Fatma clucks her tongue with amusement. “Like chickens before the grain,” she mutters.
SEDA LIES DOWN on her cot, drinking in the darkness, too tired to turn her stiffened body. Though the images of her life are happily lost in the darkness, sleep continues to evade her. Tonight it is sounds that come to torment her. She hears their voices, every one. Nazareth’s hearty laugh silenced by the clicking of Muammer Bey’s worry beads. Kemal’s soulful voice accusing her of stealing his vision. The sound of Nabi Bey’s grunts plays over and over again in her head.
The bark of the sheepherder’s dog interrupts the symphony and pulls her back into the present. She is here, unharmed, mind more or less intact, breathing in a dark khan where no one remembers her name. What happened in the stable is already forgotten, relegated to the past, like everything else. Still, she has been extra careful to avoid the bey not only for her own sake but also for Fatma’s.
From her paneless window, Seda can see the sun rising up again, its orange light chasing away all the sounds in her head. She stands up, reaching for her apron and tucks her hair beneath her head scarf. The apron is key, because she sleeps and works in the same dress, her only one. She thinks of her nightgown, lying next to Anush’s in a drawer somewhere in Sivas.
Three knocks come from above her head, where the ladder meets the ceiling, Fatma’s signal for Seda to ascend the ladder and erase the sins of the night. She climbs the ladder and enters the empty room. A drained bottle of raki, Fatma’s antidote for ambitious clients, lies on the floor, spent. It loosens more than their tongues, she likes to say. The divan has been stripped of its yorgan. A trick Fatma uses to lessen the washing of the week. Seda can smell the bedpan full of urine, sitting at the foot of the bed. On the tiny desk in the corner is a basin with soapy water, an empty pitcher as its only company. The desk is also where Fatma keeps her hand mirror. Seda goes to the mirror first, fingering its wooden handle.
One year after her arrival, Seda spent a night doubled over with stomach pains. The next morning she bled all over her only dress, convinced that death had finally caught up to her. Fatma invited her into this room. She pressed a washcloth in between Seda’s thighs and slowly, gently, parted her legs. Holding the small mirror in between her thighs, Fatma forced her to look. Seda had looked away in shame, but Fatma turned her chin back to the bloody flesh wound in the mirror.
“This is where all life begins and ends,” Fatma said. “You are not dying. Only beginning.”
I don’t want another beginning, she remembers thinking.
“This is life happening, despite you,” continues Fatma. “Independent of you. This here is what fascinates and scares them. You must know it better than they do.”
Seda blushes at the memory of this speech. What would Mairig say to such a thing? Fatma warned her that now more than ever she must stay out of sight, confining herself to the small room, back doors, and hallways. If she doesn’t, men will claim her for themselves.
Seda places one hand on her belly, wondering if the mirror could help her see if the bey’s spoon has planted a seed. She puts the mirror back, reflective side down, closing the portal to the place that threatens to trap her, that has already trapped Fatma. She walks toward the divan and picks up the bedpan full of urine. When she turns around, she is confronted by a bearded soldier in the doorway. Fear rushes through her entire body. He is holding a pair of boots in his hand and staring at her like a dumb ox. How long has he been standing there?
Seda turns her back to him immediately, her face close to the wall, chin tucked in so that her forehead brushes against the limestone. She stays perfectly still, willing her body to evaporate into the stone, the smell of urine from the bedpan filling her nostrils.
“I’m sorry . . .” he stammers, his voice barely audible. “I was looking for my friend.” Then silence. His voice lingers, its familiarity hanging in the air. The voice calls forth a yearning in her belly, fear mixed with longing.
Seda turns around slowly, forcing herself to look, but he is gone. Has she seen another ghost? If she were sane, she would not hear these voices and see these visions. She would not wake cradling her yorgan and pressing a phantom baby brother to her chest. She would not liken bearded soldiers to her Kemal.
She opens the latch and quickly climbs the ladder back down to her room. The room appears smaller than usual, its walls closing in on her. She has been found out. Whatever, whoever, he is, he has seen her. But instead of pursuing her, he fled. Thank God, he fled.