by Orhan Pamuk
But Kadife threatened to break this trance, and this may explain why the people of Kars couldn’t quite bring themselves to accept her presence onstage. The cameraman taping the live broadcast seems to have been aware of this ambivalence: In the happy scenes, he zoomed in on Sunay, not showing Kadife at all, so the only time the broadcast audience got a glimpse of her was when she was serving the great and the good, just like one of those maids in a boulevard comedy. Still, everyone had heard the announcements that had been running on TV since lunchtime, and they were now very curious to see whether she would bare her head. There’d been the usual spate of conflicting rumors—some holding that Kadife was merely following army orders to remove her scarf, while others had it that she was planning not to go onstage after all—but after half a day of saturation publicity, even those only vaguely acquainted with the head-scarf affair now knew all about Kadife. This is why there was such broad disappointment at her low visibility in the early scenes—and her long red dress was hardly any consolation for the scarf, whose fate remained unclear.
Twenty minutes into the play, an exchange between Kadife and Sunay gave the audience the first hint of what was to come. They were alone onstage, and Sunay asked if she had made up her mind, adding that he “could not condone killing oneself just out of anger.”
Kadife gave the following reply: “In a city where men are killing each other like animals just to make it a happier place, who has the right to stop me from killing myself?” Then, seeing Funda Eser striding toward her, she made a quick exit—leaving it unclear whether this was part of the play or a hastily improvised escape.
When I’d spoken to everyone who would speak to me, I tried to reconstruct from their testimony a minute-by-minute time line synchronizing the performance with the action offstage; and this is how I was able to establish that Blue’s last glimpse of Kadife came when she delivered this line. For according to neighbors who witnessed the raid, and also various police officers still working in Kars at the time of my visit, Blue and Hande had been watching television when the bell rang. According to the official report, Blue took one look at the soldiers and the police officers assembled outside and rushed to get his weapon; he did not hesitate to open fire, though several neighbors and the young Islamists who would turn him into a legend almost overnight remember that after getting off a few rounds he’d cried, “Don’t shoot!” Perhaps he was hoping to save Hande, but in vain; Z Demirkol’s special operations team had already taken up positions around the perimeter, and in less than a minute not just Blue and Hande but every wall of their safe house was riddled with bullets. It was a fierce noise, but hardly anyone but a handful of curious neighborhood children paid much attention. It was not only that the people of Kars were accustomed to such nocturnal raids; they simply wouldn’t be distracted from the live broadcast from the National Theater. All the sidewalks in town were empty, all the shutters closed, and apart from the odd teahouse with a television no one was open for business.
Sunay was well aware that all eyes in the city were on him, and this made him feel not just secure but extraordinarily powerful. Knowing her very presence onstage was subject to Sunay’s sufferance, Kadife courted his approval more than she might have done otherwise; she had to make the most of the opportunities Sunay had given her if she was to have any hope of accomplishing her own ends. (Unlike Ïpek, she would refuse to give me her own version of events, so I cannot know what else she was thinking.) Over the next forty minutes, as the audience began to grasp that Kadife was faced with two important decisions—one about baring her head, the other about committing suicide—their admiration for her grew and grew. And as her stature increased, the play evolved into a drama more serious than that implied by Sunay and Funda’s half didactic, half vaudevillian fury. Although they could not completely forget Kadife the head-scarf girl, many still grieving for her years later told me that her new persona had won the hearts of the people of Kars. By the middle of the play, the audience was falling into a deep silence whenever Kadife walked onstage; whenever she spoke, those watching in houses full of noisy children would frantically ask one another, “What did she say? What did she say?”
It was with the National Theater caught in just such a moment of silence that one could hear the whistle of the first train to leave Kars in four days. Ka was riding in the compartment in which the army had forcibly planted him. When my dear friend had seen the army transport return not with Ïpek but only his valise, he desperately implored his guards to let him see her or at least talk to her; when they refused, he persuaded them to send the army transport back to the hotel; when the transport returned empty a second time, he begged the officers to hold the train for five more minutes. When the whistle blew, there was still no sign of Ïpek, and even as the train began to move, Ka’s wet eyes were still scanning the crowds on the platform; training them on the station entrance, the door that looked out at the statue of Kâzιm Karabekir, he continued trying to conjure up a tall woman walking straight toward him, bag in hand.
As the train gathered speed, it blew its whistle once again. Ïpek and Turgut Bey were on their way from the Snow Palace Hotel to the National Theater when they heard it.
“The train’s on its way,” said Turgut Bey.
“Yes,” said Ïpek, “and any minute now the roads will be reopened. The governor and the military chief of staff will be back in the city soon.” They talked for a while about how this ridiculous coup would now draw to a close and everything would soon return to normal, but Ïpek would later allow that she had no particular interest in these subjects; she wanted to speak lest her father deduce from her silence that she was thinking about Ka. Was her mind really on Ka, though? How much was she thinking about Blue’s death? Even four years later, she herself wasn’t sure, and finding my questions and my suspicions irksome, she tried to deflect them. But she did say that far stronger than any regret at missing her chance for happiness was her anger at Ka. After that night, she knew, there was no hope of ever loving him again. When she heard Ka’s train pull out of the station, the only thing she felt was heartbreak, and perhaps that came with a bit of surprise. In any case, all she wanted was to share her grief with Kadife.
“It’s so desolate, you’d think everyone’s fled the city,” Turgut Bey said.
“It’s a ghost city,” said Ïpek, just to say something.
A convoy of three army transports turned the corner to pass in front of them. Turgut Bey took this as proof that the roads had reopened. They watched the trucks roll off into the night until only their lights were visible. According to my later inquiries, but at the time unbeknownst to them, the middle jeep was carrying the bodies of Blue and Hande.
A moment earlier, the lights of the last jeep had shone on the offices of the Border City Gazette just long enough for Turgut to see that tomorrow’s edition was hanging in the window. He stopped to read the headlines: DEATH ONSTAGE; ILLUSTRIOUS ACTOR SUNAY ZAIM SHOT AND KILLED DURING YESTERDAY’S PERFORMANCE.
They read it twice and then walked as fast as they could to the National Theater. The same police cars were standing outside the entrance, and down the road, far, far away, the same tank nestled in the shadows.
As they were searched at the entrance, Turgut Bey announced that he was the leading lady’s father. The second act had begun, but they found two empty seats in the very last row and sat down.
This act also contained a number of the stock gags that Sunay had been falling back on for so many years, including a modified belly-dance parody by Funda Eser. But the atmosphere had grown heavier, and the silence in the hall deeper, from the cumulative effect of Kadife and Sunay’s long scenes alone onstage.
“May I again insist that you explain to me why you wish to kill yourself?” said Sunay.
“It’s not a question anyone can really answer,” said Kadife.
“What do you mean?”
“If a person knew exactly why she was committing suicide and could state her reasons openly, she wouldn’t have
to kill herself,” said Kadife.
“No! It’s not like that at all,” said Sunay. “Some people kill themselves for love; others kill because they can’t bear their husbands’ beatings any longer or because poverty is piercing them to the bone, like a knife.”
“You have a very simple way of looking at life,” said Kadife. “A woman who wants to kill herself for love still knows that if she waits a little her love will fade. Poverty’s not a real reason for suicide either. And a woman doesn’t have to commit suicide to escape her husband; all she has to do is steal some of his money and leave him.”
“Very well, then, what is the real reason?”
“The main reason women commit suicide is to save their pride. At least that’s what most women kill themselves for.”
“You mean they’ve been humiliated by love?”
“You don’t understand a thing!” said Kadife. “A woman doesn’t commit suicide because she’s lost her pride, she does it to show her pride.”
“Is that why your friends committed suicide?”
“I can’t speak for them. Everyone has her own reasons. But every time I have ideas of killing myself, I can’t help thinking they were thinking the same way I am. The moment of suicide is the time when they understand best how lonely it is to be a woman and what being a woman really means.”
“Did you use these arguments to push your friends toward suicide?”
“They came to their own decisions. The choice to commit suicide was theirs.”
“But everyone knows that here in Kars there’s no such thing as free choice; all people want is to escape from the next beating, to take refuge in the nearest community. Admit it, Kadife, you met secretly with these women and pushed them toward suicide.”
“But how could that be?” said Kadife. “All they achieved by killing themselves was an even greater loneliness. Many were disowned by their families, who in some cases refused even to arrange the funeral prayers.”
“So are you trying to tell me that you plan to kill yourself just to prove that they are not alone, just to show that you’re all in this together? You’re suddenly very quiet, Kadife. But if you kill yourself before explaining your reasons, don’t you run the risk of letting your message be misinterpreted?”
“I’m not killing myself to send any message,” said Kadife.
“But still, there are so many people watching you, and they’re all curious. The least you can do is say the first thing that comes into your mind.”
“Women kill themselves because they hope to gain something,” said Kadife. “Men kill themselves because they’ve lost hope of gaining anything.”
“That’s true,” said Sunay, and he took his Kirikkale gun out of his pocket. Everyone in the hall could see it flashing. “When you’re sure that I’m utterly defeated, will you please use this to shoot me?”
“I don’t want to end up in jail.”
“Why worry about that when you’re planning to kill yourself too?” said Sunay. “After all, if you commit suicide you’ll go to hell, so it makes no sense to worry about the punishment you might receive for any other crime—in this world or the next.”
“But this is exactly why women commit suicide,” said Kadife. “To escape all forms of punishment.”
“When I arrive at the moment of my defeat, I want my death to be at the hands of just such a woman!” cried Sunay, now spreading his arms theatrically and facing the audience. He paused for effect. Then he launched into some tale of Atatürk’s amorous indiscretions, cutting it short when he sensed interest flagging.
When the second act ended, Turgut Bey and Ïpek rushed backstage to find Kadife. Her dressing room—once used by acrobats from St. Petersburg and Moscow, Armenians playing Molière, and dancers and musicians who’d toured Russia—was ice cold.
“I thought you were leaving,” said Kadife to Ïpek.
“I’m so proud of you, darling; you were wonderful!” said Turgut Bey, embracing Kadife. “But if he’d handed you that gun and said, ‘Shoot me,’ I’m afraid I would have jumped up and interrupted the play, shouting, ‘Kadife, whatever you do, don’t shoot!’ ”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because the gun could be loaded!” said Turgut Bey. He told her about the story he’d read in tomorrow’s edition of the Border City Gazette. “I know that Serdar Bey is always hoping he can make things happen by writing about them first, but most of his stories turn out to be false alarms. I wouldn’t especially care about this one’s coming true anyway,” he said. “But I know that Serdar would never dream of proclaiming an assassination like this unless Sunay had talked him into it—and I find that very ominous. It may just be more self-promotion, but who knows; he could be planning to have you kill him onstage. My darling girl, please don’t pull that trigger unless you’re sure the gun isn’t loaded! And don’t bare your head just because this man wants you to. Ïpek isn’t leaving. We’re going to be living in this city for some time to come, so please don’t anger the Islamists over nothing.”
“Why did Ïpek decide not to go?”
“Because she loves her father and you and her family more,” said Turgut Bey, taking Kadife’s hand.
“Father dear, would you mind if we spoke alone again?” said Ïpek, instantly seeing her sister’s face go cold with alarm. Turgut Bey crossed to the other end of the dusty high-ceilinged room, joining Sunay and Funda Eser, and Ïpek hugged Kadife tightly and sat her on her lap. Seeing the gesture had only made her sister more fearful, Ïpek took her by the hand toward a corner separated from the rest of the room by a curtain. Just then, Funda Eser emerged with a tray of glasses and a bottle of Kanyak.
“You were excellent, Kadife,” she said. “You two make yourselves at home.”
As Kadife’s anxieties mounted with every second that passed, Ïpek looked into her eyes in a manner that said, unambiguously, I have some very bad news. Then she spoke. “Hande and Blue were killed during a raid.”
Kadife shrank into herself. “Were they at the same house? Who told you?” she asked. But seeing the sternness in Ïpek’s face, she fell silent.
“It was Fazιl, that religious high school boy, who told us, and I believed him because he saw it with his own eyes.” She paused for a moment, to give Kadife a chance to take it in. Kadife grew only paler, but Ïpek pressed on. “Ka knew where he was hiding, and after his last visit to see you here, he never returned to the hotel. I think Ka betrayed them to the special operations team. That’s why I didn’t go back to Germany with him.”
“How can you be so sure?” said Kadife. “Maybe it wasn’t him; maybe someone else told them.”
“It’s possible. I’ve considered that myself. But I’m so sure in my heart that it was Ka, it almost doesn’t matter: I know I’d never be able to convince my rational self that he didn’t do it. And so I didn’t go to Germany because I knew I could never love him.”
Kadife was spent, trying to absorb the news. Only on seeing Kadife’s strength failing could Ïpek tell that her sister had begun to accept that Blue was really dead.
Kadife buried her face in her hands and began to sob. Ïpek folded her arms around Kadife’s and they cried together, though Ïpek knew they were crying for different reasons. They had cried this way before, once or twice during those shameful days when neither of them could give up Blue and they dueled mercilessly for his affections. Now Ïpek realized that this terrible vendetta was over, once and for all; she wasn’t going to leave Kars. She felt herself age suddenly. To reconcile and grow old in peace, and have the wit to want nothing from the world—this was her wish now.
She could see that her sister’s pain was deeper and more destructive than her own. For a moment she was thankful not to be in Kadife’s place—was it the sweetness of revenge?—and guilt swept over her. In the background they were playing the familiar taped medley that the National Theater’s management always played during intermissions to encourage sales of soda and dried chickpeas: The song right then was one she rem
embered from the earliest years of their youth in Istanbul: “Baby, come closer, closer to me.” In those days, both of them had wanted to learn to speak good English; neither succeeded. It seemed to Ïpek that her sister only cried harder on hearing this song. Peeking through the curtains, she could see her father and Sunay in animated conversation at the other end of the room, as Funda filled their glasses with more Kanyak.
“Kadife Hanιm, I’m Colonel Osman Nuri Çolak.” A middle-aged soldier had yanked open the curtain. With a gesture evidently acquired from a film, he bowed so low he almost wiped the floor with his pate. “With all due respect, miss, how can I ease your pain? If you do not wish to go onstage, I have some good news for you: The roads have reopened and the armed forces will be entering the city at any moment.”
Later on, at his court-martial, Osman Nuri Çolak would offer these words as evidence that he’d been doing all he could to save the city from the ludicrous officers who’d staged the coup.
“I’m absolutely fine, but thank you, sir, for your concern,” said Kadife.
Ïpek saw that Kadife had already assumed a number of Funda’s affectations. At the same time, she had to admire her sister’s determination to pull herself together. Kadife forced herself to stand: She drank a glass of water and then began to pace quietly up and down the long backstage room like a theater ghost.
Ïpek was hoping to get away before her father could talk to Kadife, but Turgut Bey crept up to join them just as the third act had begun. “Don’t be afraid,” said Sunay, nodding to his friends. “These people are modern.”
The third act began with Funda Eser singing a folk song about a woman who’d been raped, an engaging number to make up for earlier parts of the drama that the audience had found too intellectual or otherwise obscure. It was Funda’s usual routine: One moment she was crying and cursing the men in the audience, and the next moment she was showering them with whatever compliments came into her head. Following two songs and a little commercial parody only the children thought funny (she tried to suggest that Aygaz filled their canisters not with propane gas but with farts), the stage grew dark, and—in an ominous reprise of the finale two days earlier—two armed soldiers marched onstage. The audience watched in tense silence as they erected a gallows center stage. Sunay limped confidently across the stage with Kadife to stand right beneath the noose.
