“I am fine, madam. Just old age. The glass is full, just one drop to go. Waiting for it to fall, madam.”

12

Just Let Go

“Hurry up and drink this.”

Mom was standing over me with a glass of water.

“What’s that, mom? I didn’t ask for water.”

“Drink it up, sweetie. Nimet Abla drank the first half, now you drink the rest.”

“Why?”

“Don’t ask why. Just drink it so you get some of her in you. Come on, drink.”

Nimet Abla was one of the village girls who had gone to university. Her mom came to help mine with chores; day and night they would weave carpets. Mom was a fan of Nimet Abla. “She’s a really smart girl,” she said whenever she saw her. This meant every time she came over mom would have her drink half a glass of water and save the second half for me. I finished my half and went to bed. In the morning I was going to Istanbul to take the entrance exams at the Kuleli Military High School. Mom got everything ready before we left: a talisman with a powerful prayer in my coat pocket, holy grains of rice in the secret pocket in my bag and this half a glass of water.

We traveled to Istanbul where I failed the physical education exam. I was last place in the race and I couldn’t do any of the calisthenics. I remember the sad look on my dad’s face as I struggled to do a pull-up, my arms too weak to lift my body over the bar even once.

It was July. Istanbul was beautiful. As beautiful as those first scoops of ice-cream I’d eaten out of a glass bowl.

Dad disappeared and came back with bathing suits.

On the coast and in the middle of the crowd, we changed with towels wrapped around our waists. I was looking at the sea for the first time and I was going to swim in it. Clutching the edge of the pier, I slowly lowered myself into the water. But I couldn’t let go.

“Slowly kick your feet,” dad said. “The water will keep you afloat.”

I thought of the Kızılırmak River and how you had to thrash about and use your arms to swim. But that was nothing like the sea. How wonderful is the sea, the way the water lifts you up. But I still couldn’t let go. Dad leaned over and softly said:

“Don’t be scared, son … Just let go.”

I looked into his eyes. Yes, I could do it. Slowly I released my grip on the pier and started to swim.

*

I’m in my fırst few months of mandatory service. In a town on the steppes of Anatolia. A 24-year-old kid in the middle of nowhere.

There are no rooms left in the boarding house and a long waiting line to get in. So they put me in an empty room in the hospital. Just an old bunk, an unused medicine cabinet and a Formica table. All I need. The central heating’s running all the time and I’m never cold. Several times a week I go to the hamam across from the hospital. The girl at the main post office likes me because I don’t make her wait for her mother-in-law’s prescriptions; my “standard” telephone calls are connected as “lightning” calls. All’s well in the world.