smoke his pipe either. For the first time in his life, that night his sleep was lost. He could not sleep until morning. His wife was still accusing him of forgetfulness, saying “You’re senile, man, go have yourself examined at Pabucubüyük.”
In the morning, he went down to his shop without performing the morning prayer. He opened the shutters. He was so distracted that… he did not even see Cabi Efendi watching him from the corner… With a mechanical calm, he took his chisel in his hand. He placed the work left over from yesterday on the marble workbench. Cabi Efendi was smiling from the open door, watching his distraction. The poor man’s mind and thoughts were all on last night’s lamb. “Who sent it, O Lord, who sent it, who could it be?” he was thinking. When he raised and brought down his sharp, thick, heavy chisel with a crack, his eyes opened wide. A hand-sized piece of marble had broken off from the workbench and flown to the floor. At the same time, he heard a voice from behind the door: “My condolences, master!”
“?”
“!”
He turned. When he saw the little old man he had driven away yesterday, he was utterly astonished. Cabi Efendi asked: “So you were the master of your craft! What happened?”
“!”
“?”
Poor Ali Master could not open his mouth. He turned pale as a sheet. His lips were trembling. At that moment, Cabi Efendi took pity on this man who had until now considered his attention, which was the result of thoughtlessness, a virtue in himself.
“Don’t think about it anymore,” he said. “I sent that lamb.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To make you think a little…”
Then he did not spare himself and explained to him at length, standing there, that man was “a thinking animal,” that with distraction one sometimes lost the faculty of attention, that “an infallible keen attention” could be considered a trait exclusive to “thoughtless animals.” As he left the door, he said, “Come on, son, don’t try to upset the order of the world. A carpenter’s workbench is made of wood. Now immediately remove this marble you broke. Put a wooden workbench in its place.”
An hour later, Cabi Efendi was boarding a shabby boat swaying in the deep navy waves of Harem Pier. He would discover why the Maiden’s Tower was built in the middle of the sea, and would surely find the real reason for this too! But he was so pleased that this morning he had been able to teach “the truth of attention” to someone…
