TE23 Double Feature

Selim Özdo ğan

52 Factory Lane

air and, in the blacksmith’s case, an edge of fear, because surely it could only be someone calling with bad news at this hour. For the first few years, phone calls are no better or easier than writing a letter. And yet weeks and months later, Gül still finds herself telling people about the conversations they have, like the night when she fell on the stairs because she’d been dashing to the phone; how she winded herself when she fell on her backside, that stabbing pain in her back; how tired Timur sounded at first; how he told her about Sibel’s miscarriage, the third one by then, just three months and she’d lost the baby again; how she forgot about the pain in her back and cried; how she looked at the clock in astonishment as she hung up – it had been twenty minutes and Fuat was going to curse her when the bill came – and how she could hardly make it back up the stairs. Some things she’ll keep to herself, though: how long the bruise lingered; how the left side of her bottom went from purple to blue to green to yellow over the next eight weeks. How she stood in front of the mirror craning her neck and wondering whether that purple was the same shade as the rings beneath her mother’s eyes before she died. 216

How Fuat came into the bedroom when she was standing there, knickers around her ankles, nightdress hoiked up, and said: ‘I see you’re displaying your wares,’ and how gentle he was that night. But it won’t be any easier when the business with the switchboard falls away, because she won’t be able to get through. Gül, Ceyda and Ceren will take it in turns to spin the dial until their ingers are sore. Usually, they’ll hear the engaged tone before they’ve finished dialling the number. Gül and Ceyda are patient: they manage twenty minutes of dialling Timur’s number, one after the other. But Ceren gets restless after four or five goes, and she gives up. A few years later, Fuat comes home beaming. ‘I’ve just been to the post office. We’re getting a new phone, one with buttons. Long live technology! Every day they invent something to make our lives easier, and here we are right at the source, we can share in all these comforts. The only place that’s got it better is America, I reckon. Here we are, right at the heart of Europe with our finger on the pulse – you can feel life beating here. This is where innovation happens, not in Anatolian villages. No more sore fingers for us!’ 217