Snow (57 page)

“You want to come to Frankfurt because you hope you can forget him there.”

“If we go to Frankfurt together it won’t be long, I’m sure, before I love you. I’m not like you; it takes me longer than two days to fall in love with someone. If you’re patient, if you don’t break my heart with your Turkish jealousies, I’ll love you deeply.”

“But right now you don’t love me,” said Ka. “You’re still in love with Blue. What is it about this man that makes him so special?”

“I’m glad you’ve asked, and I believe you really do want to know, but I’m worried about how you’ll take my answer.”

“Don’t be afraid,” said Ka, again without conviction. “I love you with all my heart.”

“First, let me say that the only man I could ever live with is the man who could listen to what I am about to say and still find it in him to love me.” Ipek paused for a moment; she turned her eyes away from Ka to gaze at the snow-covered street. “He’s very compassionate, Blue, very thoughtful and generous.” Her voice was warm with love. “He doesn’t want anyone to suffer. He cried all night once, just because two little pup-pies had lost their mother. Believe me, he’s not like anyone else.”

“Isn’t he a murderer?” Ka asked hopelessly.

“Even someone who knows only a tenth of what I know about him will tell you what stupid nonsense that is. He couldn’t kill anyone. He’s a child. Like a child, he enjoys playing games and getting lost in his daydreams and mimicking people; he loves telling stories from the Shehname and Mesnevi—behind that mask, he’s a very interesting person. He’s very strong-willed and decisive; in fact, he’s so strong, and so much fun— Oh, I’m sorry, darling, don’t cry, please; you’ve cried enough.” 

Ka stopped crying for a moment, long enough to tell Ipek that he no longer believed they’d be able to go to Frankfurt together. There followed a long eerie silence, punctuated only by Ka’s sobs. He lay down on the bed, his back to the window, and curled up like a child. After a time, Ipek lay down next to him, her arms around his back.

Ka wanted to say, Leave me alone. Instead he whispered, “Hold me tighter.”

His tears had made the pillow wet: He liked the way it felt against his cheek. He liked Ipek’s arms around him. He fell asleep.

* * *

When they woke up it was seven o’clock. At that moment they both felt that happiness was still within reach, but, unable to look each other in the face, they were both searching for an excuse to get away.

Ka began to speak, but Ipek said, “Forget it, darling, just forget it.”

For a moment he couldn’t work out what she was trying to tell him. Was it all hopeless, or did she know they’d be able to put the past behind them?

He thought Ipek was leaving. He knew very well that if he returned to Frankfurt alone there would be no more solace even in his melancholy old daily routines.

“Don’t go yet. Let’s sit here a little longer.” After a strange, discomfiting silence, they embraced once again.

“Oh, my God!” cried Ka. “My God, what’s to become of us?” 

“Everything will turn out fine,” said Ipek. “Please believe me. Trust me. Come, let me show you the things I’m packing for Frankfurt.” 

Ka was relieved just to get out of the room. He held Ipek’s hand a they walked downstairs. When they reached Turgut Bey’s office, he let it go, but still he noticed that people in the lobby saw them as a couple, and that pleased him. In her room, Ipek opened a drawer and took out the ice-blue sweater she’d never been able to wear in Kars; after unfolding it and shaking out the mothballs she stood in front of the mirror, holding it up to her chest.

“Put it on,” said Ka.

˙Ipek pulled off her thick woolen pullover and exchanged it for the ice-blue garment; it was very tight and as she fitted it over her blouse Ka was once again overcome by her beauty.

“Will you love me for the rest of your life?” Ka asked.

“Yes.”

“Now put on the dress that Muhtar would let you wear only at home.”

Ipek opened the wardrobe and took the black velvet dress off it hanger; unfastening it with great care, she prepared to put it on. “I like it when you look at me like that,” she said, as their eyes met in the mirror.

He gazed at her long beautiful back, at the tender spot just below the hairline, and, farther down, at the shadow of her backbone and the dim-ples that formed on her shoulders as she gathered up her hair to pose for him. Overwhelming pleasure, and jealousy too. He felt happy—and very evil.

“Oooh, what’s with this dress?” said Turgut Bey, as he walked into the room. “So tell me, where’s the ball?” But his face was joyless. Ka took it for paternal jealousy, and that made him feel good.

“Since Kadife left for the theater, the television announcements have become much more aggressive,” said Turgut Bey. “If she appears in this play, she’ll be making a big mistake.”

“Daddy dearest, can you please explain to me why we should be against Kadife baring her head?”

They entered the sitting room to stand in front of the television set that had been on all the time. An announcer soon appeared, proclaiming that with this evening’s live performance, there would come an end to the tragedy that had visited social and spiritual paralysis upon the nation, and that the people of Kars would be delivered at last from the religious prejudices that had too long excluded them from modern life and prevented women from enjoying equality with men. Once again, Life and Art were to merge in a bewitching historical tale of unparalleled beauty. But this time the people of Kars had no reason to fear for their safety, because the central police station and the Martial Law Command had taken every conceivable precaution. Admission was free. Then Kasım Bey, the assistant police chief, appeared on the screen; it was immediately clear that his part had been taped earlier. His hair, so disheveled on the night of the revolution, was now combed, his shirt was ironed, and his tie knotted neatly in place. After assuring the people of Kars to have no qualms about attending that evening’s great artistic event, he announced that a large number of religious high school students had already reported to the central police station to promise decorous attendance and warm applause in all the appropriate places, just as one did in Europe and other parts of the civilized world. Furthermore, he admonished, this time no rowdiness would be tolerated; no one would get away with shouting or hissing or making coarse comments of any sort, which should only be too clear to the people of Kars, who issued from a civilization that had been prospering for a thousand years, after all, and so knew exactly how to behave at the theater—and with that he vanished.

The announcer returned to the screen to discuss that evening’s fare, explaining how the lead actor, Sunay Zaim, had been waiting many years to do this piece. There followed a montage of wrinkled posters from the Jacobin plays in which, so many years ago, Sunay had played Napoleon, Robespierre, and Lenin; several black-and-white head shots of the cast (how thin Funda Eser had been in those days!); and a variety of theatrical mementos that Ka imagined to be just the sort of detritus a traveling theatrical couple might be carting around with them in a suitcase (old tickets and programs, clippings from the days Sunay aspired to play Atatürk, tragic scenes staged in sundry Anatolian coffeehouses). Annoying though this promotional montage was, it was reassuring to see Sunay on screen every other moment, and in one shot, apparently very recent, he had an air of such ravaged determination as to appear every inch the dictator, whether from Africa, the Middle East, or the Soviet bloc. Having by now watched a full day of this footage, the people of Kars were coming to believe that Sunay had indeed brought peace to their city; he was one of them now, a bona fide citizen, and they were secretly beginning to nurture hopes for their future. Eighty years earlier, when the Ottoman and Russian armies had abandoned the city, leaving the Turks and the Armenians to massacre each other, the Turks had somehow devised a brand-new flag to announce the birth of a nation: Seeing this same standard now, now stained and moth-eaten but defiantly displayed on the screen, Turgut Bey decided that something terrible was about to happen.

“This man is crazy. He’s heading for disaster, and he wants to take us too. On no account should Kadife go onstage.”

“You’re right, she shouldn’t,” said Ipek. “But if we tell her you’re the one who’s forbidding it—well, you know what Kadife’s like, Father. She’ll run straight out there and uncover her head just to be obstinate.”

“What can we do, then?”

“Why not let Ka go straight to the theater and talk her out of it?” said Ipek, turning around to look at him with her eyebrows raised expectantly.

Ka, who had been gazing for the longest while not at the TV but at her, could not fathom what had led to this abrupt change of heart about their scheme, and his puzzlement made him very nervous.

“If she wants to bare her head, it’s better for her to do it at home, after all this is over,” said Turgut Bey to Ka. “It’s clear that Sunay has planned another unspeakable outrage for this evening’s performance. I feel like a fool, having fallen for Funda’s assurances and let my girl go off with those lunatics.”

“Ka can talk her out of it, Father.”

“Yes,” Turgut said to Ka, “right now you are the only person who could reason with her, and Sunay trusts you. What happened to your nose, my lamb?”

“I fell on the ice,” Ka said guiltily.

“You fell on your forehead too, I see?”

“Ka’s been walking around the city all day,” said Ipek.

“Take Kadife aside when Sunay isn’t watching,” said Turgut Bey. “Don’t let on that it was our idea, and make sure she says nothing to Sunay suggesting it was yours. She shouldn’t even discuss it with him—better to offer some perfectly plausible excuse, like ‘I’m feeling rather ill,’ and maybe add, ‘I’ll bare my head tomorrow at home.’ Yes, she should promise to do that. And please, tell Kadife how much we all love her. My child!” Tears welled in Turgut Bey’s eyes.

“Father, may I speak to Ka alone for a moment?” said Ipek. She took Ka over to the dining table and sat him down. Zahide had set the places but not yet served the food.

“Tell Kadife that Blue is in a quandary. Say he’s in trouble or he wouldn’t have her do something like this.” 

“First tell me why you changed your mind,” said Ka.

“Oh, my darling, there’s nothing to be jealous about, please believe me. It’s just that I realized my father is right, that’s all. Right now the most important thing is to keep Kadife from this catastrophe.”

“No,” said Ka, choosing his words carefully. “Something’s happened to make you change your mind.”

“Not true. If Kadife must bare her head, she can do it later, at home.”

“If Kadife doesn’t bare her head this evening,” said Ka cautiously, “she’ll never do it in front of her father. You know this as well as I do. What are you hiding from me?”

“Darling, there’s nothing. I love you very much. If you want me, I’ll go back to Frankfurt with you. And once we’ve been there awhile and you see how surely I am bound to you, how much I love you, you’ll put these few days behind you and you’ll love and trust me, too.” 

She put her hand, which was warm and moist, on Ka’s. In the mirror over the sideboard was Ipek’s beautiful reflection; he was speechless at the beauty of her back under the straps of the black velvet dress; he could hardly believe how close he was to those enormous eyes.

“I’m almost certain something terrible’s about to happen.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m so happy. I can’t say how or where they came from, but since coming to Kars I’ve written eighteen poems. One more and I’ll have written an entire volume, or perhaps I should say it will have written itself. I believe what you say about wanting to go back to Frankfurt with me, and I can see an even greater happiness stretching out before us. It just seems dangerous to be this happy. That’s how I know something terrible is going to happen.”

“Something like what?”

“Like this: I go off to talk to Kadife, and you go off to meet Blue.”

“Oh, that’s ridiculous,” said Ipek. “I don’t even know where he is.”

“It’s because I wouldn’t tell them where he is that they beat me like this.”

“And you’d better not tell anyone else, either! I’m serious!” Ipek cried, knitting her brows. “Soon enough you’ll see that you have nothing to fear.”

“So what’s going on? I thought you were going off to talk to Kadife,” said Turgut Bey. “The play starts in an hour and fifteen minutes. They’ve just announced on television that the roads are about to reopen.” 

“I don’t want to go; I don’t want to leave the hotel,” whispered Ka sheepishly.

“Please understand that we can’t leave the city if Kadife’s in distress,” said Ipek, “because if we did, we wouldn’t be happy either. The least you can do is go over there; it will make us all feel better.”

“An hour and a half ago, when Fazıl brought me the message from Blue,” said Ka, “you were telling me not to leave the hotel at all.”

“All right. Just tell me what proof you’ll accept that I haven’t left the hotel while you’re at the theater—but quickly; we’re running out of time,” said Ipek.

Ka smiled. “Come upstairs to my room. I’ll lock you in, and while I’m gone for a half hour I’ll keep the key with me.”

“Fine,” said Ipek cheerfully. She stood up. “Father dear, I’m going up to my room for half an hour. You’re not to worry, because Ka is going straight to the theater to talk to Kadife. Please don’t get up; we have something to take care of upstairs first and we’re in a hurry.”

“I’m very grateful,” said Turgut Bey to Ka, but he still looked uneasy.

Ipek took Ka by the hand, and by that hand she led him through the lobby and pulled him up the stairs.

“Cavit saw us,” said Ka. “What do you think he thought?”

“Who cares?” said Ipek blithely. In his room, there was a faint lingering scent of their lovemaking from the night before. “I’ll wait for you here. Be careful. Don’t get drawn into an argument with Sunay.”

“So when I ask Kadife not to go onstage, should I say it’s because you and her father and I don’t want her to, or because Blue doesn’t want her to?”