Once we arrive in Cihangir, we still have to walk up those steep streets that I’m sure you remember. I often pass the same cobbler as he’s leaving his house in the morning. He wears a big box attached to his waist that looks like it must weigh as much as he does. We wave to each other and he heads down the hill as I continue my way up. There’s a house a little farther up the hill where a woman is often standing in the doorway, seeing her children off to school. She watches them head down the hill with their schoolbags until they disappear around the corner. When I pass, she smiles at me, but I can see in her eyes that she worries until her babies return to the nest at the end of the day.
I’ve also become friends with a grocer, who offers me a piece of fruit from his stand every morning. He says I have to choose it myself, that my skin is too pale and that fruit is good for my health. I think he likes me and, to a certain extent, the feeling is mutual. At noon, when the perfume maker has lunch with his wife, Can and I go back to the grocer and buy something to eat. We often go to a beautiful little cemetery and sit on a stone bench under a fig tree, where we play a game, imagining details from the lives of the people buried around us. In the afternoon we go back to the workshop. I’ve been using a sort of makeshift organ that the perfumer helped me put together. I’ve been able to buy a lot of the equipment I need, and my research is coming along. Right now, I’m working on recreating the illusion of dust. I realize how ridiculous that must sound, but dusty overtones are an important part of all of my memories, and Istanbul is full of the smells of earth, stone walls, gravel paths, salt, mud, and dry wood. The master has shown me a few more of his discoveries, and a real understanding seems to be growing between the two of us.
When evening comes, Can and I return along the same streets. We take the bus and then the vapur. Often it’s cold, and we have to wait a long time before the boat comes, but I mix in with the other passengers, and every evening I feel a little bit more like I belong, like I’m one of them. I don’t know why I enjoy the feeling so much, but I do. I’m living by the city’s rhythms, and I’ve taken a liking to it. I’ve convinced Mama Can to let me work every night, but it’s because I enjoy the work, not because I particularly need the money. I like weaving between the customers, hearing the cook shout because the food is ready and I don’t come fast enough. I like the friendly smile of Mama Can, who claps her hands and scolds her husband for shouting. When the restaurant closes, Can’s uncle yells one last time to call us into the kitchen, where we sit around a big wooden table. He puts down a tablecloth and serves us the kind of dinner I know you would love.
Those are the moments of my life that make me the happiest—happier than I’ve ever been.
I haven’t forgotten that I owe it all to you, Daldry. You and you alone. I’d like to see you walk into Mama Can’s restaurant one evening, to introduce you to her family and her husband’s cooking. It’s so good you’d cry. I miss you and think of you often. In your next letter, give me more news. Your last letter said nothing about what you were doing, and that’s really what I wanted to hear about.
Your friend,
Alice
Dear Alice,
I ran into the postman this morning, and he gave me your letter—or rather threw it into my face, cursing. He has been in a bad mood lately and hasn’t been speaking to me since I’d started worrying about not having heard from you. I kept blaming him for having lost your letter and eventually went down to the post office to make sure that they hadn’t misplaced it. I swear it’s not my fault, but I got into an argument with the man behind the counter because he refused to believe that one of his postmen might have made a mistake. To believe him, His Majesty’s post has never lost a letter! I think there’s something about the uniform that makes them so sensitive to criticism.
And now, thanks to you, I have to apologize to both of them. In the future, if your busy schedule means you don’t have time to write, please at least take a moment to write to say so. Just a few words would be enough to calm my needless worrying. You have to understand that I consider myself responsible for the fact that you’re in Istanbul alone, and I want to be sure you remain safe and sound.
I’m overjoyed to read that you eat lunch with Can every day and that your friendship continues to blossom, although I do find a cemetery a rather odd place for a meal. But if it makes you happy, I have nothing against it.
I’m also very curious to know more about the development of your project. If you’re looking to recreate the odor of dust, there’s no point in you staying on in Istanbul. There’s dust aplenty in London, and to find it, you wouldn’t even have to leave home.
You ask for news from my life. Like you, I’m hard at work. The Galata Bridge is starting to take shape on the canvas, and over the past few days I’ve been sketching the figures that I’ll place upon it. I’m also working on the details of the houses in üsküdar. I went to the library and found some old engravings of the Asian side of the Bosporus that have been very useful. On most days, I leave the flat at noon and have lunch at the end of the street. You know the place, so there’s no point in me describing it. Perhaps you remember the widow who was sitting by herself at a table near ours the day we ate there together? Good news: she seems to be out of mourning and has met somebody new. Yesterday she came in with a man her age, rather shabby looking but pleasant enough, and they had lunch together. I hope it will last—perhaps they’ll even fall in love. Why not, even at their age?
At the beginning of the afternoon, I usually go to your flat, tidy up a bit, and then paint until the evening. The light has been a revelation, and I’ve never worked so well in all my life.
On Saturdays I go for a walk in Hyde Park. With all of the rain we’ve been getting, I rarely see another soul, and I like it that way.
Speaking of running into people, I did happen upon one of your friends in the street earlier this week—a certain Carol, who spontaneously came over and introduced herself. I remembered who she was when she brought up the evening that I barged in on your party. I took advantage of the moment to apologize for my behavior. The knowledge that we had been traveling together and the hope that my presence might be a sign of your return had emboldened her to reintroduce herself in the first place. I told her that you were still in Istanbul, but we went and had tea together, and I took the liberty of bringing her up to date on your activities. I didn’t have the time to tell her about everything, because she had to start her shift at the hospital where she’s a nurse. Well, of course you know that—she’s your friend—but I hate scratching things out, so you’ll have to live with it. We’re going to have dinner together next week so I can tell her the rest of our stories from Istanbul.
Don’t worry, it isn’t a bother, she’s really quite charming.
Well, that’s all there is to say . . . As you can see, my life is far less exotic than yours, but like you, I’m quite happy.
Daldry
P.S. In your last letter you mention Can picking you up at “home.” Are you suggesting that Istanbul has become your home?
Dear Anton,
I’m afraid I have to begin this letter with some sad news. Mr. Zemirli died at home last Sunday. His cook found his body, still sitting in his armchair, when she arrived on Monday morning.
Can and I went to the funeral. I didn’t think there would be many people, but to my surprise there were about a hundred of us in the procession to the tiny cemetery where he was buried. It seems Mr. Zemirli was a sort of living encyclopedia to everyone in his neighborhood. The people crowded around his grave and remembered with both laughter and tears how he had more than managed to live a full and rewarding life, in spite of his limp. A man in the crowd kept looking at me during the ceremony. I don’t know what came over Can, but he insisted that I meet him and we ended up going to a tearoom in Beyo?lu together. He turned out to be Zemirli’s nephew, but stranger still, the owner of the musical instrument store where I bought that trumpet, you remember?
He seemed very affected by his uncle’s death.