Two-The Photographs in the Dark Museum House(5)

  If I was too young to understand the underlying cause of these disputes--that my family, still living as it had done in the days of the Ottman mansion, was slowly falling apart--I could not fail to notice my father's bankcruptcies and his ever-more-frequent absences. I could hear in more detail how bad things were whenever my mother took my brother and me to visit our other grandmother in her ghost-ridden house in Sisli. While my brother and I played, my mother would complain and my grandmother would counsel patience. Worried, perhaps that my mother would want to return to this dusty three-story house, my grandmother, who now lived all alone, would again draw our attention to its many defects.

  Apart from the occasional show of temper, my father found little to complain about; he took a childish delight in his good looks, his brains, and the good fortune he never tried to hide. Inside, he was always whistling, inspecting his reflection in the mirror, rubbing a wedge of lemon like brilliance on his hair. He loved jokes, word games, surprises, reciting poetry, showing off his cleverness, taking planes to faraway places. He was never a father to scold, forbid, or punish, When he took us out, we would wander all over the city, making friends wherever we went; it was during these excursions that I came to think of the world as a place made for taking pleasure.