Bliss: A Novel Read online

  At first, the regard that well-heeled Turks were given in the States had astounded İrfan, but after he married Aysel, he discovered the reason. Certain companies or individuals would give the wealthy an entrée to American high society. Through the services of an agent, a candidate would donate a large sum of money to a charitable foundation set up by a well-known person in order to be invited to charity events attended by people high in the society. İrfan later learned that Aysel had donated twenty thousand dollars to Ivana Trump’s foundation, which guaranteed her a table at the best restaurants. Rich Turks ran across each other at these restaurants.

  Although the esteem given to Turkey as a country was close to zero, rich Turks were highly respected abroad. Once, in London, İrfan and Aysel had been invited to a private club in Piccadilly. Entrance was by membership or invitation only, and their passport information had to be recorded at the desk. Black tie and fashionable dress were required. A hostess guided them up the red-carpeted marble stairs, illuminated by the light of crystal chandeliers. Rare and precious works of art were exhibited in niches all the way up the staircase, and magnificent paintings were hung on the walls. The spacious dining room was opulent but at the same time vulgar, with gold leaf glittering from every corner. The dishes, prepared by well-known chefs, were a mixture of Thai, Italian, and Lebanese cuisine. Waiters continuously offered them this or that food to taste, as if they were the guests of honor. The club was always crowded with rich Arabs and Turks in Armani suits and Versace ties. The women glittered in their Chanel gowns and priceless jewelry. İrfan had guessed that membership to this club cost more than the annual salary of the prime minister of England. The price of a dinner was perhaps more than three months’ salary for a cashier working in a bookshop in Sloane Square.

  This stylish glitter had bewitched İrfan, and he had given himself up to the pretentious lifestyle of the Istanbul rich rather than becoming a Harvard professor. At the beginning, he had been ashamed of how ostentatious the showiness of it all was. John Lobb shoes, for instance, were an absolute must for this kind of life. An employee of the company would come specially from London each year to take foot measurements to make the elegant, handmade shoes its customers desired.

  He had met Aysel in his last year, and afterward, he was able to complete his degree. He had pursued his academic career later at Istanbul University.

  One’s lifestyle influences everything, even the way one thinks. Instead of becoming a creative thinker, content with a modest way of life, İrfan mutated into a pretentious dandy from an underdeveloped country. He had not produced anything worthwhile—since he judged himself to be devoid of noteworthy thoughts or feelings.

  The professor felt in need of a new myth in order to go on living. Since setting out to sea, he had been able to understand the fears and crises he had suffered in Istanbul. It was not just the fear of dying, which had given him the desire to change his life immediately, but the fear of dying without having produced something significant and without having left even the smallest trace to show he had ever existed.

  İrfan had not thought about Aysel since he set out to sea. He loved her very much and did not want to hurt her. Yet, in spite of this, he must have caused her a lot of grief.

  Inwardly, he felt happier when he was away from her. He was often disturbed by things of minute importance, the daily repetition of which had become extremely annoying. For instance, Aysel would cuddle up next to him when he watched television as if there were no other place in all their spacious living room. When Aysel’s blond hair, stiff and smelling of synthetic dye, touched his cheek, it would put him on edge. Unable to say, “Take your hair away from my face, it’s scratching me,” he would endure the discomfort in silence. Aysel would curl up next to him and stay there for hours, causing his legs to go numb and his neck to become stiff, yet he could not push her away. Eventually, he would invent a reason to go to the bathroom or to get something from the kitchen, but his excuse would not stop her from asking where he was going. If he replied that he wanted a beer, she would immediately say, “Ask the maid, honey. Don’t trouble yourself.”

  İrfan could not easily give orders to the housemaids. He felt embarrassed to summon these servants and tell them to bring him a beer while all he was doing was sitting with his feet up. Aysel commanded and berated the maids with great ease—and they respected her far more than they did the professor.

  Aysel’s habit of interrupting İrfan in front of others to take over and finish a joke or a story he had started to tell disturbed İrfan a lot. Even though angry, he would maintain his self-control, and say, “Go ahead, sweetheart. You tell it better.”

  Aysel liked to correct her husband about insignificant details. For instance, if İrfan said, “Then we stopped at a grocery store and bought a pound of apples,” Aysel would most likely immediately correct him, saying, “No, we bought two pounds, and some oranges, too.”

  İrfan did not have the courage to say, “What’s that got to do with what I’m talking about?” Instead, he would mask his irritation with a smile.

  He slept comfortably alone at night in the cabin or on the deck of the boat without Aysel’s sticking her hair into his face or hooking him with her leg.

  He usually began his musings by thinking how much he loved Aysel. If he thought a little longer, he would realize how much he hated her and cut his thoughts short.

  Joseph Campbell’s Masks of God and The Power of Myth were two of the few books İrfan had taken with him. That morning he had read these lines from The Power of Myth: “Myths formulate things for one. They say, for example, that one has to become an adult at a particular age. The age might be a good average age for that to happen—but actually, in the life of the individual, this differs greatly. Some people are late bloomers and come to a particular stage at a relatively late age. One has to have a feeling where he is. A human being has got only one life to live.”

  In another part of the book, Campbell wrote: “We are so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about.”

  These lines made the professor think that he had recently matured and become adult. He had always felt that his old world in Istanbul was devoid of inner values, but he had internalized this observation only after leaving that world behind. His friends and acquaintances were only interested in the supplements of weekend newspapers, which reported the love affairs between soccer players and models or singers and what went on behind closed doors. The television channels were full of such stories. Maybe this was what Campbell had defined as a lack of mythology.

  İrfan believed that monotheism was a less exciting religion than that of the gods of mythology, which had lasted for thousands of years. Later, the people of the Mediterranean had suddenly been propelled into a dry and colorless system of belief in the one true God. There were no longer gods to console, attract, and to amuse them. The way the ancient gods and goddesses who lived on Mount Olympus used to fall in love, feel jealous, kidnap young maidens, make war and peace, rape and receive punishment, and undertake a multitude of adventures, each stranger than the other, was very human. The people of the Mediterranean would tell these stories repeatedly, but the new monotheistic religions were extremely boring. One could not tell whether the One God was male or female even. God had no form nor did He/ She embark on any adventures. Humankind had to create new gods and goddesses to be able to maintain past habits. The members of the new pantheon were actors or actresses, soccer players, models, politicians, toreadors, and tennis pros. Countless newspapers, magazines, and many hours of television time were dedicated to the lives and affairs of these deities. The only difference was that Mount Olympus had now descended to become some Olympos Disco.

  The new gods and goddesses, whose adventures were closely followed by Istanbul’s elite, came from the impoverished sectors of the city. Apparently, many poor families living in the outlying suburbs, which had spread t
heir octopus tentacles around the city, had tall, slender long-legged daughters whom they “sold” to the television channels. At first, these girls were timid, disheveled, and a little too thin, but as time passed and they got used to their new occupations, their appearances changed as a result of new hairdressers and the surgeon’s knife, as well as silicone implants to lips and breasts. Once, a columnist had described these girls as “long-legged with grandiose lips,” causing İrfan to chuckle. The shoulder straps of their dresses often slid from their shoulders, exposing their nipples. In an exaggerated tone of astonishment, they would ask the reporters around them, “Did anything show?” Then the goddesses would burst into laughter, showing off their new porcelain dentures, overlarge and a little too protruding.

  As for the new gods, they were invariably short, stout, and swarthy, with hairy chests, huge moustaches, and an accent from somewhere in the east.

  In their miserable shacks, millions of the poor watched the adventures of these gods and goddesses on television as they sat hunched around their coal-burning stoves, the noxious fumes from which brought death to someone whenever the west wind blew the smoke back down the chimney. They hoped for some kind of help from that world of virtual reality. When the folk-dance music started, they would clap their hands and prance around as if they were the happiest people on earth. This the professor was able to understand, but he could not comprehend why the social group that called itself “the elite” shared these pleasures. There was a deep gulf between the social classes in Turkey; but a factory boss and his workers, a high-ranking officer and his driver, or the founder of a holding company and a beggar were all united in front of the television. All followed the same gods and goddesses, gazed at their photographs, and watched their shows. In this country, there was wealth, but nothing that could be called elite in culture or taste.

  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 Haydarpaa 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.

  Haydarpaa 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 again
st 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.