Snow (38 page)

“Take the side of the oppressed and go sign that statement,” said Ka.

“It’s not enough to be oppressed, you must also be in the right. Most oppressed people are in the wrong to an almost ridiculous degree. What shall I believe in?”

“Ka doesn’t believe in anything,” said Ipek.

“Everyone believes in something,” said Turgut Bey. “Please, tell me what you think.”

Ka did his best to convince Turgut Bey that if he signed the statement he would be doing his bit to help Kars move toward democracy. Sensing a strong possibility that Ipek might not want to go to Frankfurt with him, he started to worry that he might fail to convince Turgut Bey to leave the hotel. To express beliefs without conviction was liberating. As he nat-tered on about the statement, about issues of democracy, human rights, and many other things that were news to none of them, he saw a light shining in Ipek’s eyes that told him she didn’t believe a thing he was saying. But it wasn’t a shaming, moralistic light he saw; quite the contrary, it was the gleam of sexual provocation. Her eyes said, I know you’re spout-ing all these lies because you want me.

So it was that, just minutes after discovering the importance of melodramatic sensibilities, Ka decided he’d discovered a second great truth that had eluded him all his life: There are women who can’t resist a man who believes in nothing but love. Overcome with excitement at this new discovery, he launched into a further monologue about human rights, freedom of thought, democracy, and related subjects. And as he mouthed the wild simplifications of so many well-intentioned but shameless and slightly addled Western intellectuals and the platitudes repeated verbatim by their Turkish imitators, he thrilled to the knowledge that he might soon be making love to Ipek and all the while stared straight into her eyes to see the reflection of his own excitement.

“You’re right,” said Turgut Bey, when the commercials had come to an end. “Where’s Kadife?”

As the show resumed, Turgut Bey grew nervous—part of him wanted to go to the Hotel Asia and part of him didn’t. Like a sad old man lost in a sea of dreams and ghosts, he talked about the political memories that came to him when he was watching
Marianna,
and about his fear of winding up back in prison, and about man’s responsibilities. Ka could see perfectly well that Ipek was annoyed at him for making her father anxious, but she also admired the speed with which he had convinced the old man to leave the hotel. Ka didn’t mind that she kept averting her eyes, and when at the end of the soap opera she turned to her father, wrapped her arms around him, and said, “Don’t go if you don’t want to; you’ve already suffered enough to help others, Father,” he was not offended.

Ka saw a cloud pass over Ipek’s face, but now a joyful new poem had come into his head. In the chair next to the kitchen, where, only moments earlier, Zahide Hanım sat with tears streaming down her face as she watched
Marianna,
Ka now sat, beaming with optimism as he began to write.

It was only much later that he decided to call this poem “I Am Going to Be Happy,” perhaps choosing this title to torment himself. Ka had just completed it, not a single missing word, when Kadife came rushing into the room. Turgut Bey flew to his feet, threw his arms around her, kissed her, and asked where she’d been and why her hands were so cold. A single tear rolled down his cheek. Kadife said she’d been to see Hande. She’d stayed later than expected, not wanting to miss any of
Marianna,
and so having decided to watch at Hande’s till the end. “So how’s our girl doing?” asked Turgut Bey (he was referring to Marianna). But he did not wait for Kadife’s answer before turning to the other subject. A great cloud of apprehension descended over him as he summarized what he’d heard from Ka.

It was not enough for Kadife to pretend she was hearing all this for the first time; when she caught sight of Ka at the other end of the room, she pretended to be surprised. “I’m so happy you’re here,” she cried, as she hastened to cover her hair. But her scarf was not yet back in place when she sat down in front of the television to advise her father. Kadife was so convincing in her feigned surprise at seeing him that when she went on to encourage her father to attend the meeting and sign the joint statement, Ka thought this too must be an act. Since Blue’s motive was to produce a statement that the foreign press would be willing to print, his suspicion may have been correct, but Ka could tell from the fear in Ipek’s face that something else was going on here too.

“Let me go with you to the Hotel Asia,” said Kadife.

“I’m not about to let you get into trouble on my account,” said Turgut Bey, affecting a gallant air straight out of the soap operas they watched and the novels they had read together once upon a time.

“Please, Daddy, if you get involved in this business, you could be exposing yourself to unnecessary risks,” said Ipek.

While Ipek spoke to her father, Ka took stock: It seemed that—as with everyone else in the room—everything she said had a double meaning; as for this game she was playing with her eyes—averting her gaze one moment, staring at him intensely the next—he could only assume that this was just another way of transmitting the same mixed message. Only much later would he realize that—apart from Necip—everyone he met in Kars spoke in the same code, and so harmoniously that they seemed almost a single chorus; he would go on to ask himself whether it was poverty that somehow brought it out in them or fear, solitude, or the very simplicity of their lives. Even as Ipek said, “Daddy, please don’t go,” she was teasing Ka; even as Kadife spoke of the statement and her bonds to her father, Ka could see she was revealing her bonds to Blue.

It was with all this in mind that Ka entered into what he would later call “the most profoundly duplicitous conversation of my life.” He had a strong feeling that if he could not get Turgut Bey to leave the hotel now, he would never have a chance to sleep with Ipek, and since the challenge he saw in Ipek’s eyes only confirmed the notion, he told himself that this was his last chance in life for happiness. When he began to speak, he used the same words and ideas that had ruined his life. But as he tried to convince Turgut Bey to leave the hotel—because it was important to act for the common good, to take responsibility for his country’s poor and share in their struggles, because he was on the side of the civilizers and so obliged to stand up against the forces of darkness, even if the gesture itself seemed insignificant—Ka found that he even believed some of what he was saying. He remembered how he had felt as a young leftist, when he’d been so determined not to join the Turkish bourgeoisie, when all he wanted was to sit in a room reading great books and entertaining great thoughts. So it was with the elation of a twenty-year-old that he repeated those thoughts and ideals that had so upset his mother, who had been right in wishing he would never become a poet, and which had condemned him to exile in a rathole in Frankfurt. Meanwhile he was well aware what the passion of his words said to Ipek: This is how passionately I want to make love to you. He was thinking that at last those fine words of youth that had ruined his life would serve a purpose; thanks to them, he would be making love to the object of his desires, knowing at this same moment that he’d lost his faith in them; he now knew that the greatest happiness in life was to embrace a beautiful, intelligent girl and sit in a corner writing poetry.

Turgut Bey announced that he was leaving at once for the Hotel Asia.He went to his room to change, accompanied by Kadife.

Ka walked over to Ipek, still in the spot where she’d been watching television with her father. She looked almost as if she were still leaning on the old man. “I’ll be waiting for you in my room,” Ka whispered.

“Do you love me?” asked Ipek.

“I love you very much.”

“Is it true?”

“It’s very true.”

For a while, neither spoke. Ipek turned to gaze out the window, and so did Ka. It had started snowing again. The streetlamps in front of the hotel had come on, but darkness had not yet descended, so even as they lit up the frenzy of the giant snowflakes, they seemed superfluous.

“Go to your room,” said Ipek. “ As soon as they leave, I’ll come up.”

The Difference Between Love

and the Agony of Waiting

ka with ipek in the hotel room

Ipek did not come straight up and the waiting was torture, the worst Ka had ever known. It was this pain, this deadly wait, he now remembered, that had made him afraid to fall in love. Upon arriving in his room he’d thrown himself on the bed, only to stand up again at once to straighten out his clothes; he washed his hands and felt the blood draining from his arms, his fingers, his lips; with trembling hands he combed his hair and then, seeing his reflection in the windowpane, he messed it up again. As all this had taken very little time, he directed his anxious attention to the scene through his window.

He’d hoped to see Turgut Bey leaving the hotel with Kadife. Perhaps they’d gone past while he was in the bathroom. But if this were the case, Ipek should have come by now. Perhaps she was back in the room he’d seen the night before, painting her face and dabbing her neck with perfume. What a waste of the little time they had together! Didn’t she understand how much he loved her? Whatever she was doing, it couldn’t justify the pain he felt at this moment; he was going to tell her so when she finally arrived, but would she come at all? With every passing moment, he became more convinced that Ipek had changed her mind.

He saw a horse-drawn carriage come up to the hotel; aided by Zahide Hanım and Cavit the receptionist, Turgut Bey and Kadife climbed in and the carriage’s oilskin drapes closed around them. But the carriage remained still. Ka watched the blanket of snow on the awning get thicker and thicker; the streetlamps made each snowflake look bigger than the one before. It was as if time had stopped, Ka thought; it was driving him mad. Just then Zahide came running out the door and handed something Ka couldn’t see into the carriage. As the carriage began to move, Ka’s heart began to beat faster.

But still Ipek didn’t come. 

What was the difference between love and the agony of waiting? Like love, the agony of waiting began in the muscles somewhere around the upper belly but soon spread out to the chest, the thighs, and the forehead, to invade the entire body with numbing force. As he listened to sounds from other parts of the hotel, he tried to guess what Ipek was doing. He saw a woman passing in the street, and even though she didn’t look a bit like ˙Ipek, he thought it must be she. How beautiful the snow looked as it fell from the sky! When he was a child, they’d been sent down to the school cafeteria for their injections; as he stood there waiting, hugging his arms as cooking fumes tinged with iodine swirled around his head, his stomach had ached like this and he wanted to die. He wanted to be home, in his own room. Now he wanted to be in his own miserable room in Frankfurt. What a huge mistake he’d made by coming here! Even the poems had stopped coming. It hurt so much he couldn’t even look at the snow falling onto the empty street. And yet it felt good to be standing at this warm window; this was still better than dying, and if Ipek didn’t come soon, he would die anyway.

The lights went off.

This was a sign, he thought, sent specially to him. Perhaps Ipek hadn’t come because she knew there was about to be a power outage. He looked down at the dark street for a sign of life, something that might explain Ipek’s absence. He caught sight of a truck—was it an army truck? No, just his mind playing tricks on him. So were the footsteps he thought he heard on the stairs. No one was coming. He left the window and lay on the bed on his back. The pain that had begun in his belly had now spread to his soul; he was alone in the world with no one to blame but himself. His life had come to nothing; he was going to die here, die of misery and loneliness. This time he wouldn’t even find the strength to scurry like a rat back into that hole in Frankfurt.

The thing that grieved and distressed him the most was not his terrible unhappiness; it was knowing that, had he acted a bit more intelligently, his entire life might have been much happier. The worst thing was knowing that no one even noticed his fear, his misery, his loneliness. If Ipek had any idea she’d have come right up without delay! If his mother had seen him in this state . . . she was the only one in the world who would have felt for him; she would have run her fingers through his hair and consoled him.

The ice on the windows gave an orange glow to the light from the streetlamps and the surrounding houses. Let the snow keep falling, he thought; let it fall for days and months on end; let it cover the city of Kars so completely that no one will ever find it again. He wanted to fall asleep on this bed and not wake up until it was a sunny morning and he a child again, with his mother.

There was a knock at the door. By now, Ka told himself, it could only be someone from the kitchen. But he flew to the door, and the moment he opened it he could feel Ipek’s presence.

“Where have you been?”

“Am I late?”

But it was as if Ka hadn’t even heard her. He was already embracing her with all his strength; he’d put his head against her neck and buried his face in her hair, and there he stayed without moving a muscle. He felt such joy that the agony of waiting now seemed absurd. But the agony had worn him out all the same; that, he thought, was why he could not relish her presence fully. That is why he demanded that Ipek explain her delay: Even knowing he had no right to do so, he kept complaining. But Ipek insisted that she had come up as soon as her father had left—yes, it was true that she had stopped off in the kitchen to give Zahide one or two instructions about dinner, but that couldn’t have taken more than a minute. So Ka showed himself to be the more ardent and fragile of the two; even at the very beginning of their relationship, he had let Ipek have the upper hand. And even if his fear of seeming weak had moved him to conceal the agony she’d put him through, he would still have to grapple with feelings of insecurity. Besides, didn’t love mean sharing everything? What was it if not the desire to share your every thought? He related this chain of thought to Ipek as breathlessly as if revealing a terrible secret.