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