Orhan Pamuk - A Strangeness in My Mind

“Why? Because when you wanted me to get you that girl, you tried to give me that piece of paper the neighborhood councilman issued for your house in Kültepe, the one that’s worth as much as a title deed, and I refused to take it. Remember?”

“I remember,” said Mevlut.

“Maybe you blame me…for what happened to Ferhat.” He couldn’t bring himself to say the word “dead.” “But you’re wrong…I was angry at Ferhat, very angry…But that was it. To wish someone the worst, to feel that in your heart, is one thing; but to actually kill him or have him killed is another.”

“Which is the bigger crime, do you think?” asked Mevlut. “On doomsday, will the Lord judge us for our intentions or for our actions?”

“Both,” said Süleyman, without really thinking about it. But when he saw the serious look on Mevlut’s face, he added: “I may have had bad thoughts, but in practice, I’ve never done anything bad in my life. There are many people who start off meaning well and end up doing evil. But I hope you can see that I’ve come to you tonight with the best of intentions. I’m happy with Melahat. I want you to be happy with Samiha. When you’re happy, you want other people to be happy, too. And there’s another side to it. You two are made for each other. Anyone looking at your situation with Samiha from outside would say, ‘Someone should really get those two together!’ Think about it, you know two people who would be happy forever. Not helping them get together would be a sin. I’m trying to do a good deed here.”

“I wrote those letters to Rayiha,” said Mevlut resolutely.

“Whatever you say,” said Süleyman.

Is It the Same as This?

AFTER FEVZIYE’S WEDDING, Mr. Sadullah had begun picking Mevlut up in his Dodge once a week and taking him to one of those remote and fast-developing new neighborhoods of Istanbul, which they both wanted to explore. Once there, Mevlut would get his shoulder pole and jugs from the trunk, taking his boza around streets where he’d never sold anything before, while Mr. Sadullah wandered the neighborhood and idly smoked cigarettes in some coffeehouse until Mevlut had finished. Sometimes he would collect Mevlut at his house in Tarlabaşı or the clubhouse in Mecidiyeköy and take him over to his place in Kadırga so that they all might have dinner together and enjoy Fevziye’s cooking. (Mevlut had even started having the occasional glass of rakı now.) When the evening news drew to a close, Mevlut would venture with his boza out into old Istanbul, around Kadırga, Sultanahmet, Kumkapı, and Aksaray. Mr. Sadullah didn’t take Mevlut just to the neighborhoods beyond the old city walls but to the historic quarters, too — like Edirnekapı, Balat, Fatih, and Karagümrük — and on three of these occasions Mevlut dropped by the spiritual retreat in Çarşamba to distribute some free boza, though as soon as he realized that he wouldn’t have the chance to get any closer to the Holy Guide, he hurried back out to find Mr. Sadullah in the nearby coffeehouse, never telling him about the white-haired man and his school.

Mr. Sadullah was a seasoned rakı lover who had a full table of drink ing snacks laid for him at least two or three times a week; he had nothing against sacred old things or against religion, but if Mevlut were to tell him that he went to a religious retreat and regularly met with a holy man, Mr. Sadullah might suspect him of Islamist sympathies and start to feel uncomfortable — or, worse, afraid. Mevlut worried Mr. Sadullah’s feelings might also be hurt — just as he feared Ferhat’s could have been — to see that despite their blossoming friendship, and the growing ease with which they could discuss any topic imaginable, Mevlut still felt the need to commune with this old man to open up about his inner life and his spiritual misgivings.

Mevlut could see that his friendship with Mr. Sadullah was similar to his youthful bond with Ferhat. He liked telling Mr. Sadullah about the things that happened to him in the clubhouse, what he heard on the news, and what he was watching on TV. When Mr. Sadullah brought his friend home for dinner, and afterward shuttled him in the Dodge to faraway neighborhoods, Mevlut knew that he did it out of nothing but friendship, curiosity, and a wish to be helpful.

The neighborhoods beyond the old city walls had been described as being “outside the city” when Mevlut had first come to Istanbul, and now that thirty-three years had passed, they all looked alike: they were thick with tall, ugly apartment buildings six to eight stories high, with oversize windows, as well as crooked side streets, construction sites, billboards bigger than any you saw in the city center, coffeehouses full of men watching television, and metal dumpsters built like train carriages that kept hungry strays from the trash, until every corner of the city looked identical, with overhead pedestrian crossings bound by metal railings, barren squares and cemeteries, and main thoroughfares — uniformly the same all along the way — where no one ever bought any boza. Every neighborhood had its statue of Atatürk and a mosque overlooking its main square, and every main road had a branch of the Akbank and of the İş Bank, a couple of clothes shops, an Arçelik electric-appliance store, a shop where you could buy dried seeds to snack on, a Migros supermarket, a furniture store, a cake shop, a pharmacy, a newspaper kiosk, a restaurant, and a little arcade filled with an assortment of jewelers, glaziers, stationers, hosiers, lingerie stores, currency exchanges, and photocopiers, among others. Mevlut liked discovering the idiosyncrasies of each neighborhood through the eyes of Mr. Sadullah. “That area is packed with people from Sivas and Elazığ,” he’d say as they drove back home. “The ring road’s razed this sad little place to the ground, let’s not come here again,” he’d say. “Did you see how beautiful that grand old plane tree in the back alley was, and the teahouse across from it?” he’d say. “Some young men stopped me and demanded to know who I was, so let’s say one visit is enough,” he’d say. “There are so many cars here that there isn’t any room left for people,” he’d say. “It looks like this whole area is run by some religious sect, though I don’t know which one — did they buy any boza?” he’d say.

They never bought much. Even when they did, the people who lived in these new neighborhoods outside the city only ever called for Mevlut because they were amazed that there should be someone out there selling this stuff they’d only heard of in passing (if at all), because their children were curious, and because they thought there was no harm in having a taste. If he were to go back to the same street a week later, no one would ask for him again. But the city was growing so fast, spreading out and building wealth so determinedly, that even this much was enough for Mevlut, who had only himself to support now.

At Mevlut’s suggestion, Mr. Sadullah drove them to the Ghaazi Quarter one evening. Mevlut went to the house where Ferhat and Samiha had spent the first ten years of their married life and which he had visited once, eight years ago, with Rayiha and his daughters. The land Ferhat had marked out with phosphorescent stones was still free. After Ferhat’s death, all of this had become Samiha’s property. Everything was quiet. Mevlut didn’t yell, “Bo-zaa.” Nobody would buy boza around here.

They were in another outlying neighborhood one evening when someone on the lower floors of a very tall building (fourteen floors high!) called out to ask him upstairs. A husband and wife and their two bespectacled sons observed Mevlut as he poured out four glasses of boza in the kitchen. They watched the toasted chickpeas and cinnamon being sprinkled over the glasses. The two kids took a sip straightaway.