The Disconnecte D by Oğuz Atay

Author:Oğuz Atay
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

13

At the office, he was getting through the routine work with the speed and efficiency he had acquired over the years. In the morning, when he woke up, he was finding it hard to begin the day. It took him a while to shake off the effects of his muddled dreams, but since he was in the habit of waking very early, he had enough time to pull himself together. Later, if he could get carried away by the flow, he did not need to exert himself too much. Sometimes, at one of the busiest moments of the day, the thought of Selim and Selim’s friends suddenly stabbed him in the chest. He was caught unprepared, in the middle of a sentence, as he walked, as he sat bent over a sheet of accounts. At such times, continuing to do whatever he was doing, not letting people notice the state he was in, felt like an act of heroism. He became absent-minded, he failed to hear what was being said and he had to make a determined effort to understand the significance of what took place around him. It was as if the mind, that part of the mind necessary for fitting in with one’s surroundings, deserted him in an instant. An inexplicable terror engulfed him; he stood still, covered in sweat. All the Turguts, besides the one who thought about Selim, suddenly abandoned him. He felt helpless and vulnerable like a child. Don’t worry, Turgut, pretend you understand what is going on, no one is all that clever, anyway no one is as interested as you imagine; with these thoughts he tried to give himself courage. After a short time he realised that the fact indeed was that no one around him was all that interested. No one was keen to follow up an urn finished sentence. When he misunderstood a word they would simply repeat it. This means, said Turgut to himself, I have until now given them more than is necessary. I have given them Turguts which they did not pick up. It would have been easy to manage with so very little. He pitied the old Turguts: so it is only I who lived them all. I believed I had kept so many Turguts to myself, but even those I did give away were too many for them. And what about me? I didn’t understand people either; in reality, I neither understood them nor understood how they saw me. I was only interested in what I gave. How easily they overlook my faults, and indirectly their own. Why do we live together? I must not search for significance in this. Nothing poisons one’s life as much as significance. One can, simply by looking clever, drop the most nonsensical words into the empty space created by those around one. Yet he was hardly upset about all this: are you becoming less sensitive, Turgut, my son? This strong, inexplicable feeling of yours, is it blunting your other feelings?

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