Sudden decisions

6 - Reality to be accepted

Can

I find myself in the underground car park of the agency without hardly realising it.
I've been driving from home to here on a sort of autopilot while my mind has been elsewhere, busy processing the fact that what happened this morning at Aydin's house is as real as the dreamlike night I spent with the mysterious girl from the theatre.
How can Sanem represent for me both damnation and bliss?
For days, after accidentally kissing her at Fikri Harika's 40th anniversary party, I had no peace, tormented by the thought of that silky-lipped stranger whom I thought I would never meet again.
Finding her in my arms in my house and recognising her by her wonderful perfume was an unexpected joy that was soon shattered by the sight of the huge engagement ring she had bothered to retrieve.
I felt the need to take advantage of every opportunity to be with her, to get to know her, to understand who she is and why she makes me feel so good, light and at peace with myself.
Her simplicity, the spontaneity that seems to transpire from her every gesture, has charmed me moment after moment: the night spent in the printing house printing the advertising campaign for the airline, the trip to Agva, her bizarre behaviour on more than one occasion have only made her even more special in my eyes.
Taking her in my arms when she almost slipped off the cliff in front of the 'Bride Rock' in Agva was like coming home, where I belonged and where I wanted to stay forever, but then I had to come back to reality and remind myself of that damned ring and that secret fiancé she had claimed to love several times.

And now life, as it often happens, has decided to shuffle the cards of a game that knows no rules or certainties, the game of will and duty, of feelings and reason, of heart and reason, and here I am, about to get officially engaged to that girl who has left very little rationality in me.

Engagement.
I find it hard to think of a future in which I am engaged, of an existence in which there is a wife and a city in which to settle permanently, abandoning the adventurous life I have chosen for myself for so long. Ties, stability, home, family are things that have never belonged to me, never even when I was a child. Can I expect to build something real and solid on such shaky foundations?

I walk through the agency, waving absent-mindedly to the employees I meet, and when I get to my office I close the door, hoping that the message will get through loud and clear that I don't want to be disturbed, not now, I need time to process what has happened, but above all what is going to happen in a few days' time.
I realise very well that the first thing to do is to talk to Polen, I don't feel at all good about the idea of going to ask for Sanem's hand in marriage knowing that a few thousand kilometres away there is a girl who is convinced that she is still my girlfriend. I call Guliz on the intercom and ask her to book me a late afternoon flight to London. The least I can do is to go and talk to her in person, what I have to say is not something to be said over the phone I think just as, without knocking, Deren bursts into my office with her hysterical attitude.

"Caaaan, do you realise what you caused yesterday with your blatant exit? Do you know we almost lost the advertising campaign?"

I raise my hand trying to interrupt her without succeeding, but I know it's like that with Deren, when she's anxious nothing can contain her outbursts.

"We had to jump through hoops to calm down Mr. Fabri who saw your abrupt way of leaving the party as an affront. I didn't know how to rectify the situation and in the end it was Cey Cey who had the idea that saved us."

He pauses to bring a hand to his mouth to stifle a laugh, "Imagine the nonsense, he made up that you and the all-purpose girl from the agency, the new one, I don't know her name, are engaged and had an argument."
He starts laughing again, almost unable to stop.
Annoyed by the contemptuous way in which she referred to Sanem, I ask her in a sarcastic tone, which she doesn't seem to understand at all: 'Really?

She continued to laugh and replied: 'Crazy, isn't it? Mr Fabri has calmed down, but now, please, no matter how crazy this situation is with him, you have to play along, okay? He's going to be here any minute, that's why I ran over to warn you...in fact, here he is. I'm going to go greet him!"

She hurries towards the door to join him in the hallway without giving me time to respond in any way. I see her making her way into my office to that man I have detested since the first moment we met, I don't like him and usually my instincts are hardly wrong. I don't like people who don't look you in the eye when they talk, and I especially didn't like the way those same eyes have instead settled insolently on "my" Sanem.

On this thought I freeze.

What is all this about "MY" Sanem?

I shake my head to regain lucidity and set aside these insidious thoughts while I get up to shake, despite myself, the hand of what is too important a client for Fikri Harika to allow me to lose him.

I owe it to my father, I owe it to the employees of the agency and.... it's the right thing to do if in the near future I intend to stay in Istanbul permanently and contribute to the success of this company.

"Mr Divit, I wanted to come and talk to you this morning to avoid any misunderstanding about what happened yesterday. It was not my intention to disrespect your fiancée in any way, I just wanted you to know that."

Deren, standing behind Mr. Fabri, makes strange signs, crossing his eyes, raising his hands in encouragement and trying to communicate something to me  that I can't understand, but the sense of what he wants to say is very clear.

I signal Fabri to take a seat in the small armchair in front of my desk and I sit down in my turn, saying: "Don't worry, there's no misunderstanding. Yesterday there was a small discussion ... with my fiancée, we left like that because we needed to clarify ourselves. Don't think about it any more.

I feel sick to my stomach having to play a part even though I know very well that, ironically, very soon my role as Sanem's new boyfriend will become a very concrete reality.

A reality that I am still struggling to accept and that I now look up and see through the glass door of my office, standing in the corridor talking to Guliz, and then coming towards me with an expression that promises nothing, really nothing good.