I cannot capture Cahit's (Zarifoğlu) Maraş on any of the postcards I have. I can hardly protect myself from having a similar suspicion like the one he had somewhere in Yaşamak as "What if Rome does not exist!” I am looking for a city where “people read Yasin, incense” in its bazaars, in these photographs elaborated to look tidy. But probably what I will be able to see will be to see that time has brought trouble to the waters. Because the rocks in which the ancient fish lay were hewn and turned into axes and spears in the hands of warring people. Still I'm looking for that city: How much time has passed since then! I was amazed that he had passed without seeing me in that narrow Maraş street where we met Cahit.

If only I was astonished, it was still good: I was offended. Because at that time, I didn't know him better. In retrospect, it seems difficult to suppose that he knew me too. But that's not the point now. I have to wonder if that narrow street, so narrow that any car, even a horse-drawn carriage could not pass, still stands in place. Judging by these photos, neither the street, nor the high school building, nor the Yeni Sinema in Abarabaşı is now in place. On the back of the postcard is the description “Night view of the city from the castle”. The color is completely dominated by the blue tone. The camera is focused on the Grand Mosque standing in the middle of the postcard. A bright yellow glow emanates from it. I say Ulu Mosque, but not because I know it; I say this because I know that this postcard was taken to show Maraş; actually, it's more accurate to say I guess. Enormous buildings on the horizon of the night landscape: I would say almost skyscrapers. Even though I don't know where this postcard belongs, I guess I wouldn't hesitate to say "Chicago" if they asked me to guess where the city seen here is. Yet a strange calm is observed: If a blue gelatin paper was not placed on the city, glasses made of that blue paper were placed in the eyes of the spectator. Behind such a curtain the city is seen, and there is no sign of life in the middle: neither a car can be seen passing through any street, nor are the silhouettes of people moving. No, it's not that a car is not visible through the branches, but it's such a veiled appearance that it could well be regarded as an abandoned car, since it's not clear whether the headlights are on.

And now I have a daytime landscape. No, no matter how hard I try, I can't pick out any familiar figures on this postcard. No detail is familiar to me. The enormous apartment buildings line up side by side in huge masses. A small green area in the front: it's nothing special; it's a ubiquitous green space: Its trees haven't grown yet. At the rear, only a tangled field of roofs stretches out: the usual view of a slum piled up on a hill. Moreover, no minaret is visible on this postcard. You will say, what will come of this? This will come of it: In Cahit's and my Maraş, which had a population of thirty-five thousand, we would count about fifty minarets from the Castle. Now, if no minarets are visible in this newly formed part of the city, it indicates that this district has been completely rebuilt. Sure. To watch a city from a postcard means to turn it into an image. I am now looking at such a city covered with blue gelatin and I can imagine and envision it as a city that does not belong to Cahit. I will go a little further and say that I could not find a soul in this image of Maraş reflected on the postcards. Because: The mosques, Cahit wrote about, the courtyards of these mosques, the pools in these courtyards, the waters in these pools are not visible on these postcards. Further: Children who take the boiling dishes their grandmothers put from the stove to their father's shop without seeing all the colors of the sun are not seen either. There is no way to see the spirit that created Maraş in the postcards that do not include them. Because what gives a city its soul is not only its buildings, but also the images of children carrying food to their father's shop with mess tins, adding meaning to the entire architecture of the city together with those buildings.

I do not forget that I talk about the Maraş, which appears on postcards. There, while claiming that the spirit of that city is not visible in a city hidden behind gelatin papers, and allowing any margin of error, it should not be denied that traces of reality are reflected despite everything. So let's not rush to have the last word. But before we come to the last word, let's not refrain from emphasizing that such a spiretlessness is circulating. The figures of these halay gangs detected during the dance are also stable: For example, they come out of a theater stage with their caps, silver brocaded vests, silk/fringe belts, heavy salwars, and yemeni shoes and dance halay with drums and zurna. The dense trees visible behind also bear all the signs of magnification. Everything stands on all fours, like the horse in the alphabet. No omissions were allowed in this picture: everything is in place, even the swinging of the scarves tied around the necks is an example. The blue napkins tucked between the white silk belts are screaming that they were made by that theatrical costume designer. However, look at the men Cahit mentioned in his poem: “The men would get young while holding/The women with heads and hearts like falcons/Who hosts the castles/Their ornaments and belts/Their heavy black waterfall hair.”

These men lived in the genuine city of Cahit, which had windows with rose water bottles hanging on their iron. This city had rooms with scorpions attached to its walls; the wall crawled under the scorpion; the wall would be dim the scorpion would be drunk; at the great dawn of the lamp the children would come and go to the kitchen; there would be hedgehogs in the cellar, hedgehogs would be seen at the bottom of the sacks in the cheese cube: everything was so, so genuine. In one house, melon seeds would be roasted and a child would take the hot melon seeds and put them in his mouth, and maybe just then the rain would sway from the earth eaves. There is more: “All kozlu dere künbet are in star hunt/next to the stars real with them/one of them/I held from the soil when will my star fall/glory after the glory a page is opened in the book/a little doom has been deposited into it/three fingers wide/and the mouse wheeling on the ceiling is real.” I admit and accept that all this cannot be seen on a postcard. Cahit's mind makes all this visible to us. But we also need to remember that the city he talked about is not the city that appears on postcards now. In this image, I realize that the mosque on a postcard depicting the current Bahçelievler district mosque is also intended to be compared to Hagia Sophia and Süleymaniye. Perhaps it is the image itself transferred from life to a postcard that becomes lifeless and soulless. Because the cool courtyard of this mosque is not so frozen and made frozen in its original reality; on the contrary, its courtyard always arouses the desire for ablution.

Despite everything, I want to discover something in these photographs: By adding my own external knowledge, I would like to include the manifestation of that thing, which I know exists on the invisible face of these photographs, in the image, in this discovery: The postcards in my hands have do not reflect the images of Cahit and my Maraş. That is Maraş, where tarhana is dried on its roofs. Also in Maraş, where winter musts and annual grains are supplied... that is, the traditional Maraş we know. The old, traditional Maraş is completely excluded from these postcards. I say this is the reason for the resulting spiritlessness. But here and there are scattered tiny lights that can only be seen with my eyes: I can spot them even in these paintings where history is wanted to be completely excluded. Our city does not have a castle in the photographs in my hands, because they have already been taken from the castle. Thus, we say that all the landscapes reflected in these photographs were cut by a "modern scissors" in accordance with the command of a "modern look". However, since I have convinced myself that the old Maraş, which stands outside this framework, still exists, I would like to hope that the rose islets that used to be there and known to be the settled center of the place will, in time, spread to the Maraş landscapes that appear on postcards.
2 Kozludere and Künbet are a village and district of Maraş.