Free Farewell: A Mansion in Occupied Istanbul (Turkish Literature) by Ayse Kulin

my room and write. And Mehpare can take care of me.”
    “Mehpare will not be nursing you indefinitely. She’s twenty now. It doesn’t take long for an unmarried girl in her twenties to acquire a reputation as an old maid. I’ve assumed responsibility for the girl, and I have to consider her future.” Saraylıhanım softened her tone as she changed the subject. “Have a bite of your po ğ aça. It’s spinach, the way you like it. Behice’s father sent some more eggs and vegetables from the village, and I’ve used the last of them for these. Eat up, it may be a while before you have anything so fresh again.”
    Kemal took the proffered bun from his grandmother’s hand and bit into it, happy that for a few days now his appetite seemed to have returned.
    “The call to afternoon prayers has come and gone. What’s keeping them?” griped Saraylıhanım.
    “They’ll be home soon,” Kemal reassured her.
    “I’m going down to my room to perform my prayers,” said Saraylıhanım. “You’ll finish the po ğ aça, won’t you?”
    “Yes. They’re wonderful—did Mehpare make them?”
    “She’s much too busy waiting on to you to roll dough. Gülfidan baked them.” Saraylıhanım set the remaining po ğ aça on the writing desk, put the empty tea cup on the tray and left the room.
    Alone, Kemal allowed the anxiety he’d hidden from his aunt to bubble over. Where can she be? She should have returned by now, he said to himself. Standing on tiptoe, he craned his neck for a glimpse of the street through the dormer window. The snow had begun drifting down again.
    Until late that night—when, accompanied by Hüsnü Efendi, Mehpare finally came back to the house with a torn çar ş af and terrified eyes—Saraylıhanım sought to avoid the accusatory glances of Behice by keeping her own eyes firmly on her lace- work. With so many streets closed, the tramways delayed for hours, the avenue stretching from Be ş ikta ş to Tophane being watched by the municipal police, few residents of Istanbul made it home on time that day. And Re ş at Bey was not among their number. The members of his household hadn’t heard of the bombing in Akaretler, and thus had no plausible explanation for Mehpare’s delay. Perhaps her aunt was critically ill and she’d decided to spend the night? Or maybe the girl had finally grown sick of her duties and run home for good? But Hüsnü Efendi was missing as well. Had there been a tramway accident? Behice and Saraylıhanım spent long hours in worried speculation.
    Eager to escape her rival, Saraylıhanım retired to her room early, and it was there that she interrogated Mehpare when the girl finally returned; it was there that, on the pretext of a headache, she climbed into bed without even going down to dinner.
    Behice sat directly in front of the window, waiting, determined that her husband would hear her version of the dreadful events of that day before Saraylıhanım could speak to him; determined to kill two birds—both of them relatives—with a single stone. She would cite Saraylıhanım’s advanced age, her failing faculties—clearly to blame for the day’s disasters—and call for an end to her dominion over the household; and she would point to the terrible consequences of allowing Kemal to remain with them. Her husband may have been able to overlook the fatal disease his nephew was probably carrying, but Re ş at would never be able to forgive Kemal for using the young girl under his protection as a courier. Of that Behice was absolutely certain.
    When Re ş at Bey arrived home that day at his usual late hour, he found his wife sitting in front of the window in the second-floor sitting room.
    “Why aren’t you in bed,” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
    “I’ve been waiting for you. We need to talk.”
    “This late? It must be urgent.”
    “Impossible to catch you in the morning. You leave so early. When else do I have the chance to see you?”
    Ahmet Re ş at sat down on