Kürk Mantolu Madonna Read online

  The moment my head hit the pillow, I fell asleep. Towards dawn I had a nightmare in which the Madonna in a Fur Coat appeared in many guises, each time crushing me with her magnificent smile. I kept trying to say something, to explain something, but I couldn’t. The glint in her dark eyes rendered me mute. She had delivered her verdict, and there was nothing left for me to do but writhe in despair. I woke up before sunrise. My head ached. I switched on the lamp and tried reading. But the lines kept furring up, and from the mist beyond I could see two dark eyes laughing at my sorry state. As sure as I was that what I had seen the night before had been only in my mind, I was unable to calm myself. I got dressed and went out. It was a cold and damp Berlin morning. There was no one else on the street but delivery boys pushing handcarts loaded down with milk and butter and little loaves of bread. Rounding the corner, I saw policemen tearing down revolutionary posters that had been plastered to the wall in the night. Following the canal, I walked as far as the Tiergarten. Two swans were gliding through the still waters, as motionless as toys. The meadows and the benches in the woods were wet. On one of them there was a crumpled newspaper and several hairpins. They reminded me of the previous night. Frau van Tiedemann must have dropped quite a few hairpins on her way back from the beer hall, I imagined, and now, most likely, she was lying happily beside her neighbour Herr Döppke, thinking about how she would need to rise early enough to return to her room before the maids arrived.

  Arriving at the factory earlier than ever, I greeted the guard warmly. From now on I would throw myself into my work, thereby freeing myself of the oppressive fears to which my idle life had condemned me. I sat down beside the great soap vats. Breathing in the essence of rose, I made endless notes in my journal. As I wrote down the names of the factories that made soap presses, I was already imagining myself as the manager of a large, modern soap factory in Havran, famed throughout Turkey. I imagined pink, egg-shaped soaps labelled Mehmet Raif – Havran, wrapped in soft, scented paper.

  By afternoon my spirits had lifted, for I could at last begin to imagine a brighter future. For too long I had been fretting over nothing, giving myself over to flights of fancy and succumbing to invented fears. But now I was going to change. I was going to confine my reading to books that would help me in my career. Why should someone like me, born of an affluent family, not find happiness?

  I had my father’s olive groves, two factories and a soapworks waiting for me in Havran. My two older sisters, both married to wealthy men, would each have a share in the business and I would lead the life of a respected businessman. The Turkish army had driven out enemy forces and freed Havran. In his letters, my father was elated and overflowing with patriotic sentiment. Even in Berlin, we enjoyed a victory celebration at the Turkish embassy. Occasionally I would come out of my shell and offer advice to Herr Döppke and the unemployed officers on the best way to rescue Germany, in the light of our achievements in Anatolia. There was, I told myself, everything to live for. Why fret about a meaningless painting, a figment inspired by characters in books? No, from now on I was going to change …

  But by nightfall, my spirits had dipped again. Not wishing to face Frau van Tiedemann at supper, I decided to eat out, and drank two tankards of beer. But no matter how hard I tried, I could not pull myself back up. It felt as if something were pressing down on my heart. Thinking that a walk in the fresh air might help me to banish my foul mood, I called for the bill. The sky was overcast and it was spitting rain. In the low clouds I could see the crimson reflection of the city’s lights. I had arrived at a long, wide avenue called Kurfürstendamm. Here the entire sky was illuminated, casting an orange light on the rain as it fell. The street was lined with casinos, theatres and cinemas. Crowds were strolling up and down, oblivious to the rain. I joined the procession, as my mind ran in circles. It was almost as if I were trying to free myself of a thought that had taken me captive. I read every sign I passed, and every illuminated advertisement. Over and over, I walked the full length of the avenue, which extends for several kilometres. Then I turned right and made for Wittenberg Square.

  Here I found a group of young men dressed in red boots whose faces were painted like women. They were loitering on the pavement outside a large store named KaDeWe, flashing flirtatious looks at the people passing by. I pulled out my watch. It was after eleven o’clock. It was that late already. I quickened my steps as I walked the short distance to Nollendorf Square. Now I knew where I was going. I was going to the spot where, the night before, at precisely this time, I had met the Madonna in a Fur Coat. The square was deserted, except for a few policemen outside the theatre on the northern side. Crossing the street, I arrived at the spot where I had stumbled about with Frau van Tiedemann. I kept my eyes fixed on the lamp post, as if this alone might conjure up the woman I so longed to see. Despite having convinced myself that what I’d seen the night before was a chimera, a fantasy born of a drunken stupor, I was here now, waiting for a woman who might be no more than a hallucination. In place of those factories I’d been dreaming up since morning, there was only a breeze. Once again, I had revealed myself to be a puppet of my imagination, a captive of the make-believe.

  Then I saw someone passing through the square and coming towards me. Hiding in the doorway of a house, I waited. Peering out, I saw the Madonna coming towards me, her steps clipped and sharp. This time there was no mistake. I was sober. The empty street echoed the dry click of her boots. I felt my aching heart contracting as it pounded against my chest. The footsteps were coming closer now. Turning my back to the street, I pretended to be fiddling with the door, leaning over as if I were about to push it open and slip inside. It was all I could do not to fall or yelp when I heard the footsteps stop right behind me. I held onto the wall. Once she had passed by, I came out of the doorway and followed her, keeping close for fear of losing her. I couldn’t see her face. But here I was – the man who had felt such terror at the prospect of ever seeing her again – just five or six steps behind her. She didn’t seem to have noticed me. But then, why had I come here and waited for her, if I was just going to hide? Why had I come back to this place at all? And why was I now following her? Was it really her? How could I be so certain that a woman passing down a particular street at some random hour of the night would pass through the very spot again exactly twenty-four hours later? I was in no state to answer any of these questions. My heart still pounding, I continued to follow her, though with every step I grew more fearful that she might suddenly swing around and see me. I kept my head bowed, eyes fixed on the tarmac, following the sound of her footsteps. Suddenly the clacking disappeared. I stopped in my tracks. My head hanging even lower, I must have looked like a prisoner. But no one came over to me, no one asked: ‘Why are you following me?’ A few seconds later I noticed that the street around my feet was brightly lit.

  Slowly I raised my head: there wasn’t a woman in sight. A few steps ahead of me, I saw the shimmering door of the Atlantic, a well-known cabaret. Its name, blazoned in blinking blue lights across a gigantic sign, sailed upon a sea of electric blue waves. At the door was a man nearly two metres tall, wearing a sequined suit and a red hat. He invited me inside. The woman must already have gone in, I thought. Without a moment’s hesitation, I leaned close to the man and said: ‘Did a woman in a fur coat walking ahead of me go inside?’

  The doorman leaned even closer. ‘Yes,’ he said. He smiled knowingly.

  Could this woman be a regular? I wondered. If she came here every night at the same time, she might well be. Breathing in deeply, but also calmly, I took off my coat and stepped inside.

  The hall was packed. In the centre was a circular dance floor, and behind it an orchestra. Along the walls were rows of tall, discreet, private boxes. Their curtains were mostly drawn; from time to time couples would emerge to dance for a time before returning to their box, again to draw the curtains. Crossing over to a table that looked to be empty, I sat down and ordered a beer. My heart was no longer racing. Calmly, I took in
the scene. I was hoping that I would find her – the Madonna in a Fur Coat, the woman who had left me sleepless for weeks – sitting at one of these tables, beside a Casanova young or old. Once I had had the time to get the measure of this woman to whom I had attached such significance – once I saw her offering herself up on the market – I would be free of her. I could not see her at any of the tables around the dance floor. Most likely she was in one of the private boxes. I smiled bitterly. I scolded myself for failing to see people as they truly were. Although I was twenty-four years old, I had not yet freed myself of the naivety of youth. I had allowed myself to be possessed by a simple painting, which probably wasn’t even that good. I had read enough ideas into that pale face to fill a library; I had imbued it with qualities that were not just unlikely, but impossible. But now I had caught her pursuing base pleasures in a gaudy cabaret, like so many other frivolous girls of her generation. The madonna in the bobcat coat, to whom I had accorded such respect, was nothing more than a common consommatrice.

  I kept a close eye on the boxes, watching the comings and goings; within half an hour I had seen and examined all the passionate couples they contained. Clearly the Madonna in a Fur Coat was not hiding away in one of them. I even went so far as to discreetly peek inside, every time a curtain parted. But I could see no one sitting alone, no couple that had yet to come out to dance.

  Once again I lost my nerve. Was the woman I had followed here no more than another vision? She wasn’t, after all, the only woman in Berlin in possession of a fur coat. I hadn’t even seen her face. Could I really presume to know a woman just from the way she walked? A woman who had done no more than mock me with a smile, having seen me in a drunken stupor? If I had seen her at all. What if I had, in fact, been dreaming this entire day? Gripped by a new fear, I wondered what was happening to me. How and why had this painting come to possess me? To think that I could have believed she was the same woman, passing me by in the dead of night! To think that I had followed her, simply because of her footsteps and her fur coat! There was nothing left for me to do but to leave this place at once, and keep a close eye on myself thereafter.

  Just then, the room went dark. There was only a faint light falling on the orchestra. The dance floor emptied out. Soon afterwards came the strains of a slow and solemn melody. Rising from the wind section, I could hear the thin wail of a violin. Slowly, it grew in volume. A young woman dressed in a white, low-cut dress stepped down onto the dance floor, still playing the violin. In a voice so low it almost sounded like a man’s, she began to sing one of the songs that were all the rage then. A projector cast an oval light that followed her across the floor.

  I recognized her straight away. The puzzle was solved – and my speculations shattered. Oh, how my heart ached! How sad it was, to see her flashing those false smiles, playing the coquette with such sad reluctance!

  I could imagine the woman in the portrait in any number of positions, and even jumping from lap to lap. But nothing could have prepared me for seeing her like this. How miserable she looked! Where was the proud, strong, defiant Madonna of my dreams?

  ‘It would have been better to have seen her as I imagined just a little earlier,’ I told myself. ‘Getting drunk with men, dancing and kissing them.’ Because, if that were the case, then if nothing else she’d be doing so of her own volition. Forgetting herself. Getting carried away. Now, though, I could see very clearly that she had no interest whatsoever in what she was doing. There was nothing extraordinary about the way she played the violin, but her voice was even more beautiful than she was, or rather it had pathos. She sang songs that quivered with longing, as if the words were tumbling out of a drunken boy’s mouth. The smile she had fixed on her face – almost like a patch – seemed desperate to escape: when, after leaning to sing a few stale refrains into a customer’s ear, she moved on to the next table, her face would grow suddenly stern, reverting to the expression I knew so well from the painting. Nothing grieves me more than seeing someone who has given up on the world being forced to smile. As she approached one table, a drunk young man stood up unsteadily and kissed her bare back. She winced, as if bitten by a snake, but the cold shiver that rippled across her body was gone in a quarter of a second. Turning around, she smiled at the drunkard, as if to say, ‘Oh, how lovely!’ Then she turned to the woman beside him, who seemed displeased with her companion, nodding as if to say, ‘Let it be, madam, this is just how men are. What can we do but indulge them?’

  After every song there was applause, and then, with a nod, the woman signalled for the orchestra to play another number. She would begin singing in that voice, that was so thick with indignation, her long white gown sliding across the parquet floor as she went from table to table. Stopping at a table where a drunken couple were embracing, or before the closed curtains of a private box, she would tuck her violin under her chin and run her somewhat clumsy fingers over the strings.

  When I saw her approaching my table, I was gripped by a terrible panic. How could I face her? What could I say? Then I laughed at the absurdity of my own questions. Did I really think she was going to recognize a man she had passed in darkness the previous night? What more could I be to her than just a young man who had come here to find fun, with lively companions? All the same, I kept my head lowered. The hem of her gown was covered with dust from being dragged across the floor. Peeking out from underneath it was the tip of an open white shoe. Her foot was bare. In the projector’s white glow, I could see a pink impression on the top of her foot, just above her toes. Suddenly I could imagine her before me, entirely undressed. I lifted my head in shame. She was looking at me intently. Not singing, but playing the violin. That false smile was gone. But in her eyes I could read a warm greeting. Yes, I could. Without pretence, and without moving her lips, she was greeting me like an old friend. She spoke only with her eyes, but she made her meaning clear. This time, I knew I wasn’t wrong. Then she gave me a smile. A smile that lit up her entire face – open, pure and genuine. She smiled at me like I was an old friend … After playing a little more, she nodded once again, and with her eyes bade me farewell, before leaving for another table.

  And I was seized by an overwhelming desire to leap up, throw my arms around her, kiss her on the lips and let the tears flow. Never before had I felt such happiness. I could feel my heart opening, as if for the first time. How was it that a person could bring such happiness to another without really doing anything at all? A friendly greeting, an innocent smile … and at that moment I wanted nothing else. I was the richest man in the world. As my eyes followed her around the room, I murmured to myself, ‘Thank you … thank you so much.’ For now I knew that I had seen the truth in that painting. She was real, but just as I had imagined. Had it been otherwise, would she ever have recognized me, or greeted me so warmly?

  Then a doubt shot through me: I wondered if she had confused me with someone else. Or perhaps (having seen me in that shocking state the night before) she had thought she might know me, and so had greeted me just in case? But I’d not seen any doubt in her eyes, no hesitant search for a connection. She had looked at me in full confidence and then she had smiled. Whatever her intentions, she had, by opening herself up to me, made me the happiest man in the world. So there I sat, beaming with brash confidence, gazing with ease at the goings on around me, and watching the young woman work the room. Her dark wavy bob bouncing against the back of her neck, her bare arms swinging at her sides, and her waist softy swaying as waves rippled across the taut muscles in her back.

  When she had finished her last song, she slipped behind the orchestra and vanished. Then the lights came on. For a time I just sat there, lost in thought and jubilation. Then I asked myself what I should do next. Should I leave the place at once and wait for her at the door? But how would I explain myself? I’d not said a word to her, after all. How could I now wait for her and offer to walk her home? What would she think of me, if I did? Why would she want to show me the slightest interest, if I used the trite wor
ds of a womanizer?

  I decided then that it would be more courteous to leave at once, and return the next night. This would allow our friendship to grow slowly … This was already far too much for one night … Ever since boyhood, I’d feared wasting any happiness that came my way; I’d always wanted to save some of it for later. This had caused me to miss many opportunities. Even so, I’d always been reluctant to wish for more, lest I frighten away my good fortune.

  I scanned the room for the waiter. As my eyes passed over the orchestra, I saw her stepping back into the room. She was no longer holding her violin. She was walking very quickly. When I saw that she was walking in my direction, I looked around to see who might be waiting for her. She was coming to my table, coming to me. With the same friendly smile. Stopping at my table, she held out her hand: ‘How are you?’ she said.

  Somehow, I managed to overcome my surprise. I jumped to my feet.

  ‘Thank you … I’m fine.’

  She sat down on the stool opposite me. Smoothing back her hair, she looked me straight in the eye. ‘Are you angry with me?’

  What could she mean? Frantically, I searched my addled mind. ‘Angry?’ I said. ‘No, of course not.’