Orhan Pamuk - A Strangeness in My Mind

—

Uncle Hasan.Every now and then I looked at the photograph of the girl from Gümüşdere in my pocket. Very pretty. I showed it to Safiye in the kitchen one day. “What do you think, Safiye?” I said. “Might she be right for Korkut? She’s our Crooked-Necked Abdurrahman’s daughter. Her father came to Istanbul, all the way to my shop. We talked for a while. He used to be a hardworking man, but it turns out he wasn’t strong enough; he got crushed under that stick and had to go back to the village. Clearly he’s out of money. But Abdurrahman Efendi is a wily old fox.”

—

Aunt Safiye.My little Korkut is getting worn out from all this building work, the dormitory, that car, being a driver, and with his karate, too, and we would love to get him married, but he’s so tough, God bless him, and so proud as well. If I were to say to him, You’ve turned twenty-six, let me go to the village and find you a girl, he’d say, No, I’ll find one myself in the city. If I were to say, All right, do it yourself, look around in Istanbul for a girl you want to marry, he would just say that he wants a girl who is pure and obedient, and you don’t find any of those here in this city. So I took the photograph of Crooked-Necked Abdurrahman’s pretty daughter and stuck it somewhere by the radio. When he gets home, my beloved Korkut is too tired to do anything but watch TV and listen to the horse races on the radio.

—

Korkut.Nobody knows that I bet on the horse races, not even my mother. I don’t do it for the money; I just do it for fun. One night four years ago, we added a room to the house. I sit alone in that room listening to the horse races live on the radio. This time, while I was staring at the ceiling, a ray of light seemed to shine on the radio, and I felt that the girl in the photograph set there was looking at me, and that the way she was looking at me would be a consolation to me for the rest of my life. I was filled with gladness.

“Mom, who’s this girl whose picture is by the radio?” I asked in passing. “She’s from back home, from Gümüşdere!” she said. “Isn’t she an angel? Shall I arrange a match for you two?” “I don’t want a village girl,” I said. “Especially not the kind who gives out her photograph left and right.” “It’s not like that,” said my mom. “I heard her crooked-necked father refuses to show her picture to anyone, they say he’s jealous of his daughter and turns suitors away at the door. Your father pressed him for a picture because he knew that this shy girl was meant to be such a beauty.”

I believed this lie. Perhaps you know for sure that it was a lie, and you’re laughing at how easily I let myself be taken in. I’ll tell you one thing, though: people who make fun of everything can never truly fall in love, nor truly believe in God. That’s because they’re too proud. But just like believing in God, falling in love is such a sacred feeling that it leaves you with no room for any other passions.

Her name was Vediha. “I can’t get this girl out of my head,” I told my mother a week later. “I’ll go back to the village to watch her in secret and speak to her father.”

—

Abdurrahman Efendi.The suitor is just a hothead. He took me to a bar. Vediha is my daughter, my treasure, my bouquet of flowers, these people would never understand, they’ve scrounged up a little money here in Istanbul and now they’re getting above themselves. Some karate-chopping upstart makes a little money sucking up to Mr. Hadji Hamit from Rize and he’s driving a Ford so now he thinks he can have my daughter? I said several times MY DAUGHTER IS NOT FOR SALE. They were frowning at the next table when they heard me, but then they smiled as if it were a joke.

—

Vediha.I’m sixteen years old, I’m not a child anymore, and I know (as everyone does) that my father wants to marry me off, though I pretend I have no idea. Sometimes I dream that an evil man is following me…I finished Gümüşdere Primary School three years ago. If I’d gone to Istanbul, I would have graduated from high school by now, but there’s no middle school in our village, so no girl has ever gone that far.

—

Samiha.I’m twelve and just in my last year of primary school. Sometimes my sister Vediha picks me up after school. A man started fol lowing us one day on the way back home. We walked on in silence, and doing like my sister, I didn’t turn around to look. Instead of going straight home, we headed for the grocer’s, though we didn’t go in. We walked down dark streets, past houses with no windows, under the shivering plane tree, and through the neighborhood behind our house, and we got home late. But the man kept following us. My sister never even smiled. “He’s an idiot!” I said, fuming, as I stepped inside. “All boys are idiots.”

—

Rayiha.I’m thirteen years old, and I finished primary school last year. Vediha has plenty of suitors. The latest, supposedly, is from Istanbul. That’s what they’re saying, but really he’s the son of a yogurt seller from Cennetpınar. Vediha loves going to Istanbul, but I don’t want her to like this man, because then she’ll get married and leave. Once Vediha is married, it’ll be my turn next. I still have three years to go, but once I’m her age, I won’t have anyone running after me the way she has now — and even if I did, who cares, it’s not like I want any of them. Everyone always says, “You’re so clever, Rayiha.” Looking out the window with my crooked-necked father, I can see Vediha and Samiha coming home from school.

—

Korkut.I couldn’t take my adoring eyes off my beloved as she walked her little sister home from school. It was my first glimpse of her, and it filled my heart with a love far deeper than I had felt just seeing her photograph. Her straight back, her slender arms, were all so perfect, and I thanked the Lord for that. I knew that I would be unhappy if I didn’t get to marry her. So I got more and more worked up thinking about how that sly Crooked Neck would drive a hard bargain, until I rued the day I’d fallen in love.

—

Abdurrahman Efendi.At the suitor’s insistence, we met again in Beyşehir. I thought to myself, If you’re so in love, then money should be no object. The fate and fortune of my darling Vediha, of all my daughters, are in my hands, so I was leery even as I went to the restaurant, and before I’d even had my first drink, I said once again, “I’m really sorry, young man, I understand you very well, but MY BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER IS ABSOLUTELY NOT FOR SALE.”

—

Korkut.That pigheaded Abdurrahman Efendi had already spouted a whole list of demands before he’d even finished his first drink. I wouldn’t be able to afford it even with my father and Süleyman’s help, even if we all pulled together, took out a loan, sold our house in Duttepe and the land we’d fenced off in Kültepe.

—

Süleyman.Back in Istanbul, my brother decided that the only hope of solving his romantic woes was to call upon Mr. Hadji Hamit, so we decided to put on a karate exhibition match for his first visit to the dormitory. The clean-shaven workers fought well in their spotless training uniforms. Mr. Hamit had us sit on either side of him during dinner. The venerable gentleman had been to Mecca two times — twice a hadji! — he had huge holdings of land and property, many men at his command, and he had founded our mosque, so that every time I looked at his white beard, I felt lucky to be sitting so close to him. He treated us like his own sons. He asked after our father. (“Why isn’t Hasan here?” he said, remembering Dad’s name.) He inquired about the condition of our house and about the latest room we’d built and the half floor we’d added with its own external staircase, and he even asked where that land was that my father and Uncle Mustafa had claimed and gone to register with the neighborhood councilman. He knew everything: he knew where all the land was, whose plot was next to or across from anyone else’s, he knew about the houses that had been built or left half finished, when people were arguing over a plot they owned jointly, he kept track of which buildings and shops had been built over the past year, down to the last wall and chimney, he knew exactly which street was the last street on any given hill to have electricity and running water, and he knew what route the ring road was going to take.