Kemal hides Füsun’s umbrella and they begin their affair

Kemal hides Füsun’s umbrella and they begin their affair at the Merhamet Apartments, where a deliberate deception keeps Füsun from leaving and changes their relationship. The encounter combines an intimate beginning with the ordinary business of her exam preparation: after they are together, they arrange to meet again so Kemal can help her study. In retrospect, he presents the day not only as the start of their affair but as a memory preserved in small objects and in Füsun’s declaration that she would remember it for the rest of her life.

The Visit and the Hidden Umbrella

Füsun’s visit is framed by a remembered family occasion. She recalls coming to see Kemal’s family for the Feast of the Sacrifice and going out with him in a car; her recollection prompts her to put on her raincoat and look for her umbrella. She searches the apartment, while Kemal helps, though he already knows why it cannot be found: during an earlier trip to the kitchen, he had hidden it behind the mirrored wardrobe in the entrance hall.

When Füsun points to the wardrobe as the place where she thinks she left it, Kemal continues the search rather than immediately explaining. He eventually admits that he hid the umbrella the previous day so she would not leave right away. The admission makes the encounter’s initiating gesture explicit. The umbrella is an ordinary object, but Kemal has turned it into a means of extending their time together, shaping the circumstances of the visit without first telling her what he has done.

An Intimate Turning Point

After the admission, Kemal takes Füsun by the hand and leads her toward the kitchen on the pretext of making tea. They kiss, and their meeting develops into their first sexual encounter. The narration does not make this transition seem simple or untroubled: Füsun is described as a virgin, and Kemal tries to interpret what her decision to come to the apartment means. His uncertainty gives way to jealousy as he reads her ease with intimacy as possible evidence of previous partners. The episode therefore marks both a change in their relationship and the beginning of Kemal’s possessive attention to Füsun’s past.

The scene also carries the weight of the age difference between them: Kemal later identifies himself as thirty and Füsun as eighteen. After they are together, Füsun cries quietly and pays little attention to Kemal’s attempts to console her. She tells him that she will remember the day throughout her life, then falls silent. Her response prevents the encounter from being reduced to Kemal’s account of desire or to his sense that the relationship has begun; it gives the day a lasting significance for her as well, while leaving its emotional meaning unsettled.

Objects, Memory, and the Aftermath

In his later reflection, Kemal cautions that objects associated with first love can distract from the compassion and gratitude shared by the people involved. Yet he also assigns several objects to the memory of this particular day. A floral batiste handkerchief that Füsun folded carefully and put in her bag but never took out becomes a sign of her solicitude. His mother’s crystal inkwell and pen set, which Füsun handled while smoking, stands for the refinement and tenderness he remembers. A belt he fastened around her becomes associated with the melancholy of returning to ordinary life after their intimacy.

These objects do not change the course of the meeting, but they shape how Kemal later recounts it. The umbrella records his effort to delay Füsun’s departure; the handkerchief, inkwell, and belt preserve details he connects with care, tenderness, and sadness. His retrospective emphasis on them also reveals a tension in his telling: he warns against allowing relics to eclipse feeling, even as he makes the objects witnesses to that feeling.

The Pretext for Meeting Again

Before the encounter, Kemal asks what Füsun does with her spare time. She is preparing to retake the university entrance examination after failing to score high enough the previous year for the course she wanted. Alongside her work at the Şanzelize Boutique, she attends an Outstanding Achievement Course and studies intensively, with only forty-five days remaining before the examination.

Kemal offers to tutor her in mathematics, and they agree to meet the next day at the same place. Once she has gone, he buys the books used at the lycée and in her course, then discovers that he can help her. The prospect brings him joy and pride, while he also anticipates that they will meet again in the apartment. He understands that the arrangement can continue only if he behaves as though nothing unusual is happening. Their affair thus begins alongside a practical, plausible purpose for seeing one another: tutoring provides a cover for further meetings, while the hidden umbrella has already shown how deliberately Kemal works to keep Füsun near.