The story of Cyrano comes to mind. You know how Roxanne struggles to understand why he didn’t tell her that he had written the letters himself. Remembering his fiancée who had died in the war, Cyrano answers: “The words are mine but the blood on them is hers.”

What difference does it make if everything we write is indeed our own. But the blood on the words, and the unfortunate stories that we indifferently listen to every day … This is what we must know …

9

The Smell of Bread or Blood?

Just at the entrance to the garden in front of his house is a black oven up against a wall. Tile Maker Hacı Amca built it. I remember it so well, the way he slowly worked at it as if doing nothing at all. With bands on her arms, mom is making cheese and potato flatbread with lean beef. My ebe Cemelli’s face is turned to the sun; I’m wearing my argyle sweater; my brother is sitting on a leather stool he made himself. I am with my ebe. Now she is quite old and her memory isn’t all that good. Every now and then someone passes by the house with a hoe or a shovel on his shoulder. These are seasonal laborers who have come from Sarıhıdır, Bayramhacılı and Kışlalı. Quickly my ebe raises her stick and points them out to mom: “Fadime … Look, he’s almost gone, call him over. Come on, come on …” Without even answering, mom hurriedly wraps one or two of the flatbreads stacked to one side in a newspaper and barely catches up to the passing laborer. Every time she comes back she looks down at the mounds of dough on the ground and mumbles to herself. The flatbread is going to run out. But my ebe is all too pleased with herself.

“All these people are all alone, my lamb. They aren’t married and they don’t have a home. Now they surely picked up the scent of the fresh bread. Who is going to make food for them? What will they eat and drink … Only good deeds.”

I grew up in a house where everyone hurried to hand out food to a beggar who had come to the door so that the good deed might go down in the books. In all her 90 years my ebe knew nothing of the world outside our home and Kızılöz—indeed she had never seen the world outside our home and Kızılöz—but in my heart of hearts she was the wisest woman in the world. And then she got Alzheimer’s. She was always asking us about the past and whenever she came to an open door she wanted to hurry back to Cemel. When mom could no longer handle the situation, I would come out with a performance. Dressed in dad’s coat and a with village cap on my head, I was transformed into a relative who had come from Cemel on a visit.