It was summer; waves of hot air blew in through the society’s windows, singeing our faces and dragging us down to the depths where, yawning, we surrendered to the good intentions of the orator. A bee buzzing overhead seemed to be drilling through several layers of steel, belying its small size with the deafening roar of several diesel engines combined—at first smothering the voice of Dr. Ramiz, and then drowning it out altogether.
The first to drop off was Lazybones Asaf Bey, in the back row. In the role of honorary director, I sat just below the speaker, my hands politely poised on my knees as I tried to hide the gaping holes in my shoes—this was supposedly how it was done in Europe (I am referring to the seat I was assigned as director, and not to the shortcomings of my shoes). For a moment it seemed as if Lazybones Asaf, his arms sliding off the chairs he’d been using as his bed, had set his sights on the nape of a woman in a monstrous hat in the seat right in front of him. But then, as his head dove below the hat and out of sight, the divine hum of a thousand angels serenaded by violins rose from the back row. At around the third page of the dream manual, the divine hum and the buzzing bee became a small bay of cool and rippling waters over which the dreams of a young poet in our group might sail, to wage alone the epic sea battles of another age: the ship’s hawsers groaned, and the cannonballs roared out in blasts of black smoke as flames spread amid the charges and the battle cries. A woman of forty in the front row took advantage of the clamor to release a dozen ducklings she seemed to have stowed in her pocket, masking herself behind their quacking. And just beyond her someone else did the same and soon the meeting hall had become a draining bathtub insatiably gobbling up air.
By the tenth page almost everyone was fast asleep with the exception of those who’d already left for home to sleep in greater comfort. Once everyone was secured in slumber, each larynx settled into its usual repertoire, its racket and rhythm offering us swift and unadulterated consolation.
Dr. Ramiz fought as hard as he possibly could against this collective mutiny. Never before had I seen the man hold his own with such fortitude. His voice sprang from his chest like the roar of a lion, blowing back the soft grass and undergrowth freshly revived by Asaf Bey’s murmurings, lashing out erratically to either side, wrestling with unseen enemies, pouncing upon them, suffocating them once he got hold, and if not strangling them, then causing them to cower in terror.
His face was drenched in sweat, and his hands flew about as if to disperse the snores assaulting him from twenty different mouths. As he struggled to open a way for himself through the clamor, his words left his lips with the sharp snap of a whip, leaping across the room like a fiery temptress and spraying to the right and left like a fireman’s hose. But how could a single man struggle with so many enemies at once—enemies so high-minded, so evasive, so adept at hunkering down and metamorphosing?
Obstacles he’d presumed obliterated bounced back to life seconds later, and once again he was forced to set his ambush in the shadows as the ducks kept up their frantic quacking, as burst water pipes hissed like cobras, as the bathtub sucked all the water in the world down its drain, as trucks ground into low gear on insurmountable inclines, and as the noisiest of trains thundered past, one after the other.
But the voice of Dr. Ramiz was ever alert and ever vigilant, quickly tackling whatever crossed its path; it carried on promising, supplicating, threatening, and changing shape, concocting patterns of speech never before heard, to announce its state of siege.
Prying open my ever-heavier eyelids, and with my hands still on my knees, I marveled at Dr. Ramiz’s industry, courage, and power.
“Furthermore it is an ill omen if a lady sees an unbridled madman in her dream. Have her repent and beg God’s forgiveness.”
A young woman in the third row, whom I hadn’t noticed earlier, awoke from a deep slumber to release a long and deep “Ohhhhh,” before stretching out in her chair. Seizing upon this first sign of hope—and his last chance for salvation—Dr. Ramiz thundered on:
“And if this lunatic is a man, and if he is in the nude, the lady in question will commit adultery. Let her husband beware . . .”
The forty-year-old woman’s neck, now a large turtledove, began to coo. The ducklings were nowhere to be seen. Unfazed by these developments, the orator carried on.
“And it is indeed a bright omen if a man finds himself in his dream among a tribe of sleeping beauties—for he is the absolute actor, so obliged to explain himself to no one.”
Availing himself of the freedom evoked by these final words, Dr. Ramiz lowered his head and fell asleep.
VIII
At the time of Pakize’s and my marriage, her thyroid gland was still healthy, and she was neither moody nor short-tempered. Knowing nothing about real life, she was happy and good-natured. Both her mother and father were still alive. Indeed not a soul could have imagined their days would soon come to an end, for they were both so healthy and full of energy. Her sisters had not yet decided to come to live with us. My older sister-in-law’s musical talents were as yet undiscovered, while the younger one had yet to convince herself that a tenacious will was all she needed to become a beauty queen. I myself had not yet resigned from the post office in Fener, at the behest of Cemal Bey (whom I knew from the Spiritualist Society), to become an employee at the Bank of Miscellaneous Affairs, where Cemal Bey sat on the board of directors and would later become general manager. Put simply, I still had a steady job, and our lives were relatively safe and secure. And I had yet to fall in love with Selma Hanımefendi.
Yes, all this had yet to happen, which is why we were reasonably happy and snug in our little home during our first year of marriage, nestled under the tranquil gaze of the Blessed One. This life was certainly very different from the one I had led with Emine. My second wife had nothing in common with my first. Pakize lacked Emine’s contentment—a gift of her calm and generous nature—and Emine’s serene beauty. But Pakize was young and happy, with her own particular way of enjoying the world; she knew how to live in a world all her own.
She loved just one thing in life: the cinema. Films did not just educate her: they also mesmerized her. So enraptured was she by the silver screen, so engulfed was she in its world of fantasy, that she could no longer distinguish between her own life and the adventures she saw in films.
One day she informed me in all earnestness that she could no longer perform a certain Spanish dance. It was a Sunday morning in the second year of our marriage. Her hair was spread across her pillow, and she was lolling about in bed, waiting for a crane to hoist her out. Standing at the window, I was considering how happy I might have been if I had married a woman who was quicker to rise in the morning and a little more eager to have breakfast. Suddenly she called out to me:
“Hayri,” she said. “You know, I think I’ve forgotten that one Spanish dance number.”
I knew Pakize liked to dance, but I’d never known her to be familiar with Spanish dancing. One could hardly expect so much from a person whose great girth made it difficult for her even to walk properly, let alone see where she was placing her feet.
“You don’t say. Which Spanish dance is that?”
“I swear to God I can’t remember. I tried it yesterday, but I just couldn’t do it. How do you forget something you knew just three days ago?”
“I didn’t know you knew a Spanish dance.”
“But how could you forget, love? Wasn’t I just dancing it the other day? You know the one you really liked, at the club? Everyone cheered; then that officer came in and . . .”
Since our marriage we’d gone nowhere but the cinema. It was only later that I realized my wife had confused herself with Jeanette MacDonald, an actress we had recently seen in a film; in fact she’d transformed herself into the woman from the film. A few days later, I found her distressed when she couldn’t find her red dressing gown or my riding jacket. She collapsed into uncontrollable weeping when her wh
ite satin gown was nowhere to be found. Another morning she threw her arms around my neck and warned me repeatedly to take care on my way to the office.
I cannot tell you how strange it was to be married to a woman who did not just occasionally fancy herself as Jeanette MacDonald or Rosalind Russell but who also took me for Charles Boyer, Clark Gable, or William Powell. One day she even mistook one of our neighbor’s daughters for Marta Eggerth. Beckoning to her from our window, she asked, “Marta, my dear, where in the world are you going dressed like that?”
In truth it was a difficult thing to deal with. Dangerous misunderstandings could crop up at any moment of the day, with one version of events contradicting the next. But there were light moments too, and some of these even proved useful. My wife, as I have already said, was blissfully content within a world of cinema and thus impervious to life’s trials. My missing buttons were no longer replaced, as it was well-known that Adolphe Menjou had at least a hundred thirty suits. She didn’t even notice when my jacket wore out at the elbows. Everything she saw in films, she saw as ours: castles, diamonds, lush gardens, and noble and courteous friends. So it made no difference to her if we had our evening meal in the kitchen or not at all. In short, she had the key to a quick getaway. But even so, it would have been impossible for me not to worry about her just a little.
What cog had come loose in her brain to keep pulling her back into that world of make believe? Was it despair that sometimes turned her into a child? There had to be more to it than that—something deeply rooted in childhood must have set the stage. After a strong southerly wind had kept me up one night, I told Pakize I was going to take a twenty-minute nap. We had planned a picnic that day, and several of our neighbors were due to come over within the hour. Pakize may have been right to warn me that I wouldn’t be able to get up again if I went back to bed, but I protested, “Oh no, I’ll be fine. You’ll see. I’ll wake up right on time.” Fifteen or twenty minutes later—well before our guests had arrived—I woke up to the blare of the radio. My wife had turned it up to full volume and was astounded that I had managed to wake up. So, just to say something, I blurted out one of the odd historical tidbits I had picked up from God knows whom: “Napoléon had the same knack for timely napping!” The moment the words left my mouth, I saw a fine sparkle in her eyes and was filled with regret. But it was too late. From that day on, Pakize would compare me to Napoléon. Though she couldn’t have had much of an idea who Napoléon was, she knew me inside out, and as the adage goes, “We may not know Joseph, but we know you perfectly well.” As we sat nibbling stuffed grape leaves under the pine trees on Heybeliada, and later as we lounged about digesting them for hours on end, she entertained us with her list of similarities: the great military commander also relished sele olives; he was an avid fan of cowboy films; he always slept on his right side; and he snored in the morning just like me. And this was just the first stage. Three or four days later, she began to look for ways in which Napoléon took after me. She went to the attic and pulled out my reserve officer uniform, which she had cleaned and pressed before hanging it first in our bedroom and then in the guest room. The following day she insisted I put it on, come what may. “You forget who you are!” she remonstrated. Oh Lord! How beautiful she was when a silly whim like this overcame her. How her fair countenance would soften . . . Then finally there was my coronation. She was so excited she could hardly wait. This was the second, or rather the third, stage. As time went on she came to believe with all her heart that she was Joséphine de Beauharnais, and so she adopted her stepchildren, believing them the fruits of her first marriage. Yes, from that day forth she took Emine’s children for her own. And suddenly I was their stepfather. Perhaps those reading these memoirs will find something to laugh about in all this, but there is no denying the confusion it brought to my life. No, there was something not quite right about Pakize. Once I had come to accept this, I began to see the woman I held so dearly in my arms—the woman with whom I shared so many responsibilities—as impaired or only half-there. It was partly Pakize’s doing that I came to obey Cemal Bey so blindly and to fall so desperately in love with Selma Hanım.
Things changed somewhat after Pakize’s mother and father passed away. And her feet finally hit the ground when my sisters-in-law came to live with us. But changes in my wife would always make themselves known in the most awkward and unexpected ways. It was now her sisters’ turn to be the axis upon which our lives revolved, with my children and me, and even Pakize, relegated to the background. Pakize took such pity on these two orphan sisters—thirty-five and twenty-eight years old—that if anyone deserved pity over time, it was us. And slowly we sank into a wretched and precarious existence that lasted until my fortuitous meeting with Halit Ayarcı. I was being lowered into a bottomless well, every moment sinking a little deeper into the darkness. But I am getting ahead of myself: first I must describe my life at the Spiritualist Society.
IX
The Spiritualist Society differed in every respect from the Society for Psychoanalysis. At our lively and unruly meetings, we found common cause in the world beyond, from which dispatches arrived almost twice a week, and our deliberations on their possible meanings were not without merit. There was, additionally, an abundance of females. Though many were mediums, at least seven or eight attended purely out of interest. I was the association’s accountant and secretary, so I got into the habit of stopping by every evening after work, to keep abreast of my paperwork; I used my free time to collect the monthly dues and update the books. It was here—in this association that every day offered up a new surprise—that I first met Cemal Bey.
I can say with authority that the likes of Cemal Bey are rarely seen in a spiritualist association. Such societies exist for those who prefer to find themselves in pleasant circumstances while engaged in the deception of their fellow man. But Cemal Bey took no pleasure in collective lying. For him, a falsehood was a weapon, a means by which to embellish his life or his own person. He had no time for inventions already in circulation. As much as he liked to think of himself as a man of broad and compassionate understanding, he wouldn’t tolerate the slightest sign of weakness, and he was quick to unmask anyone so foolish as to lie to his face. He was a spoilsport, pure and simple; this alone can explain why his political life was so short-lived.
Yet he was a frequent attendee of our meetings and séances, and whenever he lectured us, it was always with the same condescending smile. There was no doubt that his interest in certain spiritualist issues was genuine, as was the pleasure he took in discussing them. And of course he was a little bit in love with one of our members, Nevzat Hanım.
No matter how ardent his visits to the association, Cemal Bey failed to attract Nevzat Hanım’s eye. After the passing of her husband, this beautiful woman seemed to have closed her heart to love. She lived with her mother-in-law, in an apartment in Sisli, passing her days reading books on spiritualism and contacting spirits. It was a way of life that had adversely affected her health: she often complained of headaches and insomnia.
She herself was partly responsible for the insomnia, for her séances lasted long into the night, and then there was Murat. Murat was a spirit and a regular at Nevzat Hanım’s séances. He had all but set up camp in the house; when silence descended, he’d creep out to clean the windows and shake out the carpets, rearrange the furniture and put books back in their place. He could go so far as to tear up tomes Nevzat Hanım had yet to read, sometimes even arranging for their complete disappearance. It was widely known that Murat had once destroyed a rather racy novel Cemal Bey had given Nevzat Hanım the same day. And he would perform such deeds with raucous theatricality.
Another quirk of Murat’s character was his unwillingness to speak about his private life. When pressed at the séance table, he would sometimes claim to be a mathematics teacher from Adana, dead for ten years, or a soldier who had died a martyr in the Crimean War; on other occasions, he was an engineer, a man Nevzat
Hanım’s late husband, Sezai Bey, had known as a reserve officer. But his name was always the same. And whatever mortal form he adopted, this ever loyal and resourceful spirit exuded an independence of mind, a commanding air, and the promise of moral constancy; confronted, as he often was, by a question he found irritating, he had but one livid reply: “Drive such thoughts from your mind!”
Everyone knew Murat was the man of the house now that Nevzat Hanım no longer had a maid; sometimes he even opened the door for the poor woman before she found her keys in her purse. And rumor had it that he did the same for visitors. This may explain my terror each time I stood at her door, a compass in my hands, or whatever other trifle of a gift Cemal Bey had sent me over to offer her on his behalf. But for Nevzat Hanım it was quite the reverse: she was content with this strange state of affairs, and she sang the spirit’s praises. So certain was she of his constancy that she sometimes left the house without her keys. This despite the fact that she had, she once admitted to me, returned home late from a ball and found herself locked out. “What right does he have to be so jealous?” she complained on that occasion. “How can he presume to infringe upon the freedom of a woman my age?”
Some of our friends claimed to have spoken with Murat on the telephone. In the wake of this alarming news, it was perhaps inevitable that other details should come to light—and that these would vary wildly, depending on which adventurous soul happened to be telling the tale.
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