Six weeks passed, during which Hülya cried nearly every day because it was so itchy under the plaster. Necmi was standing in front of the only mirror in the house, shaving. Timur stood next to him, but he hardly dared ask him his most pressing question, afraid his father would tell him off.
‘Can I come with you?’
‘All right,’ Necmi said to his surprise, not thinking it over for long, and he stroked his boy’s blond hair. ‘Run and tell your mother to pack a bit more to eat.’
Timur was waiting impatiently outside the door with the bread and cheese when he heard voices from the kitchen.
‘It’s absolutely unnecessary for him to go. He’s too little, what does he want in Ankara?’
‘An adventure,’ Necmi said. ‘It’ll be an adventure for him.’
‘It’s…’
‘Enough. He’s coming with us.’
Timur wished he could dash off and tell his friends, but he didn’t want to miss the train. The train! He’d never been on a train before.
When a young simit-seller carrying a big tray of sesame rings on his head walked past, Timur piped up.
‘Brother,’ he said, ‘I’m going to Ankara today.’
‘To Ankara?’
The boy, who might have been two or three years older than Timur, smiled and said: ‘Keep your eyes peeled, they have simit there as big as wagon wheels. The people are rich there, they can afford it.’
Timur was excited to see the big city, the incredible sesame rings, and he was excited to see his sister cured.
He looked out of the window almost all the way, and sometimes he hummed along with the clatter of the train. He didn’t want to fall asleep, he was waiting for the moment when the city appeared before them. But the clattering made him tired, that and the endless dry brown of the plains and the hills on the horizon and his father’s snoring. Shortly before Ankara, he fell asleep.
Timur didn’t wake up until the train pulled into the station with a loud screech of brakes.
‘Don’t be scared, and watch out for the cars,’ the blacksmith told his son as they disembarked.
Timur wasn’t scared: he was fascinated by all the people, by the noise, by the big buildings and the cars, which he’d never seen before. When he noticed his sister was afraid, he walked closer alongside his father, who was carrying Hülya on his back. Timur wanted to stroke her, but he couldn’t reach any higher than the plaster.
‘Why do you keep staring at the simit-sellers?’ Necmi asked. And then he laughed and said: ‘Did someone tell you they had simit as big as wagon wheels in Ankara?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ignorant people are always inventing nonsense like that,’ his father said, and Timur was proud he was no longer one of the ignorant.
Later, at the doctor’s surgery, he did hold Hülya’s hand. His sister didn’t cry but Timur could see she was stiff with fear.
‘Close your eyes,’ Timur said, and the doctor added in a warm voice: ‘Don’t be afraid, it won’t hurt.’
Hülya seemed not to hear either of them; she could barely breathe, and when the plaster was sawn open, Timur screamed: ‘Dad, Dad, her eyes are slipping!’
But it was too late. From that day on, his sister had a permanent squint.
Sometimes, when the little girls were playing in the street outside the forge, Necmi would go out and call them over. Then he’d take them along to the grocer’s, where the girls would scoop up their skirts in front of them to receive a handful of sweets. And Timur’s father had enormous hands.
When he began working in the forge, Timur took up this habit from his father. He would often put sweets in Fatma’s skirt. He must have been 14 or 15 at the time, and she 10 years younger. He still remembered the girl’s smile. Nobody knew anything specific about Fatma’s parents; some said they’d been Greeks, some Aramaeans, and others claimed she was the daughter of Circassians. All they could agree upon was that the couple had arrived in the town after the confusion of the First World War. Fatma’s father had died before she was born. One day he had complained of back pain, and two weeks later cancer had taken hold of his entire body. Fatma’s mother began working as a nanny to a rich family to feed herself and her daughter. When Fatma was six months old, her mother was trampled to death by horses in the marketplace. Everyone told a different story, but all anyone knew for sure was that the horses had bolted, and she had fallen. The family who’d employed her mother had taken Fatma in.
Though she was much older, Timur’s sister, Hülya, often played with Fatma, because Fatma never teased her. The other children mocked her squint and her feet, which still turned slightly inwards, making her waddle. But Fatma liked Hülya. Fatma liked almost everyone; she was a happy girl who made friends easily. One moment, Timur had been a teenager, dropping sweets into this little girl’s skirts, and now she would soon be a woman.
‘Shall we set you up with Fatma?’ his mother asked, for the second time. ‘You’re 25 now, it’s time you got married.’
Hülya had been squinting for six years when her father grew sick. He lay in bed for a week and on the morning of the eighth day, he didn’t get up again. The first year had been hard for them all, but Zeliha had rented out the forge and managed to make enough money for food and even a little extra. Timur had continued to help in the workshop, and when he turned 17, he took over the forge and earned a livelihood for the family, which his mother managed.
And now he was 25 and he liked his life. He liked working at the forge, sitting at the teahouse and smoking shisha, and every so often he would get drunk. When he did, everything seemed to fall away, he savoured it. He savoured the world, felt nothing but pleasure. It was as if the stars in the night sky rained down on his hair, like sweets dropped into the skirts of a little girl. When he drank, it all became one; beauty and ugliness, heaven and hell, silk and sackcloth, pillows and the hard clay ground. As long as he had this happiness, and his work, nothing could happen to him. And when he needed a change, he would go to the big city and enjoy the sense of adventure he felt since his first visit there. He had no need to get married, but now he was standing drunk in front of his mother on a winter’s night, snowflakes melting on the shoulders of his coat, and he said: ‘Yes. Go and ask if they’ll give her to us.’
And Zeliha said: ‘Blessed be the Lord. I’ll go straight out in the morning and fix it up.’
‘Yes,’ he had said, that night, drunk. Yes, as if fate had placed the word in his mouth. It was not the first time his mother had suggested someone, but this time he’d said yes. But was Fatma even old enough? The next morning, he pulled his sister aside.
‘You know Fatma, the orphan girl?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mum wants me to marry her.’
Hülya went to hug her brother, but he held her back. ‘Do me a favour, will you? Find an excuse to sleep over at hers. You’re friends after all, aren’t you? You know each other well enough?’
Hülya looked at him, uncomprehending.
‘Have a look to see if she’s got breasts. She’s still too young to get married, don’t you think? What am I supposed to do with a wife without breasts?’
Hülya hesitated, so Timur added: ‘Please.’ It was a please which sounded more like go.
‘Okay,’ Hülya said. ‘I’ll try. But believe me, Fatma would make a good wife for you, breasts or no.’
Timur was not convinced, but he couldn’t keep it to himself and so he told his friends the news over lunch.
‘Mum has