Читать книгу Music by My Bedside - Kürsat Basar - Страница 4

Music by My Bedside

I can’t sleep without music by my bedside.

Ever since I was a kid.

An old love song is always playing on that little music box, stirring up unforgettable images of days long past.

Memory’s so strange!

Without warning, images come to life, their colors grow palpable, pulling you into the realm of the past, as if you were stuck in a broken time machine. The images and their dates jumble together. You can’t tell which scent pairs with which memory. Perhaps you know instinctively which of them is precious; and sometimes, while the intricate mechanism of recollection is whirling you around, the images flow by, gliding across the windowpanes of a speeding train. Suddenly, a single memory glitters, catching your eye for a moment, and at that very instant you yearn, more than you’ve ever yearned for anything, to return to that image, to that one and only feeling, which has gone unnoticed.

Some people don’t have a home.

I’ve spent my life moving from place to place—in ephemeral homes, hotel rooms, guesthouses, and on the road. I can no longer recall all those places, in countless corners of the world.

They say recapturing the past is pleasing. No, not at all.

Though they may compel us to smile at first, memories fade away when we reach for them, and regardless of our actions, they plunge us into sorrow.

I have never been attached to my belongings. Nor do I care to collect mementos.

Most often, I refrain from engraving mental pictures in my mind. Yet, all is in vain! Have not all those images stowed away for a lifetime hunted me down until this very day?

Since my childhood, I have always wondered about the recording mechanism of the human mind. Images, colors, faces, scenery, photographs, houses, roads, clothes, scents, sounds, and feelings all register in my memory with unfathomable speed. So the next time you chance upon something or someone—a spitting image—you remember . . .

Time after time, I stroll through the sophisticated, ever-growing, gargantuan archives of my mind and lose myself in a myriad of swirling concentric circles. Wishing to catch and recall a particular memory, an emotion, or a moment bygone, I find myself engulfed in an utterly different time and place. I wonder how I happen to find myself by the seaside, inhaling the scents of an unexpected spring just as I was listening to the half-destroyed records of a conversation that took place in the rooms of my childhood.

Nowadays, space travel is possible. However, setting off on a journey in time is only possible if our destination is the unknown cities of our memory, traveling through our inner selves.

Space travel . . .

Even in the recent past, these two words were still evocative of the mysterious world of tales.

For us ordinary people, unimaginable secrets concealed themselves beyond the borders of our world. New worlds of our infinite imagination. Strange creatures that would suddenly appear before us in some unknown corner of the universe. Trepidation. Exhilaration.

The dreams of the unknown.

That unequaled feeling of having demolished your own borders to dive into the obscurity of a boundless universe.

Who could know what there was to find? What would happen when the first human set foot on the surface of the moon? Did the creatures who watched us—and probably visited our world secretly—live in an adjacent universe?

Would it be enough to traverse the borders of the Earth to discover the mystery of life?

We waited anxiously.

Then they went there. Flaring rockets were sent into the darkness of outer space one after another. Then, one day, we saw them walk on the ashen surface of the moon, jumping up and down on the craters like children. We saw it all. Was it not incredible? Honestly. Something we had heard of only in fairy tales, comic books or films had come true in the blink of an eye. They were there, and we were watching them from our living rooms. They romped in the wilderness, among the craters, like burlesque puppets hopping about in an absolute terra nova. They went there, but at the cost of our dreams, which perished. Neither the unforeseen creatures nor the faraway lands that responded to our clandestine messages existed from then on. The closer we got to the universe, the farther it slipped away and faded into the distance. The endless void deepened as it slowly engulfed us. We returned to Earth after we put out our flags on top of a wrinkled-faced planet, as if we were small children desiring to prove ourselves. That was it. Colorful pieces of fabric swaying in the wind on the moonscape, on a lonesome planet. Traces of childish pride inscribed on a limitless sky.

If there were someone watching us, he must have roared with laughter at our ludicrous feat.

So much has run its course. Things unattended in the routine of everyday life. So many disasters, wars, and inventions that reached us through the stark headlines of the daily paper. An unceasing evolution has passed us by, unglorified.

The world must have grown up just as we did and was left bereft of its charm.

Because we saw ourselves from there, from afar, from those strange places, we realized we were but a speck of dust in eternity.

Merely a speck of dust in the vast universe.

Did we really understand?

I have been told the same thing over and over since I was a little girl: “Accept reality!”

Yeah, but why accept the kind of reality that makes me miserable?

Think what you like, but I am fond of lies. Fantasies, dreams, and harmless lies.

If someone idles away her years in such a house like this, dwelling on nothing but reality, all that is left to do is to wonder why life takes so long to end. And you cannot help getting bored.

Besides, who can say that the lively play of fantasy is not truly life itself?

No sooner than I put my head on my pillow and hear the same music again, I can arrange all those incomprehensible coincidences and believe that all is destiny, a farfetched narrative, our predetermined fate from the day we were born.

So who knows, maybe that is the way it was.

Remembering is tiresome. However, if you manage not to forget anything, carry with you all the time everything that has receded into the past—images, details, faces, scents, and voices—you no longer have to recall them because they stay with you forever.

They are neither memories nor the indistinct, threadbare pieces of your lost life; nor are they faded photographs that can be revived or tampered with anymore. They are life itself, keeping pace with you with every new day.

Some things are never forgotten—like someone you miss, someone you remember even when he is with you, by your side.

Therefore, as I recline here on these summer afternoons, I can tell myself this curious story, each time with a new beginning.

Despite all its confusion and perplexity, isolation, sadness, pain of separation, hopeful expectations, loneliness, and unspeakable longing, it seems to me the most delightful story in the world.

I will certainly tell this tale in various ways, and each time I unfold it, I will add new things that I had failed to notice before, but what difference does it make . . . ?

Here, on this spring morning, far away in the city of light, I suddenly wake up in a small hotel room with the rays of the sun and hear that song—the song that I will never forget. I feel as if it comes through my dreams.

I feel as if the dream I am having still goes on; yes, just like now, I am unable to tell whether I am dreaming or awake. I rush to the window and open it. The cool morning breeze caresses my face, and I see a blind man playing that melody on his accordion in front of the door.

How many years have passed since then? Forty? More? Never mind! A blind man is playing “Everything Has Disappeared But You.” I am unaware that from then on I will mix up everything and not be able to tell truth from fantasy. I watch in surprise as the street musician plays our song.

How many of us realize that an unexpected coincidence is in fact a magical sign, like those encountered by a young hero in a tale, leading him to embark on an entirely new adventure?

What a strange coincidence that music is. My heart beats madly, as if I have done something wrong. As if some expected and long-awaited good news has arrived. As if I have suddenly become naked in front of a crowd.

Then someone knocks at my door, and it sinks in that this is not a coincidence. Young men in hotel uniforms carry in roses of all colors—roses with long stems. The small hotel room is soon packed with red, white, yellow, pink, purple, and orange roses. The blind musician keeps on playing the old song:

I am not separated from you,

not even for a moment,

even if you are far, far away.

Everything brings you to me,

Scents, sounds, voices.

My eyes do not see,

I have forgotten all that I know

Except for your face,

Even if you are far, far away.

Instantly the song I have never forgotten touches somewhere deep inside of me. The melody fills me with joy, it makes me happy, but it also makes me cry with sorrow.

As I try to remember the lyrics, I smell the fragrant roses.

His handwriting appears inside a bunch of roses: “When you receive these flowers, you’ll hear the song you and I promised never to forget. Distances do not mean much for us. If we have a true bond between us, like you said we have, listen to that beautiful song, which I believe reflects our genuine bond. Let it bring me to you, just as it has brought you to me. I don’t know what’s going through your mind now, but you should know that wherever you go, I’ll find you. Some coincidences are nothing but destiny. Tell me, who can change destiny?”

I know his letter by heart.

Like everything else he has written. Like all of our meetings. All dates, places, and phone calls.

Women do not forget.

And really, what are coincidences but fate, or unexpected gifts that life gives us out of the blue?

What we cannot know or will never understand is the reason our destiny is the way it is. Instead of taking us somewhere entirely different, why does an obscure detail, an unexpected surprise, or a small trick of fate thrust us somewhere we don’t expect? We cannot know how a few short seconds can affect one’s entire life.

What an odd game!

Everyone has to learn the same game over and over again, making the same mistakes and protecting himself. Nobody can say he knows the game perfectly or can teach someone else how to play it.

Standing on the sidelines to learn the game by watching others play is out of question. Even as a spectator, you are still in the game. You have no other choice except to become part of the game, in one way or another.

But can’t we at least pause at a certain point and change our role?

Is this only about courage, or when you think you are in control of the coincidences, do they in fact control you?

We start with absolutely no knowledge and learn all the rules on our own. If we knew that each step we take will determine an unknown future which will materialize years from now, we couldn’t survive.

Isn’t this unfair?

You have to participate in a game in which you cannot even decide whom to play with or whom to compete against, knowing that it is your one and only chance to play it. Repetition is not allowed.

If only we could have one more chance. If only we could change a decision we made at a milestone in our life and start over again.

I know, it doesn’t work that way.

Now I’m traveling from one memory to another.

Come. Join me!

If you asked me what was the one thing that determined my destiny, I’d tell you it was that song.

Yes, a song that was playing in my dream.

If you have ever told someone, “everything has disappeared from my life but you,” or if you have ever felt this way in your heart, you surely know that it makes you feel as if you have sprouted wings. And it is terrifying.

You would give everything to forget all and send that feeling into oblivion with a single touch of a magic wand, but—how strange—even if that were possible, you could not bring yourself to part with it.

The helplessness of suddenly realizing that your inner self, which you thought would always do as you tell it, has begun to act crazily, like an unleashed rebellious child. The astonishment of realizing that you are unable to deal with it. And the inexorable allure of that adventure which has brought you to a matchless state of ecstasy you could find nowhere else.

I know a few languages, but none contain words that could describe this feeling.

Wait a minute! That broken time machine is now hurling me back into the past, carrying me to one of those ordinary childhood moments which truly, yet unexpectedly, determine the course of your life, although the very same piece of memory had somehow seemed unimportant when you lived thatactual moment.

I now go to that winter morning when a cold distant sun hung sulking in the sky.

To Ankara, when I was fourteen.

Does childhood make cities seem more beautiful in memories than they actually are?

Or is it that we destroy and devastate cities as time goes by?

Later, each time I visited Ankara, I only saw an ugly, worn out place packed with clumsy buildings. A city that had lost its beautiful sunny mornings forever.

Tedious, oppressive, drab apartment complexes had replaced those spacious boulevards of my childhood, the bright orderly buildings, wide public squares, sunny hills, and lovely homes with pretty gardens.

Perhaps the steppes were rejecting the untimely siege that had begun through the symbols of a new civilization, which we believed were magnificent.

Later, each time I saw the shantytowns, the ramshackle, jerry-built structures, and the impoverished inhabitants next to the old homes near the castle, I couldn’t help wondering if that was all we had succeeded in achieving over so many years in the capital city of hopes.

Now, that cold mausoleum on Rasattepe—the symbol of this city—gives me nothing but a deep feeling of gloom.

I wish that instead of following the tradition of the Pharaohs, who sought eternal life after death, we had protected the warm, modest home of our national leader, the place where he had lived when he was filled with the hope of building a new country. This would have made life, rather than death, the symbol of this city. I also wish we had believed that many others like him could have grown up in all of these homes.

No, I don’t adore Ankara anymore. Besides, I haven’t been there for years.

I tell you, when you are a child, you see things differently.

Maybe it is not the city but my weary eyes that make me think even the spring sun has changed. Maybe that mist which seems to cover the people is not real but just a film over my eyes.

This is not the same city where I raced my bike, leaving our small house with a garden, nor the one where I sometimes slid on my school bag on the sloping streets that are now lined with giant buildings with glass façades and big hotels.

I wish I could have saved the images of Ankara of my childhood to revisit again and again, not allowing new images to replace them.

Unfortunately, this is how our memory works. As time goes by, memory blurs and become vague. Images, sounds, and voices are superimposed, replacing each other. No wonder when I spend my time at home, I catch myself humming some worthless refrain from one of the contemporary songs they keep playing on TV nowadays instead of the beautiful melodies of the past.

What can you do? It’s not only one’s own face in the mirror that grows old.

Those serene summer afternoons when Ayla and I played in the garden are somewhere just here.

Nobody told us back then that those days would grow distant when we tried to recall them, that memories would be lost quickly, and that we wouldn’t be able to replace them with anything as pure, beautiful, happy or comforting.

No, they never warned us.

I can hear my mother’s voice calling us for afternoon tea. The wonderful smell of the warm walnut pastries and apple cookies reach all the way here.

We will go in now, and the tranquil atmosphere of the dim hallway—something that is perhaps only found in old houses—will surround us. We will make ourselves comfortable on the armchairs covered with old, dirty upholstery and wait for our tea.

When was that? Ayla had come in with a book in her hand again. She had said, “Do you remember years ago when you showed me a poem in a magazine and said that the author would be a great poet one day?

“How can I remember that?” I replied. “Is he a great poet now?”

She laughed. “I don’t know. Find out for yourself. Here’s his new book. I enjoyed it very much.”

I read the book that night. Somewhere, it said, “Childhood is something like the sky / it does not go anywhere.”

It is true. Childhood does not go anywhere. It is always there.

Everywhere we go, it tags along, as if holding our hand.

Ayla has those pictures. I used to tell her, “Don’t show these photos to anyone. Anyone who sees them will not want to marry you!” Yet, she wouldn’t listen.

In the pictures, we both look like boys. Our hair is tousled. We have bruises everywhere. We are dressed in plaid pants or overalls, and we’re either climbing on something or jumping from a tree.

It’s strange, but most of those scars are still with me. Today, when I look at my knees, elbows, or feet, I say, yes this is the one that happened when I fell out of the tree while picking mulberries with Ayla, or this happened when I fell off my bike that morning. The traces of my own little history, like chapter headings.

If I had been told that I could stop at a certain moment in my life and stay there forever, I would have chosen one of two moments.

The first is when I was rocking in the swing hanging from the branches of a tree in the garden of my childhood.

The other is the day I first kissed the man I loved more than anyone in my whole life.

In those times, I didn’t realize that a feeling which finds you suddenly at some distinct point in your life in an unexplainable way stays with you forever.

During that most wonderful kiss of my life, I felt the same excitement and joy I had while rocking on a swing. Perhaps at that moment, I realized that I had found again what I had been seeking for years without even being aware of it.

In all those books, films, and songs we were told about love.

And in ancients scrolls, legends, tales, and drawings engraved on walls, too.

Even people who do not go through adventures that involve a mysterious feeling that drags you along were carried away by the excitement of love and felt as if they were in a totally different realm.

Some have even written books, carried out experiments, or tried to define this feeling through scientific equations.

Many strived to write the common language of falling in love.

In fact, it is quite simple: you are in love if you feel as if you’re rocking on a swing when you kiss someone.

You see, I am unable to arrange my thoughts and am struggling to tell you this without confusing you.

It is as though I’ve entered the attic of a haunted house, packed with old, dusty furniture. I rummage through everything I happen to come across, bewildered, like a small child who picks up something, opens and plays with it, only to immediately pick up something else—something that attracts his attention more.

A box, cast aside and forgotten; a broken wooden horse with its red paint scraped off; a wooden puppet (the one whose nose gets longer when he lies); a bunch of old letters—who knows what lines they contain—tightly bound by an old piece of ribbon; photographs of people whose names I can hardly remember; dusty books; dolls with missing legs; broken alarm clocks; tin boxes; cracked ceramic trinkets whose polish is worn away . . .

Isn’t this the oldest thing I remember from my childhood: my brother’s steel train set painted in red and green? I used to admire how smoke blew from the locomotive as it moved along the rails. At the station, a woman dressed in a coat and a hat and carrying a chic handbag, a man in uniform—the stationmaster perhaps—and a few passengers holding their suitcases were waiting. A door on the train opened, and someone got out. When the train left again, it switched to another track, leading to either a bridge or a tunnel. It was my brother, in his short brown overalls and suspenders that never stayed in their place, who did all of this by moving the rails spread across the floor and by pulling various levers. I was stretched out on our old Erzurum carpet with its intricate and colorful design, with my head between my hands and my elbows on the floor. I kept telling my brother, “Come on, let the whistle blow, let the smoke come out.”

The music begins when the crank of the old phonograph is turned, carrying me away as if I have suddenly come across an ex-love.

Did I say “ex-love?” I do not have an ex-love. I only have one love.

Among all of the pieces of furniture, I find a red bicycle with its paint scraped away and its metal parts rusted. I wipe off the dust and manage to ring the bell. I get on the bike and let myself loose in time. Suddenly, I am racing downhill at full speed.

On a matchless winter day.

In Ankara, when I was fourteen.

On a cool, happy morning of my carefree days.

The slope goes down to the road where our home is located. I used to climb all the way up, huffing and puffing, and then come down like the wind, scared and with beating heart, yet enjoying every moment. (Many years later, I saw a film in which a little boy riding his bicycle as fast as I used to, took off and flew over the clouds. I felt exactly the same thing on that slope.)

As I speed down the hill as usual, I see my brother at the corner of the road. He is talking to a tall man I have never seen before.

I am wearing a big cap so that my hair does not fly in the wind. My father’s cap. (I usually throw away everything, but it seems I had not been able to let go of that cap. Recently, I found it at home, hidden in a corner. I couldn’t decide whether I should be happy or sad. I just sat there and cried, with the cap on my lap.)

Clouds are moving high above in the sky. White round clouds that make me think I could climb up on them and float far away, to distant unknown lands.

In the blink of an eye, I reach where my brother and the tall man are standing. Frightened that I will hit them, I quickly turn the bike and plunge to the ground.

As I stand up, trying to tidy myself, my brother laughs and says to the man, “And this is my little sister.” I blush and stare at the ground.

The man looks like an actor. His slightly graying sideburns are in pleasing harmony with his dark blue eyes. He’s wearing a khaki brown jacket with a leather collar. Underneath, he has a thick turtleneck sweater. I lift my head to look at him. His eyes glow in the wintry light. I can’t tell whether they are harsh or soft, or if they are looking at me or far into the distance. He turns to my brother and says with a mocking smile, “Your little sister is a bit mischievous, it seems.”

Is it funny that the first word I heard from him was about my “mischievousness”?

Well, that was how it happened.

Who would have known?

As we were walking home, I said to my brother, “What a cold man!”

“Cold?” he laughed. “Mr. Fuat? What do you know! All the women in Ankara are in love with him.”

I remember that the same night, in the dark, I thought about him as I slowly fell asleep.

I fantasized that one day I would suddenly appear in front of him, and he would be surprised and not know how to react when I told him that I was that boyish, mischievous girl who had not caught even a bit of his attention in the past.

My beauty would astonish him, and he would be unable to decide what to do or how to act.

If you wonder whether I really fantasized that, let me tell you the truth: I did, imagining it like a movie in my mind’s eye. The scene is still vivid in my memory.

However, the strange thing was not a fourteen-year-old girl’s daydreaming, but what was to happen afterwards.

I pulled the blanket all the way over my head.

So, he is the man with whom all the women are in love?

But of course, this was just a dream to last a single night. It was nothing more than a young girl’s fantasy no one knew about, a tale she wrote, or a film she created in her own mind.

Now we should put the pieces in their places and draw back a little so that we can see the whole picture better.

During my school years, my father used to tell me that I “walked on air.” My friends were always amazed at the things I did. It was true that I was walking on air. I still do the same. All I lacked was a couple of wings. I really don’t understand why I didn’t care a bit about all the rules people thought important and tried hard to comply with.

I have always admired the heroines in novels who do things others can’t. If you don’t do what others cannot, you can’t be a heroine in the first place, can you? You can only be one of those people who read about the life of a heroine in a book.

But no, I was sure I wanted to be one those women: someone who does not read about another’s life and daydreams, but is the heroine of an adventure who can make her dreams come true.

I thought so when I was just a little girl. Since the nights I imagined those dreams.

Can a human change his destiny? I decided to create my own destiny. That’s why I did things no one thought I would. I tried to build a future for myself that I desired. Maybe everything has happened just because of this. Sometimes I suspect it. Maybe that great power I challenged wanted to tell me that only He was capable of determining human destiny.

In fact, life was difficult.

I realized this much later. Had I known it earlier, would I have been so hasty in starting a new life for myself?

I was a senior in high school. One day, when I came home from school, my mother told me, “Your Aunt Süheyla will visit us tomorrow. She’ll have another family with her. I’ve heard that their son works for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has been appointed to a diplomatic position in America. I think he saw you outside one day.”

“What do you mean? Will he ask me to marry him?” I was shocked.

“Yes, but if you ask my opinion, I’m not in favor of it. Besides, I wouldn’t want you to go so far away. Nevertheless, we cannot ask them not to visit. Let them come. We can ask for time to think and then send them a negative answer in the proper way.”

“I won’t marry anyone. Why should I? How could you come up with such a strange idea?” I was furious.

“My dear, nobody’s telling you to get married, but this is the way things happen. You have grown up, and you have to get used to the fact that people will ask for your hand in marriage.”

“I’ll never get used to it!”

A world map signed by smet nönü was hanging on my wall. A big, old map. My father had given it to me. I went to my room and looked at it. America . . . so far away . . . like a dream . . . across the ocean . . . the country of stars. How do you get there? How can you cross such a long distance?

“How? By boat, of course!” said my brother.

“I bet it lasts too long.

I’d immediately get seasick.”

“Hey, I think you are willing to get married but you’re putting on an act! I will never hand over my dear sister to a stranger, let alone allow her to go to the other end of the world.”

“Are you kidding? I only asked because I was curious. What on earth would I do there with a total stranger? Think of it! Besides, did you forget that I’m going to enroll in Türk Kuşu to become a pilot? I’ll soar in the sky in my plane and fly over you while you’re riding your horse.”

“That sounds more like you. I wouldn’t believe my eyes if I saw you cooking in the kitchen.”

“God forbid!”

The lights in our house were always on. They still are, even today. Wherever I live, the rooms are always filled with light. Perhaps this habit was born out of the distress and darkness of the war years.

“What is this again? The whole house is like a torchlight procession!” my mother always grumbled, yet my father never turned the lights off.

When all the lights in the house are on, I go back to those days. I feel as if I have always been there with my parents and my brother, with whom I continuously joked, and I feel that I’m not alone.

I’m scared of loneliness.

I cannot sleep when the lights are off.

I have never wanted to be left alone. But here I am, in solitude. I feel isolated even when surrounded by many people. All alone, I turn on all the lights in the house and spend my time like that, day and night. Life is like this: if you’re afraid of loneliness, be good to everyone and do everything others tell you to; otherwise, they will leave you by yourself.

All the lights were on again. My brother made fun of my long, embroidered dress.

“Look at our little one! She’s turned into a lady without our noticing. Those high-heeled shoes suit you. If only you could walk properly in them!”

Standing in front of the mirror, I scrutinized myself. My hair, combed and made pretty, covered my shoulders. My mother had applied some of her mascara to my eyelashes. My long red dress, with a collar and buttoned in the front, had a fabulous fine texture.

When my mother entered the room, she could not turn her gaze away from me. Our eyes met in the mirror.

“My dear girl, did you really grow up so fast! We haven’t realized how you have grown and blossomed!” Tears filled her eyes, and she was silent. My mother cried almost about everything. I don’t.

When my father saw me, I blushed and looked down. He held my hand and had me turn around. “Look at my little tigress,” he said. “She has become a young woman. I feel as if I have already lost you”

That evening, we all laughed about my pretty, doll-like appearance.

Later, Turgut told me, “When I stepped into your house that evening and saw you, I was dumbfounded. I was expecting to see a European-looking, scrawny girl wearing pants and a cap, and when I saw such a beauty, my heart skipped a beat.”

Yet, when I saw him, my heart did not beat faster.

I only remember having thought what a nice, deep voice he had and how well he spoke. I told my brother, “He talks like a radio announcer.”

Most of the time, he kept his head down. Our eyes didn’t even meet, or maybe only once. Then I went to another room, and with my brother who had followed me, listened to the guests in the living room. “As you know, our aim in coming here tonight is . . .”

“Idiot, he’s drinking salty coffee with pleasure!” We giggled and ran inside.

Later, Turgut said, “Of course I realized you had put salt in my coffee, but I liked that you did something so naughty.”

No one thought I would assent to such a marriage arrangement. The subject wasn’t even discussed at home for many days. Then other people, some acquaintances, tried to intercede. People whom my father greatly respected paid visits to us.

Ayla made me describe the whole procedure in detail. My mother scolded us a couple of times as we discussed the same subject, and we had a good time laughing.

Ayla was always saying, “We are not so foolish as to marry. I couldn’t stand some guy telling me what to do. I’ll do whatever I want. I’ll earn money and spend it myself. That’s it!”

She and I used to have so many dreams. First, we would travel throughout Anatolia. Then we would discover the world. As my father said, we would surpass all men and achieve the greatest success.

Then, one evening my father wanted to talk to me. As usual, all the lights in the living room were on. “Sit down, young lady,” he said, and I took a seat in one of the heavy brown velvet armchairs.

He was drinking tea from a small delicate glass and eating dried raisins, as usual. He took a sip, placed his glass in the saucer, and leaned back in his chair.

“My dear daughter, you saw that young lad. Tell me what you think. I know what answer I would give, but I’d like your opinion.”

My brother was reading the newspaper. My mother joined us, holding a plate full of apples.

I was perched on my seat. When I had to talk about something serious with my father, I was never able to look directly into his eyes. So as usual, I gazed at the floor.

“I’ve made my decision,” I said.

The living room lights, mixed with our images, reflected on the window panes. I looked out the window into the distance.

“And?” said my father.

“I’m going to get married,” I replied.

The plate dropped from my mother’s hands, and the green and red apples rolled across the floor. My brother jumped up, throwing down his newspaper. A look of shock spread across my father’s face.

“What are you saying?” My mother stammered. “This girl of ours is teasing us.”

“No, I’m not,” I said. “I want to get married.”

“She’s nuts. She has gone crazy!” shouted my brother.

“Wait a minute,” my father interjected, trying to calm them down. Then he turned to me, “This is nothing to joke about. I did not give the matter much consideration because I thought you weren’t interested. I asked you for the sake of custom since we have to give them an answer. So what do you say? Do you really want to marry him?”

His voice was cracked. He was at a loss as to what to say.

“Yes, I want to marry him. I’ve made my decision.”

My mother began to cry.

They knew that when I said I would do something, I always did it.

“This is all your fault,” my mother began to reproach my father.

“Are you really going to let her go to the other end of the world?” my brother exclaimed. “With a man she doesn’t even know! Say something, Mother . . .” He stopped speaking when my father motioned for him to keep silent.

“She is not going anywhere now. Let’s stop this discussion and sleep on it. We’ll talk again tomorrow. It’s late.”

I thought I should not think about the matter anymore. I had reached a decision. It was over.

If you think about something too long, you cannot do anything in the end.

My brother was angry with me. Before going to bed, he came to my room, stared at me through the door, and said, “I thought you were intelligent. What happened to ‘becoming a pilot’? Like a peasant girl, you’re going to marry the first guy who shows interest in you. Good for you!”

My mother also came to my room. She stroked my hair and talked for a long time. “You’re so young,” she said. “You have no idea about housework or managing a household. You don’t even know that young man. We won’t be around. You’ll be far away. Somewhere you don’t even know. This is no game. What if you’re unhappy or bored. What will you do then? Other people won’t put up with your moodiness or pamper you like we do. Both of you would be upset then! Oh, God! Why did I let them come? It’s all my fault. On the other hand, he looks like a nice, friendly young man, but . . .”

My mother! My dear mother! I found out much later that mothers can realize certain truths immediately. He was just like you described him, Mother: a nice and friendly man.

But what can a woman in whom storms break and tempests roar do with a nice, friendly man?

In those days, however, I did not recognize or understand this.

When Ayla heard my decision, she was speechless. She didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t believe it. “I knew you were a bit crazy, but I wasn’t aware that you were insane!” she finally exclaimed. “Why don’t you also give birth to five children so that you can all play together?” She thought that I was having a good time fooling everyone and that I would change my mind in a couple of days.

When my brother couldn’t succeed in changing my mind by mockery, he tried a different method. “They should at least meet each other a few times, go out for dinner, and see if they can get along or not,” he nagged my mother. “I can’t believe it! You’re saying nothing, as if that fellow is a rarity. He’s just an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. What’s the hurry? My sister is certainly out of her senses, but what about you?”

In the end, Turgut, my brother, and I went out for dinner.

Turgut told us stories. He described how our life in the States would be. He talked about great men and great events. The world was being reconstructed there, and we would take our place in that new world. It would be an excellent opportunity for me. I would be able to improve my English, read, and meet new people. This would be beneficial for our future. He spoke about everything in great detail. I didn’t say much. At first, my brother was rather distant, but then he joined in the conversation. Eventually, the two of them seemed to like and understand each other.

I don’t know if my brother’s opinion was changed by that dinner, but at least he stopped objecting.

For days, many people visited us. My mother and my aunts welcomed the guests, and while appearing to be happy about the “favorable event,” they kept whispering and murmuring to each other when alone and didn’t cease complaining.

I remember the evening I accepted the marriage offer. I had told myself that I wasn’t a girl who would spend time in silly romances, watch a man’s changing moods and try to attribute meanings to them, worry if he would call or not, wonder if he still loved me, brood over something he said, or carry a handkerchief wet with tears. I convinced myself that it was better not to marry someone I loved passionately but someone who loved and admired me.

How strange! I must have gotten those ideas from the novels I used to read back then.

Oh, those pitiful people who consider themselves intelligent and think that they will be able to create their own fate, which, in fact, they do not even believe in.

As I lay wide awake on my bed in the dark, I thought that I was about to go to a distant land where I would be able to do everything I wanted and that I would be very happy. Hadn’t my brother always said, “You do not suit this place. You’re very young now, but when you grow older, people will not smile and chuckle at the things you do and the way you behave. Beware.”

I wonder why I decided to say “yes”—an answer that even surprised my suitor—when my peers were patiently waiting for their “prince on a white horse,” like in the novels they read.

Who wouldn’t be amazed to see such an intractable, rebellious, frivolous girl get married to her first suitor, without even holding his hand, and accept accompanying him to the other side of the world?

Even I can’t believe it when I look back and think.

Everything happened in a hurry.

Not even a special wedding gown was sewn for me. A tailor called Hatice cut up an old wedding gown belonging to one of my aunts and sewed the pieces into a dress fitting my measurements. We prepared a tiara of flowers for my head. My mother placed the flowers one by one. As she looked at me in the mirror while stringing the fresh flowers, she kept crying. Ayla tried to act strong, restraining her tears, but as I said good-bye, she hugged me and began sobbing. What I had done began to sink in at that moment. Perhaps I wouldn’t see them for a long time. I wouldn’t be near my best friend, my brother, my mother—and my father, who tried hard to look strong, doing his best to conceal his teary eyes, unable to believe that his daughter was about to fly away.

I confess that I clenched my jaw, and fists too. With a plastic smile on my face, I kept talking nonsense, telling people things like “we’ll see each other soon” or “I’ll see you in no time.”

Everyone was saying I looked like a beautiful doll. Funny, since my mother had bought a giant doll dressed in a wedding gown and given it to me as a present to take along. Ayla was carrying the doll around, not letting go of it even for an instant. (That doll, with her fixed smile and bead-like eyes, followed me everywhere I went. She has stayed with me all this time. There she is now, sitting in the corner. Her wedding gown is a bit dirty after so many years.)

After the wedding ceremony, attended by only a few guests, we went directly to my in-laws’ home. Upon entering their house, I was overcome by a sudden discomfort and gloom. “What have I done?” I thought, and my eyes filled with tears. I was on the verge of crying. Had it been possible I would have run back home. All I wanted at that moment was to be in my own room, in my own bed, cuddled under my own quilt and to wake up in the morning to my old life.

I got up from the armchair I had collapsed into and went to the bathroom to wash my face. With great difficulty, I resisted fleeing.

Soon we were shown to our bedroom. My mother-in-law brought a few towels, pajamas, and a pair of slippers. Then she closed the door and walked away.

We—a timid young couple—were all alone in front of the big double bed.

That confident, lighthearted young man with a European air was no longer beside me; a helpless, tongue-tied young lad stood next to me, unsure of what to say or do. I couldn’t believe my situation. We sat there without uttering a word for at least half an hour. He perched on the foot of the bed, and I sat on an armchair. He continually poured water into a glass from the pitcher on the night table, gulped it down, and asked every now and then if I wanted some too. The pitcher was soon empty. Eventually, he said, “Okay. Why don’t you take off your wedding gown and let’s go to bed. We have to leave early tomorrow.”

Blood rushed to my face.

What an odd tradition! I had never undressed next to anyone. Not even my brother had seen me in my nightgown. How could I go to bed with a total stranger? I was furious and broke out in a sweat. “Mr. Turgut,” I said sternly. “Go out and smoke a cigarette. I’ll change and get into bed. Then you can come in. Understood?”

Although taken aback by my authoritarian tone, he laughed. “Yes, ma’am,” he said and left the room.

I quickly took off my wedding gown and put on that foolish-looking ruffled nightgown. I jumped into the bed and pulled up the heavy hand-embroidered quilt.

I had thought I would stay awake out of excitement, but in fact, I dozed off before he returned to the room. He did not have the heart to wake me up. So, we both went to bed and fell asleep without doing anything else. Thankfully, we were to set off at dawn.

First, we traveled to London. For the first time in my life, I was in a foreign country. Eveything was brand new. I felt both free and caged at the same time. It is hard to describe. I enjoyed seeing new things and places, strolling around like a grown-up woman; yet, at the same time, I missed the people I had left behind and felt depressed because I realized that this was not a holiday but the beginning of a long new life.

We went sightseeing and shopping. Turgut enjoyed choosing clothes for me. This gave him the chance to buy me what he wanted me to wear. A proper little lady. A young, European woman. Neither feminine nor childish. For him, everything in life had to comply with norms. Everything had to be according to the rules. Nothing could be extreme.

We visited museums and castles. We took walks along the river. Turgut kept telling me romantic things. He spoke about films and novels and even recited poetry, acting as if we were two sweethearts desperately in love. His voice was impressive and very soft. Even when one did not pay attention to the content of his words, listening to his voice was enjoyable. One evening, we went out to dinner. Just the two of us. Candles were lit. Wine was served. I had put on makeup and my prettiest blue dress.

“Look,” he said, “everyone’s watching us.”

Turgut was truly happy about that.

Everyone really did look at us—wherever we went. Maybe they thought I was too young. Whatever I wore, I looked like a young girl. As soon as people learned we were newlyweds, they took interest in us. In shops, they gave us presents; in restaurants, they offered us drinks; and in cafés, they wanted to chat with us.

But I was not in love with Turgut. In fact, he was not in love with me either. Why would someone fall in love with a kid whom he had seen from a distance?

The stories of love and romance did not last long. He was not convincing, and I did not enjoy hearing them.

Turgut had dreams of his own. He wanted to develop strong connections in America. He would prove his worth and capability and be promoted. He would learn another language. We would wait for a few years to have a child.

Before we had left Turkey, Turgut and my father had had a talk. My father had asked him to make sure that I continued my education. Now Turgut told me I could at least attend a language school.

He was a good soul. He wanted me to be happy. He believed that by conforming to the rules and through mutual respect, a couple could look forward to the future and be happy. He believed that a life could be constructed in this way. In reality, he had so few expectations that there was no reason he could not be happy with any woman.

One evening before we went for abroad, my mother had struggled to tell me something. When she couldn’t do it, she had told my aunt to tell me. My aunt, in a rather indirect way, said that one did not always find what she wished for in marriage and that if that happened in my case, I would eventually get used to it.

At that time, I hadn’t understood what she meant.

Our home in the united States was in a suburban town full of beautiful two-storey houses surrounded by greenery.

The neighborhood was so green that in the first few days I was amazed that there could be so many trees in a city. One could even see squirrels scampering about.

For some incomprehensible reason, everyone is fond of America. I’m not. I wonder if this dislike has something to do with the fact that I spent the first years of my marriage there and that I had suddenly found myself all alone in an entirely different world.

Turgut always came up with new things to try to make me happy. He invited Turkish people to our home, organized the kind of weekend picnics Americans are crazy about, or took me to different places and events, from drive-ins to boat races.

Bored to death, I played all sorts of sports: bowling, tennis, anything. I went to a language school. I mowed the lawn at home. I drove around town in a convertible. Everyone thought I was American. I dressed like an American, and I acted like an American. In a short time, I even began talking like an American. I made friends with everyone, from neighbors to blond girls with bobs.

Everyone envied us. All those women, who tried hard to be attractive for their husbands and gave birth to one child after another, kept saying how they admired us and what an exemplary couple we were.

They were surprised that a girl—from somewhere like ancient Egypt, they thought—was like them. They kept on making me tell them about Turkey and listened in awe as if I were talking about a land that had long disappeared.

What I remember most vividly, I suppose, is the drive-in movie theaters. Turgut’s biggest hobbies were cars and comic books. As soon as we arrived in the united States, he bought a second-hand car from someone who was leaving the embassy: a dark green, plump convertible. It was a huge car. I used to struggle to open the doors. It had snow-white leather seats, a wooden steering wheel, and white tires. Turgut adored it. Every Saturday, he spent hours washing and polishing it in front of our house. Only after that could we go for a ride.

On summer nights, as we sat in the car, watching a movie at the drive-in, I would wrap a shawl around my shoulders and lose myself in dreams. We must have watched an amazing number of films, but if you asked me, I wouldn’t be able to remember even one of them in much detail.

Later, when we were alone at home in the evening, I would either take a seat in front of the television or pick up a book and make myself comfortable in an armchair.

We did not talk much. Days went by in the same way, as if this were the normal way to lead a married life. Turgut seemed content. On the other hand, I guess few women at that time had the slightest thought of asking their husbands, “Do you think we’re happy?”

Life was like that: get a two-storey house with a garden, have children, go on a picnic with your new car on the weekends, attend evening parties where the women played bridge and the men watched a game on TV or discussed politics. The kids would grow up, get married, and the number of framed photographs on the shelves, sideboards, and coffee table would increase. When you got old, you would expect the children to celebrate New Year’s Eve at your place, sit with your grandchildren on your lap, and hope that they would be consoled with a few fond memories at your funeral, which, hopefully, would be memorable.

This was how the families on TV lived. Beautiful young mothers, who waited for their husbands at home and tried to be close friends with their children, told us that a small world in a small house could be the most beautiful planet in the universe.

What else did you expect it to be like?

Turgut worked zealously and enthusiastically. He constantly told me about our future life—how he wanted his life to be.

We would have children. (two were enough.) Perhaps we would have to spend a few years in a distant and rather undesirable country, but it had to be. After that, we would return to Ankara. From then on, things would be easier. Besides being able to save a lot of money, we would be assigned to European capitals.

He made a great start to his career as a diplomat. Even at night, he read about history and studied. Although he was not interested, he bought books about art history, attended the opera and ballet, and began to learn a third language.

Diplomats were genial, intelligent people who never revealed their personal opinion, no matter what subject was discussed.

The luncheons and dinners had to be in accordance with certain unwritten but well-understood rules. There were specific ways to give compliments, and diplomats’ wives were responsible for choosing presents that would be sent to Turkey, as well as welcoming visitors from abroad and showing them around.

I was not very adept at any of these tasks.

Thankfully, I was still considered too young, so no one really minded.

Even when I said the wrong things at the wrong time, people smiled at Turgut as if to say, “Don’t worry. We know that she’s still a child. Soon, she will understand and get used to these things.”

Once Fuat told me, “Sometimes I forget that you’re just a child, but I’m still amazed how you can say such things and do whatever you wish even at this age.”

They have always wondered. Bewildered. All of them . . .

All my life, I have heard the gossip that followed me. Wherever I went, I noticed how everyone suddenly stopped talking as soon as I stepped into the room.

Wasn’t it the same even at school? Everyone tried hard to get on well with me, yet they still adopted a hands-off attitude. I never had a close friend except Ayla. Was that because I always said things openly instead of gossiping or saying things behind people’s backs? Maybe it was because it was impossible to determine the course of my actions.

There was another thing they could not comprehend: some people build their lives as they will. Others make do just with talking about the lives of others.

I didn’t want to waste my life talking about the lives of other people.

So I let them talk about mine.

Would they respect me because I was devoted to my husband? Or because I did not break the rules? Was I supposed to live my life as they wanted, so that they would not talk behind my back and spread their repulsive gossip?

Of course I couldn’t do that, and I didn’t even care.

Why should I care about what people think of me, especially when I don’t find them worthy?

It doesn’t matter one bit to me!

Even as a child, I pitied such people. I used to secretly watch my mother’s friends who came to our house for tea parties. I always felt sorry for those women, who had nothing to talk about except their husbands and the lives of people they had never met.

They were the kind of people who did not say what they really thought but what others wanted to hear.

I often used to tell myself I would never ever be like them, even if they knocked me down.

And I did not become like them.

To tell the honest truth, I fought against myself in those days.

I had no one to tell me what to do. I was at the beginning of a new life, and it did not have a user’s manual. What had to be done was obvious. What’s more, it was the same for everyone.

Each of us was one of those ordinary women: volunteers who promised to make a comfortable home so that our husbands would be successful and buy us more.

If you didn’t question too much, watched what others were doing, and followed the right example, the same system continued onas if it were a secret scroll transferred from one to another.

But that kind of life bored me to death.

After Turgut went to bed, I used to lie on the big sofa in the living room and read novels that transported me to different worlds. After watching a film, I used to live in that film for many days.

It almost felt as if a different person dwelled inside of me: that good old friend of mine. The friend inside my mind who had talked to me when I was a child, shared my lonely moments, come with me wherever I went, shared my happiness and sadness, known when my heart was broken when no one else did, and given me advice. My imaginary friend had grown up, too, but stayed with me.

Most of you have known such a friend. The friend in you who shared your deepest secrets. Yet, one day you discovered that your friend, your confidant, had gone away quietly and secretly, without even leaving a letter of farewell, as if she had known that she had to go.

What can I say? My friend didn’t leave me.

My friend is still here, by my side, sitting in that chair across from me and laughing about my situation.

Strange, but after a while, I began to confuse our identities: who’s she and who am I?

I used to wake up one day thinking life was beautiful with all the small things that were part of it.

When I woke up the next day, I thought I had made a real mess of my life and hated myself for being like one of those women stuck in their small worlds.

We were still at the beginning of everything, a whole life that would be spent in the same way. Slowly but surely, joy would fade away, and all the new images would age and wear out.

Sometimes I would think I had married a very nice person and that even though we were not having a great romance like in the movies or in novels, such romances always ended in disaster. Real life consisted of the framed photographs of children.

Then, unbearable anguish would overwhelm me, and I would ponder the impossible prospect of spending my whole life with a man who had no idea about who I was and would never understand even a tiny bit of what I thought or felt.

I had once seen a machine at the hospital. When the thin line on the screen no longer moved, people understood the patient had died.

I felt the same way. Our machine neither emitted a sound nor indicated the slightest stir.

Our life was a straight, thin line.

How bizarre! We often do not tell the most noteworthy things to the ones we love, and when we finally do, they cannot hear us anymore.

Some mornings one wakes up with a strange feeling of distress for no reason at all. Something obscure, a vague uneasy feeling, a kind of worry eats your heart, yet you do not know why.

It was such a morning. A cold morning in March. In the garden next door, children wearing colorful hats were dressing a giant snowman with a long red scarf with tassels. They stuck a carrot in the middle of its face. I listened to their merry giggles as they threw snowballs at each other and rolled on the snow-covered ground. Peggy Lee was singing on the radio: “There’s a small hotel with a wishing well. I wish that we were there together. Not a sign of people. Who wants people.” I was sitting back comfortably and sipping my morning tea on a light yellow armchair with a strange elongated form. We had bought it from the big furniture store that had recently opened on the outskirts of town, but Turgut had somehow come not to like this piece of furniture.

A photo of Audrey Hepburn receiving an award was on the first page of the daily paper. She had been given it for her role in that film where she played the part of a princess who fooled all the news reporters in Rome, strolled alone on the streets, and met a journalist.

The paper also reported on the cancerous effect of cigarettes, as well as that the tobacco companies objected to this news.

It was a morning in March.

The doorbell rang just as I was scrutinizing Audrey’s necklace. As soon as I saw Turgut on our doorstep, I sensed that something was wrong.

“I’ve just received some news. Your father has fallen ill and been hospitalized. But don’t worry, he’s okay.”

It was obvious he was lying, but I wanted to believe him. He had already made arrangements for me to fly to Turkey early the next day.

That odd distress in the morning, the way my heart had been clenched, was apparently not irrelevant.

When I arrived in Ankara, my brother picked me up at the airport, and we went directly to the hospital. On the way there, he told me my father was temporarily unconscious but was expected to regain consciousness any time. Everything had happened late at night, without warning.

When we got to the hospital, my mother cried for a long while, embracing me tightly. My father was all alone in a room, lying on a bed. A silent, white, plain room.

Like a helpless child, he lay there with his eyes closed, his long white eyebrows curling upward, his luxuriant gray hair spread out on the pillow. His face was very pale.

I stood beside his bed and held his hand. I waited for him to open his eyes, to chat with me like in the old days, or at least to smile with his eyes. In fact, I wanted nothing more than to hear him say my name.

Nights passed. And mornings, too.

In that cold, gloomy hospital room—purgatory opening to the land of the dead—I watched that old man waste away, day by day. Sitting there and holding his hand only made me realize that all was in vain and that we were in desperate straits against this relentless blow of life.

It was unbelievable. I couldn’t understand. Even though I lived far away and did not see him, I had never thought my father would leave us all alone and go away. I believed he would stay with us forever. He would remain intact as the pillar of our home who ensured the order of our lives.

I had never seen him become ill, complain, or get tired and rest at home.

My father had always been the same. Like a rock. He had always been a lively, strong, healthy man, with a deep, loud voice, who was active all the time.

It was a nightmare to watch him lie there without stirring, without even moving his eyelids, as if he were cross with all of us. I felt like screaming, but I couldn’t make a sound. I wanted to wake up from that nightmarish sleep, fluttering like a bird.

I would wake up and they would tell me it had all been a bad dream. Everything would return to its usual course. I would get out of bed and start a brand new day full of happiness and joy, hastening to tell everyone about my nightmare.

I wish it had happened like that: just like in a bad dream.

People came and left. They stuck needles into his feet and hands and studied those machines that we watched too, hoping they would give us good news any moment. In the end, all people said was, “Where there’s life, there’s hope.”

During those long days and nights, I found out there is but one very short moment between life and death, a moment we can never perceive.

That unknown moment would come one day and this promenade would end. That was all that would happen.

I wished so much that he would wake up suddenly, just for a short while, say his last words like in films, and that we could tell each other the things we had not been able to say in a lifetime.

A few hours before I had arrived, he had still been able to speak. He had asked about me and reproached my mother, saying, “Didn’t I tell you we shouldn’t have sent her so far away?”

After that, he had not uttered a single word.

My mother told this to everyone who came to visit.

“Oh, God,” I thought, “Why? Why did you withhold those few things from me and my father? Why didn’t you let him stay conscious for a few more hours? Why didn’t you let him know that his dear daughter came and that she is there by his side?”

I was confused. I was scared. I was helpless.

I was unhappy as I had never been before.

You find yourself suddenly in ruins. You had been in a happy home all together, laughing with joy, and a tremor of a few seconds smashes to pieces that secure life you thought would last forever. The ground slides from under your feet as if moved by an earthquake.

We placed the bright flowers I had brought into a vase on the night table next to his bed. I looked at those flowers and imagined that I would lie in a similar bed one day, while people waited for me to open my eyes. I had no idea when that time would come.

No one knew.

As my father lay in his bed without the slightest movement, we knew nothing. We didn’t even know if he knew what had happened to him, where he was, if he felt pain, or heard us. Nothing.

Maybe he was having a dream and was in utter confusion, unable to decide which direction to take. Perhaps he was just standing there in his dream, without knowing which of the roads in front of him he should choose. Or, maybe he was roaming around comfortably in his dream, as if he had found his real home in a garden that looked surprisingly familiar to him.

In the end, he left us late one night.

He left before I could say anything to him, before I could look in his eyes for the last time, and before he let us beg him to come back.

If there’s a moment in life that truly determines our lives, mine was when I kept vigil over him, half asleep and half awake.

During those hours, the uselessness of the life I was trying to establish dawned upon me.

I realized that nothing in this world is safe and secure. We are cast about by the whirlpool of life that is stronger than each of us, and one day, unexpectedly, we are flung out. In my mind, I gave up.

I gave up everything.

We are on a spinning merry-go-round. We either spend those few short moments lost in bliss, or we choose to spend them in vain, asking ourselves why we keep spinning.

I chose the first option.

Without even being aware of my choice.

I had held my father’s hand and told him I’d never leave him again, yet he had left me and gone far away. I learned that we could not keep someone with us for a lifetime just by holding onto his hand tightly.

I wish the reason for my trip to Turkey had been to see my mother and brother and share so many wonderful stories and memories.

We had not seen each other for such a long time, and I had many things to tell them.

Another country, the people I had met, my school, my marriage, programs on television, the drive-in cinema, giant shopping malls.

We were not able to talk about any of this. At such a period in our lives, the details of a distant life on the other side of the ocean, the new home I had decorated myself with modern furniture, the neighborhood where all the grass was cut to the same height, the squirrels, the convertible, and the photos of the trips we had taken were suddenly unimportant.

The presents I had specially selected for my father (sports shoes one could not find in Turkey, and carefully selected books), gloves and hats for my mother, boots for horseback riding and the latest music records for my brother.

I had imagined how happy they would be when I gave them their presents. I had missed them so much that I had constructed and played a beautiful picture of happiness as we met again in my mind over and over. I imagined how we would all sit in our living room with all the lights on, surrounded with enough food to feed an army, talking about the good old days. I would tell them about all the delicious dishes I was able to cook and would ask for new recipes.

Yet, when we returned home, and my mother, my brother and I were finally alone late at night after all the relatives, acquaintances, and neighbors had left, after having listened to all the talk about my father and what a special man he was, and after there were no more tears left to cry, we could not find much to speak about, even if we had wished to.

My brother gathered and organized our father’s documents and all the odds and ends in his drawer. My father had glued photographs of my brother and me taken at almost every age into a notebook, putting dates and short notes next to them to remind himself of those days.

After a rainy funeral, days full of pain and confusion, and nights passed praying and chanting for the deceased, I left my mother and brother again without even being able to embrace them in joy and happiness.

I was shattered, as if something inside me had cracked. Subdued, as if I had grown up suddenly.

A few weeks later, when the first rays of the sun appeared, heralding the end of the freezing, gloomy winter that had imprisoned us at home, we went on a trip to the Midwest.

I guess our friends had organized this trip since they thought I needed a change and that I was no longer a laughing, joking childish young women but a taciturn, distant person who stopped talking in the middle of a sentence, gazed vacantly, and whose eyes filled with tears at any moment.

As the whole group, we crowded into our cars and followed each other.

We drove on newly constructed, broad, well-organized highways.

We saw new houses spread everywhere. We gazed at modern districts of small identical homes with gardens.

New type of restaurants to gobble food . . . drive-in cinemas everywhere, one after the other . . . motels advertised with flashing signs . . . oil wells . . . bicycles, new-generation family cars loaded with tents, golf clubs . . . solitude in a vast land extending as far as the eye could see.

Finally, when we arrived at a small town, we found it decorated with flags. As we walked along the road with houses lining both sides, we remarked that the flags gave the town a holiday spirit.

A flag was placed by the door of each small house within a garden. The greenery and the immaculate nature of this small town almost invited one to spend a whole life there.

We felt as if we had entered a town in one of those American films that opened with beautiful music, making it clear from the beginning that the story would have a happy ending. We waited for “Mr. Smith” to pop out from somewhere with a broad smile on his face and solve all our problems.

Then, all of a sudden, we realized that photographs were hanging in each window—pictures of young soldiers.

They were not celebrating a holiday here.

In this town, a son from almost every home had failed to return.

At once, that joyful, bright spring day turned into a gloomy winter evening. That dream-like town, which made one happy to be alive, disappeared.

What we had mistaken for holiday spirit was, in fact, commemoration of unforgettable pain.

I had thought they had won the war somewhere, far away. I had forgotten that no one can win a war.

Those kids who looked like heroes in their framed photographs embellished with Purple Hearts, those smiling kids, had suddenly died one day in a foreign country. They had not said good-bye to their parents, to their childhood, to their girlfriends or fiancées, to their schools, and their ordinary everyday lives because they had been shot by a bullet fired from the gun of some other kid they didn’t know, who had perhaps left his own life and family behind to go to war.

Far away from home.

Years had passed, but every spring the town was still decorated with flags to commemorate the day those boys had been wished a safe journey, and the photographs and medals were placed in the windows of every home, where a silent acrid pain would prevail forever.

On that spring day, when a wonderful outing had turned into an unexpected shock, I asked myself which moment of happiness could ever veil the deep anguish of those mothers.

In those years, everyone used to go around with babies in their arms, and everything was arranged to accommodate families with many children.

Everyone we knew asked us when we would have our first child. People who did not have a child within the first few years of marriage were considered strange.

This thought, which had excited me now and then, turned to fear as I passed by those houses decorated with flags and photographs.

Tell me: what happiness that came from living with the children whose pictures now hung on those window was worth endless pain?

The war had passed right through my childhood, like a storm that horrifies you even when you are in a sheltered and secure home. I don’t remember much, except what my father used to tell us now and then, and that we often had to turn off all the lights in the house.

Later, I happened to meet a woman in London, who was only a couple of years older than I was.

She told me that one day she and the other Jewish people were brought to one of those death camps where they were stripped naked, and she explained what they felt at the terrifying moment when they expected gas from the shower heads to fill the room.

In those horrifying minutes, they expected death instantly.

Then, all of a sudden, water instead of gas poured from the showers. Sheer fortune. Unexpected luck had saved them from the incredible nightmare that had cost the lives of millions.

She was only a little girl when they were picked up and put into trains where they shivered in the cold: they knew they were being taken to their death. She was talking about the years I used to play hopscotch in our backyard. Maybe it had happened on one of those tranquil spring days in Ankara, on one of those afternoons when my mother had called me into the house, combed my hair, and given me cookies and tea. Or perhaps I was in Kandilli, enjoying the warm summer days at my grandmother’s house, when that girl set off on her bitter journey, trembling in a train that passed somewhere just a few hundred miles away from where I was.

That is how it was.

Just a few hundred miles.

Just a few hours away.

You just can’t comprehend what really happened even when you see the traces of those mass graves, watch those films, or read those books.

When we were in the united States, the diary of a young girl was published.

The diary of a girl who managed to hide with her family in a house in Amsterdam for two years, but who was eventually caught, sent to a concentration camp, and about whom nothing was ever heard again.

I read that book and studied the girl’s smiling face.

I read what she wrote in a tiny den where she lived for two long years without getting any fresh air, what she felt and experienced day by day, and how she grew up while sharing a whole life in her diary.

I was not able to discern the truth when I saw the faces of mothers and fathers in that town decorated with flags, but only years later, when I sat opposite that woman in the café and listened to her story as she gulped down her cream-filled cake.

The human being is the only creature capable of genocide.

As she told me her story, with tears rolling down her cheeks every now and then, I listened in rage and bitterness, mortified and remorseful, promising myself that I would never forget how this woman—who was my age but looked different by light-years—was still able to cling to life.

Thank God that I had not been busy with collecting memories, making photo albums, or carrying all the petty stuff that I had accumulated over the years.

If I had created a photo album, perhaps most of the photos would have shown me packing my suitcases.

Whether because of packing up, being dragged from one place to another or, as my mother says, of having rushed even at the time of my birth, I was not able to become a real part of this world.

We, the images and I (what does it matter anyway), have passed each other by.

Yet, that morning, when I put the beautiful new dolls for the neighbors (there were even small closets and tiny tea cups for a dollhouse), the small things I had bought for my mother, my brother Nihat, and Ayla, and my records into my suitcase, I remember that the radio announced the Russians had made a bomb that was stronger than the atom bomb. I can still visualize that day. I walk on the wet autumn leaves in the garden and step into the car. As the car moves, I turn back and look at the charming house I’m leaving behind.

We were returning to Ankara. I was overcome by an incomprehensible sense of excitement. Turgut was surprised. “Let’s see how you’ll get used to Ankara again, after such a long time,” he said.

“Let us in fact see how people in Ankara will get used to me!” I answered, chuckling.

He and I always had an invisible, unmentioned wall between us. Neither of us attempted to break down that wall. Strange, but we succeeded in living like two not-so-close friends sharing a house.

He was one of those people who managed not to show any sign of emotion.

For him, life was a simple mechanism that was predetermined, confined, and clearly defined by rules.

Great happiness, joy, excitement, and non-conforming acts had no place in his life.

Maybe that is why he didn’t experience great disappointments, frustrations or destruction.

Who knows, maybe his way is the right way. I confess that sometimes when I found myself swirled into maelstroms, I secretly envied his way of constructing a life.

Life was a duty for him. Responsibilities towards everyone had to be fulfilled, work had to have priority above everything else, a certain distance had to be kept in relationships with other people, all rules had to be followed, and in his little free time, he had to do things to develop himself.

For him, even having fun was a duty to be fulfilled.

Acting on impulse and knocking at someone’s door one evening without planning beforehand, seeing someone you miss, going somewhere you have never been and spending the whole night there . . .

No, none of these things were acceptable to him. Waking up on the weekends, mowing the grass, dusting the books and placing them in their exact place on the shelves, organizing the drawers, tearing scrap paper first into four and then into eight exact pieces and then throwing them in the garbage can, separating the clothes that had to be taken to the dry cleaner, washing the car, strolling in the afternoon, shopping, visiting places that had to be seen, and going to the cinema and the theater were all arranged according to a fixed program.

I used to watch in amazement as he wrote the greeting cards that had his name printed with his beautiful handwriting and carefully placed them one by one into envelopes long before each religious holiday and New Year’s Eve.

He did not call his mother on impulse all those years he spent away from her. The exact day and the time to call his mother was set: every week on Friday.

His biggest interests were cars and comic books, which he read as enthusiastically as a little kid, whenever he wasn’t busy improving himself by learning Mandarin Chinese, practicing the flute, or attending the opera.

He also read health magazines and books on technology, paid attention to his diet, smoked once in a blue moon, and limited himself to one glass of alcohol at cocktail parties or receptions.

I’m sure that he didn’t put on a wrinkled shirt even once in his life.

If he had, he would probably have been the unhappiest person on earth.

Many years later, one evening, for the first (and perhaps the last) time, he went out of the protective cocoon of order he had woven around himself. He always walked with his head up, but now he lurched and, raising his voice, said, “Do you think I don’t know about the exciting things other people experience or that I lack their emotions? I know all about them, of course, but such things ruin one’s life. I’ve known what I’ve wanted since I was a child. Because of that, I’ve done everything according to a plan. Happiness is not beyond mountains, or in a paradise you reach after having great adventures. Happiness is right here, beside you . . . in your own home. If you can’t recognize it here, how are you going to find some obscure happiness somewhere else? Go then. Go and find it.”

He was right. He was one of those people who knew what they wanted. He didn’t want to live a wild life but to stand securely at the exact place that he could call his own.

It was true that he desired to build up his life the way he wanted it. Knowing that he would be satisfied with the happiness right beside him, he did not want to grow unhappy by dreaming of things he had never seen or had. However, he had made the wrong decision for the life he wanted to establish.

“The only thing that makes me sad is not being able to make a place for myself in the life you have planned,” I replied. “I wish I could be a part of it. I wish I were more like you. Please forgive me. I did not choose anything myself, even when I thought I was the one who chose.”

It really was like that.

I would have also liked to live as if gliding on a tranquil sea on a warm, calm, late spring day.

Peace. Some choose to have peace. A life far away from ups and downs, pulsations, expectations, frustrations, fear, and worry. A life protected from all danger.

I don’t remember when, but once I was in a village in Bolu on a summer afternoon and saw an old man sitting in front of his home under the crimson sky, staring into the empty distance.

When I greeted him and asked what he was doing, he said, “I’m waiting, dear girl.”

“What are you waiting for?”

He turned his gaze away from empty space and looked at me. Surprised by my question, he said, “What could I be waiting for? For the day to end of course!”

The word “peace” always reminds me of that old man sitting there, waiting for the day to end.

That old man who had reduced his life to a simple moment of staring into space.

Perhaps I would have also liked to be a person who did not care what happened either right beside her or farther away than she could know. Thus, I thought that staring into space, observing the ever-changing crimson sky was much more fulfilling than anything else. Maybe.

But I wasn’t able to be someone like that.

Unforeseen storms ruled my life. It is true that there was a harbor I could take refuge in, and I did take shelter in it. Yet, what could I do? I realized each time that those storms attracted me instead of frightening me, calling me into that unknown realm, where I was unable to forget the excitement of being hurled in this or that direction by the wind.

That is why each time I packed my suitcases, the excitement and joy of beginning my life all over again overwhelmed me, rather than the calmness of a person who feels she is entering a new stage in her orderly life.

Some people have a single life. They call this being honest. A life whose each and every detail is known. It must be like living in a bell jar. What a foolish thing to do! What a big lie!

It is, indeed, a lie because none of us is living in a globe, under glass. I wonder what we would find in our memory if we opened it without fear. So many things that have nothing to do with our words or our appearance. Even we would be bewildered.

How foolish! Because why should one want to be held captive in a single life?

Some people search after the truth for a lifetime, while some create their own truth and believe in it.

As far as I’m concerned, only cowards believe life must be lived within the boundaries of a small world and according to the rules of their own world. What’s more, they also judge others, in every century, by the rules that are different in each section of the world map painted with a different color.

Isn’t that glamorous scene in a ballroom illuminated by crystal chandeliers and full of beautiful, charming women in shimmering gowns, which rustle as they dance with handsome men, the center point of many tales and young girls’ dreams?

This is the perfect picture of life, consisting of only the best aspects and omitting all the rest—the unhappiness, poverty, pain, ailments, distress, and wickedness. Naturally, this picture is fleeting. A short moment, a snapshot in time.

An unforgettable waltz inevitably accompanies that picture. When the young lady enters the ballroom after so many days of excitement and hours of preparation, gently picking up the fluffy skirt sweeping the floor as she takes small steps, all eyes turn to look at her. It is a unique moment.

A moment of glory.

This was the picture, down to the minutest detail, that would be engraved in my memory one night in the ballroom of the most famous hotel in Ankara.

As I walked on to the shiny floor bathed in light, I knew that everyone in the room stopped for a moment and turned to look at me. I held my skirt gently and took small, serene steps toward the center of the room.

How can I ever forget that evening gown made of ivory taffeta leaving my shoulders bare? It circled my waist tightly and billowed all the way to my feet. I wore long gloves of the same color, which covered my arms. A gossamer thin shawl covered my shoulders. I had a necklace of emeralds, with a matching set of earrings. My lips were painted bright red. Although my hair was made into a bun, some locks spilled down the sides of my face.

But what caused that incomprehensible clenching in my heart or the odd swelling in my chest? It was not just because of the attention all the important guests showed to a young girl walking under the crystal lights as if she were a film star.

It was also not because of that same young girl’s excitement about returning to this city years later—this time as a young woman—and showing off her breathtaking beauty, which everyone would truly admire.

That princess expected someone to take her hand, pull her away from the brilliant lights and the colorful dream illuminating her, and say, “You don’t know what you want, but I do. You don’t even know what you’re dreaming of, but I do, and I will make it come true. Hold my hand, close your eyes, and come with me without question.”

He would be the prince who appeared in tales, riding a white horse, the kind of handsome hero we see in films, or the perfect dream we give up one day, thinking that all is, unfortunately, a lie: life was different, and that dream was a fairytale.

Nowadays, I know that films emphasize this truth from the first scene. Dreams have long been lost, and we have accepted it as a fact. There is no longer a hero who will grasp the princess’s hand and take her through the realm of stars to his humble home surrounded by wildflowers and tell her that from that day on, every new day will begin with joy and bliss.

What happened to those heroes?

What happened to all those men who always kept their word, who succeeded in returning from war, who put enemies to the sword with the power of knowing that someone was waiting for them faithfully, who overcame the greatest of difficulties inspired by the dream of their lovers, and who, when you looked into their eyes, made you melt away?

So does everyone feel better that way? Do they eat their popcorn and then go back to their boring homes saying, “Look, it was all a lie. There are no tales and no heroes. We’re all the same, and life is hard. No one can be happy with a single kiss alone.”

I don’t know. I don’t know why we have to give up that hero who touches that ramshackle hut with a magic wand and turns it into the most magnificent castle in the world…

In those days, the heroes in films used to possess the power to change the world, to take unhappy princesses on dreamy nights, and enter upon an adventure about which neither of them knew.

None of us thought about what would happen at the end of those adventures.

For we knew that he always kept his word, and if—with his hand on her hair—the gloomy expression of the princess was replaced with a gleaming heartfelt smile, the ramshackle hut would sooner or later turn into a glamorous castle.

We were sure that when someone like that came and took our hand to take us away, we wouldn’t care where we were headed.

We knew that in a magical place at a magical moment, a single magical kiss could bring someone back to life.

There, on that brilliant Ankara evening, as I was shaking hands with people, smiling at them, and humbly accepting the compliments, I knew he would come.

That hero.

It sounds impossible, but he really came.

Now, as I think back, I ask myself whether it had not always been so? Whenever I called him inside my mind, didn’t he always come out of the blue? Didn’t he always find me, or appear suddenly in front of me in the most unexpected places or at the most unexpected moments?

Does it sound strange to you? Well, to me, too.

I really didn’t know that I was waiting for someone, but what I hoped for was something that you usually put back on the dusty shelves of your archive of special memories that you never share with anyone although it captures you for a moment before it is soon forgotten.

One of those innumerable moments that do not become real, but only flash in your mind and are lost to oblivion in no time.

It had to be like that.

But when I raised my head, I saw him in front of me. He had extended his hand, inviting me for a dance with that matchless smile of his.

When I found myself in his arms, dancing among other couples and rotating under the huge crystal chandelier, I suddenly remembered the day I had first met him and had been carried away by my imagination. I felt as if I were in that dream.

How is it possible for someone to build castles in the air and one day find out that her dream had come true?

At such an unexpected moment, when I least hoped for it, when the feelings I had not first recognized but then remembered, when I was in that film-like setting.

I was turning and twirling in his arms. I was dizzy. I looked into his eyes. I wasn’t able to hear what he said. I was so small compared to him that I wasn’t dancing but flying in his arms.

At the end, drawing closer to my ear, he whispered, “Young lady, may I ask you at exactly what time your carriage will turn into a pumpkin?”

I must have had a stupid smile on my face. I felt my cheeks flush. He asked again, probably thinking I hadn’t understood.

“So you don’t remember me,” I said without looking into his eyes.

He was surprised.

“Remember you? I’m sure I haven’t seen you before. I never would have forgotten you.”

“So it’s about time that I transform back into Cinderella,” I said.

The dance was over. Before he could say anything to me and before the orchestra began playing a new tune, I rushed to where my brother was standing.

But he followed me and said to my brother, “Nihat, it seems you know the answer to a secret. Tell me, who is this young lady?”

Nihat laughed, “She’s my little sister. Didn’t you recognize her? She’s the one who rode straight into us on her bike.”

Fuat appraised me in amazement.

“Unbelievable! Are you that little kid?” he said.

“Yes,” I said, “but you didn’t let me . . .”

He broke into loud laughter and lifted me up in the air. With my feet off the ground, I was unable to do anything but watch him laugh and turn me around in his arms. Chuckling, he said, “Who would expect that small, mischievous child to grow into a beautiful princess?”

And of course the whole ballroom was watching.

Then a woman on the stage began to sing that song. Was that also a coincidence when this special song started to play in the background?

Violetta’s song. In Turkish, it meant: “The woman who was led astray . . .”

Isn’t it always the same?

Don’t we suddenly wake up when we’re having a wonderful dream?

As soon as my feet touched the ground again, I noticed a beautiful brunette, dressed in a dark blue silk dress, wearing a glittering pearl necklace, and with her long hair in a bun, staring at me with a strange expression on her face. She was much older than I was, yet she looked younger than her age. I immediately understood who she was.

This was the first time I saw her.

I didn’t know what to do. Like a child, unwilling to wake up, I kept on standing there with my cheeks on fire. All the people and their humming voices had disappeared for me for a moment, and although I tried to immerse myself in the atmosphere again, I couldn’t.

On that evening in Ankara, I tried hard to wake up from the most unexpected dream I was having in a sparkling room.

He immediately grabbed his wife’s hand, pulling her toward himself before he introduced us to each other in a loud voice that everyone could hear.

“Maide, come, look at her. She’s Nihat’s little sister. The first time I saw her, she was a kid this tall . . . riding a bike.”

I extended my hand, and she touched my fingers limply, as if unwilling to take my hand in full. I was not able to look her in the eye.

“Well, she certainly still is a child,” she said, smiling courteously.

The ladies with her glanced at each other and giggled.

A waiter wearing white gloves offered us drinks from his tray. Everyone picked up one of the tall glasses.

“To everyone’s health,” Fuat said, and we all raised our glasses in a toast.

Then he told the story of our first amusing encounter.

How I had been riding my bike while he and my brother were talking, and how I couldn’t manage to stop it and fell off. The whole story. Nihat supported him with details every now and then.

Everyone seemed to listen with interest.

I was surprised at the fact that he remembered everything.

He had remembered, but for him, it was a mere coincidence. He had remembered, yet he would not have known what I had dreamed on the night after our first meeting.

He was jolly, like an uncle who happened to meet his little niece after a long time.

Thankfully, he kept talking and no one expected me to say anything. Otherwise, I would have surely talked nonsense. Just like everyone else around me, my eyes were fixed on him.

His hair had begun receding on the sides of his head and had turned slightly grayer since I had last seen him. He seemed older than he was in his black swallow-tailed coat and white shirt.

Turgut had watched everything from a distance before joining us and facing a bombardment of questions

“It seems our young diplomat has won the heart of our little one. How do you like being here after living in the States? What are you going to do? Where are you going to live? Maide, we’ll meet them often from now on, won’t we? We’re expecting you for dinner next week. No excuses!”

Surprised at Fuat’s informal friendliness, Turgut tried his best to answer every question, but no one seemed to pay attention to him.

When Fuat spoke with endless ardor and enthusiasm, no one usually knew what to say or do.

He talked with such ease that even I would have thought he knew me intimately since my childhood, and that he was a close family friend.

All I wanted was to leave that room as soon as possible, go away and cherish the secret moment I had experienced a few minutes ago before it was spoiled.

I wish it were possible!

Fortunately, a few minutes later the Prime Minister, surrounded by a group of people, entered the ballroom, and the whole crowd stirred to make room for him, giving him all their attention. Our small group scattered when Fuat asked permission to go in that direction.

Later, he told me, “I came back and looked for you to introduce you to the Prime Minister but you had disappeared.”

“What could I have done,” I replied, “My carriage turned into a pumpkin.”

Yes, that was him. The man whom all the women loved!

He had danced madly with me. I had let myself go in his arms, and as I whirled around the room with him—or when my world had whirled around—I had forgotten everything: who I was, where I was, and what was going on.

Years after our first encounter, when I entered that ballroom with the vague feeling that I would meet someone I hadn’t known before, someone had touched my shoulder, and the world had begun to spin in a totally different way.

That was how it all began.

Who could have imagined that an innocent childhood dream would take me to the present day?

To the present day, I said. To the present day, but after going through so much . . .

Our days in the capital began like this.

Like a dream.

Of course, not much time was required for me to get used to our new life.

In the beginning, we couldn’t decide what to do. Finding a house we liked didn’t look easy. After searching around for a couple of days, we decided the best thing to do was to settle in a hotel first.

Looking for a house in the dead of winter and lodging at my mother’s or my mother-in-law’s home didn’t suit me.

Turgut thought that we would not be staying in Ankara for long. He said I would spend most of my time with my mother anyway and that it was not reasonable to establish a home now that we would leave again soon.

In fact, he preferred to be away. He was not happy that we had returned. Yet, on the other hand, this was the right place to be closer to the ones “at the top” and to build up strong connections with influential people.

We stayed at the most famous hotel in Ankara. State officials met there to talk about important matters. In truth, the future of the country was taking shape at this hotel. It was also where I attended the balls that made me feel like a princess.

At lunchtime, the men came to the hotel, and we all ate together at a big table, drank our coffee, and chatted for an hour or two.

Fuat liked those crowded tables. He enjoyed seeing everyone at the same time, teasing the younger people, paying compliments to the ladies, and asking the waiters about the special dishes prepared for him every day.

I was his latest favorite.

He used to turn to me unexpectedly and say, “Tell me young lady, did you read all the newspapers from top to bottom today?”

When a new book or film was mentioned, he was always interested in my opinion.

I was fortunate that everyone still regarded me as a child. I said exactly what I thought. I criticized the government, and found fault in many things but it was always met with a smile and passed over easily, just as the opinions of small children are accepted in a somewhat mocking manner.

The men were formal with each other, but the wives were able to voice their thoughts more easily.

Who knows, maybe this “tactlessness” of mine, as Turgut defined it, was seen as spoiled behavior because of having lived in America.

Only Fuat used to kid me about what I said, insisted on asking questions, and led passionate discussions to refute my arguments.

I felt that he wasn’t happy about all that was going on in the country and about being in the center of it. Sometimes when he opposed my opinions and almost got cross with me, he would suddenly gaze into the distance, and I would think that he really didn’t believe what he claimed.

Frankly, I did not want to discuss political matters with him in depth.

How boring were the luncheons he didn’t attend because of more important matters.

Every morning when I woke up, I sat in front of the mirror and tried to decide what to wear that day.

Toward midday, an inexplicable excitement would begin to swell inside me. Sometimes I would take off what I had been wearing and look for something else to put on.

I didn’t have anything else to do. In the morning I had breakfast downstairs and then visited my mother or met with Ayla. Then I returned to the hotel and read the newspapers and the magazines in the tea room. After that, I went to my room to get dressed for lunch.

At exactly quarter past twelve Turgut arrived. We went down together for lunch. Every day, as we descended the stairs covered with a red carpet, I would play a game I had made up. At each step, I would tell myself, “He’s going to come” or “He’s not going to come.” As I put my foot on the last step, I would rejoice if it turned out to be a “He’s going to come” step.

When we entered the dining hall, I would check whether my little game had predicted the truth or not.

It was actually Fuat who had started the luncheon tradition. In this way, all his colleagues and team members could be together at lunchtime.

Sometimes when someone complained jokingly, he used to say, “It’s so hard to curry favor with you people. I’m having you eat the best dishes in Ankara and you still complain.”

He always came alone, although the wives of the others joined us now and then.

The invitation he had extended to us that night at the ball—when his eyes were fixed on his wife—never took place. It wasn’t even mentioned again. We did not visit them at their home, and his wife Maide never joined us at the hotel. I only came across her occasionally at receptions.

Maide was a tall woman with long chestnut-colored hair and slightly slanted eyes. Everyone praised her elegance, her beautiful pronunciation, the way she spoke Turkish softly without the slightest mistake, her stylish outfits, and how graceful she was.

However, she was distant to everyone, even her husband. No matter how close you get to some people, you still cannot ask them a question out of the blue or tell them an ordinary joke. You don’t even know why you feel that way. Maide was one of those people.

Sometimes the ladies had afternoon tea at the hotel.

We drank tea, made small talk, and even played card games.

I know it sounds like a strange way of life for a young woman in her early twenties.

But this was how our days passed. No one did anything substantial, and no one thought about it.

Some of the women expected their husbands to be assigned to a foreign country, and some of them had just come back from abroad. We shared memories, our experiences in other lands, and the new and interesting things we had encountered. Most of all, however, we discussed how underdeveloped our country was. As soon as the gossip about one subject was finished, chitchat about another began.

“I know you’re bored to death, but please put up with it and be patient just a little longer,” Turgut often said, thinking I was blasé. “Soon the new assignments will be discussed.” He just couldn’t understand why I was not bored with the luncheons I had to attend with people much older than myself, the receptions and parties in the evenings, and with having to live in one room in a hotel.

Someone who didn’t even know me very well would definitely know that I wouldn’t stay at that hotel for more than three days in a row.

My mother attributed it to the fact that I had “finally settled down,” but my brother insisting on mocking me by saying, “Let’s wait and see. There’s something more to it than we know.”

Ayla had still not got used to my being a married woman, and when she invited me out in the evenings, she usually forgot about Turgut. If the three of us went out together, she sulked and got bored. Once Turgut said, “That friend of yours seems to resent our marriage.”

I had never liked going around in a group. I don’t like family visits either. Since Turgut was aware of this, he did not insist. He let me meet Ayla and my mother on my own, and to please him in return, I attended some receptions with him, though not often.

Each time I met Fuat, I played the same game. He was unaware of it, of course. I used to try to guess the hidden meaning of the things he told me, his smile, or his jokes.

Then I would laugh at myself. It was obvious that he wasn’t interested in me. He joked with everyone. He flirted with all women. He paid compliments to all the ladies.

Sometimes I heard him say to another woman, “What a nice outfit you have, it surely becomes to you. My eyes were dazzled as soon as you came in.”

Later, when he asked me a simple question, he wouldn’t understand why I gave him such a short and sharp answer.

Fool!

Once he did not come for three days in a row.

I knew he was in the city.

When he came on the fourth day, I didn’t go down for lunch, saying that I was ill.

This was the game I played—a childish game that he wasn’t aware of.

It really was childish.

Then something happened.

On the day when I feigned illness and didn’t join the group for lunch, Fuat returned to the hotel in the afternoon. He was alone.

I was in the tearoom, in full make-up, sipping tea and reading a book.

It was evident that I wasn’t ill.

I didn’t know what to do when I saw him all of a sudden in front of me.

It was not his habit to come to the hotel in the afternoon.

“Good for you. You recovered quite fast,” he said smiling. “I thought of paying a visit to our little patient.”

He sat down and made himself comfortable. I blushed and mumbled something.

He ordered a coffee and lit a cigarette, remaining silent while staring into my eyes. His gaze seemed to pass right through me. His thoughts were probably wandering. His legs were crossed, and he kept swinging one of his feet up and down.

He picked up my book and said, “Do you like Hüseyin Rahmi?”

“Yes,” I replied. “I read his books especially when I’m depressed. He makes me laugh. I laugh, and at the same time, I feel sad.”

“You feel sad? Why?”

“So many years have passed since he wrote these books but not much has changed, has it?”

“Life doesn’t change that easily,” Fuat replied. “But maybe this proves the craft of a writer.”

“Yes,” I said. “In this book, he ridicules columnists and journalists in such a way that I almost fainted with laughter!”

“Why don’t you lend it to me so that I can have a good time too. I need to read such a book these days.”

“You know what,” I said, “when he died, they found many gloves and hats in his home, which he had knitted himself. He used to worry about what would happen to his cats after he died.”

“Novelists are strange people,” he said. “If they weren’t, they wouldn’t try to create new worlds to escape to.

“Don’t say that too loud and anger the novelists. What kind of novels do you like?”

Fuat thought for a while, and then replied, “I guess I like those that resemble an attic.”

“An attic?”

“Yes,” he continued. “In complete disarray and full of things scattered everywhere. Like a magical attic. When you read, you lose yourself in it. In all the stuff there, you find some things that suit you. Eventually, you realize that disorder and confusion are in fact complete and in accord.”

He drew on his cigarette. “Aren’t our lives like that, too?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “perhaps you’re right.”

I was limp and helpless, trembling out of nervousness. All the waiters were looking at us. I tried not to talk much, but at the same time talked incessantly. Every word I said rang sharply in my ears as soon as it was out of my mouth, as if I had said something stupid, and to make up for it, I said something else again.

Finally, he finished his coffee, extinguished his cigarette, leaned a little forward in his chair, put my book on his lap, and whispered, “Young lady, I knew you weren’t ill.”

Immediately I relaxed. He hadn’t been so close to me since the day we had danced. Unable to look into his eyes from such a short distance, I looked at the floor.

“Have you come all the way here just to tell me that?”

He stood up, and as he left, said, “No. I came here to see you.”

There was nothing odd in what he said, but I froze, as if he had just told me the greatest secret ever.

He left as quickly as he had come.

Things did not end there.

After that day, Fuat often came to the hotel in the afternoon, and if he saw me there, he sat with me. We chatted about this and that and drank tea. Although neither of us voiced it, we had a secret deal that these meetings were to take place at hours when no one else would be there but the two of us. We never agreed on a time to get together, and neither of us knew whether the other would be waiting. Still, we managed to meet.

What did we talk about? Mostly books and films rather than daily events. Sometimes he told me about his childhood and his school years. I had the habit of reading foreign newspapers and magazines. He was interested in what they contained and often asked me to save articles that attracted my attention. This became my special concern. Two scientists in Cambridge had discovered the secret code of human beings. They claimed that each one of us had a unique inner written formula. No one had the same code. After deciphering these codes one day, it would be possible to find cures for all diseases and the secret of longer life.

Satellites were sent to outer space. In a university, scientists had invented a machine that translated brain waves. Soon, it might even be possible to watch our own dreams like a movie.

We talked about such things. Sometimes the subject of men and women came up. We talked about marriage and relationships, comparing the situation in Turkey with those in other countries, as if this topic had nothing to do with us.

In the end, it didn’t matter what we spoke about. What mattered was that he came and sat with me.

As time went by, an unexpected friendship and sympathy grew between us. We were able to discuss many things that we couldn’t talk about with others.

It didn’t take long for the gossip to start.

The strange thing was that it wasn’t my husband, who was under my very nose, but my mother, who rarely left home, who said one day, “I’ve been hearing about some inappropriate behavior. What’s going on?”

For the first time, I realized what I had been doing and the direction I had taken.

I could not confess the truth, even to myself.

“Come on, Mom,” I answered. “People need to gossip. He’s old enough to be my father. He jokes with everyone. He just considers me a kid and spends more time talking with me than with others. That’s all.”

Was that not all?

Is it just me who thinks like this, or is it true that we often show more interest in the lives of others than in our own?

Who knows, maybe it’s because we think our lives lack vivacity and color.

In those days, I came to realize that people were talking about us in their small worlds. They had found a brand new subject, something different to talk about. If you think this disturbed me, you’re wrong. To the contrary, I enjoyed it.

Because nothing was happening as they imagined.

I liked the fact that they were talking about a film in which I was playing the main role, while their lives began with humdrum mornings and ended in humdrum evenings.

They were my audience. No matter what they said about me, I was the star, whose role they would give anything to have for themselves.

It was indeed childish, but I enjoyed it all the same. I was amused by the way conversations were interrupted and everyone turned to look at me when I entered a room, the way some people ignored me, pretending not to notice that I was there, and how others tried to engage me in small talk, as if making an effort to act normal.

I continued to play my game, and new people joined in constantly.

What child wouldn’t enjoy having others take for real the game he had been playing by himself in his dark room and joining him in playing it?

Besides, just as an American author had once said, “Old maids sweeten their tea with scandal.”

I sometimes felt like telling Fuat about the gossip, but even though I tried, I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it to him.

I was aware that he was playing his own game.

At first I didn’t understand but later I was sure.

He used to get carried away for a moment while looking into my eyes, and then acquire the airs of a man who was chatting with his best friend.

I was aware but not sure yet.

That is why I wanted to tell him.

One day, as we were talking about this and that, I suddenly wanted to ask at the most unexpected moment: “Do you know that everyone is talking about us? Haven’t you realized that?” Or, I wanted to say: “It would be better if you did not come here alone from now on. People are attributing different meanings to your visits.”

But just as I was about to tell him, I changed my mind.

Perhaps I was scared that if I did, I would spoil the game.

I disappeared for a few days. I visited my mother, went shopping, and met with Ayla. I also sat in my room and did something I had long neglected: I wrote postcards and letters to my friends in America.

Actually, I didn’t care much about putting an end to the gossip. All I wanted was to provoke him.

But when we met again like foolish high school kids, we continued from where we had stopped, as if it was normal that I had disappeared from sight for so many days.

One afternoon we were sitting face to face and sipping our tea as usual. All of a sudden, he said, “I’m going into politics.”

“I know,” I responded.

He waited for me to continue, but I didn’t.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?”

“Are you asking for my opinion? If so, I don’t think politics suit you.”

He seemed taken aback. He must have thought I wouldn’t be that direct.

“So you think politics is not my thing. But there’s so much to be done. If we don’t do it, who will?”

He probably thought I would support his view enthusiastically.

“Besides,” he added, “aren’t you the one who is always criticizing what’s going on. How can someone change his country just by sitting and complaining?”

He looked annoyed. He stood up, poured a glass of water and sat down again. He was lost in thought. “We all have our own destiny as well as our duty,” he said.

“I wish you luck,” I said.

While everyone congratulated and encouraged him, my opposition was a little out of place. Later that evening, I asked myself why I always said whatever came to my mind.

Maybe I was afraid that if he entered politics, I would be able to see him less often.

Naturally, he didn’t listen to me.

An outsider to the world of politics, he was appointed to a top position on the Prime Minister’s order. Everyone talked about it.

Already, some supported him and others criticized him behind his back.

In a way he resembled me: someone who talked and acted on impulse, who wanted things to happen immediately, who didn’t listen to others when he decided to do something, and who could offend even those closest to him . . .

Such people make enemies quickly. People who are not used to taking orders, people who do not swallow their words, and the ones who do not like being an ordinary man in the street will always have to cope with hostility.

For me, politics was not for people who wanted to do something for the benefit of the country but for those who were interested in their own benefits, who played games, and who were ready to risk all to achieve their personal agendas. I have never believed that politicians can do anything good.

Besides, just a little farther from here, people had already begun to discuss different things in their homes. The brilliant days of the government were slowly fading. The dreams everyone had about a new time, a growing country, and a happy future were wearing out. Now, in a state of fatigue, people no longer appreciated the new people who came to power, realizing that nothing had changed the way they had expected.

By degrees, he became one of the people at the top and watched the view self-confidently from high above, enjoying what he saw.

He no longer took pains to discover what was going on below his level.

But when I went a few streets away from our hotel to visit my mother, talk with my brother, or read the papers, I could see that things were not going well.

Later, when we were able to talk about these things, he told me, “You’re still so young. You think the world is a nice place. It has always been so. Whoever climbs to the top thinks the view is wonderful, feels pleased and content, and forgets that it’s all transitory. Things have always been this way, but we still want to climb to the top.”

Do we really want that?

I didn’t. I never have.

I’ve never understood why the ones at top fail to see the view as it is.

Lost in thought, he looked at me and said, “Who knows, maybe there, from the summit, everything is so far away in the distance. Maybe that’s why it looks beautiful.”

His confidence in his knowledge and insight, the well-conceived answers he gave in an easy-going manner, which I had pondered deeply, and his calm expression free of doubt always convinced me I was wrong.

At least at that moment.

I had to understand. He was like that. He was one of those people whom others watched in curiosity, who had to climb up his path with consistent effort, who constantly gave orders to others, who told about life, and who tried to build a life with his own hands.

According to him, there was so much to be done and the only reason things were not accomplished correctly was that cowards and lazy people held power. I guess, in those days, he truly believed he could change things and accomplish the ideas he had always had in mind but which, for some reason or another, he had not been able to implement until that day.

Leaders are such people. But I sometimes wonder whether leaders really believe they can change things and make life better or if they try to prove to themselves their self-confidence. I’m not really sure.

As the election results were celebrated with balls, we packed our suitcases, getting ready to set off for our new destination.

Thankfully, the election brought to an end our afternoon meetings, as well as the gossip.

Anyway, everyone was busy discussing the new government and the debates surrounding it.

I must confess, in the beginning I felt lonely and scared. It must have been then that I realized the game which had amused me, and made me forget how lonely I was, had taken a dangerous route.

At first, I often went down to the tearoom in the afternoon, wondering if he would show up. I opened a book or magazine but ended up reading the same page over and over, waiting for him to appear. Everyone else came through that damned door except him.

He was touring the country before the election in those days. He addressed the public. He did not have time for me.

Slowly, I abandoned all the crazy thoughts that had taken root in my mind and repeated to myself that it was time to put an end to this silly game.

My addiction to cigarettes, which I still cannot end, is from those days.

But it didn’t take long for those days to come to an end.

One way or another, Turgut had managed to be assigned abroad just as he had wished. He was unhappy about being in Turkey and wanted to leave as soon as possible. At night, when we were alone, he constantly talked about his wish to leave. Anyhow, we were leading a temporary life in Ankara. We had spent months in a hotel room with open suitcases, taking our meals outside and waiting for news of his new appointment to arrive anytime.

Eventually, the long-awaited news came, and we got ready to set off for the city of mist.

I didn’t attend the reception held the day before we left, saying I wanted to spend my last evening with my mother and brother.

Fuat had not only won the elections but also been appointed as a minister in the new government. I didn’t congratulate him on his success.

I do not remember now whether I had wanted to punish him in my own way or felt that meeting him again would be the beginning of an unexpected disaster.

At dinner with my mother, my brother, Ayla, and Turgut’s family, we talked about the good old days, my father, and the future that awaited us. We talked and laughed about the first evening Turgut had visited my parents’ home.

My mother blushed as she said, “Did you really put salt into his coffee? I swear I had no idea you did such a thing!”

“I noticed it,” Turgut said, “but what could I do? Besides I liked her mischievousness and drank it without saying a word.”

My mother had cooked all my favorite dishes and insisted that we finish them.

She was happy that we weren’t going too far.

Unable to conceal his happiness at leaving Ankara, Turgut said to Nihat, “We’re going at the right time. There are the elections, and the fight never ends. I hope it goes smoothly for you all!”

Once again, I would have to begin a life in a new place and among people I didn’t know. I was both excited and distressed.

“What can we do?” Turgut remarked. “This is our life. Just when we’re getting used to a place, we have to pack our things and move somewhere else.”

All the lights in this house were on for the first time since my father’s death. It was also the first time since his passing that laughter dominated the place. At the same time, it would be the last.

My mother and brother were leaving Ankara too. They had decided to settle in Istanbul at my grandmother’s home. After my father’s death, my mother did not want to stay in the family house. Even entering the living room, where we used to spend time as a family, upset her. My grandmother had passed away, and her house in Istanbul was vacant.

Since my brother did not want to leave our mother alone, he found a job in a company belonging to a friend in Istanbul.

“One traveler is enough in a family. Besides, I don’t like traveling,” he said, stressing how much he had missed Istanbul. And I encouraged them, saying, “What on earth do people like about Ankara anyway! Istanbul is a much better place to live. You’ve made the best decision.”

The following week, Ayla was going to participate in an archaeological excavation in Anatolia. She was very excited, and during our time together in Ankara, she had constantly talked about it, looking forward to her journey back in time, after having read so many books. She would work with renowned archaeologists, and it was a sign of success on her part that they had chosen an inexperienced young woman like her. Her father had retired, so she had also decided to live in Istanbul year round.

That evening when we all sat together and enjoyed dinner for the last time in that house was a milestone marking the beginning of a new life for each of us.

A brand new period in our lives full of novel, unknown things.

I remember that my mother hugged me as we were leaving and cried, “You’re leaving again. I spend my days longing for you. I wish I had not let you marry a diplomat.” Then she gave me a prayer written on a piece of paper placed in a small leather case for me to carry wherever I went. I also recall that my heart fluttered like a bird, and I wanted to have a brief last look at the hotel ballroom.

I didn’t do it, of course.

Besides, the ball was already over when we got to the hotel.

I hung the prayer my mother gave me around my neck and went to bed.

We set off early the next day.

Maybe the reason we often fail to understand people and are sometimes surprised by them in the most unexpected ways is because we forget they have many different facets and we are satisfied with the image they present as a whole.

Don’t we usually forget about the different aspects of our own character and get stuck in false self-conceptions?

We struggle for a long time to create a form others will like and approve of, a perfect design and unity out of the chaos, that shapeless pulp, in ourselves.

Like an endless civil war.

Time passes, altering our identity, taking it captive, changing it by force, and creating an entirely new being.

In the end, naturally, you never know who has won.

It seems that I did not run the chance of abandoning even the smallest pieces that form me. Unaware, I preferred to live with the crowd and multiplicity inside of me.

Did I do so because I couldn’t bring myself to give anything up?

Or because I believed life couldn’t be restricted, or that it shouldn’t be limited by hiding in a room or following a preconceived path?

Or maybe just because of coincidences.

I don’t know.

All I know is that I was confronted continuously with new sides of myself and was surprised each time.

It has always hurt me that the game of life can be played only once, and that in spite of our lack of experience, we are not given a second chance.

Isn’t this unjust?

Don’t you think that making a choice at every fork in the road, choosing one direction and foregoing the other (without knowing what would have happened had we gone in the other direction); abandoning some people; not going to the right but to the left after thinking, or just listening to our inner voice (in reality, the voice of others); and determining our whole life as a result of all those ordinary choices is just nonsense?

It probably was the second year after we left Ankara.

I remember very well that summer morning in the living room of the two-storey red brick house from which I could hear the sound of the mounted policemen passing by.

I was reading a magazine article about people who claimed they had been abducted by aliens and taken on a strange journey of light, which they could not remember.

I remember it very well.

The front cover of the magazine was illustrated with a photograph of Marilyn Monroe. Underneath, a caption read: “The unhappiest beauty of all times!”

I read the long article that began with the question, “Have aliens really arrived?”

Such subjects have always excited me.

I don’t care whether they’re true or not.

Some people claimed that they were surrounded by a bright light and weren’t able to see anything. They related that they felt as if they were in a very long, restful sleep, or a dream they wished would never end. They also said they were hurled with incredible speed for hours through a corridor of bluish, bright light in the sky, as if caught in a radiant whirlwind. They heard a sound which resembled the deafening screech of sirens. Soon, however, everything slowly calmed down, the storm ended, and they found themselves in a silent, tranquil void.

Sometimes when you wake up, you know you have had a wonderful dream and feel blissful, but you cannot remember or recount it. That is exactly how they felt.

A young woman said she had thought she was dead but wasn’t frightened. On the contrary, she remembered having abandoned herself with ease.

These people were asked various questions.

The article included photos of scientists, authors, and psychiatrists who had investigated this strange phenomenon. One doctor discussed the reasons why people make up such stories. The scientists explained why it wasn’t possible for human beings to travel in space like that. They talked about confusing imagination with fact.

How bored I was with those idiots!

I tossed the magazine away.

I’d do anything to experience such an extraordinary thing.

I envy those people who have opened a window in their humdrum, unhappy, empty lives and lost themselves in a dream no one had before when they looked at an undefined cluster of light in the night sky.

Just like primitive people.

I would love to be one of those who see things for the first time, who have the joy of facing something new, and who are the first to step on terra nova—an undiscovered island or a boundless continent of ice.

I am fed up with cities built centuries ago, streets that millions trampled before me, the shared memory of humankind, and glamorous structures of bricks laid on top of the other.

They are all know-it-alls! Everyone knows about everything!

I’m sick and tired of the wretchedness of this arrogant civilization!

If we were able to put together all that we have learned in thousands of years, it would fit into a small box when compared to what we have not discovered. Yet, no one is aware of this fact.

In one of her letters, Ayla had written, “People think it bizarre that I spend months on a forlorn excavation far away from everyone. Honestly, I sometimes doubt myself, too. But there’s not even the smallest piece of land that can still be discovered on this earth. At least I can find the door to a tomb deep inside the earth after digging for months. After thousands of years, I can be the first one to stand in front of that tomb, at the gate of that lost land. Time has passed. I can stand at the threshold of one time and open the door to another. The moment of opening that door is worth everything.”

That was it! How nicely she had put it.

Wasn’t this all I ever wanted throughout my childhood, no, throughout my whole life?

Standing in one time and opening the door to another.

Opening a door to a realm of things beyond our knowledge, in a land of the obscure and the undefined. You open the door when you’re too frightened to realize you are overwhelmed by fear and emerge into an entirely different world—a world where you have no idea what you will encounter or in which direction you will be pulled.

I know that such things remain in childhood.

Childhood has an end. Everything we see for the first time is taught to us. Everything soon becomes familiar. Even the new things we see are comprehended by comparison with past experiences. As years pass, we get accustomed to everything, and it all becomes common. Familiar and well-known. Familiar and ordinary. Familiar and harmless. Familiar and a part of us.

This is the kind of world we try to establish: a world in which we think we’ll be protected from all threats.

Childhood ends, doesn’t it? Childhood ends, and all of the different children in us grow up, or perhaps they go away. Along that long road, at every curve and every fork, we silently desert them one by one, unaware of what we are doing. In the end, we are left all alone.

Only one person remains from all those different children.

Why isn’t it possible to hold each one of them by the hand and continue to walk on the path together?

As I sat and looked through magazines that morning, these thoughts crossed my mind.

I was wholly absorbed in what I read, unaware it was midday already. The sound of the doorbell brought me to my senses.

I hadn’t tidied up the house after breakfast. Newspapers and magazines were scattered about. My teacup was still on the breakfast table. Dressed in my rose-colored housecoat, I put my hair up before I went to answer the door. At this time of the day, it could only be the postman.

I opened the door and for a moment stood there petrified.

As if they had agreed beforehand, there they were standing at my doorstep in suits of same color and with the same hats on their heads.

The two of them. Those two men who have determined my life. I stood there motionless, utterly bewildered, as if aliens had come to take me away to infinity.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t let you know earlier,” Turgut apologized, “but when I met Mr. Fuat so unexpectedly, I couldn’t let him go. We thought the three of us could have lunch together.”

“But why didn’t you call me! Look at me! Welcome, welcome! Come in!” I mumbled. Suddenly, I had turned into a young girl who came across her platonic love and discovered that in reality, everyone knew about her secret passion.

“I’m sorry, it’s our fault,” Fuat said immediately. “I told him but he wouldn’t listen. We have disturbed you. Please pardon our impoliteness.”

“Please! Please come in and make yourself at home. I’ll be right back,” I said and ran to the bedroom.

I closed the bedroom door and leaned back against it. My heart, pounding madly, skipped a beat.

I sat in front of the mirror, put on make-up with shaking hands, and then took everything out of my wardrobe, struggling to decide what to wear.

After a few unsuccessful trials, I managed to gather my hair in a bun, put on my pearl earrings, and from all the blouses, skirts and pants I had thrown onto the bed, I chose a dark green and light brown plaid dress with a white collar and belted at the waist.

I turned around and inspected the image in the mirror. I powdered my face. Now I looked exactly like a high school girl going out for the afternoon.

Turgut and Fuat were standing in the hallway, waiting for me to join them. I picked up my handbag, and we left.

It was a hot day, but you could feel that autumn was on its way. A chauffeur in a uniform and a hat held the door for us, and we got in the car. Turgut and I sat on one large single seat, and Fuat sat facing us.

As we turned to get to the square, we found ourselves in the middle of a demonstration.

The crowd, accompanied by mounted policemen, was protesting for the rights of black people. “Stop slavery!” was written across their signs.

While we sat in the car, waiting for the demonstrators, shouting slogans, to pass, Fuat did something unexpected. “Come,” he said, and got out of the car. At a loss for words, we followed him. He pushed the policemen in front of us to get to the front and took the arms of the protesters in the front row. We suddenly found ourselves shouting slogans with them. Turgut was nervous. “Let’s hope no one takes a picture of us. It would be a disaster.”

But Fuat didn’t care. Marching in the front row, he was screaming, “Slavery must end! Give people their rights!”

Later, at lunch, he told us the story of the senseless killing of a black child by white men a few weeks ago. He also told us about Ankara and that he still had not become used to being at the center of politics.

Our eyes met just once. Most of the time, he talked to Turgut, giving him advice like an older brother. Soon, the Cyprus issue arose. Fuat took out an old hardcover copy of Othello and read with his perfect English some parts he had underlined, but I felt as if neither of them wanted to delve into that subject in my presence.

Honestly, I did not care what Fuat talked about as long as he continued to speak. One could listen to him for ages. He talked with such enthusiasm, using long intricate sentences and phrases embellished with a tone that was sometimes full of ardor and other times calm and withdrawn, making you think he was reading lines from a book.

We were sitting at a table next to the window. The restaurant was crowded. With the hum of voices in the background, we listened intently to every word he said. After coffee, he took a cigarette out of a silver case with his long elegant fingers, lit it, and stopped abruptly for a single moment to stare at me. Then he turned his eyes to look off in the distance, as if he were no longer in that room. A melancholy song was playing. It was probably Doris Day, singing “Secret Love”.

That momentary lapse into silence when he lost himself in thought was one of the first special moments I recorded about him in my memory.

Then he opened the newspaper on the table. “Look at that!” he exclaimed. “There’s a concert at the museum at four o’clock.” Turgut glanced at his watch uneasily. “No, no, don’t worry,” Fuat continued. “You go back to work. I’ll go there by myself. Besides, I’m leaving in the evening.”

He knew, of course, that we wouldn’t let him go there alone and that I would have to accompany him.

Much later, he told me laughing, “I wonder how it occurred to me to take a look at the paper that day.”

We walked to the museum, and I took his arm as we climbed the stairs to the entrance. I pretended to be hosting an important guest as usual, but the truth was different. At the same time, I felt like a brash high school girl who was arm in arm with a man much older than herself. Whatever I did, no matter how much I spoke, I couldn’t stop my heart from beating madly. In my mind, I sang to myself that melody without a break.

We entered the museum, bought our tickets, and began to walk around the ground floor. The concert would not start for more than an hour.

As soon as we passed through a huge door, entered the great hall, and saw that painting facing us, I realized what was happening to me.

It was as if someone had placed the painting there to tell me, “Don’t you really understand what is happening to you?”

A plump child with wings hovered above the clouds in the sky with a bow in his hand. The cherub had an odd smile on his face, and he resembled a mischievous kid who expected to be punished.

The arrow he shot traveled all the way through the colors, clouds, and forests in the painting and pierced my heart.

It was so real that I even felt an abrupt pain in my chest.

I regained my senses when Fuat said, “He doesn’t look like the god of love but a small child. Don’t you think he looks rather innocent?”

Innocent?

“I don’t know,” I replied. “He looks as if he’s shooting arrows just to make mischief.”

Fuat laughed. “But isn’t love a mischievous thing?”

I suddenly recalled that day years ago. The morning in Ankara when we had first met. Wasn’t that the same thing he had told me then? “Your little sister is a little mischievous, I suppose.”

Surely, he didn’t remember that.

Standing in that huge, empty hall under the high ceiling decorated with paintings from hundreds of years ago, we stood trans-fixed by that splendid painting.

I stood there like a small girl who was confused about feelings she couldn’t define and did not know what to do. Let me tell you, at that moment I wanted time to stand still and stay there forever.

Our identities, our attachments, the time and the place were obliterated. I almost felt as if I were the woman from the past in the painting, who secretly met her lover among the trees, and whose long skirt could be heard rustling from where I stood. If I closed my eyes, I thought, I would be able to walk into that painting and along the same path into a new life and replace her.

In fact, I now know why that plump little angel was laughing so mischievously. I also know that at that very moment, I entered another path inside of me and set off for an unknown period in time beyond my control.

To an unknown time.

To an unknown destination.

Don’t we think that we are very different from all the people that we pass on the street as we wander about with an arrow thrust into our heart, certain that we are on cloud nine?

Until we feel the penetrating pain of the arrow.

(When that long-awaited phone call does not come. When that letter fails to arrive. When those eyes are somehow not able to look into yours for the first time. Or a totally different word is uttered instead of that which was expected.)

At that moment, I had none of this in mind. Words poured from my mouth as I talked non-stop to mask my excitement. We visited other halls, and the same child, that angel, always appeared suddenly in different paintings, with the same sweet smile and glittering eyes.

With those eyes, the angel said, “You thought you could escape, but you can’t.”

If our heart clenches for no reason and then begins to pound, we run to a doctor.

Yet we are not frightened when we feel dizzy, our heart skips a beat, or we become short of breath when our eyes happen to meet those of someone we don’t even know.

Curious.

It suddenly occurred to me: If there were really life far away in those stars flickering like tiny lights in the night sky, and if one day, someone from one of those distant worlds came here, to this museum, what would he think about all these paintings?

A bearded man with a crown of thorns on his head and nailed by his feet and hands to a plank, a naked man and a naked woman (accompanied by a snake!) picking an apple from a tree, a plump, winged child with a bow and arrow, smiling constantly from above the clouds . . .

Pain, sins, and love?

Faith and lack of faith?

Torture, solitude, and relief?

Being punished, being punished, being punished?

Perhaps he would not be able to attribute a meaning to any of these.

I said this to him, too. He laughed and said, “Our life does appear simple, doesn’t it?”

“It is simple, and it never changes,” I replied.

We went upstairs, took two empty seats on one of the wooden benches, and sat among the audience under the huge dome.

Who knows, maybe all those things, all the surprising coincidences and the wonderful music that suddenly started to play in that place where nobody knew us—among those paintings, the depictions of scenes from holy books, myths of The Creation, great wars, destruction, and the illustrated stories of great love affairs—was a little too much for a young woman with a secret love story.

Fuat leaned toward me and whispered something in my ear. I felt dizzy. I was in a dream, and what he had said didn’t matter. I was just hoping that moment would never end; I wanted to remain forever in that state of overwhelming inebriation.

He bent forward, looked at my face, and smiled, realizing I hadn’t understood what he had said.

Again, I felt his lips and his breath close to my ear. This time, I heard what he said.

“I came here for you. Since the day you left, you’ve been on my mind. I’m not able to spend another day without being near you. I’m ready to take all risks. Would you consider getting divorced and marrying me?”

This is exactly what he said.

The music played with instruments of past centuries, that enchanting music played in a place that had been built hundreds of years ago, was at its most lyrical. It made you restless. It gave you wings. I was dizzy. My hands were locked together on my knees. My face was flushed, and my lips were dry. I wasn’t there. I didn’t know where I was, as if someone was stepping out of my body and leaving me. Eventually, with a deep, stern voice, I managed to say, “You must have lost your mind.”

Those weren’t the words I wanted to tell him, but what else could I have said?

I had once watched a film in Ankara about a girl from a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of the city who said and did whatever she wanted without hesitating. (Was it Filiz Ak1n or Fatma Girik who acted in the lead role?) I would have given the world to be like her then.

Dream and reality had mixed together. My fantasies had suddenly become reality without warning.

Until that day, he had always addressed me formally, but now he said “you” in the most informal way, and his first sentence had been “Will you marry me?”

Unbelievable!

This is what happens when you travel fearlessly between fantasy and reality.

All of a sudden, the magical unity had shattered, and in my mind I heard the voices of a thousand beings speaking in chorus again.

I had to settle it now, once and for all.

I would never see him again.

Maybe I had to be calm and take this like one of his usual jokes or games.

Or perhaps I should remain silent and allow time for things to settle.

A swarm of sentences were being constructed and deconstructed at the same time, one after the other.

As we rode in the cab, he said, “Please forgive me for being so abrupt. I’ve been torturing myself for months as to how I should tell you. I wanted to write a letter, but I couldn’t. I wanted to call you, I couldn’t. All I could do was come here. I made up some excuse to be here and came. So that I could tell you. That’s all.”

I continued to sulk.

In fact, I wanted to laugh out loud.

But I was frightened in a way I hadn’t expected.

I was trying to overcome all the voices saying different things in my mind.

This was a game I had been playing on my own, and he was the hero of my game. Now, all at once, he had decided to become part of the game. He wanted to play the game together. But it was a perilous game. It had not crossed my mind, not even once, that the game would one day turn to reality.

“It’s impossible,” I said. “You’re married. You have a child. Don’t you care about your family and your position? Besides, I’m also married. Let’s stop it here and now and forget everything that’s been said today.”

I couldn’t believe I had expressed these thoughts in well-arranged sentences. My voice echoed in the cab. I was speaking with tight lips and clenched teeth, scared that the cab driver could understand what we were talking about.

“I don’t care about my job, position, or anything else,” he insisted. “If you cannot reach what your heart desires, what else matters?”

Can one take whatever his heart desires? I wish it had been possible.

Then, suddenly, he said, “Forget about other people and tell me what’s really on your mind . . . what you truly wish.”

I looked outside through the car window, trying to keep my eyes from meeting his. How could I tell him what I really wanted or how I really felt. I didn’t even have the courage to confess it to myself. Was he aware of how I struggled to stop what I dreamed of?

“What’s on my mind?” I said eventually. “What goes through my mind? You are joking with me.”

He took my face in his hands and turned it toward himself. I blushed again and tried to look away.

“You know very well when I joke and when I tell the truth.” His voice was soft and gentle. It sounded like the voice of another person speaking in the distance.

A few minutes ago I was ready to sacrifice all I had just to stay by his side forever, but now, I felt like a caged animal and wanted to get out of the cab as soon as possible. I wanted to shut myself in my room and be alone.

I said, “This is my fault. I cannot forgive myself.” I was aware I was talking nonsense, as if somebody else were dictating my words.

“If there’s someone who cannot be forgiven, it’s me,” he replied quickly. “But I really don’t care. Come with me, and I’ll go wherever in the world you want to go. I’ll give up everything.”

At that moment, I realized I was dealing with a kid.

No, he wasn’t lying.

If you could have looked into his eyes, if you had been in my shoes, you would have understood.

For a moment, I thought the cab would not stop but go all the way to the airport, and that we would get on a plane, fly away, and begin a new life together somewhere else.

Could it have been possible?

If we had succeeded in forgetting about everyone else, our pasts, the consequences facing us, all our responsibilities, and opening the door of the dream had gone on that unexpected journey, would everything have changed?

And it was there: The door in the fairy tale—the door that would open when you pronounced the magic words was right beside me. It was the door of a cab speeding through the streets of London.

I knew what the magical words were. They were there, on the tip of my tongue. If I said them and opened that door, I would probably achieve what many people have desired in vain for hundreds of years.

I wished for everything to turn into a movie all at once and that we could begin a life of our own wherever we wanted.

We could go to a faraway island, meet new people, and spend our days and nights as we wished, not according to other people’s desires. As far away as possible. For as long as it lasted.

What did it matter if it were as short as a film? Couldn’t we have fit everything in? Couldn’t we have built a life, every moment of which we would cherish till the end of our days? In place of all those boring meetings, those hours passed in vain, those days when we wanted to say things but couldn’t and met people we pretended to like, and those nights full of self-pity when you put your head on the pillow and wondered if your whole life was destined to be spent in such a colorless way.

I wished that we had no secrets between us and that we could tell each other everything, even the things that could make us angry, things we would be scared to hear, and the things one might be afraid to confess even to himself. We would be naked and stripped of our identities, constructed over the years brick by brick, that we would no longer be two separate human beings. We could then pass without fear and trepidation through the gates that opened before us, one after the other, and enter those secret corridors without thinking about what awaited us.

I felt odd. I felt that we could find something that only belonged to us and would bring us together. Something even we weren’t aware of, something granted to just the two of us. Two separate parts of something that would reveal the joy of life only if united.

Otherwise, could I feel so close to a man I only knew occasionally? I felt closer to him than I had ever felt to any other person.

As he waited for me to give him an answer, these thoughts dominated my mind. Not in well-arranged or well-thought-out sentences, though. I was mixed up, but I believed something would emerge from me and change the direction of both the cab and our lives, and that I wouldn’t be able to stop it.

I would not worry about anything and just tell him, “Hold my hand and let’s go.” Then we would go far, far away.

This was what I truly wanted to do.

Yet I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

All I did was to say with an icy voice, “Please, let us close this subject. I consider it one of your jokes. Let it remain a joke, a big joke.”

Maybe, if I had managed to be brave enough for once in my life, everything would have changed despite all odds. Not only for the two of us, but for everyone.

So it began like that.

With separation.

With us separating even before we united.

I looked at him through the window. He paused for a moment and then changed his mind, hurrying toward his hotel.

His hat on his head, with the wrinkled back of his thin summer jacket . . . stooping, his shoulders fallen . . . disappearing in the heavy mist descending slowly.

That blurred image is still in my memory like a photograph.

It was to be repeated so many times.

As he left . . . always when he left.

Time passed.

Whenever I went out, my feet guided me there, to the same museum. I don’t recall how many times I entered that hall where the cherubs waited for me. The women in uniform who sat on small stools and read their books must have thought I had a mysterious bond with that painting.

I wonder how many times I stood there, in front of it, asking myself whether it had all been a dream.

Undoubtedly, it had been a dream.

The daydream of a young woman.

She wasn’t aware of what she had done.

Even if she were, what would have changed?

Impossible things . . .

In those days, I read books about impossible things. Diaries written hundreds of years ago. Feverish lines from love letters. The way lives were wasted by waiting in desperation and lost in the anguish of an impossible love.