by Orhan Pamuk
“Necip objected violently to this accusation, but the ghost refused to listen.
“ ‘It was not just the suspicion that you wished me dead that deprived me of peace in the other world,’ said the ghost. ‘It was also that you had a hand in my murder, for it was you who so treacherously shot me in the head, and here, and here, as I lay in my bed sleeping. And there was another fear, too—the fear that you acted as an agent for the enemies of the Holy Koran.’ By now Necip had given up objecting and fallen silent.
“ ‘There is only one way for you to deliver me from my suffering and restore me to heaven, and only by following this same path can you deliver yourself from suspicion in this heinous crime,’ said the ghost. ‘Find my killer, whoever he might be. In seven years and seven months, they haven’t found a single suspect. And when you’ve found whoever killed me or wanted me dead, I want to see the crime avenged. An eye for an eye. So long as that villain remains unpunished, there is no peace for me in this life, nor will there be any peace for you in the transitory realm that you still insist on calling the “real world.” ’
“Neither Necip nor Hicran could think what to say; they watched in tearful amazement as the ghost vanished from the screen.”
“And then what? What happened next?” Ka asked.
“I haven’t decided yet,” said Necip, “but if I wrote the whole story, do you think I could sell it?” When he saw Ka hesitating, he added, “Listen, every line I write comes from the bottom of my heart. They all express my deepest convictions. What does this story mean to you? What did you feel when I was reading it to you?”
“It shook me to the core, because it showed me that you believe with all your heart that this world is nothing more than a preparation for the next.”
“Yes, I do believe that,” said Necip with excitement. “It’s not enough, though. God wants us to be happy in this world too. But that’s the hardest thing.”
They fell silent as they pondered the hardest thing.
After a moment the lights came back on, but the people in the teahouse remained as silent as they had been in the darkness. And the television screen was still dark; the owner began to hit it with his fist.
“We’ve been sitting here together for twenty minutes now,” said Necip. “My friends must be dying of curiosity.”
“Who are your friends?” asked Ka. “Is one of them Fazιl? And are those your real names?”
“No, of course not. I’m using an assumed name, just like the Necip in the story. You’re not a policeman; stop interrogating me! As for Fazιl, he refuses to come to places like this,” Necip told him, turning quite mysterious. “Fazιl is the most religious person in our group, and he’s the person I trust more than anyone else in the world. But he’s worried that if he gets involved in politics, he’ll get a police file and be kicked out of school. He has an uncle in Germany who’s going to send for him, and we love each other just as much as the two boys in the story, so if someone killed me, I am certain that he would take revenge. In fact, it’s just as in the story—we’re so close that no matter how far apart we are, we can always tell what the other is doing.”
“So what’s Fazιl doing right now?”
“Hmmm,” said Necip, assuming a strange pose. “He’s in the dormitory, reading.”
“Who is Hicran?”
“That’s not a real name either. But it’s not a name she took herself, it’s a name we’ve given her. Some of us write her love letters and poems nonstop, but we’re too afraid to send them. If I had a daughter, I’d want her to be as beautiful, as intelligent, and as courageous as she is. She’s the leader of the head-scarf girls, and she’s afraid of nothing. Her mind is her own.
“To tell you the truth, in the beginning she was an infidel—this was because she was under the influence of her atheist father. She was a model in Istanbul; she’d go on television and bare her bottom and flaunt her legs. She came here to do a shampoo commercial for television. In it she was going to be walking along Ahmet Muhtar the Conqueror Avenue—the meanest, dirtiest street in Kars but also the most beautiful. Then when she stopped in front of the camera, she was to swing her magnificent waist-length brown hair like a flag and say, ‘Even in the filth of the beautiful city of Kars, my hair is still sparkling clean—thanks to Blendax.’ The commercial was going to be shown everywhere; the whole world would laugh at us.
“At that time, the head-scarf business at the Institute of Education was just getting started, and two of the girls had seen Hicran on television and also recognized her from photographs in gossip magazines that had reported on her behavior with rich kids in Istanbul. Secretly, the girls admired her, so they invited her for tea. Hicran accepted, though for her it was a big joke. She got bored with the girls almost immediately, and do you know what she said? ‘If our religion’—no, she didn’t say our religion, she said your religion—‘if your religion requires you to hide your hair, and the state forbids you to wear a head scarf, why don’t you be like so-and-so’—here she gave the name of a foreign rock star—‘and just shave your hair off and wear a nose ring? Then the whole world would stand up and take notice!’
“Our poor girls were so taken aback to hear these affronts that they couldn’t even keep from laughing with her! This made Hicran even bolder, so she said, ‘These scarves are sending you back to the Middle Ages. Why don’t you take them off and flaunt your beautiful hair?’
“And as Hicran was about to remove the scarf from the silliest girl among them, her hand froze. Suddenly, Hicran threw herself at the silly girl’s feet—this girl’s brother is one of our classmates, and he’s so stupid even the morons call him a moron—and begged the girl’s pardon. Hicran returned the next day, and the day after that, and in the end she joined them instead of going back to Istanbul. She’s one of the saints who’ll help turn the head scarf into the flag of Anatolia’s oppressed Muslim women—mark my words!”
“Then why did you say nothing about her in your story except that she was a virgin?” asked Ka. “Why didn’t Necip and Fazιl ask for her opinion before deciding to kill themselves for her sake?”
There was a tense silence, during which Necip raised his beautiful eyes, one of which, in two hours and three minutes, would be shattered by a bullet; he looked up at the dark street to watch the snow fall slowly, like a poem. Then he whispered, “There she is. It’s her!”
“Who?”
“Hicran! She’s out there in the street!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I’m Not Going to Discuss My Faith with an Atheist
A WALK THROUGH THE SNOW WITH KADIFE
She was wearing a purple raincoat, her eyes were hidden behind futuristic dark glasses, and on her head was one of those nondescript head scarves Ka had seen thousands of women wearing since childhood and which were now the symbol of political Islam. When he saw that this young woman entering the teahouse was walking directly toward him, Ka jumped to his feet as though the teacher had just entered the classroom.
“I’m Ïpek’s sister, Kadife,” said the woman, smiling faintly. “Everyone’s expecting you for dinner. My father sent me to tell you.”
“How did you know I was here?” Ka asked.
“In Kars everyone always knows about everything that’s going on,” said Kadife. She wasn’t smiling at all now. “If it’s happening in Kars, of course.”
Ka could detect some pain in her expression, but he had no idea where it came from. Necip made the introductions: “Meet my poetnovelist friend!” he said. They looked each other over but did not shake hands. Ka took it for a sign of tension. Much later, looking back on these events, he would work out that the omission was out of deference to Islamic convention. Necip turned ghostly white, looking at Kadife as if looking at a Hicran just arrived from outer space, but Kadife’s manner was so matter-of-fact that not a single man in the crowded teahouse even turned around to look at her. She wasn’t as beautiful as her sister, either.
But as he walked with her through the snow and
down Atatürk Avenue, Ka felt very happy. She was wrapped up in a scarf, and though plainer than her sister’s her face was pleasant and clean. When he looked right into her eyes, hazel like Ïpek’s, he found he was able to talk to her with great ease; this made her attractive to him, so much so that he felt as if he were betraying her older sister.
First, to Ka’s surprise, they discussed meteorology. Kadife knew everything there was to know about the subject; she rattled off the details like one of those old people who do nothing all day but listen to the radio. She told him that the low-pressure front coming down from Siberia was going to last two more days, that if this snow continued the roads would also be closed for another two days, that 160 centimeters had fallen in Sarιkamιş, and that the inhabitants of Kars no longer believed the weather reports. In fact, she said, everyone was talking about how the state, not wishing to upset the populace, routinely announced air temperatures five or six degrees higher than they actually were (no one had mentioned this to Ka). She talked about how, as children in Istanbul, she and Ïpek always wanted the snow to continue. The sight of snow made her think how beautiful and short life is and how, in spite of all their enmities, people have so very much in common; measured against eternity and the greatness of creation, the world in which they lived was narrow. That’s why snow drew people together. It was as if snow cast a veil over hatreds, greed, and wrath and made everyone feel close to one another.
They fell silent for a while. All the shops along Şehit Cengiz Topel Street were closed, and they didn’t see a soul. This walk with Kadife through the snow brought Ka as much anxiety as happiness. He locked his eyes on the lights in the window of a shop at the very end of the street, as if he was afraid that if he kept turning to look into Kadife’s face he would fall in love with her. Was he really in love with her older sister? His desire to fall madly in love had a logic to it, that much he knew. When they reached the end of the street, he stopped to look at the sign in the window of the Joyous Beer Hall, written on a piece of notepaper:
Due to tonight’s theatrical event, the honorable Zihni Sevük, candidate for the Free People’s Party, has postponed this evening’s meeting.
Through the window of the small and narrow Joyous Beer Hall, he could see Sunay Zaim, sitting at the head of a table with his entire troupe; with only twenty minutes to go before the show began, they were all drinking thirstily.
As he perused the campaign posters in the window of the beer hall, his eye fell on the yellow one announcing “HUMAN BEINGS ARE GOD’S MASTERPIECES AND SUICIDE IS BLASPHEMY,” and this prompted Ka to ask Kadife what she thought about Teslime’s suicide.
“I’m sure you know enough already to turn Teslime into a very interesting story for your friends in Germany—not to mention the Istanbul press,” she said, sounding faintly annoyed.
“I’m new to Kars,” said Ka. “Even as I come to understand how things work here, I’m beginning to think I’ll never be able to make it clear to anyone on the outside. My heart breaks to see these people’s fragile livelihoods and their needless suffering.”
“The only people who worry about needless suffering are atheists who’ve never suffered a thing,” said Kadife. “Because, after all, it takes only the tiniest discomfort for atheists to decide that they can’t bear life without faith anymore, and the next thing you know they’ve returned to the fold.”
“But Teslime’s suffering was so great that she left the fold and committed suicide,” Ka said. The drink had made him stubborn.
“Well, if Teslime did indeed kill herself, it’s possible to say she committed a terrible sin. If you turn to the twenty-ninth line of the Nisa verse of the glorious Koran, you’ll see that suicide is clearly prohibited. But the thought that she might have sinned and killed herself is nothing next to the love we feel for her; there is still a corner of our hearts where we remember her with deep love and affection.”
“So you mean to say that even if this luckless girl has committed an insult against our faith, we still love her,” Ka said, trying to lead Kadife. “We don’t believe in God with our whole hearts anymore; we no longer need to, because now, as in the West, we confirm our beliefs by reason and logic. Is this what you’re saying?”
“The Holy Koran is the word of God, and when God makes a clear and definite command, it’s not a matter for ordinary mortals to question,” Kadife said. She sounded very sure of herself. “But do not assume from this that our religion leaves no room for discussion. I will say only that I’m not going to discuss my faith with an atheist, or even a secularist. I beg your pardon.”
“You’re right.”
“And I’m not one of those Islamist toadies who go around trying to convince secularists that Islam can be a secular religion,” Kadife added. “Right again,” said Ka.
“That’s the second time you’ve said I’m right,” Kadife said, with a smile, “but I don’t think you really mean it.”
“No, you are right again,” said Ka, but he wasn’t smiling.
For a time they walked in silence. Could it be that he would fall in love with Kadife and not her sister? Ka knew only too well that he would never feel sexually attracted to a woman in a head scarf, but still he couldn’t stop flirting with this secret thought.
As they joined the crowds on Karadağ Avenue, he brought the conversation around to his poetry, and then, in an awkward aside, he mentioned that Necip was also a poet and asked whether she was aware of having quite a few admirers in the religious high school who worshiped her by the name of Hicran.
“By what name?”
Ka told her a few of the other stories he’d heard about Hicran.
“None of those stories are true,” said Kadife. “I haven’t heard any of the religious high school boys of my acquaintance telling them.” She walked a few more steps and then she said, “But I’ve heard that shampoo story before.” She smiled. In fact it wasn’t she but rather a rich and much-hated Istanbul journalist who had first suggested to the head-scarf girls that they shave their heads—and this had been said only to attract media attention in the West and make the girls look important. “There’s only one thing that’s true in these stories. The first time I went to see the head-scarf girls, I did go to make fun of them, but I was also curious. Put it like this: I went out of devilish curiosity.”
“And then what happened?”
“I came to Kars because the Institute of Education would take me, and also because my sister was here already. So in the end these girls were my classmates, and if you still don’t believe me, go visit them in their homes when they invite you. Their mothers and fathers brought them up to be as they are. So did the religious instruction they received during their state education. Then suddenly, after having been told all their lives to keep their heads covered, these girls were told, ‘The state wants you to take your scarves off.’
“As for me, I put on a head scarf one day to make a political statement. I just did it for a laugh, but it also felt frightening. Maybe it was because I remembered I was the daughter of a man who had been an enemy of the state since the beginning of time. I’m very sure I intended to wear it for only one day; it was one of those revolutionary gestures that you laugh about years later, when you’re remembering the good old days when you were political. But the state, the police, and the local press came down on me so hard I could scarcely think of it as a joke anymore—I had painted myself into a corner and couldn’t get out. They arrested us on the charge of staging a demonstration without a permit. But when they released us the next day, if I had said, ‘Forget the scarf; I never really meant it anyway,’ the whole of Kars would have spat in my face. Now I’ve come to see that God put me through all this suffering to help me find the path of truth. Once I was an atheist like you. Don’t look at me like that; you look as if you pity me.”
“I’m not looking at you like that.”
“Yes, you are. I don’t think my situation is any funnier than yours. I don’t feel superior to you, either—I want you t
o know that, too.”
“What does your father say to all this?”
“So far we’re managing. But the way things are going, I’m not sure how much longer we can—and this scares us, because we love each other very much. In the beginning, my father was proud of me; the day I went to school with my head covered, he acted as if I had found a special new form of rebellion. He stood with me in front of my mother’s old mirror with the brass frame as I tried the scarf on, and while we were still in front of the mirror, he gave me a kiss. Although we never talked about it much, this much was clear: What I was doing was worthwhile not as a defense of Islam but as a defiance of the state. He made as if to say, My daughter looks just fine like this, but deep down inside he was as scared as I was.
“I knew he was scared when they threw us in jail, and I knew he felt guilty. He insisted that the political police didn’t care about me but were still interested in him. In the old days, MİT kept files on leftists and democrats, but now they’re most interested in the Islamists; still, you can imagine why he saw it as the same old gun being turned now on his daughter.
“It was even more difficult when I began to take my stance seriously. My father went out of his way to support me at every step, but it was still difficult for him. You know how it is sometimes with old people—no matter how much noise there is in the house, no matter how much the stove clatters, no matter how loudly the wife complains about who knows what, no matter how much the door hinges creak, whatever reaches their ears it’s as if they’ve heard nothing—well, that’s my father when it comes to the head-scarf issue. If one of those girls comes to the house, he’ll sometimes play the atheist bastard, but before long he’s encouraging them to stand up to the state. And because I’ve seen to it that these girls are mature enough to stand up to him, I have meetings at home. One of them is joining us tonight; her name is Hande.