Orhan Pamuk - A Strangeness in My Mind

Skeleton had instructed the teachers to make sure that the students who interrupted lessons about the Ottoman conquests and Atatürk’s reforms with diatribes against capitalism and American imperialism (“Yesterday, one of our comrades was shot,” they would begin) were silenced and their registration numbers noted down, but the teachers, who mostly wanted to stay out of trouble, didn’t much cooperate. Even the biology teacher, Massive Melahat, the most combative of them all, tried to humor those who interrupted her to condemn “the systematic exploitation” and to accuse her of trying to gloss over the class struggle by teaching them about tadpoles. Melahat had explained how difficult her life was, that she’d been working for thirty-two years and was really just hanging on until she reached retirement age, which moved Mevlut and made him quietly hope that the agitators would leave her alone. The older, bigger students in the back rows had interpreted the political crisis as an invitation to torment the weak; the know-it-alls, the richer kids, and the obsequious front-row nerds had all been bullied into obedience; the right-wing nationalist students had gone quiet, and some were avoiding school altogether. Whenever there was news from the students’ neighborhoods about a fresh skirmish, police raids, and torture, the militants would take to the corridors, striding up and down every floor of Atatürk Boys’ Secondary School shouting slogans (“Down with fascism,” “Independence for Turkey,” “Free education”), and snatch the roll-call sheet from the class president and set it on fire with a cigarette. Then they’d either join the fray in Duttepe and Kültepe or go off to the cinema (provided they had enough money or knew someone at the box office to let them in).

This atmosphere of liberty and rebellion lasted only a week. Two months before, the unpopular physics teacher Fehmi had humiliated a student from Diyarbakır by imitating his provincial Turkish accent while the rest of the class, including Mevlut, looked on in anguish and fury. Now that students were bursting into his classroom demanding a formal apology, and others were announcing a student strike just as they were doing in the universities, Skeleton and the principal called in the police. The blue-uniformed policemen and the newly arrived undercover agents who guarded both entrances began to check IDs at the door, again just as they were doing in the universities. There was the same postapocalyptic atmosphere that usually follows earthquakes or big fires, and Mevlut couldn’t deny that he was enjoying it. He attended the classroom meetings, but whenever tensions escalated into brawls, he would stand to one side until they were over, and when a new student strike was announced, he would avoid school altogether and go out selling yogurt instead.

A week after the arrival of the police at school, a third-year high-school student from the Aktaş family’s street blocked Mevlut’s path to tell him that Korkut would be expecting him that night. Mevlut made his way to his uncle’s house in the late-night gloom, getting searched several times and having to present his ID to the police and to the lookouts that the various right- and left-wing crews had posted on the streets, and when he reached his destination he saw one of the school’s new “undercover” students eating bean stew at the same table where Mevlut had eaten roast chicken two months ago. His name was Tarık. Mevlut quickly figured out that Aunt Safiye didn’t like him but that Korkut trusted him and held him in high regard. Korkut told Mevlut to stay away from Ferhat “and all the other Communists.” As always, the Russians were after warm water ports, and in order to weaken Turkey, which was thwarting their dreams of empire, they were trying to pit Sunnis against Alevis, Turks against Kurds, and the rich against the poor by inflaming our destitute Kurd and Alevi compatriots against us. Thus it was strategically crucial that the Kurds and Alevis from Bingöl and Tunceli be driven out of Kültepe and all the other hills.

“Give Uncle Mustafa my regards,” said Korkut, with the bearing of Atatürk inspecting military maps before a final siege. “Make sure you stay indoors on Thursday. There is a danger the wheat might burn with the chaff.” Noticing Mevlut’s quizzical look, Süleyman revised his brother’s pronouncement: “There’s going to be an attack,” he said, seeming all the while pleased to be in the know about everything before it happened.

That night, Mevlut could barely sleep for the sound of gunfire.

The next day, he found out that the rumors had spread, and everyone at Atatürk Secondary, including the middle-school kids and even Mohini, knew that terrible things were going to happen on Thursday. The coffeehouses in Kültepe and on other hills with a large population of Alevis had been attacked again during the night, and two more people had been killed. Most coffeehouses and shops had lowered their shutters, and some didn’t open at all for the day. Mevlut heard reports that the doors of Alevi homes were going to be marked with crosses during the night, in preparation for Thursday’s raids. He wanted to get away from it all, just to go to the cinema and be left alone to masturbate in peace, but he also wanted to be there and witness everything.

The funeral processions on Wednesday were led by slogan-chanting left-wing organizations, and the crowds attacked the Vural bakery. When the police failed to intervene, the bakery workers from Rize defended themselves as best they could with blocks of firewood and peels before escaping through the back door and leaving all those delicious loaves of fresh bread behind. In the evening, Mevlut heard that the Alevis had targeted mosques, that the Grey Wolves’ offices in Mecidiyeköy had been bombed, and that people had been drinking alcohol in mosques, but he found all this too far-fetched to believe.

“Let’s go sell our boza in the city tonight,” said his father. “No one will bother a poor boza seller and his son, anyway. We don’t take sides.” They picked up their poles and their jugs and left the house, but the police surrounding the neighborhood weren’t letting anyone through. When Mevlut spotted the flashing blue lights in the distance, along with ambulances and fire engines, his heart beat faster. He basked in the attention; it made him, and everyone else in the neighborhood, feel important. Five years ago, the whole neighborhood could have come tumbling down, and still no police or firefighters, let alone any journalists, would have turned up. When they got back home, they stared in vain at the black-and-white TV. Of course there was no mention of any of this on the news. The TV (which they’d finally managed to save up for) was showing a panel discussion on the conquest of Istanbul. As ever, his father started complaining about “the anarchists” who caused trouble “and robbed poor street vendors of their livelihood,” distributing his curses evenly on the left and right.

At midnight, they were woken by the sound of running in the streets, people screaming and shouting slogans. They did not know who was out there. His father checked the bolt on the door and barricaded it with the table with the short leg, which Mevlut did his homework on in the evenings. They saw flames shooting up from the other side of Kültepe, their light hitting the low, dark clouds above, and the sky kindled with a strange brightness; the light that reflected back down onto the streets flickered as the flames quivered in the wind, and it was as if the whole world were quaking along with the shadows. They heard gunshots. Mevlut spotted a second fire. “Don’t stand so close to the window,” said his father.

“Dad, I heard they’re putting marks on the homes that need to be raided, shall we check?”