right through me. His thoughts were probably wandering. His legs were crossed, and he kept swinging one of his feet up and down.
He picked up my book and said, “Do you like Hüseyin Rahmi?”
“Yes,” I replied. “I read his books especially when I’m depressed. He makes me laugh. I laugh, and at the same time, I feel sad.”
“You feel sad? Why?”
“So many years have passed since he wrote these books but not much has changed, has it?”
“Life doesn’t change that easily,” Fuat replied. “But maybe this proves the craft of a writer.”
“Yes,” I said. “In this book, he ridicules columnists and journalists in such a way that I almost fainted with laughter!”
“Why don’t you lend it to me so that I can have a good time too. I need to read such a book these days.”
“You know what,” I said, “when he died, they found many gloves and hats in his home, which he had knitted himself. He used to worry about what would happen to his cats after he died.”
“Novelists are strange people,” he said. “If they weren’t, they wouldn’t try to create new worlds to escape to.
“Don’t say that too loud and anger the novelists. What kind of novels do you like?”
Fuat thought for a while, and then replied, “I guess I like those that resemble an attic.”
“An attic?”
“Yes,” he continued. “In complete disarray and full of things scattered everywhere. Like a magical attic. When you read, you lose yourself in it. In all the stuff there, you find some things that suit you. Eventually, you realize that disorder and confusion are in fact complete and in accord.”
He drew on his cigarette. “Aren’t our lives like that, too?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “perhaps you’re right.”
I was limp and helpless, trembling out of nervousness. All the waiters were looking at us. I tried not to talk much, but at the same time talked incessantly. Every word I said rang sharply in my ears as soon as it was out of my mouth, as if I had said something stupid, and to make up for it, I said something else again.
Finally, he finished his coffee, extinguished his cigarette, leaned a little forward in his chair, put my book on his lap, and whispered, “Young lady, I knew you weren’t ill.”
Immediately I relaxed. He hadn’t been so close to me since the day we had danced. Unable to look into his eyes from such a short distance, I looked at the floor.
“Have you come all the way here just to tell me that?”
He stood up, and as he left, said, “No. I came here to see you.”
There was nothing odd in what he said, but I froze, as if he had just told me the greatest secret ever.
He left as quickly as he had come.
Things did not end there.
After that day, Fuat often came to the hotel in the afternoon, and if he saw me there, he sat with me. We chatted about this and that and drank tea. Although neither of us voiced it, we had a secret deal that these meetings were to take place at hours when no one else would be there but the two of us. We never agreed on a time to get together, and neither of us knew whether the other would be waiting. Still, we managed to meet.
What did we talk about? Mostly books and films rather than daily events. Sometimes he told me about his childhood and his school years. I had the habit of reading foreign newspapers and magazines. He was interested in what they contained and often asked me to save articles that attracted my attention. This became my special concern. Two scientists in Cambridge had discovered the secret code of human beings. They claimed that each one of us had a unique inner written formula. No one had the same code. After deciphering these codes one day, it would be possible to find cures for all diseases and the secret of longer life.
Satellites were sent to outer space. In a university, scientists had invented a machine that translated brain waves. Soon, it might even be possible to watch our own dreams like a movie.
We talked about such things. Sometimes the subject of men and women came up. We talked about marriage and relationships, comparing the situation in Turkey with those in other countries, as if this topic had nothing to do with us.
In the end, it didn’t matter what we spoke about. What mattered was that he came and sat with me.
As time went by, an unexpected friendship and sympathy grew between us. We were able to discuss many things that we couldn’t talk about with others.
It didn’t take long for the gossip to start.
The strange thing was that it wasn’t my husband, who was under my very nose, but my mother, who rarely left home, who said one day, “I’ve been hearing about some inappropriate behavior. What’s going on?”
For the first time, I realized what I had been doing and the direction I had taken.
I could not confess the truth, even to myself.
“Come on, Mom,” I answered. “People need to gossip. He’s old enough to be my father. He jokes with everyone. He just considers me a kid and spends more time talking with me than with others. That’s all.”
Was that not all?
Is it just me who thinks like this, or is it true that we often show more interest in the lives of others than in our own?
Who knows, maybe it’s because we think our lives lack vivacity and color.
In those days, I came to realize that people were talking about us in their small worlds. They had found a brand new subject, something different to talk about. If you think this disturbed me, you’re wrong. To the contrary, I enjoyed it.
Because nothing was happening as they imagined.
I liked the fact that they were talking about a film in which I was playing the main role, while their lives began with humdrum mornings and ended in humdrum evenings.
They were my audience. No matter what they said about me, I was the star, whose role they would give anything to have for themselves.
It was indeed childish, but I enjoyed it all the same. I was amused by the way conversations were interrupted and everyone turned to look at me when I entered a room, the way some people ignored me, pretending not to notice that I was there, and how others tried to engage me in small talk, as if making an effort to act normal.
I continued to play my game, and new people joined in constantly.
What child wouldn’t enjoy having others take for real the game he had been playing by himself in his dark room and joining him in playing it?
Besides, just as an American author had once said, “Old maids sweeten their tea with scandal.”
I
