Every minute of the day, I chased after them in my thoughts. And at long last, just as I thought I could endure no more, the image I had driven from my mind began very slowly, and very quietly, to take shape before my eyes: Maria Puder, with her dark eyes and deep gaze and fine curving lips. My Madonna in a Fur Coat. There was not a trace of anger or ill will in her face. There was, perhaps, a note of surprise, but more than that, there was concern and compassion. Yet I did not have the courage to meet her gaze. For ten years – fully ten years – I had, in my wretchedness, loathed and condemned a dead woman … could there be a greater insult to her memory? For ten years I had wrongly and unequivocally doubted the person who was my life, my soul, my reason for living, without once considering that I might be doing her an injustice. For all the garish scenarios I’d dreamt up, never once had I stopped and asked myself whether there might have been a good reason for her leaving me. And it turned out there had been a reason, the gravest, most immovable reason: death. I felt I might die of shame. I was wracked with despair and the needless remorse we feel in the face of death. If I were to spend the rest of my life in supplication, seeking forgiveness for having murdered her memory, I fear I would not succeed – for the greatest betrayal, the greatest sin we can commit against the most blameless, is to abandon a loving heart, and for that I shall never be forgiven.
Only a few hours ago I was under the impression that, lacking a picture, I would not be able to recall her face again.
Yet now I can see her, in all her beauteous detail, and she is more alive than she ever was in life. As in her self-portrait, she looks a little wistful and a little proud. Her face is a little paler, her eyes darker. She’s pushed out her lower lip, as if to say, ‘Oh Raif!’ Yes, she is more alive than ever … So she died ten years ago! While I was waiting for her, getting our home ready for her. Without saying a word about me to anyone, so as not to cause me trouble. And then she’d died, taking her secret with her.
Now I understood the anger I’d felt for her over these ten years – and why I’d built an insurmountable wall between me and the world: for ten years I had carried on loving her, loving her with all my heart. That was why I had allowed no one else in. But now I loved her even more than ever before. Opening my arms to the vision that was Maria, I imagined taking her hands and rubbing them warm once more. I could see every detail of the months we had spent together: every moment shared and every word exchanged. Returning to that moment when I first saw her painting in the exhibition, I lived it all again: I listened to her singing at the Atlantic; and then she came and sat beside me. We visited the botanical gardens, and sat across from one another in a room, and then she fell ill. These memories were rich enough to fill an entire lifetime. Compressed into such a short space of time, they were all the greater and more vibrant than anything real could ever be. They showed me that I had not been truly alive for a single moment over the past ten years – my thoughts, feelings and actions had travelled far away from me, so far that they might as well have belonged to a stranger. I might be nearly thirty-five years of age, but the real me had only ever been alive during those four or five months ten years ago: since then I had been buried deep inside an alien shell, signifying nothing.
Last night in bed, when I came face to face with Maria, I understood how difficult it was going to be to carry on inside this body, this mind, that had nothing to do with me. When I ate, I would be feeding a stranger. I would drag myself from place to place, watching the world with a mixture of pity and scorn. Last night I came to understand that life held nothing more for me, now that she was dead: I had died with her, if not before.
Early this morning, the rest of the household went out on an excursion. Claiming to be unwell, I stayed at home. I have been writing since morning. Now night is falling. They have not come home yet. But soon the house will fill with their shouting and laughter. What does any of it mean to me? When all human ties are severed, what is left? I have not uttered a single true word in ten years. But now, how desperately I need a confidant. What else is there left for me, but to spill out these words and then drown in them? Oh, Maria, why can’t we sit by the window and talk? Why can’t we open our hearts and souls to each other, as we walk together in silence on a windy autumn evening? Oh, why aren’t you here with me?
Perhaps I have needlessly shunned society for all these years. Perhaps, in refusing to believe them, I have treated people unfairly. Perhaps, had I looked, I might have found someone like you. Had I learned of your death sooner, I might have recovered in time to make the effort to find you in someone else. But it is all over now. Knowing the monumental and unforgivable injustice I have visited on my beloved, I lack the will to put things right. I have held the whole world in contempt, on account of having misjudged you; I have shut myself away. Now I can see the truth. All the same, I have no choice but to condemn myself to everlasting solitude. Life is a game that is only played once, and I lost. There is no second chance … My years ahead will be even worse than the years already past. I shall continue to go shopping every evening, like a machine. I shall meet and tolerate people in whom I have no interest. Could I have continued living in any other way? I think not. Had I been spared this chance encounter, I might have carried on living as before, oblivious to the truth. You were the one who taught me that another life was possible, and that I had a soul. And it is not your fault that it ended too soon … Thank you for giving me the chance to be truly alive. Those few months were worth a few lifetimes, don’t you think? The child you have left behind, a part of you, our daughter – she will wander the far corners of this earth without knowing her father … Our paths crossed once. But I know nothing about her. Neither her name nor where she lives. But she will always be in my heart, and my mind. In my mind I shall imagine a life for her, and in that life I shall walk beside her. In my dreams I shall watch her growing up. I shall see her to school. I shall know her smiles and come to understand the way she thinks, and with all of this I shall try to fill the void ahead. I can hear noise outside. They must be back. But I want to keep writing. What is the point in that? I have written so much, and what of it? I shall have my daughter buy another notebook tomorrow and hide this one. I shall hide it all away, in a place no one will ever find. Everything, everything. But especially my soul.
Raif Efendi’s notebook finished with those words. The notebook’s remaining pages were blank. It was as if he’d taken the decision to release the soul he’d kept hidden so long and so fearfully, but after spilling it onto these pages, he’d sunk back into himself, never to speak again.
It was early in the morning by now. Keeping the promise I had made, I put the notebook in my pocket and I went to his house. The moment the door swung open, to wailing and confusion, I knew what had happened. For a moment I stood there, unsure of what to do. I did not want to leave without seeing Raif Efendi one last time. But after the night I had just spent with him, in love and truly alive, I could not bear the prospect of seeing him reduced to that empty vessel that signified nothing. I stepped back into the street. Raif Efendi’s death did not overly distress me. For I felt that, rather than losing him, I had somehow found him.
Last night he’d said to me, ‘We never got the chance to sit down and talk.’ But now I knew differently. Last night we’d spoken for many long hours.
That same night, he’d left his life behind and entered mine. And there he would remain, truly alive – more so than anyone I’d ever known. Wherever I went, he’d be there at my side.
When I got to the office, I sat down at Raif Efendi’s empty desk. Placing his black notebook before me, I turned back to the first page.
November 1940–February 1941
THE BEGINNING
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PENGUIN CLASSICS
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Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
First published 1943
This translation first published by Penguin Classics 2016
Published in paperback 2017
Text copyright 1943 by Sabahattin Ali
Translation copyright © Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe, 2016
This book is published by arrangement with ONK Agency, Istanbul, Turkey, 2016
The moral rights of the author and translators have been asserted
Cover photograph by John Léo Reutlinger (Bibliothèque nationale de France)
Cover Design by Richard Green
ISBN: 978-0-141-98127-7
Sabahattin Ali, Kürk Mantolu Madonna
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