The New Life Read Online Free PDF Page A

are these people who want to kill those who’ve read the book? I fear nothing. If one has understood the book and believed in it, as I myself have, one would naturally have no fear.
    Back among the crowd, I again found myself walking briskly as if I had important business. I went up to the second floor and walked along the tall windows that look down on the fountain courtyard, walked and walked, leaving myself behind, thinking of Janan with every step. I went by classmates congregated for our next class. Guess what! Only a little while ago a very attractive girl kissed me, and how! My legs were taking me swiftly to my destiny, a destiny that contained dark woods, hotel rooms, mauve and azure phantoms, life, peace, and death.
    When I reached Room 201 three minutes before class, I picked Mehmet out of the crowd in the hall even before I saw Janan standing near him. He was pale, tall and thin as myself, pensive, preoccupied, wan. I had a vague memory of having seen him before in Janan’s company. He knows more than I do, I speculated; he has done more living; he’s even a couple of years older than me. How he knew who I was, I cannot say, but he took me aside, behind the lockers.
    â€œI hear you’ve read the book,” he said. “What’s in it for you?”
    â€œA new life.”
    â€œDo you buy it?”
    â€œI do.”
    His complexion looked so wan it made me dread the things he must have gone through.
    â€œLook, listen to me,” he said. “I too went for it. I thought I could find that world. I was always on some bus to some place or other, going from town to town, thinking I would find that land, those people, the very streets. Believe me, at the end there is nothing but death. They kill without mercy. They could be watching us even now.”
    â€œDon’t scare him now,” Janan said.
    There was a silence. Mehmet looked at me for a moment as if he had known me for years. I felt I had let him down.
    â€œI am not scared,” I said, looking at Janan. “I am capable of pursuing it to the very end,” I added with the air of a strong type in the movies.
    Janan’s incredible body was just a few steps from me, between the two of us, but closer to him.
    â€œThere is nothing to pursue to the end,” said Mehmet. “Just a book. Someone sat down and wrote it. A dream. There is nothing else for you to do, aside from reading and rereading it.”
    â€œTell him what you told me,” Janan said to me.
    â€œThat world exists,” I said. I wished to take hold of Janan by her long graceful arm and draw her to myself. I paused. “I will find that world.”
    â€œWorld shmorld!” Mehmet said. “It doesn’t exist. Think of it as tomfoolery perpetrated on children by an old sap. The old man thought he’d write a book to entertain adults the same way he did children. It’s doubtful he even knew what it meant. It’s entertaining reading, but if you believe it, your life is lost.”
    â€œThere’s a whole world in there,” I said, as strong but stupid men do in the movies. “And I know I will find a way to reach it.”
    â€œIn that case, happy trails…” He turned away, gave Janan an I-told-you-so look, and he was about to leave when he stopped and asked, “What makes you so sure of the existence of that life?”
    â€œBecause I have the impression the book is telling the story of my life.”
    He smiled amiably and walked away.
    â€œDon’t leave,” I said to Janan. “Is he your lover?”
    â€œHe actually liked you,” she said. “Not for himself, but for me. He fears for people like you.”
    â€œIs he your lover? Don’t leave without telling me everything.”
    â€œHe needs me,” she said.
    I had heard those words so many times in the movies that I supplied the fervent response with spontaneity and conviction: “I will die if you leave