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Back Fairy Chimney Soda Save as PDF
Chapters (38)
  1. Cover
  2. Half Title
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright Page
  5. Contents
  6. Preface
  7. 1 Kurban:
  8. 2 I Am an Orphan, Press Me to Your Chest
  9. 3 What Has That Got to Do with It, Dad!
  10. 4 I Am Grown Up, Dad
  11. 5 The Weight of Your Coat
  12. 6 “We’ll Ask Someone for Our Name, and She’ll Tell Us”
  13. 7 The Seal
  14. 8 Whose Blood Is That on the Photo?
  15. 9 The Smell of Bread or Blood?
  16. 10 What’s Left for Us
  17. 11 A Drop of Water
  18. 12 Just Let Go
  19. 13 Turkey at the End of Its Rope
  20. 14 Hearts in the Palms of Our Hands
  21. 15 The Burnt Smell Inside Us
  22. 16 The Quilt
  23. 17 Where Are Our Dead?
  24. 18 Mothers Sniff Out Their Lambs
  25. 19 The Soul of a Word
  26. 20 Three Kinds of Truth and Us
  27. 21 The Country Doctor
  28. 22 The File Under My Arm
  29. 23 The Country of the Forgotten Dead
  30. 24 The Coming of the Fiancée
  31. 25 The Lie
  32. 26 Why These Scars?
  33. 27 The Municipality Man Who Drew a Gun
  34. 28 Tell All Your Friends, I learned How to Die
  35. 29 God Willing, He Is Dead
  36. 30 Come Along, Let’s Start off by Saving Ourselves
  37. 31 A Whistle Out of Chestnut
  38. Glossary

With a slightly resentful air about me, I handed the relative the EKG paper and went back to my chair …

30 Come Along, Let’s Start off by Saving Ourselves

30

Come Along, Let’s Start off by
Saving Ourselves

It had been snowing around the clock for the past two days and I could barely make the trip from my residence to the health clinic. The village roads were completely covered. No sign of a patient or anyone else for that matter. Even the sun seemed reluctant to show her face. Every time custodian Kerim Efendi came into my room with that strange smile on his face to fill the stove with coal, my office was turned into a hamam. In such a snowstorm you could hardly walk across town. Electricity went out on the first day and it was only now back up and running this afternoon. What to do? During the day I kept writing letters. First to Izmir. To a few of my classmates who were doing their mandatory civil service there. To a friend who was forced to leave the country for Paris after the coup. And one to Nazif who left to do his military service because he was angry with everyone and everything, and of course a letter to dad.

“Son, keep the letters coming. When you’re late your dad takes your last letter out of the cupboard and reads it again. And what’s more he reads it like he’s reading it for the first time. Your brothers can’t stop laughing at the man,” says mom.

Through the window I can see the courthouse car approaching. In his classic bouncy, good mood Salim the pay clerk gets out of the car. Whenever you see the man you can’t help but feel that everything’s right in the world. There is laughter in the corridor. Must be hamming it up with the nurses. A little later he comes into my office. Places a little yellow envelope on the corner of my desk. It’s the extra money I get when I do an autopsy outside regular working hours. In other words, “money from a dead man.”

“The prosecutor says the doctor should get his things together because we’re off to Yenişıhlı to do a recon and autopsy, if he’s available of course.”

“Are the roads even open?” I ask.

“They are, doc. The villagers have found the shepherd and they’re expecting us.”