Endgame, page 16
‘Is that what you really think?’
‘That’s what I really think.’
He put his hand on my shoulder.
‘I suppose you’re right. Look, it was good that we had this talk. You’re not tired of me?’
Suddenly there was a flush of colour in his cheeks and his face was radiant.
I knew that I would call Zuhal the moment he got back to the municipality building, and learn what they’d talked about last night. They were keeping an eye on me, watching my every move. But I was watching them.
‘I’ll walk back to the municipality. But my driver can take you wherever you’re going,’ he said.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I said but he insisted.
We parted at the door. I got in his car.
I’d made a good friend.
And that was because I’d lied.
XXI
Heading home in his car, I was lost in thought. If they knew I’d spent the entire day with Zuhal, and where we’d gone together, why did Mustafa tell me that long story? Did he already know about us?
I knew he didn’t have anyone else in town who would listen to his story and offer consolation, I knew he had no choice but to keep his shortcomings and his troubles from the others, but that still wasn’t an explanation.
I presumed he didn’t see me as competition.
He had such confidence in Zuhal that he could never believe she would betray him or sleep with another man, despite all the jealousy, restlessness and doubt. This was a weakness shared by most men; for them, believing such a betrayal was possible, and accepting it as a part of their lives, wounded their male ego. They could never expose such a blow in public, and unless they were convinced of a wrongdoing they persevered with blind confidence. Indeed sometimes when they caught a woman in flagrante they were willing to believe her if she denied it. They were fools caught in a miserable contradiction: ongoing suspicion combined with an inflated sense of trust.
Most important was the fact that Mustafa didn’t perceive me as a threat. He just assumed that all women were impressed by money and power; it was in fact a firm conviction, and in his mind a writer didn’t fit the bill.
But if he still had suspicions, our chat today had allayed them.
He was the kind of man who’d kill me if he ever found out but my lies had made us the best of friends.
Who could ever be honest in a world like this?
Not me.
Of course at times I’ve been reduced to the same miserable condition. I could become one of them at any moment, a woman could trap me, drawing on my weaknesses, blinding me, but at least I would always have a slight sense of what was really going on. When I’m blinded like that I can feel it. I slip into that warm and soothing pool, accepting the illusion but not without a slight awareness of the game.
Although I am a man I tend to find men in that state amusing, not pitiable.
That much I confess.
I believe that the occasionally astounding audacity of some women is born of their ignorance of these simple truths.
Poor men. They aren’t really after money and power but they feel they can fill the void, a product of their self-deception.
When I got home, Hamiyet told me she’d made my favorite tamarind sherbet. ‘It’s in the fridge. Would you like some now?’
‘I’ll have some later,’ I said, still a little lightheaded from the rakı and hoping I might soon extract the big confession from Hamiyet’s nephew.
As I sat down in a large armchair beside the window the phone rang.
No one knew my number at home. I didn’t even know it.
Hamiyet picked up and handed me the phone. ‘It’s for you.’
Before I’d even put the receiver to my ear, I had an inkling who it might be and that voice tinged with flirtatious authority said it all. From ‘Hello’ I was sure who it was.
‘How are you, Kamile Hanım?’ I said.
‘I’m fine. How are you?’
‘Fine, thanks.’
‘Who was that woman who picked up, a maid?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does she live in?’
The condescension that slipped into her voice whenever she spoke of another woman was astounding.
‘No, she’s leaving in a little while.’
‘Good. I made you some of those sweets you liked so much, and I’m coming to town so I thought if you’re home I could stop by and give them to you.’
‘I’m here. See you then.’
I love women and the way they are oblivious to the fact that they can be so alike, taking every man for a fool. Hamiyet was a woman, and she assumed I was naïve, and though she was about to leave she kept coming up with one last thing to do. I watched her quietly. She couldn’t stop a woman, whom she assumed thought little of her, from coming to my home but she could certainly make her uncomfortable by making her presence felt.
But she didn’t know that Kamile Hanım would deliberately be late to make sure she’d gone by the time she arrived.
That’s what I expected to happen.
And it did.
Hamiyet spent some time pottering about, coming up with yet another little task to do, but soon it became impossible for her to justify staying any longer.
Flustered, she said, ‘I’m going. Do you need anything?’
‘No, thanks. See you tomorrow,’ I said, a grave expression on my face.
She left with long face.
Half an hour later a black jeep pulled up in front of the house. Kamile stepped out of the car, opened the back door and took out a box. I watched her from the window.
She was wearing a jacket and skirt.
She looked good.
It was professional but with a sultry side.
And she would choose which side would dominate.
I opened the door before she had a chance to ring the bell.
‘You were watching me from the window?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
She put the box on a coffee table in the entrance.
‘Your favourite sweets. I made a lot. But they go stale if you let them wait too long, and then they’re no good. Let me know when you finish them and I’ll make you more.’
‘Thank you. Have a seat.’
She stepped into the living room, taking everything in.
‘You haven’t done anything with the furniture.’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘It’s a beautiful home. One of Sabit Bey’s places. He’s a good man. He had a young boy, a sweet little bundle of joy, but one day he went swimming with his friends and drowned. Maybe a cramp, I don’t know, but they couldn’t save him. Then they couldn’t bear to stay here any longer. His wife Selime Hanım always said, How can I bear to look out at the sea every morning, Kamile Hanım, my heart just can’t stand it. The poor thing. How could she get up every morning and look out at the place where her son died? So after they buried him they were gone the next day. And they never came back. This is the first time I’ve been here in years. How time flies.’
She wandered about the living room, looking out the windows facing the sea, then turned and sat down in a wingback chair, taking off her jacket and throwing it on the settee before leaning back and crossing her legs. As her skirt came up just a little I could see a sliver of her thigh where her legs were crossed. I couldn’t help but look. Her blouse was taut over her upper body, accentuating the curves.
‘So, what are you up to then? Visiting our pretty town with friends? Making the most of it, are you?’
So she had also heard about my visit to town yesterday. So that’s why she’d come. For a moment I thought that I could conquer this town not through secret liaisons but by doing just the opposite and exposing everything I did. I could manipulate them that way. Kamile had come to my house because I had visited a street market with Zuhal.
‘I’ve been taking a look around. It really is a beautiful town.’
‘Especially when you have a beautiful guide.’
I laughed.
‘Why would I choose an ugly one?’
‘You’re going to make Mustafa mad,’ she said, smiling.
Opening my eyes and mustering an innocent expression, I said, ‘Why would that be?’
She pulled a cigarette out of her bag, attached a small cigarette holder and said, ‘Stop pretending to be so innocent. You might fool our dumb brutes with your act. You really are too much. You know everything that’s going on.’
I didn’t say a word.
I looked at her breasts and then ran my eyes over the rest of her body. That was my answer.
I wondered if she would stay or go.
She didn’t move.
The two buttons right above her breasts had come undone and I could see a little skin.
She wasn’t young, and she wasn’t very beautiful. But she was voluptuous and the way she sat there was incredibly enticing.
‘Would you like something to drink?’ I asked.
‘I’ll have a coffee,’ she said. ‘Do you have coffee?’
‘I do.’
‘Good. But you mustn’t make it. You’ll get it all over your hands and your face. Let me do it. Where’s your kitchen?’
We went to the kitchen together.
As we opened the cupboards our bodies touched. I caught her scent. A pungent scent that matched her style. We didn’t say anything but both of us knew that just one word would have ruined the pleasure of the moment. I noticed her breathing and she was blushing.
We took our coffees back into the living room and she sat down and crossed her legs again. But this time revealing more.
‘Would you like something with the coffee?’
‘Such as?’
‘A cognac?’
‘Oh, why not then. You can manage that yourself, can you?’
‘Of course,’ I said.
I poured two glasses. I set hers down next to her coffee and I sat down across from her.
We drank without saying a word.
From then on I knew that I was in dangerous territory and that every move would have to be made carefully. I let her lead. She would decide just what we were going to do. I wasn’t going to initiate.
‘Why so quiet?’ she asked.
‘What would you like me to say?’
‘What do you want to say?’
‘A lot of things.’
‘Well, then say them.’
‘Ladies first. Please go ahead.’
‘Are you wise or just terribly afraid?’
‘Let’s just say I am wise enough to know when I should be afraid and when I should be bold.’
‘That’s true,’ she said, smiling. ‘You’re something else.’
She lit a cigarette. ‘I have something in mind, but I just can’t decide,’ she said.
‘Let’s wait until you do then,’ I said, looking at her legs again. When I looked up our eyes met. She had followed my gaze and wanted me to know.
‘Draw the curtains,’ she said in a tone of voice that was almost cold.
I stood up and drew the curtains. An inspiring, muted light fell over the room, the color of cognac. An intoxicating glow. I could smell the cognac in the air.
She took another drag on her cigarette then stubbed it out in the ashtray beside her.
She stood up and walked over.
She stopped right in front of me. I didn’t move.
Then she surprised me.
Pulling up her skirt, she sat down on my lap with a glazed expression on her face, her legs against my knees.
Her breasts were right in front of my eyes.
I took her by the hips, stood up and put her down.
‘Come,’ I said.
We went upstairs together.
She undressed and got into bed.
She led the way, familiar with all the motions. But she seemed rushed, in a hurry. I followed at her pace, letting her do everything she wanted for a while, and then I took her savagely by the wrist.
‘Just relax,’ I said. ‘Let yourself go.’
She looked me in the eye.
‘You’re going to bruise my arm,’ she said.
‘So?’ I said.
Then we fell into the heat of passion.
She had surrendered the lead.
I was drunk on her mature body, full breasts and ample curves, driven out of my mind, drunk on her selfish and insatiable desires, driven out of my mind by her sheer desire for pleasure, and her willingness to do anything for it, moaning as if I wasn’t there.
Something about the way she made love reminded me of Sümbül.
There was nothing but this animal urge.
Afterwards she lay on her back for a moment or two, looked at the watch on the bedside table, and without saying a word she got up and dressed, and I accompanied her downstairs.
‘I’ll call you,’ she said to me at the door. I wasn’t supposed to call her.
For a moment I thought she might slip me some money.
I suppose she considered it.
From behind the curtains I watched her get into her car.
It was as if nothing had just happened.
I went back into the living room, sat down in the armchair, lit a cigarette and drank the last drop of cognac.
And suddenly the reality dawned on me.
I was sleeping with the women of the town’s two most powerful and most dangerous men.
‘They’ll destroy me and no one will even know what happened,’ I thought to myself.
But the thought only made me smile.
There was still quite some time before Zuhal would come ‘home’.
I got dressed and went into town.
I went to a little working-class meyhane frequented by shopkeepers and minibus drivers.
I had them give me a full rakı spread with all the mezes.
I drank alone.
I wanted to relish the recent experience; I had expected something like that to happen.
On my second rakı, I said, ‘If they kill me, they kill me,’ because I knew that I was going to sleep with both women again before they did, and the two of them would drive me insane in dramatically different ways.
XXII
The station’s golden dome quietly shimmered like the shell of a giant tortoise, promising a beautiful day, but storm clouds were gathering over the sea. Someone at the coffeehouse told me that rain was on the way and there followed a heated discussion as to precisely when it would come and go, people drawing on past experiences and any scrap of information on the topic they could muster.
Centipede’s nephew was getting married that evening. And I was invited. The ceremony was going to be held at a coffeehouse in a neighbouring village.
The groom’s father sold chickpea pilaf from a cart he pushed around town. His son was an orderly at the hospital, the bride a ‘homebody’, as they put it.
In the afternoon the skies suddenly went dark.
And rain poured down.
I’d never seen rain like it. Streaming down almost as if in a rage. Big drops smashing onto the ground like bullets, exploding into fragments before falling back down onto the earth.
I stood there at the door to the veranda, watching the rain strike the earth, as if the clouds were hurling down a million glass marbles. It was a tremendous noise. I breathed in the scent of the rain. A strong, refreshing smell. Pure. The scent of the sky.
Oblivious to the downpour, Hamiyet was busy cleaning and chattering away at the furniture. In front of the mirror I heard her remonstrating with something or other. ‘Now you just stay put and don’t move,’ she said, so sincerely angry that I really thought for a moment the little object taunted her, leaping a little up into the air.
I thought of Kamile Hanım.
Her insatiable concupiscence had seized my imagination. I loved the way she selfishly quenched her own desires.
I felt like a toy, an inconsequential naked body only there to provide her pleasure. And I liked it. Her selfishness stripped me of myself, sweeping away my past, my memory and my preconceptions. It didn’t matter who I was: a shopkeeper, a porter, a gardener or a scholar of physics, as long as I provided her pleasure, she didn’t care. I was a man. And a man who could provide the kind of pleasure she wanted. She wanted nothing more. This gave me a rush I could never forget.
Considering her crude and selfish sexual desires, I sometimes found it distasteful; but the actual act of ravishing her was a fountain of pleasure. When I made love to her the mind was trivialised and the body exalted and I felt like a man bursting with confidence.
She would come again.
I wanted her to come.
I wondered if most of the women in town had the same selfish sexual desires. It was a rough-hewn sexuality, alien to men, oblivious to the partner’s emotions, solitary and distant. There was something about it that drew me in.
I remembered the surprise and rush of pleasure I saw in her face when I took her arms, pinned her down on the bed and said, ‘Don’t move.’ And just like me she felt the pleasure that came with being used by a crude and selfish desire, and she liked it.
The rain suddenly stopped towards evening.
And once again sunlight shimmered off the station dome.
I started out early.
I would take my time getting there. I wanted to look for a village mosque along the way. A beautiful mosque. The mosque in which I would marry Zuhal.
She wanted to live the novel I’d written. She wanted to become that woman. Perhaps she was fonder of her fantasies than of reality. I think that’s probably one of the reasons why she was so happy with our home, a fantasy world. There she could experience love the way she really wanted to.
We shared a love that existed only in a virtual world. Both of us feared it might turn into a reality.
I wondered how many more times I would get married in a mosque, and how many more times I would write about it; maybe I would write it into every one of my books. I liked the idea of a marriage in a mosque.
This made me feel closer to her but it didn’t relieve the lingering loneliness.
I suppose this was just one of many contradictions. Despite my need for solitude, I enjoyed getting attached; it made me happy to share a special bond with a woman. It was ours alone and she endorsed it. But when that happened I was goaded to give up my solitude in return.
‘That’s what I really think.’
He put his hand on my shoulder.
‘I suppose you’re right. Look, it was good that we had this talk. You’re not tired of me?’
Suddenly there was a flush of colour in his cheeks and his face was radiant.
I knew that I would call Zuhal the moment he got back to the municipality building, and learn what they’d talked about last night. They were keeping an eye on me, watching my every move. But I was watching them.
‘I’ll walk back to the municipality. But my driver can take you wherever you’re going,’ he said.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I said but he insisted.
We parted at the door. I got in his car.
I’d made a good friend.
And that was because I’d lied.
XXI
Heading home in his car, I was lost in thought. If they knew I’d spent the entire day with Zuhal, and where we’d gone together, why did Mustafa tell me that long story? Did he already know about us?
I knew he didn’t have anyone else in town who would listen to his story and offer consolation, I knew he had no choice but to keep his shortcomings and his troubles from the others, but that still wasn’t an explanation.
I presumed he didn’t see me as competition.
He had such confidence in Zuhal that he could never believe she would betray him or sleep with another man, despite all the jealousy, restlessness and doubt. This was a weakness shared by most men; for them, believing such a betrayal was possible, and accepting it as a part of their lives, wounded their male ego. They could never expose such a blow in public, and unless they were convinced of a wrongdoing they persevered with blind confidence. Indeed sometimes when they caught a woman in flagrante they were willing to believe her if she denied it. They were fools caught in a miserable contradiction: ongoing suspicion combined with an inflated sense of trust.
Most important was the fact that Mustafa didn’t perceive me as a threat. He just assumed that all women were impressed by money and power; it was in fact a firm conviction, and in his mind a writer didn’t fit the bill.
But if he still had suspicions, our chat today had allayed them.
He was the kind of man who’d kill me if he ever found out but my lies had made us the best of friends.
Who could ever be honest in a world like this?
Not me.
Of course at times I’ve been reduced to the same miserable condition. I could become one of them at any moment, a woman could trap me, drawing on my weaknesses, blinding me, but at least I would always have a slight sense of what was really going on. When I’m blinded like that I can feel it. I slip into that warm and soothing pool, accepting the illusion but not without a slight awareness of the game.
Although I am a man I tend to find men in that state amusing, not pitiable.
That much I confess.
I believe that the occasionally astounding audacity of some women is born of their ignorance of these simple truths.
Poor men. They aren’t really after money and power but they feel they can fill the void, a product of their self-deception.
When I got home, Hamiyet told me she’d made my favorite tamarind sherbet. ‘It’s in the fridge. Would you like some now?’
‘I’ll have some later,’ I said, still a little lightheaded from the rakı and hoping I might soon extract the big confession from Hamiyet’s nephew.
As I sat down in a large armchair beside the window the phone rang.
No one knew my number at home. I didn’t even know it.
Hamiyet picked up and handed me the phone. ‘It’s for you.’
Before I’d even put the receiver to my ear, I had an inkling who it might be and that voice tinged with flirtatious authority said it all. From ‘Hello’ I was sure who it was.
‘How are you, Kamile Hanım?’ I said.
‘I’m fine. How are you?’
‘Fine, thanks.’
‘Who was that woman who picked up, a maid?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does she live in?’
The condescension that slipped into her voice whenever she spoke of another woman was astounding.
‘No, she’s leaving in a little while.’
‘Good. I made you some of those sweets you liked so much, and I’m coming to town so I thought if you’re home I could stop by and give them to you.’
‘I’m here. See you then.’
I love women and the way they are oblivious to the fact that they can be so alike, taking every man for a fool. Hamiyet was a woman, and she assumed I was naïve, and though she was about to leave she kept coming up with one last thing to do. I watched her quietly. She couldn’t stop a woman, whom she assumed thought little of her, from coming to my home but she could certainly make her uncomfortable by making her presence felt.
But she didn’t know that Kamile Hanım would deliberately be late to make sure she’d gone by the time she arrived.
That’s what I expected to happen.
And it did.
Hamiyet spent some time pottering about, coming up with yet another little task to do, but soon it became impossible for her to justify staying any longer.
Flustered, she said, ‘I’m going. Do you need anything?’
‘No, thanks. See you tomorrow,’ I said, a grave expression on my face.
She left with long face.
Half an hour later a black jeep pulled up in front of the house. Kamile stepped out of the car, opened the back door and took out a box. I watched her from the window.
She was wearing a jacket and skirt.
She looked good.
It was professional but with a sultry side.
And she would choose which side would dominate.
I opened the door before she had a chance to ring the bell.
‘You were watching me from the window?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
She put the box on a coffee table in the entrance.
‘Your favourite sweets. I made a lot. But they go stale if you let them wait too long, and then they’re no good. Let me know when you finish them and I’ll make you more.’
‘Thank you. Have a seat.’
She stepped into the living room, taking everything in.
‘You haven’t done anything with the furniture.’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘It’s a beautiful home. One of Sabit Bey’s places. He’s a good man. He had a young boy, a sweet little bundle of joy, but one day he went swimming with his friends and drowned. Maybe a cramp, I don’t know, but they couldn’t save him. Then they couldn’t bear to stay here any longer. His wife Selime Hanım always said, How can I bear to look out at the sea every morning, Kamile Hanım, my heart just can’t stand it. The poor thing. How could she get up every morning and look out at the place where her son died? So after they buried him they were gone the next day. And they never came back. This is the first time I’ve been here in years. How time flies.’
She wandered about the living room, looking out the windows facing the sea, then turned and sat down in a wingback chair, taking off her jacket and throwing it on the settee before leaning back and crossing her legs. As her skirt came up just a little I could see a sliver of her thigh where her legs were crossed. I couldn’t help but look. Her blouse was taut over her upper body, accentuating the curves.
‘So, what are you up to then? Visiting our pretty town with friends? Making the most of it, are you?’
So she had also heard about my visit to town yesterday. So that’s why she’d come. For a moment I thought that I could conquer this town not through secret liaisons but by doing just the opposite and exposing everything I did. I could manipulate them that way. Kamile had come to my house because I had visited a street market with Zuhal.
‘I’ve been taking a look around. It really is a beautiful town.’
‘Especially when you have a beautiful guide.’
I laughed.
‘Why would I choose an ugly one?’
‘You’re going to make Mustafa mad,’ she said, smiling.
Opening my eyes and mustering an innocent expression, I said, ‘Why would that be?’
She pulled a cigarette out of her bag, attached a small cigarette holder and said, ‘Stop pretending to be so innocent. You might fool our dumb brutes with your act. You really are too much. You know everything that’s going on.’
I didn’t say a word.
I looked at her breasts and then ran my eyes over the rest of her body. That was my answer.
I wondered if she would stay or go.
She didn’t move.
The two buttons right above her breasts had come undone and I could see a little skin.
She wasn’t young, and she wasn’t very beautiful. But she was voluptuous and the way she sat there was incredibly enticing.
‘Would you like something to drink?’ I asked.
‘I’ll have a coffee,’ she said. ‘Do you have coffee?’
‘I do.’
‘Good. But you mustn’t make it. You’ll get it all over your hands and your face. Let me do it. Where’s your kitchen?’
We went to the kitchen together.
As we opened the cupboards our bodies touched. I caught her scent. A pungent scent that matched her style. We didn’t say anything but both of us knew that just one word would have ruined the pleasure of the moment. I noticed her breathing and she was blushing.
We took our coffees back into the living room and she sat down and crossed her legs again. But this time revealing more.
‘Would you like something with the coffee?’
‘Such as?’
‘A cognac?’
‘Oh, why not then. You can manage that yourself, can you?’
‘Of course,’ I said.
I poured two glasses. I set hers down next to her coffee and I sat down across from her.
We drank without saying a word.
From then on I knew that I was in dangerous territory and that every move would have to be made carefully. I let her lead. She would decide just what we were going to do. I wasn’t going to initiate.
‘Why so quiet?’ she asked.
‘What would you like me to say?’
‘What do you want to say?’
‘A lot of things.’
‘Well, then say them.’
‘Ladies first. Please go ahead.’
‘Are you wise or just terribly afraid?’
‘Let’s just say I am wise enough to know when I should be afraid and when I should be bold.’
‘That’s true,’ she said, smiling. ‘You’re something else.’
She lit a cigarette. ‘I have something in mind, but I just can’t decide,’ she said.
‘Let’s wait until you do then,’ I said, looking at her legs again. When I looked up our eyes met. She had followed my gaze and wanted me to know.
‘Draw the curtains,’ she said in a tone of voice that was almost cold.
I stood up and drew the curtains. An inspiring, muted light fell over the room, the color of cognac. An intoxicating glow. I could smell the cognac in the air.
She took another drag on her cigarette then stubbed it out in the ashtray beside her.
She stood up and walked over.
She stopped right in front of me. I didn’t move.
Then she surprised me.
Pulling up her skirt, she sat down on my lap with a glazed expression on her face, her legs against my knees.
Her breasts were right in front of my eyes.
I took her by the hips, stood up and put her down.
‘Come,’ I said.
We went upstairs together.
She undressed and got into bed.
She led the way, familiar with all the motions. But she seemed rushed, in a hurry. I followed at her pace, letting her do everything she wanted for a while, and then I took her savagely by the wrist.
‘Just relax,’ I said. ‘Let yourself go.’
She looked me in the eye.
‘You’re going to bruise my arm,’ she said.
‘So?’ I said.
Then we fell into the heat of passion.
She had surrendered the lead.
I was drunk on her mature body, full breasts and ample curves, driven out of my mind, drunk on her selfish and insatiable desires, driven out of my mind by her sheer desire for pleasure, and her willingness to do anything for it, moaning as if I wasn’t there.
Something about the way she made love reminded me of Sümbül.
There was nothing but this animal urge.
Afterwards she lay on her back for a moment or two, looked at the watch on the bedside table, and without saying a word she got up and dressed, and I accompanied her downstairs.
‘I’ll call you,’ she said to me at the door. I wasn’t supposed to call her.
For a moment I thought she might slip me some money.
I suppose she considered it.
From behind the curtains I watched her get into her car.
It was as if nothing had just happened.
I went back into the living room, sat down in the armchair, lit a cigarette and drank the last drop of cognac.
And suddenly the reality dawned on me.
I was sleeping with the women of the town’s two most powerful and most dangerous men.
‘They’ll destroy me and no one will even know what happened,’ I thought to myself.
But the thought only made me smile.
There was still quite some time before Zuhal would come ‘home’.
I got dressed and went into town.
I went to a little working-class meyhane frequented by shopkeepers and minibus drivers.
I had them give me a full rakı spread with all the mezes.
I drank alone.
I wanted to relish the recent experience; I had expected something like that to happen.
On my second rakı, I said, ‘If they kill me, they kill me,’ because I knew that I was going to sleep with both women again before they did, and the two of them would drive me insane in dramatically different ways.
XXII
The station’s golden dome quietly shimmered like the shell of a giant tortoise, promising a beautiful day, but storm clouds were gathering over the sea. Someone at the coffeehouse told me that rain was on the way and there followed a heated discussion as to precisely when it would come and go, people drawing on past experiences and any scrap of information on the topic they could muster.
Centipede’s nephew was getting married that evening. And I was invited. The ceremony was going to be held at a coffeehouse in a neighbouring village.
The groom’s father sold chickpea pilaf from a cart he pushed around town. His son was an orderly at the hospital, the bride a ‘homebody’, as they put it.
In the afternoon the skies suddenly went dark.
And rain poured down.
I’d never seen rain like it. Streaming down almost as if in a rage. Big drops smashing onto the ground like bullets, exploding into fragments before falling back down onto the earth.
I stood there at the door to the veranda, watching the rain strike the earth, as if the clouds were hurling down a million glass marbles. It was a tremendous noise. I breathed in the scent of the rain. A strong, refreshing smell. Pure. The scent of the sky.
Oblivious to the downpour, Hamiyet was busy cleaning and chattering away at the furniture. In front of the mirror I heard her remonstrating with something or other. ‘Now you just stay put and don’t move,’ she said, so sincerely angry that I really thought for a moment the little object taunted her, leaping a little up into the air.
I thought of Kamile Hanım.
Her insatiable concupiscence had seized my imagination. I loved the way she selfishly quenched her own desires.
I felt like a toy, an inconsequential naked body only there to provide her pleasure. And I liked it. Her selfishness stripped me of myself, sweeping away my past, my memory and my preconceptions. It didn’t matter who I was: a shopkeeper, a porter, a gardener or a scholar of physics, as long as I provided her pleasure, she didn’t care. I was a man. And a man who could provide the kind of pleasure she wanted. She wanted nothing more. This gave me a rush I could never forget.
Considering her crude and selfish sexual desires, I sometimes found it distasteful; but the actual act of ravishing her was a fountain of pleasure. When I made love to her the mind was trivialised and the body exalted and I felt like a man bursting with confidence.
She would come again.
I wanted her to come.
I wondered if most of the women in town had the same selfish sexual desires. It was a rough-hewn sexuality, alien to men, oblivious to the partner’s emotions, solitary and distant. There was something about it that drew me in.
I remembered the surprise and rush of pleasure I saw in her face when I took her arms, pinned her down on the bed and said, ‘Don’t move.’ And just like me she felt the pleasure that came with being used by a crude and selfish desire, and she liked it.
The rain suddenly stopped towards evening.
And once again sunlight shimmered off the station dome.
I started out early.
I would take my time getting there. I wanted to look for a village mosque along the way. A beautiful mosque. The mosque in which I would marry Zuhal.
She wanted to live the novel I’d written. She wanted to become that woman. Perhaps she was fonder of her fantasies than of reality. I think that’s probably one of the reasons why she was so happy with our home, a fantasy world. There she could experience love the way she really wanted to.
We shared a love that existed only in a virtual world. Both of us feared it might turn into a reality.
I wondered how many more times I would get married in a mosque, and how many more times I would write about it; maybe I would write it into every one of my books. I liked the idea of a marriage in a mosque.
This made me feel closer to her but it didn’t relieve the lingering loneliness.
I suppose this was just one of many contradictions. Despite my need for solitude, I enjoyed getting attached; it made me happy to share a special bond with a woman. It was ours alone and she endorsed it. But when that happened I was goaded to give up my solitude in return.
