1975

The year 1975 marks the collision of Kemal’s impending engagement to Sibel with his growing intimacy with Füsun. Recounted retrospectively by Kemal, its pivotal dates are set with unusual precision: April 27, when the chain of events that would change his life begins, May 3, when Füsun arrives at the Merhamet Apartments, and May 26, the afternoon he later recognizes as his happiest moment. The calendar gives shape to a story in which happiness is experienced before it can be understood or held onto.

Engagement Plans and an Unforeseen Beginning

On April 27, Kemal and Sibel were preparing for their formal engagement. They had discussed the party with Kemal’s parents at Fuaye Restaurant, planned for mid-June so that Sibel’s friend Nurcihan could attend, and considered the pearls Kemal’s mother had given Sibel for her dress. Their families’ expectations made the approaching celebration feel settled and public. On the walk home, however, Sibel noticed a Jenny Colon handbag in a shop window; Kemal remembered the shop and returned the next day. In retrospect, he presents that small incident as the beginning of a sequence of coincidences that would redirect his life.

May 3 at the Merhamet Apartments

At half past two on May 3, Füsun arrived at the Merhamet Apartments to collect her umbrella. Kemal says he had not gone there expecting to see her. His attention had been on the room, its old clocks and other possessions, the garden below, and memories of what they had discussed the previous day. He had also been tidying and handling his mother’s belongings. When the bell rang, he first thought it was his mother; instead, Füsun’s arrival changed the meaning of his visit. They made love, and Kemal later describes the encounter as the first time Füsun had done so. The ordinary purpose of retrieving an umbrella thus marks a decisive change in their relationship.

May 26: Happiness Before Recognition

On Monday, May 26, at about a quarter to three in the afternoon, Kemal and Füsun were together in the back bedroom of the second-floor apartment. During their lovemaking, Füsun’s earring came loose and fell, but they continued kissing without noticing it. Their intense happiness seemed to suspend ordinary measures of time; only after hearing boys playing football in the garden below did they stop and smile at the recognition that the boys’ obscenities echoed their own. The moment joins private intimacy to the everyday life outside the window, while the lost earring quietly links happiness to an object Kemal would later remember.

The Year as Retrospective Time

Kemal’s account makes 1975 more than a sequence of dates. The May 26 scene is narrated from the knowledge of what followed: he says he did not know then that it was the happiest moment of his life, and imagines that recognizing it might have allowed him to keep it. That retrospective distance turns the precise afternoon into both a remembered summit and a measure of what could not be preserved. Set against the engagement preparations that began the sequence, the two May encounters show how a life-changing relationship emerged within the routines and expectations of an already planned future.