Orhan Pamuk - A Strangeness in My Mind

I go to the market on Thursdays when we need to stock up on nails, paint, or plaster for the shop, and once the van gets sucked into the bustle of shopkeepers and enters that sea of human activity, it can take hours to get out. Every now and then I drive into a random street somewhere on a hill behind Üsküdar, past houses built out of hollow bricks, concrete walls, a mosque, a factory, a square; I keep going and see a bank, a restaurant, a bus stop; but no sign of Samiha. Still, the feeling that she might be around here somewhere grows inside me, and as I sit at the steering wheel, I almost feel as if I’m racing around in my own dream.

—

Mevlut and Rayiha’s second daughter, Fevziye, was born in August 1984, comfortably and without generating any extra hospital bills. Mevlut was so happy that he wrote THE TWO GIRLS’ RICE on his cart. Apart from the chaos of two babies crying in unison through the night, chronic lack of sleep, and the meddlesome Vediha, who kept coming over to help out, Mevlut had nothing to complain about.

“Let this rice project go, Mr. Bridegroom, join the family business and give Rayiha a better life,” Vediha said one day.

“We’re doing very well,” said Mevlut. Rayiha looked at her sister as if to say, That’s not true, which irked Mevlut, and once Vediha had left, he started grumbling. “Who does she think she is, intruding on our private life like that?” he said, and briefly considered forbidding Rayiha from visiting her sister’s home in Duttepe, though he didn’t insist, as he knew it wouldn’t be right to demand such a thing.

Mevlut’s Blissful Family Life

TOWARD THE END of February 1985, as a long, cold, unpropitious workday drew to a close, Mevlut was gathering his plates and glasses to leave Kabataş and go home when Süleyman pulled up in his van. “Everyone’s already brought you gifts and good-luck charms for the new baby, except for me,” he said. “Come and sit in the car, let’s talk for a bit. How’s work? Aren’t you cold out there?”

Climbing into the front seat, Mevlut was reminded of how often the doe-eyed Samiha had sat in this very same place before she’d run away and disappeared a year ago, how much time she had spent driving around Istanbul with Süleyman.

“I’ve been selling cooked rice for two years and in all this time I’ve never sat in a customer’s car,” he said. “It’s too high up here, it’s making me dizzy, I should get down.”

“Sit, sit, we have so much to talk about!” said Süleyman, grabbing Mevlut’s hand as it made for the door handle. He gave his childhood friend a lovelorn, disheartened look.

Mevlut saw that his cousin’s eyes were telling him: “We’re even now!” He pitied Süleyman, and in that moment he grasped the truth he’d been trying to ignore for two years: Süleyman had laid the trap that had tricked Mevlut into thinking that the girl with glimmering eyes was called Rayiha, not Samiha. If Süleyman had managed to marry Samiha as planned, they would have gone on pretending that no such trap had been set, and everyone would have been happy…

“You and your brother are doing great, Süleyman, but the rest of us just can’t seem to find our way to prosperity. I hear the Vurals have already sold more than half the new apartments they’re building even though the foundations aren’t even finished yet.”

“Yes, we’re doing all right, thank God,” said Süleyman. “But we also want you to do well. My brother feels the same way.”

“So what’s the job you’re offering? Will I end up running a teahouse in the Vurals’ offices?”

“Would you like to do that?”

“There’s a customer coming,” said Mevlut, getting out of the vehicle. There was no customer, but he turned his back on Süleyman’s van and busied himself with a portion anyway. He scooped some rice onto a plate, flattening the mound with the back of a spoon. He turned off the butane stove in the three-wheeled cart and was pleased to notice that Süleyman had followed him out of the van.

“Look, if you don’t want to talk, that’s fine, but let me give the baby her gift,” said Süleyman. “At least I’ll get to see her.”

“If you don’t know the way to my place, you’d better follow me,” said Mevlut, and he began to push his cart.

“Why don’t we load the cart into the back of my van?” said Süleyman.

“Don’t underestimate this cart, it’s like a restaurant on three wheels. The kitchen unit and the stove are very delicate, and they weigh a ton.”

He was climbing Kazancı Hill (which typically took him twenty minutes) toward Taksim, panting behind his cart as he did on his journey home between four and five o’clock every day, when Süleyman caught up with him.

“Mevlut, let’s tie it to the bumper, and I’ll slowly tow you along.”

He seemed sincere and friendly enough, but Mevlut kept going as if he hadn’t heard. A few yards later, he pushed his restaurant on wheels to one side of the road and put the brakes on. “Go up to Taksim and wait for me at the Tarlabaşı bus stop.”

Süleyman accelerated, disappearing over the hill, and Mevlut began to fret about what he would think when he saw the state of the house and realized how poor they were. In truth, he’d been enjoying Süleyman’s solicitude. Somewhere in the back of his mind was the notion that he might be able to use his cousin to get closer to the Vurals and perhaps provide a better life for Rayiha and the kids.

He chained his cart to the tree in the back garden. “Where are you!” he called out to Rayiha, who was taking longer than usual to come down and help him. They met upstairs in the kitchen, his arms loaded with rice cart paraphernalia. “Süleyman’s gotten the baby a gift, he’s on his way now! For goodness’ sake tidy up a little and make this place look decent!” said Mevlut.

“Why?” said Rayiha. “Let him see exactly how we live.”

“We’re all right,” said Mevlut. He was smiling now, cheered by the sight of his daughters. “But we shouldn’t give him any reason to talk. It stinks in here, let’s get some fresh air in.”

“Don’t open the window. The girls will catch a cold,” said Rayiha. “Should I be ashamed of the way we smell? Doesn’t their house in Duttepe smell exactly like this?”

“It doesn’t. They’ve got that huge garden, they’ve got electricity and running water, it’s all like clockwork. But we’re much happier here. Is the boza ready? At least put these dishcloths away.”

“Sorry, but when you’ve got two babies to look after, it’s a little hard to keep up with the boza, the rice, the chicken, the dishes, the laundry, and everything else that needs doing.”

“Korkut and Süleyman want to offer me a job.”

“What job is that?”

“We’re going to be business partners. We’re going to run the Vurals’ company teahouse.”

“I think the job is an excuse and Süleyman just thinks he can get us to tell him who Samiha ran away with. If they think you’re so great, why did it take them so long to come up with this job for you?”

—

Süleyman.I would have rather spared Mevlut the grief of knowing I’d watched him standing there in Kabataş getting buffeted by the wind as he glumly waited for customers. I knew I wouldn’t be able to find parking in Taksim, what with all the traffic, so I parked the van on a side street and watched dejectedly as Mevlut tried and mostly failed to push his rice cart up the hill.

I drove around Tarlabaşı for a bit. The general who became mayor after the coup in 1980 flew into a rage one day and kicked all the carpenters and the mechanics out of the neighborhood, driving them away to the outer edges of the city. He also shut down the bachelor dormitories, where the dishwashers who work in the restaurants of Beyoğlu used to sleep, claiming that these places were breeding grounds for germs. As a result, these streets emptied out. The Vurals came here at the time looking for places to take over on the cheap for development later on, but they gave up when they discovered that most of the buildings in the area are owned by the Greeks who were deported to Athens overnight in 1964. The mafia here is stronger and more vicious than the gangs who run Duttepe. In the last five years, this whole place has been overrun by drifters and castaways, and there are so many poor rural migrants, Kurds, Gypsies, and foreigners who have settled on these streets that the neighborhood is worse than Duttepe was fifteen years ago. Only another coup could clean this place up now.