Orhan Pamuk - A Strangeness in My Mind

He hurried outside: he was sure that his daughters would be in Duttepe with their aunts. Everyone there would blame Mevlut now because of how close he’d been with Ferhat. What should he say when he offered Samiha his condolences? He thought about all these things as he looked out the window on the bus to Mecidiyeköy.

The Aktaş family home in Duttepe was as crowded as it usually was after holiday prayers: Süleyman had been released at around the same time as Mevlut. There was a moment when Mevlut found himself sitting across from Süleyman’s wife, Melahat, but they both looked at the TV and didn’t say a word to each other. Mevlut mused that people were too harsh about this woman, who seemed innocuous after all. All he wanted to do was to take his girls and go back home to Tarlabaşı without anyone blaming him or telling him off for anything. Even these people’s relief at Süleyman’s release felt like a reproach. Thank God this house had four floors now and three TVs that were always on. Mevlut never left the ground floor; this meant he didn’t get to see a tearful Samiha and express his condolences. She’d been widowed, too, now. Perhaps she knew something like this would eventually happen to Ferhat and had been smart enough to leave him.

Ferhat’s Alevi relatives, his colleagues from the electric company, and a few old friends from Beyoğlu all came to his funeral, but not Samiha. Once they’d left the cemetery, Mevlut and Mohini didn’t quite know what to do with themselves. An ashen sky hung over Istanbul. Neither of them particularly liked drinking. They ended up going to the movies, and afterward Mevlut went straight home to wait for his daughters.

He didn’t talk to the girls about their uncle Ferhat’s funeral at all. Fatma and Fevziye acted as if they believed that their jokey uncle had been murdered because he’d done something wrong, and they didn’t ask any questions. What had Samiha been telling them, what sorts of things had she been teaching them? Every time he looked at his girls, Mevlut worried about their future and wanted them to think of Ferhat exactly as the Aktaş family thought of him. He knew Ferhat wouldn’t have appreciated this, and he felt bad. But Mevlut’s private views on the subject were irrelevant compared with the need to protect his daughters’ future. Now that Ferhat was dead, the only people he could count on in the struggle to survive in Istanbul were Korkut and Süleyman.

From the very beginning, Mevlut told Korkut exactly what he’d told the police: he had no knowledge of Ferhat’s high-stakes electricity machinations. In any case, the job no longer suited Mevlut; he was going to resign immediately. He had some money saved up. When he went to the big Seven Hills Electric headquarters in Taksim to hand in his notice, he found he’d already been let go. After all the depredations that had come with privatization, the company’s new owners were particularly concerned with avoiding criticism and the appearance of any irregularities. Mevlut winced when he heard some inspectors he knew already talking about Ferhat as someone who had sullied the good name of all electric inspectors. If another inspector had been killed or beaten up trying to track down illicit circuits, these same men would have spoken of him as a hero who had done the profession proud.

The cause and method of Ferhat’s murder remained uncertain for several months. At first, the police hinted there might be some kind of homosexual motive behind the murder. Even Korkut and Süleyman were enraged at this theory. The reasoning was that the killer hadn’t forced his way inside Ferhat’s apartment, so he was clearly someone Ferhat knew, and they’d apparently even had a glass of rakı together. They had taken Samiha’s statement and seemed to believe her account of having been estranged from her husband recently, and how she’d been living with her sister and her sister’s husband; she was never considered a suspect, and in fact the police took her back to the house to determine whether anything had been stolen. They arrested two burglars who habitually operated in Çukurcuma and Cihangir and roughed them up a little. The details of the investigation changed every day, and Mevlut could only keep up thanks to Korkut’s political connections.

There were nine million people living in Istanbul now, and ordinary crimes of passion, drunkenness, or fury weren’t considered news anymore unless there was also a half-naked woman or a celebrity involved. Ferhat’s murder didn’t even make the papers. The newspaper moguls who’d been enjoying a share of the profits since the electricity business had been privatized would have prevented any negative publicity. Six months later, a monthly journal to which Ferhat’s old left-wing militant friends often contributed published a piece no one read on the electricity mafia, with a list of names including “Ferhat Yılmaz.” According to the author, Ferhat was a well-meaning inspector who’d been caught in the crossfire of criminal gangs fighting over the spoils of the electricity racket.

Mevlut had never heard of this journal before, but two months after the issue with the piece on Ferhat was first published, Süleyman brought him a copy, watched him read the article, and never said a word about it again. He had just had a second baby boy; the construction business was doing well, and he was happy with the way his life was going.

“You know how much we all love you, right?” said Süleyman. “Fatma and Fevziye tell us you haven’t been able to find the kind of job you deserve.”

“I’m doing all right, thank God,” said Mevlut. “I don’t understand why the girls would complain.”

Ferhat’s property was divided over the eight months that followed his death. With the help of a lawyer the Aktaş family had hired for her, Samiha took possession of two small places around Çukurcuma and Tophane that her husband had rushed to buy on the cheap with money he’d saved during his years as a meter inspector. The tiny, ill-proportioned, and shabby apartments were refurbished and repainted by the Vurals’ construction company and then rented out. Mevlut kept up with all the particulars of life in Duttepe through Fatma and Fevziye, who went to see their aunts every weekend, staying overnight on Saturdays, and told their father about everything, from the food they ate to the films they went to see, the games their aunts played, and the rows between Korkut and Vediha. After these visits, Fatma and Fevziye would come home to Tarlabaşı thrilled to show their father the new sweaters, jeans, bags, and other gifts they’d been given. Their aunt Samiha was also paying for the evening classes Fatma had already begun to take in preparation for her university entrance exams, and she was giving both her nieces some extra pocket money, too. Fatma wanted to study hospitality management. Her determination always moved Mevlut to tears.

“You know how much Korkut cares about politics,” said Süleyman. “I’m convinced that one day he will be rewarded for all the good he’s done for this country. We’ve left the village behind, but now we’re creating an association to bring together all the people who’ve come to Istanbul from back home in Beyşehir and make sure we have their support. We’ve got some other wealthy people getting involved from Duttepe, Kültepe, Nohut, and Yören.”

“I don’t understand politics,” said Mevlut.

“Mevlut, we’re forty now, we can understand anything,” said Süleyman. “This isn’t about politics anyway. We’re just going to organize some events; we’ve already been hosting day trips and group meals. Now there’s going to be a clubhouse, too. You would just make tea all day, as if you were running a café, and chat with people from back home. We’ve raised some money to rent a place out in Mecidiyeköy. You’d be in charge of opening up in the mornings and closing up in the evenings. You’d make at least three times what some poor street vendor would make. Korkut will guarantee it. You can leave at six and still have time to sell your boza at night. See, we’ve thought about that, too.”