Dear Ethan,
I found your letter this morning and I’ll send you mine this afternoon. I wonder how long it will take to reach you. The sound of the envelope slipping under the door made me get out of bed, and I immediately understood you were leaving. I watched you get in the taxi from my window, and when you looked up at the hotel, I stepped back—probably for the same reasons you chose to leave without saying goodbye. And yet, as your taxi headed off, I wanted to say goodbye and thank you for your company. You’re not always an easy man to get along with (a true friend can say that without vexing you, can’t she?), but you’re also remarkable, generous, amusing, and talented. You came into my life and became my friend in an unexpected manner. We’ve only spent the past few weeks in Istanbul together, but still I felt a need to talk to you this morning.
Of course, I forgive you for leaving as you did. I even think that you were probably right for having done so. I don’t like goodbyes much either. Part of me is jealous to think that you’ll be back in London soon. I miss our old house, and my apartment . . . I’ll stay here until spring comes, as you suggest. Can has promised to take me to the Princes’ Islands, something we missed out on doing together. I’ll write to you about it, and if I happen across an intersection worthy of note, I’ll describe every detail. Apparently going to the islands is like stepping back in time—there are only horses and donkeys for transport. Tomorrow we’re going to go back to see the perfume maker in Cihangir. I’ll tell you how it goes and keep you up to date on the developments in my work.
I hope the trip home wasn’t too exhausting and that your mother is in good health. Take care of her, and take care of yourself as well.
Your friend,
Alice
My dearest Alice,
Your letter took exactly six days to arrive. The postman handed it to me this morning as I was going out. I suppose that it also must have taken the plane, but the postmark didn’t indicate which line, or whether it had stopped in Vienna. The day following my return, after having put things in order in my flat, I went next door and did the same in yours. I promise I haven’t moved a thing, I just chased away some of the dust that had taken up residence in your absence. If you had seen me, like an old charwoman in an apron with a handkerchief tied over my head, bumbling around with a broom and a bucket, I’m sure I would have never heard the end of it. I did happen to run into the woman downstairs as I was taking out the rubbish, and she gave me a very strange look indeed.
There’s so much light in your place that it already feels like springtime, a season that I hope will arrive in the rest of the world sooner rather than later. It’s useless for me to remind you that England is a very cold and damp place, and though the weather is one of my favorite subjects of conversation, I won’t bore you with the meteorological details, apart from letting you know that it has rained every day since my return, and that according to the people in the café where I’ve taken up my old habit of having breakfast, it has been raining the entire month. The gentle winter on the Bosporus seems very far away indeed.
Yesterday, I took a walk along the Thames, and you’re right, the smell is certainly very different from those you had me analyze on our walks near the Galata Bridge. Even the manure here smells different, though perhaps that isn’t the most elegant example to support my observation.
I feel guilty for having left without saying goodbye. I had a heavy heart that morning. I don’t understand myself what you did to me—of course, you’ll never understand what it’s like to be me, but that matters little. During that last night we spent together in Istanbul, you became my friend. In some inexplicable way, you made me a better painter, and perhaps even a better man. Don’t take this the wrong way—this is not a confession of mixed-up feelings for you, but a true and simple declaration of friendship. Friends can say such things to each other, can’t they?
I miss you, Alice. The pleasure of setting up my easel under your skylight amidst all the perfumes you taught me to appreciate is almost like being in your presence again. It pushes me to work and gives me the courage to paint the intersection that we admired together. It’s an ambitious project, and I’ve already thrown out a huge number of studies that weren’t good enough, but I’ll get there with patience.
Take care of yourself and give my regards to Can. On second thoughts, don’t—keep my regards for yourself.
Daldry
Dear Daldry,
I just received your very kind and touching letter. Thank you for all the lovely things you wrote.
I should tell you about the events of the past week. The day after you left, Can and I took the bus from Taksim to Ni?anta?i. We visited all the schools in the area, but found nothing. Every visit was more or less the same. We spent hours poring over old ledgers, from which my name was always missing. Sometimes we didn’t have to bother because the school hadn’t kept its records or didn’t allow girls in the Ottoman days. I’m starting to think that my parents never sent me to school at all. Can thought that maybe they kept me at home because of the war. Still, it’s strange not to find my name anywhere—I’m starting to wonder if I even existed! I know there’s no sense in thinking that way, so yesterday I decided to give up looking for a while. The whole search has become rather tiresome.
The past two days we’ve gone back to visit the perfume maker in Cihangir. Each moment working with him is more fascinating than the last. Thanks to Can, whose English has greatly improved since your departure, I’m able to explain all of my ideas. In the beginning, the perfume maker thought I was crazy, but I got him to understand by asking him to imagine all of the people who would never climb the hill to Cihangir, who would never hear the foghorns of the ferries sailing back and forth, and who would only see the moon’s silvery reflection in the Bosporus in books and postcards. I tried to explain to him how wonderful it would be if we could offer them the possibility of imagining the magic of Istanbul through a fragrance telling the story of the city’s beauty. Since he loves his city more than anything, he stopped laughing at my ideas and started paying closer attention. I wrote out a list of the odors I had noticed in the little streets of Cihangir, Can read them out, and the old man was impressed. I know that it’s an ambitious project, but I’ve started daydreaming about the day that a perfume shop in Kensington or Piccadilly will display a bottle of perfume called “Istanbul” in its window. Don’t make fun of me now—I’ve managed to convince the old perfume maker, but I still need all the support I can get.
Our approaches to making perfume are very different. He thinks in terms of absolutes, and I think more like a chemist, but his techniques have brought me back to the essentials of our craft and have opened new horizons. Our methods seem to become more and more complementary each day. To me, creating a perfume isn’t just mixing molecules. I always begin by writing down what my nose dictates to me, all of the impressions it senses, the way a needle etches sound on a blank gramophone record.