April 27, 1975

April 27, 1975, is the date Kemal identifies as the beginning of the events and coincidences that changed his life. What starts in the buoyant atmosphere of an imminent engagement becomes, in retrospect, the first point in a long passage through longing, repeated visits, and a private experience of time that increasingly diverges from the public calendar.

The evening that begins the sequence

On April 27, Kemal and Sibel walked along Valikonağı Avenue after supper at Fuaye Restaurant, where they had joined Kemal’s parents to discuss preparations for their engagement party. The celebration was planned for mid-June so that Sibel’s friend Nurcihan could travel from France. Sibel had commissioned her dress from Silky İsmet, and she and Kemal’s mother had discussed sewing the pearls his mother had given her onto it. Sibel’s father wanted the party to be as extravagant as a wedding; Kemal’s father was pleased by the prospect of a daughter-in-law who had studied in Paris.

As Kemal walked Sibel home with his arm around her shoulders, he thought himself happy and fortunate. Sibel noticed a Jenny Colon handbag in a shop window and remarked on its beauty. Though wine had clouded his attention, Kemal registered the bag and the shop’s name. He returned at noon the next day. The date matters because the scene’s ordinary details—supper, engagement arrangements, a walk home, a glance at a display—form the opening of a sequence Kemal later understands as decisive. The future he and Sibel were preparing for is already shadowed by the attention he gives to something glimpsed in a window.

From calendar date to private geography

The April encounter belongs to 1975, but its consequences unfold across a much longer interval. After Füsun disappears from Kemal’s daily life, he tries to protect himself by banning himself from streets and places associated with her. His mental map marks the Şanzelize Boutique, the Merhamet Apartments, Kuyulu Bostan Street, and other locations in red as absolutely forbidden. Orange routes are permitted only in necessity, without drinking and at a hurried crossing; even his home and Teşvikiye Mosque carry the risk of stirring up pain. Other streets are marked as dangerous because they reproduce the journeys Füsun once made or the routes Kemal took to see her.

Avoidance does not keep the city free of her. Kemal begins to see Füsun’s imagined presence in crowded places and adds these sightings to his mental map. Istanbul becomes a network of signs of her: a familiar-looking figure in a cinema, a wave from an apartment window, or a silhouette among women at the beach. In the poor neighborhoods of Vefa, Zeyrek, Fatih, and Kocamustafapaşa, the search itself changes the meaning of the surroundings. A distant apparition can keep him wandering even after he recognizes it is not Füsun; streets scarred by political slogans and death threats seem enchanted because he believes she may be nearby. The urban map that began as a device for avoiding pain becomes an instrument for organizing longing.

Years counted by visits and household routines

The later chronology gives the original date a stark measure of duration. Kemal’s regular suppers with Füsun and the Keskin family began on October 23, 1976, and his last evening with them in Çukurcuma was August 26, 1984. Across 2,864 days, he recorded 1,593 visits, spread over 409 weeks. The average was about four visits a week, though the rhythm varied: sometimes he went every day, and sometimes he stayed away in the hope that indignation would help him forget. He never remained away for more than ten days. The family came to expect him and kept a place for him at the table, while he worried that either arriving or staying away might offend them. His presence was understood through the tactful, insufficient idea of coming to sit.

Inside the house, clock time and shared time did not quite coincide. A German-made wooden wall clock, with glass casing, pendulum, and chime, stood near the door as a reminder of the outside world, though television had increasingly taken over the household’s timekeeping. At seven each evening, Füsun checked her wristwatch against the large clock shown before TRT’s news, while Tarık Bey checked one of his pocket watches. Kemal watched her calibrate the watch and noticed that she knew he was watching. The ritual joined a national broadcast schedule to a private exchange of attention.

The visits also accumulated through small, recurring actions rather than through dramatic events alone. The family might sit in silence, listen to rain at the windows, watch television, or hear a car clatter down the hill. Aunt Nesibe might light another cigarette after forgetting the one in the ashtray, or rise to put coal in the stove; Füsun might yawn, carry plates, or pass between Kemal and the screen. The repetition gave the dinners their own duration, made up of gestures and pauses that Kemal would later recall as a whole shared world.

Public time interrupts the private calendar

The military coup of September 1980 imposed martial law and a ten o’clock curfew, cutting into the evenings that had become central to Kemal’s life. He usually arrived around seven and had stayed until shortly after the television’s closing ceremony, near midnight. Under curfew, he had to leave at a quarter to ten. The journey home with Çetin through darkening, emptying streets made the lost time feel like a deprivation: Kemal could not remain until he felt he had seen enough of Füsun.

This contrast gives April 27, 1975, its retrospective significance. The date begins in the calendar time of a spring evening and an engagement party being planned; the story that follows is measured by the time Kemal spends watching for Füsun, returning to her family’s table, and preserving the details of their ordinary life. Public dates continue to advance, and political events can abruptly curtail an evening, but his private chronology gathers force through repetition. The first glance at the handbag is thus not simply an isolated incident: it is the point from which a life becomes organized around what was seen, remembered, and longed for.