The New Life by Orhan Pamuk

Author:Orhan Pamuk
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466887640
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

11

The pleasure of reading, which natty older gentlemen complain is lacking in our culture, must be in the musical harmony I heard reading the documents and murder reports in Doctor Fine’s mad and orderly archive. On my arms I felt the cool night air, in my ears I heard night music that was not actually playing; meanwhile, I tried to figure out what I must do to act like a young person who had decided to be resolute in the face of the wonders he has come across at his tender age. Since I had decided to be a responsible young person who prepared for his future, I pulled a piece of paper out of Doctor Fine’s stock and began to write down small clues that might come in handy.

I left the archive room when I was still hearing that music in my ears, at an hour when I felt deep inside me how cold and calculating were both the world and the philosophically inclined patriarch of the house. It was as if I could hear the encouraging provocation of some blithe spirit. I felt something tingling inside like that playful feeling people like me get when we leave the theater after seeing a fun and upbeat movie, a feeling which is as light as the music that goes through our heads. You know what I mean: we identify with the hero, as if we were the guy with the clever jokes, the spontaneous levity, the incredible ready wit.

“May I have this dance?” I was about to ask Janan, who was watching me with concern.

She was sitting at the dinner table with the three rosy sisters, looking at some balls of yarn in all manner of colors which had spilled out from a wicker basket on the table top like ripe apples and oranges out of a cornucopia of felicity and plenty. Next to these were the knitting and embroidery patterns that came with the magazine called Home and Women that my mother also used to take at one time, flowers to needlepoint, cute little ducks, cats, dogs, besides the mosque motifs which must have been contributed by the publisher, who lifted all the rest from German women’s magazines and foisted it on Turkish women. I too studied all that color in the light of the kerosene lamps, remembering that the actual life drama I had just been reading about had been constructed with equally vivid raw materials. Then turning to Rosamund’s two little daughters who came up to their mother, melting into this scene of family happiness, yawning and blinking their eyes, I said to them, “What, your mother hasn’t put you to bed yet?”

They were taken aback and a little frightened when they nestled against their mother. My mood was improving. I could even have regaled Rosebud and Rosabelle, who were eyeing me suspiciously, with something like, “You are both blooms that have not yet faded.”

Yet I didn’t manage to say anything until I entered the quarters reserved for receiving male guests.

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