Orhan Pamuk - A Strangeness in My Mind

I’ve Spent All My Life on These Streets

Ferhat.Like most restaurants, cafés, and hotels that steal electricity, the Sunshine Club had a number of what might be thought of as “overt violations.” These were minor connections, installed on the cheap for the sole purpose of giving the inspectors something to find on their raids (most of which were prearranged anyway) while leaving the major channels of electricity theft alone. Mr. Mustache could see I was itching to infiltrate the backstage and basement areas, where the club’s singers and hostesses congregated, in order to discover the motherlode of stolen power, and he warned me to be careful: even if we did get the public prosecutor and the police on our side, it didn’t take a genius to guess that Sami from Sürmene would launch a fierce counterattack to save face. Someone could easily get shot and killed in the process. I shouldn’t show my face around there so much. I also needed to be careful with the Admiral. He’d been the Sunshine Club’s meter inspector long enough that he had to be playing both sides.

I stopped going to the Sunshine Club. But I no longer had Samiha waiting for me at home, and I missed the smell of nightclubs, so I started going to other places instead. I ran into the Admiral one night at the Twilight. They gave us one of their private tables. The Twilight Club can be a scary place; the decor is truly sinister, the toilets always make weird noises, and all the bouncers’ eyes are full of malice, but that night, the seasoned inspector Admiral was very kind and friendly with his younger colleague. He did catch me entirely off guard, however, when he started talking about what a kind and decent guy Sami from Sürmene was.

“If you got to know him personally, if you witnessed his family life and knew what he wants to achieve for Beyoğlu and for this whole country, you wouldn’t believe all these lies people tell about him; in fact, you would never think ill of him again,” said the Admiral.

“I don’t have anything against Mr. Sami or anyone else,” I said.

I had the feeling that what I’d just said would somehow get passed on to Selvihan. I was also knocking back I don’t know how many drinks, since that comment about Sami from Sürmene’s “family life” had really thrown me. Why had Samiha lost faith in our family life? Didn’t she get the message I’d sent with Mevlut for her to come home? “A person should NEVER reveal his true intentions in life,” said the Admiral. DON’T GET MIXED UP IN THESE NIGHTCLUB AND GANG WARS, DON’T GET INVOLVED IN ANY RAIDS. For some reason, this called to mind how Mevlut never gets involved in anything. I was just thinking to myself what a good friend he is, and why wouldn’t Samiha come home, things in that vein, when I noticed that Inspector Admiral seemed to know all the waiters at the Twilight Club by name. They were talking in whispers. Please don’t hide anything from me; that way, I won’t hide anything from you either. WHAT MAKES CITY LIFE MEANINGFUL IS THE THINGS WE HIDE. I was born in this city; I’ve spent all my life on these streets.

I realized at some point that Inspector Admiral was gone. Had we just argued about why Fenerbahçe wouldn’t win the league championship this year? There will always come an hour in the night when the club empties out, until, somewhere in the background, only music from a cassette is playing. In this city of ten million souls, you’ll feel you are one of a precious few who aren’t yet sleeping but are, instead, delighting in their loneliness. On your way out, you bump into someone just like you, and you think, I wouldn’t mind talking some more, I’ve got so many stories to tell. Hey, friend, do you have a light? Here, have a cigarette. You don’t smoke Samsuns? I don’t like American cigarettes, they make you cough and give you cancer. Next thing you know, I’m walking through the deserted city with this man, thinking that if I were to see him again the next day, I probably wouldn’t even recognize him. By morning, the pavements in front of all the shops, cafés, and diners along these streets will be full of bottles broken by people like me the night before, and all sorts of other trash and filth, and the shopkeepers who have to clean it all up will curse us as they sweep. Look, all I want is a real conversation, a friend I can be honest with, someone I can talk to about anything: Do you mind if I talk to you? I’ve been toiling away all my life, but the one thing I haven’t done is pay enough attention to what was happening at home. What’s that? I said HOME. It’s important. No, let me finish…You’re right, my friend, but we won’t find anywhere that’s still serving at this hour, not even around here. No, they’ll all have closed already, but it’s fine, let’s give it a go, who am I to disappoint you. The city’s more beautiful at night, you know: the people of the night always tell the truth. What? Don’t be scared, the dogs won’t bite. Aren’t you from Istanbul? Did you just say Selvihan? No, never heard of it; it must be the last club to close before the morning prayers: Let’s go in if you want, we can sing along to some of the old songs from back home. Where are you from, anyway? Oh no, even this place is closed. My whole life’s gone by on these streets. Even in Cihangir, there’s nowhere to get a drink at this hour. They’re going to get rid of all the brothels and the transvestites soon. No, that’ll also be closed now. This guy gives you some pretty nasty looks sometimes: If my friends saw him, they’d say, Ferhat, where do you find these people. Forgive me for asking, but are you married? Now, don’t get me wrong…Everyone’s got a right to his own private life…You say you’re from the Black Sea coast, but do you have any ships? When it gets to a certain time of night, everyone tends to begin their sentences with “Forgive me” or “Don’t get me wrong.” But why don’t they just stop saying things that could be taken wrong instead? Why would you smoke American cigarettes instead of our wonderful Samsuns? Well, here we are, my hovel’s up on the second floor. My wife’s left me. I’m going to sleep on the couch until she comes back home. Say, I’ve got some rakı in the fridge, let’s have another glass and call it a night, I’ve got to be up early to meet some old bookkeepers and read all about your bygone days. Don’t get me wrong; ultimately, I’m happy. I’ve been in this city my whole life, and I still can’t let go.

—

Now that he was earning enough to make it comfortably to the end of the month, Mevlut had started leaving the house much later at night than he used to — well after the end of the evening news — and coming home before eleven. He was earning enough as a meter inspector that, for the first time in twenty-five years, subsistence did not feel like such a struggle. The numbers of those longtime regulars to whom he had to deliver boza two or three times a week had dwindled. Mevlut and his daughters would laugh together in front of the TV as they ate what the girls had cooked for dinner, and if he got back home before they went to sleep, he’d sit and watch TV with them some more.

Mevlut accounted to Ferhat for every last penny he collected on his rounds. Ferhat, who’d recently begun to mock his friend whenever he spoke to him, had asked one day:

“Mevlut, what would you do if you won the lottery?”

“I’d just sit at home with my daughters and watch TV, nothing more!” Mevlut had said, smiling.

Ferhat had given him a look halfway between amazement and scorn, as if to say, “How innocent can you get?” It was the way crooks and swindlers and people who thought they were smarter than him had looked at Mevlut his whole life. But Ferhat had never been one of them; he used to understand Mevlut. It had broken Mevlut’s heart to see Ferhat looking at him that way after he’d been so thoroughly respectful of Mevlut’s honesty for so many years.