ISTANBUL: MEMORIES AND THE CITY -- 7

BY ORHAN PAMUK

Here we come to the heart of the matter: I’ve never left Istanbul, never left the houses, streets, and neighborhoods of my childhood. 

Although I’ve lived in different districts from time to time, fifty years on I find myself back in the Pamuk Apartments, where my first photographs were taken and where my mother first held me in her arms to show me the world. 

I know this persistence owes something to my imaginary friend, the other Orhan, and to the solace I took from the bond between us.

But we live in an age defined by mass migration and creative immigrants, so I am sometimes hard-pressed to explain why I’ve stayed, not only in the same place but in the same building.

My mother’s sorrowful voice comes back to me: “Why don’t you go outside for a while? 

Why don’t you try a change of scene, do some traveling . . . ?”