Orhan Pamuk - A Strangeness in My Mind

When one student opened the fridge, Mevlut saw that there was no alcohol inside. He also realized that there weren’t any women or families here. The silver-haired man joined them in the kitchen. “How much do we owe you?” he said, and then leaned in to look into Mevlut’s eyes, without waiting for a response. “There was so much sorrow in your voice, boza seller, we felt it in our hearts all the way up here.”

“I am the victim of a grave injustice,” said Mevlut, seized by the urge to talk. “They took my rice cart, they may have destroyed it, or maybe they’ve given it to someone else. A clerk from Rize who works in the municipality of Şişli was rude to me, but it’s late now and I wouldn’t want to bother you with my troubles.”

“Tell me, tell me,” said the silver-haired man, his friendly eyes saying, I feel bad for you, and I genuinely want to hear what you have to say. Mevlut explained that his poor little rice cart was out there somewhere, wasting away in the hands of strangers. He didn’t mention his financial worries, but he could tell the man understood. What really bothered him, though, was how people like the clerk from Rize and other people of position (the silver-haired man referred to them ironically as “notables”) tended to belittle him, never giving him the respect he deserved. Soon, he and the old man were sitting down on two small chairs in the kitchen, facing each other.

“Man is the most precious fruit of the tree of life,” the silver-haired old man told a rapt Mevlut. When they spoke, other holy men always sounded as if they were saying solitary prayers; Mevlut liked how this one could look him in the eyes like a long-lost friend but still speak with all the wisdom of a scholar.

“Man is the greatest of all God’s creatures. Nothing can blemish the jewel that is your heart. You shall find your cart, if it be the Lord’s will…You shall find it, God willing.”

Mevlut was flattered that such an intelligent and important man was taking the time to talk to him while his students waited in the other room, but he also suspected with some distress that this interest might be out of pity.

“Your students are waiting, sir,” he said. “I shouldn’t take up any more of your time.”

“Let them wait,” said the silver-haired man. A few further comments made a deep impression on Mevlut. The most complicated knots would come undone at the Lord’s command. His might would remove all obstacles. Perhaps there were even prettier formulations to come, but Mevlut was getting visibly uncomfortable (and irritated at his own fidgeting, which betrayed his anxiety), so the man stood up, drawing some money out of his pocket.

“I can’t take this, sir.”

“I won’t accept that; it would not be God’s way.”

At the door, they each insisted on giving way to the other—“After you, no, I insist”—like a pair of perfect gentlemen. “Boza seller, please take this money now,” said the man. “I promise you I will not offer to pay you the next time you come around. We hold discussions here every Thursday evening.”

“God bless you,” said Mevlut, not knowing whether this was the right thing to say. Instinctively, he bent down to kiss the radiant old man’s huge, wrinkly hand. It was covered in liver spots.

He came home late that night knowing that this was one encounter he couldn’t share with Rayiha. Over the next few days, he would come close to telling her about this man whose face shone with a divine light and whose words had lodged themselves in Mevlut’s mind, and how it was thanks to him that Mevlut was able to bear the bitter disappointment of losing his cart, but he always held back. Rayiha might have teased him, and that would have broken his heart.

The yellow light Mevlut had seen in the silver-haired man’s house in Çarşamba had stayed with him. What else had he seen? There had been words written in a beautiful ancient script hanging up on the walls. And there was the deference of the students sitting solemnly around the table, which he liked.

Throughout the week that followed, whenever he went out to sell boza, he saw the ghost of his white cart all over Istanbul. One time he saw a man from Rize pulling a white cart uphill along a winding road in Tepebaşı, and he ran after him, only to realize his mistake before he’d even caught up: his white cart was much more elegant than this crude, stumpy contraption.

When, on Thursday night, he walked through the backstreets of Fatih and past the house in Çarşamba calling “Boo-zaa,” and they invited him to come in, he hurried upstairs. In that brief visit, he found out that the students called the silver-haired old man “sir,” while other visitors referred to him as “the Holy Guide”; that the students who sat at the table dipped feather quills in inkpots and wrote things down in oversize letters; and that these letters formed words in Arabic taken from the Holy Koran. There were a few other sacred-seeming old things in the house: Mevlut particularly liked an old-fashioned coffeepot; framed words written in the same script they were tracing out at the table; a turban shelf with mother-of-pearl details; a grandfather clock with an enormous case whose ticking drowned out everyone’s whispers; and framed photographs of Atatürk and a few other frowning, equally serious (but bearded) figures.

At the same table in the kitchen the Holy Guide asked Mevlut about his cart, and Mevlut replied that, though he was still as determined as ever in his search, he had yet to find it and that he’d still not found a morning job (he was careful not to linger on that particular matter for long, lest he give the impression of having come looking for a job or a handout). There was only time to mention one of the things Mevlut had been thinking about over the past two weeks: his long nightly walks weren’t just part of his job anymore; they were something he felt he needed to do. When he didn’t go out wandering the streets at night, his powers of thought and imagination flagged.

The Holy Guide reminded him that in Islam labor was a form of prayer. Mevlut’s visceral urge to walk until the day the world ended was surely a sign and a consequence of the ultimate truth that, in this universe, only God was on our side, and only to Him could we ever turn for help. Mevlut was unsettled by these words, which he took to mean that the strange thoughts that crossed his mind as he walked the streets were put there by God Himself.

When the Holy Guide tried to pay for the boza (there were nine students with him that Thursday evening), Mevlut reminded him of how they’d agreed that the boza would be on him this time.

“What’s your name?” asked the Holy Guide in an admiring tone.

“Mevlut.”

“What a blessed name!” They walked from the kitchen to the front door. “Are you a mevlidhan ?” he asked, loud enough for his students to hear.

Mevlut made a face designed to convey that he was, unfortunately, unable to answer the question because he didn’t know what that meant. His candor and humility made the students smile.

The Holy Guide explained that, as everyone knows, a mevlit is a long poem written to celebrate the Holy Prophet Muhammad’s birthday. Mevlidhan is the beautiful but less-well-known name given to those who compose the music accompanying these odes. Mevlut should name his future son Mevlidhan, a name that would bring the boy good fortune. He must be sure to come by every Thursday — he needn’t even announce himself by calling out “ Boza ” from the street anymore.

—

Süleyman.Vediha told me that after losing his cart and failing to get it back by using the Vurals’ contacts, Mevlut now wanted to raise the rent on his one-room house in Kültepe, which was still occupied by the tenant I’d found him. Either that or he wanted a few months’ rent in advance. He soon called me up to talk about it.