by Suat Dervis
Misery had driven him to the edge of madness. Sometimes his longing for Celile became so fierce that he wanted to go to Muhsin and beg him to give him back his wife. To let him see her, just one more time…
“Let me take her into my arms one more time, and gaze one last time into those eyes…”
Yes, it was an addiction, and it had turned him into a mad dog. A mad dog that didn’t know what to bite next, or where to turn.
He hungered for her. He was mad with thirst.
He was beset by fever.
He had no control over what he said. To everyone he met he told his story.
“I devoted my life to her. When I took her in, all she had was the dress she was wearing. She didn’t have a penny. I gave her a beautiful life. I was an unimportant bank clerk, but because I thought she would never be satisfied with the sort of life I could give her, I set out to succeed in business, and succeed I did! Everything I did, it was for her. And she—she betrayed me. Without so much as batting an eye, she betrayed me and ran away. Now she’s living with Muhsin Demirtaş. Oh, if you ever met this wife of mine, you would have thought her an angel. So solemn, so sedate, so dignified. Then this scoundrel seduced her. And disgraced me. He’s a scoundrel! He has no honor!”
Nuri and Müjde had come to dread his visits.
“They should beware of false hopes,” Ahmet would say. “I’m not granting a divorce!”
Nuri had on many occasions taken a harsh tone with Ahmet. Insisted that he took no interest in Muhsin’s private live—never had and never would. Made it clear that there was no point in giving him messages to pass on. Told him that it was wrong of Ahmet to continue speaking as he did, adding that Celile and Muhsin had been as damaged by the scandal as he had been.
Ahmet had to pull himself together and move on.
Nuri felt great remorse at having been the one to introduce this man to Muhsin Demirtaş.
Though Ahmet’s meaningless visits tired and angered him, he was also angry with Muhsin for having taken off with this vulgar man’s wife.
What had possessed him to expose himself to such ridicule, and at his age? What had led him to seduce this nobody’s wife?
This was not a legendary love story. It was a scandal pure and simple, a misadventure that sent gossip and dirty jokes rippling across Istanbul, Ankara, and even Izmir.
No thoughts of romance could survive Ahmet’s antics.
Wherever their three names were mentioned, there was laughter.
Ahmet was wreaking his revenge without even knowing it. Because no one could have made this liaison look more ridiculous and disgusting than Ahmet himself.
The man’s remonstrations went on for months.
It seems as if his rage and mad desire would never subside.
He’d lost all interest in his work. His partners had taken advantage of his inattention to cheat him. The ventures for which he had taken sole responsibility were stalled. His partners were quarreling. And his construction projects were no longer coming in on time. His bank guarantee was now in jeopardy.
But Ahmet couldn’t have cared less.
“He stole my wife…She refused to see me. Not even once would she see me…Because if I’d had a chance to speak to her, she would never have stayed with him. But because I never got that chance…He has her hypnotized. The rat! He crept into our happy family like the plague. My wife knew nothing of the world. She was as naive as a child. But she’ll get what she deserves. And then her eyes will open. She doesn’t understand the sacrifices I made for her, but she will then! Let her open her eyes finally, and let her suffer. Let them suffer together. I’m taking them to court. Am I not still her wedded husband? I’m taking them to court, and throwing them into jail!”
If only he had done so. And brought this matter to some conclusion. It might have helped all three of them. But Ahmet took no action. He just talked and talked.
One day a dumpy old man with gold-framed glasses turned up at his office.
A lawyer.
Representing Celile.
She was asking for nothing. Just a divorce.
“Are they thinking of getting married now?”
The lawyer smiled. He was tempted to say, “After so big a scandal, would that even be possible?”
But he knew better than to share his own views.
“I have no idea, sir,” he said instead. “But what I do know is that this incessant gossip has hurt you most of all. It has damaged your good name. You have refused to consider how a timely divorce would allow you to take your sorrows indoors. But when you are feeling calmer, you will wish to do what any dignified man would do, and that will be to resolve this matter without delay. You will gain nothing by being stubborn. You will only lose, and lose again. My client has no wish to insist on her rights. She has not asked for alimony or recompense. She’s even willing to pay damages to your good self. I have been authorized to draw up a settlement.”
Ahmet thought he was going to choke.
His head was spinning. His throat had closed. He sprang from his chair like a madman.
“What?” he bellowed. “What do you think you’re saying, you big fool? Get out of here, before I stamp on your head. Call me a beggar, do you? I am not a pimp! So now this Muhsin fellow thinks he can buy my wife off me? I’m a rich man, I’ll have you know. I have all the money I need. I have influence…”
“But sir…please, sir, I fear you’ve misunderstood me.”
“Shut up? Get out!”
“Sir, I beg of you,” croaked the lawyer as he rose from his chair.
“I need no money to gild my horns. Do they think they can offer me money? Hah! So now they’re offering me money…Do they have no shame? Tell me, sir. How much would they have to pay me to give me back my dignity? You know full well that a man’s honor is worth more than Muhsin’s millions. But I too am rich. I’m rich, and I have money. So tell me, what are millions next to a husband’s honor? I’ll divorce her. I have no wish to live with a woman who would stoop so low as to offer me a settlement. Even to take revenge against these two—even to kill her—it would be beneath me. I am bringing this conversation to a close. Next week my lawyer will bring a case against them. I’m not meeting with anyone. I’m not coming to any agreement. I’m going to ruin her by taking her to court.”
As the lawyer scuttled through the door, Ahmet shouted after him: “And you, mister lawyer. If I ever set eyes on you again, I’ll beat you to a pulp!”
Once the lawyer was gone, he collapsed onto his leather sofa.
He buried his fat face in his fat hands.
“What a disaster! What an evil woman she is! How could I not have seen it?”
That night he wandered from bar to bar. He called women to his table. Offered them champagne. He danced. Heading home towards dawn, he took along a bar girl who was as drunk as he was.
Later that morning, when the bar girl was getting ready to leave, he threw open Celile’s closet and took out two evening gowns.
“Here,” he said, throwing them in her direction. “These belonged to a prostitute. You can wear them at the bar. They’ll look good on you. Think of them as gifts. Now take them!”
One of them was the pink tulle gown that Celile had worn on that first evening with Muhsin at the gazino.
A week later, Muhsin received a call from a lawyer.
“I wish to speak to Celile Hanımefendi’s lawyer,” the man said. “If you can find a way to bribe the courts, then the divorce can be finalized within two months.”
SIXTEEN
If Muhsin had thought that his sorrows would end once he had sole possession of Celile, he couldn’t have been more mistaken.
Ahmet’s antics had made him the talk of the town. Everywhere Muhsin went, a cloud of gossip followed him, and it was causing him great disquiet. So much so that the happiness he felt in Celile’s company was
beginning to pall.
Until now, he’d always managed to keep his personal life entirely private, and beyond reproach.
But Ahmet, with his constant prattling and his ugly antics, had tossed his private life out into the streets for all to see.
His dealings with this man had stained the Demirtaş name, until now universally respected.
A young man might be excused for embroiling himself in a scandal. But Muhsin had always followed a more cautious path. He had no wish to give his enemies and rivals the pleasure of seeing him ridiculed at this late stage.
To love Ahmet’s wife as he had. To have taken her away! This could count as a serious offense.
He should never have fallen in love with her. He shouldn’t have taken her away.
To compete for a woman with a man like Ahmet was to sink to his level.
And it was evident now just how low that level was.
So Muhsin should never have done what he’d done. But the fact was, he’d done it. So he was very much at fault.
This scandal was his penalty.
Ahmet’s wife was nothing like him. Each hour they spent together, it was harder for Muhsin to understand how she could have lived with that man for ten long years.
In the six months they’d been together, she had not made a single gesture to enlighten him.
At first he’d thought her a woman who cared only for money and what it could buy. But she had come to him leaving all her possessions behind.
Everything except the black velvet dress she was wearing that day, and a wedding ring, a jeweled watch, and a pair of worthless earrings.
Celile was not like other women. Not at all. She’d not wanted to claim a thing from her old apartment. She’d not even asked for a change of clothing.
Her old possessions had no value for her. But even the most thoughtless woman, on leaving a husband or a lover, would have thought to return his gifts!
He found her forgetfulness perplexing.
She had come to his side precisely because she had no worldly concerns. No understanding, either, of material value.
For six months now Celile had asked him for nothing.
She had lived alone in the large and well-furnished apartment he had found for her, never going out except for an occasional late-night drive, and every time Muhsin came to visit, she greeted him with the same happy countenance and calm joy.
Not a day passed at work when he was not assaulted by news about Ahmet. Arriving at Celile’s apartment, he’d be twisted up in knots. What a marvel it was to have her greet him so happily and to assume that these ugly stories had not reached her ears.
Ever dignified, she had no knowledge of the scandal now enfolding her.
She pretended not to know what people were saying about her, or rather, she took no interest in their gossip.
Amid all this ugliness, Celile called to mind a statue in a swamp.
She was every bit as elegant, as magnificent, as before. And Muhsin would come in from work seething, and she was pretending to know nothing, and saying nothing.
The circles in which he moved were accustomed to scandal.
But no man had ever behaved as badly or madly as Ahmet. No one had ever thrown this much dirty linen into the street.
Muhsin could not live in the same house as Celile. He visited her every day. But he never left his things there. Not even a toothbrush, because he genuinely feared Ahmet would contact the police and subject him to yet more ridicule by sending someone in to catch them in flagrante.
Though Celile knew of Ahmet’s threats, she remained entirely unconcerned, and never said a word about the precautions they might consider taking. This, too, shocked him.
He didn’t know this woman at all. He couldn’t read her mind and he couldn’t read her character, and in all the time they’d now spent together he had not gained a single clue.
She was so passive and so indifferent to the world that there were times when Muhsin wondered if she ever thought at all. “Is she soft in the head?” he asked himself.
If she wasn’t, then surely she would be troubled or at least unsettled by all these threats!
Seeing how nothing could unsettle her, he could not help but think that if worst came to worst and Ahmet did send in someone to catch them together, she would still not lose her calm or her confidence in him.
How many times had he wanted to say “That fool husband of yours! How could you ever have lived with such a vulgar creature?” But he never had. He did on one occasion tell Celile that Ahmet had thrown her lawyer out of his office. Nothing in those mysterious eyes of hers offered up a clue as to what she was thinking.
“Ahmet is not a bad person, Muhsin,” she said. “The poor man is just very upset. He has no idea what he’s doing right now. No idea what he’s saying.”
And at that moment, Muhsin had wanted to hit her. It infuriated him to hear her defending that boor she’d somehow taken as a husband, and he couldn’t stop himself from wondering if they’d managed to spend ten years together because they were more alike that he’d thought.
Enough alike for Celile to guess what he was likely to do.
Because Ahmet turned out not to be the sort of person who would carry out his threats.
And this was why, a week after he kicked her lawyer out of his office, when his own lawyer called Muhsin, it was to report that Ahmet had softened his position.
When this lawyer announced that Ahmet was not just willing to agree to a divorce, but also to take the fault on himself, and also pay damages, Muhsin felt deeply, if also secretly, remorseful for ever having thought so ill of the man.
Celile’s lawyer confirmed that she wanted no alimony, no recompense.
Ahmet’s fury had given way to hopelessness. Losing the will to fight, he had ceded his wife to his powerful rival.
SEVENTEEN
Celile was surprised when, half a year on, nothing in her relationship with Muhsin had changed.
Mixed in with that surprise was a gnawing anxiety, and a suspicion.
Having expected that they would by now have been living as a couple, she could not help but wonder why he had made no move in that direction.
Muhsin was still living in his old house. After the divorce was final, he’d started bringing a few of his personal effects to the apartment in Nişantaşı. Soon he was sleeping at the apartment every night.
But it was not his official residence.
The real Muhsin—the man the world knew as Muhsin Demirtaş—led his official life elsewhere.
No matter how much time he spent between these four walls, it was just one part of his life.
In the early days, Celile had been grateful to Muhsin for protecting her from Ahmet’s threats. She had seen compassion in his actions, not egotism.
But when days and weeks turned into months, she began to wonder why they had not rejoined the world as a married couple.
Muhsin had not even suggested it. Not even expressed that hope. Even though they were both free now. Why were they still living so furtively?
It wasn’t security she was after. She had simply assumed when she’d left her husband that this was how the adventure would end.
She had left Ahmet so that she could marry Muhsin. And in the beginning, she’d assumed that it had been Ahmet’s shenanigans that had kept Muhsin from making her his wife.
When Muhsin pressed so hard for the divorce, she’d interpreted it in the same way.
He’d been so desperately upset by the delays. But now the deed was done, and they were still not married. Why had he not proposed? Celile couldn’t understand it.
This was not to say she’d thought anything through before leaving her husband for Muhsin. She’d simply assumed that this was how it would be. Ahmet and she would divorce. She and Muhsin would marry and live happily ever after, in the open.
If she’d foreseen no impediments, it was because she had no inkling of how things worked in the real world. Her grandmother had made sure of that.
When her grandmother died, and her uncle took her in, she had felt in no way belittled. Then she had met Ahmet. She’d come to rely on him instead. But now she loved Muhsin, and she was living with him. She belonged to him, body and soul.
She had absolute faith in him. Whatever needed to be done, she could rely on him to know the best way forward. After all, she had been brought up to believe that women never meddled with such matters. They left that to the men. There was always a father, a brother, an uncle, or a trusted father figure to act as a wall between them and the outside world.
This was why, when she went to live with her uncle, she had not for a moment felt like a charity case. In her mind, he wasn’t being kind. He was doing his duty. Wasn’t he the oldest man in the family?
Later, when she handed herself over to Ahmet, she had done so expecting him to take care of everything for her, right up until the last minute of their marriage. Now she had handed herself over to Muhsin in the same spirit, without so much as a backward look.
She was sure that Muhsin would do the best for them both, and do so in the best possible way.
This had certainly been the case while they were waiting for the divorce.
But once the divorce was final, their arrangements no longer seemed right to her.
Muhsin was a bachelor, after all. Celile a divorced woman. What was to stop them from marrying?
Why were they still sneaking around like criminals?
Muhsin was acting as if Celile were still married, and Ahmet were still threatening to send in the police to catch them in flagrante.
He never took her out. Not by night, not by day. He didn’t want to be seen with her. His life with Celile was still secret.
You’d think he was ashamed of her! As if he didn’t want anyone to know they were together.
Why, she asked herself, was Muhsin taking so long to show her to the world?