the legs, the feet were utilized for years in the tiny window of the tiny shop where umbrellas, gloves, boots, and shoes were displayed for the benefit of the crowds in Beyoğlu.
Chapter Seven
THE LETTERS IN MOUNT KAF
“Must a name mean something?”
— LEWIS CARROLL , Through the Looking Glass
Stepping out into the anomalous bright white that coated the routine gray of Nişantaşı, Galip realized it had snowed through his sleepless night harder than he’d imagined. The crowd on the sidewalk didn’t seem quite aware of the sharp, semitransparent icicles that pointed down from the eaves of the buildings. In Nişantaşı Square, Galip entered the City Bank—which Rüya called the Sooty Bank, referring to the dust, smoke, car exhaust, and the dirty blue fumes that gushed out of the neighborhood’s chimneys—and found out that Rüya hadn’t withdrawn any appreciable amount from their joint account within the last few days, that the heat in the bank building was off, and that everybody was pleased with the small National Lottery prize which had befallen one of the bank tellers with the atrociously made-up faces. He walked past the florist’s fogged window, past the arcades where the tea boys ventured with trays of morning tea, past the Şişli Progressive High where he and Rüya went to school, under the wraith-like chestnut tree hung with ice, and into Aladdin’s store. Aladdin had pulled over his head the blue hood that Jelal mentioned in his article nine years ago. He was busy blowing his nose.
“What’s wrong, Aladdin? You sick or something?”
“Caught myself a cold.”
Enunciating the titles precisely, Galip asked for one copy of each of the leftist political periodicals for which Rüya’s ex-husband used to write articles and some of which were okay by Galip. Aladdin, wearing a look first of childish fear and then of suspicion that could never be construed as hostile, said that only university students read such magazines. “What would you want with them?”
“Do the crosswords,” Galip said.
Aladdin laughed pointedly to make it clear that he got the joke. “But brother, these things don’t run any crosswords!” he said ruefully, like a true crossword addict. “These two are new on the stands, you want them too?”
“Sure,” Galip said. He whispered like an old man picking up some dirty magazines: “Wrap them up, will you?”
On the Eminönü bus, he noticed the package getting curiously heavier; then, with the same odd feeling, he got the impression that an eye was watching him. But it wasn’t an eye that belonged to the throng on the bus; the passengers swayed as if on a small steamboat on the high seas and stared out distractedly at the snowy streets and the crowds milling outside. That’s when he realized Aladdin had wrapped the political magazines in an old copy of Milliyet. On the corner of one of the folds, Jelal stared out at him from his photograph in its usual place at the head of his column. The unaccountable thing was that the photograph of Jelal, which was the same every morning, now gave Galip a completely different look. Jelal appeared to say, “I’m on to you and I’ve got an eye on you!” Galip placed his finger on the “eye” that read his soul, but he still felt its presence under his finger the whole time he was on the bus.
He phoned Jelal as soon as he got to the office but couldn’t get him. Carefully he put away the old newspaper and started reading the leftist magazines he’d unwrapped. At first, the magazines brought back the feelings of excitement, tension, and expectation that Galip had long forgotten; they reminded him of the intimations of the day of liberation, victory, and judgment which he had given up on a long time ago but didn’t know just when. But after long bouts of making calls to Rüya’s old friends, whose numbers he’d scribbled on the back of her letter, the memories of his left-wing days seemed as alluring and incredible as the
Chapter Seven
THE LETTERS IN MOUNT KAF
“Must a name mean something?”
— LEWIS CARROLL , Through the Looking Glass
Stepping out into the anomalous bright white that coated the routine gray of Nişantaşı, Galip realized it had snowed through his sleepless night harder than he’d imagined. The crowd on the sidewalk didn’t seem quite aware of the sharp, semitransparent icicles that pointed down from the eaves of the buildings. In Nişantaşı Square, Galip entered the City Bank—which Rüya called the Sooty Bank, referring to the dust, smoke, car exhaust, and the dirty blue fumes that gushed out of the neighborhood’s chimneys—and found out that Rüya hadn’t withdrawn any appreciable amount from their joint account within the last few days, that the heat in the bank building was off, and that everybody was pleased with the small National Lottery prize which had befallen one of the bank tellers with the atrociously made-up faces. He walked past the florist’s fogged window, past the arcades where the tea boys ventured with trays of morning tea, past the Şişli Progressive High where he and Rüya went to school, under the wraith-like chestnut tree hung with ice, and into Aladdin’s store. Aladdin had pulled over his head the blue hood that Jelal mentioned in his article nine years ago. He was busy blowing his nose.
“What’s wrong, Aladdin? You sick or something?”
“Caught myself a cold.”
Enunciating the titles precisely, Galip asked for one copy of each of the leftist political periodicals for which Rüya’s ex-husband used to write articles and some of which were okay by Galip. Aladdin, wearing a look first of childish fear and then of suspicion that could never be construed as hostile, said that only university students read such magazines. “What would you want with them?”
“Do the crosswords,” Galip said.
Aladdin laughed pointedly to make it clear that he got the joke. “But brother, these things don’t run any crosswords!” he said ruefully, like a true crossword addict. “These two are new on the stands, you want them too?”
“Sure,” Galip said. He whispered like an old man picking up some dirty magazines: “Wrap them up, will you?”
On the Eminönü bus, he noticed the package getting curiously heavier; then, with the same odd feeling, he got the impression that an eye was watching him. But it wasn’t an eye that belonged to the throng on the bus; the passengers swayed as if on a small steamboat on the high seas and stared out distractedly at the snowy streets and the crowds milling outside. That’s when he realized Aladdin had wrapped the political magazines in an old copy of Milliyet. On the corner of one of the folds, Jelal stared out at him from his photograph in its usual place at the head of his column. The unaccountable thing was that the photograph of Jelal, which was the same every morning, now gave Galip a completely different look. Jelal appeared to say, “I’m on to you and I’ve got an eye on you!” Galip placed his finger on the “eye” that read his soul, but he still felt its presence under his finger the whole time he was on the bus.
He phoned Jelal as soon as he got to the office but couldn’t get him. Carefully he put away the old newspaper and started reading the leftist magazines he’d unwrapped. At first, the magazines brought back the feelings of excitement, tension, and expectation that Galip had long forgotten; they reminded him of the intimations of the day of liberation, victory, and judgment which he had given up on a long time ago but didn’t know just when. But after long bouts of making calls to Rüya’s old friends, whose numbers he’d scribbled on the back of her letter, the memories of his left-wing days seemed as alluring and incredible as the
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