Severing my ties with Avanos, I had come to study at university in Izmir, and in Bornova there was a student uprising in the dorms. I had been wearing the same coat since I started in the Politics department and the same combat boots for the last 22 days. We were staying in a makeshift tent pitched in front of the little cafeteria. It was the most unexpected way to start my studies at med school. What do I remember from those days? Not all the rallies and the decrees. The one thing that has forever lingered in my mind is the scent of daffodil from the revolutionary girl, who was also in the med department, and whom I fell in love with at first sight.

I don’t where she is now. But for some reason I will never forget those words said by our anatomy teacher, Ismail Ulutaş, who had the startling resolve to continue teaching us among all the conflict and the chaos.

“Before you actually examine your patient you should make your initial assessment the moment you see him or her at the door. Because every patient has his particular way of walking, a particular look and a particular smell.”

I was under the impression that I got my first whiff of death from the cadavers in our anatomy class, but I was wrong. That’s just the smell of formaldehyde. The real smell you get in the autopsy room.

It’s a fall day and I am in my fifth year doing an internship in forensics. An entire family from Manisa has eaten a jar of homemade preserves made from eggplant.

But a powerful poison had come to life in the conserves: botulism. All seven of them died instantly. They had lined up the three kids side by side. A woman in a long black dress from the Aegean leans over the children, kisses them, breathes them in and keens:

“My lambs … My lambs …”

*

Only a few days left till graduation. It’s the last chance I have to pass pharmacology. I am so stressed I am even thinking about dropping out. On the top floor of the house in Avanos I am buried in my notes, cramming for the course. At one point I step outside. I smoke a cigarette next to the pond. Reluctantly I pluck an overripe apricot off a branch—it tastes more like a şekerpare than a piece of fruit. Taking in the scents of the garden, I look absentmindedly at the swaying trees.