Enlightenment (10 page)

I decided to sit it out after that. But I still couldn’t follow Sinan’s game. He tried to explain later, but I don’t think it could ever be reassuring to have a tortuous Byzantine subterfuge mapped out for you after it’s just passed you by completely.

I can only wonder, not for the first time, what else I’ve been missing.’

July 10
^th
1970

‘Summer really was cancelled yesterday, for reasons that are still unclear. Officially, i.e. according to God, i.e. Haluk’s father, they’re not allowed out at all until they’ve done this stupid resit. Of course that’s not stopping them. But there will be hell to pay if they get caught, so that means snatching an hour here and an hour there, and never going out at night, and that’s very sad, when you think the curfew’s only just been lifted. I’m not sure what caused the crackdown. It has to do with Haluk and Sinan sneaking out one morning when they were supposed to be studying, but they won’t say where or why. Just: “There was something we had to do.”

Whatever that was, it seems to have something to do with Sinan’s mother’s apartment, which is where Sinan lives, apparently, when she’s not in Paris. To judge from the shrouds covering every piece of furniture, she’s been in Paris for some time.

The four of us went there this afternoon, but only for about half an hour, most of which, I regret to report, Haluk and Chloe spent in the master bedroom. I sat on the balcony, while Sinan darted back and forth furtively. There’s something on his mind, but he won’t tell me. And when it comes down to it, all things considered – what right do I have to ask?’

July 12
^th
1970

‘Another visit to the House of Shrouds. I’m beginning to feel like Chloe’s chaperone. If I am, I’m not a very good one! I really do wonder sometimes if she knows what she’s doing. But I also wonder why I end up on the balcony and why Sinan won’t let me see his room.’

July 13
^th
1970

‘Today, after he’d left me alone on the balcony for some time, I tried to make a joke of it. What had he been doing in his bedroom, stashing guns? He didn’t laugh.’

July 15
^th
1970

‘I woke up this morning feeling extraordinarily happy, as if someone had given me some enormous present I’d always longed for, but of course no one had. I thought then I must have dreamt it, but when I was sitting on the porch with my tea watching the ships pass, I looked at the date on the paper Dad was reading and then my mood dropped like a stone. It’s a month to the day since I met my friend Sinan.

My
friend
Sinan.

I told myself not to be stupid. That it was better this way, because friends could trust each other, and know each other, in ways that were never possible in affairs of the heart. But later, when I was sitting on that balcony again in the House of Shrouds, I looked down at the street and saw this man pulling a basket out of a parked car, and it was only when he walked into the apartment with the same basket a few minutes later that I realised that man must have been Sinan.

I must have watched him for a whole minute without knowing who he was.

WHAT I KNOW ABOUT HIM:

• Early life in seven different embassies, but he says they were all the same.

• Cared for mostly by servants, a different set in each one.

• Four different primary schools, three English and one American.

• When he was five he and his chauffeur were caught in crossfire between demonstrators and the police, and at seven he witnessed a
coup d’état
.

• At eleven, he met Nasser and Tito.

• His mother really was a singer, which really is unusual for a woman of her class and background, and next to impossible for the wife of a diplomat.

• When he was twelve she ran off with a Brazilian crooner.

• He then ran off with someone else, so after the divorce Sinan and his mother came back to Istanbul, where, after two unhappy years in a Turkish school where he could not bear the discipline, he moved to Robert Academy, where his father decided he should take the Turkish courses as well as the ones taught in English. This was a terrible mistake, because he still could not bear the discipline. He refused to accept it. And this led to open war.

• They are making him take this resit to break his will.

• It won’t break his will, but he’ll have to pretend, just to get them off his case.

• He’s never been close to his father, but now, after this, he hates him.

• His mother is away a lot, but she loves him in her way.

• He’s going to study engineering, to please his mother and keep his father off his back, but has no intention of ever being an engineer.

• He has other plans. That’s all he’ll say about it: other plans.

WHAT I DON’T KNOW:

• What he’s thinking.

• How he feels about me.

• How he feel about this girl who took his heart.

• Who she is.

• Why not even Chloe seems to know this.

• Why this girl whoever she is, is so important, when she’s not even here.

• What’s holding him back.

• Why he always leaves before he has to.

• Where I stand with him.

• What I’ll do if the answer is nowhere.

• Why he makes me so happy, just by entering the room.

• Where he goes when he leaves.’

July 21
^st
1970

‘Still stuck in the same place.’

July 29
^th
1970

‘I did talk about it with Chloe today, and she was sympathetic, though somewhat blasé (her favourite word). I think it’s easier for her to live with all this because she’s used to it, having grown up here. I mean all this subterfuge, these rumours that you never know are true or not, and the way people will tell you these things about themselves that defy belief but then withhold everything else. When I asked her why they did this, she just shrugged her shoulders and said, “To keep you guessing?” When I asked why they would want to do that, she said, “Well, obviously. So you can’t control them.”

She’s much better than I am at accepting the world as it is.’

August 2
^nd
1970

‘I had a dream this morning, when I was floating in and out of sleep and it sums up how I’m feeling. I’m playing cards, and even though I have mysteriously learned how to count them, I’m still losing. Because the deck keeps changing – one time it is all hearts. The next
time there are five queens of spades. Sometimes there are fifty-seven cards in all, and sometimes only fifty-one. So I know someone at the table is cheating. I know something is wrong. But I can’t say what until all the cards have been dealt and I’ve lost again.’

August 3
^rd
1970

‘Today we took Kitten II over to Kanlıca and went to one of those yoghurt cafés, and Sinan and I took the ferry back. I tried to take advantage of our time alone together to say something, but the words just evaporated.’

August 4
^th
1970

‘Today it was very hot and all I did was go over to Chloe’s house and make peanut butter cookies. The recipe was from a book called
An American Cook in Turkey.’

August 5
^th
1970

‘What would I have said, a few months back, if someone had told me I’d spend my summer making cookies from a book called
An American Cook in Turkey?’

August 6
^th
1970

‘Today I tried to walk into Bebek along the shore. But there were hundreds of boys sunning themselves on the pavement and they kept throwing themselves in my path and trying to look up my skirt. I tried to cross to the other side, a car slowed down and the driver hissed something ugly and guttural I couldn’t understand though of course I didn’t need to. I pretended he didn’t exist and kept walking towards Bebek and eventually he gave up, but I hated having to keep my head down.

I hate it that I can’t go anywhere in this city without a boy.

PLACES GIRLS AREN’T SUPPOSED TO GO BY THEMSELVES IN THIS CITY:

• Beerhalls.

• Restaurants.

• Cafés.

• Any street.

• Any public place, except perhaps for the breakfast room at the Hilton, but after five in the evening, not even there.

PLACES GIRLS CAN GO BY THEMSELVES WITHOUT RUNNING THE RISK OF BEING HARASSED:

• Their room.’

August 7
^th
1970

‘Well, I’ve seen his room now, and it was not what I expected.

I don’t know what I was expecting.

It happened very suddenly. I didn’t plan it. I just blurted it out – “I want to see your room” – and he just looked at me, and said, “Why?”

I said, “Because it’s there.”

“Why now?” he asked.

I said, “Because I want to see what you have in there.”

Then there was a long silence, punctuated by distraught sighs. After which, he said, “Okay. But I warn you. You’ll regret it.”

The blinds were drawn. All you could see was this large and glowing emerald of terrarium, lots of ferns around a log. I went over to stare at it, I think because I couldn’t think what else to do. He came over next to me and we sat there staring at the ferns together. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he said. I agreed. “I was so sure you’d be scared,” he said, and I said, “Why would I be scared?” He said, “Because most people are.” I must have given him a look, because he added, “In Turkey, anyway.”

“This really is a very strange country,” I said.

“No,” he said. “You’re the one who’s strange.”

Then he said, “But I’m glad you’re strange.” And kissed me.

It was only later,
much
later, that I looked at the terrarium again and saw the cobra.

I think, under normal circumstances, I would have been terrified.

It’s not his. He’s looking after it for a teacher. It’s been very difficult, though. Especially getting the mice.

But apparently he’s very indebted to this teacher, who taught him “how to see the world.” I don’t feel very warm towards this man at the moment, because apparently he’s warned Sinan off me.

When I asked Sinan why, he said, “Because of who you are.”

This teacher’s American, too, though. His name is Dutch.’

August 15
^th
1970

‘Today we took the cobra out to Büyükada, where a woman named Zehra is going to look after it while Sinan is away. (He takes the resit on Tuesday morning and flies out to his father in Pakistan that afternoon.)

On the way to the ferry, we bought the mice, from a man called Rauf. Rauf’s shop (he’s a tailor, of all things, specialising in men’s shirts) is between Tünel and Tepebaşı. On the ground floor is a louche bar where we went to drink tea afterwards. The woman in charge was about sixty, big and blonde and apparently quite something on the accordion – and falling over with warmth and kindness. She knew French, so that is how we conversed. Apparently she is Russian and came here in 1917 in “a Cossack’s pocket.” When I asked what that meant, she said it was a very long story, but that she would be happy to tell me if I had the patience. Then a customer walked in and Sinan came down the stairs with Rauf so I had to leave without it.

We walked down to the bridge because now we had two baskets, and although the lids were both firmly fastened; the mice were making too much noise to take into a taxi. We still caused quite a commotion. We had ten dogs and twenty urchins following us by the time we got to the quay.

The ferry was packed, it being Saturday, but we had a whole bench
to ourselves.

Zehra (the snake-sitter) was another strange one – dark and thin and tragic. No smiles for us, but three for the cobra. She had seven dogs in her garden and twice that many cats and after midnight she goes all over the island putting out food for strays. Although she’s very poor, she lives in a beautiful if rundown old house that an old man bequeathed to her after an angel came to him in a dream. When Zehra took out one of the mice to stroke it, a tear rolled down her face.

She had an aquarium but it wasn’t big enough, so we had to go to the other end of town to borrow one from a man with the most furrowed brow I have ever seen in my life. Apparently, he’s a former prison guard who took up painting while he was doing a term himself for killing an inmate who insulted his mother. His paintings are of children playing in gardens and are what you call primitive but Sinan bought one, which struck me as kind.

The ferry back to the city stopped at Heybeli, Burgaz, and Kinalı, and as I watched all those people strolling back and forth along those small and glittering waterfronts, I could almost see their secret stories trailing like comets behind them.

We didn’t go straight home because Zehra had given Sinan some medicine to give to her sister in Kumkapı. We had a hard time finding her apartment, even with eleven portly moustachioed men in undershirts helping us. She was too ill to come downstairs, so she lowered a basket from the window. It was after midnight by the time I got home. Dad was waiting up for me. (A little the worse for wear, I’m afraid.) He told me Mom had called. Apparently there was a piece in the
New York Times
about the cholera in Asia, and she was worried I might become Turkey’s first reported victim.

“She’s jumping the gun,” he said. “But I hope you didn’t have any mussels today.” I did, though. Lots.

Mom says she wants me to come home if it turns into a full-blown epidemic. She can say what she likes.