The door swung open again and in came lab technician Serkan in a long white lab coat that was practically grey—he must have been wearing that coat for weeks. During my second week in town, Serkan got really into judo and karate and that’s when I realized he was writing out random lab results when the lab equipment wasn’t even working properly and when I told the head doctor in a state of astonishment and panic that Serkan was impulsively loading up machines that weren’t even working, the doctor responded with, “fuck it. I know but what are you going to do if I write all this down? Either way the ministry hasn’t sent lab material for months. And if we go ahead and tell them we don’t have the equipment to do the tests then they’ll open up an investigation with the subtext that we are the ones depriving citizens. So it’s great, at least the kid is making something out of nothing … Hah hah hah.” I was stunned.

Ripped with muscles, Serken leaned over and made eye contact with all the others in the room. For a fleeting moment, they looked at each other. Then he turned to me and said:

“Doctor, it seems you’re going to the kaymakam to give them a start report, is that right? With all my best wishes.”

I hung up my white coat, put on my jacket and went upstairs to see the medical secretary-cum-manager Ertan Bey. Putting some rather curious body language on display, he lurched up out of his chair, came over and held out his hand and said: “welcome doctor, won’t you have a seat?” Sitting down in a chair, I got right to the point:

“So I’ll just go straight to the kaymakam then. What do you say, Ertan Bey?”

“I have already prepared your report, doctor,” said Ertan. “And I have placed it in a rather nice file. Now you know that this is a formal document. Here we give it a date and a number and then it goes to the kaymakam and from there to the governorship and then on to the ministry. You must know all too well that these matters occur along such a path. In other words this document is very important for you. In it I have put down everything we need.”

As he said all of this, he was slipping various pieces of paper into a file the size of a briefcase that was covered in black cardboard.

As I watched Ertan he gave me the impression that he was putting into that file all the bureaucratic secrets pertaining to my professional life and my future.

“Now when you take this over keep it steady—God forbid something might slip out or who knows what,” said Ertan and then he went on: