*

Istanbul. Troubled years. Now I was alone. When they handed over the keys to that 67-square-meter house I had bought with a five-year installment from Emlak Bank my doctor friend had pushed me to take, he said with the pride of a cowboy who had just gotten his noose around the neck of a wild horse:

“Aha so now you are on track … Only installments would tame you.”

I called mom and told her I took the house. The following day she fasted. They had an animal they were going to sacrifice. For some time the only thing I had in my new house was the quilt she had sent to me in the back of a bus from Avanos. I kept half of that wool blanket from mom’s dowry under me and the other half over me. I used a chair cushion for a pillow. But a few years later when mom and dad come to Istanbul for Parkinson’s treatment and they stay with me I rush out and buy a sofa bed and a TV …

Dad’s illness is in the late stages. He is nothing but skin and bones. Fourth stage Parkinsons. Bedridden.

“This quilt is pretty heavy son, put something else over me.”

“Of course, dad.” I take my mom’s wool blanket off his shoulders and replace it with a fiber one. He’s really happy.

The day before he died he was coughing a lot. I went over and gave him a glass of water. “My back’s cold,” he said. “Tuck the blanket around me a little tighter.”

“Can you get up, dad? And have something to eat?”

“No, son, just tighten up the blanket. I’ll sleep a little. Wake up in the spring.”

“What spring, dad?”

“Did I just say spring, son? I meant in the morning.”

My dad never woke up again …

*

October 1984. Izmir … Ilyas was one of the last young men hanged by the Junta … Ilyas Has … A friend who had spent time with him in prison explains:

“… We were walking in the courtyard.

‘So it’s your turn?’ I said.

‘What turn?’

‘They are going to hang you tonight?’

‘Ah … You’re right … I figured so much. I’m ready,’ he said.

I touched his hair, and we said goodbye …”

Ilyas went to sleep in his bed that night. Wrapped in his blanket. Calm and comfortable as if he isn’t the one they were going to hang. They came and took him away in the middle of the night. Just as they were leaving he put his foot against the door and said, “They will be held accountable for this.” In the last letter he wrote before he died, Ilyas left a note about his personal effects. He left his watch, his trousers, his shirt and his blanket to his family.

I hear my son’s voice in the other room. For the last few days he’s had a fever. Today he is feeling better. But he’s a little boy and he’s always kicking off his blanket. I go in and cover him up. Later when I crawl under my own blanket I will quietly think about what I have lived through …