This shame, mingling with my affected pique, which I remain reluctant to acknowledge even so many years later, made it easier to sustain the pretense of being offended. When the film was over, I rejoined Füsun and her husband, whom Cemile Hanım gave a careful look up and down. Füsun was sulking even more than before, and I had no recourse but to respond in kind. On the way back, the silence in the car was hard to bear, and so I fantasized about throwing off this role in which I had cast myself with an unexpected joke, bursting into mad laughter, or getting drunk-but all in vain.

For five days I didn’t call them. I survived on elaborate and delicious fantasies of a contrite Füsun preparing to ask my forgiveness. In my dreams I answered her regretful pleas by blaming her, and when I had listed her faults one by one, I had so fully persuaded myself of her anguish that before long I was as genuinely angry as anyone who had been dealt a terrible injustice.

The days I didn’t see her became harder and harder to endure. Once again I was in thrall to the dark, dense anguish that had held me captive for a year. I was terrified of making a mistake for which my punishment would be never to see Füsun again. To keep this from happening, I had to ensure that Füsun did not see the extent of my visceral pique. So now the weapon I’d fashioned of my anger was turned inward, punishing me alone. An indignant and broken heart is of no use to anyone. By continuing to take offense, I was hurting only myself. One night, while thinking about all this, walking alone amid the falling autumn leaves of Nişantaşı, I realized that the happiest resolution-and therefore the most hopeful-would be to see Füsun three or four times a week (and never less than twice). Only then could I return to my old equilibrium without again falling into the bilious black abyss of love. Now I knew I could no longer endure not seeing Füsun-no matter whether out of wanting to protect myself or to injure her. To avoid the hell of the preceding year, I would have to keep the promise I had made in my letter to Füsun sent via Ceyda: I would have to bring her my father’s pearl earrings.

The next day, when I went out to Beyoğlu for lunch, the pearl earrings were in my pocket, nestling in the box my father had given me. It was October 12, 1976, a bright, sunny day with a hint of summer’s glare. The shop windows were brilliant with color. As I ate my lunch at Hacı Salih, I was candid with myself: I could admit that I had come here on purpose, and if it “happened to cross my mind to do so” there was no harm in nipping straight down to Çukurcuma to spend half an hour with Aunt Nesibe. It was a six-or seven-minute walk from the restaurant table where I was sitting. On my way here I’d glanced into the Palace Cinema and noticed that the next show started at 1:45. After lunch, if I chose, I could lose myself in that darkness that smelled of mold and damp, or at least enter a different world, and find peace. But by 1:40, having got up and paid my bill, I found myself walking down Çukurcuma Hill. There was food in my stomach, sun on the back of my neck, love on my mind, panic in my soul, and an ache in my heart.

It was her mother who answered the door.

“No, Aunt Nesibe, there’s no need for me to come up,” I said, reaching into my pocket. “This is for Füsun… It’s a present from my father. I thought I would drop it off on my way by.”

“Why don’t I make you a quick coffee, Kemal. There are a few things I’d like to tell you before Füsun gets back.”

She said this in such a furtive way that I relented and followed her up the stairs. The house was flooded with sunlight, Lemon the canary rattling about happily in his cage. I saw that Aunt Nesibe’s sewing things-her scissors, her pieces of cut cloth-were spread all over the room.

“Nowadays I never make house calls, but these people were so insistent I couldn’t say no, so we’re putting together an evening gown as a rush job. Füsun’s helping me, too. She should be back soon.”

She served me coffee and got straight to the point. “There have been needless heartbreaks, and silent recriminations-all this I understand,” she said. “Kemal Bey, she went through a lot of pain, my girl did. Her heart was very badly broken. You need to be patient with her moods, and indulge her…”

“Yes, of course,” I said, as if I did know all this.

“You know far better than I do how to do it. Indulge her, do what you think best, so that she can step off this wrong path she has taken.”

I gave her an inquiring look, hoping to learn what wrong path Füsun had taken; then I raised my eyebrows.

“Before you got engaged, and on the day of your engagement, and even after the engagement-for months and months, she suffered terribly-oh, how she cried,” she said. “She stopped eating, and drinking, she wouldn’t go out, she cut herself off from everything. This boy came to see her every day and tried to console her.”

“Do you mean Feridun?”

“Yes, but don’t worry. He knows nothing about you.”

She went on to explain that the girl was in such great pain and distress that she had no idea what she was doing, that Tarık Bey had been the first to propose the idea of marriage as a cure, and that in the end she had agreed to marrying off Füsun to “this child.” Feridun had known Füsun since she was fourteen. In those days he was madly in love with her, but Füsun had paid him no attention; she had almost destroyed him with her lack of interest. These days Feridun was not so much in love with Füsun-she raised her eyebrows slightly and smiled, as if saying, This is good news for you, too. Feridun was seldom at home in the evenings, being utterly immersed in the film world and preoccupied with his film-world friends. You might almost think that he had left his dormitory in Kadırga not to marry Füsun, but to be closer to the Beyoğlu cafés where his film friends waste their time. Of course, the two had eventually developed feelings for each other, as healthy young couples entering arranged marriages had always done in the past, but I was not to credit this overmuch. After the ordeal she had suffered, it had seemed only prudent to them that Füsun should marry at once, and so they had no regrets…

By their “ordeal,” she left me in no doubt that she was referring not to Füsun’s love for me, or the debacle of the university exam: It was clear from her eyes that the heart of the crisis was Füsun’s having slept with me before marriage, and now she took evident pleasure in holding me to account. Only by marrying at once could Füsun save herself from this stain, and, of course, I was responsible for this, too!

“We know-we all know-that Feridun has no real prospects, that he is in no position to give her a good life. But he’s Füsun’s husband!” said Aunt Nesibe. “He wants to make his wife a movie star. He’s an honest and well-meaning boy! If you love my daughter, you’ll help them. We thought it would be better to marry Füsun to Feridun than to some rich old goat who would look down on her because of her stained virtue. The boy will introduce her to film people. And you, Kemal, you can protect her.”

“Of course, Aunt Nesibe.”

If she knew that her mother had been spilling family secrets, Füsun would punish us severely (Aunt Nesibe smiled faintly, as if only slightly exaggerating). “Of course, Füsun was deeply affected by the news that you had broken off your engagement to Sibel, just as she was sorry to hear that you had suffered so much, Kemal. This film-loving boy she has married has a heart of gold, but it won’t be long before Füsun sees how inept he is, and when she does, she’ll leave him… Until then, you can be at her side, bolstering her confidence.”

“All I want, Aunt Nesibe, is to repair the damage I’ve done, the heartbreak. Please help me win Füsun back,” I said, taking out the box with my father’s earrings and giving it to her. “This is for Füsun,” I said.