24 The Coming of the Fiancée

24

The Coming of the Fiancée

It was either the third or fourth month since I’d come to town. I had made a temporary home of an unused hospital room but after I moved into my new place it suddenly seemed like I was “living like a king.” This was it, I could take a hot bath any time I wanted, boil water for tea in my kitchen and stretch out my feet beside a hot stove as I read my books. What boundless joy!

It was a tiny three-story apartment building. In the front and directly under me was the only meyhane in town, Split Salih’s Şölen Restaurant. Split was the only black box in town. The nickname came from a split in his lip that he had from birth but was now hardly noticeable in his big face that was covered in pockmarks. Above lived the owner of the building. A husband and wife, retirees from the justice department.

I used the living room of my little two-bedroom home as an examination room and one room as a bedroom. The little room beside the front door was the “coal room.” After stretching a thick piece of plastic across the ceiling, I filled the room with two tons of coal I planned to burn through that year. I hadn’t taken janitor Remzi seriously when he first tipped me off, but whenever my mustache froze on even the mildest of winter days I was instantly reminded of the world I was living in.

Since last week I had been planning for Handan’s arrival from Izmir. Almost every evening I would tell her which bus she had to take, where she would get off and which way she had to walk from there, but I was still anxious. According to the plan, she would take a bus from Izmir on Friday evening, arriving in Ankara that morning, and then find the number 21 ticket counter in the AŞOT terminal where buses leave for Kırşehir, and tell the people at the Mermerler Travel Agency that she was going to get off at Keskin when she bought her ticket, and of course she definitely had to remember to warn the bus steward in advance.