Constantinople's Cherry

II - 17. Mantis & coffee

Octobre 1945, Istanbul.

"So this Eda believed Armenians deserved what they got ?!" Kiraz's eyes widened as anger and indignation filled her insides.

As much as she had bad thoughts about Eda Yıldız, she didn't think she could literally be a genocide apologist, Kiraz felt sick.

Melek closed her eyes, she knew telling this one memory to Kiraz was a mistake but the girl was so stubborn and insisted so much. She was perhaps even of a stronger character than Eda.

"That's not what I said - " Melo was cut.

"She said Armenians were terrorists yes or not ?" Kiraz demanded.

Melek shut her eyes, she couldn't lie. "Yes...but I don't think she meant it, she was grieving, she was very sad, in a bad state of mind, she would never - " Melek Yücel was cut again, Eda's feisty girl wasn't letting her complete a single sentence.

"Yes she was a saint, you worship her, I've understood that. So she hated my father that much that she didn't even want to hear of him ?" Kiraz breathed, hurt despite everything.

She couldn't understand what she felt, left and right she believed for Eda to be evil and thought of her as hateful, but hearing the facts confirming that actually hurt. Her poor father, he loved that woman so much.

"Not at that time, but like I said, she was hurt kizim. She wasn't herself, she was even hostile to me." Melek sadly said, she felt guilty now, she should have tried harder to talk to Eda, she should have held her to her heart and let her weep her heart out, she knew she was hurting under her cold facade.

"She simply was a bad person, ofcourse she had no consideration for you. She didn't have any for her own daughter..." Kiraz breathed, blinking.

"Kiraz, don't think like that." Melek sighed, reaching for her hand.

"Do you have proof it wasn't the case ? You didn't even knew she was pregnant. You have no counter-fact to offer me, god knows if she even looked at me in the face before she discarded me like I'm trash, her own child." A frown of anger but also pain marred Kiraz's face as Ceren's words rang in her ears.

"Mother...she has no attribute for me to respect her as a mother, look at how poor you were, practically a slave, and look at how much you cherish your daughters." Kiraz breathed, the affection Melek Yücel's sweet motherly manners had for her children not unseen by her, Melek's eyes filled.

"I am sure you wouldn't want to spend a single moment away from them, and she ? She threw me out of her life because I was conceived with a man she hated." Kiraz felt anger that tears pricked her eyes, she was missing Réhane, her loving and only mother, she told herself, not having any kind of emotion for Eda Yıldız.

Melek felt pained and put a hand on Kiraz's shoulder. She saw this girl mad and furious, but for the first time, she was seeing a vulnerable glimpse of her.

"She named you Kiraz, it was her favourite song, The Time of Cherries, she used to play it, it had to do with your father. That has to mean she loved you." Melek tried to reason, rubbing her back.

"From what I know, it's my father that gave me to my adoptive father, he could have been the one to name me. Eda Yıldız probably didn't even bother to give me a name." Kiraz said with spite.

Melek swallowed and watched as Kiraz rubbed her forearm, she raised the sleeve, showing her the scarr.

Melek gasped at the sight, her forearm was marred by a fading but deep dark scarr, as if iron printed into her skin. "Kiraz" was written with rough vertical likes, probably with the use of the extremity of some object that had been heated and burnt into her skin.