Bebek is a waterfront setting in Istanbul where Kemal and Füsun’s driving lessons give way to rowing and swimming. Their outings by the ferry wharf turn a practical pretext into intimate time together: in the boat, each takes a turn holding it against the current and holding the other’s hand. Bebek thus becomes a place where their love, after years of separation and longing, can emerge cautiously through shared actions rather than declarations.

Setting and Place in the City

Bebek appears as part of Kemal and Füsun’s movement through Istanbul, a city whose streets and gathering places have become entangled with Kemal’s memories of her. Earlier, he had tried to restrict that movement by drawing a private map of forbidden, conditionally passable, and hazardous streets. His red zones included the Merhamet Apartments and the route near the Şanzelize Boutique; other streets were marked orange or yellow because entering or lingering there might stir painful recollections. That map records Kemal’s effort to manage absence by controlling where he goes, while the later outings in Bebek show the city becoming a setting for renewed contact.

The remembered city also expands beyond fixed routes. Kemal describes Istanbul as a galaxy of signs that call Füsun to mind, and he frequents crowded places where he might glimpse her imagined ghost. In poorer districts such as Vefa, Zeyrek, Fatih, and Kocamustafapaşa, these apparitions draw him into wandering and waiting. Bebek belongs to a different strand of this urban geography: not a place of searching for an absent Füsun, but a waterfront they visit together.

The Rowboat Outings

By the time Kemal and Füsun continue their lessons at Yıldız Park through the end of summer, obtaining a driver’s license has become an excuse to go to a restaurant or the beach. On several occasions they rent a rowboat from the wharf beside the Bebek ferry station. They row away from the jellyfish and oil slicks, toward the point where the bay meets the currents, and jump into the sea.

The current makes keeping the boat close a practical necessity. One of them holds on to it while the other swims, and the person holding the boat uses the free hand to hold the swimmer. Kemal singles out the pleasure of renting a boat in Bebek as inseparable from the pleasure of holding Füsun’s hand. The setting’s distinctive action is therefore both functional and intimate: the handclasp helps keep them together in the water, and it gives Kemal a direct, physical experience of closeness.

Love and Restraint

Their time together in Bebek follows the failure of Füsun’s road test. She leaves the scene at the wheel, smoking and honking, and tells Kemal to forget the men who had made the experience bitter and go to the seaside instead. Their subsequent lessons at Yıldız Park and their outings by the water shift the meaning of the driving practice: it is no longer primarily about passing an examination, but a means of spending time together.

The relationship that takes shape during these outings is not carefree. Kemal describes their love as having flowered after eight long years, but says they approach it cautiously, almost as an exhausting friendship. Because Füsun does not want to risk greater intimacy before marriage, Kemal restrains his desire to embrace or kiss her. Bebek’s handholding and swimming therefore mark closeness within limits they both recognize, rather than a simple resolution of the past.

Narrative Significance

The contrast between Kemal’s earlier map of avoidance and the later journeys to Bebek gives the location a quiet narrative importance. In his period of despair, he tries to keep memories at bay by banning streets and avoiding places tied to Füsun. Later, a nominally practical routine carries them out to the water together. The city that had served as a network of reminders and traps can also hold new shared experiences.

At Bebek, their connection is expressed through an ordinary, repeated arrangement: one person keeps the rowboat from being swept away while holding the other’s hand. The gesture joins care, physical dependence, and desire without erasing the caution shaped by their history. For Kemal, the pleasure of the place resides not only in the water or the outing, but in the small contact that the boat makes possible.