TE23 Double Feature

Selim Özdo ğan

52 Factory Lane

so we have to support the armed struggle. Would you want our daughters hearing such things? He asked me for a donation, for the people working underground. He’s got connections, apparently. The leftists are our future in this country, he says.’ ‘He’s not just crackers, he’s the whole bloody biscuit tin at this point. You could talk nonsense for a hundred days and you’d still never come up with the kind of stuff he does. Other people raise money for mosques; he raises money for terrorists. Things won’t end well for that man, mark my words.’ ‘Poor thing,’ Gül says. ‘He’s living in a world of his own. He must be so lonely.’ Fuat goes to speak but says nothing. He shakes his head, pours himself another whisky and Coke, then makes his way into the living room. Gül follows him not long afterwards. Fuat puts a packet of Lords on the table and kicks back without taking out a cigarette. He smokes Marlboros himself; Gül smokes Stuyvesant – not secretly, but never in Fuat’s presence. Ceyda looks at the packet and feels herself turning hot. She avoids looking at her father. The cigarettes were in the pocket of her jacket, hanging behind the back door. 230

Ceyda waits, barely daring to breathe. Waits for her father to say something, but he just watches telly; the most she can make out is a slight grin on his face. He pulls his Marlboros out of his shirt pocket under his jumper and sticks one in his mouth. Ceyda doesn’t know what to do. She can feel herself turning red; she knows there’s no doubt in her father’s mind as to who the Lords belong to. Should she say something? Will he say something? Gül soon grasps what’s happening. Though she’s never seen her daughter smoking, she had more than an inkling. She can feel the heat radiating off Ceyda. Inwardly she scolds her daughter for being so careless. Five minutes go by. ‘I’m tired, I’m off to bed,’ Ceyda finally says, and gets up. The matter won’t be spoken about again, but Ceyda will be more careful in future. And she won’t smoke at all for the next three weeks. Fuat won’t tell this story until his daughter is married and has children of her own. ‘Raising kids isn’t all that hard,’ he’ll say. ‘You don’t have to say much, you just have to do the right things. I knew she wouldn’t 231