Silent House (4 page)

Authors: Orhan Pamuk

Tags: #General Fiction

I get out of the bed slowly and sit at the table and stare at the water pitcher. How does the water manage to stay in there without moving, I wonder, as though astonished at this, as though a pitcher of water is something miraculous. Once I placed a glass over a bee and imprisoned it. When I was bored I would get out of bed and look at it. It wandered around in the glass for two days until it understood that there was no way out and then it decided that there was nothing to do but sit in a corner motionless and wait and wait, not knowing what it was waiting for. When I got tired of it, fed up, really, I opened the shutters before sliding the glass over to the edge of the table and lifting it up so the bee could fly away, but the stupid creature didn’t fly away! It just stayed there on the tabletop. I called Recep and told him to swat it with something. But ripping off a piece of newspaper, he carefully picked up the bee and let it go out the window. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’s just like them.

I fill the glass with water. I drink it little by little. Finished! What should I do now? I get back into bed, prop my head against the pillow, and think about when this house was built. Selâhattin used to take me by the hand and show me around: Here’s where my examining room will be, here’s the dining room, here’s the European kitchen; I’m having a separate room built for each of the kids, because everyone
should be able to shut himself up and develop his own personality, yes, Fatma, I want three kids. And see, I’m not having bars put on the window—what an ugly idea! Are women birds or animals? We’re all free, if you want you can up and leave me, we’re putting in shutters and we’re going to have windows just as Europeans do, and don’t say over there and over here anymore, Fatma, that extension isn’t a window seat, it’s called a balcony. It’s a window that opens onto freedom, isn’t it a beautiful view? Istanbul must be over there, underneath those clouds, Fatma, fifty kilometers, it’s a good thing we got off the train at Gebze, time passes quickly, and I don’t think they’ll be able to put up with this idiot government much longer, maybe even before the house is finished the Unionists will fall and we’ll go right back to Istanbul, Fatma.

Later, the house was finished, and my son Doğan was born, and another war had broken out, but the idiot Unionist government was still in power and Selâhattin was telling me, Why don’t you go to Istanbul, Fatma. Talat didn’t exile you, just me, why don’t you go, you’ll see your mother, see your father. You’ll go see Sukru Pasha’s daughters, do some shopping, get some new things to wear, and at least you can dress up and show your mother all that stuff you’ve made bent over the sewing machine here, pumping away at the pedal from morning till late at night, ruining those beautiful eyes of yours. Fatma, why don’t you go? But I said, No, we’ll go together, Selâhattin, when they’re thrown out, we’ll go together, but they never were. Then one day I saw it in the paper—Selâhattin’s papers came three days late, but he no longer jumped on them right away as he used to. He didn’t even pay attention to the war news from Palestine, Galicia, and Gallipoli, and some days, when he’d forgotten even to scan the headlines after dinner, I would read the paper first. When I learned that the Unionists had been overthrown, I left the news like a beautiful ripe fruit on his plate. When he lifted his head up from that wretched encyclopedia of his and came downstairs for lunch, he saw the newspaper and could not fail to notice the news, because it was in huge letters. He read it without saying a thing. I didn’t ask, but I
knew he didn’t write a single word of his encyclopedia all afternoon, because the sound of his footsteps overhead did not cease until evening. When Selâhattin didn’t say anything at supper either, I softly said, Did you see, Selâhattin, they’ve been thrown out? Oh yes, he said, the government’s fallen, hasn’t it? The Unionists have sunk the Ottoman Empire and run off, and we’ve lost the war, too! He couldn’t look me in the eye, and we both fell silent. Later, as we were getting up from the table, he said, as though confessing some shameful sin he wanted to forget, Well, I suppose we’ll go back to Istanbul but only when the encyclopedia is finished, because that mundane little comedy called politics in Istanbul is nothing compared with the momentous work of this encyclopedia of everything, what I’m doing here is much greater and more profound, a scientific marvel whose influence will endure centuries from now. I have no right to leave this job half done, Fatma, I’m going right upstairs, he said, and off he went, and until he learned he was going to die, after which he would suffer unbelievable torments for another four months, until the blood rushed out of his mouth and he finally expired, he wrote that awful encyclopedia for another thirty years, and because of that, and it’s the only thing I have to thank you for, Selâhattin, I would remain here in Cennethisar for seventy years and avoid the sin of your “Istanbul of the Future” and the atheist’s state, I’ve avoided it, haven’t I, Fatma, so sleep in peace.

But I can’t sleep and I listen to the train passing in the distance, its whistle and then its engine as it rattles on and on. I used to love this sound. I used to think how, far away, there were innocent countries, lands, houses, gardens; I was a child, easily fooled. There goes another train! I can’t feel anymore. Don’t think, where! My pillow’s warm from my cheek; I turn it over. When I put my head on it, it is cool behind my ears. On winter nights it used to be cold, but nobody snuggled with anybody. Selâhattin kept snoring and I used to go into the next room and sit in the dark, disgusted at the stench of wine welling up out of his mouth. Once I went into the room across the hall, saying to myself, let’s take a look at these papers, let me see what
he’s writing from morning to night: he had written a part of an article about gorillas being the grandfathers of men; he wrote in those days that the incredible advances of the sciences in the West had now made God’s existence a ridiculous question to be cast aside; he’d written that the East’s continued slumber in the deep and despicable darkness of the Middle Ages had not led us, a handful of intellectuals, toward despair but, on the contrary, toward a great enthusiasm for work, because what was obvious was that we were not obliged to take all this knowledge and transport it from there to here, but to discover it all over again, to close the gap of centuries between East and West in a shorter time. Now, he wrote, as I complete the seventh year of this glorious work, I see the masses stupefied by fear of God—My God, Fatma! Don’t read any more, but still I was reading; he wrote, I’m obliged to articulate a number of things that would be absurdly plain in any advanced nation, just to rouse this mound of sloths, and, he wrote, At least if I had a friend to discuss all of this with, but not only am I without even a single friend, I’m finally at the point of abandoning all hope in this cold woman; from now on, Selâhattin, you’re all alone, and he wrote out, too, all his little tasks on a piece of paper, he overwrote the map in Polikowsky’s book to make a chart of the migratory routes of storks and other birds; he recorded three simple fables for proving to the feebleminded that God doesn’t exist, but no, I couldn’t read any more, that’s enough, Fatma, I let those sinful papers drop and ran out of the icy room, never to reenter that cursed chamber until that cold snowy day after he’d died. Still, Selâhattin had figured it out the very next day: You went into my room when I was sleeping last night, Fatma? You went into my room and mixed up my papers? I kept silent. You mixed them up, left them out of order, even dropped some on the floor, but it doesn’t matter, Fatma, you’re welcome to read as much as you like, read! I kept silent. You read them, didn’t you? Good! You did the right thing, Fatma, what do you think? I still kept silent. You always knew I wanted you to, didn’t you, Fatma? Read them, reading’s the best thing, read and learn, because there’s so much to do, you know. I
kept silent. Read them and wake up and one day you’ll see how much there is to do in life, Fatma, how many things!

Actually, no, there aren’t so many things. I would know: it’s been ninety years. Possessions, yes, roomfuls, I can look and see, from there to there, and a little time, endless drips falling from an unstoppable faucet. Just then is in my body and head now, just then is now, the eye closes and opens, the shutter is pushed and shuts, night and day, and then another new morning, but I’m not fooled. I still wait. They’ll come tomorrow. Hello, hello! Many happy returns. They’ll kiss my hand and laugh. The hair on their heads looks funny when they bend down to kiss my hand. How are you, how are you, Grandmother? What can someone like me say? I’m alive, I’m waiting. Tombs, dead people. Come on, sleep, come.

I turn over in the bed. Now I don’t hear the cricket anymore. The bee is gone, too. How long until morning? Crows, magpies, on the roofs in the morning … sometimes I wake up early and hear them. Is it true that magpies are thieves? The jewels of queens and princesses, a magpie grabs them, and everybody takes off after it. I wonder how a bird can fly with all that weight. How do creatures fly? Balloons, zeppelins, and that man Selâhattin wrote about. How does Lindbergh fly? If he happened to have two bottles instead of one, he would forget that I don’t listen and tell me about it after dinner. Today I wrote about planes, birds, and flying, Fatma, I’m just about to finish the article on air, listen. The air is not empty, Fatma, there are particles in it, and just as a floating boat displaces its weight in the water, no, I don’t understand how balloons and zeppelins fly, but Selâhattin was completely animated, telling me about every fact of science, and as always he was shouting by the time he got to his conclusion: Yes, that’s what we need, to know this and everything else; an encyclopedia; if we knew the natural and social sciences God would die and we, but by now I was not listening anymore! If he’d finished a second bottle I wouldn’t be listening to his raving; No, there is no God, Fatma, there’s science now. Your God is dead, you silly woman! Then, when he had nothing else to believe in except
his self-love and his self-loathing, he’d be overcome by sickening lust and run over to the hut in the garden. Don’t think about it, Fatma. Just a servant … Don’t give it a thought. Both of them cripples! Think about something else! Beautiful mornings, the old gardens, horse-drawn carriages.… Let me just go to sleep.

When my hand reaches out like a careful cat the bedside lamp goes out. Silent darkness! Though I know there’s a dim light coming through the shutters. I can’t see my things anymore, they’re free of my glances, all silent and unto themselves, they think that even without me they can stay where they are, motionless, but I know you; you’re there, my furniture, you’re there, next to me, as though you know I’m here. Once in a while, one of them creaks, I know the sound, it’s no stranger, I want to make a noise, too, and I think: This thing we’re in called emptiness is so strange! The clock ticks and divides it. Sharp and decisive. One thought, then another. Then it’s morning, and they’ve come. Hello, hello! I slept, I woke up, it’s time and I’ve had a good sleep. They’re here, Madam, they’re here! While I’m waiting, another train whistle. Where to? Good-bye! Where to, Fatma, where? We’re going, Mother, we’re banned from Istanbul. Did you take your rings? I have them! Your sewing machine? That too. Your diamonds, your pearls? You’ll need them all your life, Fatma. Come back soon, though! Don’t cry, Mother. They put the trunks and things on the train. I haven’t even had a child yet, and we’re taking a trip. My husband and I, we’re exiled to who knows what distant lands, we’re getting on the train, you’re looking at us, I’m waving; Good-bye, Father; good-bye, Mother; look, I’m going, I’m going far, far away.