All of their eyes are beautiful. While alive, all of their
scales are worthy of adorning the gowns, ears, and necks of ladies. Diamonds, rubies, onyx, emeralds, and
all the rest are nothing in comparison.
If it were possible for women to go to balls decked out in
the iridescent colors of fish scales, fishermen would make millions and fish
would achieve fame and glory. What a shame it is that as soon as they die, their
colors fade, and their glittering scales turn into shriveled insects. The fish
whose death I am about to describe has no such glittering, iridescent scales.
It doesn’t even have scales, the wretched thing. It is brown, with a vaguely
greenish tinge. It is the ugliest fish ever. It has a huge, toothless, clear white
plastic mouth that opens wide up as soon as it's taken out of the water. It
opens up, never to be shut again.
Did I already say that it’s a dingy brown color? Have I
mentioned that it’s as flat as a pancake? That it has black spots, one on each
side, left and right, smack in the middle, that look like two thumb prints?...
This fish, known to Greek fishermen as Hrisopsaros (Christ-fish),
used to be a horrible sea monster back in its day. In the time before Christ,
it used to terrorize the whole Mediterranean region. If a Phoenician should
fall into the water! There’s no telling how many Carthaginian galleys and
Israelite fishing boats it capsized. It would slice them, dice them, chop them,
grind them, hang them, rip them, break them, toss them, drag them around and
tear them to pieces. The bravest pirates of the Mediterranean, undaunted by man
or beast, storms or lightning, disaster or torture, would pale at the mere
mention of the carpenter fish.
One day, Jesus was walking along the shore when he saw
fishermen abandoning their boats and fleeing in terror. When he asked the
fishermen what was wrong, they replied “Enough! Enough of this monster! It
destroyed our ships and annihilated our friends! Even worse, we can no longer catch
fish, and now we too will perish from hunger.”
Jesus, barefoot and bare-headed, walked towards the sea that
was swarming with hundreds of carpenter fish. He picked up the largest one with
his long, slender hands and lifted it out of the water. Holding it tightly
between the thumbs of each hand, he leaned in and whispered something in its
ears…
Ever since then, the carpenter fish has been a frightful
looking, yet innocuous, even pathetic sea creature. All over its body there are
bony spikes that stick out like so many nails, adzes, pliers, saws, and files.
That’s probably why it’s called the carpenter fish.
The whole toolbox is enclosed on all sides by a membrane
that looks to be made of translucent plastic. Towards the back, this delicate
membrane becomes slightly thicker and darker, forming into a fish tail.
When he feels that he’s caught on the hook, he becomes angry
at the water, at his world. Who knows what kind of terror he’s been plunged
into. The world is empty for him now. Even if he could escape the hook, it’s no
use. He’d be floating flat on the surface of the water. He keeps staring at you
with his giant grief-filled eyes. When you pull him onto the boat you hear his
voice for minutes on end. That sound! Only the carpenter fish and the red
snapper keep making this sorrowful noise that sounds like a cry, like a breath,
until they die on the boat. When his delicate mouth hits the net, the carpenter
fish gets really angry.
One day, I saw a carpenter fish hanging from a branch of the
Acacia tree in front of the fisherman’s inn that blooms half red and half
white. At first, it was brown like it usually is right when it comes out of the
sea. There was no movement in its body. It was as lifeless as a stone. But the
delicate membranes, softer than silk, that surround all those tools, continued
to pulsate. I had never seen anything dance like that. Yes, it was even
playful. It was the frolicking of an invisible inner wind. In the body, there
was no visible movement at all. Only the membrane was fluttering sweetly with a
pleasant vibration. This trembing, which appeared at first to be something
delightful and amusing, was actually a dance of death. It was as if the soul of
the carpenter fish was rising up though this delicate membrane and floating
away, breeze by breeze, until nothing would remain.
It’s like how on certain summer days there is no wind to
speak of, yet an undulating pattern appears on the surface of the sea. This
trembling was attractive in the same way. The kind of thing that fills you up
with pleasure and contentment. However, considering that the fish was about to
die, one might think the trembling to have something to do with pain. But we
try not to think about that part. Maybe it was a wonderfully pleasant death.
Maybe the fish still thinks he is in the water, swimming around in the depths,
his stomach full and as healthy as can be. Maybe he thinks it’s evening, and
the sand at the bottom of the sea is tickling him. The female’s eggs are down
below and up above the sperm float suspended, swaying. His body is seized by a
moment of passion…Suddenly I saw something terrible: in the strangest way, the
fish began to slowly fade, to lose all its color, and become almost totally
white. Without a second glance or the need to ask “Does it just appear that way
to me, or is it really fading,” I knew I wasn’t mistaken.
The membrane’s movements began to quicken, and second by
second the fish became whiter and whiter. I felt within myself the fear that
filled the carpenter fish’s heart. It was a fear that we all know: the fear of
death.
By now he understood. The world of the deep sea was gone
forever. No more letting his flat body be taken by the currents, no more plumbing
the depths of the black waters or sinking into the dark green seaweed. No more
waking suddenly in the morning surrounded by the cool light penetrating from
above, or flicking his tail through the frolicking blue and green day; no more
blowing bubbles, or darting towards the surface… No more falling asleep in the
living seaweed, or cleaning his tools by dipping them in the phosphorescent
currents. It was all over.
The death of the carpenter fish lasts a long time. It’s as
if the fish is trying to get used to this gaseous water that we call air. It
seems like if he tried just a bit harder he might have succeeded.
If we could extend this process of death, which takes two
hours, to four hours, then from four hours to eight hours, then from eight
hours to to twenty four, I think we would see the carpenter fish walking among
us, going about his business.
The day that we make him adjust to our atmosphere (our
water) will be a day of celebration. Our success in capturing such a hideous,
frightening, horrible looking creature who is in reality very sensitive, calm,
timid, good-hearted, sweet, and cowardly will cause us to become arrogant, and
we will do everything we can to break him down. He will be surprised, but he
will put up with it for a while. We will make him into a poet, someone angsty
and misunderstood. One day we will slander his sensitivity, the next day his
compassion, and on the third day his timidity and quietness. We will make him
weary of living. One by one he will destroy whatever good qualities he has left
inside him. Grinning bitterly, he will take his pliers, his file, his saw, and
his axe, and gouge out the fingerprints on his side where Jesus once held him.
He will turn back into the monster that he once was.
Once he gets used to our water, we won’t miss a chance to turn
him back into a monster.
Sait Faik Abasıyanık (1906-1954)
Translated by Andrea Brown
Translated by Andrea Brown
Published originally as “Balığın Ölümü” in Resimli İstanbul Haftası, (4), May 16
1953, and as “Dülger Balığının Ölümü” in Varlık, (402), January 1 1954
Appears in Sait Faik
Abasıyanık: Bütün Eserleri, Yapı Kredi Yayınları (2009), 935- 938
