by Orhan Pamuk
“Where were you?”
“Where was I supposed to be, I was here,” I said. “I studied all night.”
“Are you hungry?” she said. “I’ll make some tea, you want some, son?”
“No,” I said. “I’m going.”
“Where are you off to at this time of day, with no sleep?”
“I’m going for a walk,” I said. “It’ll do me good. After that I’ll come back and study again.” Just as I was going out, I could see she was starting to feel sorry for me. So I said, “Hey, Mom, can you give me fifty liras?”
She looked a little hesitant before she said, “So. What are you going to do with the money this time? Okay, never mind! Just don’t tell your father!”
She went inside and came back: two twenties and a tenner. I thanked her and went to my room, put my bathing suit on under my pants, then went out the window so I wouldn’t wake up my father. I turned and looked back, and my mother was looking at me from the other window. Don’t worry, Mom, I know what I’m going to be in life.
I walked down the asphalt way. Cars passed me, going uphill quickly. Guys with ties, their jackets hanging inside the car, as if they couldn’t see me as they raced off to Istanbul at one hundred kilometers an hour to make deals and cheat one another. I don’t care about you either, gentlemen, with your ties and cuckold’s horns!
There was nobody on the beach yet. Since even the ticket seller and the watchman hadn’t arrived, I went in for free, and carefully, so as not to get sand in my sneakers, I walked all the way over to the rocks where the beach ended and the wall of a house began, planting myself where the wall didn’t get the sun. I would see Nilgün from here when she came in the gate. I could see the bottom of the calm sea: there were wrasse fish riding and turning in amid the seaweed. The careful gray mullet dashed away at the slightest movement. I held my breath.
A long while later, someone with a mask and flippers aimed his gun in the water, going after the mullet. I get so annoyed with these jerks going after the mullet. Then the water cleared again and I saw the mullet and the rockfish. After that, the sun began to beat down on me.
When I was little, and there were no other houses around here except for their strange silent house and our house on the hill, Metin, Nilgün, and I would come here and I would go into the water halfway up to my knees and we’d wait, trying to catch wrasse or blenny fish. But all we ever caught was a rockfish: Throw it away, said Metin, but it had eaten my bait, I’m not going to just throw it away, I’ll put it in my box, and Metin would mock me! I’m not cheap, I would say. Maybe Nilgün would hear me and maybe she wouldn’t. I’m not cheap, I would say, but I am going to make that rockfish pay for the bait. Metin put a screw nut on the end of his rod instead of a lead weight and said, look at that, Nilgün, he’s so cheap, he’s keeping it! Guys, Nilgün would say, just throw those fish back in the sea again, okay? It’s a shame. I know it’s hard to be friendly with them. But you can make soup from rockfish, you just put in some potatoes and onions.
Later I watched a crab. Crabs are always concentrating and thoughtful, because they’re always up to something. Why are you waving your leg and your claw around like that, now, little guy? It was like all these crabs knew more than I did. They’re all old know-it-alls, from birth. Even the soft little baby ones with the pure-white bellies are all like old men.
Then the surface of the water shimmered and you couldn’t see the bottom, until the crowd slowly started to go in and out and it got really cloudy. I took a look over at the gate and I saw you, Nilgün, coming in with your bag. You came over toward this side of the beach and you walked straight toward me.
She came closer and closer and then she stopped and took off the yellow dress she had on and just as I was saying, oh, a blue bikini, she had spread her towel on the ground and stretched out on it, suddenly disappearing from view. When she took a book out of her bag and started to read, I could see her hand holding the book in the air and her head.
I was sweating. A long time went by, and she was still reading. Then I splashed some water on my face to cool off. Another long period of time went by and she was still reading.
What if I just go and say, Hi, Nilgün, I thought I’d go for swim this morning, how are you doing? She’ll get mad, I thought, remembering that she was a year older than me. Better go away now, some other time.
Then Nilgün got up and walked toward the sea. She is beautiful, I thought before she dove in. She swam smoothly, moving away from the shore without looking back at the things she’d left on the beach. Don’t worry, Nilgün, I’m watching your stuff, I said, as she kept swimming out, not bothering to look behind. It looked as if anybody who wanted to could go rifle through her things, but with me keeping an eye out, nothing would happen to them.
Nobody noticed when I got up and went over to Nilgün’s things. It was okay. Nilgün was my friend. I bent down and looked at the cover of the book lying on top of her bag: there was a Christian grave and two weeping old people and it said Fathers and Sons. Underneath the book was her yellow dress, I wondered, What’s in her bag? Careful so nobody would see me, I went through it quickly: a tube of suntan lotion, matches, a key warmed by the sun, another book, a wallet, hair clips, a little green comb, sunglasses, a towel, a packet of Samsun cigarettes, and another small bottle. I looked out and Nilgün was still swimming far off. I was leaving everything just as I’d found it when I suddenly put the small green comb in my pocket. Nobody saw.
I went over to the rocks again and waited. Nilgün came out of the water, quickly walked over pigeon-toed, and wrapped herself in her towel, as though she were a little girl instead of a smart young woman a year older than me. Then she dried off, looked in her bag for something, and, not finding it, quickly put on her yellow dress and left.
I was taken aback for a minute, thinking she had done it to get away from me. I ran after her and saw she was going home. I ran ahead and got out in front of her, and she suddenly turned, which took me by surprise, because now it seem she was the one following me. I turned right, stopping in front of the shop and hiding behind a car tying my shoelaces as I looked: she went into the shop.
I positioned myself on the other side of the road so we would happen to run into each other as we went home. I thought, I’ll take it out of my pocket and show it to her: Nilgün, is this your comb? I would say. Yes, where did you find it? she would say. You must have dropped it, I would say. How did you know it was mine, she would say. No, I won’t say that. You dropped it on the road, I saw you drop it, and I picked it up, I would say. I was waiting under the tree. I was very sweaty.
A little later she came out of the shop, coming straight toward me. Good: I was walking straight toward the shop. I wasn’t looking at her face, I was looking down, at the shoelaces I had just tied. Suddenly I lifted my head.
“Hello!” I said. She’s so beautiful, I thought.
“Hello,” she said. She didn’t even smile.
I stopped, but she didn’t stop.
“Are you going home, Nilgün?” I said. My voice came out funny.
“Yes,” she said and walked off without saying anything else.
“Bye!” I shouted after her. Then I shouted again, “Say hello to Uncle Recep!”
I was embarrassed. She didn’t even turn around and say, fine. I just stood there looking at her from behind. Why did she do that? Maybe she understood everything, but what was there to understand? If you meet an old childhood friend on the street, wouldn’t you say hello? Weird! I walked along, thinking. Like they say, people have really changed, people resent even having to say hello these days. I thought about how I had fifty liras in my pocket, and then I thought, she must have gotten home by now: what was she thinking? I said, Let me telephone her and tell her everything, so she will just say hello to me, the way she used to, I don’t want anything else from you. I walked along thinking and thinking about what I would say. I’d say, I love you, too, so what? I thought of other things. The disgusting people in the s
treet going to the beach. This world is really screwed up!
I went to the post office to look at the directory. They were listed as DARVINOĞLU, SELHATTIN FAMILY, SHORE AVENUE NO. 12. I wrote down the phone number so I wouldn’t misremember it. I paid ten liras for a token, went to the booth, and dialed the number, but when I got to the last digit, instead of 7, my finger dialed 9. I didn’t hang up either. The wrong number rang, and when I still didn’t hang up, the ten-lira token clattered down into the box and the line connected.
“Hello!” said a strange woman’s voice.
“Hello, who do I have?” I said.
“Ferhat Bey’s house,” she said. “Who are you?”
“A friend!” I said. “I want to talk a little.”
“Go ahead,” said the voice. She was curious. “About what?”
“Something important!” I said, trying to think of what I would say. My ten liras were gone anyway.
“Who is this?” she said.
“I’ll tell Ferhat Bey!” I said. “Just give me your husband.”
“Ferhat?” she said. “Who are you?”
“Just you give him to me!” I said. I looked through the window of the booth; the clerk was busy; he was handing stamps to someone.
“Who are you?” she was still saying.
“I love you,” I said. “I love you!”
“What? Who are you?”
“Damn society whore! The Communists are taking over the country and you’re still lying half naked on the beach …”
She hung up. I hung up, too, slowly. I looked and the clerk was giving the change for the stamps. I calmly walked outside. He didn’t even look at me. Well, at least I can’t complain that I wasted my ten liras. As I left the post office, I thought: I still have forty liras; if a person can have this much fun with ten he can have four times as much fun with forty. That’s what they call mathematics, and because they decided I don’t understand it they’re leaving me back for a year. Very well, gentlemen, I know how to wait. Just hope you don’t regret it in the end.
13
Recep Picks Up Some Milk and Some Other Things
When Nilgün Hanim came home from the beach Faruk Bey was waiting for her. They sat down and I gave them their breakfast. One of them was mostly reading her newspaper, while the other seemed to be dozing off, but all the same they had a nice chat and shared a few laughs. Then Faruk Bey got his huge briefcase and went off to the archives in Gebze, and Nilgün planted herself in the garden by the henhouse to read a book. Metin was still sleeping. I went upstairs before clearing off the breakfast table.
“I’m going down to the market, Madam,” I said. “Do you want anything?”
“Market?” she said. “Is there a market here?”
“Well, they opened shops here years ago,” I said. “You know that. What would you like?”
“I don’t want a thing from them!” she said.
“What shall we give you for lunch?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Make something edible!”
I went downstairs, took off my apron, gathered the empty bottles and the mushrooms, and headed off. She never says what’s edible, only what’s inedible. I have to judge by experience when I’m figuring out what to make, but fortunately it’s been forty years, so I have some idea of what she will eat! I noticed I was sweating and realized it had become warm. The streets had started to fill up, but there were still people going off to work in Istanbul.
I climbed uphill, where there were fewer houses and the gardens and the cherry trees started. The birds were still in the trees. I was in a good mood, but I didn’t take the long way. I went on the dirt road, and a little later I saw their house with the television antenna on top. Nevzat’s wife and Aunt Cennet were milking the cows. I always enjoy watching them do it, especially in winter, when the milk steams. Nevzat was there as well. He was bent over his motorcycle that he had leaned against the other wall of the house.
“Hello,” I said to him.
“Hello,” he said, but he didn’t turn and look. He had stuck his finger into some part of the motorcycle and was fiddling with it.
We were quiet for a bit. Then, to say something, I said, “Is it broken?”
“No way!” he said. “How could this thing break?”
He was proud of his motorcycle, which he had bought years ago with money he made doing people’s gardens and delivering their milk. But the roar drove the whole neighborhood crazy. So I told him not to bother delivering milk to us; I would come and pick it up. It would also give us a chance to talk.
“You brought two bottles.”
“Yes,” I said. “Faruk Bey and his family are here.”
“Fine, put them there.”
I set them down, and he brought the funnel and the measure. First, he put it in the measure, then poured the milk through the funnel into the bottle.
“You haven’t been by the coffeehouse for two days,” he said.
I didn’t say anything.
“Listen,” he said. “Don’t pay any attention to those bums. They have no class.”
I thought about that.
Then he said, “But I wonder: Is what the newspaper wrote true? Was there really such a house for dwarves?”
They had all read the paper.
“Where did you go that night anyway?”
“To the movies.”
“What was playing?” he said. “Anything good?”
By the time I was finished telling him, he was about to cork the bottles, which were now both full.
“You can’t find corks,” he said. “They’ve gotten expensive. They put plastic on cheap wine now. I tell people, Don’t lose the cork. If you lose it, it’s ten liras. We’re not the Pinar Milk Company here. If you don’t mind your kids drinking milk with chemicals in it, you can get it from them. You want ours? Save the cork.”
He always said the same things. I was just about to pull the corks Faruk Bey gave me out of my pocket, when, for some reason, I changed my mind. Let him enjoy himself, I thought.
“Everything’s become very expensive,” I said.
“Really!” he said, and carried on about high prices and the good old days; I got bored and didn’t pay attention. After he’d filled up all his bottles and loaded them into the motorcycle basket, he said, “I’m going to deliver these. If you’d like, I could drop you off at home.” He kicked the pedal and started the motorcycle with a roar. “Come on!” he yelled.
“No,” I called out. “I’ll walk.”
“Suit yourself!” he said, and zoomed away.
I watched the dust he kicked up until he got up onto the asphalt. It was why I was embarrassed to get on with him. As I went on my way, carrying my milk bottles in the string bag, I looked aback. Nevzat’s wife and Aunt Cennet were still milking. Aunt Cennet had seen the plague, my mother used to say, the days of the plague, she would tell about it and I would get scared. As the gardens and the crickets ended, the part crowded with houses began. Places that hadn’t changed for years. Eventually, they started coming in September for the hunt, with their well-fed vicious dogs that sprang out of their cars like mad curs: Don’t go near them, kids, they’ll shoot! A lizard in the base of a crack in the wall! I watched till it scurried off! Do you know why the lizard leaves behind his tail, son, Selâhattin Bey had said, according to what principle? I would be quiet and look at him fearfully: he was a tired, worn-out, decrepit father. Wait, let me write it down and give it to you. And he wrote out “Charles Darwin” on a scrap of paper and handed it to me; I have it still, that scrap. In his last days he gave me another piece of paper: This is a list of what we’re missing and what we have in excess, son, I’m leaving this just to you, maybe one day you’ll understand. I took the paper and looked. It was in the old letters. He looked closely at me with his bloodshot eyes: he had been working the whole day in his room on the encyclopedia, he was tired. And he used to drink in the evenings. Once a week, he would overdo it and fly off the handle. Sometimes, he would w
ander around drunk for a few days until he passed out in some corner of the garden or in his room or at the seashore. Those days, Madam would close herself up in her room as though she was never going to come out … When I got to the butcher’s, it was crowded, but the beautiful dark lady wasn’t there.
“You’ll have to wait a little, Recep,” said Mahmut, the butcher.
The bottles had tired me out, so it was good to sit down … Later, when I found him where he’d passed out, I would hurry to wake him, so that Madam wouldn’t see him and start bawling again and so that he wouldn’t stay out there in the cold: Sir, why are you lying here, it’s going to rain, you’ll catch your death, go home, lie down in your room, I would say. He would grumble and curse in his old man’s way: Damn country! All for nothing! If I had been able to finish those volumes, if I had at least sent that article to Stepan a long time back, what time is it, a whole nation is sleeping, the whole East is asleep, no, it’s not for nothing, but I’m just not up to it, oh, if I’d only had the kind of woman I needed, when did your mother die, Recep, son? Finally he’d get up and take my arm, and I’d cart him off, as he muttered all the way: When do you think they’ll wake up from their stupid sleep, the peaceful sleep of fools. They’ve immersed themselves in the idiotic comfort of lies, snoozing away in the simpleton’s joy of believing the world really is the way it’s presented in the superstitious stories and myths crammed in their heads. I’ll take a stick and beat them over the head until they wake up! Idiots, forget these lies, wake up, and look around you! By the time we got to his room, he’d be leaning on me all the more. The door of Madam’s room would slowly open from inside, and her curious eyes full of disgust would appear and then disappear in the darkness. He would say, oh, you foolish woman, you poor foolish timid woman, I’ve never been anything but repulsed by you, put me in my bed, Recep, have coffee ready when I wake up, I want to start to work right away, I have to hurry, they’ve changed the alphabet, the whole plan of my encyclopedia has been upended, fifteen years and still no end in sight, he would say, and then drift off to sleep, still talking to himself. I’d watch for a little to see how he slept, then silently leave the room.
