Bliss: A Novel (23 page)

İrfan recalled one of his columns. His claim had aroused much hostility. He had written that the Turkish bourgeoisie was not a genuine bourgeoisie because they had no aristocratic models to follow, from which to learn culture and refinement. Nineteenth-century European novels often mentioned that the unrefined nouveaux riches, in envy of the aristocrats, emulated them by placing pianos and paintings in their houses, by organizing literary readings and inviting famous authors and poets to their homes, and by hiring private tutors to teach their children Latin, literature, and music.

The peasants who earned a lot of money in Turkey did not turn into bourgeoisie but adopted a proletarian lifestyle. There is a Russian saying: “Scrape a Russian, and you’ll find a Tatar!” When the glossy layers of the rich Turk were scraped off, the peasant underneath was laid bare.

İrfan knew that during the six hundred years of the Ottoman Empire, great care had been taken to prevent the emergence of an aristocratic class since a single family lorded it over the whole state. The name of that family was Osman, which consequently became that of the state. To maintain their dynastic hegemony, the sultans had not married into Turkish families but had chosen brides of Hungarian, Russian, or Italian origin. When any other family showed signs of gaining power, the sultan would destroy it. Executing the head of the family was not enough—the whole family had to be wiped out and its property confiscated, such an action even being sanctioned by religious approval from the Sheikh-ul-Islam. As a result, the Turkish Republic had not received the legacy of an aristocratic social class from the Ottomans, but an odd group, which called themselves the “elite of Istanbul,” had evolved: a group of people with wealth but no culture.

The sons of these “elite” families would go to the United States to study business administration, but in summer they came back to Istanbul to dance like Egyptian belly dancers in bars and at wedding parties. There was something feminine about the young men’s dancing as they bowed low in front of each other, bumped hip to hip or, covered in sweat, embraced and even kissed.

The professor loathed Istanbul.

THE MAGICAL CITY

When Meryem and cemal got off the train in Istanbul at
Haydarpa
a
Station, they shared the same feeling as the Megarians, the Vikings, the Crusaders, and many others who had come there over the centuries: amazed admiration. They had all felt that this city was like no other city past or present.

During the last hour of the journey, the train had passed along the coast of the Marmara Sea and through the suburbs on the Asian side of Istanbul. Meryem’s eyes opened wide in amazement as the train sped past the crowds of people lining the platforms in outlying stations. Soon, everyone on the train rushed to get their luggage together, putting on their coats in haste to line up at the doors, where everyone was waiting, impatient to get off.

Haydarpa
a
station was full of trains, coming or going, and crowds of people milling here and there. Never in her life had Meryem seen such a crowded place. Over the loudspeaker, gongs were constantly clanging and announcements being made. Meryem and Cemal were hardly able to think straight. The jostling crowds pushed by them, careless of whose shoulders they banged or whose feet they stepped on. Cemal buttoned the front of his jacket all the way up to the collar. From childhood, he had heard stories about the amount of thieving that went on in Istanbul, and he was afraid that the few liras in his inside pocket might be stolen. He kept close watch, his eyes anxiously turning this way and that: Anyone in this crowd might be a pickpocket.

Meryem gazed at the people around her. Some were hugging those newly arrived, others waving their good-byes. She was astonished to see young people kissing each other on the lips. No one around them seemed to take any notice or stop to look, however long the embrace lasted.

Cemal and Meryem became even more bewildered as they made their way through the crowd and came to the floating boat landing, swaying on the choppy sea in front of the station. White passenger ferries with fenders made from huge, discarded truck tires bumped against the pier, causing it to rattle and shake, while the ships’ sirens deafened their ears. The coal black funnels of the boats contrasted strikingly with their white paint.

According to the directions Cemal had been given, in order to get to Yakup’s house, they had to cross to the European side of the city on one of these boats and take two different buses. Cemal showed the instructions, written on a crumpled piece of paper, to an elderly man with a gray moustache and a felt hat, who pointed out a ferry to him. Cemal, with an inbred suspicion of Istanbul folk, asked two other people and was only convinced it was the right boat when they both gave the same answer as the first man had.

After waiting in line to buy a token and pass through the turnstiles, Cemal and Meryem just managed to catch the ferry. The ropes were being cast off, and the boat was about to leave the pier with much churning of blue water into foaming white waves. On board, it was noisy and so crowded that they had difficulty staying on their feet. Several haggard-faced men in clothes that had seen better days were shouting at the tops of their lungs, trying to sell combs, colored pencils, music cassettes, razor blades, and various other items as they walked among the crowd. One elderly vendor, who looked as if he had spent his life on that boat, was explaining how the instrument in his hand had cured his back pain. “Here I am, alive and cured!” he boasted, ignoring the laughter of the few passengers listening to him.

The smell of burning oil from the engines mingled with the intoxicating fragrance from the rolling sea. Evening was falling, and Meryem marveled at the beauty of the Bosphorus. The lights of the city, the brightly shining palaces, and the majestic mosques were reflected in its blue waters like a scene from a fairy tale. She gazed at the long bridges connecting Asia and Europe; the Süleymaniye and Blue Mosques, whose graceful minarets were silhouetted against the crimson horizon; the imposing outlines of Haghia Sophia and Topkapı, and, farther down, those of Dolmabahçe and the Çırağan Palace, as well as the many other grand buildings visible on either side of the channel. “Oh God, dear God!” she whispered in awe. The beauty of the scene before her, the splendid buildings displayed, as it were, on a crimson velvet cloth, vivid against the blackness of the night sky, caused her to weep until her face was wet with tears.

Yachts, full of beautifully dressed ladies and gentlemen sitting idly, sipping their drinks, went past them, and enormous Russian cargo ships from the Black Sea with flocks of screaming seagulls following in their wake. The breeze from the land, which brought with it scents of aniseed and fish, took Meryem’s breath away.

When the ferry came alongside the landing on the other side of the strait, Meryem saw that the shore was lined with rowboats, in which fishermen were frying fish. “Fish sandwiches, delicious fish sandwiches!” they shouted.

“My God, what a world this is, full of so many wonders,” she whispered again.

After punishing her for so long after the visit to
eker
Baba’s tomb, had God forgiven her at last? Had all her sins been erased? Did God love her now?

What a tremendous confusion of water, people, ships, seagulls, mosques, brilliance, and noise it all was. The red and yellow lights of the cars on the coastline dazzled her eyes like shining comets as they moved along in an endless stream.

The ferry docked at the pier on the European side, and the passengers streamed out like a swarm of ants to mingle with the people in the ferryboat station. Everyone moved fast in this city. They walked quickly, spoke hurriedly, jumped off the boat, and ran off to their destinations. What was more, not one of them took the slightest interest in anyone else. They all followed each other off the boat like a great flock of sheep. Cemal grabbed Meryem’s wrist to avoid losing her in the crowd or to gain courage from hanging on to her. It was not clear.

After stopping a few people and asking which bus went to their destination, Cemal bundled Meryem across the street, in front of numerous cars waiting at a traffic light, and pushed her onto a crowded red bus. Clutching their bags, they inched their way to the back, grabbing hold of each dirty iron upright as they went. The driver braked frequently in the heavy traffic, and Meryem and Cemal struggled not to fall over or bump into other passengers when it jerked forward again. Meryem could not understand how these people could be from Istanbul. They were different from most of the ones she had seen at the station or on the ferry. The men looked like peasants, and the elderly women all had their heads covered. She was relieved to see that there were also a few young women who dressed more freely.

Cemal tried to stifle the feeling of being without a point of reference, which caused him as much panic as it did Meryem, before turning his thoughts to his older brother, Yakup, about whom he felt both jealousy and apprehension. So this was the beautiful city he lived in. Yakup had not visited the village once since moving to Istanbul with his family. Perhaps he had even forgotten the name of his hometown. It was as if he were living in Istanbul like one of the sultans, and those left behind were his slaves, unworthy to be noticed. While Cemal had been fighting with death, enduring the freezing rain on the mountaintops for days on end, and pissing blood, his brother had been lording it here. The letters he wrote to his father, and the news he sent to the soldier on leave were boastful in tone, belittling his hometown, as though he thought himself superior because he lived in a new environment. His attitude made the people in the village curious and also aroused both their envy and their admiration.

Meryem was overcome with fatigue and excitement. The ferry she and Cemal had taken had crossed from one continent to another, from Asia into Europe. From time to time, she remembered how she had thought that Istanbul was just behind the hill near her village. How ignorant she had been. It was true no one had taught her anything. Being a child of misfortune, she had been shunned. Her head had been filled with old wives’ tales and superstitions. But in the short time since leaving the village, she had already learned many new things.

The bus passed through traffic-choked thoroughfares, changed direction at streets leading off from squares, stopped many times, and finally entered a main road leading away from the city center. Only a few passengers remained, and Meryem and Cemal were able to sit down. Already exhausted, the motion of the bus made Meryem drowsy, her head fell forward, and she slept.

When she woke up, she noticed that the bus had stopped at a bus station. This was a very different Istanbul. Gloomy houses in a dilapidated condition surrounded the terminal. Here they were to board another bus, and when they had disembarked, Cemal asked the driver for directions.

The bus they boarded this time carried them farther away from the brilliant city, through dark fields flanked by decrepit houses. At each stop, as the magical city became more distant, Meryem’s hopes and dreams faded a little more. She felt as if she was returning to the east of Anatolia. It was as if they had traveled two long days for nothing and had never left their town. The bus stopped in the darkness in the middle of a dreary field. The driver turned to Cemal, and said, “The directions you showed me told me to put you down in Rahmanlı. This is the bus stop for there.”