Orhan Pamuk - A Strangeness in My Mind

“I’m going to ask you something, but please don’t take it the wrong way,” he told Süleyman the next evening. His father was gone now, so he could easily go over to his uncle’s every night.

“I never misunderstand you, Mevlut,” said Süleyman. “You’re the one who’s always misunderstood my understanding.”

“Can you get me her photograph?”

“Rayiha’s? No.”

“Why?”

“She’s the sister of my brother’s wife.”

“If I had her photograph, I’d write her better letters.”

“Believe me, Mevlut, they couldn’t get any better.”

Süleyman helped him rent out the house in Kültepe to an acquaintance of the Vurals. He decided he could do without a contract when Süleyman said, “There’s no need, we know the guy, and you don’t want to pay taxes.” In any case, he wasn’t the only one who was entitled to a share of revenue from the house (which was still not registered in anyone’s name); his mother and sisters in the village also had a claim. He decided he didn’t want to get too involved in these matters.

He was putting his father’s clothes and shirts into a suitcase before renting the place out, when he caught a trace of his father’s smell and went to curl up on the bed. This time he didn’t cry. He felt angry and resentful toward the world. He also understood that when his military service was over, he was not coming back to Kültepe or this house. Yet when it came time to return to Kars, something jarred deep inside of him and rebelled at the thought. He did not want to wear his uniform, nor did he want to complete the remainder of his military service. He hated his commanders and all those army thugs. Alarmingly, he could now see why some people deserted. He put on his uniform and set off.

In his last few months in Kars, Mevlut wrote Rayiha forty-seven letters. He had plenty of time: he had been assigned to the detachment the base commander had taken with him to the town hall, where he managed the canteen and the small tearoom, acting as Turgut Pasha’s personal waiter when the pasha was there. But the pasha was too suspicious and picky to eat in the town hall, so it wasn’t a very difficult job: Mevlut brewed the pasha’s tea himself, prepared his coffee with one sugar and double foam, and personally served him water and soft drinks. The pasha bought a cookie from the bakery once, and another time he took a pastry from the canteen, and put both items in front of Mevlut, telling him what to look out for.

“Go on, have a taste…we don’t want city hall poisoning us.”

He wanted to write to Rayiha about his army days, but in the end he knew his letters would be read before they went out, so he confined himself to the usual poetic flights, invoking yet more piercing eyes and ensorcelled looks. Mevlut would keep composing letters until the last day of his military service, which never seemed to come, and when it finally did arrive, never seemed to pass.

Elopement Is a Tricky Business

MEVLUT FINISHED his military service on 17 March 1982 and took the first bus back to Istanbul. He rented a second-floor apartment with linoleum floors in an old Greek house in Tarlabaşı, two streets down from the Karlıova Restaurant’s dormitory, and he began working as a waiter in a nondescript restaurant. From a flea market in Çukurcuma he bought a table (one that didn’t wobble) and four chairs (two of which matched), and from junk dealers who sold their wares door to door he selected a worn old bed with an enormous wooden headboard carved with birds and leaves. He furnished this room dreaming all the while about the happy home he would one day share with Rayiha.

At his uncle’s house one evening at the start of April, Mevlut saw Abdurrahman Efendi. He was nestled at one end of the table with a bib around his neck, sipping his rakı and enjoying his grandsons, Bozkurt and Turan. Mevlut realized he must have come from the village on his own, without his daughters. Uncle Hasan wasn’t home; for the last few years, he had been leaving the house every night for evening prayers before going to his grocery store to watch TV and wait for customers. Mevlut greeted his future father-in-law respectfully. Abdurrahman returned the greeting but hadn’t really registered Mevlut’s presence.

Korkut and Abdurrahman Efendi were soon engaged in a vehement discussion of bankers. Mevlut heard them mention a number of names — the Pilgrim Banker, Banker Ali. With inflation at one hundred percent, your money would soon be worth less than the paper it was printed on — unless you took it out of the banks, which paid so little in the way of interest, and gave it over to these new bankers, most of whom seemed like they’d only just landed in the city and wouldn’t have looked out of place manning a village shop. They all promised very high annual interest rates, but could they really be trusted?

Finishing his third drink, Abdurrahman Efendi was boasting of how each of his daughters was a beauty and how he had made sure they all got a proper education back in the village. “Enough, Dad,” said Vediha as she went to put her sons to bed; Abdurrahman Efendi went with them.

“Go wait for me at the coffeehouse,” said Süleyman once they’d been left alone at the table.

Mevlut’s heart hammered in his chest.

“What’s all this about?” said Aunt Safiye. “Do whatever you want, but don’t get involved in politics. We should really be getting you two married off.”

From the TV at the coffeehouse Mevlut learned that Argentina and England were at war. Süleyman came in to find him admiring the English aircraft carriers and warships.

“Abdurrahman Efendi has come to Istanbul to take his money from one banker and give it to another who’s even worse…We can’t figure out whether any of it is true, or even if he’s really got any money. He’s also been talking about some ‘good news,’ ” said Süleyman.

“What good news?”

“Rayiha’s got a suitor,” said Süleyman. “One of these redneck bankers. Apparently he used to have a tea stall. It’s serious. That greedy Crooked Neck might well just hand his daughter over to the banker. He won’t listen to anyone. You need to run away with Rayiha, Mevlut.”

“Really? Oh, Süleyman, please help me run away with her.”

“Do you think running away with a girl is easy?” said Süleyman. “One little mistake, and before you know it, someone gets shot, there’s a blood feud, and then people kill one another over it for years for no good reason, and proudly say it’s all about honor. Are you willing to take the risk?”

“I have no choice,” said Mevlut.

“You don’t,” said Süleyman. “But you don’t want anyone to think you’re just cheap, either. What can you offer this girl when there are so many rich men ready to spend a fortune on her?”

They met again in the same place five days later, and while Süleyman watched the English taking over the Falklands, Mevlut produced a piece of paper from his pocket.

“Go on, take a look,” he crowed. “You can have it.”

“What’s this?” said Süleyman. “Oh, it’s the papers for your house. Let’s have a look. It’s got my father’s name on it, too. They had claimed the land together. Why did you bring it? Don’t be so eager to give this away just to show off. You’re going to need it if you want your share when they hand out title deeds for that side of Kültepe one day.”

“Give it to Crooked-Necked Abdurrahman…,” said Mevlut. “Tell her father no one can love his daughter like I do.”

“I will, but put that back in your pocket,” said Süleyman.

“It’s not just talk, I mean it,” said Mevlut.

The first thing Mevlut did the next morning when he woke up from his rakı hangover was to check inside his jacket pocket. He couldn’t decide whether to be glad or disappointed that he still had the piece of paper his father and his uncle Hasan had obtained from the local councilman fifteen years ago.