Orhan Pamuk - A Strangeness in My Mind

Mevlut got a week off. At the terminal, he had a glass of rakı while he waited for the bus to Istanbul. As the bus shuddered and swayed from side to side, an inexplicable heaviness dragged his eyelids shut, and in his dreams his father told him off for being late to the funeral, and numerous other failings.

His father had died in his sleep. The neighbors had discovered him after two days. The empty bed was in a mess, as if his father had left the house in a hurry. To Mevlut’s soldierly eyes, the place looked unkempt and pitiful. But he also found that unique scent he had never smelled anywhere else: the smell of his father, of Mevlut’s own body, of breath, dust, the stove, twenty years’ worth of soup dinners, dirty laundry, old furniture — the smell of their very lives. Mevlut had imagined he would remain in the room for hours, weeping and mourning his father, but the sorrow was so overwhelming that he threw himself out the door.

Mustafa Efendi’s funeral took place at Hadji Hamit Vural’s mosque in Duttepe two hours after Mevlut got to Kültepe, during the afternoon prayers. Mevlut had brought his civilian clothes, but he wasn’t wearing them yet. Those who tried to comfort him with sympathetic looks smiled to see him dressed like a private on a day pass.

Mevlut carried the coffin on his shoulder to the grave site. He threw spades of earth over his father’s body. He thought he was about to cry, his foot slipped and he almost fell into the grave. There were around forty people at the funeral. Süleyman hugged him, and they sat down on another grave. From the tombstones around him, Mevlut could tell that the Cemetery of the Industrial Quarter was a burial ground for migrants. It was growing fast, as it was where those who had settled the surrounding hills were buried when they died; and as Mevlut read the inscriptions around him distractedly, he realized that not a single person there had been born in Istanbul. Nearly all of them were originally from Sivas, Erzincan, Erzurum, and Gümüşhane.

There was an engraver at the gates with whom he agreed on a midsize headstone without even haggling. Borrowing from the inscriptions he had just been reading, he wrote something down on a piece of paper and gave it to the engraver: MUSTAFA KARATAş (1927–81). CENNETPINAR, BEYşEHIR. YOGURT AND BOZA SELLER. MAY HE REST IN PEACE.

He could tell that his army uniform made him look both sweet and somewhat distinguished. Back in the neighborhood, they headed out to Duttepe’s shopping district and went into shops and coffeehouses. Mevlut realized how attached he was to Kültepe, Duttepe, and all these people who were embracing him. But to his surprise, he also seemed to harbor against them a rage close to hatred — even against his uncle and cousins. He had to struggle to hold back a torrent of obscenities he felt like spewing on them all, just like the kind you might hear in the army.

At dinnertime, his aunt remarked to everyone at the table how good Mevlut looked in his uniform. How unfortunate that his mother hadn’t been able to make the trip from the village and see her son like this. In the few minutes he was left alone with Süleyman in the kitchen, Mevlut still didn’t ask after Rayiha, even though he was dying to know. He ate his chicken and potatoes in silence, watching TV with everyone else.

He thought about writing Rayiha a letter that night on the shaky table at home. But as soon as he was back in Kültepe and inside the house, this place seemed to him so desolate that he lay down on the bed and started crying. He wept for a very long time, unsure of whether it was on account of his father or of his own loneliness. He fell asleep in his uniform.

In the morning, he took it off and wore the civilian clothes he’d put in his suitcase almost a year ago. He went to the Karlıova Restaurant in Beyoğlu. They weren’t particularly welcoming. Ferhat had left for his military service after Mevlut, and most of the waiters were new; any old ones still there were preoccupied with customers. So Mevlut ended up leaving without getting the chance to savor the “Return to Karlıova” fantasy that had so often helped him pass the time on guard duty.

He went to the Elyazar Cinema ten minutes away. When he walked in this time, he felt no shame at the sight of the other men in the lobby. He walked through this crowd of men with his head held high and looking straight at them.

Once he sat down, he was pleased to have broken free of everyone’s gaze, happy to be left alone in the dark with the wanton women on the screen to become nothing more than another pair of leering eyes. He noticed immediately that the way the men in the military swore and the barrenness of their souls had changed the way he himself saw the women on-screen. He felt more vulgar but also more normal now. Whenever anyone made a loud, obscene joke about the movie, or answered an actor’s line with some innuendo, he laughed along with everyone else. When the lights came on between movies, Mevlut looked around and figured out that any men with really short hair must be soldiers in their day clothes, on leave as he was. He watched all three features from start to finish. He left at the sex and grape-eating scene, which he remembered from when he had first walked in halfway through the same German movie. He went home and masturbated until nightfall.

That night, worn out by guilt and loneliness, he went over to his uncle’s house in Duttepe.

“Don’t worry, everything’s fine,” said Süleyman when they were alone. “Rayiha loves your letters. Where did you learn to write such good letters? Will you help me write one, too, someday?”

“Is Rayiha going to reply to me?”

“She’d like to, but she won’t…Her father wouldn’t tolerate it. I got to see for myself how much they love their father the last time they were here, before the coup. They stayed in that new room we’ve just added.”

Süleyman opened the door to the room where Crooked-Necked Abdurrahman and his two daughters had stayed for a week when they’d last come from the village, switched on the lights, and gave Mevlut the tour, like a museum guide. Mevlut saw there were two beds in the room.

Süleyman understood what Mevlut was wondering about. “Their father slept in this bed, and the girls slept together in the other bed the first night, but they didn’t really fit. So we made Rayiha a bed on the floor.”

Mevlut shot a timid glance at the spot where Rayiha’s bed had been laid out. The floor in Süleyman’s house was tiled and carpeted.

He was pleased to find out that Vediha knew about the letters. She didn’t act too familiar or let on that she knew everything and had even helped deliver his letters, but she smiled at Mevlut sweetly every time she saw him. Mevlut interpreted this as a sign that she was on his side, and he was delighted.

Vediha Yenge really was amazingly beautiful. Mevlut played a little with her son Bozkurt (named after the legendary Grey Wolf that saved the Turks), who’d been born when Mevlut was working at the Karlıova Restaurant, and with her younger son, Turan, who arrived when Mevlut was in the military. Vediha had become even more radiant after the birth of her second child, more mature and attractive. Mevlut was moved by the tenderness she showed toward her two sons and was pleased when he sensed that she had a soft spot for him, too, or at least a sort of sisterly affection. He kept thinking how Rayiha was just as beautiful as Vediha, if not more so.

He spent most of his time in Istanbul writing new letters to Rayiha. Having been away for a year, he already felt estranged from the city. Istanbul had changed after the military coup. The political slogans had been wiped off the walls again, street vendors had been driven off the main roads and squares, the brothels in Beyoğlu had been shut down, and the delinquents who sold bootleg whiskey and American cigarettes on the streets had been rounded up. Even the traffic was better. You couldn’t stop wherever you wanted anymore. Mevlut thought some of the changes were good, but in a strange way, he felt like an outsider. Maybe it’s because I don’t have a job, he thought.