Camdaki Kiz- The real story of Zeynep and Mehdi

This story was adapted and made into the series Dogdugen Ev Kaderindir. Many of us that are watching this series are curious about what happened in the book and the real story…

The translation of this story is brought to you by Gale Diebold & Joan Hiver

CAMDAKI KIZ – THE STORY OF ZEYNEP & MEHDI An Excerpt

(Translation/Paraphrase from the book by Dr. Gulseren Budayiciouglu)

Tuna knew I was tired and he came back with a tray. On the tray was “Flow-the Smokin ( a kind of tea ) tea next to the pogacas Samdan ( some kind of sweet ) ;it was made with care. He put it in front of me. While I’m eating these, he’s enjoying himself as he stands in front of me. He loves to be in my room. Last night we were discussing The Bride from Istanbul. Later on, we will watch the next episode. He loves the weirdest character in this show. “All husbands are strange; it would be nice if it was like, “hinzirca “, he said as a smile spread across his face.”

Before I’m done with my tea, Tuna responds to a knock on the door. The next patient must be here.

I’m a woman who always takes care of the places I live in. I like to feel at home. Every corner of the house, located on a lovely site in Ankara ,is important to me. In the morning, after breakfast, I drink my coffee in what I call the Red Corner. The Red Corner is the most beautiful part of my home. I live on the 8th floor. I have a pretty spacious lounge. I made a coffee corner right in front of the window. Two large, burgundy-colored arm chairs stand opposite each other. A large coffee table is in the middle. The coffee table has a specially built lamp on it which emanates a red light.

I drink my morning coffee from these seats in order to sit in the brine and watch the sky from afar. Usually an Ankara person is a little sooty, a little foggy. The clouds never go down from the sky but I still like to look at them.

Now the Bosporus in Istanbul… the IRLI small ships passing through the Bosporus….I have a small house that sees ships big and small passing through the Bosporus. In that house, two navy blue velvet arm chairs stand by the side of the window, but just around the corner the red lamp with feet makes the house warm. Zeynep and I don’t talk long that day. She is always telling me, “I am listening.” Before she gets out of this depression, I don’t know what to say. She won’t get any of it. I’m giving her the pills. She leaves the room promising to take these regularly. Let’s see if we can change the path of the Destiny motif.

I want the furnishings I live with to give me peace, energy and joy of life. I also take great care of my rooms at the clinic. Happy people don’t come here. Every one of them has problems. I want them to rest here with me, not to sit on thorns……….[talks about office]…

Now we have to make Miss Zeynep, who will come to the clinic for the first time, forget that she is in a clinic, in a health institution and in front of a doctor, so she can explain her problems without any stress. I’m taking a look around before she gets inside. Some of the rolling shutters in my room with lots of windows are open and some are closed. I line up the shutters, fix the red velvet seat, freshen the candle, which has been burning since morning, and press the phone key and tell assistant that I’m ready.

Tuna opens the door and retreats to the side, allowing Miss Zeynep to enter. I’m standing right next to the door, and I’m pointing at one of the seats for her to sit. Zeynep is a young woman with thin face lines and bright eyes, but the glow in her eyes is not the glow of happiness. She is dressed in a long beige coat with a colorful scarf tied in the shape of a turban and I see a shy smile as she shakes my hand. First, she looks at the room, what’s hanging on the wall, the paintings, the lamps, then.

“This is exactly how I imagined your room; just like in your books,” she says. So she has read my books. It’s easier if someone who comes here has read my books. They know me and feel close to me because I talk a lot about myself in those books. So they tell their troubles without feeling like they are talking to a stranger.

Amazingly, even I feel much closer to them. I feel like I’ve met them somewhere in the past.”What will you drink? “I ask. She wants tea. After Tuna brings our tea, she starts telling me before I even ask.

“Miss Gülseren , I have a lot of problems. I couldn’t ever tell anybody. I mean, it’s hard to say, but I’ve been feeling really horrible lately. I didn’t know what to do. How to go about getting helping myself. I finally got out of nowhere and came to you. Maybe you will be able to show me a way.”

“You’ve done well, Miss Zeynep.” “Wouldn’t it be better to call me Zeynep?” “Sure. Tell me, Zeynep. I’m listening.” “Professor, first let me tell you my life story. I didn’t live like everyone else. I’ve had a different life, like in the movies. I can’t believe how I got to this day”.

Her eyes have welled up with tears. Whether she cries or not, the past makes her sad. When I look more closely, I see something different about her, but I don’t quite understand what it is. Her clothes and general appearance remind me of a middle-class housewife, but her looks are very different. It’s like I’m sitting in front of a highly trained, serious woman.

“I am the daughter of a very poor family. My father was a construction worker, and my mother used to clean houses. We were three children. Two girls, one boy. I’m the youngest in the family. My brother Remzi was a very successful boy in school, but my father did not want him to learn. Bring home the bread; you can’t read, he insisted.” “What was your father like?”

“Don’t ask. He was a no-good. He worked on construction till the evening, and the three kurus he earned he would spend at the taverns in the evening. My mother already provided for the house. That’s all, but if he came home and mom would open her mouth, he’d beat the hell out of her and then beat us. She really wanted to teach her son. That’s what fights were usually about at home. My mother was paying for his schooling anyway. The more she told him not to take the boy away from school , the angrier he would get and the more he would leave broken things in the house. He blamed Remzi too, by the way. “This is all because of you!” he blamed the boy by saying. Remzi started working in construction with my father and enrolled in evening high school. The kid was so smart. He didn’t want to be like our dad. Father would not even pay for the boy’s transport. The boy walked for miles to get out of construction and into school. I’m youngest. My sister took care of the house. She was also ten years old. She went to school and when she came home, she did the housework.”

“Did you stay home alone?” “I don’t know! After two or three years, they left me at home. They locked the door behind me and left. They’d put something to eat on a plate in front of me. That’s all. When my sister came, she was so happy I had not left the house. She’s younger (than Remzi presumably). She goes to elementary school. We took care of ourselves together. Sometime later, Remzi got sick. They said he had pneumonia and then tuberculosis. He spent months in the hospital. No one went to see him. My mother often went to see him at night when she left work, and when she left the hospital, she brought home a burrito. I was with Remzi when I was five. My mother would hug us and cry for hours, screaming for her baby. When he died, she and my dad seemed to get really close. ‘It’s because of you, girl!’ I was told. My dad got angry. ‘That’s what he would do. I’d think what’s wrong with me and he would tear up the house again. At that time, my mother tried to destroy my father. She said, ‘ I’m providing for this house anyway. We don’t need you anymore.’

“Did your mother have any relatives or anything?” “There are but they are all in the village. We have no one in Istanbul. If we get up and go to the village, we’ll all go and stay. My father knows that. He’s already a jealous man. The house has broken down again. My father came out of the kitchen with a knife, and I thought he’d kill us all. Screaming. I’m screaming.”

What desperation! Look at the father who’s supposed to have them. So Zeynep opened her eyes to the world in a house like this. The world she knows is always dangerous, always evil, merciless and not fair. The more she remembers those days, the darker her gaze, and the glow I saw when she first walked into the room has disappeared.

Those were tough days!” “Oh Professor, it was not just difficult; it was horrible. We couldn’t sleep in our beds for days because my father was unpredictable. My mother didn’t want to keep this marriage because she always blamed my father for her son’s death.”

“How do you know she won’t do the same thing to you?” Was your sister studying then?”

“She sent my sister to school out of fear of my father. I was going to school at the time, but my sister dropped out of middle school. She was unable to read. My father would get angry when her report card was weak. He was saying that we are wasting so much expense and he would hit the floor as he grabbed her by the hair. My sister got married before she was eighteen. How long now? How will my sister’s life be like? Miserable. Her goal was not to get married. She wanted to get out of the house as soon as possible. She ran away with the first boy she met. He was also a poor child. When she left, I was the only one left. My dad picked me up from school the year I finished primary school. ‘We sent the other daughter to school (Otekini to NA,) and it was neither good for her nor for us. You take Zeynep to the places you go and she’ll learn about work’, he told my mother. This time my mom wasn’t able to appeal too much. My sister ran away from home so my father always blamed my mother, ‘ you sent this girl to school and she found a husband there. If she had stayed at home, we wouldn’t be so disgraced in the neighborhood. My honor was tarnished because of you, ‘ he said.

As she speaks, her eyes often seem to want to see those days, but still there is a serious discrepancy between her speech, tone, gestures, sitting, hand movements and the story she tells. This girl doesn’t look like someone who moved out of a house like that. I couldn’t even ask about her age, her profession. I haven’t even been able to ask her these questions since this woman is not from a working class immediately began to tell me about her life. If she didn’t tell me anything, I’d think she was a very educated woman. Let’s see where this story ends.

“What kind of student were you?” “I was a hard worker. My report cards were always so good, and when my dad picked me up from school, I cried and begged for days, but my dad wouldn’t even listen. And my mother never supported me this time. That’s when we started going to the house where my mother worked together. My mother worked for a very young family. Middle-aged husband and wife. Had no kids. He was a senior bureaucrat in the state. She had worked before and then retired due to health problems.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Rheumatoid arthritis. Her back was twisting and all her joints were becoming familiar.”

So it’s rheumatoid arthritis. She says that as clearly as a paramedic.

“While we were going with my mother, my mother was warming up the house and I was serving Miss Nermin, the lady of the house. She was such a kind, loving woman. She’d make me feel like a big girl..She would listen to me.”

It was strange for Miss Nermin to listen to her, since no one had ever listened to her as a big girl.

“And I would tell her how much I wanted to read, but my father wouldn’t let me read. ‘What would you like to read?’ she used to say. I’d say,’ I’m going to be a lawyer.’”

Most of the kids that life has been unfair to in the beginning want to be lawyers when they grow up. How right they are!

“One day she said to me, ‘be our daughter. Let’s get your parents’ permission and you’ll live with us from now on. I’ll send you to school, and you can be my friend at home.’

“That’s a nice offer! What did you say, what did you feel?”

Shuts up. She closed her eyes again, thinking about how she felt. So Kendrine never asked me that before.

“I don’t know. I’m so glad both joy and fear entered in. Imagine what it’s like to move out of a bad slum to a luxury apartment building, to be in that house, not the maid of that house, but her daughter! I ran to my mother, because the lady was calling her. Miss Nermin told her. My mother didn’t know what to say either. She said she would ask my father. ‘When we left we didn’t stay in our place of joy until we arrived home, and fear came into her like me.’ We didn’t tell him right away and it was night and dad came home. It’s not clear what we would say in the morning, but I could not sleep. And then I got up and my dad was in the house with his arms up and he was playing. Come on, girl, come sit down. My father called me his daughter for the first time.”

Tears are coming down from her eyes. Also makes me sad. I think of my father. When I was a kid, I thought all dads were like my dad. They are smiling, handsome gentlemen who always call their children my daughter, who treat their kids like a great human being, who listen to them for a long time, who bring them fish chocolate when the evenings come, who always wear navy blue suits…

“He was very happy. ‘From the lottery, the money came out, he said to mom. My mother was happy when he said that. Just that day they made a little suitcase for me. They put my tattered clothes into it, my obsolete school uniform; we went in a pair of shoes to Nermin Hanim’s house. The woman saw we’re here with a suitcase. She figured I’d stay with them. She sat in front of my mother. ‘Miss Sakine she said, ‘ is now she – the daughter of the house. Every time you come into this house you can see your daughter as you wish, you can talk. Take this suitcase to those in need in the neighborhood. She won’t need them here anymore. ‘So this is my mother. She kissed the hand of Miss Nermin, saying ‘her flesh is yours, her bone is ours’. I moved into that house. Just that day, Miss Nermin she took me to the bazaar, we bought everything together, but we took so much, we couldn’t carry it. Her husband, Ekrem Bey, sent a car to pick us up. They gave me one of the rooms. In that week I was immediately interviewed by the schools, items were taken to the room, and within a week I started secondary school, albeit a little late.”

Dreaming … You really think that only happens in movies. How could a child that age be affected by all this? How did you feel, Zeynep? How did that sudden change affect you at that age?”

“Professor, I feared for a long time that this was a dream. ‘Now I’m going to wake up. I’m going to find myself in that slum again. I’m going to jump out of bed with my dad’s voice! I was afraid of that. They put me in my room and they showed me how it was decorated. I have never seen anything like it. White cots, Lacy bedding, down pillows, a white desk, a lamp over. Various notebooks, pencils, watercolors; beautiful dresses, white, socks, beautiful shoes in the closet…I would hold each and every one of them and hug them. You should see my nightgowns, colorful, flowering beetles. I go to high school with rich kids. I go by a school car in the morning and leave the same way at night. When I get home, the food and pie are ready. My mother made it. Everywhere it is spotlessly clean. Miss Nermin always greets me with a laugh and a hug. Ekrem Bey comes in the evening. No fighting. No noise in the house. What you eat is in front of you, what you don’t eat is behind you. They put money in my pocket on the way to school. I didn’t know if I was on the ground or in the sky for a while. I’m not used to such things. I’m eating so much that this time my stomach hurts. Not only do I eat, I hide things under my bed. Impolite here! Then Miss Nermin found out. They put a little fridge in my room. They filled it. This is all yours, and it will be replaced as it dwindles. Take your time. They said eat whenever you want. Look what I’ve done! Who is to be told of this?”

“You’ve come to your place, Zeynep. You say these things at the right address, but I don’t condemn you as much as you do. You were just a kid, then. You’ve never seen plenty like this before. Isn’t that natural for that kid?” Whatever you call it.”

“I don’t know, I’m so ashamed of what I did.” “And they have no grudge. They knew you before.”

“My teacher would be ashamed of what they put in front of me to eat before I wouldn’t eat it. I’m surprised what happened when I moved into that house. I got used to them then slowly. At the end of a year, I became the number one student at the school. Now I was eating whatever they ate, and I couldn’t keep my eye on anything, but my mind was always on my family, or my mother.”

“Did mom keep coming?” “She came regularly. She was making us breakfast, and as soon as I ate, I got dressed, got on the bus and went to school. My mother was wiping and sweeping the house until the evening when weary again she went home. Who knows what my father was doing to her at home. I don’t like what I eat at the table. I always wonder what they eat. Then, at the end of the first year, I moved into that house. (I suspect she means when she felt part of the household). When they found out, my father came to the door. He said they owed him money. Mr. Ekrem invited him to his place of business. They talked there. Ekrem Bey hired him. Now he’s got a regular job. He was making better money. They came out of that old slum to a slightly more decent slum, but this time my mother came in every morning and started looking at me like the enemy. When I was sitting at the table, she was standing, she was staring at me like I had committed a crime.” “I wonder why?” Do mothers envy their daughters?”

I don’t like that question. I can’t say yes, but mothers are human too, and they have all the characteristics of human good and evil.

“What do you think?” “I don’t know…When she saw that I was being treated as a part of that house, it was like she was mad at me. We used to work in that house with our climate at once. If I didn’t go to school, I’d still help mom but I was going to school. Miss Nermin noticed the situation. I’d be happy if it wasn’t for my mother’s looks. I was just like the other students at school. Even Miss Nermin comes to parent meetings. My teachers are so proud of me and as if she were my own mother, Miss Nermin gave me gifts as a reward.”

“She was a good woman. What were you doing when school closed? Were you going to your own house?” “No, as soon as the school closed, we were going to the summer house in Büyükada, Istanbul with Nermin Hanim . Ekrem Bey was only able to come for a month because of his job, and my mother kept coming and going to that house. My mother was going to the bay for a month when Ekrem Bey came. Oh Professor, god, she then looked at me and she took care of me, but I did not know my mother.”

“Why do you say that?” “I’ll tell you all about it now. The year I finished secondary school, Ekrem Bey retired and the family decided to move to Istanbul.”

“Where do you live until then?”

“We lived in Ankara. I’m so sorry. After all, I was going to leave my family for good. Although I would have never seen my father, but I would have kept my mind on my mother. But my mother didn’t seem upset at all. They paid my mother a great deal of compensation because she worked for the Nermin lady for years. So my mother got a good deal of money. After that, she went home happy, saying no more work. She didn’t even come to see me off. We settled in a house in Istanbul. We went to Büyükada again in the summer. Then I slowly forgot about my family. My family was now Nermin Hanim and Ekrem Bey.”

“Were you never seen with your family?” “I was calling them often, asking for help, and every time I called, my mother complained about my father, my sister told me about the beatings she had received from her husband, and my father was asking for money all the time. My money. Nermin insisted on asking Hanim, sometimes calling Ekrem Bey and asking him. Now, these systems starved me, too. I started college after graduating from Koeljden. I told you, Miss Nermin had become like my mother. She was taking care of all my problems. She noticed my needs without telling me, and she was always very warm to me. I was just running home. We were sitting there like matriarchs, talking about everything. I fell in love with a boy in college. His Name Was Faruk.

I even told her all this. If I was going anywhere, they would drive me there, and then they would drive me there again. Even Nermin Hanim met Faruk and liked him very much.”

“Did your parents know?” “They never even asked me how I was or what I was doing…All they cared about was money. They were embarrassing me, too. It’s like my mom was my ex. The fact that I was living in this house in luxury was a thorn in her, and every time I called, she said something that was going to fuck me up. The year I graduated from law school…”

“You graduated from law school?” “Yes, ma’am.”

“Say that from the beginning. I’ve been looking at it since you came in, but I can’t figure out what happened.”

“She graduated from law and became a lawyer, but look at her, is that what you thought?”

Sometimes I read the minds of my patients, sometimes they’re mine. That’s exactly what I think.

“Exactly what I was saying. What’s with you, Zeynep?”

“I don’t know if I’m on the ground or in the sky…”

“Why, what happened?”

“Everything happened to me. I couldn’t take the chance that God gave me. This is my stupid head!”

I wonder what happened? Her life changed in an instant and she was living beautifully.

“What happened, Zeynep?”

“The year I finished school, Faruk went to the army immediately. We were going to get married on the way back. Miss Nermin told my family the news in a way. ‘Young man’ and we really like him. They’ll get married when he gets back from the army. In the meantime, Zeynep will do the internship as a lawyer. Look into Faruk, if you want. He has already completed his military service. He came to meet us and asked for your daughter,’ she said. Whatever happened, happened after that. My dad broke the bed in the house. Who are they trying to give her away to when her parents are standing here? Then they came to Istanbul for the week. They both have five faces. ‘We’ll give our daughter to someone else. Our son-in-law is a doctor. He’ll be a distant relative. Don’t get involved anymore,’ he said…” “Did you know Doctor son-in-law?”

“I knew him when he was little. He’s the only one from our village. His parents kept rubbing it in our faces about our son is going to be a doctor. We didn’t know what we were stopping by. Ms. Nerman pulled me aside and said,’ you’re not a kid anymore. You’re old enough to make your own decisions. I can’t tell you anything, but as your friend for all these years, I’m afraid you won’t do anything wrong. This is your life, your decision. Think hard, don’t make hasty decisions.”

“What did you do Zeynep?” She cries. There’s a lot of dark clouds in her face. She obviously made a decision that made her very unhappy afterwards.

“My mother is past me, crying,’ if you don’t come with us I won’t give you my blessing!’ she says nothing else. My father, who didn’t even cry over the death of his son, has also twisted his neck, and he is crying. Our daughter sins. Don’t be miserable by marrying someone we don’t know. Mehdi is a very good boy. We know his lineage. He’s been following you online for a while. They came to our door. They’re going to have you live in the best places,’ they’re crying and talking all the time. Finally, they persuaded Ms. Nermin to let me go home for a week and they took me by the arm. I’m crying on the one hand, I’m confused on the other. Then the next day came Mehdi. I wouldn’t know him on the road. And he looks me in the eye to say, yes. Then, within a week, they made me say yes.”

“Did you say yes unwillingly, Zeynep?” “I don’t know. I still don’t know how I said that then. I couldn’t help it because of my mother, Professor. When she said she wouldn’t give her blessing…”

It’s the guilt that drives our lives. That’s what makes sense comparing her to her mother. She blamed herself for her mother’s miserable life while she lived in luxury. Conscientious. She said her mother looked at her badly. Now I understand how that gaze inflicted great wounds on that little Zeynep’s heart. I think that’s exactly how Zeynep interpreted that look. She said she owed her mother everything. Mom said if she’s mad at me, she’s right. Shame on her, she said.

Pity… Fate set up a motif trap for Zeynep. She tries to draw her back into the emotions of the first witness when she came into the world. That’s the pattern of Destiny. The first feelings you know get into your bones. You’ve been searching for the same feelings all your life, good if good, bad if bad.

“Then what happened, Zeynep?” “We were engaged for two months. Then we got married in a hurry.” “Have you met, Mehdi?” “He came to us almost every day for two months. Sometimes we sat at home, sometimes we went out together. His parents wanted me home that week anyway. The rings are on. Mehdi was waiting for the time to be appointed. He was to go to Malatya for his compulsory service. So, we got married in a hurry and went to Malatya.”

I can’t believe it. Says someone who graduated from law school and grew up in the poshest part of Istanbul. “What was he like, Mehdi?”

“He was an accomplished man from our village, determined to read like me. Good, good, not bad, not to say that. I was so obsessed with my mother at the time that I didn’t even think about Faruk. ‘Instead of living with remorse, I close my eyes and do whatever they want,’ I thought.”

“What kind of remorse?” “How do you like it, ma’am? ‘My mother says,’ I do not have my right, ‘ the woman cries. I left them years ago…”

“I’m gone,” she says. So that’s what she put in her head. But they gave their daughters to it. Her dad played us like the lottery. How does she interpret that?

“Do you hear what Zeynep says? Did you leave them, or did they put you in that family?”

“I wanted to, too…” You, “How old were you then?”

“Eleven or so…” “So I was a kid. My parents made that decision. The Nermin lady asked for it, and my parents gave me to them. Do you want to go for sodas?”(A child will always say yes if she is asked to go for a soda. That is the meaning.)

“They didn’t ask, but I did. Wouldn’t you like it to be you?” “I didn’t want to, but whatever my parents say happens. But in your life, your parents always make the decisions. They let you live there when you were a kid, and when you grow up to be a grown-up, and they even decide who you’re going to marry instead of you. This is very natural as a child, but it is not natural for a university graduate who has a profession to accept their desires anymore. You could have challenged them if you wanted to.”

“I felt as if I had upset them so much. I had done wrong, now I had to right that wrong. Nermin Hanim called me very often, ‘my daughter what are you doing, you have an internship, you have a profession, you are doing wrong, but come immediately’ she said…”

“You didn’t go.” “I couldn’t go. My mother’s tears stood up like a wall. I see, Mehdi is a good man. ‘What love’’ I said to myself, ‘you will live whatever your destiny is.”

“What was your destiny, Zeynep? What did your destiny want from you ? Who took you out of the slums to a great mother and taught you at the best colleges?”

“What will he want? This is the Mehdi. Stay out of it”.

“It’s not your destiny; it’s your family. The two mixing. Your destiny takes you to other places.”

“I did it wrong, didn’t I?” “I don’t know. Tell you later.”

“Since we were engaged for two months, when we went out to dinner, Mehdi would drink raki and give it to me. I used to drink red wine at Miss Nermin’s house once in a while, but I’ve never had raki before. I was having a glass of raki with him, but I never knew he was an alcoholic. My mind is in Faruk, but I drink raki with Mehdi. How stupid of me, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t call it stupid. Life draws you into the environment you used to be when you were a kid and you go tiptoe tiptoe.” “Yes, I did just that. I know it from my father. I think Istanbul confused me. There, friends would all go to dinner some nights together. We would all have a lot of drinks as well. Faruk used to drink red wine with me once in a while. Apart from that, Faruk didn’t drink.”

“What about your love for him?” “Love had disappeared from my mind. I was going to betray my family by marrying Faruk. That’s what it felt like. Miss Nermin warned me, but I didn’t listen to her. My mother was already at home nagging me, telling me that if I go to anyone other than Mehdi she wouldn’t give me the right to go. Finally, we went to Malatya. Mehdi started compulsory service in the state hospital. So, I started an internship at a law firm there. I got pregnant a few months later. Then I had a daughter. We can’t make it to the end of the month financially. Mehdi often does not come home saying that he has a problem. I’m home with the kid. He never comes home sober, always drunk. ‘I was so constricted at the hospital, we had a drink or two with friends when we got out,’ he says. By the time my daughter was a year old, I had finished my internship and was earning money, but my husband was no longer bringing home pennies. Every day he’d find an excuse, talk about debts he couldn’t pay. At first, I thought he was sending the money he earned on his family in the village. After all, Mehdi was a child of a poor family. I do the same thing, and once I started making money, I sent money to my parents every month.”

“Were you happy then?” “I was never happy after I left the Nermin’s house. I left my happiness in that house.”

How hard to understand what you’re saying! If she had married Faruk and not Mehdi, what harm would it have done to her family? She could still send them some of the money she earned, but she would be happy with her own. Even if she doesn’t know why she did it, I understand. The motif of destiny draws her like magnets. “Then I learned that Mehdi was deceiving me. With a woman who’s never been there.” “What does a woman mean?” ”She was an ex-girlfriend of a doctor friend. Mehdi’s friend broke up with her when she cheated on him with someone else. Even Mehdi told me to avoid a hassle. When Mehdi wanted to help reconcile them, a relationship started between her and Mehdi. Mehdi spent all his money on this girl. In fact, her ex-boyfriend threatened my husband, and all they knew was that. He also showed me pictures of the Mehdi with the girl at his throat. I went crazy when I saw them. When I came home, I put all of Mehdi’s belongings in a garbage bag and put them at the door. While I was working from morning to night to earn our bread money, not spending any extra money, taking my child from the babysitter in the evening and dealing with her until the morning, my husband was enjoying himself with his other woman, who had no idea what the hand was. She was eating my child’s alimony with her hands.”

She’s crying again. I think she’s just beginning to understand how she made the wrong decision about her life.

“I lost my decency at the time. I became someone else. The next day Mehdi opened the door with his key and entered. I can’t tell you how I attacked him. You’d think I’d been fighting it for years. I’m going to tear him apart. He said not to do it first. Then he beat me up! My mouth, my eye, it’s all smashed up. I was covered in blood. And then he sat across from me and said ‘Are you relieved?’.” Ah! She cries.

“You may be surprised, but yes, I am relieved.” “Zeynep has received the punishment the soul desires. You blame yourself a lot.”

“Unfortunately, it happened like that. My husband tended to my wounds or something, so I went to bed. The next day I packed my things and went to Nermin lady in Istanbul. Miss Nermin was surprised to see me in front of her. I’m holding my daughter. I’m in. I told her what happened to me. She didn’t know what to say. I lay there for days. My parents, on one hand, my husband, on the other hand, have never left us alone, but Miss Nermin has never left me. ‘Sick, lying down, she’ll call you when she gets better’ she said and hung up the phone. They took good care of my daughter and me, but she never kicked me out of bed again. I’ve been lying here for three months now. By the way, I’ve read your books. When they came. I said I wasn’t alone in this life. Things happen to other people like me.”

My books work in this sense! “How’s your daughter?” “Thank you, Nermin Hanim and Ekrem Bey take care of her better than I do, but I am finished professor. I feel like a depth charge. The bed attracts me. I never leave room till tonight. I don’t even want to see my daughter. These are the clothes I wear in Malatya, which my husband forced me to wear. I only took what my daughter needed. Now I don’t want to live anymore. Who can be good to a man who is not good to himself?”

The depression is all over her. It’s easy, if she lets me, we can fix that depression in a few months, but I don’t know if she’ll ever forgive herself.

Zeynep and I don’t talk long that day. She’s always telling me, “I’m listening. Before I get out of this depression.” I don’t know what to say. She won’t get any of it. I’m giving her the pills. She leaves the room promising to take these regularly. Let’s see if we can change the path of the Destiny motif.

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