by Orhan Pamuk
“It won’t take me much time to give you a rundown of the performance,” said Sunay. They hadn’t been sitting at the table for long, but he’d already finished a glass of raki, Ka noticed. As Sunay knocked back a second, Ka could see pain and passion flicker in his eyes.
“Write this down, Mr. Journalist!” Sunay bellowed, glaring at Serdar Bey as if delivering a threat. “The headline is as follows: DEATH ONSTAGE.” He paused to think. “And then another headline right below, in smaller print: ILLUSTRIOUS ACTOR SUNAY ZAIM SHOT DEAD DURING YESTERDAY’S PERFORMANCE.”
He was speaking with an intensity Ka could not help but admire. He listened, unsmiling and utterly respectful, as Sunay continued, speaking only when Serdar Bey needed help to make sense of his words.
From time to time Sunay stopped to ponder what he’d said and clear his head with another raki, so it took him about an hour to complete the article. I was to acquire the final version from Serdar Bey during my visit to Kars four years later.
DEATH ONSTAGE
ILLUSTRIOUS ACTOR SUNAY ZAIM SHOT DEAD DURING YESTERDAY’S PERFORMANCE
YESTERDAY, WHILE APPEARING IN A HISTORIC PLAY AT THE NATIONAL THEATER, KADIFE THE HEAD-SCARF GIRL SHOCKED AUDIENCES FIRST BY BARING HER HEAD IN A MOMENT OF ENLIGHTENMENT FERVOR AND THEN BY POINTING A WEAPON AT SUNAY ZAIM, THE ACTOR PLAYING THE VILLAIN, AND FIRING. HER PERFORMANCE, BROADCAST LIVE, HAS LEFT THE PEOPLE OF KARS TREMBLING IN HORROR.
On Tuesday night, the Sunay Zaim Theater Company stunned the people of Kars with an evening of original revolutionary plays that gave way to a real-life revolution before their very eyes. Last night, during their second gala, the Sunay Zaim Players shocked us yet again. The vehicle on this occasion was an adaptation of a drama penned by Thomas Kyd, a wrongfully neglected sixteenth-century English playwright who nevertheless is said to have influenced the work of Shakespeare. Sunay Zaim, who has spent the last twenty years touring the forgotten towns of Anatolia, pacing its empty stages and bringing culture to its teahouses, brought his love of the theater to a climax in the closing scene. In a moment of excitement induced by this daring modern drama that paid homage to both French Jacobin and English Jacobean drama, Kadife, the stubborn leader of the head-scarf girls, brashly bared her head for all to see and, as the people of Kars watched in amazement, she then produced a gun, the contents of which she proceeded to empty into Sunay Zaim, the illustrious actor who was playing the villain and whose name, like Kyd’s, has languished in the shadows for too long. This real-life drama reminded onlookers of the performance two days earlier, in which the bullets flying across the stage turned out to be real, and so it was in the horrified knowledge that these also were real bullets that the people of Kars watched Sunay fall. The death of the great Turkish actor Sunay Zaim was for the audience more shattering than life itself. Although the people of Kars were fully aware that the play was about a person liberating herself from tradition and religious oppression, they were still unable to accept that Sunay Zaim was really dying, even as bullets pierced his body and blood gushed from his wounds. But they had no trouble understanding the actor’s last words, and never will they forget that he sacrificed his life for Art.
When Sunay had made his last corrections, Serdar read out the final draft to the assembled guests. “If this meets with your approval, I shall print it word for word in tomorrow’s edition,” he said. “But in all my years of writing news before it’s happened, this is the first time I’ll be praying that an article doesn’t come true! You’re not really going to die, sir, are you?”
“What I am trying to do is push the truths of Art to their outer limits, to become one with Myth,” said Sunay. “Anyway, once the snow melts tomorrow and the roads open again, my death will cease to be of the slightest importance.”
For a moment Sunay’s eye caught Funda’s. Seeing how deeply these two understood each other, Ka felt a pang of jealousy. Would he and Ïpek ever learn to share their souls like this or enjoy such deep happiness?
“Mr. Newspaperman, the time has come for you to leave, dear sir; our work is done, so please prepare the presses,” said Sunay. “In view of the historical importance of this edition, I shall see to it that my orderly provides you with a plate of my photograph.” As soon as Serdar Bey had left, Sunay dropped the mocking tone that Ka had attributed to too much raki. “I accept Blue’s and Kadife’s conditions,” he said. He then turned to Funda Eser, whose eyebrows rose as he explained that Kadife was willing to bare her head onstage only if they would release Blue first.
“Kadife Hanιm is a very brave woman. I am sure we’ll come to an understanding once we start rehearsals,” said Funda Eser.
“You can go to her together,” said Sunay. “But first Kadife must be convinced that Blue has been released and that no one has followed him to his hiding place. This will take time.”
Thus ignoring Funda Eser’s desire to launch immediately into rehearsals with Kadife, Sunay turned to Ka to discuss how best to organize Blue’s release. My sense from studying his notes of this meeting is that Ka was still taking Sunay’s promises at face value. In other words, Ka did not think Sunay would have Blue followed to a hiding place after his release and recaptured once Kadife had bared her head onstage. It is likely that this concealed plan emerged slowly, and that its masterminds were in fact the secret police, still planting microphones everywhere and struggling to decipher the intelligence furnished by their double agents in the hopes of staying one step ahead of everyone.
Perhaps they were even manipulating Colonel Osman Nuri Çolak to their own advantage. The secret police knew they were outnumbered—as long as Sunay, the disgruntled colonel, and his small gang of like-minded officers were in control of the army, there was no chance of MİT taking charge of the revolution—but nevertheless they had men everywhere doing everything in their power to keep Sunay’s “artistic” lunacies in check. Before the article he’d written out at the raki table went to be typeset, Serdar Bey had used his walkie-talkie to read it out to his friends at the Kars branch of MİT, causing great consternation and not a little concern about Sunay’s mental health and stability. As for Sunay’s actual plan to release Blue, until the very last moment it was generally unknown how much MİT knew.
Today I would say that these details have little bearing on the end of our story, so I shall not dwell overmuch on the minutiae of the plan to release Blue. Suffice it to say that Sunay and Ka decided to leave the job to Fazιl and Sunay’s Sivas-born orderly. Sunay dispatched an army truck the moment he got Fazιl’s address from the secret police: Ten minutes later, they’d brought him in. This time there was fear in his face and he no longer reminded Ka of Necip. It was quickly decided that he and the orderly should head for the army garrison in the city center; they immediately left the tailor shop by the back door, shaking off the detectives who’d been following them. For while the MİT people by now had grave doubts about Sunay and were eager to keep him from doing any mischief, they were caught so unprepared by the speed of events that they still hadn’t posted a guard at every exit.
So the plan moved forward, and Sunay’s assurances that there would be no double cross were not contradicted: Blue was removed from his cell and put into an army truck, and the Sivas-born orderly drove straight to the Iron Bridge over the Kars River. With the truck parked on the near bank, Blue followed faithfully the instructions he’d been given; he made straight for a grocery store, its windows plastered with posters featuring special deals on garlic sausages; he then slipped out the back, where a horse-drawn carriage was waiting. Taking cover under the tarpaulin and making himself comfortable among the Aygaz canisters, he was whisked off to a safe house. Ka would hear of all this only after the fact. The sole person who knew where the horse-drawn carriage had taken Blue was Fazιl.
It was an hour and a half before this business was concluded. At about half past three, as the oleander and chestnut trees were losing their shadows, disappearing like ghosts, giving way to the first shades of darkness to descend on the e
mpty streets of Kars, Fazιl came to tell Kadife that Blue had reached his hiding place. From the door leading from the courtyard to the kitchen, he stared at Kadife as if having just come in from outer space, but Kadife, just as she’d always failed to notice Necip, took no note of Fazιl. Instead she ran upstairs joyfully. Ïpek was just leaving Ka’s room, where she’d been for over an hour. It had been an hour of undiluted bliss, and my dear friend’s heart was soaring as never before at the prospect of his future happiness—as I shall undertake to explain in the opening pages of the next chapter.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The Only Script We Have This Evening Is Kadife’s Hair
PREPARATIONS FOR THE PLAY TO END ALL PLAYS
As I have already mentioned, Ka had always shied away from happiness for fear of the pain that might follow, so we already know that his most intense emotions came not when he was happy but when he was beset by the certainty that this happiness would soon be lost to him. When he rose from Sunay’s raki table and returned to the Snow Palace Hotel with his two army bodyguards, Ka still believed that everything was going according to plan, and the prospect of seeing Ïpek again filled his heart with joy, even as the fear of loss was fast overtaking him.
When my friend later alluded to the poem he wrote on Thursday afternoon around three o’clock, he made it clear that his soul was vacillating between these two antipodes, so I feel it my duty to pass on what he said. The poem, to which Ka gave the title “Dog,” seems to have been inspired by another chance encounter with the charcoal-colored stray, this time on his way back from the tailor shop. Four minutes later, he was up in his room writing out this poem, and great as his hopes for happiness might have been at the time, the fear of loss was now spreading through his body like poison: Love equaled pain. The poem refers to his great fear of dogs as a child, to the strays that would bark at him in Maçka Park when he was six, and to a cruel neighbor who was always letting out his dog to chase passersby. Later in life, Ka had come to see his fear of dogs as punishment for his many hours of childhood bliss. But he felt a paradox underlying all this: Heaven and hell were in the same place. In those same streets he had played soccer, gathered mulberries, and collected those player trading cards you got with chewing gum; it was precisely because the dogs turned the scene of these childish joys into a living hell that he felt the joys so keenly.
Seven or eight minutes after hearing of his return to the hotel, Ïpek went up to his room. Considering that she could not have been certain of his actual return, and bearing in mind that Ka had sent her no message, it was a very modest delay; for the first time ever, they managed to meet without Ka’s having read any dark motives into her tardiness, much less the conclusion that she’d abandoned him. The achievement made Ka even happier. What’s more, Ïpek’s face was also radiating happiness. Ka confirmed that everything was going to plan, and she did likewise. She asked about Blue, and Ka told her his release was imminent. Ïpek lit up at this news, just as she had done when he told her all the other things. It was not enough to be convinced that their own fortunes were still on course; they had to believe all the misery around them had been extinguished to keep a shadow from falling over their own happiness.
Despite incessant embraces and impatient kisses, they refrained from getting back into bed to make love. Ka told Ïpek that once they were in Istanbul he’d be able to get her a German visa in a day; he had a friend at the consulate. They’d need to marry right away to qualify, but they could always have a proper ceremony and celebration later if they wished. They discussed the possibility of Kadife’s and Turgut Bey’s joining them in Frankfurt once their own affairs in Kars were settled, with Ka even mentioning the names of some hotels where they might stay; and now their heads were so dizzy with wild dreams that they were even a bit ashamed of themselves. Ïpek changed the tone to tell Ka about her father’s anxieties, particularly his fear of suicide bombers, and she warned him that on no account was he to go out into the street again. Then, promising each other that they would leave the city on the first bus once the snow melted, they spent a long time standing at the window, hand in hand, gazing at the icy mountain roads.
Ïpek said she’d already started packing. Ka told her not to take anything, but Ïpek had quite a few treasures she’d been carrying around with her since childhood, things so much a part of her that she couldn’t imagine life without them. Still in front of the window, they saw the dog that had inspired Ka’s poem dash in and out of sight, and Ka took stock of those things Ïpek insisted she couldn’t leave behind: a wristwatch her mother had given her when Ïpek was a child in Istanbul, all the more precious now that Kadife had lost the one given her on the same day; an ice-blue angora sweater that her late uncle had brought her from Germany, a garment of high quality but so tight-fitting she’d never been able to wear it in Kars; a tablecloth from her trousseau, embroidered by her mother with silver filigree, that Muhtar had stained with marmalade on the very first use—which explained why there hadn’t been a second; seventeen miniature perfume and alcohol bottles holding the collection of evil eyes that she’d started for no particular reason many years ago and now saw as bringing her good luck; photographs of herself as a child on her parents’ laps (the moment she mentioned these, Ka wanted to see them); the beautiful black velvet evening dress Muhtar had bought her in Istanbul, its back so low he had only allowed her to wear it at home; the embroidered silk satin shawl she’d bought to conceal the plunging neckline, in the hope of one day inducing Muhtar to change his mind; the suede shoes never worn for fear the Kars mud would ruin them; the jade necklace that she was able to show him because she happened to have it with her.
If I say now that I saw the same great jade stone hanging on a black silk cord around Ïpek’s neck exactly four years later, as she sat across from me at a dinner hosted by the mayor of Kars, I hope my readers won’t accuse me of having strayed too far from the subject. To the contrary, we are now approaching the heart of the matter: For until that moment I could have said I had seen nothing for which I had been prepared so utterly, and so it must be for all of you following the story I have related in this book: Ïpek was more beautiful than anyone could have imagined. At this dinner, where I had my first glimpse of her, I must confess to have found myself stunned, bedazzled, and deeply jealous. And as this passion overtook me, my dear friend’s lost poetry collection, which mystery I’d been trying to unravel, turned into a story of a very different order. It was at this astounding moment that I must have decided to write the book now in your hands, but at the time my soul remained entirely unaware of the decision. I was beset by all manner of those feelings that women of exceptional beauty never fail to inspire; gazing at this paragon before me, I felt myself crumbling, I felt possessed. When I think back now to the transparent maneuvers of the other Kars residents at that same table—ploys I’d foolishly ascribed to the aim of exchanging a few words with this novelist who had come to town, or of collecting a few tidbits for the next day’s gossip—it is clear to me that all their palaver served a single purpose: to draw a veil over Ïpek’s beauty, concealing it not just from me but from themselves. A terrible jealousy was gnawing at me that I feared might turn to love: For a while, just like my dear friend Ka, I too dreamed that I might enjoy the affections of a woman this beautiful. For a moment, I let myself forget my sadness at how Ka’s life had come to nothing in the end and found myself thinking admiringly, Only a man with a soul as deep as his could have won the heart of a woman like this! Did I myself have the slightest chance of beguiling Ïpek and whisking her off with me to Istanbul? I would have proposed to her on the spot or, if she wished, kept her as my secret mistress until the day it all fell apart, but by whatever path I wanted to end beside her! She had a wide, commanding forehead, moist eyes, elegant lips so much like the film star Melinda’s I could hardly trust myself to look at them. What, I wondered, did she think of me? Had I ever come up in conversation between her and Ka? Even without another sip of raki, my head was swimming,
my heart pounding. Then I noticed Kadife, sitting just a few places away and lancing me with fierce looks. I must return to my story.
As they stood before the window, Ka picked up the jade necklace, draped it around Ïpek’s neck, and, giving her a tender kiss, carelessly recited the words fast becoming an incantation: They would be happy in Germany. Just then Ïpek saw Fazιl dart into the courtyard; she waited a moment and went downstairs, where she found Kadife standing alone at the kitchen door; it was here she must have heard the good news about Blue’s release. The two girls bounded up to their room. I have no idea what they talked about or did. Ka was still in his own room, his heart so full of his new poems and his new faith in love that, for the first time, the part of his mind that had kept track—sometimes meticulously, sometimes fancifully—of their every movement through the Snow Palace Hotel was now at rest, and he let them go.
As I would later discover, it was at about this time that the weather bureau announced the first clear signs of a thaw. The sun had been shining all day, and now the icicles dangling from the trees and eaves had begun to drip and then drop. The rumors started long before any meteorological development now spread throughout the city: The roads were sure to open tonight and the theater coup would come to an end. Those who remembered the evening’s events in detail would tell me that it was just following the weather report that Kars Border Television ran the first announcement of the new play that the Sunay Zaim Players would be performing that evening at the National Theater. It was Hakan Özge, the city’s favorite young announcer, who advised the people of Kars that the bloody events two days earlier were no cause for concern and in any case no excuse for nonattendance; security forces would be flanking the stage, and as the event was free to the general public, the people of Kars should feel welcome to bring the entire family. The effect of these assurances was to fan popular fears and empty the streets earlier than usual. Everyone was sure of yet another evening of violence and madness at the National Theater, so—apart from the usual assortment of wild-eyed ne’er-do-wells prepared to attend virtually anything just to say they did (their not inconsiderable ranks comprising aimless unemployed youths, bored leftists with a penchant for violence, elderly denture wearers so desperate for entertainment it little mattered to them if anyone got killed in the process, and staunch Kemalists who’d seen Sunay on television and admired his republican views)—most Kars residents decided they would stay home and watch the live broadcast on TV. Meanwhile Sunay and Colonel Osman Nuri Çolak met again; fearing that the National Theater would be empty, they sent out the army trucks to gather up all the religious high school boys and let it be known that every student at every lycée, every resident teacher, and every government official in the city was required to report to the performance in coat and tie.