Orhan Pamuk - The Museum Of Innocence

In the end I did find Mehmet comfortably perched on a stool in the bar adjacent to the garden, drinking raki with Tayfun, a classmate of ours.

“Oooh, all the bridegrooms are here at last,” said Tayfun as I sat down to join them. It was not just that we were delighted to see each other; his remark brought back happy memories that caused us all to smile. During our last year at Robert College the three of us would often hop into Tayfun’s father’s Mercedes on an afternoon and head for a glitzy brothel lodged in an old pasha’s mansion in the hills above Emirgân, where every time we would sleep with the same charming, lovely girls. These girls, who’d joined us for a spin in the car a few times and for whom we felt a deep affection we were at pains to conceal, charged us much less than they did the aging loan sharks and drunken businessmen they serviced in the evenings. The madam, an old, high-class prostitute, always treated us courteously, as if we were meeting at a society ball at the Cercle d’Orient in Büyükada. But every time she saw us in our school jackets and ties, clearly on our lunch hour, in the hallway where in the evenings her miniskirted girls would sit on divans, smoking and reading photoroman s while waiting for customers, the madam would burst out laughing, and call out, “Giii-iirls! Your schoolboy bridegrooms are here!” Thinking it might cheer Mehmet up to recall those happy days, I reminded him of the time when, having drifted off to sleep after making love in those rooms warmed by the spring sun streaming through the closed shutters, we gave as our excuse to the aged schoolmistress: “We were studying biology, madam,” and that from then on, “studying biology” was our code word for visiting the brothel. We remembered there was a sign on the front of the mansion, READING CRESCENT HOTEL-RESTAURANT, and that the girls had botanical aliases-Flower, Leaf, Daphne, Rose. Once on an evening visit we’d just retired upstairs with the girls when a famous tycoon turned up with his German partners; knocking on our doors, the madam had quickly extracted her girls and sent them downstairs to belly dance for the foreign guests. As consolation, we were given permission to sit quietly at a table in the back of the restaurant to watch. And as they gyrated in their sparkling, sequined harem outfits, we knew it was us, and not the aging moneybags, whom they were trying to entrance. We spoke with longing of watching them dance, knowing that we’d loved them and that we’d never forget our times in that place.

Whenever I returned from America for summer vacation, my chums Mehmet and Tayfun were always keen to fill me in on the latest bizarre developments, for every time there was a new chief of police, the rules of engagement changed. For example, there was an establishment occupying a seven-story Greek building on Sıraselviler Avenue; for a time the police were raiding it daily, but sealing off only one floor, obliging the girls there to take their admirers to another one that was, nonetheless, adorned with the same furniture and mirrors… In one of the side streets of Nişantaşı there was an old mansion where the bouncers ejected any guest or interested party whom they deemed not rich enough. And then there were the mobile services of Deluxe Şermin, whom I’d seen earlier that evening at the hotel entrance, and who a dozen years ago had been known to cruise around in her finned 1962 Plymouth, making a tour of the Park Hotel, the Divan, and Taksim, stopping occasionally for her two or three girls to be claimed. If you phoned ahead, she would even do “home deliveries.” My friends’ wistful tones suggested that they had found far greater satisfaction in these places, and with these girls, than they ever could in the company of “good” girls atremble with worries about their honor and virginity.

I couldn’t see Füsun at her table, but her mother and father were still sitting there. I ordered another raki and asked Mehmet about the newest establishments. Tayfun boasted that he had all the most up-to-date information on the newest and most luxurious brothels, and then, as if to prove the point, he presented me with a malicious recitation of famous deputies caught during vice raids, married acquaintances who once spotted in the waiting room would gaze abruptly out the window to avoid his eye, and generals well known for their presidential aspirations who had died of heart attacks in the arms of twenty-year-old Circassian girls in beds overlooking the Bosphorus, though the official story would have them dying in bed beside their wives. As a soft, sweet, melody laden with memories played in the background, I could see that Mehmet balked at Tayfun’s venom. I changed the subject, reminding him that Nurcihan had come back to Turkey to marry, adding that she had even told Sibel she liked him.

“She’s dancing with Zaim the Sodaman,” said Mehmet.

“Only to make you jealous,” I said, without once looking at the couple on the dance floor.

After a few moments of coyness, Mehmet admitted that he had found Nurcihan attractive, and that if she “really was serious” then of course he would be glad to sit next to her and whisper sweet nothings, and that if everything worked out, he would be grateful to me for life.

“Then why didn’t you treat her well from the very beginning?”

“I don’t know, I just couldn’t.”

“Come on, let’s go back to the table, before someone takes your place.”

Heading to the table, stopping en route to embrace many guests, I was glancing at the dance floor, scanning it for Nurcihan and Zaim, when I saw Füsun dancing… with Satsat’s young and handsome new clerk Kenan… Their bodies were far too close… An ache spread through my stomach as I returned to my seat.

“What happened?” asked Sibel. “No matter, it’s not going to happen with Nurcihan, she’s just mad about Zaim. Just look at the way they’re dancing. Oh, don’t look so sad. I’m sure you did your best.”

“You’ve got it wrong. Mehmet’s willing.”

“Then why are you looking so grim?”

“I’m not.”

“My darling, it’s very clear that the joy has gone out of you,” said Sibel with a smile. “It’s about time you stopped drinking.”

The orchestra going without pause from one number to the next was now playing a slower, more soulful tune. At the table there was a silence, a very long one, and I could feel jealousy’s venom mixing with my blood. But I did not wish to acknowledge this. Neither Mehmet nor I was looking at the dance floor, but I could tell from the looks on people’s faces that the change in tempo had pushed couples there closer together, to the pleasure of some at the table and the annoyance of others. My brother was talking, and after so many years I can’t remember a thing he said, but I do remember trying to pay close attention. Just then the orchestra began to play a number even more syrupy and romantic than the one before, and now even Berrin and Sibel, oblivious a moment ago, were registering reactions to the sight of the dancing couples as they wrapped their arms around each other even tighter. My heart and mind were in utter disarray.

“What were you saying?” I asked Sibel.

“What? I wasn’t saying anything. Are you all right?”

“Shall we send the Silver Leaves a note, requesting a short break?”

“Why? Oh, for goodness’ sake, let the guests dance,” said Sibel. “Look, even the shy ones are dancing with the girls they’ve had their eyes on all evening. Believe me, half of them will end up marrying these same girls.”

I did not look. Neither did I let my eyes meet Mehmet’s.

“Look, here they come,” said Sibel.

For a moment I thought it was Füsun approaching with Kenan, and my heart began to race. But it was Nurcihan and Zaim who were returning to the table. My heart was still beating madly. I jumped up and took Zaim by the arm.