Summary
Chapter 26
Ka arrives at Blue's, and Blue interrogates him about his plan to write about the suicide girls. Blue asks Ka whom he plans to write for, and Ka fabricates a story about a liberal publisher in Germany named Hans Hansen (in reality, the person who sold him his coat). Blue then gives Ka a statement for publication, talking about the casualties of the coup and suggesting that the government planned for the director's assassination as a pretext for the coup. Blue then says some crucial anti-Western and anti-secular lines, which Ka records verbatim:
Contrary to what the West seems to think, it is not poverty that brings us so close to God; it’s the fact that no one is more curious than we are to find out why we are here on earth and what will happen to us in the next world. [...] Will the West, which takes democracy, its great invention, more seriously than the word of God, come out against this coup that has brought an end to democracy in Kars? [He stopped here to make a grand gesture.] Or are we to conclude that democracy, freedom, and human rights don’t matter, that all the West wants is for the rest of the world to imitate them like monkeys? Can the West endure any democracy achieved by enemies who in no way resemble them? I have something to say to all the other nations that the West has left behind: Brothers, you’re not alone. (246)
Blue asks Ka if he feels that "Hans" will be able to really publish such a statement without looking to the Western press like he is taking sides, and Ka suggests that Blue co-sign a statement to the West with a Kurd and liberal ex-Communist in order to pick up traction. Blue then asks Ka just who Hans is, including whether he is an Orientalist, Jew, or religious Christian. Blue and Kadife then begin to press Ka on the details of his relationship with Hans, and Ka makes up a series of details including their house decorations, social gatherings, and the like. Eventually, Blue yields and agrees to Ka's plan for a joint statement. He suggests that a young student serve as their Kurd, and Ka suggests Turgut Bey as an ex-Communist, since he is a bit of a pretender who will say the coup is bad even though he hates the Islamists. This starts an argument between Blue and Kadife, but eventually Kadife yields while saying that someone will have to convince Turgut to leave the hotel. Ka agrees to this role, and then another fight between Blue and Kadife starts over whether Kadife can still be like everyone else and live a normal life. When Kadife says she wants to be normal, she and Blue then argue over whether Kadife may even take off her hijab. Kadife says that she wants to represent the women's sacrifice to Hans Hansen, since it is so often misunderstood, but she eventually retreats and says that it is dangerous for Ka to stay much longer. Ka suddenly remembers the love letters he was meant to give Kadife. As Ka leaves, Blue then tells him that he has clouded their thinking with his Western pretensions and cannot claim anymore to be innocent.
Chapter 27
Ka makes copies of Necip's love letters to Kadife at a stationary shop, then returns to the hotel. Ka is seized by a series of unrelated childhood memories, then rushes down to find Ipek watching television with her father. The show they are watching, Marianna, is a Mexican soap opera about an impoverished but charming girl who is often unlucky in love. It binds Turgut to his two daughters, and he often lauds the anti-capitalist sentiments of the show's forerunner. During a commercial break, Ka then broaches the topic of the joint statement with Turgut, who is flattered to be taken so seriously. Ka says that the declaration comes at the suggestion of his paper, and he describes Blue to Turgut as a zealot who has nonetheless found democracy to be important. Turgut then says that he ought to go in order to show the world that real democrats still exist in Turkey, and he suggests the Hotel Asia as a location to meet in secret.
Turgut asks where Kadife is, and Ka, watching the show and thinking of his life in Kars, realizes that he has kept himself sealed off from emotion so long that his existence has become arid and solitary. Meanwhile, Turgut says that he will leave the hotel, despite the dangers, because of his principles that force him to stand up in support of the people. Ka agrees with Turgut and tries to convince him even further, but Ipek looks at Ka as he does so because she knows that he is only doing this because he loves her and wants to get her alone. This intimacy binds them even closer together. In reality, however, despite his agreement, we are told that Turgut is internally conflicted about going to the meeting. Ka then writes another poem after all this.
Kadife enters the room, and she shares an embrace with Turgut. She agrees to accompany him to the Hotel Asia, and Ipek for her part continues to try and convince her father to go. Ka hears this and realizes that, like everything else said in Kars, it is part of a doublespeak that is meant to convey an opposite or mixed message. Ka then finishes convincing Turgut to go with a series of empty ideological statements that mirror the type of things he would have believed in his own leftist youth, before his decay and exile in Germany. Turgut then gets ready to depart at once, and Ka agrees to meet Ipek in his room to have sex.
Chapter 28
Ka waits for Ipek in his hotel room, and the wait is agonizing for him, even awakening childhood memories of similar pains. Ka thinks to himself that, if he had only acted differently in life, he would have been much happier. Ipek suddenly arrives. Ka is initially vexed with her, and he demands that she explain her tardiness, but she eventually gets him to cast this out of his head by saying that she came to make love to him. They then make love, and while they do so, Ka is able to finally enact all the pornographic fantasies that he has had in his mind with Ipek, which lead to a mix of passionate tenderness and pain infliction. After they are done, Ipek lets out a mournful cry, and he begins to feel the old loneliness creep in. He then looks at the snow falling in the reflection of Ipek's eyes.
Chapter 29
We cut to the narrator, who tells us that 4 years after Ka left Kars and 42 days after his death, he went to Frankfurt to visit the apartment that Ka spent the last of his days in. There, he planned to look for Ka's poetry manuscript and met up with Tarkut Olcun, a fellow Turkish-German expatriate who was Ka's closest acquaintance in the city. The narrator takes Ka's bag that he was wearing when he was shot dead from Tarkut, but he is unable to find the book of poetry there. Tarkut then addresses our narrator by name for the first time (calling him Orhan Bey), and tells him that Ka was a solitary man relatively unknown in Frankfurt. The two of them then retrace Ka's steps on his morning walks, going from the train station around town and towards the city library. Drowned in melancholy after imagining his friend and the many things he used to occupy himself with in this town, Orhan then walks with Tarkut by some Turkish-owned businesses and sees a letter K on the street. This is where Ka was shot.
Orhan asks the nearby vendors about the crime that took place in front of their shops, and they recollect it to Orhan. Afterwards, he and Tarkut go underground to an arcade full of Turkish vendors and cafés that service the Turks of the local community. The two then retire to a beer hall above, where Tarkut begins to tell Orhan all he knows about the murder. Ka had returned to town from a poetry reading 42 days earlier, where he was shot dead by an unknown assailant who might have been "Turkish-looking" through his eye, heart, and liver (276–277). Ka was too solitary for there to be a big police stir, and aside from the murder being premeditated, not much else was found out. Tarkut tells Orhan about two women, one German and one Turkish, that Ka had seen before going to Kars, and he takes their names down. The two then go to Ka's old apartment, which is cluttered and poor.
Orhan then reflects on Ka's last letter from Frankfurt, where he informed his friend that he had just completed a new book of poems, called Snow. This work, Ka said, was inspired by a hidden logic that he had discovered underlying his many visions and bouts of inspiration in Kars. Orhan searches around the apartment for the green notebook where Ka wrote his poetry down, but he is unable to find it. As a memento of Ka, Orhan then collects the porno tapes Ka had around the VCR and takes them with him, along with some other everyday objects from the apartment (this, Orhan says, will go along with his newest idea for The Museum of Innocence). Parting finally with Tarkut, Orhan goes back to his hotel and looks through the tapes, noticing that a lot of them focus on a specific American porn star named Miranda. He also finds a series of unsent love letters to Ipek in a notebook where Ka had also written about the poems that came to him in Kars. Here, our narrator poignantly and pithily reflects that, even in recounting what his friend went through, he is unable to understand the true suffering and torment of another exactly as it was.
Later that night, Orhan looks more into Melinda, finding that she has a fragile and motherly disposition (something he would come to recognize in Ipek upon his later journey to Kars himself). He also recognizes the unity of all men who watch pornography, something about their shame and self-loathing. Finally, upon returning to his hotel, Orhan picks up a random notebook of Ka's and finds it open to a diagram of a snowflake, onto which is mapped the poems that Ka wrote in Kars along 3 axis, duplicated to make 6 branches—memory, reason, and imagination.
Chapter 30
We are now back with Ka and Ipek in the hotel room. Ka feels as happy as he has ever been in his life, and it is in the silence and happiness of this moment that he begins to see the meaning of his life stripped bare. He starts to have intimations of the silence from which poetry is created, and out of this he begins to think about the snowflake design that will come to define his last poetry collection. Ipek asks Ka what he is thinking about and Ka, seeing that she is now pursuing him and that the tables have turned, tells her about his childhood and his belief that he was not interested in happiness as a child. They talk about happiness, but this makes Ka feel as if the bliss he has just reached with Ipek is too fragile. Instead, he decides to ask he where Ipek thinks the market got the tape of Peppino di Capri's "Roberta," and she replies that gradually, old families in Kars that die out have their belongings sold off, in addition to having things imported at later dates from Istanbul. This makes Ka even more aware of the fragility of his happy life, so he tries to arrange another meeting with Ipek. When she reminds him that she cannot come by when her father is home, Ka worries that he will make things worse if he says more, so he stays silent, though he is worried that this lovemaking has changed nothing at all.
Chapter 31
Before Turgut leaves for the Hotel Asia, he has Zahide bring him his old woolen gloves that his wife sent him in prison. He feels they will protect him (much like Ka with his coat), and he brings them along as a talisman. Kadife and Turgut then share an emotional ride over to the hotel, where he tells her stories of his time in prison and she compliments him on his bravery and courage. Turgut and Kadife then sneak through the semi-dark hotel in order to make their way to the meeting place, and the narrator recounts to us that this hotel was a decadent site of commerce and sexuality 80 years earlier. Turgut, for his part, is historically aware and tells Kadife that he plans to sign the declaration with a new pen like Ismet Pasaha signed the Treaty of Lausanne.
They enter the negotiation room, and it is very crowded, with even Fazil in attendance, who looks at Kadife in stunned silence. Present are some Kurdish nationalists, Blue, and some old-wave Socialists, as well as several other political factions. A Kurdish granny rises to talk about her missing grandson, and she is followed in short order by some revolutionaries, an Islamist youth, and the Kurdish youths in issuing statements and making announcements. Eventually, the granny asks about the journalist covering their declaration, and Kadife explains the situation of Ka as their ambassador to the West. Then, the declaration's first draft is read. They squabble about the title and whether it is too Europe-centric (are they after all, declaring their thoughts to the whole world, or just Europe?), and then discuss the seriousness of the coup that they are supposed to be denouncing. Turgut suggests that the coup is not as severe as they may think (being lead, after all, by a theater troupe), and this leads to Turgut being taunted by a boy who says that, if the West gave him two lines of space, he would not be trying to prove, as Turgut is, that democracy still exists in Turkey. Turgut then immediately regrets coming.
Meanwhile, Blue and the others puzzle over how to talk about the coup, eventually agreeing to describe it as a local coup with support from the central government. Once they settle on the final wording, Blue suggests that they all sign the statement quickly, but Turgut Bey wants something to be settled first. He asks the boy who taunted him what he would say if given two lines of space in a Western paper, but when the boy fails to answer him, the others in the room take turns giving anti-Western and pro-Turkish (although exactly what "Turk" means here is unclear) statements. One precocious boy even says that he would say that Turkey "is not stupid, [...] just poor" before explaining that, throughout history, people have always seen poverty and assumed the people living in poverty to be unwise and worthy of contempt (298–299). There is then debate about whether such a statement is pro-Western in itself in acknowledging the shortcomings of their own nation. Others, however, redouble on their patriotism, saying that they would never take a visa to go to Europe and are proud to fly in the face of Eurocentric standards.
One red-faced boy recites a poem, but everyone denounces it as idiotic and unwise to publish in Europe. From here, those gathered talk about the unfairness of writing, since when Europeans speak or write, they do so for the whole world, and when Muslims do so, they are writing "ethnic poetry" or speaking for only their region. As they puzzle over whether it's worth dividing themselves further in the face of European oppression, an old Azeri journalist keeps trying to do so, asking who the people in the room are referring to when they say "nation" or "we." A Kurdish boy then tells everyone of a dream he had where he fell in love with a European woman who found him charming only because he was a child, but he too is put down by those present. The conversation turns ribald, and Turgut Bey finally rises at once to sign the statement. Kadife announces her shame at what she just heard in the way of sexual humor, and she tells the notetakers to record the fact that she will remove her headscarf to be alone and powerless in a man's world. Just as she begins to say this, however, Fazil says that he does not want Kadife to bare her head, and that if she does, he will kill himself. Blue says that no one is allowed to talk about suicide, and he storms out of the hotel, effectively ending the meeting in a matter of seconds.
Chapter 32
Ka leaves the Snow Palace Hotel before Kadife and Turgut return in order to keep his appointment with Fazil at the Iron Bridge. Fazil and Ka then step into a teahouse, where Fazil recounts to Ka all that happened at the Hotel, and when he tells Ka that he feels that his city's history has become one with the history of the world, Ka begins to write another poem, mapping the history of his own life with the history of the earth and that of a forgotten city. Fazil then talks to Ka about his declaration of suicidal intention, asking Ka why he would say that if he didn't really mean it. Ka asks Fazil if he is really in love with Kadife, and Fazil replies that it is possible that Necip's soul has entered his body and inspired this feeling in him. He thinks this is also what has inspired recent thoughts of atheism in him, since he remarks that he felt himself genuinely capable of suicide only a short while ago. Now, Fazil confesses to Ka that he has always loved Kadife, even before Necip, and that his love for her is driving him mad.
At this point, Saffet walks in and gives Fazil back his ID, thinking that this is why he is crying. Fazil then confesses to Ka that he knows that nothing in Kars or even any of their small lives matters, and this is why he knows that Kadife's love is so important to him, even taking the place of religion in his head as the only thing he can think about. Suddenly, Zahide enters and gives Ka a letter from Ipek, saying that he is to meet them at the New Life Pastry Shop in 20 minutes. On his way, Ka is seized by the urge to write and rushes to the dirty basement with the Georgian couple. He writes a poem here called "Heaven," stating his belief that heaven is the place that one keeps their memories. Afterwards, Ka meets Ipek and Kadife at the café, where they tell him that Blue has vanished. They ask Ka to find him, since he is a man, and they tell him to check two different teahouses frequented by Islamists and secret police, who are terrible gossips.
Ka gets to the first teahouse, where no one has any news of Blue, but new words have been added to the poem on the Karsspor poster wall from the previous day. He then continues to wander around the city, where he is seized all at once by the feeling that he and all the details of this city—from political banners to hidden windows to anti-suicide posters—are bound together forever. He feels an immense divine power linking him to all these things, but when he stops to write a poem, nothing comes.
Chapter 33
Upon leaving the teahouse, Ka runs into Muhtar, who tells Ka that he was the one who first summoned Blue to Kars. They talk briefly about his poem and about Ipek, but Muhtar eventually tells Ka that, were he in Ka's shoes, he would not be out and wandering so casually. He then shows Ka the next day's edition of the city paper, which not only brands him as an atheist, but also casts doubt on his motivations for coming to Kars, even going so far as to question whether he is a spy or agent of Europe. The paper also calls his going door to door in order to gather stories of the suicide girls evidence of his deception and intention to stir up dissent.
Muhtar explains that he only just walked by Serdar Bey's office, where his sons had begun to print this edition. Muhtar then leaves him alone at the teahouse. Ka feels ashamed, not only because his pride is hurt after being called a "so-called poet," but also because he is worried about being shot at any moment (320). Ka thinks about how, in his youth, he used to think it a great honor to die for an ideological cause, but that now, he knows that lofty ideals can only endanger one's life and happiness. Ka thinks about whether his own death in Kars would even be picked up by an international press, then recalls all of the other writers that have been killed by Islamists in recent years (as well as the coverage their deaths received).
Ka arrives at the offices of Serdar Bey, where his sons tell Ka that their father is not home, though very few people have purchased a copy of the following day's edition already. Ka is calmed by this somewhat, but he once again returns to the tortured imaginings of what might happen to him, as they have happened to so many other writers over the years who have voiced anti-religious sentiments. Ka thinks about what he would say if given the chance to reply to the paper, then writes a poem out of pure fear at a café. Overcome by his loneliness and his visions of a happy future with Ipek, he then returns to the hotel, only to find Serdar Bey dining with the family of Turgut Bey. Turgut is talking at this dinner about the negative experience he had at the meeting at the Hotel Asia, but eventually Ka is able to confront Serdar about the paper he wrote. Serdar then assures Ka that he holds him in the highest esteem, and that he does not believe a word that he wrote in the paper. He explains to Ka that the government subscribers of the paper want him to run a certain type of news, so he does this and exaggerates it, even if he does not believe what he is writing.
Serdar eventually agrees to retract the paper in exchange for a dinner with Ipek and Turgut at the Green Pastures café, but he then presses Kadife to issue a comment to him on the suicides in Kars. It becomes clear that she will not answer him, however, so he eventually relents. Suddenly, Ka is seized by a great feeling of intimacy and happiness as he contemplates the togetherness of the family around him, and this makes him ignore the conversation which is going on around him. In this conversation, the others are talking about the torture visited on many of the city's residents, as well as reports concerning the violence that Z Demirkol has been behind in the wake of the coup. Ka only listens once to hear about a truck allegedly carrying explosives; still, overall, he is consumed in his reverie towards Ipek.
Chapter 34
Later, when Ka is in his room, he is surprised to find Ipek at his door. They make love until morning, and Ka even forgets the pornographic fantasies in the back of his mind. At the end, Ipek tells Ka that she will go with him to Germany after all. This makes Ka happier than ever, but soon, Cavit, the hotel receptionist, comes to tell Ka that Sunay wants to meet with him at headquarters. Upon arriving, Sunay says that a suicide bombing took place, with the tailor as its intended target, though it mistakenly wound up hitting a house farther up the hill. Sunay then tells Ka that they have captured Blue, and they briefly discuss the theatrics of the Hotel Asia meeting.
After this, Sunay turns the conversation to a different issue entirely. He wants to stage a version of The Spanish Tragedy in Kars, but he wants Kadife to be in the play and bare her head in defiance of Islamic law. Ka says that Kadife would never agree to such a plan, but Sunay then reveals his master plan: if Kadife agrees to be in the play and bare her head, they will release Blue, who she is in love with. Ka says that he does not want to get involved with the situation, since he does not want to convince Kadife, let alone Blue, to participate; moreover, Ka worries that heroism in this situation will get him killed. In response, Sunay impresses upon him the idea that he can protect Ka from the angry masses roused by Serdar's article, which was run without corrections after all. Ka agrees to mediate in exchange for Sunay's protection.
Ka is escorted by Sunay's guards back to the hotel, where he runs into Ipek and tells her in vague terms that he needs to meet with Kadife in order to secure Blue's release. Ipek agrees to send Kadife up to Ka, and he goes back to his room to find the bed made, partially erasing the memory of his great sex with Ipek the night before. Kadife then bursts into the room, and Ka tells her about Blue's capture, as well as Sunay's request that Blue get some religious high school boys to attend his second play and behave in the audience. Ka then tells her about Sunay's plan for her to bare her head, and Kadife initially balks at it. Ka suggests many ways around her doing so, such as her wearing a wig or cutting the broadcast to a lookalike when she removes her scarf, but Kadife scoffs at these, saying that if she was really going to bare her head, she would do it wholeheartedly to appear honest and true. Ka tells her that, in a cruel place like Turkey, it makes no sense to die for ideals, but Kadife flips the script on Ka, telling him that the only consolation of the poor is the ideals that they may die for.
Eventually, Kadife seems to be going along with the plan, but the matter of convincing Blue still remains. Ka suggests that, when he goes to Blue to get him to agree to the plan, he does not mention that he came to Kadife first, since what Blue really wants is control of both the situation and Kadife. Kadife then yells at Ka, telling him that he hates Blue so much because of his rational and enlightened devotion to ideals that Ka nonetheless finds reprehensible. Ka admits to being scared of Blue, but he tells Kadife that all he wants is to escape with Ipek and be happy somewhere else. This makes Kadife upset. In turn, Ka wishes her all the happiness in the world, and the two embrace with warmth. Kadife also gives Ka a lighter and cigarettes to give to Blue. Suddenly, Ipek comes to the door to tell Ka that an army truck is waiting for him. As Ka leaves, he turns around to see Ipek and Kadife locked in a silent embrace.
Chapter 35
On his way to Blue's holding place, Ka passes a variety of scenes, including a window of an old house where someone is planning a secret terror attack. Finally, Ka arrives at a military compound, where two MIT operatives tape a recorder to his chest so as to acquire Blue's confession. Ka gives Blue the cigarettes from Kadife, and they then begin to talk about Ka's plan. Ka explains that he only wants to escape in one piece, and Blue correctly guesses that this means Sunay is involved in whatever he is planning. Blue rejects Sunay's plan for Kadife to bare her head, and he tells Ka that, if he is killed by Islamists in Kars, it is Ka's own fault. Ka desperately tries to bring Blue around by telling him that, if he lives to escape Kars, he will certainly be able to get Blue's statement published, but Blue changes the subject. He tells Ka that the MIT wanted him to write down his whole life story complete with a confession of all his crimes, so he did so. He then begins to read it to Ka.
In Blue's statement, he says that he has no remorse for anything that he has done. He started out as a leftist atheist, but after marrying, divorcing, and developing hatred for the West, he turned to Islam and began to read the theory of figures like Fanon. He fled to Germany, then returned to Turkey where he fought with the Chechens against the Russians. This then lead him to develop a limp, and while in Bosnia, he married a woman named Merzuka, who he also divorced because his politics and belief in pilgrimage kept him away for long periods of time. Blue then talks about his mission to explore all of Turkey, and he mentions that, though he believes it is sometimes necessary to kill infidels, he has never killed anyone nor ordered anyone killed. He then closes by saying that all he wants after his death is for his poems to be published.
After this reading, Ka tries to convince Blue that it is not worth dying over this political dispute. In answer, Blue then tells Ka about the film Burn!, in which an official mediator attempts to stop a legendary figure from martyrdom, only to be stabbed himself by a local as he is about to leave the embattled setting of the film. Ka takes offense to the insinuation that he, like the mediator in the film, is an agent of anyone, but Blue refuses to believe that Ka is not working for anyone. Ka tells Blue that martyrdom is not worth it, since the graves of even martyrs can be erased by the powerful, but Blue will not listen, and he redoubles in his accusations that Ka is a slave to the West, even if he does not know it. Ka now brings out the bargaining chip of Kadife wearing a wig during the performance to get him on board, but here Blue rejects him in a very poignant way. He says that, while Europeans talk a big talk about being individuals and standing up for themselves, it is really Blue himself who is being a true individual in standing up for what he believes in against the oppressive forces of the West.
From here, Blue asks Ka why he is even going through all this trouble to safeguard his release. Ka tells him that it is because he is finally happy, and he lets out the truth about him and Ipek. This moves Blue, and he says he may agree to the plan, but he wonders how he can trust Sunay to release him. Ka turns off the tape recorder, then tells Blue that he will be the collateral in the situation. Blue will be released first, and if they try to trap Blue, Ka will also pay the price. At the same time, Ka tells Blue that he wants Fazil to be trusted with all the details of Blue's release and hiding, since he would rather not be involved in this. Blue agrees to this, and he has a written statement to this effect that he wishes to be conveyed to Kadife, who will make the final decision about whether to play the part (he does not know that Ka has already seen her). Ka then turns the tape recorder back on, and in order to cover up his arrangement with Blue, asks on the record whether Kadife will agree to the plan. He says she will, and asks Ka to tell him more about his great happiness. Ka tells Blue that love is a wholly different world to live in, then is inspired to write another poem, which he does. He then tells Blue about his newfound love of God in Kars, and Blue tells him in return that this love for God is European and romantic. Only when he truly is a Turk and like everyone else will he really be able to believe truly.
Ka, reading the hatred in Blue's face, then gets up to leave and asks Blue if he has a last message for Kadife. Blue tells Ka that he wants him to relay the message "Be careful [...] Don't let anyone kill you" (354).
Chapter 36
Ka leaves the military compound and heads back to the hotel, noticing as he does so that it feels a bit warmer. Ka meets up with Ipek and tells her that he no longer fears for his life, then arranges to meet up with her and speak more later. Waiting again for Ipek in his room, Ka is subject to many dark fears along with his passions. Ipek appears before long, however, and tells him that she has told Turgut that she is going to leave Turkey with Ka. Ka tells Ipek of his worries regarding her, but when Ipek insinuates that another woman must have hurt him in the past, Ka denies this and says he is only worried about how his love for Ipek could wound him. They then make love once more. Afterwards, Ka writes an opaque poem about the tensions between peace, isolation, security, and fear.
Ipek leaves Ka, but suddenly Kadife appears at the door. Ka then lies to her about his visit with Blue, saying that the hardest part was getting Blue to believe Kadife would agree to the plan herself. He takes pride in this and other lies he tells Kadife because he believes that happiness is the most important thing in this luckless place. Kadife tells Ka that she will bare her head, but she will be the one who decides how. He then gives Kadife Blue's statement to sign, which she does. Kadife also tells Ka that she will deal with finding a hiding place for Blue.
Ka then returns to Sunay, who is meeting with Colonel Osman. Ka tells them that the plan has been arranged for, but the Colonel is hesitant about letting Blue go. Once Ka brings up the potential of Blue's martyrdom, however, they move on to how they can trust Kadife to keep her word. Ka reminds them about Turgut's abuse by the state and that such a man's daughter would keep her word. From here, Ka then convinces them to release Blue as the crowning artistic achievement of the plan; when it is viewed through the lens of simple politics, it does not make sense, but it is in line with Sunay's larger vision for both the coup and this play. They then decide that rehearsals for the play will start at once. The Colonel leaves, and Ka is invited to dinner with Funda, Sunay, and Serdar. Serdar wants to print some of what Ka is saying to Funda about art and politics, but Sunay tells Serdar that he can only do so if he retracts what he said about Ka and mentions the upcoming play. Serdar agrees, and Sunay then instructs Serdar on what to print.
Sunay tells Serdar to mention a "death onstage," and he then goes on to mention that he will be shot dead as a part of this performance (363). The narrator then shows us the final version of this release, which mentions that Kadife is the one who pointed a gun at Sunay and killed him. The final version presented by the narrator also praises Sunay for dying in the service of his artistic vision. After finishing dictating his blurb to Serdar, Sunay then tells Ka that he is trying to push the limits of Art to their outer bounds and "become one with Myth" (365).
As the chapter closes, the narrator once again comes to the fore. He tells us that, after this dictation was taken and Serdar Bey was sent away, Sunay and Ka discussed the plans for Blue's release. Orhan then tells us that Blue was going to be recaptured, a plan that may have been put in place by the secret police, who may have been manipulating even the Colonel the entire time. He also tells us that it is enough to say that, at the end of Ka's talk with Sunay, they were going to leave things to Fazil. Within a couple hours, Blue is then moved to a secret hiding place, and Fazil comes to tell Kadife that Blue has reached a refuge. She then runs to tell this news to Ipek and Ka, who is once again falling into visions of a potential happy future with Ipek. The narrator then tells us that, at the start of the next chapter, he will tell us about the happiness felt by Ka in that moment.
Analysis
In this section of the novel, which connects the central coup of the text to the novel's conclusion, we see a great deal of thematic work being done regarding some of our aforementioned concerns—specifically, the relationship between art and reality, an understanding of faith as either community-based or rooted in individuality, Turkish national identity, and the cultural divide between East and West. At the same time that these thematic concerns continue to be developed and explored, however, note also that it is here that our narrator comes into clear and complete focus for the first time. This revelation of the narrator's complete identity—as well as the detailing of his behaviors in Frankfurt—not only gives the novel clearer structure, but also touches on some of the thematic concerns.
First, on the relationship between art and reality, there are a few distinct phenomena which push our previous understandings of this link to a new point. First, there is the protracted description in the early chapters of this section about how art can be made political, as well as how art can cost the artist their life under the wrong circumstances. Second, we have Ka's complete fabrication of the Hans Hansen story, as well as Blue taking this story so seriously as to rebut it with made-up details of his own (like the cross on Hans's wall). This takes the process of art becoming political and paints it in real time for readers, showing how even the least serious creative endeavors in a small personal conversation can become implicated in large-scale political and social conflicts. Third, commensurate with Sunay's earlier claims that art and history are linked in terms of each's enshrinement of the courageous and devoted, we have his claim here that, in staging his own death and bringing the coup to a close, he will be able to make art united with myth. What is myth, after all, if not those pieces of art or stories which are rooted in culture so deeply as to influence reality and identity formation? Where, in the previous section, for example, we saw Ka's distillation of the snowflake image become more granular and individualistic, here the opposite dynamic is in effect. Rather than continue to explore the ways in which art can be linked to an individual's perception of the world and their idiosyncratic realities, here Pamuk shows us the ways in which art can be entangled in larger social dynamics to influence whole communities and schools of thought. This is directly parallel with the way that Pamuk also tries to examine religion and cultural identity (vis-à-vis the East/West divide) as part of a larger process of individuation against a prevailing community sensibility.
Second, in terms of religion and the relationship between the individual and God, here there is a bit of a refinement of what we've seen before. Whereas earlier, we had Sunay and the Sheikh telling Ka about the "correct" way to believe in God—which seemed, in the context of Islamists in Kars, to be as part of a religious community—we have more qualification of this idea here. Earlier, our only significant qualification of the idea of a true religious faith came in the form of Kadife, whose feminist take on both religious fundamentalism and European secularism seemed to hint towards the idea of idiosyncratic or personal faith as the highest true religion one can reach. Here, this idea is developed even more by Blue, who tells Ka that his views on religion are influenced by European Romanticism and are of a fundamentally different character than his own relationship with God. What's more, as part of this argument, Blue suggests that true individualism is not having a "personal" relationship with God at all; rather, true individualism is standing up for what one believes in the face of resistance, as he has done against the resistance of both Ankara and Europe. Here, then, we get an idea of religious identity formation that moves beyond a simple humanist/fundamentalist dichotomy: rather than being conditioned to think of religious identity as the product of a particular school of thought, region, or the like, we are instead trained to see one's authentic religious faith as defined by their own unique life experiences, thrown into relief by struggle. Religious communities thus form, in this view, not out of shared allegiance to religious doctrines per se, but rather out of a desire to overcome their shared struggles (e.g., poverty, colonial oppression).
This then has direct implications for the East-West divide explored in the novel. Just as one's religious faith is most truly expressed and defined based on how their experiences are redefined by struggle, so too is one's allegiance in this conflict defined by a mutual experience, reconstruction, and relation of struggle. This is most clear in the scene regarding the negotiations at the Hotel Asia. Though those present have all kinds of labels affixed to them—Azeri, Kurdish, Islamist, Kemalist, ex-Communist, and Revolutionary, to name a few—they are united in their resistance against the Eurocentric standards of what civilization is and should be, and they are united in the pride of their own people, though there is some confusion as to who exactly "their own people" are. The humorousness of this division in the face of their greater unity then shows the ways in which they have all tried to construct their own identities in the face of different oppressed-oppressor relationships. After all, while Europe may be their largest and most powerful enemy, on a more local level, the central Turkish government, local officials, and even other local citizens of Kars may cause them to differentiate themselves from one another in various ways. Pamuk's narration seems to indicate to us that he does not necessarily see this division as productive—especially in the face of a larger European threat to the culture—but as we see to the people involved in the negotiations, such labels are deeply entrenched in their thinking and ways of life.
Finally, this section warrants exploration and analysis of the way it treats our narrator, Orhan. Not only does this narrator share the same name as the real author of the text, but he is also engaged in very similar work to Orhan Pamuk. For example, Orhan (the narrator) mentions that he has collected some disjecta membra from Ka as part of his Museum of Innocence project. This, of course, is a real exhibit put on by Orhan Pamuk showcasing various everyday objects from the people closest to him. As the text unfolds, then, it becomes more and more clear that the narrator is not meant to be taken as a fictional projection of Orhan Pamuk, but rather as the literal and real Orhan Pamuk himself. This has key implications for the relationship between reality and art—since Pamuk is, in setting this narrative up, essentially trying to make his art into reality—but also between art and history. One could argue that, just as Sunay Zaim attempts to shape history through his art and change minds, so too is Orhan Pamuk attempting to write his own unique historiography of the Kars region into being in order to convey its truths to a wider audience.
The thorny part of this imagined historiography, however, is that it is allegedly being related by a friend of a third-party observer to the social and cultural conflicts in question. As Orhan (the narrator) admits himself while trying to imagine the pain in Ka's mind upon returning to Frankfurt, it is impossible to truly grasp the pain and feelings of another when one has not walked in their shoes. And, as Ka is keen to remind readers virtually every time he has the chance, he is an outsider in Kars. What Orhan tells us about the conflict in Kars, then, is a reconstruction of a reconstruction, as envisioned by someone with virtually no skin in the conflicts at hand. How can we trust that Orhan is telling us the truth, or that his opinions on the conflict are even valid, especially since they are being presented through the lens of Ka's own experiences? This unreliability of the narrative is something that readers should keep in mind as they move through to the end of the text; after all, it is this key disconnect between the actual experience and its retelling that will eventually play even further into the novel's emphasis on the importance of esoteric, personal experiences as showcased against larger historical events and trends.
