Orhan Pamuk - The Museum Of Innocence

“When two people love each other as we do, no one can come between them, no one,” I said, amazed at the words I was uttering without preparation. “Lovers like us, because they know that nothing can destroy their love, even on the worst days, even when they are heedlessly hurting each other in the cruelest, most deceitful ways, still carry in their hearts a consolation that never abandons them. Trust me that after tonight I’ll stop all this, I’ll sort this out. Are you listening to me?”

“I’m listening.”

When I was sure that no one dancing nearby was looking at us, I said, “We met at an unfortunate time. In the early days neither of us could have known how rare this love was between us. But now I am going to put everything right. Our most immediate concern is your exam tomorrow. This evening you shouldn’t waste any more time worrying about us.”

“Then tell me, what is going to happen now?”

“Tomorrow, as always” (for a moment, my voice trembled) “at two o’clock, after you’ve finished your exam, let’s meet at the Merhamet Apartments. Then I’ll be able to tell you what I plan to do next, without having to rush. If I fail to win your trust, then you never have to see me again.”

“No, tell me now, and I’ll come.”

How sweet it was to imagine in my drunken stupor that she would come to me at two o’clock the next day, that we would make love as always, that we would remain together until the end of my days, and as I touched her wondrous shoulders and her honey-colored arms, I resolved that I would do everything I could, whatever it took.

“No one will ever come between us ever again,” I said.

“All right then, I’ll come tomorrow after the exam, and you, God willing, won’t have gone back on your word, and you’ll tell me how you’re going to do this.”

While we both remained standing, perfectly straight, with my hand lovingly clamped on her hip, and in time to the music, I tried to tug her closer to me. She resisted, refusing to lean into me, and that excited me all the more. But when it became apparent that my attempt to wrap my arms around her in front of everyone was being viewed not as a sign of love but proof of my drunkenness, I pulled myself together and relented.

“We have to sit down,” she said. “I feel as if everyone is looking at me.” She was leaving my arms. “Go right home and get some sleep,” I whispered. “During the exam, just think about how much I love you.”

When I got back to our table there was no one there except for Berrin and Osman, both frowning and bickering with each other. “Are you all right?” said Berrin.

“Perfectly fine,” I said, gazing upon the disordered table and the empty chairs.

“Sibel didn’t want to dance anymore, and Kenan Bey took her with him to the Satsat table, where they were playing some sort of game.”

“It’s good that you danced with Füsun,” said Osman. “In the end, it was wrong for our mother to give her the cold shoulder. It’s important for Füsun and everyone else to know that the family takes an interest in her, that the nonsense with the beauty contest is forgotten, and she can depend on us. I worry for the girl. She thinks she is too beautiful,” he said in English. “That dress is too revealing. In six months she’s gone from being a child to a woman; she’s really bloomed. If she doesn’t marry the right sort of man very soon, first she’ll get a reputation and that can lead only to misery. What was she telling you?”

“Apparently she is taking her university entrance exam tomorrow.”

“And she’s still here dancing? It’s after midnight.” He watched her walk toward her table. “I really did like your Kenan, by the way. I say she should marry him.”

“Shall I tell them both?” I shouted, having moved away from him already. I had been doing this since childhood. Whenever my brother began to speak, I would do the opposite of what he asked, and retreat to the most remote corner, ignoring the fact that he was still talking.

In later years I would often reflect on my bliss and joy at that point in the evening, on my way from our table to the tables in the back where the Satsat employees, Füsun, and her parents were sitting. I had just put everything right, and in thirteen hours and forty-five minutes I would meet Füsun at the Merhamet Apartments. A brilliant future beckoned, and the promise of happiness sparkled like the Bosphorus at our feet. Even as I laughed with the lovely girls now weary of dancing, their dresses in charming (and revealing) disarray, and I joked with the last of the guests, and old friends, and affectionate aunties I’d known for thirty years, a voice inside me warned that if I continued on this path, I’d end up marrying not Sibel but Füsun.

Sibel had joined the untidy Satsat table, where they were holding a mock séance, really just a drunken game based on no particular knowledge of spiritualism. When they were unable to summon any spirits, the group began to disperse. Sibel moved over to the next table, which was empty except for Kenan and Füsun, with whom she immediately struck up a conversation before I could join them. Seeing me approaching, Kenan asked Füsun to dance. Füsun, having seen me, turned him down, saying that her shoes were pinching her toes, and with youthful pride Kenan responded as if the point of it were not Füsun but the dance, and went off as the Silver Leaves played one of the evening’s fast numbers to do the latest step with someone else. So now, at the edge of the Satsat table, by now almost empty, a chair awaited me between Füsun and Sibel. So I went and sat down between Füsun and Sibel. How I wish someone had taken a photograph of us that I might have now displayed!

I sat down to discover with contentment that Füsun and Sibel were discussing spiritualism like two Nişantaşı ladies who had been acquainted for years but still maintained a social distance, their language markedly formal, almost ceremonial. Füsun, whom I’d assumed had little religious education, declared that souls certainly existed, “as our religion decrees,” but that for us in this world to attempt communication with them was a sin. Here she glanced at her father at the next table. This idea had come from him.

“Three years ago I disobeyed my father and went with some classmates to a séance-just out of curiosity,” said Füsun. “I was asked for a name and I remembered a childhood friend who was very dear to me, though I’d lost touch with him, and without pausing to think, I wrote his name down, just to play along… But this name I’d written down, without really believing, just for the fun of it-well, his spirit did come and I felt so guilty.”

“Why?”

“I could tell from the way the coffee cup was rattling that my lost friend Necdet was in enormous pain. It was rattling as if it had a life of its own, and I felt that Necdet must be trying to tell me something. Then suddenly the coffee cup went still… Everyone said that this person must have died at that very moment… How could they have known?”

“How did they know?” asked Sibel.

“That same night I was at home and looking through my drawers for a missing glove, and I found a handkerchief that Necdet had given me as a present many years before. Maybe it was a coincidence. But I don’t think so. I learned a lesson from this. When we lose people we love, we should never disturb their souls, whether living or dead. Instead, we should find consolation in an object that reminds you of them, something… I don’t know… even an earring.”

“Füsun, darling, time to go home,” said Aunt Nesibe. “You have your exam tomorrow morning, and your father can barely stay awake.”

“Just a minute, Mother!” said Füsun in a firm voice.