Snow

After drinking liquor, Ka visits the sheikh, where Ka airs his inner troubles. He is torn between a desire to believe in God and a desire for solitude. Ka admits that pride and his Western ideals are barriers to belief in God. The sheikh reassures him, telling him that pride is dangerous but that a man with his sincerity is off to a good start. As other men begin chatting, Ka feels peaceful, and another poem comes to him, which he calls “Hidden Symmetry” (100).

After leaving the sheikh’s home, Ka feels the urge to write a poem and stops at a teahouse to do so. Here, he encounters Necip, who tells Ka that he wants to be a science-fiction writer. He reads Ka an excerpt from his story about a futuristic world where two friends, Necip and Fazıl, fall in love with the same girl, Hicran. After Necip finishes reading the story, Ka asks him questions about the characters. Necip tells Ka that Hicran is based on a real woman. He says that she was once an atheist and model in Istanbul but that when she came to Kars, she quickly became a Muslim and the most inspiring leader of the “head-scarf girls” (109).