Orhan Pamuk - A Strangeness in My Mind

Mevlut didn’t think his father would be willing to lie to them in order to delay his son’s military service. Rather, he would probably say “Let him do his service, he can get married afterward!” Of course his father didn’t even have enough money to find a wife for his son. But Mevlut wanted to marry this girl he had found, and as soon as possible. He had made a mistake, he had been weak, he should have come up with an excuse to go over to the Aktaş home and see Vediha’s sisters, whose names all rhymed. In those moments when he most regret ted the way he’d handled the matter, he comforted himself with some impeccable logic: if he had gone over there and seen Rayiha, she might have shown no interest in him at all, leaving Mevlut heartbroken and empty-handed. But even just thinking about Rayiha as he walked the streets with his yogurt seller’s yoke across his shoulders was enough to lighten his burden.

—

Süleyman.My brother got me a job in Hadji Hamit Vural’s building-supply business three months ago. Now I’m the one who gets to drive around in the company Ford van. The other day, at around ten in the morning, I bought a pack of cigarettes from a grocery in Mecidiyeköy run by some folk from Malatya (I don’t buy cigarettes from our family shop, because my dad doesn’t approve of me smoking), and I was just about to pull out when who should knock on the right-hand-side window: Mevlut! He had his stick across his back and was off to the city to sell yogurt, poor guy. “Jump in!” I said. He put his stick and his trays in the back and quickly hopped in. I gave him a cigarette and lit it with the car lighter. Mevlut had never seen me at the wheel before; he could hardly believe his eyes. Here we were, gliding along at sixty — I could see him marveling at the speedometer, too — along the same potholed street on which he’d normally be carrying thirty kilos of yogurt on his back at maybe four kilometers an hour. We talked about this and that, but he seemed to be somewhere else, and finally he asked about Abdurrahman Efendi and his daughters.

“They’ve gone back to the village,” I said.

“What were Vediha’s sisters called?”

“Why do you ask?”

“No reason…”

“Don’t be annoyed, Mevlut, Vediha is my brother’s wife now. And the girls are my brother’s sisters-in-law…They’re part of the family now…”

“Am I not part of the family, too?”

“Of course you are…That’s why you’re going to tell me everything.”

“I will…but you have to swear you won’t tell anyone else.”

“I swear to God, and I swear on my country and on my flag that I will keep your secret.”

“I’m in love with Rayiha,” said Mevlut. “The one with the dark eyes, the youngest one, that one’s Rayiha, isn’t she? We met when I was going over to her father’s table. Did you see us? We almost ran into each other. I looked right into her eyes from up close. At first I thought I’d forget. But I can’t.”

“What can’t you forget?”

“Her eyes…The way she looked at me…Did you see how our paths crossed at the wedding?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think it was just a coincidence?”

“Sounds like you’ve fallen for Rayiha, my friend. We’re going to have to pretend I know nothing about this.”

“Isn’t she beautiful, though? If I were to write her a letter, would you give it to her?”

“But they’re not in Duttepe anymore. I told you they went back to the village…” Mevlut looked so sad that I said, “I’ll do what I can for you. But what if we get caught?” He gave me such an imploring look that it melted my heart. I said, “All right, fine, let’s see what we can do.”

Once we got to Harbiye, he took his stick and his trays and cheerfully hopped off. Believe me, it breaks my heart to think there’s still someone in our family who has to sell yogurt on the streets.

If You Saw Her on the Street Tomorrow, Would You Recognize Her?

Mustafa Efendi. When I heard that Mevlut had gone to Korkut’s wedding in Istanbul, I couldn’t believe my ears. For my own son to do this to our family! I’m on my way to Istanbul now, my head keeps bumping against the cold window every time the bus rocks, and I keep wishing I had never gone to that city in the first place, that I’d never ventured outside the village at all.

—

One evening at the start of October 1978, just before the weather turned cold and the boza season began, Mevlut walked into the house to find his father sitting in the dark. The lights were on in most of the other houses, so it hadn’t occurred to Mevlut that there could be anyone inside. When it was clear there was, at first he put his fear down to the thought that this might be a thief. But then his racing heart reminded him that he was afraid because his father knew he had gone to the wedding. It would have been impossible for the news not to reach Mustafa Efendi, since everyone who had gone to the wedding — and indeed the whole village — was more or less related. His father was probably even angrier knowing that Mevlut was aware of this, that he had gone to the wedding knowing full well that his father would find out.

It had been two months since they’d last seen each other. Father and son hadn’t spent this much time apart since Mevlut had first come to Istanbul nine years ago. But despite all his father’s moods and their countless little arguments, or perhaps because of them, Mevlut felt that they had become friends — companions, even. But he’d also had enough of his father’s punishing silences and furious outbursts.

“Come here!”

Mevlut approached, half expecting his father to slap him. But he didn’t. Instead, he gestured to the table. Only then in the half darkness did Mevlut spot his bundles of German twenty-mark notes. How had his father found them inside the mattress?

“Who gave you these?”

“I earned it myself.”

“How did you make all this money?” His father put all his savings into a bank account and stood by as an eighty percent inflation rate against the thirty-three percent interest paid by the bank ground his money into dust. And still, unable to admit that his small holdings were disappearing into thin air, he refused to learn how to invest in foreign currency.

“It’s not that much,” said Mevlut. “Just one thousand six hundred eighty marks. Some of it is from last year. I saved it all up by selling yogurt.”

“And you hid the money from me. Are you lying to me? Have you been getting involved in anything you shouldn’t be getting involved in?”

“I swear I—”

“I remember your swearing on my life that you wouldn’t go to that wedding.”

Mevlut bowed his head and sensed that his father was about to slap him. “I’m twenty-one now, you shouldn’t hit me anymore.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” said his father. He slapped Mevlut.

Mevlut lifted his elbows to protect his face, so the slap hit his arm instead. His father got hurt and, losing his temper, gave Mevlut two quick punches to the shoulder, with single-minded force. “Get out of my house, you wretch!” he yelled.

Mevlut took two steps backward in shock, reeling from the pain of the second blow. He fell backward onto the bed and curled up into a ball just as he used to do as a child. He turned his back to his father, shaking a little. His father thought he was crying, and Mevlut didn’t disabuse him of that thought.

Mevlut wanted to take his things and leave immediately (he played out the scene in his head and imagined that his father would regret the things he’d said and try to stop him from leaving), but he was also scared of setting out on a path from which there was no turning back. If he was going to leave this house, he shouldn’t do it right now, in anger, but wait until he’d regained his composure in the morning. Now, Rayiha was the only bright spot left in his life. He needed to be alone somewhere and think about the letter he was going to write to her.