The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk Page B

the people and the places that had gone through his mind overnight. It was an unnerving list that grew longer as he wrote and forced him to write as it grew, giving Galip a sensation that he was imitating a protagonist in some detective novel: Rüya’s old flames, her “zany” girlfriends, the chums she occasionally mentioned, her sometime “political” allies, and the friends they had in common who shouldn’t be confided in, Galip decided, not until he actually found Rüya. As he jotted down their names made up of particular vowels and consonants, the strokes that went up and down, as their faces and figures cumulatively gained meaning and double entendres, they waved gleefully at Galip, the inexperienced detective, winking treacherously and transmitting false leads. Soon after the garbagemen went by banging the larger cans on the gate of the truck, Galip stuck the list, to stop himself from lengthening it, in the inside pocket of the coat he’d wear that day.
    Galip turned off all the lights in the apartment, which at daybreak was illuminated only with the blue light of snow. In an effort to foil the suspicions of the nosy doorman, he put out the trash can, but only after he had checked through the contents once more. He made tea, slipped a fresh blade in his razor and shaved, put on clean but unpressed underwear and shirt, and straightened out the rooms he’d ransacked all night. He drank his tea and read in the Milliyet, which the doorman had slid under the door as he got dressed, Jelal’s column in which he mentioned the subject of an “eye” he’d encountered walking around in the slums, years ago, at midnight. Galip remembered having read the article, which had already been published some time back, but still he felt the terror of the same “eye” trained on him. That’s when the phone rang.
    It must be Rüya! Galip thought. By the time he picked up the receiver, he even had the movie theater picked where they’d go together that evening: the Palace Theater. But he didn’t hesitate at all coming up with a story to throw off Aunt Suzan, the disappointing voice on the line: Yes, yes, Rüya’s fever had gone down; not only had she slept well, she’d even had a dream; sure, she’d like to speak to her mom; just one moment. “Rüya!” Galip shouted down the hallway, “Rüya, your mom’s on the phone!” He imagined Rüya getting out of bed, yawning and stretching languorously as she looked around for her slippers; then he put a different reel in his mind’s projector: solicitous husband Galip goes down the hallway to call his wife to the phone, only to find her in bed sleeping like a baby. He even faked “effects” walking up and down the hallway to flesh out the second film and produce a believable ambience for Aunt Suzan. He returned to the phone. “She’s gone back to sleep, Aunt Suzan. Her eyes were crusted with fever goop. Seems she washed her face and got back in bed and dozed off again.” “Tell her to drink plenty of orange juice,” said Aunt Suzan, painstakingly telling him where in Nişantaşı the most reasonable blood oranges could be purchased. “We might go to the Palace Theater tonight,” Galip said confidently. “Just so she doesn’t catch another chill,” Aunt Suzan said and, perhaps worried that she might be interfering too much, she changed the subject completely: “Did you know that your voice sounds just like Jelal’s on the phone? Or do you have a cold too? Make sure you don’t catch Rüya’s bug.” Then they hung up at the same moment, gently, not so much out of fear of awakening Rüya but as if not to hurt the receivers, moved by the same feelings of respect, tenderness, and silence.
    Soon after hanging up and starting in again on Jelal’s old article, somewhere between the persona he’d assumed moments ago, the eyeballing of the aforementioned “eye,” and his own foggy thoughts, Galip suddenly decided: “Of course, Rüya has returned to her