TUZLU SU SALTWATER

116 Orhan Pamuk
Denemeler / Essays
117
Orhan Pamuk
The Sea
The sea is not a foreign realm to me, fearsome and deadly, but a part of my day-today
life, like a boulevard, a park, a street – as it is for most of us who live in Istanbul.
When I look at the Bosphorus and at the Sea of Marmara, I don’t think of pirate raids,
ship-wrecking storms and cities flattened by tsunamis; nor do I think of waves, like Calvino’s
Mr Palomar. At any given moment of any ordinary day, a single glance at the Bosphorus
in the distance can make me feel at home, in a familiar realm.
The sea in Istanbul is like a trusty old friend. I never doubt it. I see it every day. If I go
too long without seeing it, I feel bereft.
But once a year, that trust is broken, and on that day I discover there is a whole other sea
inside of me. On that day I remember that the sea is a large and terrifying world full of chemical
salts, weird insects, crusty creatures, and poisonous fish, an infernal liquid that could engulf
me at a moment’s notice and drown me before I have a chance to catch my breath. On that
day I also realise there is a connection between the vastness of the sea and the darkness in
my mind. That is the day in early June when, somewhere in Istanbul, I take my first dip of the year.
No sooner do my feet touch the water than my body remembers, even before my mind
can catch up, that the sea is a salty, sticky thing that will burn my eyes and invade the
innermost parts of my being. I take small steps further into the slightly dirty water, but
stand on tiptoes to protect myself. That’s when I realise with a shudder that my mind and
my body must be taking orders from different places.
This thought, brought forth by the sea itself, gives me goose bumps. As my body rebels
against my mind’s instructions, I realise that letting mind and matter clash would be catastrophic.
Even as I stand rooted to the spot, I know that the best thing to do would be to
throw myself immediately into the subconscious of the sea.
Now, my perspective has finally come down to sea level. Wouldn’t it be better,
wouldn’t it be easier, to allow myself to drift into the blackness of that subconscious
and escape the divide between body and soul? So I dive straight into the salty water,
thinking I’ll dip in and come straight back out.
Ahh! How dark and deep this universe is, how boundless my thoughts. I don’t feel like
leaving the ocean of my subconscious after all. The more I swim and thrash about, the
more I understand that actually, this salty water is a boon, and when you’re underwater,
thoughts and objects become one. Why was I so scared of my own subconscious, of
objects, and of the darkness in my soul?
Here is what I can see at the bottom of the sea: an anchor from one of Kaiser Wilhelm’s
warships; an exploded television covered in seaweed; bottle caps from childhood sodas;
Ottoman and Byzantine coins… Old, weary jellyfish, shapes in the clay and sand, and in the
dark where my eyes cannot reach, all the memories and objects that scare me so.
At the start of every summer, when I’m having my first swim and I lift my head out of the
water, frightened by my own thoughts, one thing becomes immediately clear. As I go about
my life in Istanbul, walking down its streets and pacing inside its rooms, the instinct that takes
hold every time I glimpse the Bosphorus – the urge to grab pen and paper and draw a ship
on any scrap I happen to find – is deeply connected to all that is unfathomable about the sea.
Translated by Ekin Oklap