It was my second day at the State Hospital. The first day went by in confusion and the to-do of all those phrases, “welcome,” “will you have a tea?” and “doctor, please sit down, you’re the guest today,” until it was evening. Sitting down in the examination room at the entrance of the two-story policlinic, an annex to the town’s little old state hospital I watched the way the old general practitioner Memduh, who came to the town every three months on a temporary rotation, examined his patients. As far as I could remember it was a Thursday and, as always, the town was more crowded than on any other day. People from the surrounding villages flocked to town for the street market to do all their shopping and, as if it was some kind of obligation, many simply had to pop into the state hospital for an examination. It seemed like that day would never end and that evening I met with the town bureaucrats at the only meyhane in town called Çiftlik that belonged to Hunchback Haci, and, pleasantly exhausted, I went back to my bed in the hospital which in those early days was home.

The next day I put on my white coat and with my fancy stethoscope dangling around my neck I had the look of a soldier about to enlist in the medical division of the army, ready to imitate certain names and titles I had learned the day before.

“Sırma hanım, is the tea ready?” “The stove is smoking again, Kerim Efendi.” “Good morning, Şermin Hanım,” “alright then, let’s have the next patient in line.”

I felt I needed to establish authority right from the start and that I should always keep a distance between me and the staff.

When Ertan Bey came into the examination room through the doctor’s entrance toward noon, the routine that I had nicely set in place was upended. Ertan Bey was a local from town who used a large room on the second floor of the annex building as an office and who was called “Mr. Director,” even though he was listed as a medical secretary. But for some reason everyone had accepted unconditionally his legendary appointment to the post of doctor and the clout that came with it. He was a strange, short, stocky man with a thick white mustache and bleary blue eyes and grey hair that he always combed back over his head who trundled about in a cheap, starched suit even though he was hardly ever seen detached from his chair and whose shoulders made this popping sound whenever he laughed.

Ertan Bey:

“Doctor we need to send your start report to the kaymakam today. Would you please come and see me.” And slowly closing the door he was gone.