Sudden decisions

83 - The shadow beyond the gate

Huma

The walls of the cell were my only horizon for years, but freedom does not have the taste I imagined. I live in a tiny apartment on the outskirts of Istanbul, a working-class neighborhood where the smell of fried food and exhaust fumes permeates the yellowed curtains. There are no longer the marbles of my old villa, nor the scent of expensive roses; there is only the constant noise of neighbors shouting and the realization that I have become an outcast. After the scandal and the trial, Turkish high society erased me like an ink stain on a fine carpet. Former "friends" cross the street if they see me coming, and the few savings I managed to salvage are barely enough for a warm meal and a bus ticket once a week.

That very bus has become my fixed appointment. Every Sunday I cross the city, an endless journey that takes me from the grey blocks of the outskirts to the colorful neighborhood of Balat and the hill overlooking the Golden Horn. I hide behind the hedge that borders the property in a secluded corner, clutching a worn-out faux-leather bag; inside is my only treasure: a diary that has become an altar to my failure.

In the glossy magazines I scavenge from bins or barber shops, Can and Sanem are everywhere. I glue the clippings with obsessive care. I see them smiling at the inaugurations of the new Fikri Harika, walking hand in hand with three beautiful children who have the eyes of that neighborhood girl I so despised. In every photo, Can has a light I never saw on him when he was under my control; it is the light of a man who loves and feels loved for who he is, not for what he can offer.

Besides the clippings, the diary holds photos I take myself, in secret, stationed behind the thick vegetation. Sometimes blurry images, stolen through the leaves—images where the little boy, whom I discovered is named Deniz, kicks a ball while the twins chase butterflies, and Can... Can kissing Sanem as if the entire world began and ended in his arms.

Today, however, my invisibility shattered, and a voice broke the silence of my hiding place: "I knew you would come, Huma."

I freeze. Aziz's voice has changed; it is now firm, charged with an authority that admits no reply. He stands before me, on the other side of the fence, arms crossed. "Aziz..." I murmur, trying to compose myself, but my hands tremble so violently that the diary slips to the ground. "I only wanted to see... they are my grandchildren."

I retrieve the diary and, with a desperate gesture, show him the pages filled with clippings and stolen photos. "Look, Aziz! I took these... see how fast they grow? I've been coming here every week for a long time, I took these just to have a memory..."

Aziz looks at the clippings and the blurry snapshots with a mixture of pity and disgust. "These photos are not love, Huma; they are proof of your obsession. That happiness you see is a miracle that survived despite you. It is a love that remained standing even after you tried to raze it to the ground with every ignoble means. It is better that you forget them, Huma. To them, you do not exist."

"Can... I am his mother..."

"No, a mother does not abandon her own child when he is a boy, leaving him with a void that took thirty years to fill. A mother does not construct forged recordings to destroy the woman he loves, and she does not organize charades with women like Ceyda to poison his life. You tried to break his dreams because you couldn't stand to see him happy beside the woman he loves."

"Aziz..." I murmur, trying to steady myself, but my hands are shaking. "I only wanted to see them... they are my grandchildren."

"They are nothing to you," he cuts me off, stepping forward. "That happiness you see is a miracle that has survived despite you. It is a strong, inviolable love that remained standing even after you tried to raze it to the ground with every ignoble means."

He shakes his head in disgust. "You tried to make him miserable to drive him out of Istanbul so you could close Fikri Harika and pocket your share. You tried to sell his happiness to the highest bidder."

I feel tears burn, but Aziz is not finished. "Do not come near Can; do not try to infect the peace they have painstakingly built with your presence. You had your chance and you traded it for ambition and resentment."

"Do you want to erase me forever?" I ask in a thin voice.

"You erased yourself the day you decided that power was worth more than your son's love. Let them live in the sunshine they have earned while you can only stay here, in the shadow, collecting photos of a life that does not belong to you and never will."

I feel the weight of my defeat, but Aziz strikes even deeper. "You do not deserve this son, and you do not deserve his children. They don't even know who you are, and for their sake, it will stay that way. Go away, Huma, go back to your shadow."

"I lost Emre too..." I begin with a broken voice. "Emre doesn't want to see me anymore. He wrote me a letter from prison... words that cut like blades. He has forbidden me from visiting him; he says he finally understands how I manipulated him, how I used his frailties to fuel hatred against his brother. He blamed me for ruining his life, for leading him behind those bars."

Aziz stares at me without a shred of mercy. "I know. Emre has finally opened his eyes."

"Can went to see him," I continue, almost talking to myself as I look down at my diary and fixate on a clipping of a smiling Can. "Emre wrote to me about it. Can went there and spoke to him clearly. He told him he always missed having a brother, but after what he did, forgiveness is a bridge he can no longer build. Their brotherhood died in that courtroom because of me, Aziz! Emre has two years left in prison and has sworn that, once he's out, he will disappear. He has erased me too."

"I know, I know everything. I visit him every week," Aziz replies, his voice softening only for an instant. "He is my son after all; I know he only acted under your direction. I am trying to help him pick up the pieces of his soul—the one you shattered. But you are outside of all this. Go away and don't look back, Huma. The light of this house is not for you; you chose the darkness a long time ago. Stay in it, until you turn to dust like your clippings."

With that, with a firmness that admits no appeal, Aziz turns his back on me and walks back to the house. I stand still on the dusty road, clutching that useless diary full of other people's lives to my chest. In the distance, I see Can reach Sanem on the lawn; he picks her up and spins her around while the children laugh around them. They are beautiful, they are strong, they are a family.

I turn away and, with uncertain steps, head for the last time toward the bus stop I will never use again. I cannot return, I have no right; I am nothing more than a ghost who watched the paradise she tried to destroy, aware that the only place left for me is an empty room in a suburb that never sleeps, collecting clippings of a love I never knew and never will.