Snow

In this section, imagery of happiness, childhood, and love contrasts with imagery of torture, pain, and heartache. Ka notices that the snow is thawing, which gives him a sense of hope that he will soon be able to leave Kars with İpek, and he sees a girl wearing “a red and white wool coat” that makes him reminisce about a coat he’d worn in elementary school (328). The juxtaposition of these colors mirrors the broader tensions within these chapters—the “purity” of white against the passion (even danger) of the color red.

Further description illuminates Ka’s love for İpek and his childish nature. The author notes that Ka is given to dark jealousy during İpek’s absences, even imagining her with another man. This comment foreshadows what Ka learns regarding İpek and Blue’s relationship. The narrator also compares Ka’s love for İpek to that of “a hapless five-year-old who can’t bear to be apart from his mother” (330), highlighting Ka’s neediness and dependence on İpek and hinting at his transformation into a jealous and controlling partner. When Ka locks İpek in his hotel room, the image of İpek at the window wearing the “black velvet evening night gown” that her ex-husband would only let her wear at home confirms Ka’s own possessiveness (370). If İpek and Ka married, their marriage too would likely fail due to this jealousy and insecurity.

Fazıl plays an important role in the events of the coup’s last day. He is the only person who knows Blue’s hiding place after his temporary release, and he delivers the news to Kadife that Blue has been released and is safe. It is also Fazıl who tells Ka that Blue wants to meet with him again. İpek doesn’t want Ka to go, but Ka goes anyway, almost as if to test—or even ruin—the happiness he has attained; as the narrator comments, “It may have been a form of anxiety that made him do this, or perhaps it was his fear of happiness” (347). This meeting leads to the fateful encounter Ka has with Z Demirkol, during which Demirkol reveals that İpek and Blue were in love and had a passionate affair.

The vehicle that picks up Ka is “eerily dark,” and as they drive through Kars, Ka describes the view out the window as “dark, mean streets” (352). This imagery increases the mood of fear and the sense of danger as Ka goes to be interrogated. The scene in the interrogation room includes detailed imagery of “dirty plates, orange peels, and newspaper […] a magneto that [Ka] later realize[s] [is] used in electric shock torture” (353). The atmosphere of pain, misery, and cruelty starkly contrasts with the images of childhood that were populating Ka’s imagination before he left the hotel.

Z Demirkol’s reappearance initially appears benign, and Ka even feels reassured by “a familiar face” (353-54). Ka accepts his beating, which parallels the beating that he sees inflicted on Muhtar at the beginning of the novel, saying that a physical beating can “cleanse [Za’s] own guilt too” (355). However, the pain of the physical beating is only a prelude to the emotional pain that Z Demirkol inflicts on Ka. Z Demirkol’s sadistic nature is evident as he reads word-for-word transcriptions of İpek’s and Blue’s conversations. Z Demirkol’s cold and efficient manner when he tells Ka to “wash his face” as tears stream down Ka’s cheeks further emphasizes Demirkol’s cruelty (358).

The narrator says that readers might interpret Ka’s meeting with Blue as “the pivotal moment” that decides Ka’s tragic fate (347), but he believes that “Ka had not yet run out of chances […] [for] happiness” (347-48). The narrator argues against the reading of these events as fate or chance, insisting that Ka still could leave Kars with İpek by his side. This implies that Ka made (or will make) a choice that leads to İpek’s rejection of him, and this turns out to be true: The information from Z Demirkol drives Ka to intense jealousy and hatred of Blue, causing him to inform on Blue’s whereabouts to Z Demirkol’s agents.