The Black Book

by Orhan Pamuk

  Who was this “him” anyway? First, I understood why “he,” whom I wanted to be so much like, appeared to me at this point of my journey to Wonderland: because, during my long walk through the night, I hadn’t been trying to imitate “him” or anybody else. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe for a moment that people can live without impersonation, without desiring to be someone else, but that night I was so tired, so empty, and the desire in me had hit such a low that he (who must be obeyed) and I had become “equals” at last. You can attest to our “relative” equality, seeing how I was neither afraid of him nor reluctant to get involved in the world of fantasy into which he had summoned me. I still lived under his eyes, but on that beautiful winter night I was also free. Even though it was a sensation that I’d earned through fatigue and defeat, instead of through willpower and victory, still this feeling of freedom and equality had paved the way for an informal familiarity between him and me. (This cordiality must be self-evident in my style.) For the first time in years, he divulged his secrets to me, and I understood him. Sure enough, I was talking to myself, but what is this kind of conversation but whispering like chums with a second person, or even a third person, we’ve buried deep inside?

  My more attentive readers have long figured out the references I’ve used interchangeably, but let me reiterate them anyway: “He” was, of course, the “eye.” The eye was the person I wanted to be. I had first created not the “eye” but “him,” the person I wanted to become. And the “he” who I wanted to be had let loose that powerful, stultifying gaze on me across the distance between us. The “eye” that put limits on my freedom, the insouciant gaze that had me under total surveillance and passed judgment on me, stood hanging over my head like an accursed sun that wouldn’t let me off. Don’t assume that I am complaining. I was pleased with the brilliant scene that the “eye” presented to me.

  Watching myself in this geometrical and fastidiously precise landscape (which was the pleasure of the thing, after all), I’d instantly perceived that I’d created “him” myself, but I had only a vague idea how I’d gone about it. There were some clues which revealed to me that I’d abstracted him out of my own life materials and experiences. He (whom I wanted to become) had been affected by the heroes of the comics I’d read in my childhood, the heavy-duty littérateurs whose photos I studied in foreign publications, or these posturing persons’ libraries, their desks, the sanctified haunts where they cogitated their “deep and meaningful” thoughts and in front of which they posed for the photographers. Sure I’d wanted to be like them too! But how much, though? In this metaphysical geography, I came across some disheartening clues as well, vis-à-vis my having created “him” out of the details of my own past: a wealthy and industrious neighbor whose virtues my mother extolled; the shadow of a Westernized pasha who’d pledged himself to the rescue of his homeland; the image of the hero in a book which had been read five times through from beginning to end; a teacher who punished us by giving us the silent treatment; a classmate who was so classy that, besides being able to afford to put on clean socks every day, he addressed his parents in the second person plural; the intelligent, resourceful, and witty protagonists in foreign films shown at Beyoğlu and Şehzadebaşı theaters—the way they handle their drink glasses, the way they are so humorous, so appropriately decisive, and so totally at ease with women, even with beautiful ones; famous writers, philosophers, scientists, discoverers, and inventors, whose life histories I read in the forewords to their books; a few military men; and the insomniac hero who saves the city from a catastrophic flood … All these persons put in appearances one by one, hailing me here and there like familiar districts on the map as I stood, way past midnight, leaning up against the wall of the mosque. Like a person who’s startled upon finding on a map the district and the street where he’s lived most of his life, I felt the same childish excitement at first. Then, I too sampled the same unsavory aftertaste as that person who’s looked at the map for the first time, who’s bound to be disappointed when he realizes that the buildings, the streets, the parks, the houses, all the places loaded with memories the recollections of which will haunt him for a lifetime, are shown perfunctorily on the great big map as tiny lines and dots which, compared to other lines and signs, look insignificant and meaningless.

  I had reproduced him out of my memories and memorialized persons. This monstrosity, which was the collage of the crowd that I recollected one by one, existed as the soul of the “eye” that he’d turned loose on me, which had now become my own gaze. Within it, I now apprehended myself and my whole life. I lived my life, pleased to be under the scrutiny of this gaze, pulling myself together under its auspices, imitating “him,” trying to reach him through impersonation, assured that someday I would actually become him, or at least something like him. I lived not hopefully, but hoping for the hope of becoming someone else: him. Don’t let my readers assume that this “metaphysical experiment” constitutes some sort of awakening, an exemplary tale in the genre of “opening your eyes to reality.” In the Wonderland where I found myself, leaning up against the wall of the mosque, everything sparkled in the light of a scintillating geometry, purified of crime and sin, pleasure and punishment. I’d once dreamed of the full moon, hung up in the same midnight-blue sky above this very street and this very perspective, slowly transforming itself into the bright dial of a clock. The landscape I experienced now had the clarity, the transparence, the symmetry of that dream. I felt like going on observing at my leisure, recounting what seemed self-evident by pointing out the amusing variations one by one.

  It’s not that I didn’t go at it, either: As if divining the configurations of stones standing on a dark-blue marble slab on which a game of draughts is played, I told myself, “The ‘me’ who stands leaning against the wall of the mosque desires to be him.” “The man wants to become at one with him whom he envies.” “On the other hand, ‘he’ pretends not to be aware that he’s been concocted by ‘me’ who impersonates him.” “That’s why the ‘eye’ is so self-assured.” “He seems not to know that the ‘eye’ has been created to make it possible for the man who leans up against the mosque wall to reach him, but the man who leans up against the wall is well aware of this vague apprehension.” “If the man makes a move to reach him and manages to become him, then the ‘eye’ would be left at an impasse or else in a lacuna.” “Besides, what’s more…” Etc., etc.

  Those were the things on my mind as I observed myself from the outside. Then the “I” which I observed began walking home to his own bed along the wall of the mosque and, when the wall came to an end, along the wooden houses with the enclosed balconies that duplicated each other, along past vacant lots, public fountains, past zipped-up stores and the graveyards.

  I was constantly astonished as I observed myself, the way we are startled when, walking along a crowded street and glancing at the impressions of people going by, we suddenly catch ourselves in a plate glass window or in a huge mirror behind a row of mannequins. But, simultaneously, I knew it was not astonishing that this “I” that I observed as if in a dream was nobody besides myself. What astonished me was the unbelievably gentle, sweet, and loving affinity I felt for this person. I knew how fragile and pitiful he really was, how helpless and sad. I was the only one who knew this person was not what he seemed; I wanted to protect this touchy kid, this creature, as if I were his father, or even a god, and take him under my wing. But he kept walking on for a long time (What was he thinking of? Why so sad, so tired and defeated?), and he finally arrived on the main street. Occasionally, he looked into the unlit windows of pudding shops and grocery stores. He’d thrust his hands into his pockets. Then, his chin fell on his chest. He walked on from Şehzadebaşı to Unkapanı without paying any attention to the occasional vehicle or the vacant taxi that zoomed by. Perhaps he didn’t have any money on him either.

  Walking on the Unkapanı bridge, he momentarily glanced at the Golden Horn. In the dark, a barely visible crew was pulling on a r
ope tied to the long and slim stack of a tugboat which was set to sail under the bridge. Walking up Şişhane hill, he exchanged a few words with a drunk who was coming down the street; he paid no attention to the well-lit windows on İstiklâl Avenue, except one, a silversmith’s display which he studied thoroughly. What was on his mind? Watching him with nervous apprehension and affection, I was anxious for him.

  At Taksim, he bought some cigarettes and matches at a stand. He opened the pack with the lingering gestures characteristic of the sorry Turk in the street, and he lit a cigarette: Oh, the sad wisp of smoke that curled out of his mouth! I was a know-it-all, I recognized everything and had a great deal of experience, but I was fearfully anxious as if I were face-to-face with a human being’s existence for the first time. I wanted to say, “Watch it, kid!” Every time he crossed a street, I was thankful that he hadn’t met up with something dreadful, seeing how I kept reading the signs of some calamity lurking in the street, the dark façades of the apartment buildings, and in the unlit windows.

  Thank goodness, he managed to get home safely, at a Nişantaşı apartment building (Heart-of-the-City Apartments). Once up in his attic flat, you’d think he’d take his troubles to bed, the same troubles I wanted to understand and alleviate. But no, he sat down in a chair, began smoking and going through the daily papers for a while. Then he paced up and down among the old furniture, the dilapidated table, the faded drapes, all the papers and books. Suddenly he sat down at the table, squirmed on the squeaky chair and, grabbing a pen, he leaned over a clean sheet of paper to write something.

  I stood immediately next to him; I felt as if I were on top of his messy table. I observed him close up: He wrote with a childlike concentration, with the unruffled pleasure of watching a favorite film, but introspectively. I watched him, proud as a father observing his son pen his first letter. He pursed his lips together when he reached the end of his sentences, his eye bobbled along the paper with the same speed as the words. When he filled up the entire page, I read what he’d been writing, and I shuddered with a deep ache.

  He hadn’t managed to quote from his own soul, with which I was dying to acquaint myself, but had only scripted the sentences you’ve been reading. It wasn’t his world, but mine, not his words, but the very words across which you’re speeding now (slow down, please!), which belonged to me. I wanted to stand up to him and demand that he write his own words, but I could do nothing but watch him as in a dream. The words and sentences followed each other, each one causing me further pain.

  At the beginning of a new paragraph he paused for a bit. He looked at me—as if he saw me, as if our eyes met! Remember the scenes in old books and magazines where the writer and his muse have an agreeable chat? Playful illustrators depict in the margin the sweet muse, who is no larger than a pen, and the absentminded writer smiling at each other. Well, that’s the smile we gave each other. Now that we’d given each other smiles of empathy, I assumed, optimistically, that everything would be illumined. He would become aware of what’s what, write the stories out of his own world for which I had so much curiosity, and I’d read his opinions on being himself with great pleasure.

  Nice try! But nothing. Zilch. He shot another beatific smile at me, as if all that needed clarification were clear as a bell; he paused, emotionally worked up as if he’d solved a problem in a game of checkers, and wrote the final words that plunged my world into an impenetrable darkness.

  Chapter Eleven

  WE LOST OUR MEMORIES AT THE MOVIES

  The movies not only ruin a child’s eyesight; they ruin his mind.

  —ULUNAY

  As soon as Galip woke up, he knew it had snowed again. Perhaps he’d known it in his sleep; he’d sensed silence envelop city noises in the dream he remembered upon waking but lost instantly when he looked out the window. It had been dark for quite some time. Galip bathed in the water the gas heater never quite warmed and then got dressed. He took paper and pen to the table, sat down, and worked on the clues for a while. He shaved, put on the herringbone jacket Rüya liked, which was identical to the one Jelal wore, and over it he put on his thick and coarse winter coat.

  It had stopped snowing. A couple of inches of the stuff covered the parked cars and the sidewalks. Saturday-evening shoppers with packages in their hands walked home gingerly, as if stepping on the spongy surface of an alien planet they were just getting used to walking on.

  At Nişantaşı Square, he felt pleased that the main thoroughfare was clear. He pulled a copy of the next morning’s Milliyet out of the stack of girlie and scandal magazines on the stand, which was set up in the entryway of a grocery store, as it usually was at night. He walked over to the restaurant across the street, sat in a corner that couldn’t be seen by the pedestrians, and ordered tomato soup and grilled köftes. While he waited for the food, he placed the paper on the table and read Jelal’s Sunday column carefully.

  The piece was one of those that had first appeared many years ago; reading it now for the second time, Galip had memories of some of Jelal’s individual sentences, which related to memory. While he drank his coffee, he marked the text. Upon leaving the restaurant, he hailed a taxi to take him to Sinan Paşa in the suburb of Bakırköy.

  On the protracted taxi ride, Galip felt as if he were not in Istanbul but in some other city, seeing the sights. Where Gümüşsuyu Ramp slopes into Dolmabahçe, three municipal buses had plowed into each other and a crowd had gathered around them. There was absolutely nobody at the bus and dolmuş stops. Snow had descended on the city like some kind of oppression, the street lights had grown dimmer, the nighttime activity which makes a city into a city had stopped, and it had regressed to a blank medieval night where the doors are closed and the sidewalks deserted. The snow on the domes of the mosques, on the warehouses, and on the squatter’s shacks was not white but blue. He saw whores with purple lips and blue faces hanging about in Aksaray, youngsters sliding down along the city walls on wooden ladders used as sleds, the revolving blue lights of the squad cars parked by the terminal where the buses took off carrying passengers who looked out fearfully. The elderly taxi driver told a dubious story relating to an implausible winter long ago when the Golden Horn froze over. Working in the taxi’s top light, Galip marked Jelal’s column all over with numbers, signs, and letters, but he still didn’t get anywhere. When the driver protested that he could drive no further, Galip got off at Sinan Paşa and walked.

  Sunny Heights was closer to the main street than he’d remembered. The road, which ran along two-story concrete-block houses (upgraded from squatter’s shacks) with their curtains drawn shut, and along store windows which showed no light, went up a slight slope and suddenly came to a halt at a small square where the bust of Atatürk stood (it wasn’t a statue after all) that was represented by the oblong sign he’d seen in the City Directory that morning. Counting on his memory, he took a street off the fair-sized mosque, which had political slogans written all over its walls.

  He didn’t even want to imagine Rüya in one of these houses where the stovepipes poked out of the middle of the windows, where some of the balconies sloped slightly downwards; but ten years ago he’d quietly approached the open windows, seen for himself what he didn’t even want to imagine, and beat a hasty retreat. On that hot August evening, Rüya sat in a sleeveless cotton print dress, working at the table piled with papers, and twirled a curl in her hair round and round; her husband, who sat with his back turned to the window, was stirring his tea; and the moth which was soon to get zapped went in less and less orderly circles around and around the bare bulb that hung overhead. On the table between the husband and wife there was a plate of figs and a mosquito spray. Galip recalled perfectly the tinkle of the spoon in the teacup and the chirr of the cicadas in the bushes nearby, but he could fetch up no associations with the corner where he saw the sign on the post half buried in the snow: Refet Bey Street.

  He walked down and back the full length of the street, where kids were throwing snowballs at one end and at
the other a lamp illuminated a movie poster showing a nondescript woman whose eyes had been blocked out, blinded. All the houses had two stories and none had any numbers on the doors, so he went by them the first time being nonchalantly forgetful. The second time, though, he reluctantly remembered the window, the door handle he was loath to touch ten years ago, and the dull, unplastered walls. Another floor had been added. A garden wall had been built. And concrete had replaced the mud yard. The first floor was in pitch darkness. The bluish light of a TV screen filtered through the closed curtains on the second floor, which had a separate entrance, and a sulphur-yellow fume of lignite coal smoked out of the stovepipe which stuck out of the wall into the street like the barrel of a gun, announcing the good news that an unexpected guest who knocked on the door would find here something hot to eat, a warm hearth, and warmhearted people watching TV like dummies.

  Galip went up the snow-covered steps cautiously, accompanied by the foreboding barks of the dog in the next yard. “I won’t take too much time talking to Rüya!” Galip said to himself, but he wasn’t sure whether he was speaking to himself or to the ex-husband in his imagination. He’d request that she explain the reasons she hadn’t divulged in the goodbye letter, then he’d ask her to come as soon as possible and get all her stuff, her books, cigarettes, the odd pairs of stockings, the empty pill bottles, her bobby pins, the cases for all her prescription glasses, the half-eaten chocolates, her barrettes, the wooden ducklings that were her childhood toys; and be gone. “Anything that reminds me of you gives me more pain than I can bear.” Since he couldn’t say all this in front of the guy, he’d best convince Rüya to go somewhere to sit down and talk “like adults.” Once they went to this place and the subject of “adults” came up, it was possible to convince Rüya of other things as well; but how was he to find such a spot in this place where there was nowhere to go aside from all-male coffeehouses?