TE16 Turkish Delight

Let Me Out Here, Please must still think Mukaddes lived with her son. “I rented a place on my own when the boy’s house started getting crowded,” she explained. Here was another opportunity. “Why would you sell your beautiful home to follow that lout,” Sırhupi is sure to say now. Mukaddes wants her to drive the knife through her heart so this apprehension of evil, worse than the knife wound itself, can come to an end. But Sırhupi doesn’t say a single word. “Come sit, don’t stand there,” she merely says. Mukaddes holds onto her heart, when will the sarcasm and the insults begin, when? She collapses into a chair. Sırhupi vanished into the depths of the kitchen with the excuse of making coffee. She is left alonewith thewalls. A plastic bag she holds in her lap like a baby. There’s a humming in her ears every time the plastic rustles. It was a bad idea to come here. In distress she gazes at the door, if she could only leave and disappear. Too late, here Sırhupi already comes carrying a tray. Clutching cups, they sit across from each other in silence. Even the walls are quieter. Then a deep breath. “I always wait,” said Sırhupi, “for those who will never come back, especially for those who died. But I never once guessed I would ever see you again before I died.” She won’t say my name, thought Mukaddes at first. Then she stopped nitpicking. Her friend had taken a step, what more to ask? She fell in step with her. “You were in my dream. I was giving you a box. It made you so happy. Like a child I hurried out to find you a box,” said Mukaddes. At the same time she inched the bag

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