Silent House by Orhan Pamuk

dry eyes, because my thoughts are of them, only of them.
    “What’s the matter, Grandmother, don’t cry!”
    They don’t know how much I love all of you, how I can hardly bear to think that you’re dead on this sunny day; I dab my eyes a little again, poor me, and okay, that’s enough now, Fatma, I should know how to bear up, since I’ve spent my whole life in pain, there, it’s over now, nothing’s the matter, I lift up my head, I’m looking at everything—apartment buildings, walls, plastic signs, posters, shop-windows, colors—but right away I start to hate it, my God, what ugliness: Don’t look anymore, Fatma.
    “Grandmother, what did it used to be like around here?”
    I’m lost in my own thoughts and sorrows and I don’t hear what you’re saying, so how can I tell you that this used to be one garden after another, what beautiful gardens, where are they now, there was no one around and in those years, before the devil took your grandfather, early in the evenings, he’d say, Fatma, let’s go for a walk, I’m just stewing in here, we never go anywhere, this encyclopedia is exhausting me, I don’t want to be like some Eastern despot saying I don’t have any time, I want to make my wife happy, let’s at least walk a little in the garden, and we can talk, I’ll tell you about what I read today, I think about the necessity of science and how we’re so backward because we lack it, I truly understand now our need for a Renaissance, for a scientific awakening, there’s an awesome job before me that must be done, and so I’m actually grateful to Talat Pasha for exiling me to this lonely corner, where I can read and think about these things, because if it weren’t for this emptiness and all the time in the world, I could never have come to these conclusions, would never have realized the importance of my historic task, Fatma, anyway, all of Rousseau’s thoughts were the visions of a solitary wanderer in the countryside, surrounded by nature, but here the two of us are together.
    “Marlboros here, get your Marlboros!”
    Lifting my head, I got a fright, he almost stuck his arm inside the car, Careful, little boy, you’ll be crushed, and soon we’d left all the concrete behind, finally, thank God, we were among the gardens, spread out …
    “Really hot, isn’t it, Faruk?”
     … on both sides of the road going up the hill, where Selâhattin and I used to walk in those early years and, along the way, one or two miserable villagers would stop us and say hello, because they hadn’t yet grown afraid of him. Doctor, my wife is very sick, would you come, please God, because he hadn’t yet gone raving mad, the poor things, Fatma, I feel sorry for them, I don’t charge them anything, what can I do, but when we needed money they didn’t come anyway,then it was my rings, my diamonds, did I shut the closet door, I panicked, yes, I did.
    “Grandma, are you okay?”
    They don’t give a soul a moment’s peace with these ridiculous questions; I dab my eyes with my handkerchief: How can a person be okay when she is going to the graves of her husband and son, all I—
    “Look, Grandmother, we’re going by Ismail’s house. There!”
    feel is sorrow, but listen to what they’re saying, my God, here’s the house of the cripple, your bastard, but I’m not looking, do they know that, I
    “Recep, how is Ismail?”
    know and listen
    “Fine. Selling lottery tickets.”
    carefully, no, you don’t hear, Fatma, I
    “How’s his foot?”
    just have to save myself and my husband and my son from sin, does
    “Same as always, Faruk Bey. He limps.”
    anyone know I had anything to do with this, did he
    “How’s Hasan?”
    go and tell them, that dwarf, knowing they’re so interested in equality, like their father and grandfather …
    “His marks are terrible. He failed English and mathematics. And he has no job.”
    Let’s see, they’ll say, well, Grandmother, then that makes them our uncles, we had no