by Kulin, Ayse
“But could it be dangerous?”
“She’ll be fine. The monitors would tell us if her pulse dropped or anything.”
He rushed off to his next patient. Just at that moment, a child with a completely bald head and a mask was wheeled past me.
I went out to the garden. It was one of those moments I wished I were a smoker. But I was a doctor. Not that that had stopped my great-grandfather. I remembered him puffing away, even in his nineties. Su said it made him feel like he was communing with all the friends he’d lost. Why wasn’t I born back then? Modern times were cruel and confusing. The world wouldn’t let you smoke, and my country was even trying to stop me from having a drink!
My phone beeped. A text message.
Where are you, Esra? If in Istanbul, same time, same place?
Tarık!
And to think, if it weren’t for Su, I’d have been in İzmir.
I left the hospital and walked to the metro. Fifteen minutes later, I was in the old family apartment on Grenadier Street. I washed and blow-dried my hair. The chest from Great-Grandma Bedia was still in my old bedroom, and it was still full of my cast-off, cedar-scented clothes. I pulled out the red dress Su and I had picked out for that first date. After it aired on the balcony for a bit, I ironed it and put it on. I arrived at the hotel at seven on the dot. This time, I didn’t hide out in the ladies’ room. As I walked over to the bar, I saw him. He was in front of the door leading to the terrace, looking at the view. Involuntarily, I clapped my hand over my heart. Then I walked up to him. He put his arm around my shoulder and, together, we watched the shifting city lights and the minarets.
How could I ever leave this city?
“I don’t have much time,” he said. “I’ve got meetings all day tomorrow and an early morning flight the next day. I got us a room here so we won’t have to waste a moment. What do you say?”
“That sounds great.”
We finished our glasses of champagne and went down to our room. For a long time, all we did was sit on the edge of the bed together and gaze out through the picture window at the horizon. After we made love, we ordered room service. I asked him where he’d been, hoping he’d say he was ready to settle down. But he just sighed and said he’d been so many places, and he was going to Syria next. We made love again. As I was falling asleep, I had the strangest sense of déjà vu. Mother had told me how she and Korhan conceived me when they got back together . . . Actually, Mother had conceived me on her own, or at least with minimal assistance from my father. When she had told Korhan she was pregnant, he’d said, “The baby will be yours, not mine.”
I was a doctor. I knew better than to get pregnant by mistake. But what if I wanted to have a baby one day? Would Tarık react the same way my father had?
Of course, my mother hadn’t wanted my father. She’d wanted a baby. Whereas all I wanted was Tarık.
We were reluctant to disentangle ourselves the following morning. Tarık was just about to leave when I casually asked, “When are you coming back to Istanbul?”
“I can’t give you an exact date. Nobody knows what’s going to happen in Syria. All I can tell you is that I’ll call the second I’m back.”
“I’ll be either in Istanbul or at the hospital in İzmir. You know where to find me.”
“Oh, I’ll find you. And this time I’ll be back for a long while.”
“Really? But what about your work?”
“I’ve been traveling for years, Esra. I need to rest for a while. I’m thinking of publishing a book of my photographs. I want to relax, write, be happy. And I can’t think of a happier spot in the whole world than in your arms.”
“Do you mean that?”
“I do.”
I flushed and shifted nervously, trying to take in this confession. “I’d love to see a book of your photos. Each of them must be more beautiful than the last.”
“I wouldn’t say that. My photography documents war and the aftermath of war. Call me an idealist, but I still believe that if more people understood what war was, there’d be less of it.”
“I hope you’re right.”
He hugged me again at the door.
“Promise you’ll come back to me in one piece,” I whispered. I loved him. But I still doubted I’d follow Su’s advice if he ever cheated on me.
A moment later, Tarık was gone. As I took one last look at our room, I felt confident, this time, that he would come back.
When I got to the hospital, Grandma was sitting up in bed, alert as ever.
“The red dress!” she said. “Your phantom boyfriend must be back in town.”
I just shook my head and laughed. We chatted for a bit about my night with Tarık, but she was anxious to continue from where we’d left off the previous day. She patiently explained to me that the Jewish community in Turkey would be blamed for anything Israel did and even for anything anyone who was Jewish did, no matter where in the world it happened. That’s why she wanted me to leave.
“Grandma Su, don’t you think you’re being a little paranoid? Where are all these anti-Semites you’re so worried about?”
“Don’t you ever use social media? They’re everywhere!”
“Just about everything I read is work-related, Grandma. But I do know that there are a lot of trolls on the Internet.”
“Don’t you expect me to believe you haven’t noticed. If they’re sending me hate messages, you’re getting them too. Esra, pass your medical specialty test and then apply to the hospital in London. There’s no future for a Şiliman in this country!”
Except I wasn’t a Şiliman. My name was Elsa Esra Atalay Solmaz. Taking Korhan’s surname was another one of the decisions Su had made for me. “Korhan’s family owns land in the Edirne area,” she told me. “Take your father’s name so you won’t have to fight with the courts later.” When I told her I was going to become a doctor and didn’t expect or need any inheritance from my father, she told me I could use the money to help people, just like my mother had. Once again, Grandma won. I did what she said.
This time, though, I was going to resist.
“I’m a doctor,” I told her. “I have responsibilities.”
“You can treat patients anywhere.”
“I have a special obligation to Turks.”
“As a doctor, you can’t discriminate like that.”
We spent the next three days arguing. On the fourth day, Grandma was ready to be discharged. I asked Rozi’s Moldavian nanny, Nadya, to help me look after her for a little while.
On the third day after we got home from the hospital, the coup happened. It was July 15, 2016.
But the sonic booms of F16s circling over Istanbul and the sound of gunfire didn’t disturb my coup-hardened grandmother in the slightest.
“Is it another coup?” she shouted from her bedroom. “I thought they’d neutered the army! The top brass got tossed in jail!”
“It’s been years since those officers were acquitted and released. This is something else. We’re not going to find out what’s really going on until tomorrow.”
She insisted that Nadya and I help her into the living room and sit her down in front of the TV. A moment later, she called out again. “Take me back to my bed. This isn’t a coup; it’s an embarrassment!”
“Since when are you an expert on coups?”
“I’ve lived a long life in this country. And I can tell you that coups happen while people are in bed, asleep. Coups aren’t televised!”
As Nadya and I were walking Grandma back to her room, I muttered under my breath that they should consult her the next time they staged a coup. At that very moment, the president appeared on TV and called on the people to fill the city squares.
“Doesn’t the state have its own forces?” Grandma asked. “How are ordinary people supposed to stop the tanks?”
“The people need to fight back, too. I learned that from you, Su.”
“Well, you’re not going anywhere! Sit down! You’ll end up shot, and we’l
l never even know which side did it.”
“I’ll just go up to the corner.”
“No! They’ll follow you back here, and we’ll all end up dead.”
An F16 passed directly overhead, and there was the crash of broken glass. Fortunately, the three of us were still in the hall. I instinctively huddled over Grandma.
“Get off me,” she said. “And go and get some quilts. We can wait this out in the bathroom.”
Nadya and I ran to the living room. The curtains were fluttering. Leaves and scraps of debris were floating through the air. Every single window had been shattered. On TV, the president was still exhorting the people to take to the streets.
“Get out of the living room. Come to the bathroom,” Su shouted.
“We’d better listen to her,” I said to Nadya. “Otherwise, we’ll never hear the end of it.”
Together, we gathered all the pillows we could find and got a stack of quilts from the linen closet. Once I had Grandma seated on the floor with a couple of pillows behind her back, I got into the bathtub. Nadya squeezed in next to my grandmother.
“We’re not leaving here until it’s over,” Grandma announced. “We’ll be safe in the bathroom. Madame always put me and Peter in here whenever there was an earthquake.”
“An earthquake? In Istanbul?”
“Of course! You’re too young to know anything. In the early sixties, Istanbul was rocking like a cradle. A lot of people ran away to the islands.”
Nadya asked Grandma who Madame was.
“She was our family’s guardian angel.”
Nadya looked puzzled, but she patted the old woman’s hand and smiled.
An hour or so later, when Grandma dozed off, Nadya and I crept out of the bathroom, got our slippers, and crunched across broken glass to the living room window. We didn’t see anything unusual on our street, but shouting was still coming from the main boulevard, and we could hear the announcements coming from the loudspeakers on the minarets, telling the people to take to the streets.
We swept the glass off the sofa and draped a blanket over it. Then we sat down, surfed the channels, and tried to make sense of it all. We both fell asleep there. Toward dawn, Su’s cries woke us up. She needed to use the toilet, but couldn’t get up off the floor.
“So how did it end?” she asked.
“The government won; the coup lost.”
“Good!”
“You’ve got to let me go outside now,” I said. “The people rose up. It’s all over.”
“It’s still too early to be sure, my dear,” she said, but I could see her relief.
I checked my cell phone. The battery was nearly dead, and I had dozens of texts and missed calls. Tarık had called, then Korhan, Tarık again, my mother calling from England, Tarık again. There were calls from friends, then again from my mother, three more from my father, and then Tarık, yet again.
I read his text messages first.
Are you okay? How are you? Where are you? Call me. Call me! Please call!
I sent everyone a message saying I was fine.
Nadya and I spent the day sweeping up glass and dusting. New windows were installed by evening.
The squares were still full of people holding democracy vigils. They stayed there for weeks. The TV showed nonstop footage of the night of the coup and live broadcasts of ordinary citizens waving flags for the cameras. The ruling party transported its supporters to the city squares, and Istanbul’s metro, buses, and ferries were free for the next two weeks.
“Why are all those people still out in the streets?” Grandma asked. “What on earth are they celebrating?”
“They’re not celebrating. They’re holding vigils to prevent another coup attempt,” I told her.
“Who was behind this coup? I know you told me, but I can’t remember.”
“An imam.”
“An imam? Imams don’t stage coups.”
“Well, an imam staged this one,” Nadya said. “I heard it on TV.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! Soldiers stage coups. Imams lead prayers.”
“These are strange times, Su.”
“Esra, I know my memory’s going,” Grandma said, “but I’m not senile yet. I don’t care what Nadya heard on TV. Who was really behind the coup? A group of young officers, probably? They must have gotten restless.”
“Grandma, we’re telling you, the military wasn’t behind it this time. It was FETÖ.”
“What’s a FETÖ?”
“You remember Fethullah Gülen? The cleric? FETÖ is what they’re calling the Fethullah Terror Organization. It’s some kind of shadowy network that’s infiltrated the security forces and the state. You always said Fethullah was up to something. Well, you were right.”
“If we’ve really reached the point where a weepy imam can attempt a coup, there’s no point in my remaining on this earth.”
“You have to stay here and take care of me!”
“I’m only a stand-in. When I quit, your real mother will take over.”
“Su, I’ll never accept your letter of resignation,” I said, giving her a kiss.
“It’s not your call to make,” Grandma said. “The All Powerful makes those decisions.”
But the All Powerful was not yet ready to claim my grandmother. She grew stronger each day. Rozi agreed to let Nadya stay with Su, so I reluctantly returned to İzmir.
I still hadn’t heard back from Tarık. Every time I tried to call, his phone was off, and he never answered my text messages. He’s like one of those fishing birds, I decided. He surfaces, makes a big splash, and then, in a flash, he’s gone. Somehow, I’d fallen for his little speech about finding happiness in my arms. I was furious at myself for remembering every word he’d said, for daydreaming about a life together, for having believed that things would be different this time.
Tarık was gone. Again.
He’d probably text me again one day, months or years later. Same time, same place? But next time, the answer would be no.
I stopped trying to reach him.
I passed my exams, but my heart wouldn’t seem to heal. Istanbul was Tarık now. Everything reminded me of him. Perhaps Su’s idea about London wasn’t so bad after all.
I found the application form and filled it out. Late at night, after half a bottle of white wine, I signed it. Three days later, I sent it to the hospital in London.
When I called Grandma to tell her what I’d done, she said, “Come see me this weekend. Let’s celebrate. The return ticket is on me.”
Time to Leave
Su had prepared a feast with all my favorite dishes: meatballs, zucchini croquettes, fried eggplant and potato, chilled green beans with olive oil, tomato rice pilaf, and blancmange with ice cream.
“What are you trying to do, Grandma?” I said. “Do you want me to get so fat nobody will want me?”
“On the contrary. I want you to go to London and find a husband. Men look at skinny blondes, but they marry nice, plump brunettes.”
“Are you speaking from experience?”
“Don’t get smart with me, young lady! I can give you plenty of examples from art and literature. Is that what you want?”
“No, please don’t. Let’s just enjoy dinner.”
“And let’s be serious for a moment. When are you leaving?”
“I told them I could be available starting at the end of October. I’m waiting for a response.”
Nadya brought in a platter of fried meatballs.
“Thank you, Nadya,” I said. “Those smell amazing.”
That’s when my phone beeped. An unknown number. I ignored it. Doctors need time off, too.
“What about Tarık?” Grandma asked. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“So what about your red dress?”
“I’ll never wear it again. I’m doing what you wanted. I’m going to London.”
“Didn’t you say he was going to work on a book? He can do that in London.”
“I’l
l work and he’ll sort photos? No, thanks.”
“Sweetheart, you work so he can finish his book. Then you celebrate together when he’s done. That’s what people in love do. Demir and I always supported each other.”
“That was in the old days, Grandma. Love, happiness, a baby.”
“Our president wants you to have five babies.” She laughed. “One’s not enough. He’s trying to turn our women into brood hens. Have some more pilaf, dear.”
My phone beeped again. I glanced at it out of the corner of my eye.
“Go on, read it,” Su said. “I don’t want you thinking about unread messages while I’m trying to talk to you.”
I reached over and picked up my phone. Nadya was putting more meatballs and pilaf on my plate.
“No, thanks. I want to leave room for dessert,” I said.
Then I read the message. Three times.
“Esra? What happened?” Su said. “You’ve gone pale. Esra?”
Someone took the phone out of my hand. Someone held a glass of water to my lips. Or were they splashing it on my face? I could hear Nadya: “You made me cook enough food for ten. The poor thing’s stuffed. It’s no wonder she fainted.”
My stomach was churning.
“Bring a bucket! Quick!”
I threw up.
“That’s it, dear,” Grandma was saying. “You’ll feel better now. Lie down on the sofa. Come on, dear.”
The ringing in my ears began to subside. I looked for my phone. I’d dropped it on the floor. I read the message again.
“Su, call a cab,” I said. “I’ve got to go.”
“But you just got here!”
“It’s Tarık. He’s at a hospital in Mardin.”
“What!”
“I tried to call him—but I thought . . . He was injured. In Syria. They just brought him to Turkey. A bomb attack.”
Su snatched the phone from my hand and read the message.
I was crying now. My hands were shaking. I think I was rocking back and forth. A hand slapped me. Hard. I blinked at Grandma. It was the first time anyone had ever hit me.
“Pull yourself together, Esra! First, we’ll call the airport. Let’s find out if there are any flights to Mardin.”
