37. The Empty House

"From the heap of discarded papers and rubbish in the corner, I extracted the arm of a baby doll that had once been Füsun’s. I slipped that into my pocket, along with a large mica marble and a few hairpins that I had no doubt were hers. Imagining the comfort I would eventually extract from these things in privacy, I relaxed. Why, I asked the janitor’s wife, had the tenants chosen to leave after so many years?
Eighteen minutes later I was in the Merhamet Apartments, lying on our bed, finding such relief as I could from the new objects recovered from the empty apartment. Sure enough, these things that Füsun had touched, these objects that had made her who she was—as I caressed them, and gazed at them, and stroked them against my shoulders, my bare chest, and my abdomen—released their analgesic and soothed my soul." (The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk)