Being a doctor is like no other job. The people of Anatolia say, “When you are with a doctor there is nothing to be ashamed of.” That’s just the way it is. A patient steps through the door and suddenly tells you everything and it’s all out in the open as she suddenly reveals to you the most intimate details even her spouse has never seen or heard of. Without hesitation she shares a secret shared with no one else and as if prattling on about any old thing. And stopped like that in your tracks, you suddenly become family, a friend, a confidant.

For example, it could be any old day when a frail, pale-faced, little woman with stomach pains comes in for an examination and, after she lies down on the examination table, you realize that she has wrapped a thick cloth around her stomach several times to hide her pregnancy, and that she will probably give birth that same day. Turns out she was more or less forced into a relationship with her roughneck cousin who drives a taxi, and the poor woman spent nine months struggling to conceal the pregnancy by keeping her stomach tightly wrapped in cloth. What would you do in such a situation? She’s still on the examination table when her thin, graceful hands take your wrist and she says: “For the love of God, doctor, my older brother is waiting outside. Don’t tell him anything, or he’ll kill me.” You have already become a part the story and you don’t know how it is going to end.

Well here’s what happened: she gave birth to a boy. I allowed for the midwife at the clinic to arrange a private birth at her home. The girl and her older brother then went to their hometown. I don’t know the rest. But I know one thing: I pressed the midwife with one condition, that the boy would be named “Ercan.” To that dark-eyed, milk-scented innocent boy who started out in this world with such injustice and misfortune, I could give nothing more than my own name.

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