Orhan Pamuk - The Museum Of Innocence

“Where have you been?” said Sibel. She’d come out to look for me. “I was worried. Berrin said you had had a bit too much to drink. Are you all right, darling?”

“Yes-I did overdo it in there, but I’m feeling better now, dear. My only problem now is that I’m too happy.”

“I’m also very happy, but we have a problem.”

“What?”

“It’s not working with Nurcihan and Mehmet.”

“Well, if it’s not to be, it’s not to be. What matters tonight is that we’re happy.”

“No, no, they both want this. If only they could let their guard down a little, I’m positive they’d be on the road to marriage in no time. But they just can’t seem to break the ice. I’m afraid that they’ll miss their chance.”

I watched Mehmet from a distance. He just couldn’t get Nurcihan to warm to him, and when he realized how clumsy he’d been he got angry and damned himself into still further awkwardness.

I motioned to Sibel to sit with me at a small service table piled high with clean plates. “We may be too late for Mehmet… It may not be possible to find him a proper, decent wife.”

“Why?”

As her eyes grew large with fear and curiosity, I told Sibel that Mehmet would never find happiness anywhere but in a heavily perfumed room with red lamps. I ordered a raki from the waiter who darted over as soon as we were seated.

“You seem to know quite a bit about these places!” said Sibel. “Did you visit them with him before you knew me?”

“I love you so much,” I said, putting my hand on hers, and I didn’t mind when the waiter shot an inquisitive glance at our engagement rings. “But Mehmet must surely be wondering if he can ever be deeply in love with any decent girl. In fact he must be panicking.”

“Oh, what a pity!” said Sibel. “It’s all because of those girls who shied away from him…”

“Well, he shouldn’t have scared them off. The girls are right to be careful. What happens to them if they have slept with a man and he doesn’t marry them? If word gets out and she’s left in the lurch, what is she to do?”

“It’s something she just knows,” said Sibel carefully.

“What is?”

“Whether she can trust a man or not.”

“It’s not so simple. Many girls suffer terribly, being unable to make up their minds. Or else they give in to desire but are too afraid to take any pleasure from it… I don’t even know if there is any girl out there who can enjoy it for what it is and damn the consequences. And Mehmet, if he hadn’t listened to all those stories of sexual freedom in Europe with his mouth watering, he might not have got it into his head that he had to have sex with a girl before marrying her, just to be modern or civilized; he’d probably have been able to make a happy marriage with a decent girl who loved him. Now look at him, squirming in that chair next to Nurcihan.”

“He knows that Nurcihan slept with men in Europe… I know this intrigues him, but it scares him, too,” said Sibel. “Come on, let’s go give him a hand.”

The Silver Leaves were playing “Happiness,” a mawkish piece of their own composing. But I was in the mood and it moved me. As I felt my love for Füsun coursing through my veins-such pain, and such bliss-I was nevertheless able to appear paternalistic, lecturing Sibel that Turkey, too, would probably be modern like Europe in a hundred years’ time, and that when that day arrived everyone would be free of worries about virginity and what people thought, free to make love and be happy as it is promised one in heaven. But until then most people would continue to agonize over love, and suffer sexual pain.

“No, no,” said my beautiful and good-hearted fiancée. “If we can be this happy today , then so can they. Because we’re definitely going to get Nurcihan and Mehmet married.”

“Okay, then, what’s the plan?”

“What a fine sight-engaged for only an hour and already off in a corner by yourselves?” This was a portly gentleman neither of us knew. “May I join you, Kemal Bey?” Without waiting for an answer he grabbed a chair from the side and sat down next to us. He was relatively young, perhaps in his forties, to be sporting a white carnation on his lapel and wearing a sickly sweet perfume, for women, and enough of it to make one faint. “When the bride and groom retire to a corner, a wedding loses its joy.”

“We’re not a bride and groom yet,” I said. “We’re only engaged.”

“But everyone is saying that this splendid engagement party is more sumptuous than the grandest wedding, Kemal Bey. Where might you have the wedding, apart from the Hilton?”

“Excuse me, but with whom have I the pleasure of speaking?”

“Forgive me, Kemal Bey, you have every right. We writers assume that everyone knows who we are. My name is Süreyya Sabır. You may know me by my pen name, ‘White Carnation,’ in Akşam.”

“Yes, of course, there can’t be anyone in Istanbul who doesn’t read you to find out the latest society gossip,” said Sibel. “I always assumed you were a woman-you know so much about fashion and clothes.”

Carelessly I interrupted her to ask, “Who invited you?”

“Thank you for the compliment, Sibel Hanım. But in Europe, refined men with a knowledge of fashion are not uncommon. And Kemal Bey, the Turkish press regulations allow journalists to attend gatherings that are open to the public, on condition that we show this press card. By statute, any gathering announced by invitation is ‘open to the public.’ All the same, I have never once attended a party to which I had not been invited. I am here this lovely evening at the invitation of your esteemed mother. Because of her modern outlook, she knows the value of what you call society gossip, which I prefer to call news, so she invites me to many of her parties. So great is the trust between us that sometimes when I can’t attend a particular party we’ll speak of it on the phone the next day, and when I sit down to write I quote her word for word. Because-like you, my dear girl-she pays precise attention to everything and never gives false reports. There has never been a mistake in my society news column, Kemal Bey, and there never will be.”

Sibel mumbled something like, “I’m afraid you misunderstood Kemal’s question. He meant nothing by it.”

“Just now there were a number of vipers saying Istanbul ’s entire supply of black market whiskey and champagne must be in this room. Our country is suffering from a shortage of foreign currency reserves, we don’t have the wherewithal to keep our factories going or to buy diesel! There are some, Kemal Bey-jealous enemies of wealth-who would write articles asking, ‘Where does all this black market alcohol come from?’ just to cast a cloud over this lovely evening… Because I would never dream of trying to upset you, I shall forget your thoughtless words at once, for all eternity. Because we have a free press in Turkey, I shall ask that you answer a single question truthfully.”

“Of course, Süreyya Bey.”

“Just a moment ago I caught you two wrapped up in a serious discussion, and I was curious. What were you talking about, so soon after your engagement?”

“We were wondering whether the guests had enjoyed their food,” I said.

“Sibel Hanım, I have good news for you,” said White Carnation in joyous tones. “Your future husband just doesn’t know how to tell a lie!”

“Kemal has a very good heart,” said Sibel. “What we were talking about was this: Who knows how many people at this gathering are in anguish over who knows what trouble with love, marriage, or even sex.”

“Oooh, yes,” said the gossip columnist, at her uttering of the word that had recently been discovered by the press, indeed, had turned into something of a fetish; and because he couldn’t decide whether it was better for him to act as if he had just heard an admission worthy of scandal, or whether he might be better advised to show his empathy for the depth of human suffering, for a moment he fell silent. “You, of course, are modern, happy people, at ease in this new age,” he said at last. “You’ve put all this pain behind you.” He did not say this sardonically, but with an effortless sincerity cultivated through experience, which taught that in difficult situations the best thing was always to flatter people. Feigning feeling for others not as fortunate as we, he began to tell tales about our guests: the daughter who was hopelessly in love with so-and-so’s son; the girl who was being ostracized by good families for being too free in her ways while all the men lusted after her; the mother who had set her cap for a certain rich playboy as her son-in-law; the slovenly son of another wealthy family who had fallen in love, though he was promised to another. Sibel and I could not help but be entertained by his stories, and when White Carnation saw this he relished telling them all the more. He was just explaining that all these “disasters” would be obvious once the dancing had begun, when my mother arrived to tell us we were being very rude, and everyone was looking at us; she ordered us back to our table.