The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk Page A

when he wondered uninspiredly why and how the paper scissors, for example, had been placed next to the copper bowl that sat on the radiator in the hallway, or when out on a Sunday excursion they ran into some woman he hadn’t seen in years but with whom he knew Rüya had kept in constant touch, Galip was momentarily startled and forestalled by the clue he’d come across, the sign that emerged from a realm forbidden to him, as if he were brought face-to-face with the secrets of a widespread sect that had been pushed underground but which no longer needed to be hidden. The frightening thing was not only the contagiousness of the mysteries, like the mysteries of an outlawed cult, spreading among those generic persons called “housewives,” but the pretense that no such enigma ever existed, nor any esoteric rites, no shared misdemeanors, no rapture or history, as if their behavior didn’t rise out of a sense of secrecy but out of an inner desire. Like the confidences kept by harem eunuchs, locked and with the key thrown away, the mystery was both attractive and repulsive: since its existence was known, perhaps it wasn’t dreadful like a nightmare, but since it had never been described and named although handed down through the centuries, it was a pathetic mystery because it could never be a source of pride, assurance, or victory. Sometimes Galip thought this realm was some kind of curse, like a curse that hounds the members of a family for hundreds of years; yet, having witnessed many a woman quit her job all of a sudden and return back to the accursed region voluntarily under the pretext of marriage, motherhood, or some other murky reason, he had come to understand it was some kind of gravitational pull of the cult. So much so that, observing certain women who’d gone through hell to be rid of the curse and become somebody, he thought he detected symptoms of the desire to return to the secret rites, the enchanting moments they’d left behind, and back to the dark, silken zone he’d never understand.
    Sometimes when Rüya laughed at one of his stupid jokes or puns so hard that it surprised him, or when she cooperated with his joy in running his clumsy hands through the dark forest of her mink-colored hair, that is, free of all the rituals learned from picture magazines, in a moment of true closeness between husband and wife free of all the past and the future, suddenly Galip would feel a desire to ask his wife a question concerning that mysterious realm, to ask her what she’d done at home that day, at a particular hour, aside from the laundry, the dishes, the detective novels, and going out (the doctor had said they’d be unable to have children, and Rüya hadn’t shown much interest in working); but the chasm that might open between them following that question was so frightening and the knowledge targeted so alien to the vocabulary of the common language between them that he could not question Rüya but held her in his arms while his face went blank for a moment, completely vacant. “You’ve vacated your face again!” she’d say. Blithely fetching up the words that her mom said when he was a child, she’d repeat: “Your face is white as a sheet!”
    After the call to morning prayer, Galip dozed off sitting up in his chair in the living room. In his dream where the Japanese goldfish in the aquarium swayed drowsily in a liquid that was as green as the ink in a ballpoint pen, Rüya, Galip, and Vasıf spoke about a mistake that had been made and, later, it was understood that Vasıf was not the one who was deaf and dumb, it was Galip. Still, they didn’t get too upset: after all, things would soon be all right.
    Upon waking, Galip sat down at the table and, as he imagined Rüya had done about nineteen or twenty hours ago, he looked for a clean sheet of paper on the table. And when he didn’t come across any paper—just as Rüya hadn’t—he began writing on the back of Rüya’s letter, making a list of all