The Museum Of Innocence

64 The Fire on the Bosphorus

IN THE early hours of the morning of November 15, 1979, my mother and I were awoken by the sound of a huge explosion; we jumped from our beds and ran into the hallway to embrace each other in terror. For a moment the entire apartment rocked from side to side, as if caught in a severe earthquake. Accustomed as we were to bombs going off in coffeehouses, bookstores, and the city’s squares, we assumed that yet another had been detonated near Teşvikiye Avenue, but then we noticed the flames rising near the other side of the Bosphorus, just off the Üsküdar shore. Figuring this was some act of political violence, for a while we watched the fire with the red clouds rising from it in the far distance, and then we went back to bed.

A Romanian tanker loaded down with crude oil had collided with a small Greek ship just off Haydarpaşa; oil had gushed into the water, causing explosions within and without the tanker hull and then the fires. The papers rushed to put out special editions, and the next day the whole city was abuzz with talk of the Bosphorus set ablaze and the clouds overhanging Istanbul like a black umbrella. At Satsat that day I could almost feel the fire inside me, and I sensed it was the same with all the lady clerks in the office, and the bored managers, and so I tried to see the conflagration as a good excuse to go to the Keskins’ for supper that evening. The event would utterly preempt the gossip column, which I wouldn’t even have to mention as we sat at the table talking incessantly about the fire. But, still, like everyone else living in Istanbul, I associated the Bosphorus fires with all the other disasters that were contributing to the general misery: an ensign of the political assassinations, breadlines, hyperinflation, and the impoverished, abject appearance of the entire country. And as I read the latest editions, it seemed to me that I was fascinated by the fire because it spoke to me about the disasters in my own life.

That evening I went to Beyoğlu; as I walked the length of İstiklal Avenue I was surprised to see it so empty. Outside the big cinemas like the Palace and Fitaş, where they now showed sex films, there were only a few fidgety men. When I passed through Galatasaray Square, I realized how close I was to Füsun’s house. Sometimes, on summer nights, the whole family would stroll up to Beyoğlu for ice cream. Perhaps we might cross paths. But I could not see a single woman in the streets, or a single family. When I reached Tünel, I again became uneasy about being so close to Füsun’s house, so I walked in the opposite direction to resist its pull. Passing alongside the Galata Tower I walked down to the bottom of Yüksekkaldırım. At the corner where Yüksekkaldırım crossed the street of the bordellos, there was the usual crowd of wretched men. Like everyone else, they were looking up at the play of the orange light against the black clouds.

I crossed the Galata Bridge with the crowd watching the fire in the distance. Even those trawling for mackerel from the bridge could not take their eyes off the flames. Without my willing it, my feet followed the crowd as far as Gülhane Park. The lights in the park were out-because either, like most of Istanbul’s streetlamps, they had been shattered by stones hurled in rage, or because there’d been a power cut-but the flames rising from the tanker were so intense that the whole of this large park, and Topkapı Palace, to which it had once belonged, together with the mouth of the Bosphorus, and Üsküdar, Salacak, and Leander’s Tower, were as bright as day. The light in the park, coming directly from both the fire and the orange light reflecting off the clouds, provided the cozy glow of a lampshade in a European sitting room, making the large, restless crowd of onlookers seem happier and more peaceful than they really were. Or else the pleasure of watching a spectacle had lifted their spirits. This throng had come from all parts of the city-by bus, by foot, and by car, rich and poor, some obsessively and others simply curious. I could see grandmothers in headscarves; young mothers with their sleeping children in their arms, clinging to their husbands; unemployed men hypnotized by the fire; drivers sitting in their cars and their trucks, listening to music; and street vendors who had rushed in from all quarters to hawk helva, stuffed mussels, fried liver, and lahmacun; as well as tea vendors darting among the crowd with their trays. Arranged around the base of the Atatürk statue were the men who sold meatballs and hot sausages stuffed in bread; they had lit the grills in their glass-covered carts, and the pleasant aroma of grilled meat filled the air. The boys hawking ayran and soda (but not Meltem) had turned the park into a market. I bought a tea from one street vendor, and, finding a place on one of the benches, next to a poor, old, and toothless man, I felt my own happiness as I watched the flames.

I returned each day until the end of the week, by which time the fire was beginning to die. Sometimes the faint flames would flare up again, rising in a wave to the height we had seen on the first day, again casting an orange glow on the faces of those watching the fire with such fear and awe, as the flames bathed not just the mouth of the Bosphorus, but Haydarpaşa Station, the Selimiye Barracks, and Kadıköy Bay in shades of orange, and sometimes gold. At such moments I would stand motionless with the rest of the crowd, entranced by the view. A while later we would hear an explosion and watch the embers fall, or try to listen as the flames silently shrank. It was the spectators’ cue to settle in for eating and drinking and chatting.

During one of these evenings at Gülhane Park, I spotted Nurcihan and Mehmet, but I ran off before they could see me. That I longed to see Füsun there with her parents, and that this had perhaps been my reason for joining this crowd every evening-it was only after seeing a family whose three shadows resembled theirs that I realized this. It was just as it had been during the summer of 1975, now four years past: Every time I saw anyone who looked like Füsun, love would make my heart race. The Keskins were, I thought, just the sort of family to believe most sincerely in the power of disasters to bind us together. I had to visit their house before the fire on the Independenta was extinguished; we would live through this catastrophe together, and their fellowship would help me put all the bad things behind me. Could this fire mark the beginning of a new life for me?

There was another evening when as I was looking for a place to sit in the crowded park I ran into Tayfun and Figen. To my great relief, they did not mention the column in Akşam, or indeed any other society gossip; they did not even seem to be aware that there was any talk about me, which so pleased me that I left the park with them, as the flames were beginning to die down; we got into their car and went to one of the new bars that had opened up in the backstreets of Taksim, where we drank until morning.

The next day-on Sunday evening-I went to the Keskins’. I had slept all day and eaten lunch with my mother. By evening I was feeling optimistic, hopeful, even happy. But the moment I walked into the house and came eye to eye with Füsun, all my dreams were destroyed: She was joyless, hopeless, hurt.

“What’s new, Kemal?” she said, mimicking a carefree and well-satisfied woman of the world-or rather, her idea of one. But my beauty’s heart wasn’t in it; even she knew she was faking.

“Nothing much,” I said brazenly. “I haven’t had time to come over; there’s been so much happening at the factory, and the firm, and the business.”

In a Turkish film, when a certain intimacy has been established between the young hero and heroine, an understanding matron will cast a certain glance of contentment their way, so that even the most inattentive viewer will appreciate the development and share in the emotions… Well, that is how Aunt Nesibe gazed upon Füsun and me. But soon afterward I could tell from the way she averted her eyes that the gossip column had caused a great deal of pain in this house, and that Füsun had spent many days crying, just as she had done after the engagement party.

“Why don’t you bring out some raki for our guest, my girl?” said Tarık Bey.

For three years now Tarık Bey had been acting as if he knew nothing of the situation, always greeting me with warm sincerity, treating me like a relation who’d simply come to supper, which I had always respected. But now it grieved me to see him show so little interest in his daughter’s anguish, my own helplessness, and our shared predicament. Let me now make the heartless observation that I refrained from making, even to myself: Tarık Bey had almost certainly deduced what I was doing there, but his wife had prevailed upon him to accept that it was better “for the family” for him to pretend to know nothing.

“Yes, Füsun Hanım,” I said, assuming her father’s contrived manner. “Why don’t you give me my usual rakı, so that I can savor the full happiness of coming home.”

Even today I cannot explain why I said this, or what I meant by it. Let us just say that my misery came to my lips. But Füsun understood the sentiment behind the words, and for a moment I thought that she would begin to cry. I noticed our canary in its cage. I thought about the past, and my life, the flow of time, the passing years.

We lived through our most difficult moments during those months, those years. Füsun had not risen to stardom, and I had not succeeded in coming any closer to her. Our impasse had become a public disgrace; we’d been humiliated. It was just as it had been on those evenings when I could not stand up-I saw us unable to stand up and remove ourselves from this predicament. For as long as we continued to see each other four or five times a week, it would be impossible for either of us to start a new life, and this we both knew.

That evening, toward the end of supper, I uttered the usual invitation with more sincerity than ever. “Füsun,” I said, “it’s been so long since I’ve seen what’s happening to your painting of the dove.”

“The dove has been finished for ages now,” she said. “Feridun found a lovely picture of a swallow. I’ve started on that now.”

“This swallow is by far the best one yet,” said Aunt Nesibe.

We went into the back room. Staying with the formula of the other Istanbul birds perched on various parts of the house-balustrades, windowsills, and chimneys-she had placed a dainty swallow in the bay window of our dining room, overlooking the street. In the background you could see the cobblestones of Çukurcuma Hill, depicted in a strangely childish perspective.

“I’m so proud of you,” I said, my voice heavy with defeat despite my best efforts. “One day everyone in Paris should see these!” I said. As always, what I really longed to say was something like “My darling, I love you so much, and oh, how I’ve missed you. It was so painful being far away from you, and what bliss this is, to see you!” But it was as if the painting’s flaws had become the flaws of the world in which we lived, and it was while examining the dove painting, sadly noting its simplicity, innocence, and lack of sophistication, that I understood this.

“It’s turned out beautifully, Füsun,” I said carefully, inside me nursing a deep pain.

If I say that the painting contained elements recalling Indian miniatures painted under British influence, and Chinese and Japanese bird paintings, with Audubon’s attention to detail, and even the bird series that came packaged with a brand of chocolate biscuits sold in stores across Istanbul, please bear in mind that I was a man in love.

We looked at the views of the city that served as backgrounds for Füsun’s paintings of Istanbul birds, but far from lifting my heart, this exercise brought me sorrow. We loved our world very much, we belonged to it, and that meant we ourselves were part of the picture’s innocence.

“Maybe you could paint the city and the houses in more vibrant colors one of these days…”

“Never mind, my dear,” said Füsun. “I’m just passing the time, you know.”

She picked up the picture she’d been showing me and put it to one side. I looked at her lovely art supplies-the tubes of paint, the brushes, the bottles, and the cloths stained with all sorts of colors. Like the bird paintings, these things were neatly arranged. Near them were Aunt Nesibe’s thimbles and materials. I slipped a colored porcelain thimble into my pocket, and an orange pastel pencil that Füsun had been fiddling with a short time before. It was during these, our darkest days, and most especially the last months of 1979, that I stole the most things from the Keskin household. By now these objects were no longer just tokens of moments in my life, nor merely mementos; to me they were elemental to those moments. For example, the matchboxes on display in the Museum of Innocence: Füsun touched every one of them, leaving behind the scent of her hands with its hint of rosewater. As with so many other things on exhibit in my museum, whenever I held any of these matchboxes back at the Merhamet Apartments, I was able to relive the pleasure of sharing a table with Füsun, and gazing into her eyes. But even before that, whenever I dropped a matchbox into my pocket, pretending not to notice what I had done, there was another reason to rejoice. I may not have “won” the woman I loved so obsessively, but it cheered me to have broken off a piece of her, however small.

To speak of “breaking off” a piece of someone is of course to imply that the piece is part of the worshipped beloved’s body. But three years on, every object and person in that house in Çukurcuma-her mother, her father, the dining table, the stove, the coal carrier, the china dogs on the television, the bottles of cologne, the cigarettes, the rakı glasses, the sweets bowls-had merged with my mental image of Füsun. I managed to see Füsun three or four times a week, and as happy as this made me, with each week I still took (“stole” would be the wrong word) from her house (from her life) three or four things, sometimes as many as six or seven, and during the most miserable phases, between ten and fifteen, and having got them to the Merhamet Apartments, I felt triumphant. What bliss it was to hold a saltshaker with which Füsun had so daintily salted her food without taking her eyes off the television-to slip it into my pocket, to know that it was there while I chatted and sipped my raki, to know that I had taken possesion of this trophy was to find the strength to stand up and leave when the evening had drawn to its conclusion. After the summer of 1979, an object in my pocket was the key to prying me out of my chair. Years later, when I fell in with Istanbul’s weird and obsessive collectors; when I visited their houses packed to the rafters with paper, rubbish, boxes, and photographs, every time trying to understand how these soul mates of mine felt about their soda bottle caps or pictures of film stars, and what meaning a new acquisition held-I would remember how I’d felt every time I took something from the Keskins’ house.