Belgrade Forest is the setting for a remembered Sunday picnic that briefly places Kemal amid open air, friends, and apparent leisure while his attention remains fixed on Füsun. The outing’s green landscape offers a sharp contrast to the interior settings that dominate his recollections, but it does not release him from his longing; instead, the forest becomes the scene of his abrupt departure for Nişantaşı.

Setting and approach

The party reached Belgrade Forest after first visiting the Meltem factory in Büyükdere, where they toured the sterilizing and bottling lines. The factory’s walls bore giant pictures of Inge beside leftist slogans that had been painted over; despite the many advertisements around the city, it had only sixty-four employees. The group then traveled in two cars to a green field overlooking Bentler. Kemal compares the view to one painted by the European artist Melling some 170 years earlier, placing the picnic within a landscape already shaped by remembered images.

The picnic

The picnic basket displayed in the account evokes the excursion through its particular contents: a thermos of tea, stuffed grape leaves in a plastic box, boiled eggs, Meltem bottles, and an elegant tablecloth inherited by Zaim from his grandmother. The meal and its furnishings bring together traditional pleasures and inspirations drawn from the French home and garden magazines favored by Sibel and Nurcihan. At the field, Sibel and Zaim tried to rig an old swing with new ropes, while Kemal played Nine Stones with Nurcihan and Mehmet. He admired Sibel as she swung, and for moments the company, games, and surroundings distracted him from his distress.

A brief respite, then departure

The landscape’s pleasures never fully displace Kemal’s thoughts of Füsun. He felt ashamed that not seeing her had weakened his confidence and made him jealous; even the picnic’s social diversions could only interrupt that pain temporarily. When he swung high, the physical sensation briefly brought relief, and Sibel called out in alarm that he might fall. Later, after telling her he felt unwell and wanted to go to hospital, he used the opportunity to leave the gathering. Sibel was concerned and asked what was wrong, but Kemal could not bring himself to explain his feelings or tell her about his obsession.

The forest in Kemal’s geography of longing

Kemal drove back toward Nişantaşı, reaching it in forty-seven minutes. He believed Füsun would come that day to the Merhamet Apartments, and hurried there shortly before two o’clock. The forest picnic thus leads directly into his anxious expectation of seeing her: an outing that might have offered relief instead becomes the point from which he abandons his engagement party and returns to the places organized around his longing. In the larger pattern of his recollections, Belgrade Forest stands out as an open, socially shared landscape, but even its green field and company cannot keep his private anguish at bay.