There were a few minutes left until the closing of the museum. Besides you and me, only a young couple had remained. They had brought with them a copy of The Museum of Innocence in Turkish, which they were comparing to the exhibits, case by case. The young man held the girl’s free hand the entire time and gazed intently into the book while she was searching for the right chapter or read out a passage. They ignored us. They never got to the last floor.
‘Where are you from? Have you read this book?’
On one of the middle floors, the museum silence was interrupted by the descending notes of the end of a melody by Müzeyyen Senar. The song dissolved back into silence, much like the era that the exhibition attempted to bring to life had faded into nothingness.
Numerous wristwatches, black-and-white photographs, passports opened from the photo page, colourful smock dresses, unfinished tea, uneaten dolma. Maybe a radio. Metallic reflection on the red velvet lining. A display of cigarette butts on the ground floor.
Lives captured in objects. A work of art. I thought of Proust.
I was moved by the thoughtfulness of the arrangement of the display cases. Some touched me purely by virtue of their position in space.
‘No, I haven’t read it,’ I replied with regret. ‘But I have read some other books of his. In any case, the concept of this museum is really fascinating.’
You probably didn’t understand me, but you nodded in agreement when you heard the word ‘concept’.
You must have noticed my emotion at the last chapter, at Kemal Bey’s deathbed, next to which I had sat down, staring into the distance, eyes full of tears.
I didn’t tell you that it was much better that I hadn’t read the book. I was already too sentimental without that.
I followed you back downstairs and, from the literary map of Nişantaşı, wrote down the locations of the events that I remembered from The Black Book.
You left a little before I did, without looking at me or acknowledging in any other way our recent interaction.
I wondered whether my way of talking was alien to you, whether you were disappointed in me for some reason, or whether you simply did not know how to continue the conversation.
February 2014