That day also brought my first intimation that Feridun and Papatya might be in love, or at least involved in a serious relationship, though I wasn’t absolutely certain. Whenever journalists were around, all stars and starlets made as if they were conducting secret love affairs. Or was there perhaps something about the gaze of magazine journalists that was so suggestive of sin, guilt, and the forbidden as to compel actors and filmmakers to transgress? When they started taking pictures, I kept my distance, and as scarcely a week went by without Füsun picking up a copy of Ses or Hafta Sonu, which gave so much coverage of film news, I predicted that she would soon be reading something about Feridun and Papatya. Papatya might just as likely imply that she was having an affair with her leading man, Tahir Tan, or even with me-the producer! Anyway there was no need for independent insinuations: Magazine and film page editors having decided what version would sell best would invent an intrigue, embroider it, and gleefully write it up. Sometimes they would propose their false story to the actors openly, and the actors would gamely help them by providing a suitable “intimate pose.”
I was glad to have kept Füsun away from the sordid ambience of such people, but at the same time it saddened me somehow that she would be deprived of the excitement of working on the set, which she craved almost as much as fame. And because, in fact, after a woman had played many variations on the fallen woman, in films and in real life-for audiences, the two were one, after all-after life had knocked her about a bit, a famous film star could settle down to play respectable matriarchs and conduct the rest of her career like a lady. Could Füsun have been dreaming of some such course? If so, would she first need to find herself a sugar daddy from the underworld or some equally tough, moneyed adventurer inclined to that sort of liaison? The moment such men began affairs with stars, they would prohibit them from all kissing in films, and likewise from exposing too much skin. Lest readers and visitors in future centuries misunderstand, let me clarify that by “exposing” I mean the baring of their shoulders and lower legs. Once a sugar daddy took a star under his wing, he also imposed an immediate ban on all rude, degrading, or snide news pieces about her. Once a younger reporter was shot in the knees because, unaware of the ban, he wrote a story about a large-breasted star then under such august protection, claiming that when still young enough to be a schoolgirl, she had worked as a dancer and had been the mistress of a famous industrialist.
It was painful to remember that, less than ten minutes from the Peri Cinema, Füsun was sitting idle at home in Çukurcuma, even as I enjoyed watching the filming, which would go on all day, right up until the curfew. It alarmed me to think that if my place at the Keskins’ table remained empty, Füsun would infer I preferred being in the film world to an evening in her company. So in the evenings, after leaving the Peri Cinema, I would walk down the cobblestone hill to the Keskins’ house, urged on by guilt and the promise of happiness. Füsun would be mine in the end, I reasoned; I’d done well to keep her out of films.
Sometimes it would occur to me that ours was a companionship of knowing shared defeat: This made me even happier than love did. Whenever I felt this, everything-the shafts of evening sun on the city streets; the odor of dust, age, and mildew wafting from the old Greek apartment buildings; the vendors selling fried liver and pilaf with chickpeas; the football bouncing between the boys playing on the cobblestones; and the mock applause when I recovered a strong ball for them on my way down to the Keskin house-everything in the world made me happy.
In those days, everyone in the city-whether on the film set or in the hallways of Satsat, at the coffeehouses or at the Keskins’ dinner table-was talking about the exorbitant interest rates being offered by opportunists setting themselves up as “bankers.” With the inflation rate nearing 100 percent, everyone wanted to invest his money somewhere. Just before we sat down to eat, Tarık Bey told me that at the neighborhood coffeehouse he visited on occasion, there were a few who had bought gold at the Covered Bazaar, and others who had deposited their savings with bankers promising as much as 150 percent interest, but that everyone else was selling their gold and closing their bank accounts; gingerly, uneasily he sought out my counsel as a businessman.
What with the filming and the curfew, Feridun was seldom home, and he gave Füsun none of the money I’d put into Lemon Films. It was around this time (about a month earlier I’d taken away an old deck of cards belonging to Tarık Bey, scarcely concealing my action) that I stopped replacing the things I took and instead began to leave money.
I knew that Füsun read her fortune with those cards to pass the time. When Tarık Bey played bezique with Aunt Nesibe, he used a different deck, as did Aunt Nesibe when, once in a blue moon, she played cards with a guest (poker with peas, or even seven jacks). A number of cards in the deck I “stole” were dog-eared, and their backs were stained; some of the cards were even bent and broken. Füsun was amused to admit that because she could recognize some of these cards by their marks and stains, she could make her fortune come up according to her wishes. I’d sniffed the deck, breathing in the mixture of perfume, mildew, and dust particular to old cards, picking up the scent of Füsun’s hand. The deck and its scent made my head spin, and as Aunt Nesibe had noticed my interest, I slipped it into my pocket in plain view.
“My mother tries to read her fortune, but it never works out,” I said. “This deck seems to offer more favorable results. Once she gets to know the stains and creases, perhaps my mother will have better luck. She’s been very low lately.”
“Please send my best regards to Sister Vecihe,” said Aunt Nesibe.
After I’d promised to buy a new deck from Alaaddin’s shop in Nişantaşı, she spent a good while insisting that I “should not go to all that trouble.” When I insisted, she did allow that a certain new set had caught her eye in Beyoğlu.
Füsun was in the back room. Feeling very ashamed, I took a roll of cash from my pocket and hid it on the sideboard.
“Aunt Nesibe, would you please buy two of those sets, one for yourself and one for my mother? She will be happy to receive a deck of cards if they come from this house.”
“Of course,” said Aunt Nesibe.
Ten days later, and again feeling strangely ashamed, I left another wad of bills in the place from which I’d taken a new bottle of Pe-Re-Ja cologne.
During the first few months I was sure that Füsun had no idea that I was replacing objects with money. In fact, I’d been taking cologne bottles from the Keskin household for years and storing them at the Merhamet Apartments. But these were either empty or almost empty bottles, and so bound to be discarded soon anyway. No one but the children who played with them in the street had any interest in empty bottles.
Whenever I was offered cologne after supper, I would eagerly, even hopefully, rub it into my hands, my forehead, and my cheeks, as if anointing myself with some unction. When Füsun or her parents were offered cologne, I would watch enchanted as they each performed their own rituals. Never taking his eyes off the television, Tarık Bey would slowly and noisily unscrew the heavy bottle’s cap, and we all knew that soon, at the next commercial break, he would hand the bottle to Füsun saying, “See if anyone would like some.” First Füsun would pour cologne into her father’s hands, and Tarık Bey would rub it into his wrists with therapeutic purposefulness, inhaling the fragrance deeply, like someone recovering from shortness of breath, a relief renewed for the rest of the evening by sniffing now and again the tips of his long fingers. Aunt Nesibe would take only a few drops, and with dainty gestures reminiscent of my mother’s, she would make as if she were lathering an imaginary bar of soap between her palms. If he was at home, it would be Feridun who took the most cologne when his wife offered it, cupping his hands like a man dying of thirst, slapping it on his face as if intending to gulp it down. This range of gestures led me to feel that cologne had a meaning beyond its pleasant smell and cooling effect (especially since the same rituals were performed on cold winter evenings).