Füsun and Feridun’s Marriage and Divorce

Füsun and Feridun’s Marriage and Divorce is the relationship that stands between Füsun and Kemal’s secret past and their possible future together. Its end is not simply a legal change: Füsun’s account of what the marriage did and did not contain forces Kemal to confront the self-deception that had helped him endure years of loving her while she was married to another man.

Marriage and the long interval

Füsun and Feridun’s marriage takes place during the long period when Kemal remains attached to Füsun but cannot openly build a life with her. By the time the marriage ends, Feridun has left her after six years of marriage, while Kemal describes himself as having spent eight years clinging to the belief that the couple had never had marital relations. Füsun later frames the two months preceding the intervening nine years as a period they can put behind them; Kemal corrects her account for the reader, noting that the interval was actually a month and a half less two days. These differing measures show how the relationship is recounted through the lovers’ efforts to define what their past means, rather than through a neutral chronology alone.

For Kemal, the marriage has been both an obstacle and a condition of his attachment. He admits that he had privately relied on the idea that Füsun and Feridun’s marriage was unconsummated. The belief let him preserve an imagined intimacy with Füsun without fully facing the possibility that she shared a married life with someone else. Kemal says that dwelling openly on the possibility of their having a sexual relationship would have made his love impossible to sustain. His account makes the marriage’s private reality consequential even before its ending: what he can bear to believe about it determines how long he can remain in love.

Separation and a changed household

The immediate break comes after Feridun and Papatya separate. Feridun arrives at the Keskin home having drunk heavily, says he wants to return both to the house and to Füsun, and is refused. Their argument becomes a public disturbance, with neighbors hearing them shout. This is why Nesibe the seamstress asks Kemal not to visit for a time. Feridun later telephones, and he and Nesibe arrange to meet in Beyoğlu; after that meeting, Füsun and Feridun agree to separate.

Nesibe tells Kemal the news in his office, first making clear that the arrangements are settled and that Füsun wants the separation too. The report transforms Kemal’s attention: he is so transfixed by the prospect of a future with Füsun that his cigarette burns down unnoticed. Nesibe then adds a practical sign that the marriage’s household arrangement has ended: she has changed the front-door locks, and the house is no longer Feridun’s. Her judgment of Feridun is mixed. She says she could not feel anger toward him and recognizes his good heart, but also considers him weak and unsuitable as a bridegroom. The changed locks give the separation a physical boundary, while her compassion prevents it from being narrated as simple expulsion or revenge.

Füsun’s account of the marriage

At the İnci Patisserie, Füsun sets terms for a future with Kemal, beginning with a demand about her marriage: he must believe that she and Feridun never had marital relations. She presents herself as a virgin in this specific sense and says that Kemal will be the only man in her life. She wants the intervening relationship with Kemal treated as something they can draw a veil over, so that their life together can begin as if they had only just met. Her comparison to a film gives the proposed account a deliberately shaped, almost fictional form: a woman has married, yet remains a virgin.

The claim is Füsun’s condition, not a fact Kemal can verify from the evidence of the marriage. He responds that he understands, but his narration discloses how difficult it is for him simply to accept her account. He had sustained the same belief for years, yet when Füsun insists on it, he tells himself that it cannot be true and even suspects she may be deceiving him. The paradox is central to the relationship: the assurance he has long desired becomes harder to trust when Füsun makes it explicit. At the same time, her insistence defines the terms on which she is willing to leave the marriage behind and contemplate a future with him.

Divorce and its aftermath

Kemal acts on the separation by arranging for an army friend, a lawyer living in Fatih, to represent Füsun in the divorce. He describes the case as straightforward because the couple have mutually decided to divorce. Füsun notes with a smile that Feridun had also considered asking Kemal to recommend a lawyer for him. The detail briefly places Kemal between the two spouses as a practical intermediary, even as his hopes make that position emotionally unstable.

While Kemal can no longer visit Füsun in Çukurcuma, they meet every other day in Beyoğlu and go to the cinema. Their meetings make the interval before the divorce a renewed courtship conducted in public places and private corners. In the dim theaters they sit together and hold hands; between films they whisper news, but do not hold hands while the lights are up. The pattern changes when, during an interval in a box at the Palace Cinema, Füsun tells Kemal that the divorce is official and that the lawyer has the papers. The faded, peeling theater, its gilded ceiling, and its drowsy patrons become fixed in his memory at the instant her status changes. Although she will not let him kiss her in the box, she allows him to rest his hand on her legs and stroke her knees. The scene marks progress without erasing the restraint that continues to govern their closeness.

Kemal and Feridun after the marriage

The divorce also alters Kemal’s understanding of Feridun. Looking back on their last meeting, Kemal recognizes that Feridun may have been able to tolerate his presence because he was content in his marriage and valued companionship at the coffeehouse. Kemal is therefore forced to consider that his visits may have curtailed happiness Füsun could have shared with her husband in the early years. This recognition complicates his position: the end of the marriage brings him nearer to Füsun, but also makes visible the effect his long presence may have had on the couple.

At a long final lunch at the Divan Hotel, Kemal and Feridun drink enough raki to relax and settle the transfer of full rights to Lemon Films to Feridun. They then speak about Feridun’s forthcoming art film, Blue Rain, a subject that briefly restores their familiar ease. Yet Kemal also detects jealousy in Feridun’s eyes at the happiness he and Füsun may have ahead of them. More unexpectedly, Kemal hears his own dormant jealousy and decides that he will never see Feridun again. The decision contrasts with the years when Feridun had been like a brother to him and when Kemal had felt no anger toward him. The marriage’s ending thus resolves one obstacle while exposing a new conflict: Kemal’s hoped-for future with Füsun comes with a belated, sharper awareness of Feridun and of what the marriage may have meant.