by Orhan Pamuk
“Metin, we’re talking to you!” Nilgün shouted.
“I didn’t see your notebook!”
Downstairs, Ismail had lit up another cigarette. I sat down to have my breakfast with the bread he’d left. Ismail and I didn’t talk; we were just looking out the open door, at the garden and the patch of earth where the sparrows walked about. The sun was shining in, burning our helpless hands.
“When are they going to draw the lottery, Ismail?”
“They did it last night!” he said. We heard a long roar. Nevzat’s motorcycle passing by. Then he said, “I should go.”
“Stay,” I said. “Where are you going? When they leave we can talk.” He sat down. I went upstairs.
Faruk Bey had finished his breakfast and was smoking a cigarette. “Be nice to Grandmother now, Recep! We’ll give you a call every now and then. And we’ll come out again for sure before the end of the summer.”
“You are always welcome.”
“And if, God forbid, something should happen, be sure to call. If you need anything … But you’re not used to using the phone, are you?”
“You’re going to the hospital first, aren’t you?” I said. “Before you go, let me give you another tea.”
When I carried up the tea from downstairs, Nilgün and Faruk were chattering away again.
“Did I tell you about the deck of cards theory?” Faruk was saying.
“You did,” said Nilgün. “You also said that your head was like a walnut and that if somebody cracked it open they would see the worms of history crawling around in its folds. Remember, I said that it was crazy. But still I think your stories are entertaining.”
“That’s just it. Stories are good for a laugh but not much else.”
“That’s not true at all,” said Nilgün. “Everything has its cause and effect. Even what happened to me didn’t happen for nothing.”
“But wars, riots, plunder, rapes?”
“None of them happens by chance.”
“Swindlers, plagues, merchants, disputes …”
“You know as well as I do that each of them has a reason.”
“Do I?” Faruk asked. “Seems to me they just make for better or worse yarns and nothing more!”
“I’m feeling a little nauseated,” said Nilgün.
“Let’s go now,” said Metin.
“Why don’t you stay here, Metin?” said Faruk. “You were going swimming. What’ll you do in Istanbul? Why not stay?”
“Because while you two don’t give any thought to where money comes from, I’ve got to earn some!” said Metin. “I’ll be tutoring kids at my aunt’s house all summer long, for two hundred fifty liras an hour. Okay?”
“You frighten me sometimes,” said Faruk.
I went down to the kitchen, trying to think of something that would settle Nilgün’s stomach. Ismail stood up. “I’m going,” he said. “Hasan will come home eventually, won’t he, Recep?”
I considered that question for a moment before saying, “He will come! Wherever he goes, he’ll come back, but don’t leave yet, Ismail, sit down!”
He didn’t sit down. “What are they saying upstairs?” he said. “Should I go up and apologize?”
That took me by surprise, and I thought about it. I started to say, Sit, Ismail, don’t go, when I heard a familiar noise from upstairs. Madam’s cane pounding on the floor. “Do you remember that?”
We stopped for a moment and looked up. Then Ismail sat down. She rapped a few times on the floor, as though it were Ismail’s head. Then we heard that faint, weak, but tireless old voice.
“Recep, Recep, what’s going on down there?”
I went upstairs.
“There’s nothing wrong, Madam. They’re coming upstairs now,” I said as I was leading her back to her bed. I wondered whether I should take the bags down to the car now and save some time. Finally I grabbed Nilgün’s suitcase and slowly carried it down. I thought that seeing me she might ask why I had brought it down so soon, but at the sight of her stretched out on the couch I realized I had forgotten about her upset stomach. I was blaming myself for not remembering the one thing I meant not to forget, when suddenly she started throwing up. I froze with the suitcase still in my hand as Metin and Faruk just stared in astonishment. Then, without making a sound, Nilgün turned her head to one side: when I saw what was coming out of her mouth I thought of eggs, I don’t know why. I ran back down to the kitchen to find something to soothe her stomach. I was thinking, It’s because, like a fool, I didn’t give her milk this morning, it’s my fault. Then I found myself gazing foolishly at Ismail, who was saying something, until I remembered what was going on above and ran back there. When I got upstairs again, Nilgün was dead. They didn’t say that she had died; I realized it when I saw her, but I didn’t say the word either. We all looked guiltily at her green face and her slack, darkened mouth, her face like that of a young girl who was just trying to relax after we had inconsiderately worn her out. Ten minutes later, Kemal Bey’s pharmacist wife, whom Metin had gone to get in the car, said the word. And she said two others, “cerebral hemorrhage,” which sounded final. Still, for a long time we stared at Nilgün with hope, thinking she might yet get up and start walking.
31
Hasan Goes His Way
I lifted the empty paint can and waited silently for the hedgehog to poke his stupid nose out from inside his spines so I could have a little fun. But he didn’t do it. Must have got wise to me. After I’d waited a little longer, I got bored, so I carefully picked up the hedgehog by one of his spines and held him up in the air. When I suddenly let go, he plopped to the ground on his back, helpless. Feeling the pain now, huh? This dumb animal is really pathetic, I feel sorry for you, hedgehog, but I’ve had enough of you.
It was seven thirty, I’d been hiding here all day, with no entertainment for six hours but this hedgehog I found in the middle of the night. My mother and I would always know them right away from the rustling noise they made, and when you lit a match in front of its eyes in the darkness, it would get startled and freeze there, the fool! You could put a pail over it and keep it captive until morning. They had mostly disappeared now, just this one was left: the last startled hedgehog! But I’ve had enough of you. As I was lighting a cigarette I thought I might set it on fire, not just the hedgehog, but everything around here, the cherry orchards, the last of the olive trees, everything. It would be a proper farewell to all of you, but I thought, It’s not worth it. I turned the hedgehog upright with my foot. Go on, do whatever you want. I’m just going to go off now with my cigarette, trying to forget how hungry I am.
First, let me gather my stuff together, I said. I’d set down my cigarette pack with seven cigarettes left in it, along with the two combs, my matches, and the paint can next to the stupid hedgehog, but I held on to Faruk’s notebook just for a look, because even if it was of no use to me, they wouldn’t be so suspicious of somebody carrying a notebook, assuming of course they thought it was even worth it to come after me. Before leaving, I said, Let me take one last look at this old spot of mine between the almond and the fig trees, I used to come here when I was little, too, when I was bored at home, bored with everything. I looked for the last time, and I was off.
After I’d crossed the goat path, I said, This time let me take a look from far away at my house and the neighborhood down below. Fine, Dad, good-bye, on the day I come back in triumph—anyway, who knows, you might have read about it in the papers—you’ll understand then how wrongly you treated me; I’m not meant to be a simple barber. Good-bye, Mom: maybe the first thing I’ll do is free you from that stingy lottery dealer. Then I looked at the rich, meaningless walls and roofs of those houses of sinners. I can’t see your house from here, Nilgün; anyway, you’ve probably already called the police; good-bye, for now.
I didn’t mean to stop at the cemetery, my path just took me that way, and as I passed through among the tombstones, I was reading one, when I noticed their names: GÜL and DOĞAN and SELHATTIN
DARVINOĞLU, it said, MAY THEY REST IN PEACE. And suddenly I felt, for some reason, very alone, guilty, and hopeless; I walked on quickly, afraid I might start to cry.
Worried somebody might see, that some jerk would point me out or turn me in or something, I didn’t take the highway on which they race back to Istanbul on Monday morning to cheat one another; instead I went through the orchards and fields. The crows, gathered in the branches of the sweet cherry and the morello trees, made a guilty exit and flew away as I approached. Dad, did you know that even Atatürk and his sister chased away crows once? Last night I screwed up my courage and went to see what was going on at our house; when I looked in the window, all the lamps were lit and nobody was running around saying, Turn them off, it’s a sin, and my father was sitting there with his head in his hands so you couldn’t tell whether he was crying or muttering to himself. I said to myself, Somebody must have told them what happened, maybe the gendarmes came. When the image of my father like that appeared before my eyes again, I felt sorry for him, I almost began to feel guilty.
I didn’t go by the lower neighborhood, because there was a pack of worthless bums hanging out there, watching everybody pass, trying to figure out what they were up to. I went off the paved road, right where Metin’s car got stuck last night, and straight down through the vegetable gardens. When I reached the train track, I walked the length of the Agricultural School toward the station. If it had been up to my father and if the entrance exam hadn’t asked questions about stuff we were never taught, I would have been put in this Agricultural School, because it was close to home, and I would have graduated next year with a gardener’s diploma. But when you have a diploma, they don’t call you a gardener, they say, “civil servant,” yes, a civil servant, because you wear a tie, but, if you ask me, you’re just a gardener wearing a tie. They have classes in the summer too. You see them when the bell rings, running over to kiss the teacher’s ass so they can show you in a laboratory what a tomato seed looks like. Pathetic zit faces! Anyway, seeing them, I was really glad that girl crossed my path, because if she hadn’t brought all this upon me, I might have been willing to become a gardener with a tie or a barber with his own shop. Of course to get to be a barber from being an apprentice, I’d have to spend at least ten years smelling not just my father’s breath but the barber’s as well. These things took time!
In front of the cable factory, a bunch of workers were waiting together by the red-and-white guardrail that went up and down so that cars couldn’t cross when the train was passing, except they didn’t enter that way but quietly through the little side door, punching in at the guard shack, where the watchmen looked them over like prison inmates. The factory was completely surrounded by barbed wire. Yes, what they called a modern factory was basically a prison, and for the pleasure of the machines, the lives of the poor slaves were consumed from eight in the morning until five in the evening. If my father had only had a connection, he would have instantly forgotten about my studies and gotten me a place among these workers, and while I fretted about spending all my years in this prison at some machine, he would have been happy, telling himself “My son is set for life.”
I looked at some empty barrels on which our guys had written what we do to Communists. Then I watched some freight that a crane was lifting from a ship at the factory’s dock. What a huge load! Its movements in the air were so strange! Who knew where this ship would go now, once it had delivered its cargo. I wanted to watch the ship a bit longer, but then, seeing the workers coming from across the way, I didn’t want them to think I was some kind of worthless bum. Just because these guys had some connection by which to get themselves a job, I couldn’t have them thinking they were better than me. Anyway, there wasn’t much difference between us; their hair was combed and their clothes were clean. If I didn’t have mud on my sneakers you wouldn’t even know that I was out of a job.
I had forgotten about the fountain here. First, I had a really good drink of water, which hurt my empty stomach, but still it was good. Then I managed to clean my sneakers, and as I was getting the red mud of this godforsaken place, the disgusting filth of the past, off my feet, somebody came by.
“Could I get in and have a drink there, brother?” he said.
I stepped back. He must have been a worker, considering he was wearing a jacket in this heat. He took it off, folded it neatly, and laid it to the side. Then instead of drinking water, he started to flush out his nose and gargle. I got it: if you were really smart, you could not only find a job, but you could take somebody’s turn by asking if you could have a drink and then wash your snot out. I wondered if he had graduated from middle school. I could see a wallet in the pocket of his jacket. While he was still blowing his nose, I got mad, so I grabbed the wallet out of his jacket and stuck it in my back pocket. I had it tucked away, and he was still blowing his nose. A little later, just to make me feel good, he pretended to take a sip of water.
“Okay, buddy, that’s enough,” I said. “I have work to do, too.”
He stepped back. Then he said, “Thanks!” out of breath. He took his jacket and put it on. He didn’t notice anything amiss. As I calmly washed off my sneakers he went off toward the factory. I didn’t even watch him go. By the time I had removed most of the mud he was gone from sight. I went off quickly in the other direction, straight toward the station. The crickets had started up on account of the heat. A train came in behind me, people packed like sardines, heading to work on Monday morning, and they stared at me as it passed by. I figured I’d let this one go by and wait for the next one.
I walked the station platform with the notebook in my hand, trying to seem lost in thought like everybody else with something to do. I didn’t even look at the two gendarmes on patrol. I headed straight to the snack bar.
“Three cheese toasts!” I said.
A hand reached out into the window and took three pieces of yellow cheese that were hanging there and put them into rolls. They hang the cheese slices in the window like that so you think that the sandwiches have a lot of cheese in them. You’re very clever, aren’t you, and because you think you’re smarter than I am, you think you’ve got it made. But what if I’m not the idiot you think I am; what if I’m smarter than you are, and I mess up your little schemes. Then I had an idea.
“Let me have a razor blade and some glue,” I said, laying one hundred liras on the marble countertop of the snack bar.
I picked up the change and my purchases and left. Again, I didn’t look at the gendarmes. The restrooms in these stations are at the end of the platform. They smelled like shit. I fastened the latch on the door from the inside and proceeded to go through the wallet I’d put in my back pocket. Our clever worker had one one-thousand-lira bill, two five hundreds, and so, together with the change, that made two thousand five liras. In the other compartment of the wallet there was identification, as I expected—a social security card. Given name: Ibrahim. Family name: Sener. Father’s name: Fevzi. Mother’s name: Kamer, Trabzon, Sürmene, etc. Perfect. I read all of it a few times and memorized it. Then I took out my student ID and, leaning against the wall, carefully cut out my picture with the razor. With the edge of my fingernail I scraped off the cardboard backing from the picture. Then I took Ibrahim Sener’s picture off the social security card, and when I’d glued my picture in its place, I became Ibrahim Sener. So far it was easy. I put Ibrahim Sener’s social security card back in the wallet and put the wallet in my pocket. Then I left the restroom and walked back to the snack stand.
My toasts were ready. I ate with pleasure, since I had put nothing in my stomach for a whole day except for cherries and unripe garden tomatoes. I drank an ayran, too, and looked to see what else I could eat, since my pocket was full of money. There were cookies, chocolate, but none of it caught my eye. So I asked for another toast and told him I wanted it well done, but the guy didn’t say anything. Leaning against the counter, I turned a little toward the station, I felt good, not worried about anything. Only once did I turn
toward the fountain to see if anyone was coming along the train tracks, but there was nobody. He thought he was so smart, our clever worker, but he still hadn’t figured out that I had made off with his wallet. Maybe he did realize it was gone but couldn’t imagine that I would have taken it. When my toast was ready, I asked for a newspaper.
“Hürriyet.”
They had put a bench there, so I sat down without attracting anyone’s attention and read while I ate my sandwich.
First, I looked to see how many people had been killed yesterday. In Kars, in Izmir, in Antalya, in Balgat, in Ankara … I skipped over Istanbul and looked at the end. We’d lost twelve, they’d lost sixteen people. Then I looked at the ones from Istanbul, nothing there, not even the name of Izmit. Then, anxiously, I looked at the section I was really afraid of; I read quickly, but there was no Nilgün Darvinoğlu among the injured. I read through all the names again, but in fact she wasn’t there. Maybe this newspaper missed her, I thought, so I went and got a Milliyet. She wasn’t among their list of injured either. Anyway, they listed the injured, but not usually the ones who did it. It’s not important: if I’d wanted to see my name in the newspaper, I would have become either a prostitute or a football player.
Then I absentmindedly folded up the newspapers, went inside, over to the ticket booth; I knew right away where I was going.
“One for Üsküdar,” I said.
“The train doesn’t go to Üsküdar!” said the obnoxious ticket agent. “The last stop is Haydarpasha.”
“I know, I know!” I said. “Give me a Haydarpasha.”
He still didn’t give me the ticket. Goddamn you. This time:
“Regular or student?” he said.
“I’m not a student anymore!” I said. “My name is Ibrahim Sener.”
“What do I care what your name is!” he said, but he must have got scared when he saw my face, because he shut up and gave me the ticket.