Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Death Begins with the Loss of Our Cities…
- Are You Going to Be a Killer?
- An Idea Whose Time Has Come
- Your Decision
- Dogs Smelling Blood on a Hunt
- The Meaning of This Empire for Us
- Confronting Death
- The Ancient Wound
- The Essence of the State
- Becoming the Hunted
- Like Two Wistful Flowers
- The World's Greatest Mystery
- The Love That Will Never Fade
- What Does a Single Individual Matter?
- A Game of Revenge
- The Motherland Is Lost
- The Only Thing Keeping Me Alive
- No Intention of Surrendering
- A Man's Word Is His Honour
- An Inappropriate Sense of Compassion
- A Token of a Conversation
- I Am Not the One to Decide
- Miracles
- The Ability to Forgive Ourselves
- Losing One's Humanity
- No Choice But to Fight
- Give Me an Honourable Death
- The Walking Dead
- Save Yourself, Soldier
- Wishing for Help from the Dead
- Resign, Your Excellency!
- A False Sense of Security
- The True Power in the Land
- Betrothed to Life, Married to Death
- When the Wolf Dies in the Forest
- This Is Not Ankara
- Vultures Circling Over an Old Man
- Ignoble Alliances
- A Betrayal of Their Own History
- Fighting for a Lost Cause
- Evil Stalks This Land
- A Malevolent Rain
- A Fragmented Homeland, a Disintegrating World
- Turning Us All into Killers
- When I Began Losing My Country
- Farewell, My Beautiful Homeland
- Glossary
An Inappropriate Sense of Compassion
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Death Begins with the Loss of Our Cities…
- Are You Going to Be a Killer?
- An Idea Whose Time Has Come
- Your Decision
- Dogs Smelling Blood on a Hunt
- The Meaning of This Empire for Us
- Confronting Death
- The Ancient Wound
- The Essence of the State
- Becoming the Hunted
- Like Two Wistful Flowers
- The World's Greatest Mystery
- The Love That Will Never Fade
- What Does a Single Individual Matter?
- A Game of Revenge
- The Motherland Is Lost
- The Only Thing Keeping Me Alive
- No Intention of Surrendering
- A Man's Word Is His Honour
- An Inappropriate Sense of Compassion
- A Token of a Conversation
- I Am Not the One to Decide
- Miracles
- The Ability to Forgive Ourselves
- Losing One's Humanity
- No Choice But to Fight
- Give Me an Honourable Death
- The Walking Dead
- Save Yourself, Soldier
- Wishing for Help from the Dead
- Resign, Your Excellency!
- A False Sense of Security
- The True Power in the Land
- Betrothed to Life, Married to Death
- When the Wolf Dies in the Forest
- This Is Not Ankara
- Vultures Circling Over an Old Man
- Ignoble Alliances
- A Betrayal of Their Own History
- Fighting for a Lost Cause
- Evil Stalks This Land
- A Malevolent Rain
- A Fragmented Homeland, a Disintegrating World
- Turning Us All into Killers
- When I Began Losing My Country
- Farewell, My Beautiful Homeland
- Glossary
Summary
Good Night, Ester (Night, Day 6)
If what I learnt from Captain Cezmi this afternoon turns out to be true, soon I won't need to write to you and what's more, I may also get to leave this hotel. If what he said was true and you have decided to come to Istanbul, then that means you are looking for me. It means you have not been able to find happiness over there and that you have decided to move to my city and with your family too… Well, with what remains of your family. Only your Uncle Leon and your father, Monsieur Naum, remain and I do not think your father would readily leave Paris or the university in which he lectures to come to Istanbul. Perhaps it is just you and Uncle Leon, him leaving Salonika and you leaving Paris. Whatever the case, I shall soon know. I don't remember having felt joy like this in a long, long time.
So yes, perhaps I no longer need to write to you but for some reason I can't help myself. It's as though I come to this room solely to write. No other habit or activity has any importance. So no, I won't stop writing. Even if we get together again and live together, this pen shall not fall from my hand.
Live together? Dear me, will you look at that! My imagination has already started running wild…
This evening I ate alone. Reşit had to go home, as he wanted to spend the evening with his family, the poor guy, so I had some mushroom soup, a salad and a keşkül before coming back to the room.
I would like to return to the past, if I may, to the accursed and shameful days of the uprising when the streets of this beautiful city were awash with blood – blood that had been shed by brothers no less – and to the period immediately after that uprising, when death had left such a profound and ghastly impression on me. Yes, I'm talking about the assassination of Şemsi Paşa. The hesitation I felt after we shot those three Albanian bodyguards, the pangs of conscience, the sudden and overwhelming sense of mercy; I never thought I would experience those feelings again.
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- Information
- Farewell, My Beautiful Homeland , pp. 239 - 252Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2019