Silent House Read Online Free

pitcher. How strange; everything in its place, without moving! Then my thoughts would freeze too, colorless and odorless and just sitting there, like a piece of ice.
    But tomorrow they’ll come and I’ll think again. Hello, hello, how are you, they’ll kiss my hand, many happy returns, how are you, Grandmother, how are you, how are you, Grandmother? I’ll take a look at them. Don’t all talk at once, come here and let me have a look at you, come close, tell me, what have you been doing? I know I’ll be asking to be fooled, and I’ll listen blankly to a few lines of deception! Well, is that all, haven’t you anything more to say to your grandmother? They’ll look at one another, talk among themselves, I’ll hearand understand. Then they’ll start to shout. Don’t shout, don’t shout, thank God my ears can still hear. Excuse me, Grandmother, it’s just that our other grandmother doesn’t hear well. I’m not your mother’s mother, I’m your father’s mother. Excuse me, Granny, excuse me! All right, all right, tell me something, that other grandmother of yours, what’s she like? They’ll suddenly get confused and become quiet. What is our other grandmother like? Then I’ll realize that they haven’t learned how to see or understand yet, that’s all right, I’ll ask them again but just as I’m about to ask them, I see that they’ve forgotten all about it. They’re not interested in me or my room or what I’m asking, but in their own thoughts, as I am in mine even now.
    I reach out and pick an apricot from the plate. I eat it, waiting. It does no good. Here I am, in the midst of things, not thoughts. I look at the table. It’s five to twelve. Next to the clock is the bottle of cologne, next to that the newspaper, and then my handkerchief. They stay that way. I look at them, my eyes travel across them and examine the surfaces to see if they have something more to say to me, but they have reminded me of so much already that they have nothing left to say. Just a bottle of cologne, a newspaper, a handkerchief, a key, and a clock; it ticks and no one, not even Selâhattin, knows what time is. One moment and then another right behind it, each smaller and smaller, my thoughts going from here to there, but don’t get stuck in one of those thoughts, wiggle away, jump outside, quick come over here, outside of time and this room. I eat another apricot, but I don’t go outside: I look at the things even more, and it seems I try to busy myself until I am fed up with the same old things. If I weren’t there, if no one were there, these things would stay this way forever and then no one could possibly think he didn’t know what life was. No one!
    No, I am not distracted by these things. I got up from the chair, went to the bathroom, washed my face, and I went back, ignoring the spiderweb that hung down from the corner where it was. When you turn the switch, the lamp hanging from the ceiling goes off, only the one by the head of my bed stays on, and I get into bed. It’s warm out,but I can’t do without a quilt, what could I do, something to snuggle up in, get under, and hide inside. I put my head down on the pillow, I wait and I know that sleep will not come right away. The weak light of the lamp strikes the ceiling; I listen to the cricket. Hot summer nights!
    But it seems the summers used to be hotter. We drank lemonade and had sherbet. Not in the street, though, not from the men in white aprons; my mother would say, We’ll make it at home, where it’s clean, Fatma, as we were coming back from the market, nothing new in the shops. We would wait for my father in the evening, he would come and talk and we would listen; he smelled of tobacco and coughed when he spoke. Once he said, Fatma, there’s a doctor who wants you. I said nothing! I was quiet, and my father didn’t say anything, but the next day again, and I was only fifteen years old, my mother said, “Look, Fatma, they say he’s a doctor,” and I