Devil Inside Us E-Book

Sabahattin Ali

• Herausgeber: tredition
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 461

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Ömer, an intelligent but aimless young man, longs for love and fulfillment, but finds himself caught in a web of lies and self-deception. He falls in love with Macide, a self-confident young woman, and from then on struggles with the demons of his past. ‘The Devil in Us’ by Sabahattin Ali is a captivating novel that combines a profound analysis of the human psyche with a portrayal of the social and political turmoil of the early Turkish Republic. The story follows Ömer, a young man who feels lost in a world full of conflict, passion and moral dilemmas. Sabahattin Ali unfolds a vivid panorama of life in the 1930s Turkey, exploring themes such as love, betrayal and the search for personal identity. This novel is not only a moving love story, but also a perceptive commentary on the political and social challenges of its time, which are still relevant today. With its impressive storytelling and profound characters, ‘The Devil in Us’ is a masterpiece of Turkish literature that provokes thought and touches readers deeply.

Leseprobe

Sabahattin Ali

Devil Inside Us

Battle Between Reason and Passion

Contents

Departure

Encounters

Awakening

Shadows of the past

At the crossroads

The inner emptiness

In the silence of the night

Between closeness and distance

Hope and fear

The veil lifts

Stepping into freedom

Arriving in a new life

Decisions of the past

Unsafe proximity

A new reality

The moral frontier

An Unexpected Encounter

Faded illusions

The price of truth

Turning point

Between illusion and reality

The dance of the false prophets

The sad sound of the ney flute

Sweet mist, bitter clarity

The last veil falls

The letter

The unbearable truth

Letting go

Legal Notice

Devil Inside Us

Chapter 1

Departure

At eleven o'clock in the morning, two young men were sitting next to each other on the deck of the ferry from Kadıköy to Köprü, chatting. The one sitting on the seaward side was a plump young man with a white face and light brown hair. His brown, short-sighted eyes, which were always half-closed under his glasses and wandered slowly over the furniture, occasionally turned towards his friend and the sea on the left, which was bathed in sunlight.

His straight and somewhat long hair, which peeked out from under his slouched hat, covered his right eyebrow and part of his eyelid. He spoke very quickly; his lips were slightly pursed and his mouth was beautifully shaped when he spoke. His friend was a weak, thin, pale young man whose arms moved constantly in nervous movements and whose eyes looked sharply at everything. Neither of them appeared to be older than twenty-five and their height was medium.

The fat man, who did not take his eyes off the sea, said:

"I had to control myself not to laugh out loud. As the history teacher asked question after question, the girl seemed confused and turned her head as if she was asking for help from all sides. Knowing that she had never opened her notebooks and read before, I thought she was flying off the handle. Then my eyes fell on Ümit, who was sitting behind her, and lo and behold, she was gesturing at the professor with her eyebrows and eyes. And she got what she wanted, my dear, the teacher asked a few trivial questions, gave the answers himself and let the girl pass."

"Does he like Ümit a lot?"

"He likes every girl... If she's just a little bit handsome..."

Then he punched his friend's knee with his hand, as if he wanted to continue his story:

"Life bores me..." he said. "Everything bores me. School, professors, lessons, friends... especially girls... They bore me... ad nauseam..."

He paused for a while. He moved his glasses with his hand and continued:

"I don't want anything. Nothing seems attractive to me. I feel that I'm getting lazier by the day and I'm happy with that. Maybe in a while I'll become so slack that I won't even feel bored anymore. You have to do something, something like that... Or we should do nothing at all. I think: What can we do? Nothing! In a world that has exist-ed for millions of years, the oldest thing is twenty thou-sand years old... Even that's a bit of an exaggerated figure. I was talking to our philosophy teacher the other day. I approached the discussion very seriously and tried to explore "the meaning of our existence". He couldn't answer the question of why the hell we came into the world either. He spoke of the pleasure of creation and the truth that life itself is meaningful, but that's nonsense. What do you want to create? Creating means making something out of nothing. Even the smartest among us cannot go beyond the wealth of knowledge and experience accumulated by our predecessors. What we want to achieve is only to change these existing goods and bring them to market. How this ridiculous task can satisfy a human being, I don't know. If there are stars that send their light to us in five thousand years, it does not seem wise to me to try to attain eternity by writing works that will rot in libraries after fifty years and whose names will be forgotten after five hundred years, or to spend one's life kneading mud and wielding pencils on marble so that in three thousand years one will be exhibited in a museum without arms and legs."

With an important manner in his voice, he murmured slowly and thoughtfully:

"It seems to me that there is only one thing we can really do, and that is die. You see, we can do that, and only in that case do we make full use of our will. You'll ask me why I don't do that! As I said, I'm incredibly lethargic. I'm lazy, I drift according to the law of inertia. Eeeeh."

He yawned spectacularly and stretched out his legs. An older man sitting opposite him, reading an Armenian newspaper, immediately withdrew his and gave the young man a disapproving look.

His friend didn't pay much attention to all these words, perhaps because he was listening for the tenth time, but continued to wander his eyes and mumble, occasionally frowning as if trying to organize some ideas in his head.

When the person sitting next to him had finished speaking, he smiled meaningfully:

"Ömer," he said. "Do you have any money? Let's have a Raki tonight."

Ömer with an impertinence that didn't match his pro-found words from earlier:

"No, but we're going to take someone out. It would have been easy if I'd gone to the office today, but I don't feel like it at all."

The thin young man shook his head with a serious ex-pression:

"Soon they will fire you. Can you be absent so often without excuse? In fact, all departments are looking for excuses to get rid of civil servants like you who go to university.

The situation for those who work at the post office is particularly bad. Time is more expensive there than any-where else. Or at least it should be."

Then he added with a laugh:

"It's no wonder that letters from Beyazıt to Eminönü take forty-eight hours, thanks to hard-working employees like you."

Ömer answered very calmly:

"I have nothing to do with letters. I'm in accounting. I fill out books until the evening. In the evening, I occasionally help the cashier. Counting money is a beautiful thing, dear Nihat."

Nihat, as if he had suddenly been revived:

"Interesting thing..." he said. "Money is generally an interesting thing. I often take a Lira out of my pocket, put it in front of me and look at it for hours. There is nothing extraordinary about it. Interesting thing..." he said. "Money is generally an interesting thing. I often take a Lira out of my pocket, put it in front of me and look at it for hours. There is nothing extraordinary about it. Some elaborate lines, just like the official writing exercises at school. Perhaps a little finer and more complicated... Then a picture. A few lines of summarized text and one or two signatures... If you bend over it too much, the smell of heavy grease and dirt also hits you. But what a wonderful thing this dirty paper is, my dear, think about it!"

He closed his eyes for a while.

"For example, on any given day, you are overcome by an enormous inner restlessness. Life seems dark and meaningless to you. You start to think philosophically, as you were just ranting about. Even that gradually becomes difficult, and you don't even want to open your mouth. You think no person; no conversation could revive you. The air is suffocating and meaningless. Either too hot, too cold or too rainy. Passers-by look at you blankly and run around with their tongues sticking out, like goats chasing after a pile of grass, always busy with trivial business. You try to collect yourself and analyse this unpleasant state of mind. The inextricable knots of the human soul spread out before you like a riddle. You cling to the word depression that you have read in books like a life preserver. Because for some reason, we all tend to give a name to all our worries, be they material or spiritual; if we can't do that, we go completely mad. However, if this tendency did not exist in people, doctors would starve to death. As you cling to that word “depression” and thrash about in the endless sea of inner turmoil, you bump into an old friend you haven't seen for a long time. As soon as you see that he is well-dressed, you immediately remember your bankruptcy and, if you are lucky, borrow a Lira or two from your gullible friend... And then the miracle begins. It is as if a strong wind has swept away a layer of fog from your soul, and suddenly you feel an inner clarity, a lightness, an expansiveness. The old restlessness has been blown away. You look around with joy and start looking for someone to chat with. You see, my best, what volumes of books and hours of thought could not achieve is achieved by two dirty banknotes. Perhaps because you can't bring yourself to accept that our souls are being sold so cheaply, you pursue nobler causes; a cloud rising a few hundred feet higher in the sky, or a cool wind blowing on the back of your neck, or a clever idea that comes to you at that moment seems to be the reason for this change. But between you and me, it's just the opposite: thanks to the two Liras in our pockets, we're able to see the clearing sky, feel the coolness of the wind and even have clever thoughts... Come on, my friend, we've arrived at the pier. One day we'll either go mad or rule the world. For now, let's try to find money for a Raki and drink a few glasses to our bright future."

Chapter 2

Encounters

When Nihat had finished speaking and stood up, he noticed that Ömer wasn't moving. He put his hand on Ömer's shoulder; Ömer flinched slightly but didn't change his position.

As the other leaned over to see if he had perhaps fallen asleep, he noticed that his friend had his eyes fixed on the opposite sofa and seemed to be looking at something with extraordinary fascination while ignoring his surroundings. He turned his head in the same direction and began to look. But he couldn't see anything. He put his hand on Ömer's shoulder again and said:

"Come on, get up!"

Ömer didn't answer, but just grimaced to signal that he wanted to be left alone.

"What's going on, man! Where are you looking?"

Ömer finally decided to turn his head and said:

"Shut up and sit down!"

Nihat obeyed this order. The passengers slowly began to get up and move towards the exits. Ömer kept turning his head up, right and left to see between them to the other side. His friend nudged him and asked:

"Hey, enough already. Tell me, where are you looking?"

Ömer turned his head slowly and said, as if he were announcing a catastrophe:

"There sat a young girl, did you see her?"

"I haven't seen anything, what's going on?"

"I hadn't seen one of these until now!"

"Are you talking nonsense now?"

"I'm saying I've never seen such a creature before!"

Nihat screwed up his face in annoyance, stood up again and said:

"Despite all your great speeches and your legendary intellect, you will never be a serious person!"

After this sentence, the mocking smile on the edges of his lips continued for a few seconds, then gave way to an indifferent expression. Ömer had also stood up now. He stretched his neck and stood on tiptoe as if he was looking for something.

After a while, he turned to Nihat:

"She's still sitting there!" he said.

Then he turned his eyes to his friend's face:

"Cut the chatter. I'm experiencing the most important minutes of my life right now. My feelings have never deceived me before. Something extraordinary has happened or is about to happen. The young girl I saw there seems like someone I've known since before I was born, before the world, before the universe came into being. How can I explain it to you? Should I say "I fell madly in love with her at first sight, I am burning, I am on fire!" But the strange thing is that I have nothing else to say. I'm even amazed that I'm standing here with you chatting. From now on, every minute of my life that I spend without it would mean death for me. Don't be surprised that I now look at death, which I had just praised so highly, as something terrible, why shouldn't you be surprised? Who knows? I don't have to give you explanations... What's the point? Now don't be conceited and give me some advice! What should I do? I'm facing a terrible situation. Once I lose sight of them, my life will consist of nothing but searching until I die; and that time will certainly be very short. Oh man! I'm talking nonsense. But I am saying something extraordinarily true. The possibility of never seeing her again is the most terrible and unfortunately the most obvious. Just think, I can't remember her face even now, but I'm sure that somewhere deeper than my memory there's an image of her as clear as carved in stone that has existed since unimaginably ancient times. If I were to mingle with this crowd with my eyes closed, I'm sure some force would infallibly lead me straight to her."

After saying these words with extraordinary speed, he actually took a step forward and closed his eyes. He was still holding Nihat's wrist with his left hand. Nihat looked at his friend in amazement. Although he was used to all kinds of craziness from him, this intense excitement seemed a little strange to him. When he couldn't find anything to say, he said:

"What kind of creature are you, Ömer?"

Ömer's sweaty hand squeezed Nihat's wrist even tighter:

"Look, look, she's still there... Can't you see her?"

When Nihat turned his head in the direction Ömer was looking, he saw a dark-haired young girl sitting on one of the sofas, which was completely empty. An old, fat woman was sitting next to her and they were talking about something. She was holding a thick packet of sheet music in one hand and leaning against it with the other.

She had a graceful head movement with curly hair on her thin neck. The first noticeable feature was the strong expression of will that her chin revealed. Between her words, which Nihat could not hear from where he stood, she was silent, as if she had made a clear decision, then she began to speak again, as if announcing another decision. Her eyes were somewhat dark, but natural.

Her entire posture and demeanor were completely natural. Her hand, which slowly stretched out on the linoleum of the sofa after rising with a gesture from the place where she occasionally leaned, had thin fingers and a pale color. The fingernails were cut off at the base; they were thin and long. Nihat's gaze wandered over them for a while, then he turned his head to Ömer: "So what? What do you see in her?" he wanted to say.

Ömer's voice broke, as if he was delirious:

"Don't say anything! It's obvious from your face what a brilliant idea you're going to hatch!" he said. "I've made up my mind. I will go there immediately, take the girl by the arm and..."

He paused, thought, then muttered:

"And... I'll probably say something. Maybe she'll start talking first. She will certainly recognize me at first sight. It can't be any other way. And she won't be able to hide it when she recognizes me. Come on, let's go together, you stay a little behind me. Listen to us. It certainly won't be ordinary to talk to a girl we've met in a world whose nature we don't know."

After he had said this, he pulled Nihat by the arm.

He pulled away and said:

"Are you planning to make a spectacle here on the ship?"

"What do you mean?"

"The girl immediately calls the police, and the police don't hesitate to take a thug like you to the police station. Do you really think the world is full of nonsense like in your head, for God's sake? Will you ever be able to open your eyes and really see people? Will you spend your whole life chasing imaginations, dreams and Don Quixote-like ambitions, deluding yourself and imagining that you and others will achieve extraordinary things in this world where there is nothing but mediocrity? You have just said that a person can do nothing in this world, and now you are venturing into frivolities that very few people can do. I don't understand what the difference is between you and an ordinary madman!"

Ömer stretched his neck as if he had been insulted: "You'll see. Your bird brain can't understand the dark and deep relationships between people. Wait here."

With these words, he walked towards the young girl.

Nihat instinctively turned his head towards the sea:

"Oh dear!" and began to wait for the first noise of impending trouble.

With his gaze fixed on the young girl, Ömer walked slowly forward as if suddenly awakened from a sleep.

Just as he approached the girl, he heard a female voice next to his ear:

"Oh!.. Ömer, how are you?.. They don't even see you anymore!"

When he turned his head to the side, he saw that his distant relative Emine was sitting next to the young girl.

Emine continued:

"Gosh, you've been staring here the whole time, I've been sitting here waiting for you to come, but you just couldn't stop chatting. Come on, otherwise we'll stay on the ferry."

Both women got up and left. Ömer was confused about what to say and tried to collect himself:

"By God, how was I supposed to know.... Auntie. Do I have time because of school, work? You know me, you won't hold it against me, will you?" he said.

Aunt Emine laughed:

"Oh, who would blame you! Who expects anything good from someone who writes to their parents maybe once a year! Come on, tell me, how are you?"

Without taking his eyes off the young girl, Ömer replied:

"Always the same. No news!"

In the meantime, they had arrived on the bridge. They all walked together in the direction of Istanbul. Without intervening in the conversation, Ömer's eyes, which he had averted from his aunt's neck, met the gaze of the young girl walking beside them. The girl looked at the man in front of her for a while, as if trying to remember something, with a long, lost-in-thought look and without blinking, before turning her head forward.

After Ömer had watched the shadow of her long eyelashes falling on her eyes for a while, he turned to his aunt and made a gesture with his head as if to ask: "Who is that?"

Aunt Emine, with a politeness typical of people from Anatolia who have lived in Istanbul for a long time, said:

"Ah!.. Didn't I introduce you? You must know each other! Do you recognize Macide? She's the granddaughter of your mother's great uncle. When you left Balıkesir, she was still so small. She's been living with us for six months now. She practises the piano and goes to school."

She turned her head and looked at Macide.

Meanwhile, the girl shook Ömer's hand:

"I'm going to the conservatory!" and turned her eyes forward again.

Ömer tried to find in his mind his mother's great uncle and his granddaughter among the hundreds of relatives now scattered in Istanbul, Balıkesir and many other places. When his eyes fell on Aunt Emine, he noticed that her face had taken on a slightly sad and confused expression. He asked; she made a few gestures that meant "You shouldn't say that in front of her!".

When Ömer lowered his head curiously, the plump woman quickly murmured in a low voice:

"Shut up! Don't ask me what happened! Come and visit us and I'll tell you!"

Her eyes seemed to want to say something. There was an expression of interest and compassion for the girl in her gaze.

After quickly glancing at Macide, who was walking on her right, she turned to Ömer and murmured:

"Poor thing doesn't know anything yet... I just can't tell her, her father died a week ago... I don't know what to do."

Ömer suddenly felt a spark of joy flash through him and immediately felt extremely ashamed. It seemed indecent to him to see this death as an opportunity that could help him. But there was a "calculative" side of us that evaluated events, drew conclusions and took action without ever getting in touch with our moral part. And although it was not spoken out loud, it was always this side that won and asserted its opinion.

While he was thinking about it, Aunt Emine interpreted the few seconds of silence that Ömer had spent pondering as a sign of his grief over the death of a relative.

"Come and see us these days, it's a long story, I'll explain it to you," she said.

They had arrived at the streetcar stop in Eminönü. The woman and the young girl said goodbye to Ömer. The young man looked after them for a while, and although he didn't admit it to himself, he hoped that Macide would turn around.

But she walked on, her fine and beautiful figure almost floating on her flat shoes, and jumped into a streetcar that was just arriving, after holding out her hand to Aunt Emine. Ömer, who was still following her with his eyes, flinched when a hand suddenly slapped his shoulder hard. Nihat expected an explanation in an almost belligerent attitude.

When he saw that Ömer didn't open his mouth, he said:

"Man, you're something. To avoid seeing the embarrassing spectacle you would make on the ship, I turned my back on you. And then I saw that you were no longer there. Then I saw you chatting with them on the bridge, I followed you. Is the girl traveling the same way? Ha? And the fat woman is wearing just the right merchant's outfit..."

Ömer laughed:

"You never think otherwise anyway; your holy head cannot rest until it has reduced everything to an existing measure. This man didn't know this woman, went and spoke to her. The woman didn't report him to the police, so I guess it was as it seemed. Done, out. It can't be anything else. There is nothing extraordinary in life. Everything is one and the same. It's as simple as that..."

He nudged his friend's head with his hand:

"I'd rather have no brain at all than such a straightforward one. There's nothing you could imagine!"

Nihat ignored these words and asked instead:

"All right, my dear, so what happened? When you came to her, did the girl hug you and say, 'Oh, where did you come from, you human I've been connected to in dark worlds since the universe was created?' Even if I believed that, I can't imagine this fat woman taking this metaphysical familiarity so calmly!"

Ömer said, as if he were revealing a secret:

"It turns out we're related, my dear," he said. "I was so busy looking at the girl that I didn't see the world around me; the woman next to her was our aforementioned Aunt Emine. The young lady Macide is a close relative. She is studying at the conservatory. Her father died a week ago. She doesn't know yet"

Nihat shook his head and said:

"May God give the caregivers long life!"

Then he asked Ömer with a mocking look:

"Is this a marvelous acquaintance, beyond what you've ever had before? My son, the more you want to be an antique in the world, the more everyday events life throws at your feet. I fear this will continue until the end of your life and you will die without having accomplished anything to amaze the world. I'm impressed, so the fresh acquaintance you said you were friends with during the creation of the universe was actually a relative! Maybe you played together in your childhood. Perhaps the image of that old child's face revived in your memory. And your mind, always heated to forty degrees, immediately shrouded the matter in a mysterious veil. You really are a funny guy, I'll give you that!"

Ömer nodded his head:

"Yes, our acquaintance really happened in a very ordinary way, but my feelings for her are still the same. I'm sure we have a bond that goes beyond our will. You'll see how often I'll be visiting Aunt Emine's house from now on!"

Nihat suppressed a laugh:

"And this very original love between you won't end in kinship love, will it? You will become known as the only young man in the world to have seduced his cousin. What can we say, may God grant you success".

Ömer didn't answer. They changed the subject and discussed where they would drink that evening as they walked towards Beyazıt.

Chapter 3

Awakening

Over the past few days, Macide had noticed that the behavior of the people at home had become strange towards her. She also sensed that this was not a good sign. But whenever she asked, "No, what's there to hide, you're just imagining it!" Aunt Emine approached her a few times, pretended to want to say something and then left, mumbling confusedly.

She and Semiha, Aunt Emine's daughter, didn't get on particularly well anyway. Semiha was of the opinion that Macide liked herself too much. In order not to feel inferior, she had created an unnecessary coldness by thinking she had to hold back.

Uncle Galip, returning late and exhausted from his business near the oil port, had lost the habit of talking to the family years ago. As soon as he had finished eating, he picked up the newspaper and patiently began to spell out the large Latin letters that had taken him from illiteracy to literacy in a short time.

As for Nuri, Aunt Emine's son, who was in the last class of the Lieutenant Officers' School, it was impossible to find out anything about him because he only came home once a week, sometimes even less often.

Although Macide had been living in the same house for six months, she had not yet been able to build up a close relationship with these relatives and was no longer so persistent in asking them for things. Her life here was not very different from living in a dormitory. She took her notes in the morning and left, coming back in the late afternoon before it got dark and locking herself in her room. Perhaps it was this aloof attitude that annoyed Semiha so much. Aunt Emine, who was busy in her own world with her own friends and conversations, didn't pay much attention to this quiet young girl who lived in her house.

She praised her to her guests during the day as if she were a role model for the military family, but as Macide was not even invited to the traditional musical evenings where men and women played music together and had fun, despite many requests, and as she had never even begun to prove her musical talent, Aunt Emine herself eventually doubted Macide's musical talent.

As business at the oil port had not been going so well in recent years, they had great difficulties, although they did not show it to the outside world and continued to take in visitors from home, sometimes for weeks or months at a time. That's why they often waited impatiently for the money that Macide's father sent every month.

Even Uncle Galip saw in Macide only the purpose of obtaining these forty lire. But the way this house was run, accustomed to the splendor and style of a noble home, could not simply be put right with those forty lire.

Once entangled in these debts, they became more oppressive by the day, wrapping themselves around his arms and legs like shackles and confusing the poor man, who was still trying to get out of this situation using the merchant methods of thirty years ago. As he was used to getting out of any predicament quickly, he had not yet given up hope. But today he lacked both the energy of his youthful days and the traders of yesteryear who were like him. The market, especially the trade in oil and soap, was in the hands of clever, knowledgeable, young and above all rich people.

The merchants who could not adapt to them were crushed and marginalized, and the struggle, which lasted almost ten years, had not only consumed what little land and a few hundred olive trees Galip Efendi owned, but had also taken from him two of the three adjacent houses on a back street of Şehzadebaşı, in addition to the one he lived in.

A piece of Aunt Emine's five-piece jewelry and beads had recently found its way to the market hall in the commercial district. But every time the conversation turned to her poor finances, she burst into tears, suffering headaches and breakdowns when she had to sell yet another piece of her seemingly inexhaustible jewelry. However, Aunt Emine's grief never lasted longer than twenty-four hours; at the first opportunity, she called together her slimeball friends from Istanbul, who were known for their loose mouths, and organized musical parties.

These friends, who had lived with them like family in the old, prosperous days and now, realizing that the situation had deteriorated, could no longer detach themselves from them, were under the influence of two conflicting feelings: on the one hand, they did not think it right or humane to abandon their former benefactors in times of need; on the other, they did not want to look for another place to turn to before they had eaten the last morsel, knowing that not all their resources had dried up yet.

The compatriots who occasionally came from Balıkesir and didn't think it was a bad idea to continue their old parasitic lifestyle of eating, drinking and having fun in Istanbul for a few months were like sledgehammers hitting the house's already fluctuating budget. Macide saw all this, understood it, but didn't find it extraordinary. Hadn't she always seen and heard the same things in her father's big house in Balıkesir? All they talked about there was hardship, that the harvest had not been harvested that year, that this or that field had been mortgaged, that this or that vineyard had been sold. Her own mother also complained when she had to change a five Lira coin, and her father came home in the evening, sat on his knees and prayed with the prayer chain without saying a word, making inextricable calculations in his mind. What amazed her more than these endless worries since her childhood was something else: these never-ending fields, vineyards, houses, olive groves and jewels! These riches, which had accumulated from generation to generation and were now beginning to dwindle in the maelstrom of changing times, never seemed to end. Debts were incurred and paid, fields were sold or cultivated, and daughters were married off at weddings that were in no way inferior to the old ones, while diamond earrings and pearl necklaces were pulled out of every corner for family weddings.

In this chaotic life, Macide was mainly stimulated by chance and had received her education. The fact that she survived the various illnesses that ravaged her home as a child and did not die was a coincidence. The fact that she was not kept at home after finishing elementary school but was sent to secondary school was also a coincidence. If her father had not been so involved in hopeless business, he might not have listened to the advice of some teachers who recommended that he send his daughter to school. If her father had not been so involved in hopeless business, if he had perhaps not listened to the advice of some teachers who recommended that he send his daughter to school, she might have been married at the age of fifteen like her older sister.

Macide's life ceased to be a plaything of chance when she entered the second grade of secondary school. Having been sent to school a little late at the age of nine, by the time she reached seventh grade she was already sixteen and had matured considerably.

As she had the dignified aura and imperious demeanor of a noble house, her friends didn't really get close to her. She was only concerned with her schoolwork and led a life that was entirely up to her. No one was interested in her studies, and no one told her to behave this way or that. Her mother would occasionally try to say something about whether her clothes were open or closed, tight or loose, and then she would shrug her shoulders and go to her room as if it was none of her business. Since almost all families sent their daughters to school, she didn't find anything unusual about Macide going to school, but she couldn't deny that she preferred her to get married quickly.

The aristocratic house, which consisted of a few rooms and cellars around a dimly lit courtyard and a large number of rooms around a large hall upstairs, took on an alien appearance in Macide's eyes from day to day. Life at school, the books she read and the lessons she listened to were completely separate from her home, which felt as if it had been carved in stone and left in place fifty years ago.

Her clothes, scattered here and there in the room, the breast cloths, the books stacked chaotically on the shelves of the domestic walnut cupboards decorated with carvings, did not fit in here at all. The many novels and storybooks that she read one after the other, many of which she put aside with a strange disgust, painted in her mind a life whose goodness or badness she could not judge, but which she clearly felt was different and more real than the one she was in now.

She had little contact with his other friends at school. Her contact with the other classmates was quite limited. This was partly because she liked the solitude and partly because she didn't find the topics they talked about pleasant. These disparate girls, ranging in age from thirteen to sixteen, carried on conversations that would make a grown man blush and discussed the boys in their class very knowledgeably, though they seemed to be constantly belittling them. Although Macide listened to these conversations with a curiosity she could not control, as soon as she was alone she felt a great distaste and decided not to go near her friends.

At first, this dislike was also linked to a lack of understanding. She didn't understand her classmates, who gathered in groups in the schoolyard and discussed things like Ahmet's thick lips, Mehmet's white and soft hands, a teacher's squinting look at a girl or the fact that the sewing teacher would never find a husband, curling their lips. All their thoughts revolved around such topics, which seemed pointless and unnecessary to Macide.

Later, especially after she had read many books and formed some fantasies and new worlds in her head, she began to loathe such discussions. Every word her friends said, even her visions of the future, polluted one of the beautiful worlds her vivid imagination created. Although she imagined all kinds of future scenarios herself, she kept them hidden like precious objects, even fearing to change their shapes by thinking too much. Just at this time, in the middle of seventh grade, she experienced an adventure that completely separated her from her surroundings. But it was hardly right to call this event, which arose and grew entirely within her and whose slightest sign did not penetrate to the outside world, an adventure.

Chapter 4

Shadows of the past

Macide had already attracted attention in her first school because of the beauty of her voice and her talent for music. When she was in fifth grade, her music teacher was an old man named Necati Bey, who had attended almost all the schools in Balıkesir. When he entered the classroom, he would take his clarinet out of its case, play monotonous school songs and make the children howl at random.

In some way, Macide caught the eye of this man who occasionally tried to create his own compositions and was interested in literature, who combined the verses, rhymes and meaningless lines of some principals and teachers who appreciated literature with music that never went beyond the ordinary. Necati Bey, who had a secret passion for art but was never able to break the yoke due to his lack of talent and had become a globetrotter and misanthrope over time, made it his business to occupy himself with Macide. He spoke to his father, and in the evenings after school he took her to the teachers' union with a few other private pupils and began to teach her on a soundless piano. Macide made progress in a short time, astonishing even her friends. At the graduation ceremony of the year in which she finished elementary school, they let her play the piano on her own. She displayed the greatest artistry that could be expected from an eight-month-old.

As those present in the hall consisted of the children's parents, some teachers and a few officials, and not one of them had the slightest idea about music, they applauded her with genuine and sincere admiration. Macide continued her lessons in this way in the first grade of middle school. As Necati Bey himself could not play the piano very well, these lessons, which lasted about two years, did not lead to the pupil becoming a half-baked musical pedant, as was often the case, but remained a progressive endeavor.

When they moved to the second grade of middle school, Necati Bey was transferred to another province. During the vacations, Macide could hardly keep herself busy with the piano. She didn't want to go to the teachers' association alone and knew that this would not be well received by those around her.

When school reopened, she saw that a new and young music teacher had arrived. This one, called Bedri, was a tall, black-haired, short-faced young man with a round face. His face always seemed to be smiling, and that made the girls make fun of him from day one.

Bedri was very angry about this in the first few days. During the lessons, his face would turn red and he would stand there for minutes without saying anything, chewing his lips. But after a while his face became cheerful again, he continued with his lectures, letting his eyes wander over the students again and again, and sat down at the piano.

The large and always cold music room was the perfect place for the children to let themselves go. Boys could make their most outspoken jokes here, girls could talk and talk and then try to stifle their laughter by stuffing their handkerchiefs in their mouths. The hardest word:

"Please, is this appropriate for you?"

The young teacher tried to drown out the noise by tapping more energetically on the piano or immediately starting a song to be sung together. At such moments, Refik Bey, the principal of the school, would sometimes appear at the glass entrance to the classroom, give the undisciplined teacher a contemptuous look, ask the children to be quiet with a frown and be acknowledged with a mischievous smile.

Gradually, Bedri began to see this as normal. Most of the children were such spoiled and ill-mannered creatures that it was impossible to discipline them with kind words and requests. In fact, there was no one to go through the class in silence, except for a history teacher who spanked them terribly and a language teacher who was known for being a zero.

Even the principal's own lessons were a riot. When Bedri learned that the same situation prevailed in the other schools in the city, he resolved to loosen up and only engage seriously with a few who were interested in his lessons, leaving the others to their own devices.

Macide was one of those interested. At first, she was hardly noticed because of her quiet nature in the corner, but after a short time she attracted Bedri's full attention. The young man spoke excitedly to the principal and other teachers about this exceptionally gifted pupil, as if he had discovered something, and said that she needed to be encouraged. However, the teachers, who listened to these words with great curiosity and approval, smiled behind his back or looked at each other meaningfully.

Macide, perhaps still in the habit she had when she received lessons from Mr. Necati, had perhaps not even looked closely at her teacher's face. When they were together, her eyes and mind were entirely on the notes, Bedri's fingers, or sometimes the vague dreams she got lost in. The topics they talked about almost never went beyond the piece of music they were working on. Both were affected by the blindness that afflicts people who dedicate themselves to a form of art and have a conscious or unconscious passion for art.

Those around them, and often even they themselves, regarded this carelessness as stupidity that would perhaps continue between this teacher and his pupil, but the principal Refik Bey helped them both to focus their eyes and thoughts on things other than just music. Late one afternoon, when the children went home, Bedri, the teacher, was sitting in his room writing a letter to his mother in Istanbul.

When the sound of children's feet in the corridor subsided, he hurriedly put the letter in the envelope, sealed it, wrote the address on it and rushed out to find a pupil. As he was staying at the school himself and wasn't planning to go out tonight, he wanted to give the letter to one of the children whose path led past the post office. He looked from the front gate into the garden. Everyone had gone.

As he turned around to get his cap, he heard the sound of the piano from the music room:

"Macide is still here; I'll give her the letter!"

He went in that direction. When he opened the door, Macide had already closed the lid of the piano and packed her bag.

“I've been practicing a bit, sir,” she said and wanted to leave.

Bedri made way for her and said:

"When you pass by the post office, throw this in!"

The young girl put the envelope in her pocket and curtseyed a little:

"Goodbye," she said.

"Don't forget the letter in your pocket!"

"I won't, sir!"

Macide went into the garden and walked quickly along the sandy path, while Bedri, returning to the staff room, saw Principal Refik jump out of a dark corner of the corridor and run quickly past him to the garden. Although Refik Bey's haste and passing by without noticing him puzzled Bedri, he didn't give it a second thought.

The next evening was Macide's lesson day. They would work together for an hour after dinner. When Bedri went to the music room, he saw that all six students to whom he gave private lessons were also there.

"Today is not your day, why are you still here?" he said, although he was also secretly pleased with her great interest.

The girls looked at each other meaningfully. Macide, who was standing close to Bedri, lowered her head, deep red.

One of the two male students said:

"The principal has ordered that we are no longer to be taught individually. We are all to learn together!"

Bedri looked at his students in confusion for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders, opened his notes and listened first to Macide and then the others before saying to the rest:

"Y'all tomorrow night then." and left the room.

He wanted to see the director and ask the reason for this new arrangement. When he didn't find him in his office, he returned and went outside to get some air.

The seven students he was teaching walked a few steps ahead of him with their bags in their hands. He approached them. They walked together for a while, but unlike usual, they were all silent that evening.

Bedri said:

"It is of course more beneficial if you are all together in the lessons. But only on the condition that you pay attention and don't get into chatter, which would be completely harmful!"

The children remained silent.

Bedri turned to Macide and said casually:

"You haven't forgotten the letter, have you?"

The young girl suddenly turned bright red. She was completely taken aback. The other children looked in front of them, blushing and biting their lips to keep from laughing.

Macide said in a barely audible voice:

"The director has taken the letter, sir!"

Bedri stopped and asked:

"For what reason?"

"I don't know, my lord! Yesterday, before I went through the garden gate, he came after me. He asked about the letter you had just given me. When I gave him the envelope, he asked: "What does the letter say?" I said: "I don't know, Mr. Bedri gave it to me to send it.

Then he read the envelope and said:

"Go on, don't take another letter like that to the post office!" Then he sent the letter with Enver from third grade. Bedri remained silent; they had arrived at the market:

"Goodbye," he said and parted from his students.

He entered a café where teachers were usually to be found. It was as if all his colleagues, including teachers from other schools, were gathered here. Some were playing backgammon, others were playing cards, and some were watching the players and helping both sides. In a far corner, he saw the director shuffling the cards. He had his right foot under him and his hat next to him. Every now and then he scratched his bald head with his left hand, then turned back to the card game.

When he saw Bedri from a distance, he ignored him at first, but as soon as he realized that he was moving towards him, he turned his head in that direction and said:

"Come her, my brother! Come over here! What would you like to drink?" offered him a drink.

Bedri replied:

"Thank you," he said. "I don't want a drink, just a quick chat with you!"

The other teachers scowled as one of them, who was not often in the café, interrupted the game.

The principal said:

"Yes, brother, we'll finish this round if we can!.. Is it urgent? All right!"

He turned to one of the spectators and said:

"Come on, play a round for me. Watch out... I've been in the game for two rounds!"

He stood up. They walked to a relatively quiet corner. At first Bedri didn't know what to say.

The principal beat him to it and said:

"You'll probably want to mention the letter. I've been waiting for you since the morning and thought that you must have realized for yourself what the mistake was. My dear, you have seen and experienced a lot, but we also have our experience. You have to be very careful in such small places, otherwise they can quickly denigrate you. This is not Germany... You were in Germany, weren't you?"

"No, in Vienna."

"Well, it's the same. This is not Europe. We want to resemble Europe, but slowly."

Bedri interrupted the director with a stern and irritated gesture:

"Why are you saying all this?"

After a pause, he added:

"Why did you take the letter? And why didn't you give it back to me after reading the envelope, but gave it to someone else?"

He had come here to have a serious argument with the director. He sensed that this moment was approaching.

The principal put his hand on Bedri's shoulder and said in a voice that sounded very sincere:

"To save you from the difficult situation and the rumors that would spread immediately," he said.

Bedri said with a trembling voice:

"Are you making an idiot out of me now? No one but you saw me send the girl to the post office to post the letter. And even if someone had seen it, I can't imagine anyone else coming up with such an inappropriate idea...".

He jumped up, his face pale:

"It's a great pain for me ... to even talk about it or have to give you explanations. To be under such a vulgar accusation..."

The principal pulled him by the arm and made him sit down again. His voice was still calm and sincere:

"Perhaps you have the right to be irritated!" he said.

"But be sure that I have done nothing but my duty. Be sure that I thought nothing bad about you except that you are innocent, but I must consider that the environment is not like that and that the majority will judge with bad intentions."

"You've put me in an embarrassing position in front of the students!"

"If I hadn't done that, you would have been in an even worse situation!"

"How am I supposed to look the students in the face!"

"Oh no, they're just normal things. It's not worth worrying about. A little cautious behavior is enough."

He stood up. The game he had been watching with his eyes was over, the friend he had put in his place had lost.

To cut the conversation short, he said:

"Tomorrow we'll talk about it in detail at school. In time, you'll agree with me."

Then he added, as if it had just occurred to him:

"Oh yes, I didn't think it was appropriate to give the children individual lessons in the evening. I've heard some rumors. As you know, it is a mixed school. It's important not to shake the parents' confidence. Excuse me!" and he walked away.

To his friends, who looked at him questioningly at the start of the game:

"Oh nothing," he said, "Does he think everyone is stupid? The things we've already experienced... You don't just let wolves get among young girls like that! Every now and then we have to show them that we're not blind..."

He took the cards in his hand:

"Come on then, this time you'll get what you deserve," he said, shuffling the cards and muttering as if he was talking to himself as he dealt:

"I've been a principal for so many years and nothing has ever happened at my school. Am I supposed to get into trouble at this age because of this dolt!"

Bedri remained where he was. The terrible sentences he had thought up on the way, the grave insults, even the fight he had wanted to start, had been in vain. Not only was it impossible to defend himself against a person who so naturally defended a vulgarity he could not comprehend, a slander he was ashamed to even think of, but to insult him as well. He realized immediately that every word he said would meet with an impossible response. The sad impossibility of defending himself against a person who accepts guilt as a basis and does not believe that a person can be honest, sincere and honorable tied his hands. He hastily left the café and returned to school, not feeling like playing anything. He rummaged through his suitcase, picked up a book at random and tried to read.

Chapter 5

At the crossroads

When Macide said goodbye to her friends and returned home, she went straight to her room. She calmly put her bag aside. She took off her breast cloth with composure, washed her face and eyes and then went back to her bag, took out a geography book and began to study on the cushion.

She had read the same page twice, but still couldn't understand what it was about. Her thoughts kept slipping away and wandering in other directions. She gritted her teeth and frowned as if she were fighting with someone. Her chest rose and fell rapidly and her fists trembled.

Finally, she threw the book she was holding to one side, sank onto the pillow and began to sob. In order not to make any noise, she bit her pillow hard. This self-control only increased her anger and caused a sharp pain in her head. She cried with rage, just rage. She was angry at everyone, especially Bedri, but also at the principal, her friends, herself and the people around her.

What gave them the right? To humiliate her, to make fun of her, to cause all these disgusting incidents? Going to school seemed like a terrible thing to her, not going and explaining the reason or thinking that this reason was being whispered about behind her back seemed even more terrible.

Last night, after the principal's treatment, she had tried to control herself and had succeeded; but today the behavior of her friends at school had not escaped her notice. The incident, which immediately spread throughout the school, had caused those who thought Macide's silence was arrogance, or those who couldn't stand her talent, to attack her openly. Around her, so she could hear, things like, "So, so. We all already happened, and we didn't realize. Thanks to the director, we know now," and the looks became five to ten times more meaningful.

She was neither haughty nor complacent. Not at all. In fact, her self-confidence was perhaps quite low. Nevertheless, she couldn't understand how these children could attach so much importance to someone else and focus all their thoughts on that person. What could occupy a person as much as their own thoughts, worries, fears and shortcomings? But in the eyes of all her classmates, it seemed as if there were some kind of magic glasses that prevented them from seeing themselves. There was no other way to explain this foolish blindness.