The Museum Of Innocence

33 Vulgar Distractions

LIFE HAD receded from me, losing all the flavor and color I’d found in it until that day. The power and authenticity I’d once felt in things (though, sad to say, without fully realizing it) was now lost. Years later, when I took refuge in books, I found, in a work by Gérard de Nerval, the best expression of the crude dullness I was feeling at that time. After understanding that he has lost forever the love of his life, the poet, whose heartbreak eventually leads him to hang himself, writes somewhere in his Aurélia that life has left him with nothing but “vulgar distractions.” I, too, felt that whatever I did during these days without Füsun, it was vulgar, ordinary, and meaningless, and toward persons and things that had led me to such coarseness I felt only anger. Still, I never stopped believing that I would find Füsun, that I would have another chance to speak to her, or even that I would embrace her; this was what I thought bound my soul to my body still, however tenuously, though when thinking back on these days, I would remorsefully acknowledge that such hope only prolonged my grief.

On one particularly hot July day, my brother rang to tell me, with righteous anger, that Turgay Bey, our partner in so many successful ventures, felt injured at not having been invited to the engagement party, and now wished to withdraw from a big bedsheet contract that we’d jointly bid for and won, a mess for which Osman held me personally responsible (Osman having heard from my mother that it was I who had scratched his name off the guest list). I calmed him down by promising to put matters right with Turgay Bey tomorrow.

As I sat in the car the next day in the withering heat, on my way to his giant factory in Bahçelievler, I looked out at the hideous neighborhoods of ever uglier new apartment blocks, depots, little factories, and dumping grounds, and the pain of love no longer felt unbearable. This abatement could only be on account of my impending meeting with someone who might give me news of Füsun, someone with whom I might be able to talk about her. But in similar circumstances (when I spoke with Kenan or ran into Şenay Hanım in Taksim) I could not admit the reason for my welcome joy, trying to convince myself that simply pursuing “business” was having a beneficial effect. Indeed, if I hadn’t gone to such lengths of self-deception, this visit I had made “only for business” might have gone better.

That I had come all the way from Istanbul to apologize to Turgay Bey had assuaged his pride, and this was quite enough for him to treat me well. He gave me a tour of his weaving operation, through halls where hundreds of girls were working on giant looms and when, behind one of them, I saw Füsun’s ghost with her back turned, my real purpose in coming announced itself to me. And so, as I admired the modern new offices and “hygienic” cafeterias, I abandoned my aloof manner, amicably suggesting what a shame it would be if we could not do business with him. Turgay Bey wanted us to eat lunch with the workers, according to his custom, but I, convinced that this would not allow me to apologize properly, told him that a bit of drink not to be found on the premises might help me broach certain “important matters.” I looked at him closely-so ordinary looking, with his mustache-and there was nothing in his expression to suggest an awareness that I was alluding to Füsun. Finally I mentioned the engagement party, and he, by now mollified, said proudly, “It was just an oversight, I’m sure. Let’s put it behind us.” But I continued to insist, forcing this honest and industrious man whose mind scarcely strayed from his work to invite me out to a Bakırköy fish restaurant. In his Mustang I remembered Füsun telling me how many times they had kissed while sitting in those same seats, how their thrashing was reflected in the gauges and the rearview mirror, and I remembered how he had groped her, felt her up, before she’d even turned eighteen. I wondered again whether Füsun had gone back to him, and, haunted still by all her ghosts, unable to convince myself that this man in all likelihood had no news of her, I remained tightly coiled in readiness.

At the restaurant, as Turgay Bey and I sat across from each other like two old ruffians, as I saw him put the napkin on his lap with his hairy hands, and looked at his great pockmarked nose and his impudent mouth from up close, I had a strong intuition that this would not go well. When he wasn’t shouting for the waiter, he was wiping the corners of his mouth with his napkin, an elegant gesture stolen from a Hollywood film. Still I managed to rein myself in, and until the middle of the meal, I remained in control. But soon the raki I drank to escape the evil within me flushed it to the surface. In the most polite way, Turgay Bey allowed that any misunderstanding about the bedsheet contract could be easily settled and that there should be no ill will between us as partners. “We’re both going to do very well,” he said soothingly, when I blurted, “What matters most is not that our business goes well, but that we be good people.”

“Kemal Bey,” he said, glancing at the raki glass in my hand, “I have the greatest respect for you, and your father, and your family. We’ve all had our bad days. Living as we do in this beautiful but impoverished country, we enjoy a good fortune that God bestows only on his most beloved subjects; and let us give thanks for that. Let us not be too proud, and let us remember Him in our prayers-that is the only way to be good.”

“I had no idea you were so religious,” I said mockingly.

“My dear Kemal Bey, what did I do wrong?”

“Turgay Bey, you broke the heart of a young girl who happens to be a member of my family. You treated her badly. You even offered her money. I’m talking about Füsun of the Şanzelize Boutique-she’s a very, very close relation on my mother’s side.”

His face turned ashen, and he looked down. That was when I realized that I was jealous of Turgay Bey not because he had been Füsun’s lover before me, but because, once the affair was over, he’d managed to get over her and return to his normal bourgeois life.

“I had no idea she was related to you,” he said with shocking sincerity. “I feel deeply shamed. If your family could not bear to see me, you had every right not to invite me to the engagement party. Do your father and your older brother feel equally offended? What can we honorably do about this-should we end our partnership?”

“Let’s end it,” I said, regretting my words even as I uttered them.

“In that case, let us say it is you who have canceled the contract,” he said, lighting a Marlboro.

The pain of love was now exacerbated by my shame at having misplayed my hand. Though I was very drunk by now, I drove myself back to the city. Since I’d turned eighteen, driving in Istanbul and especially on the shore road, along the city walls, had brought me huge pleasure, but now, with my sense of impending doom, the ride had become a form of torture. It was as if the city had lost its beauty, as if I could do nothing but put my foot on the accelerator in order to escape this place. Driving through Eminönü, under the pedestrian overpasses in front of the New Mosque, I very nearly ran someone over.

Reaching the office, I decided that the best thing to do was to convince Osman that ending the partnership with Turgay Bey was not such a bad idea. I summoned Kenan, who was well informed about this particular contract, and he listened, very intently, to what I had to say. I summarized the situation thus: “For personal reasons, Turgay Bey is behaving badly and has asked if we might fill this contract on our own,” adding that we had no option other than to part ways with Turgay Bey.

“Kemal Bey, if at all possible, let’s try and avoid this,” said Kenan. He explained that we could not possibly manage alone, and if we failed to fulfill the order in time, it would harm not just Satsat but the prospects of the other firms involved, and subject us to heavy penalties in the New York courts. “Is your brother aware of all this?” he asked. I must have been spouting raki fumes like a chimney, else he wouldn’t have questioned his boss so insolently. “The arrow has already left the bow,” I said. “We’ll have to carry on without Turgay Bey.” I knew this was impossible, even if Kenan hadn’t said so. But my reason had now shut down altogether, yielding to a troublemaking devil. Kenan remained in front of me, insisting that I needed to speak to Osman.

It goes without saying that I did not then hurl the stapler displayed here, or the accompanying ashtray bearing the Satsat logo, at Kenan’s head, however much I longed to do so. I do remember noting that, however laughable his tie was, it resembled the company ashtray in both ungainly size and coloring. “Kenan Bey,” I roared, “you are not working in my brother’s firm. You are working for me!”

“Kemal Bey, please don’t take offense. Of course I’m aware of this,” he said slyly. “But you introduced me to your brother at the engagement party, and since then we’ve been in touch. If you don’t ring him right away to talk about a matter this important, he’s going to be very upset. Your brother is aware that you’ve not been having the easiest time recently, and like everyone else, he only wants to help you.”

The words “everyone else” almost detonated my anger. I was tempted to fire him then and there, but I feared his audacity. Suffering like a trapped animal, I became aware that I would only feel better if I could just see Füsun once. To the world I was indifferent, because by now everything was so futile, so very vulgar.