Music by My Bedside. Kürsat Basar

that someone was waiting for them faithfully, who overcame the greatest of difficulties inspired by the dream of their lovers, and who, when you looked into their eyes, made you melt away?

      So does everyone feel better that way? Do they eat their popcorn and then go back to their boring homes saying, “Look, it was all a lie. There are no tales and no heroes. We’re all the same, and life is hard. No one can be happy with a single kiss alone.”

      I don’t know. I don’t know why we have to give up that hero who touches that ramshackle hut with a magic wand and turns it into the most magnificent castle in the world…

      In those days, the heroes in films used to possess the power to change the world, to take unhappy princesses on dreamy nights, and enter upon an adventure about which neither of them knew.

      None of us thought about what would happen at the end of those adventures.

      For we knew that he always kept his word, and if—with his hand on her hair—the gloomy expression of the princess was replaced with a gleaming heartfelt smile, the ramshackle hut would sooner or later turn into a glamorous castle.

      We were sure that when someone like that came and took our hand to take us away, we wouldn’t care where we were headed.

      We knew that in a magical place at a magical moment, a single magical kiss could bring someone back to life.

      There, on that brilliant Ankara evening, as I was shaking hands with people, smiling at them, and humbly accepting the compliments, I knew he would come.

      That hero.

      It sounds impossible, but he really came.

      Now, as I think back, I ask myself whether it had not always been so? Whenever I called him inside my mind, didn’t he always come out of the blue? Didn’t he always find me, or appear suddenly in front of me in the most unexpected places or at the most unexpected moments?

      Does it sound strange to you? Well, to me, too.

      I really didn’t know that I was waiting for someone, but what I hoped for was something that you usually put back on the dusty shelves of your archive of special memories that you never share with anyone although it captures you for a moment before it is soon forgotten.

      One of those innumerable moments that do not become real, but only flash in your mind and are lost to oblivion in no time.

      It had to be like that.

      But when I raised my head, I saw him in front of me. He had extended his hand, inviting me for a dance with that matchless smile of his.

      When I found myself in his arms, dancing among other couples and rotating under the huge crystal chandelier, I suddenly remembered the day I had first met him and had been carried away by my imagination. I felt as if I were in that dream.

      How is it possible for someone to build castles in the air and one day find out that her dream had come true?

      At such an unexpected moment, when I least hoped for it, when the feelings I had not first recognized but then remembered, when I was in that film-like setting.

      I was turning and twirling in his arms. I was dizzy. I looked into his eyes. I wasn’t able to hear what he said. I was so small compared to him that I wasn’t dancing but flying in his arms.

      At the end, drawing closer to my ear, he whispered, “Young lady, may I ask you at exactly what time your carriage will turn into a pumpkin?”

      I must have had a stupid smile on my face. I felt my cheeks flush. He asked again, probably thinking I hadn’t understood.

      “So you don’t remember me,” I said without looking into his eyes.

      He was surprised.

      “Remember you? I’m sure I haven’t seen you before. I never would have forgotten you.”

      “So it’s about time that I transform back into Cinderella,” I said.

      The dance was over. Before he could say anything to me and before the orchestra began playing a new tune, I rushed to where my brother was standing.

      But he followed me and said to my brother, “Nihat, it seems you know the answer to a secret. Tell me, who is this young lady?”

      Nihat laughed, “She’s my little sister. Didn’t you recognize her? She’s the one who rode straight into us on her bike.”

      Fuat appraised me in amazement.

      “Unbelievable! Are you that little kid?” he said.

      “Yes,” I said, “but you didn’t let me . . .”

      He broke into loud laughter and lifted me up in the air. With my feet off the ground, I was unable to do anything but watch him laugh and turn me around in his arms. Chuckling, he said, “Who would expect that small, mischievous child to grow into a beautiful princess?”

      And of course the whole ballroom was watching.

      Then a woman on the stage began to sing that song. Was that also a coincidence when this special song started to play in the background?

      Violetta’s song. In Turkish, it meant: “The woman who was led astray . . .”

      Isn’t it always the same?

      Don’t we suddenly wake up when we’re having a wonderful dream?

      As soon as my feet touched the ground again, I noticed a beautiful brunette, dressed in a dark blue silk dress, wearing a glittering pearl necklace, and with her long hair in a bun, staring at me with a strange expression on her face. She was much older than I was, yet she looked younger than her age. I immediately understood who she was.

      This was the first time I saw her.

      I didn’t know what to do. Like a child, unwilling to wake up, I kept on standing there with my cheeks on fire. All the people and their humming voices had disappeared for me for a moment, and although I tried to immerse myself in the atmosphere again, I couldn’t.

      On that evening in Ankara, I tried hard to wake up from the most unexpected dream I was having in a sparkling room.

      He immediately grabbed his wife’s hand, pulling her toward himself before he introduced us to each other in a loud voice that everyone could hear.

      “Maide, come, look at her. She’s Nihat’s little sister. The first time I saw her, she was a kid this tall . . . riding a bike.”

      I extended my hand, and she touched my fingers limply, as if unwilling to take my hand in full. I was not able to look her in the eye.

      “Well, she certainly still is a child,” she said, smiling courteously.

      The ladies with her glanced at each other and giggled.

      A waiter wearing white gloves offered us drinks from his tray. Everyone picked up one of the tall glasses.

      “To everyone’s health,” Fuat said, and we all raised our glasses in a toast.

      Then he told the story of our first amusing encounter.

      How I had been riding my bike while he and my brother were talking, and how I couldn’t manage to stop it and fell off. The whole story. Nihat supported him with details every now and then.

      Everyone seemed to listen with interest.

      I was surprised at the fact that he remembered everything.

      He had remembered, but for him, it was a mere coincidence. He had remembered, yet he would not have known what I had dreamed on the night after our first meeting.

      He