Orhan Pamuk - A Strangeness in My Mind

—

When they received their report cards in the first week of June, Mevlut learned that he had flunked the first year of high school completely. Under a section of the yellow card headed “Evaluation,” there was a handwritten note that said: “He has failed this year outright.” Mevlut read this sentence ten times. He had skipped too many classes, missed so many exams, and he’d even neglected to win over those teachers who would have pitied him for being a miserable yogurt seller and let him pass. Because he’d failed three classes, there was no point in studying over the summer. Ferhat hadn’t failed even one, Mevlut was disappointed to learn, but he had so many plans for his summer in Istanbul that he wasn’t even that upset.

“You’ve taken up smoking, too, haven’t you?” said his father when he found out that night.

“No, Father, I don’t smoke,” said Mevlut, with a pack of Bafras in his pocket.

“You smoke like a chimney, you jerk off all day like some horny soldier, and, to top it off, you’re lying to your father.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Damn you,” said his father, and he gave him a slap. Then he left, slamming the door behind him. Mevlut threw himself onto the bed.

He couldn’t get up for a long time. But he didn’t cry either. What really stung wasn’t that he’d failed the year, or that his father had slapped him…What had really broken his heart was how offhandedly his father had referred to Mevlut’s big secret, his habit of self-abuse, and called him a liar. He’d had no idea anyone knew what he was up to. This heartbreak set off such an explosion of anger inside him that he knew immediately he would not be going back to the village at all that summer. He alone would decide what would become of his life. He was going to do great things one day.

When his father prepared to head back to the village at the beginning of July, Mevlut explained once more that he did not want to lose their regular customers in Pangaltı and Feriköy. He was still handing over the money he earned, but things had changed. Mustafa Efendi used to say that they were saving money for the house they would build in the village, while Mevlut used to give his father a report of where he’d earned whatever he was handing over on a given day. Now, he no longer bothered; he just gave his father some money every few days, as if paying some sort of tax. And his father no longer spoke of a house they would build in the village. Mevlut understood that his father was now resigned to the fact that his son would never return to the village, that he would spend the rest of his life in Istanbul, like Korkut and Süleyman. In those moments when he felt most alone in the world, Mevlut would resent how his father could just never find a way to get rich in the city, or stop thinking about going back to the village one day. He wondered if his father could sense that this was how Mevlut felt.

The summer of 1973 was one of the happiest Mevlut had ever known. He made quite a bit of money with Ferhat, selling Kısmet on the city streets in the afternoons and evenings. He used some of it to buy German twenty-mark notes from a jeweler in Harbiye (Ferhat knew the man), and he stashed them under the foot of his mattress. This was how Mevlut first began to hide some of his earnings from his father. Most mornings, he stuck to Kültepe, rarely leaving the house since he no longer had to share it and often jerking off even as he vowed it would be the last time. Playing with himself at home made him feel guilty, but this never turned into miserable feelings of inadequacy, as it would in later years, since he didn’t for now have a girlfriend, or a wife to sleep with. No one could blame a sixteen-year-old high-school kid for not having a lover. Besides, even if they were to marry him off at that moment, Mevlut wasn’t entirely sure what he was meant to do with a girl.

—

Süleyman.One very hot day at the beginning of July, I thought I’d drop in to see Mevlut. I knocked on his door a few times, but no one answered. He couldn’t have gone out to sell yogurt at ten in the morning? I did a lap around the house, rapping on the windows. I picked up a stone and tapped on the glass. The dusty garden was a mess; the house was a wreck.

I ran back around when the door opened. “What happened? Where were you?”

“I fell asleep!” said Mevlut. But he looked exhausted, like he hadn’t slept at all.

Thinking for a second that he had someone else in there, I felt strangely jealous. I stepped inside that tiny, stuffy room that reeked of sweat. The same table, the one bed, still just those same two shabby pieces of furniture…

“Mevlut, my father says we should go up to his shop. There’s a job. He said come and bring Mevlut.”

“What’s the job?”

“Nothing we can’t handle, I’m sure. Come on, let’s get going.”

But Mevlut stayed put. Maybe he’d become more withdrawn after flunking so royally. When I realized he wasn’t going to come, I got testy with him. “You should take a break from jerking off all the time, or you’ll go blind and lose your memory, you know?” I said.

He turned around and went back inside, slamming the door behind him, and after that he didn’t visit us in Duttepe for quite a while. Eventually, I had to go get him myself when my mother insisted. Those jerks who sit in the back at Duttepe Atatürk Boys’ Secondary School like to make fun of the younger kids: “Nice bags under your eyes, and your hands are shaking, and look, even the pimples are out in force. Have you been up all night jerking off again, you pervert?” they’ll say, throwing in a slap or two for good measure. I know that some of the workers and followers that Hadji Hamit Vural boards near us at the gecekondu house for bachelors get so addicted to jerking off that they have to give up their jobs; they lose all their strength and end up being sent back to the village. I wonder if Mevlut knows, if he understands, that this is a matter of life and death. Doesn’t his friend Ferhat tell him that even Alevis are forbidden to jerk off? Maliki Sunnis aren’t allowed under any circumstances. At least Hanafi Sunnis like us can do it in some cases, but only to avoid a bigger sin, like adultery. Islam is a religion based on tolerance and logic, not punishment. You’re even allowed to eat pork if you’re starving. Masturbation is frowned on when it’s purely for pleasure, but knowing Mevlut, to that he would just say, “Is there some way that doesn’t involve pleasure, Süleyman?”—and go right back to his sinful ways. Can someone like Mevlut, so quick to go off the rails, ever succeed in Istanbul?

People Actually Live There?

MEVLUT FELT MORE at ease selling Kısmet out on the streets with Ferhat than he ever did at the Aktaş house talking with Süleyman. With Ferhat, he could discuss anything that crossed his mind; Ferhat would say something just as funny and wise in return, and they would have a good laugh. He did visit the Aktaş family when he got scared of being alone on summer evenings, but Süleyman and Korkut would sneer at everything he said and use it against him, so he would say as little as possible. “Stop bothering my darling Mevlut, you rascals, leave him alone,” Aunt Safiye would say. Mevlut never let himself forget that if he was to survive in the city, he had to make sure to get along with his uncle Hasan and also with Süleyman and Korkut. After four years in Istanbul, his dreams now were of setting up a business of his own, so he wouldn’t have to depend on anyone, relatives or otherwise. He was going to do it with Ferhat. “If it wasn’t for you, I would never have thought of coming all the way here,” said Ferhat one day as they counted the day’s earnings. They had taken a train (dodging the conductor’s call for tickets while they made their sales) from Sirkeci to the Veliefendi Race Course, where among all those people who’d come to bet on the horses, they had sold out of their colored circles in just two hours. This was also how they came up with the idea of going to football stadiums for the opening ceremonies that clubs organized for the start of the season, going to summer sports tournaments, and setting up shop at the Sports and Exhibition Hall when there was a basketball game on. Whenever they made money off some new idea, their thoughts would turn immediately to the business they were going to set up together one day. Their biggest dream was to run a restaurant in Beyoğlu, or at the very least a café. Every time Mevlut came up with a new moneymaking scheme, Ferhat would say “You’ve got a real capitalist instinct!” and Mevlut would feel proud of himself, even though he knew it wasn’t meant as a compliment.