Music by My Bedside. Kürsat Basar

It has always been so. Whoever climbs to the top thinks the view is wonderful, feels pleased and content, and forgets that it’s all transitory. Things have always been this way, but we still want to climb to the top.”

      Do we really want that?

      I didn’t. I never have.

      I’ve never understood why the ones at top fail to see the view as it is.

      Lost in thought, he looked at me and said, “Who knows, maybe there, from the summit, everything is so far away in the distance. Maybe that’s why it looks beautiful.”

      His confidence in his knowledge and insight, the well-conceived answers he gave in an easy-going manner, which I had pondered deeply, and his calm expression free of doubt always convinced me I was wrong.

      At least at that moment.

      I had to understand. He was like that. He was one of those people whom others watched in curiosity, who had to climb up his path with consistent effort, who constantly gave orders to others, who told about life, and who tried to build a life with his own hands.

      According to him, there was so much to be done and the only reason things were not accomplished correctly was that cowards and lazy people held power. I guess, in those days, he truly believed he could change things and accomplish the ideas he had always had in mind but which, for some reason or another, he had not been able to implement until that day.

      Leaders are such people. But I sometimes wonder whether leaders really believe they can change things and make life better or if they try to prove to themselves their self-confidence. I’m not really sure.

      As the election results were celebrated with balls, we packed our suitcases, getting ready to set off for our new destination.

      Thankfully, the election brought to an end our afternoon meetings, as well as the gossip.

      Anyway, everyone was busy discussing the new government and the debates surrounding it.

      I must confess, in the beginning I felt lonely and scared. It must have been then that I realized the game which had amused me, and made me forget how lonely I was, had taken a dangerous route.

      At first, I often went down to the tearoom in the afternoon, wondering if he would show up. I opened a book or magazine but ended up reading the same page over and over, waiting for him to appear. Everyone else came through that damned door except him.

      He was touring the country before the election in those days. He addressed the public. He did not have time for me.

      Slowly, I abandoned all the crazy thoughts that had taken root in my mind and repeated to myself that it was time to put an end to this silly game.

      My addiction to cigarettes, which I still cannot end, is from those days.

      But it didn’t take long for those days to come to an end.

      One way or another, Turgut had managed to be assigned abroad just as he had wished. He was unhappy about being in Turkey and wanted to leave as soon as possible. At night, when we were alone, he constantly talked about his wish to leave. Anyhow, we were leading a temporary life in Ankara. We had spent months in a hotel room with open suitcases, taking our meals outside and waiting for news of his new appointment to arrive anytime.

      Eventually, the long-awaited news came, and we got ready to set off for the city of mist.

      I didn’t attend the reception held the day before we left, saying I wanted to spend my last evening with my mother and brother.

      Fuat had not only won the elections but also been appointed as a minister in the new government. I didn’t congratulate him on his success.

      I do not remember now whether I had wanted to punish him in my own way or felt that meeting him again would be the beginning of an unexpected disaster.

      At dinner with my mother, my brother, Ayla, and Turgut’s family, we talked about the good old days, my father, and the future that awaited us. We talked and laughed about the first evening Turgut had visited my parents’ home.

      My mother blushed as she said, “Did you really put salt into his coffee? I swear I had no idea you did such a thing!”

      “I noticed it,” Turgut said, “but what could I do? Besides I liked her mischievousness and drank it without saying a word.”

      My mother had cooked all my favorite dishes and insisted that we finish them.

      She was happy that we weren’t going too far.

      Unable to conceal his happiness at leaving Ankara, Turgut said to Nihat, “We’re going at the right time. There are the elections, and the fight never ends. I hope it goes smoothly for you all!”

      Once again, I would have to begin a life in a new place and among people I didn’t know. I was both excited and distressed.

      “What can we do?” Turgut remarked. “This is our life. Just when we’re getting used to a place, we have to pack our things and move somewhere else.”

      All the lights in this house were on for the first time since my father’s death. It was also the first time since his passing that laughter dominated the place. At the same time, it would be the last.

      My mother and brother were leaving Ankara too. They had decided to settle in Istanbul at my grandmother’s home. After my father’s death, my mother did not want to stay in the family house. Even entering the living room, where we used to spend time as a family, upset her. My grandmother had passed away, and her house in Istanbul was vacant.

      Since my brother did not want to leave our mother alone, he found a job in a company belonging to a friend in Istanbul.

      “One traveler is enough in a family. Besides, I don’t like traveling,” he said, stressing how much he had missed Istanbul. And I encouraged them, saying, “What on earth do people like about Ankara anyway! Istanbul is a much better place to live. You’ve made the best decision.”

      The following week, Ayla was going to participate in an archaeological excavation in Anatolia. She was very excited, and during our time together in Ankara, she had constantly talked about it, looking forward to her journey back in time, after having read so many books. She would work with renowned archaeologists, and it was a sign of success on her part that they had chosen an inexperienced young woman like her. Her father had retired, so she had also decided to live in Istanbul year round.

      That evening when we all sat together and enjoyed dinner for the last time in that house was a milestone marking the beginning of a new life for each of us.

      A brand new period in our lives full of novel, unknown things.

      I remember that my mother hugged me as we were leaving and cried, “You’re leaving again. I spend my days longing for you. I wish I had not let you marry a diplomat.” Then she gave me a prayer written on a piece of paper placed in a small leather case for me to carry wherever I went. I also recall that my heart fluttered like a bird, and I wanted to have a brief last look at the hotel ballroom.

      I didn’t do it, of course.

      Besides, the ball was already over when we got to the hotel.

      I hung the prayer my mother gave me around my neck and went to bed.

      We set off early the next day.

      Maybe the reason we often fail to understand people and are sometimes surprised by them in the most unexpected ways is because we forget they have many different facets and we are satisfied with the image they present as a whole.

      Don’t we usually forget about the different aspects of our own character and get stuck in false self-conceptions?

      We struggle for a long time to create a form others will like and approve of, a