here on these summer afternoons, I can tell myself this curious story, each time with a new beginning.
Despite all its confusion and perplexity, isolation, sadness, pain of separation, hopeful expectations, loneliness, and unspeakable longing, it seems to me the most delightful story in the world.
I will certainly tell this tale in various ways, and each time I unfold it, I will add new things that I had failed to notice before, but what difference does it make . . . ?
Here, on this spring morning, far away in the city of light, I suddenly wake up in a small hotel room with the rays of the sun and hear that song—the song that I will never forget. I feel as if it comes through my dreams.
I feel as if the dream I am having still goes on; yes, just like now, I am unable to tell whether I am dreaming or awake. I rush to the window and open it. The cool morning breeze caresses my face, and I see a blind man playing that melody on his accordion in front of the door.
How many years have passed since then? Forty? More? Never mind! A blind man is playing “Everything Has Disappeared But You.” I am unaware that from then on I will mix up everything and not be able to tell truth from fantasy. I watch in surprise as the street musician plays our song.
How many of us realize that an unexpected coincidence is in fact a magical sign, like those encountered by a young hero in a tale, leading him to embark on an entirely new adventure?
What a strange coincidence that music is. My heart beats madly, as if I have done something wrong. As if some expected and long-awaited good news has arrived. As if I have suddenly become naked in front of a crowd.
Then someone knocks at my door, and it sinks in that this is not a coincidence. Young men in hotel uniforms carry in roses of all colors—roses with long stems. The small hotel room is soon packed with red, white, yellow, pink, purple, and orange roses. The blind musician keeps on playing the old song:
I am not separated from you,
not even for a moment,
even if you are far, far away.
Everything brings you to me,
Scents, sounds, voices.
My eyes do not see,
I have forgotten all that I know
Except for your face,
Even if you are far, far away.
Instantly the song I have never forgotten touches somewhere deep inside of me. The melody fills me with joy, it makes me happy, but it also makes me cry with sorrow.
As I try to remember the lyrics, I smell the fragrant roses.
His handwriting appears inside a bunch of roses: “When you receive these flowers, you’ll hear the song you and I promised never to forget. Distances do not mean much for us. If we have a true bond between us, like you said we have, listen to that beautiful song, which I believe reflects our genuine bond. Let it bring me to you, just as it has brought you to me. I don’t know what’s going through your mind now, but you should know that wherever you go, I’ll find you. Some coincidences are nothing but destiny. Tell me, who can change destiny?”
I know his letter by heart.
Like everything else he has written. Like all of our meetings. All dates, places, and phone calls.
Women do not forget.
And really, what are coincidences but fate, or unexpected gifts that life gives us out of the blue?
What we cannot know or will never understand is the reason our destiny is the way it is. Instead of taking us somewhere entirely different, why does an obscure detail, an unexpected surprise, or a small trick of fate thrust us somewhere we don’t expect? We cannot know how a few short seconds can affect one’s entire life.
What an odd game!
Everyone has to learn the same game over and over again, making the same mistakes and protecting himself. Nobody can say he knows the game perfectly or can teach someone else how to play it.
Standing on the sidelines to learn the game by watching others play is out of question. Even as a spectator, you are still in the game. You have no other choice except to become part of the game, in one way or another.
But can’t we at least pause at a certain point and change our role?
Is this only about courage, or when you think you are in control of the coincidences, do they in fact control you?
We start with absolutely no knowledge and learn all the rules on our own. If we knew that each step we take will determine an unknown future which will materialize years from now, we couldn’t survive.
Isn’t this unfair?
You have to participate in a game in which you cannot even decide whom to play with or whom to compete against, knowing that it is your one and only chance to play it. Repetition is not allowed.
If only we could have one more chance. If only we could change a decision we made at a milestone in our life and start over again.
I know, it doesn’t work that way.
Now I’m traveling from one memory to another.
Come. Join me!
If you asked me what was the one thing that determined my destiny, I’d tell you it was that song.
Yes, a song that was playing in my dream.
If you have ever told someone, “everything has disappeared from my life but you,” or if you have ever felt this way in your heart, you surely know that it makes you feel as if you have sprouted wings. And it is terrifying.
You would give everything to forget all and send that feeling into oblivion with a single touch of a magic wand, but—how strange—even if that were possible, you could not bring yourself to part with it.
The helplessness of suddenly realizing that your inner self, which you thought would always do as you tell it, has begun to act crazily, like an unleashed rebellious child. The astonishment of realizing that you are unable to deal with it. And the inexorable allure of that adventure which has brought you to a matchless state of ecstasy you could find nowhere else.
I know a few languages, but none contain words that could describe this feeling.
Wait a minute! That broken time machine is now hurling me back into the past, carrying me to one of those ordinary childhood moments which truly, yet unexpectedly, determine the course of your life, although the very same piece of memory had somehow seemed unimportant when you lived thatactual moment.
I now go to that winter morning when a cold distant sun hung sulking in the sky.
To Ankara, when I was fourteen.
Does childhood make cities seem more beautiful in memories than they actually are?
Or is it that we destroy and devastate cities as time goes by?
Later, each time I visited Ankara, I only saw an ugly, worn out place packed with clumsy buildings. A city that had lost its beautiful sunny mornings forever.
Tedious, oppressive, drab apartment complexes had replaced those spacious boulevards of my childhood, the bright orderly buildings, wide public squares, sunny hills, and lovely homes with pretty gardens.
Perhaps the steppes were rejecting the untimely siege that had begun through the symbols of a new civilization, which we believed were magnificent.
Later, each time I saw the shantytowns, the ramshackle, jerry-built structures, and the impoverished inhabitants next to the old homes near the castle, I couldn’t help wondering if that was all we had succeeded in achieving over so many years in the capital city of hopes.
Now,