Orhan Pamuk - A Strangeness in My Mind

—

Süleyman.I was walking down İmam Adnan Street one evening when a shop on the left caught my eye, and when I took a closer look, I couldn’t believe what I saw.

—

Some evenings, Ferhat would come by the shop drunk. “What a team we used to be, eh?” he’d tell Mevlut. “All those posters we put up, all those battles we fought!” It all seemed a bit much to Mevlut, who preferred to think back on their Kısmet-selling days rather than the political battles they’d witnessed. Still, it was far more flattering to be featured in youthful memories his friend had already hallowed in myth than to be accused of voting for the Islamists, so Mevlut didn’t bother to correct Ferhat.

They could spend hours chatting idly about Islamists who were heading off to join the war in Bosnia, the female prime minister Tansu Çiller, or the bomb that had gone off next to the Christmas tree in the Marmara Hotel’s cake shop (the police accused the Islamists one day and the Kurds the next). Sometimes, even during what should have been the rush, they would get no customers at all for more than half an hour at a time, and they would distract themselves with long discussions on matters they knew nothing about — did TV presenters learn what they were meant to say by heart, or did they also cheat like lip-synching singers? Were the police who attacked the protesters in Taksim carrying real guns, or fakes just for show?

Mevlut had framed the article about the shop (as well as the picture of “The Other Realm” in the same edition) and put it up on the wall, copying what he’d seen in other Beyoğlu cafés. (His dream was one day to decorate the walls with framed foreign banknotes given to them by tourists, as they did in the kebab shops on the main street, but sadly not a single tourist had come in since they’d opened.) Was Ferhat upset when he saw the Righteous Path article on the wall, and was that why he didn’t come by so much anymore? Mevlut realized that he was beginning to consider Ferhat his boss; it made him resent both his friend and his own meekness.

Sometimes Mevlut wondered whether Ferhat had only opened the shop to appease him. In moments of weakness, he told himself, He did it because he felt guilty about running away with the girl I wanted to marry. But when he was angry with Ferhat, he thought, Forget kindness! That one’s nothing but a capitalist now. I’m the one who taught him that boza could be a good investment.

For two snowy, windy weeks at the end of January 1995, Ferhat didn’t show up at the shop at all. When he finally came in one evening as he was passing by, Mevlut said, “Sales are strong right now,” but Ferhat wasn’t even listening.

“Mevlut, you know how sometimes I don’t come to the shop at all? Well, don’t tell Samiha about it, if you know what I mean…”

“What? Sit down for a minute, will you.”

“I don’t have time. Don’t tell Rayiha anything either…Sisters can’t ever keep secrets from each other…” He left, carrying the bag he used when he went to read people’s meters.

“At your service!” Mevlut shouted after him, though Ferhat, who didn’t even have time to sit down and catch up with his old friend anymore, missed the sarcasm. Mevlut’s father used to say those words only to his wealthiest, most influential customers. But Mevlut had never told anyone “at your service” in his life. Ferhat was so busy with his philanderings and mafia friends that he probably didn’t have time to reflect on such subtleties anymore.

When he went back home and saw his daughters fast asleep and Rayiha watching TV with the volume turned low, Mevlut understood the real reason that he was angry at Ferhat: he was leaving his virtuous and beautiful wife behind to go gallivanting around in the city. The Holy Guide was right; rakı and wine were no doubt to blame. Istanbul was crawling with Ukrainian women smuggling contraband in their suitcases, African immigrants, and shady operators who sucked people dry; the city had become a hotbed of corruption and bribery, and the government only stood by and watched.

Mevlut knew, now, why Samiha remained so melancholy even after her husband had suddenly started making so much money. He’d been secretly watching her in the mirror, and he’d seen how sad she was.

—

Ferhat.Mevlut reads the Righteous Path and may well think I’m a cruel, stupid oaf for stepping out on the clever beauty I have at home. But he’s wrong. I’m no womanizer.

I’ve fallen in love. The woman I’m in love with has disappeared, but I will find her someday, here in Istanbul. But first, I should tell you a little bit more about the kinds of jobs and opportunities that just fell in the path of meter inspectors like me after the power grid was privatized, so you can have a better understanding of my love story and the choices I’ve made.

—

Süleyman.I still go down to Beyoğlu all the time, but for work — not to drown my sorrows the way I used to. The heartache’s gone now. I got over that maid a long time ago, and I’m fine now. In fact, I’m sampling the pleasures of being in love with an artist, a singer, a mature woman.

—

Ferhat.When electricity bill collection went private, I made sure never to target those people who hooked up illegal connections and bypassed the meter purely because they were too poor and desperate to do otherwise. Instead, I went after the shameless rich. So I steered clear of back alleys and remote, derelict neighborhoods where unemployed men huddled for warmth with their wives and hungry children, people who either stole some power for their electric heater, or risked freezing to death on winter nights.

But when I found people living in eight-room houses right on the Bosphorus, with maids, cooks, and drivers, but still not paying their bills, I cut their power off. There was a man with an apartment in one of these eighty-year-old buildings where rich people used to live a long time ago, and he’d packed sixty poor girls in there to sew zippers until dawn; when I caught him stealing power, too, I showed no mercy. I inspected the ovens of an expensive restaurant that overlooked the whole city, the looms of a textile baron who exported record quantities of curtain fabrics, and the cranes of a contractor from the Black Sea coast who boasted of how far he’d come from the village, now that he was building fourteen-story buildings, and when I found them each bypassing a meter, I didn’t hesitate. I put their lights out, and I took their money. There were lots of young idealists like me at Seven Hills Electric Ltd., ready to take from the rich and look the other way when the poor couldn’t pay. I learned a lot from them.

—

Süleyman.I’ve been talking to nightclub owners who are serious about music, so the world can discover Mahinur’s talent. The Sunshine Club is the best of the lot. Every now and then, though, I still can’t help taking a little walk past the two boza bozos’ little shop. It’s not to indulge my wounded heart or anything like that; it’s just for a laugh, of course…

—

Ferhat.Spoiled rich people don’t pay their bills because they don’t care, though sometimes the bill gets lost in the mail. Weighed down with penalties, which are adjusted for inflation, their debt grows exponentially. The quickest way to teach these people a lesson is to just cut their power off without even knocking on their door to warn them first. Back when the government still distributed electricity and sent its own inspectors to collect payments and warn delinquents they’d be cut off, the rich and powerful would just say “Oh dear, it seems I forgot to pay!” and just shrug off the threats. In the unlikely event that an honest inspector did manage to get someone’s electricity turned off, those bastards would run to the electricity board’s headquarters in Taksim, and instead of paying up, they’d call some politician they happened to know and have the poor inspector canned on the spot. But all those rich housewives started to fear us once it wasn’t the state anymore but a gang of ruthless capitalists — kind of like their husbands — running the utility. My bosses are from Central Anatolia — Kayseri, in fact — and they couldn’t care less about the sophisticated airs and crocodile tears of Istanbul’s pampered class. Before, inspectors didn’t even have the authority to cut someone’s power off. Now, if I really want to screw them, I cut them off on a Friday evening, just before the weekend. Two days in the dark and they learn pretty quick how to keep up their payments. Last year, the Feast of the Sacrifice fell close to New Year’s Eve, so with this long ten-day holiday coming up, I thought I’d take the chance to teach one of these rich delinquents a lesson.