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
