Madonna in a Fur Coat Read online

  ‘Did you see what Mualla wore to that wedding? Ha ha ha …’

  ‘You should have seen how that girl snubbed our Orhan. Ha ha ha.’

  Meanwhile, Raif Efendi’s sister-in-law Ferhunde Hanım had no other aim in life than to care for her two children, aged three and four, and (if she could get her older sister to babysit) to put on a lot of make-up, throw on a silk dress and head out for the evening. The few times I saw her, she was standing in front of the mirror of the cabinet in the dining room, fixing a feathered hat over her wavy dyed hair. She could not have been more than thirty years old, but already there were wrinkles around her mouth and her eyes. Her restless baby-blue eyes reflected an inner turmoil that must have been with her since birth. Her children were always wan, unkempt and dirty, and she’d rail against them as if they were a punishment visited on her by a vicious enemy, despairing that they might put their soiled hands on her finery before she went out.

  As for Ferhunde’s husband, Nurettin Bey, who served as one of the directors at the same branch of the Ministry of Economic Affairs – he was another version of Hamdi. Still in his early thirties, he was the sort of man who puffed up like a barber’s assistant when he combed back his dark curly hair, and who, if he said so much as a simple ‘How are you?’, nodded as if he had just dispensed a rare pearl of wisdom. When someone spoke to him, he’d fix his eyes on him and smile as if to say, ‘What sort of nonsense is this, then? As if you knew what you were talking about.’

  After finishing vocational college, he’d been sent to Italy, for some reason, to learn more about the leather trade, but all he’d learned while there was a smattering of Italian and the affectations befitting a man of importance. To this he had added his own ideas about how to be successful in life. First, he saw himself as deserving of high rank, and therefore in a position to make half-baked pronouncements at every turn, no matter how little he actually knew about the matter at hand. By criticizing everyone else at the same time, he succeeded in convincing them of his importance. (By my reckoning, the children of the house had acquired this same habit from their uncle, whom they hugely admired.) Secondly, he dressed with great care, shaving every day, making sure his thinning trousers were perfectly ironed, and devoting his Saturdays to long shopping excursions in search of the most fashionable shoes for himself, and the most divine socks. As I later discovered, all his wages went on his and his wife’s clothes. The two brothers-in-law, meanwhile, earned no more than thirty-five liras apiece, which meant that it fell to our friend Raif Efendi to cover all the household expenses with his meagre salary. Even so, apart from the poor old man, Nurettin Bey treated every member of the household like a servant. They took the same view of Raif’s wife, Mihriye Hanım. Though not yet forty, she was already old, fat and misshapen, with breasts that hung down to her navel. She spent most of her day cooking in the kitchen, devoting any free time that remained to darning pile after pile of children’s socks, or caring for her sister’s ‘brats’. She had no help from the others, who believed that they deserved far better than she could provide; when the food was not to their liking, there were unpleasant scenes. So when Nurettin Bey said, ‘What is this meant to be, my dear?’ there was as much indignation in his voice as one might expect if he’d contributed many hundreds of liras to the household budget. And the two brothers-in-law would sit there in their seven-lira cravats and say, ‘I don’t like this, go and make me some eggs!’ Or, ‘I’m still hungry, go make me some sausages!’ They had no qualms about sending Mihriye Hanım back to the kitchen, and if ever they needed eleven kuruş for bread of an evening, instead of reaching into their own pockets, they would go and find Raif Efendi in his sickbed and wake him up, and as if that were not enough, they’d get angry at him for having failed to recover in time to go to the store in their place.

  Though the parts of the house that guests rarely saw were a shambles, the hallway and the sitting room were perfectly arranged, and this was Necla’s doing. And the others succeeded in maintaining this illusion, even when their friends came to visit.

  So they had all joined together to pay for furniture on instalment, squeezing their resources even further. But now they had a red velvet suite that made their guests swoon in admiration, and a twelve-valve radio that was loud enough for the entire neighbourhood to hear. There was also the set of gold-gilded crystal in the glass cabinet, which greatly impressed Nurettin Bey’s friends on the many occasions when he invited them over to drink rakı.

  Though it was Raif Efendi who bore the cost of all this, it made no difference to him if he was present or absent. Everyone in the family, from the oldest to the youngest, regarded him as irrelevant. They spoke to him about their daily needs and money problems, and nothing else. Mostly, they preferred Mihriye Hanım to be their interlocutor. They sent him off like some sort of lifeless robot in the morning with a list of things to buy, and in the evening he would come back with his arms full. Five years earlier, while courting Fernunde Hanım, Nurettin Bey had been most attentive to Raif Efendi, playing the perfect suitor and never forgetting to bring something to please his prospective brother-in-law every time he came to visit, but now he acted as if it were an insult to have to share a house with a man of so little consequence. They resented him for failing to earn more money, so as to provide the luxuries they craved, but at the same time they regarded him as a man of no value – a nonentity. Encouraged, perhaps, by their elders, even Necla, who seemed to have a head on her shoulders, and Nurten, still in primary school, seemed to share this view. Whatever affection they showed him was rushed and brushed away, like a tedious chore; when he fell ill, they affected the sort of false compassion that one might show to a beggar. Ground down though Mihriye Hanım was by the thankless and never-ending struggle to make ends meet, only she gave him the time of day, doing what she could to ensure that his own children did not belittle or despise him.

  On evenings when there were guests, she would pull her husband into the bedroom and, fearing that Nurettin Bey or one of her brothers might suddenly shout out, ‘Let’s send my uncle out for supplies!’, she would put on a sweet voice and say, ‘Why don’t you slip out and buy us eight eggs and a bottle of rakı? Let’s not make them get up from the table.’ But never did she ask herself why she and her husband were not sitting at that table, or why, on the rare occasions that they did join the party, they were treated with such disrespect – though perhaps she didn’t even notice.

  Raif Efendi treated her with an odd sort of tenderness. It was almost as if he pitied this woman who could go for months without taking off her housecoat. From time to time, he’d ask: ‘How are you, my wife, has the day been very tiring?’

  And sometimes he would take her to one side to talk about how the children were doing in school, and how to cover the costs of an impending religious holiday.

  But he gave no sign of being attached to any other member of their household. Sometimes he would gaze at his older daughter, as if expecting her to say something to him, something sweet and warm. But these moments would pass quickly, as if the girl had, with a needless wiggle, reminded him of the gulf between them.

  I thought a great deal about all this. It seemed impossible that a man like Raif Efendi – what sort of man that might be, I too had no idea, but I was sure he was not as he seemed – that a man like this would willingly shrink away from those closest to him. It was more that he did not wish those around him to know who he was, and he was not, in any event, the sort of man who would be willing to exert himself to be known. There was no chance that the ice might melt, to allay the terrible estrangement that divided them. Rather than embark on the arduous task of getting to know each other, they preferred to wander about blindly, noticing each other’s presence only when they happened to collide.

  But as I mentioned earlier, Raif Efendi did seem to expect something from his older daughter, Necla. As slavishly as she copied the mannerisms of her heavily rouged aunt, as willing as she was to take spiritual guidance from her uncle, there s
eemed, nevertheless, to be the remnants of a genuine person hiding inside that thick shell of hers. When she scolded her sister, Nurten, for disrespecting their father, there was, at times, a note of indignation. If, at the table or in the bedroom, the others ridiculed Raif Efendi too harshly, she would leave in a huff, slamming the door behind her. But she did so simply to give the genuine person inside her a chance to breathe now and then. Her false self, patiently nurtured over many years, was strong enough to keep her true identity suppressed.

  But – and perhaps this was down to the impatience of youth – Raif Efendi’s formidable silence in the face of all this made me angry. At home and at the office, he did more than just tolerate ridicule from people with whom he had nothing in common: he seemed actively to approve of those who looked down on him –I knew full well that people who feel misunderstood and misjudged by those around them come to take pride in their plight, finding bitter pleasure in it, but I’d never imagined that they might also come to approve of those who did them down.

  I had, on many occasions, seen that he was not a man who blunted his feelings. On the contrary, I knew him to be watchful, attentive to detail and easily offended. He looked at things squarely, missing nothing. Once, when he heard his daughters bickering over who was to bring me coffee, he said nothing, but ten days later, when I returned to his house, he’d called out to them, saying: ‘Don’t make him coffee! He doesn’t want any!’

  In fending off a repeat of the incident, he let me know how much it had upset him. He thereby opened himself up to me, and from then on I felt much closer.

  Still our conversations remained superficial. But this no longer puzzled me. For wasn’t there sufficient pleasure to be had in silent patience – in viewing others’ vices with compassion and enjoying their vulgarities? When we walked side by side, did I not feel his humanity most profoundly? Only now did I begin to understand why it was not always through words that people sought each other out and came to understand each other, and why some poets went to such lengths to seek out companions who could, like them, contemplate the beauties of nature in silence. Though I did not know what I was learning from this silent man walking alongside me, I was certain that I was learning far more than I would have done from a teacher of many years.

  And I believed he liked me. He was no longer timid and tentative, as he was with all others, and had been with me when we’d first met. Though there were days when some sort of wildness manifested itself: his eyes would narrow, losing all expression, and when addressed, he would answer carefully, but in a voice that made it clear he was not to be approached. On days like this, he would neglect even his translation. Instead, he would sit there for hours, staring at the pile of papers in front of him. It was almost as if he had withdrawn to another time – a place that was his and his alone – and nothing I could do would bring him back. But I would fill with dread, for strange as it might sound, it was generally after these episodes that Raif Efendi would fall ill. I was soon to find out why, in a very sad way.

  One day in mid February, Raif Efendi didn’t turn up at the office. When I turned up at the house that evening, Mihriye Hanım opened the door.

  ‘Is it you?’ she said. ‘Oh, do come in. He’s just drifted off to sleep … but if you like, I can wake him up.’

  ‘No, please don’t,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t want to disturb him. How is he?’

  ‘He’s running a fever. And he’s complaining of a stomach ache this time, too.’ Then, in a complaining voice, she added: ‘He just doesn’t look after himself, poor man … he’s not a child anymore. He loses his temper over nothing … I have no idea why … he won’t talk to anyone … he wanders out into the streets … then becomes ill again … and then he retreats to his bed.’

  Just then, we could hear Raif Efendi calling from the next room. The woman rushed straight in. I had no idea what to make of what she’d said. Here was a man who guarded his health most jealously, who wrapped himself up in layer after layer of woollen vests and pullovers – how could he ever be capable of the slightest imprudence?

  Mihriye Hanım came back into the room. ‘The doorbell woke him up. Do come in!’

  On this occasion Raif Efendi seemed thoroughly dejected. His complexion was yellow, and his breathing rapid. His customary childish smile struck me more as a grin needlessly stretching his facial muscles. Behind his glasses, his eyes seemed more distant than ever.

  ‘So what’s happened to you, Raif Bey? We hope you’ll get over it soon.’

  ‘Thank you!’

  His voice was a bit hoarse. When he coughed, his chest rattled and shook.

  To allay my curiosity as fast as I could, I asked: ‘How did you come down with this cold? By letting yourself get a chill, I imagine.’

  For a long time he just stared at the white sheets on his bed. The little iron stove that his wife and children had squeezed between the beds had made the room too hot. In spite of this, the man still looked cold. Pulling his blankets up to his chin, he said: ‘Yes, I let myself catch a chill. Last night after supper, I went outside for a while …’

  ‘Did you go somewhere?’

  ‘No. I just wanted to take a little walk. Why, I don’t know. I was upset, maybe.’

  It surprised me to hear him admit to being upset.

  ‘I walked a little too far. As far as the Agricultural Institute. To the foot of KeÇiören Hill. Was I walking very fast? I just don’t know. I felt hot. I opened up my coat. It was a windy night. And snowing a little, too. I probably caught a chill.’

  Walking down deserted streets for hours in the night, through wind and snow, opening up his chest to the cold – this was not something I would have expected from Raif Efendi.

  ‘Were you upset about something?’ I asked.

  He answered in a rush: ‘Not at all, my dear friend. It just happens like this, from time to time. I suddenly get the urge to walk through the night. Who knows? Maybe it’s the noise in the house that drives me out!’

  And then, as if fearing he might have said too much: ‘Sometimes people do such things, as they get on in years. How could we ever blame the young ones?’

  Once again, I could hear noise outside and whispering. The older girl had just come home from school, and she came in to kiss her father’s cheeks.

  ‘How are you feeling, dear father?’

  Then she turned around and took my hand: ‘This happens all the time, sir … Every once in a while, an idea flashes through his mind, and he says he’s off to the coffee house, and then, it might be in the coffee house that he catches a chill, or it might be on his way home, but he falls ill … I’ve lost count of the times … I have no idea what is going on in that coffee house!’

  Taking off her coat and tossing it onto a chair, she left the room. Raif Efendi looked as if he were used to such behaviour and didn’t consider it very important.

  I looked at the patient’s face. He had turned to look at me, and in those eyes I saw no light, no surprise. I was less interested in knowing why he had lied to his family than in knowing why he had told me the truth, but I also took pride in it: the pride of being closer to someone than others.

  After leaving the house to make my way home, I let my thoughts wander. What if Raif Efendi really were a simple man with nothing inside? It was clear that he had no purpose, no passion, no connection to others, not even those who were closest to him … So what did he want from life? Was it perhaps this emptiness inside – this lack of purpose – that sent him out to roam the streets by night?

  At this point, I saw that I had reached the hotel where I was living. The small room I was sharing with a friend there was only just big enough to fit in two beds. It was just gone eight o’clock. I wasn’t feeling hungry so I thought I might go up to my room and read for a while, but I soon rejected the idea, for this was the time of night when the coffee house on the ground floor turned its gramophone up to top volume, and the Syrian nightclub performer who lived in the next room would sing shrilly in Arabic while dressi
ng for work. So I turned around and walked down the muddy asphalt in the direction of KeÇiören. At first there were only car repair shops and ramshackle coffee houses lining the road. Then, to the right, there were houses on the rising hillside; in the hollow to the left there were gardens lined with leafless trees. I raised up my collar. The wind was harsh and wet. I was swept up by a wild urge that usually only came to me when I was drunk: to keep on walking, to run. I felt as if I could go on like this for hours, or even days. I lost track of where I was. I had gone a long way. The wind was even stronger now, and it pushed against my chest; and it gave me pleasure to have to battle with it to keep advancing.

  Then suddenly I wondered why I was here … For nothing … there was no reason. I’d made no decision to come here, I’d just started walking. The trees on either side of the road were wailing with the wind, and the clouds were racing overhead. The dark cliffs in the hills above were still visible, and the clouds heading towards them seemed each to leave a part of itself behind. Shutting my eyes, I breathed in the moist air. And once again I asked myself: why have I come here? The wind was much the same as it had been the night before, and perhaps there would be a snow flurry … The night before, it had been another man in these parts, his glasses fogging up, his hat in his hand, and his shirt open, walking and breaking into a run … The wind was cutting through his thin, cropped hair, and who could say how much it cooled his overheated head? What was inside that head of his? What had brought that head, that invalid, that ageing body, to these parts? I wanted to imagine Raif Bey walking through that dark, cold night, I wanted to see how his face changed shape. And now I understand what had driven me here: being here might help me understand him, might help me see inside his head. But all I could see was the wind tugging at my hat, and the wailing trees, and the clouds changing shape as they raced across the sky. To live in the same places was not to live as he did. To assume such a thing might be possible, you had to be as brash and naive as I was.