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dinner, I would read the paper first. When I learned that the Unionists had been overthrown, I left the news like a beautiful ripe fruit on his plate. When he lifted his head up from that wretched encyclopedia of his and came downstairs for lunch, he saw the newspaper and could not fail to notice the news, because it was in huge letters. He read it without saying a thing. I didn’t ask, but Iknew he didn’t write a single word of his encyclopedia all afternoon, because the sound of his footsteps overhead did not cease until evening. When Selâhattin didn’t say anything at supper either, I softly said, Did you see, Selâhattin, they’ve been thrown out? Oh yes, he said, the government’s fallen, hasn’t it? The Unionists have sunk the Ottoman Empire and run off, and we’ve lost the war, too! He couldn’t look me in the eye, and we both fell silent. Later, as we were getting up from the table, he said, as though confessing some shameful sin he wanted to forget, Well, I suppose we’ll go back to Istanbul but only when the encyclopedia is finished, because that mundane little comedy called politics in Istanbul is nothing compared with the momentous work of this encyclopedia of everything, what I’m doing here is much greater and more profound, a scientific marvel whose influence will endure centuries from now. I have no right to leave this job half done, Fatma, I’m going right upstairs, he said, and off he went, and until he learned he was going to die, after which he would suffer unbelievable torments for another four months, until the blood rushed out of his mouth and he finally expired, he wrote that awful encyclopedia for another thirty years, and because of that, and it’s the only thing I have to thank you for, Selâhattin, I would remain here in Cennethisar for seventy years and avoid the sin of your “Istanbul of the Future” and the atheist’s state, I’ve avoided it, haven’t I, Fatma, so sleep in peace.
    But I can’t sleep and I listen to the train passing in the distance, its whistle and then its engine as it rattles on and on. I used to love this sound. I used to think how, far away, there were innocent countries, lands, houses, gardens; I was a child, easily fooled. There goes another train! I can’t feel anymore. Don’t think, where! My pillow’s warm from my cheek; I turn it over. When I put my head on it, it is cool behind my ears. On winter nights it used to be cold, but nobody snuggled with anybody. Selâhattin kept snoring and I used to go into the next room and sit in the dark, disgusted at the stench of wine welling up out of his mouth. Once I went into the room across the hall, saying to myself, let’s take a look at these papers, let me see whathe’s writing from morning to night: he had written a part of an article about gorillas being the grandfathers of men; he wrote in those days that the incredible advances of the sciences in the West had now made God’s existence a ridiculous question to be cast aside; he’d written that the East’s continued slumber in the deep and despicable darkness of the Middle Ages had not led us, a handful of intellectuals, toward despair but, on the contrary, toward a great enthusiasm for work, because what was obvious was that we were not obliged to take all this knowledge and transport it from there to here, but to discover it all over again, to close the gap of centuries between East and West in a shorter time. Now, he wrote, as I complete the seventh year of this glorious work, I see the masses stupefied by fear of God—My God, Fatma! Don’t read any more, but still I was reading; he wrote, I’m obliged to articulate a number of things that would be absurdly plain in any advanced nation, just to rouse this mound of sloths, and, he wrote, At least if I had a friend to discuss all of this with, but not only am I without even a single friend, I’m finally at the point of abandoning all hope in this cold woman; from now on, Selâhattin, you’re