Soon the head nurse’s complaining voice was a sweet bubbling in my ears. I have other things on my mind. Opening my eyes to give her the impression I am listening, I try to keep a displeased expression on my face. Then out of the corner of my eye, I notice a door to a patient’s room off the corridor. For whatever reason it isn’t completely shut. Through the crack I see a patient sitting cross-legged on his bed, I can see what he is doing. His hand under the mattress, he is looking for something. Yes, and he has it out now. A pack of cigarettes. He quickly takes out one and stuffs the pack back in its hiding place. A little later the door opens and out comes a fairly tall, dark-skinned patient on crutches. One hand is clutched in a fist. Without glancing our way, he slowly slips out of sight at the end of the corridor. Obviously he has gone out to have a smoke. I was curious to know more about him. When the head nurse came up for air, I took the chance to ask:

“What’s ailing the patient in 302?”

“He is has ‘Buergers,’ sir. He has Engin Bey’s disease. He’s been with us for a week. From Dolapdere. But he’s improved since. All the same we’ll send him to Surgery. Necrosis in his right leg. I think they are going to amputate.”

Buergers. In other words, ‘Trimming Disease.” Common with smokers. They are willing to lose a leg over smoking.

A little later the man comes out of the bathroom and walks past us, leaving a fresh whiff of smoke in his wake.

A week later they cut off his leg at the groin. I saw his relatives waiting for him outside the morgue. Had we lost him? No. “Thank God he’s fine,” they said. They were waiting for the amputated the leg. Truth is it hadn’t occurred to me. “What are you going to do with it?” I asked. “We’ll take it to the cemetery and bury it,” they said. “You have to bury human organs, hocam, they also need a grave. They surely do.”

*

I am in Avanos. There is that strange panic and stress that comes on the eve of a religious holiday. The weather is really hot. I am sitting next to dad in the garden, our backs up against the wall. For the hundredth time he is telling me a military story which involves his commander Semih. He ends the same way he always does, asking, “I wonder if Semih is still alive?” Then doing the calculations, starting from the year he did his military service to the present day, he comes to the conclusion that Semih must still be alive and then he moves on to another memory.

Mom signals to me from the living room window. She must have a problem she can’t share with dad. Making an excuse, I get up and go inside, leaving dad in the garden. Mom is waiting for me on a spring mattress.