TE16 Turkish Delight

The Adventures of Misfit Defne Kman: Earth the day she gave all her father’s property away to a junk dealer, the desolation of Nine Umay and Dede Korkut trying to intercept their daughter at the gate, Defne hiding in the garden with Timur while lucky Aysu was off at school... That tragic day she’d thought she’d forgotten is all coming back now. She suddenly remembered the Istanbul University badge she had taken and hidden before the secondhand clothes dealer saw it. It had had ‘Istanbul University 1933’ written on it; she had held it so tightly in her palm that the pin had pricked her hand and drawn blood. Defne sighed, unaware that she was scowling at the photograph in her hands. “Look, do you remember this?” said her father cheerfully, taking a thin tattered volume from the bookcase. When Defne was little andhecouldn’tbeartoseeherupset, hewould immediatelychange the subject to cheer her up, that’s how he kept his daughter from harm. Perhaps that’s how he had left home, instead of changing the subject he’d just changed his home, his city and his life, to keep himself from harm. But why hadn’t he called his daughter?”

“Do you remember this book?”

She looked. How could one forget The Little Prince?

“You used to love this when you were little, you couldn’t sleep at night unless I read it toyou. Yourmotherwould get cross, she’d say ‘she’s too young for that book; don’t go putting strange thoughts in her head!’ But you and I, we loved this book.”

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