27 Don’t Lean Back That Way, You Might Fall

TO REFLECT the synthesis of traditional pleasures and inspirations drawn from French home and garden magazines favored by Sibel and Nurcihan, the picnic basket displayed here-the thermos filled with tea, stuffed grape leaves in a plastic box, boiled eggs, some Meltem bottles, and this elegant tablecloth passed down to Zaim from his grandmother-evokes our Sunday excursion that may offer the visitor some relief from the oppressive succession of interior settings, as well as my own agony. But neither the reader nor the visitor should on any account think that I could forget my pain even for an instant.

That Sunday morning we went first to the Bosphorus, to the Meltem factory in Büyükdere. On the sides of its buildings were giant pictures of Inge next to leftist slogans that had been painted over. Even as we toured the sterilizing and bottling lines, where silent women wearing headscarves and blue aprons worked under the direction of loud, cheerful supervisors (there were only sixty-four employees in all, despite the countless advertisements Meltem had plastered all over the city), and even as I expressed my distaste for the modish belts, blue jeans, and leather boots that the others in our party had chosen to wear that day-accoutrements that were, like their easy and open demeanor, overly European-I had to muffle my mournful beating heart, pitifully crying, Füsun, Füsun, Füsun.

We piled into two cars and moved on to Belgrade Forest, to a green field overlooking Bentler and offering much the same view as this one painted 170 years ago by the European artist Melling, and here we spread out a déjeuner sur l’herbe. I remember lying down on the grass toward noon and gazing up at the bright blue sky. Sibel and Zaim were busy trying to set up an old swing from the Persian gardens with new ropes, and I remember how struck I was by her grace and beauty. At one point I played the children’s game Nine Stones with Nurcihan and Mehmet. As I inhaled the sweet smell of grass and the cool breeze coming from the lake behind Bentler, redolent of pine and roses, I thought that the wondrous life before me was a gift from God, thought how all this beauty had been bequeathed to me unconditionally; how colossally stupid-and perhaps sinful-it was to let it be poisoned by these pangs spreading from my stomach to every part of my body. I still felt shamed that the pain of not seeing Füsun had reduced me to this, and that with my self-confidence undermined, I succumbed to jealousy. As Mehmet, managing to keep immaculate the white shirt and tie he wore with trousers and suspenders, set out the food, and Zaim went off with Nurcihan, supposedly to pick blackberries, I realized that I was happy he was here because it meant he could not be meeting with Füsun. But I could not further assume that Füsun was not with Kenan or someone else. Chatting with my friends, playing ball, watching Sibel swing like a child, even slashing my ring finger as I struggled with a new kind of can opener-at intense moments of this order I was distracted from my pain. I could not stanch the flow from my finger. Was this because love had poisoned my blood? At one point I sat on the swing and began to propel myself with all my strength. When the swing came down so fast it seemed to be in free fall, the pain in my stomach abated slightly. As the ropes creaked, and I described a great arc in the air, throwing my head way back, so that I was almost upside down, my pain almost gave way to true relief.

“Kemal, are you crazy? Stop, don’t lean back that way. You might fall!” cried Sibel.

In the noon sun it was hot even in the shade of the trees. I told Sibel that I couldn’t stop my finger from bleeding, and that, feeling unwell, I wanted to go to the American Hospital for a few stitches. She was shocked. She opened her eyes wide. Couldn’t I wait until evening? She bound my finger tight. I will confess to my readers that I secretly dug into the cut, to exacerbate the flow. “No,” I said. “Don’t let me ruin this lovely picnic, and, darling, it would cause offense if we both left. You can get a ride back to the city with the others in the evening.” As she walked me back to the car, I again saw that shaming question in my lovely fiancée’s wise and clouded eyes. “What is wrong with you?” she asked, sensing that my ailment was more serious than the flow of blood. How I longed to throw my arms around her at the moment, to master my pain, and throw off my obsession, or at the very least, to tell her how I felt! Instead I jumped into the car, swaying like an idiot, panicked by the pounding of my heart, without pausing even to whisper a few sweet nothings to Sibel. Nurcihan and Zaim were still off picking blackberries, but, sensing that something was wrong, they began to walk toward us. If I had to look Zaim in the eye, I was sure he would guess at once where I was going. But I shall not dwell on the expression of genuine concern and sorrow on my fiancée’s face as I started up the car-lest readers judge me as heartless.

I drove like a madman through that bright, warm summer afternoon, reaching Nişantaşı in forty-seven minutes flat, all because the moment I put my foot on the accelerator, my heart told me that today, at last, Füsun would come to the Merhamet Apartments. Wouldn’t she have waited a few days before making her first visit? Parking the car just fourteen minutes before two o’clock (I’d cut my finger not a moment too soon), I was racing to the Merhamet Apartments when I was stopped in my tracks by a middle-aged woman screeching my name.

“Kemal Bey, Kemal Bey, you are a very lucky man!”

I turned around, saying “What?” as I struggled to remember who she was.

“At your engagement party, you came to our table and we made a bet about the last episode of The Fugitive… remember? You were right, Kemal Bey! In the end, Dr. Kimble managed to prove his innocence!”

“Oh really?”

“When are you going to collect your winnings?”

“Later,” I said, running down the street.

Of course I’d decided that Dr. Kimble’s happy ending was a good omen: Today Füsun would come. Joyfully believing that in ten or fifteen minutes we would be making love, I took out the key with trembling hands and let myself into the apartment.

28 The Consolation of Objects

FORTY-FIVE minutes later Füsun still had not come, and I was lying on the bed like a corpse, though in pain and intensely aware of it, like an animal listening helplessly to its last breath. The pain was deeper and harsher than anything I had felt until that day, afflicting every part of me. I felt that I should get out of bed, distract myself, look for a way out of this predicament, or at the very least this room, and these sheets and pillows that still carried her scent, but I just couldn’t summon the will.

I now began to regret fleeing the picnic. With a week having passed since we had last made love, Sibel was hazily aware that something strange had happened to me, but she couldn’t put her finger on it or find a way to ask. I longed for Sibel’s compassion, dreaming that my fiancée could distract me. But I couldn’t bestir myself, let alone jump back into the car and return to her. So afflicted was I with the pain shooting so violently through my abdomen, my back, my legs, pain so violent it took my breath away-that I couldn’t even find the strength to seize relief. Just knowing this exacerbated my desolation, provoking a remorse as fierce and lacerating as the pain of love itself. It was a strange, irrational conviction that took hold: Only by giving over to this pain (like a flower folding its petals shut), by surrendering to its full intensity, then and only then could I come closer to Füsun. In one part of my mind, I knew I might be chasing an illusion, but I had no way of dispelling the weird belief. (Anyway, if I left the apartment now, she might arrive and not find me.)