The Museum Of Innocence

36 To Entertain a Small Hope That Might Allay My Heartache

IT WAS during these important days-as I was collecting the first objects for my museum-that I wrote the letter displayed here. It remains in its envelope to keep a long story short, and to spare me a full disclosure of the shame it caused me still, twenty years later, when I was founding the Museum of Innocence. If readers and the visitors to my museum could open the letter, they would find me groveling to Füsun. I abjectly confessed to her my error; I was full of remorse, and suffering terribly; avowing that love was a sacred feeling, I promised that if only she would come back to me, I would leave Sibel. After writing the last words, I felt even more contrite. I knew that in fact what I needed to say was that I had broken off with Sibel for good, but my only hope that night was to drink myself into oblivion, nestling up with Sibel, and so I could not bring myself to take that extreme though necessary measure. When I discovered the letter ten years later in Füsun’s drawer, its contents seemed less important than its very existence; it surprised me to see the extent of my self-deception at that time. With one hand I was trying to deny the intensity of my love for Füsun and my own helplessness while conjuring up ridiculous omens to convince myself that we would soon be reunited; with the other hand, I clung to my dreams of a happy family life with Sibel. Should I have broken off my engagement and proposed marriage to Füsun in this letter? I don’t think this thought ever crossed my mind until it arose during my meeting with Ceyda, Füsun’s dear friend from the beauty contest, and the carrier of my letter.

Knowing that visitors to my museum must by now be sick and tired of my heartache, I display here a lovely news clipping. It features Ceyda’s official beauty contest photograph, along with an interview in which she states that her aim in life is a happy marriage with the “ideal man” of her dreams. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ceyda Hanım, who knew my sad story in full, who respected the love I felt for her friend, and who was generous enough to donate this lovely photograph of herself as a young woman to the museum. Realizing that I could not send my anguished letter to Füsun through the post-lest her mother intercept it-I decided to send it care of Ceyda, whom I tracked down with the help of my secretary, Zeynep Hanım. Füsun had confided to her friend every detail of our liaison from the very beginning, and when I said that I wanted to meet her to discuss a matter of great importance, Ceyda was not at all coy. When we met in Maçka, I noticed at once that I felt no embarrassment in telling Ceyda of my suffering. Perhaps this was because I attributed to her a mature understanding of the matter, or perhaps it was because I could see how happy, how very happy Ceyda was when we met. She was pregnant, and her rich, conservative lover, the Sedirci boy, had decided to marry her. She didn’t hide any of this from me, even reporting that the wedding would be soon. Was there a chance I might see Füsun there? Where was Füsun? Ceyda’s answers were evasive. Füsun must have warned her. As we walked in the direction of Taşlık Park, she said deep and serious things about how deep and serious love is. As I listened, I fixed my eyes on Dolmabahçe Mosque, shimmering like a dream in the distance, taking me back to childhood.

I could not bring myself to put too much pressure on her, or even ask her how Füsun was. Ceyda, I sensed, hoped that I would break off my engagement to Sibel and marry Füsun, allowing our two families to see each other socially, and it was only when she said all this in as many words that I realized her dreams were also mine. Upon entering Taşlık Park that afternoon, and seeing the view, the beauty of the mouth of the Bosphorus, the mulberry trees before us, the lovers sitting at the tables of the rustic coffeehouse drinking Meltem, the mothers with their baby carriages, the children playing in the sandbox just ahead, the students chatting and laughing as they nibbled on chickpeas and pumpkin seeds, the pigeons picking at the husks, along with two swallows-everything in this crowded setting reminded me of what I had been on the verge of forgetting: the beauty of ordinary life. And so, when Ceyda opened her eyes wide, saying she would give my letter to Füsun, and she sincerely believed it would be answered-I succumbed to a great hope of which I was never more susceptible.

But there was no reply.

One morning at the beginning of August I was forced to acknowledge that in spite of all my precautions and palliative measures, my pain, far from abating, was still increasing at a steady rate. If I was working in the office or talking on the phone, I did not think any new thought about Füsun, but the pain in my stomach would take on the form of some obsessive thought and race through my brain, silently, like an electric current, until I could think of nothing else. The various things I did to cultivate such small hopes as could allay the pain and distract me for a time were never effective for long.

I began to take an interest in coded messages, mysterious signs, and newspaper horoscopes. I put the most faith in the “Your Sign, Your Day” column in Son Posta and the astrologist of Hayat magazine. The cleverest astrologers would say to their readers, and most especially to me: “Today you will receive a sign from a loved one!” They said much the same thing to those born under other signs, but that was only right, as it takes two to make such an event happen; and I was so convinced I would read these horoscopes very carefully, but having no systematic belief in the stars, I did not spend hours playing with them, as bored housewives are given to do. My need was urgent. I made my own system of signification: I would say to myself, “If the next person who walks through that door is a female, then I shall be reunited with Füsun, and if it is a man, all will be lost.”

The world, life, all reality were swarming with signs sent by God so that we could discern our fortune. I would stand at the Satsat window, counting the cars as they passed, and I would say to myself: “If the first red car moving down the avenue has come from the left, I am going to have news from Füsun, and if from the right, my wait will continue.” Or I might divine: “If I am the first person to jump off the ferry when it lands, I’ll see Füsun soon.” And I would jump before they’d even thrown the rope. Behind me the rope men would cry: “The first person to jump to shore is a donkey!” Then I would hear a ship’s whistle, taking it for an omen, and I would imagine what sort of ship it was. I would tell myself, “If the number of steps in the overpass is an odd number, I’ll see Füsun soon.” If it turned out to be an even number, my agony would increase, but if the omen augured well I would enjoy a moment of relief.

The worst was the pain that woke me up in the middle of the night and would not let me get back to sleep. In such cases, I would drink rakı, and then, out of desperation, chase it with a few glasses of whiskey or wine, trying to silence my mind as if turning down the volume of a relentlessly blaring radio that was robbing me of my peace. Sometimes, with my mother’s old deck of cards and a glass of raki in my hand, I would play solitaire, trying to learn my fortune. Some nights I’d pick up the dice that my father played with only rarely and, telling myself that each time was the last, throw them a thousand times over. When I was well and truly drunk I would begin to take a strange satisfaction from my anguish, taking a foolish pride in my predicament, telling myself that it was worthy of a novel, a film, even an opera.

One night, while I was staying at the summer house in Suadiye, I awoke a few hours before dawn; when it became clear that sleep would not return, I tiptoed quietly through the darkness out to the terrace overlooking the sea; lying on a chaise longue, in the fragrant breeze of the pine trees, I gazed at the flickering lights of the Princes’ Islands and tried to lull myself to slumber.

“You can’t sleep either?” my father whispered. In the darkness I had not noticed him lying on the other chaise longue.

“I’ve been having some trouble lately,” I whispered guiltily.

“Don’t worry, it will pass,” he said softly. “You’re still young. It’s still very early for you to be losing sleep over this kind of pain, so don’t fret. But when you get to my age, if you have some regrets in life, you’ll have to lie here counting the stars until dawn. Beware of doing things that you might regret later.”

“All right, Father,” I whispered. It was not long before I sensed I might be able to forget my pain, if only for a while, and drift off. Here I display the collar of the pajamas my father was wearing that night, and one of his slippers, just the sight of which makes me sad.

Perhaps because I gave them no importance, or perhaps because I didn’t want readers and visitors to my museum to feel too much contempt for me, I have concealed a few habits picked up during this period, but now for the sake of my story’s integrity I feel obliged to make a brief confession about one of them. At lunchtime, when my secretary Zeynep Hanım went out with the rest of the office, I would sometimes dial Füsun’s number. It was never Füsun who answered, which told me that she had not yet returned from wherever she’d gone, and her father wasn’t around either. It was always Aunt Nesibe who picked up the phone, which meant that she was sewing at home, but I persisted in hoping that one day it would be Füsun who answered. Or at least that Aunt Nesibe, as she waited for the caller to speak, would let slip some facts about Füsun. Or that as I waited patiently, without saying a thing, Füsun would say something in the background. When Aunt Nesibe picked up the phone, there was a stretch of time when it was easy to be silent, but the longer and more exasperatedly she spoke, the harder it was to hold back, for Aunt Nesibe would quickly lose her nerve, succumbing to her panic as she writhed in a way that a telephone pervert would love: “Hello? Hello? Who is this? Who am I speaking to? For God’s sake, would you please say something? Hello, hello, who are you? Why are you calling?” She would make random arrangements, strings of such phrases, her fear and anger audible in every word, but it never occurred to her to hang up immediately, or at least before I did. Over time I began to feel sorry, even desperate, for this distant relation of mine acting like a trapped rabbit, and so I finally broke the habit.

There was no sign of Füsun.