Orhan Pamuk - A Strangeness in My Mind

“On the contrary,” said Mevlut. “When Atatürk was visiting from Ankara one day, he thought the streets of Istanbul were too quiet and—”

“Anyway, if the army were to stop using the stick for one moment, our people would either take the Communists’ bait or run to the Islamists. There’s also those Kurds who want to split this country up. Do you still see that Ferhat? What’s he up to?”

“I don’t know.”

“He’s a real scumbag.”

“He’s my friend.”

“Fine then, I’m not taking you to Beyşehir, good luck eloping now.”

“Oh come on, Süleyman, don’t be that way,” said Mevlut, suddenly desperate.

“Here I am, serving you a real beauty on a silver platter. She’s all packed up and waiting for you in the garden. On top of that, I’m putting you in my van and personally driving you seven hundred kilometers to the village. I’m paying for the gas. Even the hotel you’re sleeping in tonight and the rakı you drink is on me. And still you won’t say ‘You’re right, Süleyman, Ferhat is a bastard,’ not even once. You won’t even pretend. You never say ‘You’re a good guy, Süleyman.’ If you think you’re so smart, if you still think you’re so much better than me the way you did when we were kids, then why come begging for our help?”

“Forgive me, Süleyman.”

“Say it again.”

“Forgive me, Süleyman.”

“I will forgive you, but first I need to hear what your excuse is.”

“My excuse is that I’m afraid, Süleyman.”

“But there’s nothing to be afraid of. When they realize Rayiha’s run away…they’re obviously going to head toward our village. You two are going to climb the hill. They might even fire a couple of rounds just for show. Don’t be scared, I’ll be waiting for you with the van on the other side. Rayiha will sit in the back so she doesn’t see me and recog nize me. She did see the van once back in Istanbul, but she’s a girl, they can’t tell cars apart. You won’t say a word about me, of course. What you should worry about is what you’ll do once you’ve run away and gotten back to Istanbul and you’re alone in the same room with her. You haven’t slept with a woman yet, have you, Mevlut?”

“I’m not worried about all that, Süleyman, I’m scared she’ll change her mind and decide she doesn’t want to run off with me after all.”

First thing the next morning, we scouted out the Akşehir train station. From there, we sidled up to our village through muddy mountain roads, but even though Mevlut wanted to see his mother, he worried all our plans would unravel if he drew too much attention to himself, so we didn’t even say hello. We took the roundabout route to Gümüşdere village and snuck up to Crooked-Necked Abdurrahman Efendi’s house, right up to the garden with the crumbling wall. We went back. I drove the van farther on and pulled over.

“There’s not long to go before sunset and the evening prayers,” I said. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Good luck, Mevlut.”

“God bless you, Süleyman,” he said. “Pray for me.”

I got out of the van with him. We embraced…I was almost welling up myself, looking fondly at his back as he walked down the dirt path to the village, and in my heart I wished him a happy life. I drove to our meeting point thinking that he was soon going to realize his fate was different from what he had expected, and I wondered what he would do when he found out. If I didn’t truly want the best for Mevlut, if I really wanted to con him, as some may think, then when he gave me the papers to his house in Kültepe that night in Istanbul when he was drunk on rakı and wanted me to arrange a match with Rayiha, I wouldn’t have given them back to him, would I? I’m the one who found him a tenant for that house, and it’s all that Mevlut’s got in this world. I’m not counting his mother and sisters in the village. In theory, they’re also my late uncle Mustafa’s heirs, but that’s none of my business.

—

When Mevlut was back in middle school and about to take an important exam, he used to feel as if his heart were pumping flames up to his forehead and his face. A much more intense version of that feeling had taken over his entire body now as he walked to the village of Gümüşdere.

He chanced upon the cemetery on the hill just outside the village, walked in among the headstones, sat on the edge of a grave across from a moldy, old, but equally elaborate and mysterious headstone, and thought about his life. “God, please make Rayiha show up, please, God, make Rayiha show up,” he repeated. He wanted to pray and implore God, but he couldn’t seem to recall any of the prayers he knew. He said to himself, “If Rayiha shows up, I’ll learn the Holy Koran by heart and become a hafiz.” He prayed with insistence and vigor while feeling like a tiny, helpless speck in God’s universe. He’d heard that it could help to repeat prayers beseechingly.

Just after sundown, Mevlut approached the crumbling wall. The window at the back of Abdurrahman Efendi’s house was dark. He was ten minutes early. As he waited for the agreed sign, a light switching on and off, he felt that he was at the beginning of his life, just as he had thirteen years ago on the day he had arrived in Istanbul with his father.

The dogs barked and the window lit up and went dark again.

Only Death Can Tear Us Apart

Süleyman.When do you think Mevlut realized that girl he was running away with was not the beautiful Samiha whose eyes he’d stared into at my brother’s wedding, but her less beautiful older sister Rayiha? Was it at the moment he met her in the dark of her garden in the village, or did he only see her face later, as they made their way together across rivers and over hills? Did he already know by the time he sat down next to me in the van? That’s why I asked him “Is something the matter?” and “Cat got your tongue?” But Mevlut gave nothing away.

—

When they got off the train and joined the crowds taking the ferry from Haydarpaşa to Karaköy, Mevlut’s mind wasn’t on weddings and marriage contracts but on the fact that soon he would finally be alone in a room with Rayiha. It was perhaps a bit childish of her to be so interested in the commotion on Galata Bridge and the white smoke from the ferries, but he could think of nothing except how they were shortly going to walk into a house with no one else there.

When Mevlut took out his keys — tucked safe in his pocket like something precious — and unlocked the door to the apartment in Tarlabaşı, he felt as if the house had become a different place in the three days it had taken him to make the round trip to the village: on early June mornings, the apartment would feel almost cool, but it was stiflingly hot now in high summer, and the old linoleum floors, heating up under the sunlight, emitted a smell of cheap plastic mixed with beeswax and hemp. You could hear the din of the people and traffic of Beyoğlu and Tarlabaşı drifting in from outside. Mevlut had always liked that sound.

—

Rayiha.“Our house is lovely,” I said. “But it needs airing.” I couldn’t manage to turn the handle and open the window, so Mevlut rushed over to show me how to work the bolt. I immediately sensed that once we’d given the house a thorough scrubbing and swept away the cobwebs, it would be cleansed of all of Mevlut’s disappointments, his fears, and the demons in his mind. We went out to buy some soap, a plastic bucket, and a mop, and the moment we walked out the door, the tension of being alone inside the house was lifted, and we relaxed. We spent the afternoon window-shopping, looking for things on store shelves from Tarlabaşı to Balıkpazarı, and buying whatever we needed. We bought sponges for the kitchen, scrubbing brushes, and cleaning liquid, and as soon as we got home, we cleaned the house from top to bottom. We got so involved in what we were doing that we forgot to be embarrassed about being alone at home together.