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
