Silent House by Orhan Pamuk Page B

There was a kid selling ice cream in front of the store; since I knew the little guy, I waited a bit at a distance so he wouldn’t get the wrong idea. I don’t like sucking up to rich people.
    A little later Nilgün came out, but instead of continuing on, shestarted walking the way she had come, straight toward me. I quickly turned and bent down, making as if to tie my shoelace. She came closer and closer with her package in hand, and when she looked at me, I was embarrassed.
    “Hello,” I said as I got up.
    “Hello, Hasan,” she said. “How are you?” She paused. “We saw you yesterday on the road. My brother recognized you. You’ve grown up, you’ve really changed. What are you doing?” She paused again. “You still live up above there, your uncle said, your father’s in the lottery.” She was quiet again. “Well, what are you up to, tell me, what year are you in?”
    “Me?” I said. “I’m taking this year off,” I finally managed to say.
    “What?”
    “Are you going to the beach, Nilgün?”
    “No,” she said, “I’m coming from the grocery. We took my grandmother to the cemetery. She was a little affected by the heat, I think. I got some cologne.”
    “So you’re not going to the beach,” I said.
    “It’s really crowded,” she said. “I’ll go early in the morning, when nobody’s there.”
    We were silent for a bit. Then she smiled and I laughed and noticed how her face looked different from what I’d imagined looking at it from a distance. Also, I was sweating like a jerk. She said it was the heat. I was quiet. She took a step.
    “Well, okay,” she said. “Say hello to your father, okay?”
    She put out her hand and we shook. Her hand was soft and light. I was embarrassed because mine was sweaty.
    “Bye!” I said.
    I didn’t watch her go on her way. I walked off like someone who had something important to do.

9

    Faruk Sees Stories in the Archives

    A fter we got back from the cemetery, Grandmother ate dinner with us downstairs, then began to feel unwell. Nilgün and I were laughing, and she gave us a really dirty look before her head slumped down on her chest. We took her by the arm, brought her upstairs to bed, and put some of the cologne Nilgün had bought on her wrists and temples. Then I went to my room to have my first after-dinner cigarette. After we realized that there was nothing seriously wrong with Grandmother, I got into the Anadol, which in the sun had gotten hot as an oven. Instead of the main road, I took the Darica road, which had been carefully asphalted very recently. I remembered some of the cherry and fig trees. Recep and I used to come around this as kids, supposedly to hunt crows, or just for a walk. That structure I was imagining had been a caravanserai must be farther down. There were new neighborhoods on the hills, and more being built. But I didn’t see anything new in Darica: just that ten-year-old statue of Atatürk!
    In Gebze I went straight to the district office. The district administrator had changed. Two years ago there was a man at this table whowas tired of life; now there was a young fellow who gestured with his arms when he spoke. Winning him over hadn’t even required showing him, as I’d planned to, my thesis, recently published by the faculty, or informing him that I had already done research in the district archives many times before or that my late father had been a district administrator. No, he simply sent me off right away with a man whom he summoned. The man and I looked for Riza, whom I knew from my earlier visit, but as he had apparently stepped away to visit the dispensary, I decided to walk around in the market until he came back.
    I followed a tight passage overhung with berry bushes, going downhill into the market. The streets were empty, except for a dog wandering on the pavement and a man mounting an Aygaz propane tank at the blacksmith’s. I turned without looking into the stationer’s window, before walking on,