Tribades by Nazli Karabiyikoglu Translated by Ralph Hubbell

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Tribades

Translated from Turkish to English

shocking her with my hunger, in a single bed, sheets torn

and edges frayed, I grasped her head

with both my hands and held it to my stomach

again I combed my fingers through her short hair

and cradled her pale lemon-colored face

i’d never seen a body so similar to mine.

we’d always been told

how our great mother, raising her mallet in the air

to strike the drum, says in her proud familiar 

manner to the dozens of curious little eyes 

surrounding her: “The best love grows from a woman.”

taking this as my motto I easily abandoned myself

to the shudders and caresses of the first woman I’d ever

lain beside.

the bugle of my ever-madding orchestra blared

the madder it grew the less the anxiety, soaring from its

minor to major scale, could be cured by anything

but pills, take them regularly for six months at least

that’s fine, I say, but I want to hear the adagio play first,

then later with my body as the cello

her well-versed muscles—jaw, shoulder, finger, tongue—

fastened to me like suction cups, and that was when

my hunger shocked her, when she looked in my eyes

she was sitting on me, a little heavily,

and held my face with one hand, laughed and 

told me how much of a woman I was

i saw that love is real, and strange, and rather soft,

but not frightening, and that was why

I told her that I loved her. 

so women do this too, do they

whether our great mother beat her drum or not

they never said a word about this to us children

we numbered in the dozens but were few[a1] , men pursued us,

“Eşhedü En Lâ İlâhe İllallah Ve Eşhedü Enne 

Muhammeden Abdûhü Ve Resûlü,” we’d say

whenever one asked about our families or ancestors,

we’d learnt it by rote before we could even speak

some of us wiggling our lips as if spitting it out

they used to say that in this land, where the ancient 

ionians once lived, there was no religion but that of the 

muslims, whose key to life has always been keeping 

one’s nose to the grindstone and looking neither 

left nor right, that we must be pure-hearted believers,

and we’d wipe our faces with our tiny palms

and say Amin. It was the same feeling

when a plump woman slid down over my stomach

and I greeted with a shiver the union of her tongue 

with the thought-like electrodes firing off in my brain

if someone had told me that only a woman

could know that most sensitive of spots there

I never would have believed them

thunder drum tense strings the mallets beat the skins

it’s just like leaping over the fires 

of the street fairs we’d organize every spring

trying not to burn our butts

i learned it when I saw it on my mother’s [a2] 

face and on her mother’s face and on her mother’s face

but I never showed it to any man.

and when the mallet fell once more, I reached up

to catch that note in the air

i grabbed hold of the plump woman and stretched out my skin,

screaming with pride but also joy, another continent has been

discovered today, slowly put your maps down and withdraw

Tribades

açlığımla şaşırttım, tek kişilik yatakta eprimiş

çarşafın kenarı sökük, elimle

ikisiyle birden tutup karnıma yasladığım başın

saçları kısacık, yine de taradım

parmaklarımla, sarımtırak yüzünü benimsedim

benimkine bu kadar benzeyen başka vücut görmedim.

böyle söylerler hep,

davul çalan büyük annemiz tokmağı kaldırırken

havaya, kibirli edasıyla, bilindik

der: “En iyi aşklar kadınlardan büyür,”

çevresine dizilmiş onlarca küçük meraklı göze.

bunu düstur edindiğimden kolayca kaptırdım

kendimi titreyişine ve dokunuşuna, yanına uzandığım

ilk kadının.

gittikçe deliren orkestramın borusu ötüyordu

delirdikçe minörden majöre iç sıkıntıları ilaçlarla

geçer ancak, en az altı ay tam saatinde içmelisin

olsun, yine de istiyorum çalsın bu adagio diyerek önce

sonra bedenimle viyolonsel olarak

tecrübeli kaslarının -çene, omuz, dil, parmak-

vantuzlarına tutundum, işte o anda açlığıma şaştı

ve gözümün dibine baktı

üstümde oturuyordu, biraz ağırdı

yüzümü tuttu tek avcunun içinde, güldü ve

ne kadar kadın olduğumu söyledi,

aşkı böyle gerçek gördüm, garipti, oldukça yumuşaktı

korkutucu değildi, ben de buna dayanarak ona onu

sevdiğimi söyleyiverdim.

bunu da yaparlar mı kadınlar,

büyük annemiz davula vurmasa da

bununla ilgili hiç konuşmadılar

biz onlarca çocuktuk ama azdık, peşimizde adamlar vardı

ne zaman biri sorsa hakkında ailemizin ve atamızın

şunları demeyi konuşmadan öğrenen onlarcamız

“Eşhedü En Lâ İlâhe İllallah Ve Eşhedü Enne

Muhammeden Abdûhü Ve Resûlü” hemen ezberden, bazılarımız

dudaklarını kıpırdatıp tükürür gibi de yapardı

eskiden İyonların yaşadığı toprağımızda, etliye

ve sütlüye karışmadan, sadece bitkisel besinler

yiyerek yaşamanın anahtarı dini bütün

müslüman, kalbi temiz müminler

olma gerekliliğine karşı, biz de

küçücük avuçlarımızı yüzümüze sürüp sürüp amin,

derdik. yine böyle bir histi,

iri kadın göbeğimden aşağı inerken ürpererek karşıladığım

düşüncevari şeylerin beynimdeki elektrotları

diliyle buluşu, derlerdi de inanmazdım,

oradaki en hassas noktayı sadece kadınların

bilebileceğini

davul gümbür tel gergin tokmaklar zarları dövüyor

bu tam da her bahar düzenlediğimiz panayırlarda

üzerinden atladığımız ateşlerin

kıçımızı yakmasına benziyor

ben bunu annemin ve onun da annesinin ve onun da

annesinin yüzünde görüp öğrenmiştim, bugüne dek de

hiçbir erkeğe göstermemiştim.

tokmak bir kez daha indiğinde işte, o notayı havada

yakalamak uğruna gerildim ve genişledim

iri kadını iç edip derimi esnettim, gururla daha çok

ve sevinçle bağırdım, bir kıta daha keşfedildi bugün,

haritalarınızı yavaşça yere bırakın ve geri çekilin

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Author and activist Nazli Karabiyikoglu was born in Ankara in 1986. Karabiyikoglu studied Language and Literature at Boğaziçi University and has since published five books. Facing political and gender oppression in Turkey, she catalyzed the Turkish #Metoo movement and advocated for political minorities within the Turkish publishing industry. As a result of her advocacy and publications exposing the ongoing sexual assault she and her colleagues were subjected to within the Turkish literary scene, she was exiled from the publishing community. Karabiyikoglu lived as a queer woman under the constant fear of being arrested or killed. After her name appeared on a “terrorist list” published by an advocate newspaper of the Erdogan government, she fled to Georgia in 2017, where she lived until 2021. As a feminist activist, she fights for freedom of speech and creation. Through her work, she draws attention to abuses within Turkish prisons and domestic conflicts. She aims to write freely about one of the biggest taboos in her country; homosexuality, a moral prohibition of Turkey that leads to violence in the LGTBQ community. She drew the attention of the US literary scene with an excerpt of her novel, Elfiye, in Words Without Borders. Since February 2021, Karabiyikoglu has been a fellow of the Writers-in-Exile program in PEN Germany. She has been attending Friedrich Alexander University to pursue her Masters in Human Rights. She is represented by Janklow&Nesbit.

Ralph Hubbell lived in Turkey from 2007-2015 before returning to the US to earn an MFA at Johns Hopkins University. His essays, short fiction and translations have been published in Slice Magazine, Bosphorus Review of Books, Tin House, Words Without Borders, the Sun Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Asymptote, the Hopkins Review, Cagibi and Moon City Review. In 2019, he was awarded a full scholarship to the Bread Loaf Translator’s Conference. He has translated stories by Muzaffer Kale and Melisa Kesmez and his translation of Oğuz Atay’s story collection, Waiting for the Fear, will be published by NYRB Classics in 2023. He has worked with Nazli Karabiyikoglu for over two years. 

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26 April 2023