After making love we both fell asleep. When a sweet breeze blew in through the balcony, lifting the tulle curtains and dropping them like a silk veil onto our faces, we both awoke with a start.
“I dreamt I was in a field of sunflowers,” said Füsun. “And the sunflowers were swaying strangely in the breeze. For some reason they scared me. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t.”
“Don’t be afraid,” I said. “I’m here.”
I won’t say how we left, how we dressed and reached the door. After telling her to stay calm during her exam, and warning her not to forget her registration card, and assuring her that everything would go well, that she was sure to attain the score she needed, I said the thing that I had been repeating in my mind for days, thousands of times over, trying to make it sound as natural as possible.
“Let’s meet at the same time tomorrow, okay?”
As she averted her eyes, Füsun said, “Fine.”
I watched with love as she took her leave, and I knew at once that the engagement party would be a great success.
24 The Engagement Party
THESE POSTCARDS of the Istanbul Hilton were acquired some twenty years after the events I describe; I picked up some of them while strolling through small museums and flea markets in this city and elsewhere in Europe, and others I purchased in transactions with Istanbul’s foremost collectors in the course of assembling the Museum of Innocence. When, after a lengthy bargaining session with the famously neurotic collector Halit Bey the Invalid, I was able to acquire one of these postcards depicting the hotel’s modernist international-style facade, and granted permission to touch it, I was reminded not just of the evening of my engagement party, but of my entire childhood. When I was ten, my parents attended the opening of the hotel, a very exciting occasion for them, along with all of Istanbul society, as well as the long-forgotten American film star Terry Moore. We could see the new building from our house, and though at first it looked foreign against Istanbul ’s tired old silhouette, during the years that followed my parents grew accustomed to it, going there whenever they could. Representatives from the foreign firms to whom my father sold goods-they were to a man all interested in “Oriental” dancing-all stayed at the Hilton. On Sunday evenings, when we would go as a family to eat that amazing thing called a hamburger, a delicacy as yet offered by no other restaurant in Turkey, my brother and I would be mesmerized by the pomegranate-colored uniform with gold braids and flashy buttoned epaulettes of the doorman with the handlebar mustache. In those years so many Western innovations made their first appearance in this hotel that the leading newspapers even posted reporters there. If one of my mother’s favorite suits got stained, she would send it to the dry cleaner at the Hilton, and she liked to drink tea with her friends at the patisserie in the lobby. Quite a few of my friends and relatives had their weddings in the grand ballroom on the lower level. When it became clear that my future in-laws’ dilapidated house in Anadoluhisarı was not quite suitable for the engagement party, the Hilton was everyone’s first choice. And it enjoyed one other distinction: The Hilton had been, since the day it opened, one of the few civilized establishments in Turkey where a well-heeled gentleman and a courageous lady could obtain a room without being asked for a marriage certificate.
There was still plenty of time to spare when Çetin Efendi dropped my parents and me at the revolving doors, which were shaded by a canopy in the form of a flying carpet.
“We still have half an hour,” said my father, who always cheered up the moment he stepped into this hotel. “Let’s go and have something to drink.”
After we had chosen a corner of the lobby with a good view of the entrance, my father greeted the elderly waiter, who recognized him, and ordered “quick rakıs” for the men and tea for my mother. We enjoyed observing the evening crowds and-as the appointed time grew closer-watching our guests arrive, and reminiscing about the old days. Acquaintances, curious relations, and other party guests paraded just in front of us one by one in their chic outfits, but the thick leaves of a potted cyclamen shielded us from view.
“Aaah, look how much Rezzan’s daughter has grown; she’s so sweet,” my mother said. “They should ban miniskirts on anyone who doesn’t have the legs,” she said, frowning at another guest. Then: “It wasn’t us who seated the Pamuk family all the way at the back!” she said in answer to a question posed by my father, whereupon she pointed out some other guests: “Look at what’s become of Fazıla Hanım. She used to be such a beauty, but nothing remains of it. Oh, I wish they had left her at home, if only I hadn’t seen that poor woman like this… Those headscarf people must be relations of Sibel’s mother… I’ve had no use for Hicabi Bey since he left that lovely rose of a wife and his children to marry that coarse woman. I’m going to thrash Nevzat the hairdresser-that shameless man gave Zümrüt exactly the same style as me. Who are these people? Look at the noses on that couple-my God, don’t they look just like foxes?… Do you have any money on you, my son?”
“What for?” my father said.
“The way he came racing home, changing into his clothes as if he were just dashing off to the club, instead of going to his engagement party. Kemal darling, look at you, did you even remember your wallet?”
“I did.”
“Good. Stand up straight when you walk, all right? Everyone’s watching you… Come on now, it’s time for us to get going.”
My father gestured to the waiter to bring him a single raki, and after looking me in the eye, and gathering my own need for one, he repeated the hand gesture, indicating me this time.
“Now, you’re not overdoing it, are you?” my mother said to my father. “I thought you’d picked yourself up and shaken off that gloom you’ve been wearing like an old coat.”
“Can’t I drink and enjoy myself at my son’s engagement party?”
“Oh, how beautiful she looks!” said my mother when she saw Sibel. “And her dress, it’s gorgeous; those pearls look perfect. But this girl is such a splendid creature that anything would look wonderful on her. What a charming sight, how elegant that dress looks on her, don’t you think? My son, do you have any idea how lucky you are?”
Sibel was embracing two friends who had walked past us just a few minutes earlier. The girls were taking scrupulous care with the long, thin filtered cigarettes they had just lit, making an exaggerated effort not to muss each other’s hair, makeup, or dress; their lovely bright red lips touched nothing as they exchanged kisses, giggling as they looked each other over and showed each other necklaces and bracelets not often removed from their boxes.
“Any intelligent person knows that life is a beautiful thing and that the purpose of life is to be happy,” said my father as he watched the three beauties. “But it seems only idiots are ever happy. How can we explain this?”
“Here it is, one of the best days in the boy’s life, so why are you spouting such thoughts, Mümtaz?” said my mother. She turned to me. “Go on, my son, what are you waiting for? Go to Sibel. Spend every moment at her side, share her joy!”
I put down my glass, and as I came out from behind the potted plant and walked toward Sibel I saw her face light up. “Where have you been?” I asked as I kissed her.
After Sibel had introduced me to her friends, we both turned around to watch the great revolving door.
“You look so beautiful, my darling,” I whispered in her ear. “No one else comes close.”
“And you’re very handsome… But let’s not stand here.”
All the same we continued to stand there, and not at my insistence. As people came flowing into the hotel-friends and strangers, guests and a handful of well-dressed tourists-heads kept turning to look at us, and Sibel liked being the center of so much admiring attention.