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Back Fairy Chimney Soda Save as PDF
Chapters (38)
  1. Cover
  2. Half Title
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright Page
  5. Contents
  6. Preface
  7. 1 Kurban:
  8. 2 I Am an Orphan, Press Me to Your Chest
  9. 3 What Has That Got to Do with It, Dad!
  10. 4 I Am Grown Up, Dad
  11. 5 The Weight of Your Coat
  12. 6 “We’ll Ask Someone for Our Name, and She’ll Tell Us”
  13. 7 The Seal
  14. 8 Whose Blood Is That on the Photo?
  15. 9 The Smell of Bread or Blood?
  16. 10 What’s Left for Us
  17. 11 A Drop of Water
  18. 12 Just Let Go
  19. 13 Turkey at the End of Its Rope
  20. 14 Hearts in the Palms of Our Hands
  21. 15 The Burnt Smell Inside Us
  22. 16 The Quilt
  23. 17 Where Are Our Dead?
  24. 18 Mothers Sniff Out Their Lambs
  25. 19 The Soul of a Word
  26. 20 Three Kinds of Truth and Us
  27. 21 The Country Doctor
  28. 22 The File Under My Arm
  29. 23 The Country of the Forgotten Dead
  30. 24 The Coming of the Fiancée
  31. 25 The Lie
  32. 26 Why These Scars?
  33. 27 The Municipality Man Who Drew a Gun
  34. 28 Tell All Your Friends, I learned How to Die
  35. 29 God Willing, He Is Dead
  36. 30 Come Along, Let’s Start off by Saving Ourselves
  37. 31 A Whistle Out of Chestnut
  38. Glossary

Suddenly cursing the slug he throws it to the ground and crushes it under his shoe. Then turning to me, he says with modest delight:

“They said you were a good doctor. God damn it, they were right.”

Mom

“… Clumsy Ahmet’s grandson was playing on the doorstep. He gave the ball a kick. And it smacked me right in the eye. It felt like it was on fire. I’m telling you that’s how it happened. I thought I could see ants in front of my eyes, and no matter how much I rubbed they wouldn’t go away. From then on I always had blurry vision.”

Mom was actually describing retinal detachment due to high blood pressure but she had already determined the cause of her blurred vision: Clumsy Ahmet’s grandson. I arranged for her operation in Ankara. When I finished with my work in town I went there that evening to pay her a visit. Every time I found her lying with her eyes closed in a ward with five or six other patients. Quietly I would go over to her and take her hand. Her eyes still closed, she would mumble:

“Is that you, my lamb?”

She stayed in the hospital for a while. Then I had her come and stay with me in my boarding house. I thought it would be easier to look after her that way.

For some time I was the only doctor in town. Whenever a new one came it wasn’t long before he found some excuse to run away. It felt like I had been abandoned in the middle of the steppes. Like I had been there for a thousand years and I would stay there for another thousand. At the end of my first year I was already a devoted hunter and a regular at the city club. And whenever the mayor cracks open a new subject, I don’t know if he is being serious or if he is joking:

“You can forget all about your next assignment doctor. You’re from these parts now. Especially after we find a presentable girl for you to marry. Of course after that you won’t be able to get out of your own house even if you wanted to,” and the more such words spun out of his mouth the less frightened I became. The health clinic covered 65 villages and every day I had over a hundred outpatients. At night there were endless emergencies, follow-ups to do at sanatoriums, autopsies and all the reports to write … I was beginning to fall apart at the seams and the worst of it was that I had no idea what I could do to change anything.