Orhan Pamuk - A Strangeness in My Mind

On the main road in the center of Duttepe down below, where bus routes would one day terminate, there was a grocer whom Mevlut’s father called a swindler; a shop that sold sacks of cement, used car doors, old tiles, stovepipes, scraps of tin, and plastic tarpaulins; and a coffeehouse where unemployed men loitered all day. Uncle Hasan also had a little shop in the middle of the road that led up the hill. In his free time, Mevlut used to go there and make paper bags out of old newspapers with his cousins Korkut and Süleyman.

—

Süleyman.Mevlut wasted a year back in the village because of my uncle Mustafa’s temper, so he ended up in the year behind me at Atatürk Boys’ Secondary School. When he first arrived in Istanbul my cousin was a fish out of water, and whenever I saw him standing all alone in the school yard during recess, I made sure to keep him company. We are all very fond of Mevlut and don’t let his father’s behavior affect how we treat him. One night before the start of the school year they came to our house in Duttepe. As soon as he saw my mother, Mevlut gave her a hug that showed how much he missed his own mother and his sisters.

“Oh, my boy, Istanbul is a little scary, isn’t it?” said my mom, hug ging him back. “But don’t be afraid, we’re always here for you, see?” She kissed his hair as his own mother used to do. “Now tell me, am I going to be your Safiye Yenge here in Istanbul, or will it be Safiye Teyze?”

My mom was both Mevlut’s uncle’s wife — his yenge —and his mother’s older sister, his teyze. During the summer, when Mevlut was likely to be influenced by our fathers’ constant bickering, he tended to call her Yenge, but during winter, when Uncle Mustafa was in Istanbul, Mevlut called my mom Teyze with all the sweetness and charm he had in common with his mother and sisters.

“You’re always Teyze to me,” said Mevlut now, with feeling.

“Your father won’t like that!” said my mom.

“Safiye, please look after him as much as you can,” said Uncle Mustafa. “He’s like an orphan here, he cries every night.”

Mevlut was embarrassed.

“We’re sending him to school,” Uncle Mustafa went on. “But it’s a bit pricey, what with all the textbooks and exercise books and so on. And he needs a blazer.”

“What’s your school number?” asked my brother Korkut.

“Ten nineteen.”

My brother went to the next room to rummage in the trunk and brought back the old school blazer we had both used in the past. He beat the dust off and smoothed down the creases and helped Mevlut into it like a tailor waiting on a customer.

“It really suits you, ten nineteen,” said Korkut.

“I’ll say! No need at all for a new blazer, I think,” said Uncle Mustafa.

“It’s a bit big for you, but it’s better that way,” said Korkut. “A tight blazer can give you trouble during a fight.”

“Mevlut isn’t going to school to get into fights,” said Uncle Mustafa.

“If he can help it,” said Korkut. “Sometimes you get these donkey-faced monsters for teachers who pick on you so much that it’s hard to stop yourself.”

—

Korkut.I didn’t like the way Uncle Mustafa said “Mevlut doesn’t get into fights”; I could tell he was patronizing me. I stopped going to school three years ago, back when Uncle Mustafa and my father were still living in the house they built together in Kültepe. On one of my last days of school, to make sure I would never be tempted to go back, I gave that donkey-faced show-off of a chemistry teacher Fevzi the lesson he deserved: two slaps and three punches in front of the entire class. He had it coming ever since the year before when he asked me what Pb 2(SO 4) was, and I said, “Pebbles,” and he started mocking me, as if he could bring me down in front of everyone; he also made me fail the year for no reason. It may well have “Atatürk” in the name, but I have no respect for a school where you can go to class and beat your teacher up at will.

—

Süleyman.“The blazer’s got a hole in the lining of the left pocket, but don’t get it sewn up,” I told a bewildered Mevlut. “You can hide cheat notes in there,” I said. “This blazer wasn’t of much benefit in school, but it really comes in handy when you’re out selling boza in the evenings. No one can resist a boy out on the cold streets at night in his school uniform. ‘Don’t tell me you’re still a schoolboy, son?’ they say, and then they start stuffing your pockets with chocolates, woolen socks, and money. When you get home, all you have to do is turn your pockets inside out, and it’s all yours. Whatever you do, make sure you don’t tell them you’ve left school. Tell them you want to be a doctor.”

“Mevlut isn’t going to leave school anyway!” said his father. “He really is going to be a doctor. Aren’t you?”

—

Mevlut realized that their kindness was tinged with pity, and he couldn’t fully enjoy its fruits. The house in Duttepe, into which his uncle’s family had moved last year, having built it with the help of his father, was a lot cleaner and brighter than the gecekondu Mevlut and his father occupied in Kültepe. His aunt and uncle, who used to eat on the floor back in the village, now sat at a table covered with a flowery plastic tablecloth. Their floor was not of dirt; it was of cement. The house smelled of cologne, and the clean, ironed curtains made Mevlut wish he belonged there. They already had three rooms, and Mevlut could tell that the Aktaş family, who had sold everything they had in the village — including their cattle, their house, and their garden — would live a happy life here, an outcome, Mevlut felt ashamed and resentful to admit, his father hadn’t yet managed, nor even seemed inclined to try for.

—

Mustafa Efendi.I know you go to see your uncle’s family in secret, I would tell Mevlut, you go to your uncle Hasan’s shop to fold up newspapers, you sit and eat at their table, you play with Süleyman, but don’t forget that they cheated us, I would warn him. It is a terrible feeling for a man to know that his son would rather be in the company of the crooks who tried to trick his father and take what was rightfully his! And don’t get so agitated about that blazer. It’s yours by rights! Don’t you ever forget that if you stay close to the same people who so shamelessly grabbed the land your father helped them claim, they will lose all respect for you, do you understand, Mevlut?

—

Six years ago and three years after the military coup of 27 May 1960, while Mevlut was back in the village learning how to read and write, his father and his uncle Hasan came to Istanbul to find a job and start earning some money, and they moved into a rented house in Duttepe. Mevlut’s father and uncle lived together there for two years, but when the landlord raised the rent, they left and went across to Kültepe (which was only just beginning to fill up), where they hauled hollow bricks, cement, and sheets of scrap metal to build the house where Mevlut and his father now lived. His father and Uncle Hasan got on very well in those early days in Istanbul. They learned the secrets of the yogurt trade together, and at the beginning — as they would later laughingly recall — these two towering men would go out together on their sales rounds. Eventually, they learned to split up to cover more ground, but in order to prevent either from getting jealous of how much the other brought in, they always pooled their daily earnings. Their natural closeness was also helped by the fact that their wives back in the village were sisters. Mevlut smiled when he recalled how happy his mother and his aunt were whenever they went to the village post office to pick up their money order. In those years, Mevlut’s father and Uncle Hasan used to spend Sundays idling in the parks and teahouses and on the beaches of Istanbul; they would shave twice a week sharing a shaver and razor; and when they came back to the village at the start of summer, they would bring their wives and kids the same presents.