“Uncle, you can get going if you like. There’s no need for you to wait … Your son is in safe hands here. Don’t worry. Alright?” he says before dad can get a word in.

Dad waits in a corner until we finish with the registration. Then I go over to him. He takes some money out of his pocket and hands it to me. He pauses and says almost in a murmur:

“Son, look after yourself. Don’t get tangled up in everything … I just don’t understand this behavior. These kids have no respect for their elders. It’s their way or the high way. What kind of revolution is that I have no idea?”

“Dad, what has that got do with it, for the love of God?”

And then there’s Izmir … I am studying medicine. Dad gets off the bus in Bornova. He’s coming to see me with pekmez mom asked him to give me … The dormitories are now in the hands of revolutionaries.

“We are providing our own security!”

Those on guard have given dad a hard time before letting him through. He looks at me in surprise. The dorm is now under our control and that night he is staying over as a guest. After he’s taken a shower and changed, we go down to eat in the cafeteria. He keeps glancing left and right. In the morning he’ll take the bus back to Avanos. Leaving the dorm, we walk side by side down the long road lined with olive trees that leads to the gate. I know what’s running through his mind: “Is my son really going to be a proper doctor?” He is troubled. I kiss his hand. He hugs me. Unable to hold back the words, he says:

“Son, what’s going on here? I can’t tell if these kids are students or soldiers. They all have ashen faces. And they are all dressed in rags. They don’t look after themselves. Always smoking cigarettes, drinking tea. How are these kids going to change the country, how are they going to make a revolution?”

“Dad, what has that got to do with it?”

Then there was the coup. We didn’t know what hit us. They threw us all out of the dorm. Now there’s no place for us to stay. I can’t stay with my friends. For two or three months I sleep in the bus terminal. Some time after that I go home. Dad has moved my bed away from the window in our house in Avanos. He thinks that someone passing by on the street could easily shoot me to death. Now there is no turning back on our chosen paths. When we see our enemies we charge like bulls chasing the color red. No one guns me down on the street but someone provoked by a local machine guns the coffeehouse where a friend of mine always hangs out. Projectionist Orhan, who rolls all the best films, is killed. Most of my friends are on the run. We have become birds without a nest.