Snow by Orhan Pamuk Read Free Book Online

Fatherland or My Scarf, the enlightenment masterwork from the early years of the republic, in a new interpretation entitled My Fatherland or My Head Scarf.
    “I don’t have a poem called ‘Snow,’ and I’m not going to the theater this evening. Your newspaper will look like it’s made a mistake.”
    “Don’t be so sure. There are those who despise us for writing the news before it happens. They fear us not because we are journalists but because we can predict the future; you should see how amazed they are when things turn out exactly as we’ve written them. And quite a few things do happen only because we’ve written them up first. This is what modern journalism is all about. I know you won’t want to stand in the way of our being modern—you don’t want to break our hearts—so that is why I am sure you will write a poem called ‘Snow’ and then come to the theater to read it.”
    Scanning the rest of the paper—announcements of various campaign rallies, news of a vaccine from Erzurum that was now being administered in the city’s lycées, an upbeat article describing how all city residents were to be granted an additional two months to pay their water bills—Ka now noticed a news item he had missed earlier.

    ALL ROADS TO KARS CLOSED
The snow that has been falling for two days has now cut all our city’s links to the outside world. The Ardahan Road closed yesterday morning, and the road to Sarıkamı¸s was impassable by afternoon. Due to excess snow and ice in the affected area, road closures forced a bus owned by the Yılmaz Company to return to Kars.
    The weather office has announced that cold air coming straight from Siberia and the accompanying heavy snowfall will continue for three more days. And so for three days, the city of Kars will have to do as it used to do during the winters of old—stew in its own juices. This will offer us an opportunity to put our house in order.
    Just as Ka was standing up to leave, Serdar Bey jumped from his seat and held the door so as to be sure his last words were heard.
    “As for Turgut Bey and his daughters, who knows what they’ll tell you?” he said. “They are educated people who entertain many friends like me in the evening, but don’t forget: Ipek Hanım’s ex-husband, Muhtar Bey, is the mayoral candidate for Party of God. Her father, Turgut Bey, is an old Communist. Her sister, who came here to complete her studies, is rumored to be the leader of the head-scarf girls. Imagine that! There is not a single person in Kars who has the slightest idea why they chose to come here during the worst days of the city four years ago.” 
    Ka’s heart sank as he took in this disturbing news, but he showed no emotion.

CHAPTER FOUR

    Did You Really Come Here to Report
    on the Election and the Suicides?
    ka meets ipek in the new life pastry shop
    Why, despite the bad news he’d just received, was there a faint smile on Ka’s face as he walked through the snow from Faikbey Avenue to the New Life Pastry Shop? Someone was playing Peppino di Capri’s “Roberta,” a melodramatic pop song from the sixties, and it made him feel like the sad romantic hero of a Turgenev novel, setting off to meet the woman who has been haunting his dreams for years. Let’s tell the truth: Ka loved Turgenev and his elegant novels, and like the Russian writer Ka too had tired of his own country’s never-ending troubles and come to despise its backwardness, only to find himself gazing back with love and longing after a move to Europe. Ka was not haunted by the image of Ipek, but in his mind was the vision of a woman very much like her. Perhaps ˙Ipek had entered his thoughts from time to time, but it was only when he’d heard of her divorce that he began to think about her; indeed, it was precisely because he had not dreamed of her enough that he was now so keen to stoke his feelings with music and Turgenevist romanticism.
    But as soon as he had entered the pastry shop and joined