Orhan Pamuk - My Name is Red

Seeing a woman’s bare face, speaking to her, and witnessing her humanity opens the way to both pangs of lust and deep spiritual pain in us men, and thus the best of all alternatives is not to lay eyes on women, especially pretty women, without first being lawfully wed, as our noble faith dictates. The sole remedy for carnal desires is to seek out the friendship of beautiful boys, a satisfactory surrogate for females, and in due time, this, too, becomes a sweet habit. In the cities of the European Franks, women roam about exposing not only their faces, but also their brightly shining hair (after their necks, their most attractive feature), their arms, their beautiful throats, and even, if what I’ve heard is true, a portion of their gorgeous legs; as a result, the men of those cities walk about with great difficulty, embarrassed and in extreme pain, because, you see, their front sides are always erect and this fact naturally leads to the paralysis of their society. Undoubtedly, this is why each day the Frank infidel surrenders another fortress to us Ottomans.

After realizing, while still a youth, that the best recipe for my spiritual happiness and contentment was to live far from beautiful women, I grew increasingly curious about these creatures. At that time, since I hadn’t seen any women besides my mother and my aunt, my curiosity assumed a mystical quality, my head seemed to tingle, and I knew that I could only learn how women felt if I did what they did, ate what they ate, said what they said, imitated their behavior and, yes, only if I wore their clothes. Therefore, one Friday, when my mother, father, older brother and aunt went to my grandfather’s rose garden on the shores of the Fahreng, I told them I was feeling ill and stayed at home.

“Come along. Look, you’ll entertain us by mimicking the dogs, trees and horses in the country. What’ll you do here all alone, anyway?” said my mother, may she rest in peace.

“I’m going to put on your dresses and become a woman, dear mother,” was an impossible answer. So I said, “My stomach hurts.”

“Don’t be such a coward,” said my father. “Come along and we’ll wrestle.”

I shall now describe to you, my painter and calligrapher brethren, exactly what I felt once they’d left and I donned the underclothes and dresses belonging to my now dearly departed mother and aunt, as well as the secrets I learned that day about being a woman. Let me first state forthright that contrary to what we’ve often read in books and heard from preachers, when you are a woman, you don’t feel like the Devil.

Not at all! When I pulled on my mother’s rose-embroidered wool underclothes, a gentle sense of well-being spread over me and I felt as sensitive as she. The touch against my bare skin of my aunt’s pistachio-green silk shirt, which she could never bring herself to wear, made me feel an irrepressible affection toward all children, including myself. I wanted to nurse everybody and cook for the whole world. After I understood to some extent what it was like to have breasts, I stuffed my chest with whatever I could find-socks and washcloths-so I might understand what really made me curious: how it felt to be a large-breasted woman. When I saw these huge protrusions, yes, I admit it, I was as proud as Satan. I understood at once that men, merely catching sight of the shadow of my overabundant breasts, would chase after them and strive to take them into their mouths; I felt quite powerful, but is that what I wanted? I was befuddled: I wanted both to be powerful and to be the object of pity; I wanted a rich, powerful and intelligent man, whom I didn’t know from Adam, to fall madly in love with me; yet I also feared such a man. Sliding on the bracelets made of twisted gold that my mother hid at the bottom of her trousseau chest next to the sheets embroidered with leafy designs, in lavender-scented wool socks, applying the rouge with which she brightened her cheeks on the way back from the public baths, donning my aunt’s evergreen cloak and putting on the thin veil of the same color after gathering up my hair, I stared at myself in the mirror with the mother-of-pearl frame, and shuddered. Although I hadn’t touched them, my eyes and eyelashes had become those of a woman. Only my eyes and cheeks were exposed, but I was an extraordinarily attractive woman and this made me very happy. My manliness, which took note of this fact before even I had, was erect. Naturally, this upset me.

In the hand mirror I held, I watched a teardrop slide from my lovely eye and just then, a poem painfully came to mind. I’ve never been able to forget it, because at that same moment, inspired by the Almighty, I sang that poem rhythmically like a song, trying to forget my woes:

My fickle heart longs for the West when I’m in the East and for the East when I’m in the West.

My other parts insist I be a woman when I’m a man and a man when I’m a woman.

How difficult it is being human, even worse is living a human’s life.

I only want to amuse myself frontside and backside, to be Eastern and Western both.

I was going to say, “Let’s hope our Erzurumi brethren don’t hear the song issuing from my heart,” for they’ll be cross. But why should I be afraid? Perhaps they won’t be angry at all. Listen, I’m not saying this for the sake of gossip, but I’ve learned how that famous preacher the Exalted Not-Husret-by-a-Longshot Effendi, despite being married, prefers handsome boys to us women just as you sensitive painters do. I’m just telling you what I’ve heard. But I pay no mind to any of this because I find him repulsive besides, and he’s so old. His teeth have fallen out and as the young boys who get close to him say, his mouth stinks, excuse the expression, like a bear’s ass.

All right then, I’m holding off on the hearsay to return to the real issue at hand: As soon as I saw how beautiful I was, I no longer wanted to wash clothes and dishes and parade about the streets like a slave. Poverty, tears, sorrow, gazing forlornly at a mirror of disappointment and crying are the lot of sad and ugly women. I must find a husband who’ll put me on a pedestal, but who might that be?

That was why I began spying through a peephole on the sons of pashas and notables, whom my late father had invited to our house under various pretexts. I wanted my predicament to resemble that of the petite-mouthed beauty with two children whom all the miniaturists love. Perhaps it’d be best for me to describe to you poor Shekure’s story. But wait a minute, I’d promised to recount the following story tonight:

It’s quite simple actually. The story takes place in Kemerüstü, one of the poorer neighborhoods of Istanbul. A prominent inhabitant of the neighborhood, Chelebi Ahmet, secretary to Vasıf Pasha, was a married gentleman with two children who kept to himself. One day, through an open window, he catches sight of a black-haired, black-eyed, silver-skinned, tall and thin Bosnian beauty, and is smitten. But, the woman is married, has no interest whatsoever in the Chelebi, and is devoted to her handsome husband. The hapless Chelebi refuses to confide his woes to anybody, and reduced by love to skin and bone, takes to wine he’s bought from a Greek, yet ultimately he cannot hide his love from the neighborhood. At first, because the neighbors adore such love stories and admire and respect the Chelebi, they honor his love, making a passing joke or two about it and letting life take its course. But the Chelebi, who can’t control his incurable agony, begins to get drunk each night and sit at the doorstep of the house wherein the silver-skinned beauty lives happily with her husband, crying for hours on end like a child. In the end this alarms the neighbors. Each night as the lover cries in agony, they are able neither to beat him and drive him away nor to comfort him. The Chelebi, as suited a gentleman, learns to cry inwardly without lashing out or annoying anybody. But gradually, his hopeless grief works its way into the neighborhood, becoming the sorrow and grief of all; the residents lose their sense of well-being, and like the fountain which flows mournfully in the square, the Chelebi himself became a font of sorrow. Initially, the talk of misery spreads throughout the neighborhood, becoming in turn the rumor of ill-fortune and later the certainty of doom. Some move away, some experience a spate of bad luck and some are unable to practice their craft, because they’ve lost the will to work. After the neighborhood empties out, one day the lovelorn Chelebi also moves away with his wife and children, leaving the silver-skinned beauty and her husband all alone. This misfortune, of which they are the focus, douses the flames of their love and causes them to drift apart. Though they live together for the rest of their lives, they’re never again able to be happy.