Bliss: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

metropolis excited them, and İrfan was fascinated by the vigor and allure of its sprawling neighborhoods. He frequently noted that it was similar to New York in this regard. Even the dismal shantytowns, home to millions of migrants from Anatolia, which had sprung up on the outskirts of Istanbul, throbbed with energy. Someone had opened a restaurant named Goodfellas in one of those poor neighborhoods, emphasizing a brutal similarity with the outlying areas of New York.
    İrfan’s brother-in-law, who worked in advertising, would often declare that a city had to have a certain number of murders in order to be a metropolis. “Istanbul hasn’t reached that stage yet,” he would say. “That’s all that’s missing.”
    Istanbul had not developed organically like other European cities. It resembled New York, since it was inhabited by people from every walk of life—rich and poor, refined and coarse. Thanks to African immigrants, Istanbul even had black residents.
    İrfan thought the city must have accumulated the energy of the entire country, and he himself was one of the most learned, most esteemed, and most successful of its inhabitants. He did not squander money like the nouveaux riches but passed his time reading, attending art exhibitions, and going to the Summer Festival concerts held in the Open-Air Theater or St. Irene—all kinds of concerts by world-famous orchestras and singers.
    He loved to wake up to the sound of Jean-Pierre Rampal’s flute, and he would start the day with a half hour swim in the pool while listening to the same music. Aysel did not care much for classical music, though she pretended to share her husband’s taste. They also followed the popular trends. An evening out at one of the city’s famous nightclubs to listen to the arabesque tunes of gay and transvestite singers provided a dash of local color. İrfan relished the feeling of being a Westerner in the Orient, and an Easterner in the Occident. He was not snobbish and did not turn up his nose at lowbrow culture.
    Last year, for fun, one of their friends had celebrated his birthday at an “oriental” club, and İrfan had been introduced to a new world. Fat gay singers in “third-gender” clothing strutted on top of the tables, encouraging everyone to climb up and join them in a belly dance. Before long most of the women were up on the tables, gyrating to the beat of the drum, while the men sat transfixed.
    Gazing at Aysel dripping with perspiration as she danced with abandon on the tabletop, İrfan ruminated over the idea that the sexual energy of his society was being discharged in a ritual purification, a kind of catharsis. Normally, most of the men around him would fight any other male who dared to look lustfully at their wives, but here they enjoyed watching their half-naked women arouse other men with their sensual dancing. As Kazantzakis, the author of Zorba, the Greek, once wrote: “In Hellas, light is sacred: In Ionia it is carnal.” The archaic notes of the darbuka, a kind of drum played with the hands, and the rhythm unique to this region put people into a state of ecstasy, arousing even the coldest and most distant to join in the mesmerizing dance.
    “A common sense of rhythm has more significance for a nation than its flag,” thought İrfan. Not melody but rhythm—it is rhythm that distinguishes cultures.
    He had once observed his theory in action in the music department of the Virgin Megastore in New York’s Times Square, where customers put on headphones to listen to the latest CDs. Divided into areas for jazz, classical, African, Middle Eastern, pop, and rock music, the place was full of people wearing headphones all moving different parts of their bodies. Jazz lovers, slightly stooped, tapped their feet to the insistent rhythm, aficionados of Latin music wiggled their hips, while those absorbed in the music of the Middle East contorted their bellies. It was amusing to watch their silent dances.
    İrfan opened his