Mom is sweeping the front of the house with a twig broom. The only sign of life on the steppes seems to be the dust swirling up in the air. I am reading a book in the hollow right behind the loom that is in the hall all year round. This is my secret hideout. The mesh of the carpet on the loom makes the perfect shield for my little hideout. Everyone at home knows where I am hiding throughout the day but they keep quiet about it. I drift off and then wake up and pop my head out when I’m hungry. At one point I slip into a dream, my book in my lap. I come to when I hear the rhythmic tapping of a walking stick on the little floor stones. The sound comes closer and then stops outside. Someone is talking to mom. She comes inside and when she comes out of the kitchen with a jug of water I slip out from under the loom. Now I am on the doorstep. Before someone I have never seen before: an old woman who can hardly see straight. She sits down on the stoop, leaning on her stick for support. Slowly she drinks all the water mom brings her. I watch water run out of the corners of the jug and look at the tiny patterns it makes on her tattered, dusty, brightly colored cotton veil.

“Let there be many like you who give out water, my lamb. Let them be spoken of on the lips of the past,” she said joyfully. As mom leaned over to take back the jug the old woman slowly took her by the wrist:

“What was your name, my lamb? Who do you belong to? Whose family are you from?”

“I am from the Köse family,” said mom calmly. “The bride to Mother Cemelli.”

The old woman paused for a moment and then spoke as if her mood had brightened:

“Is that so my lamb? So then you are the daughter of our butcher Haci Mehmet. Good job, my lamb! You have earned your keep! Good on you! So that’s how it is. When someone asks your name don’t give your real name. Give them the name of your mother-in-law. That way you won’t have any problems.”

Truth is I had no idea why it was a good thing for mom not to have her own name. Bewildered, I went back to my hideout and my books.

*

On Thursdays there is a street market in town. Right outside our front door is Armageddon all over again. As usual Kasım is screaming and shouting at the patients. But no one is paying him any attention. The patients he is trying to coerce with some authority are all his neighbors. Later that evening they will drink tea on his doorstep and shoot the breeze. But now all this looks more like a makeshift play, people screaming and shouting then suddenly bursting into laughter.