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
A Betrayal of Their Own History
- 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 Morning, Ester (Morning, Day 12)
The telephone is ringing persistently in the desert tent but nobody is answering it. There are no officers or soldiers on patrol. What is this place – are these the barren hills of Libya? The gleaming shores of Çanakkale? The lush green forests of the Balkans? The vast, endless sands of the Yemeni deserts? The phone keeps on ringing, as though it will never end, as though it is desperate to pass on some news of woe. At my wits’ end, I eventually lift the receiver. I am expecting a furious rant from an enraged commandant but what I hear instead is a more restrained and altogether more urbane voice, that of Ömer from reception.
‘Good morning, Şehsuvar Bey. I do hope I am not disturbing you. I would just like to inform you that you have a visitor.’
I realise I am in my bed in the hotel.
‘I wouldn't have disturbed you like this but he is insistent,’
Ömer went on. ‘He says you're expecting him’.
Who could it be? I hadn't been expecting anyone. What new nonsense was this? With great difficulty, I opened my tired eyes and squinted up at the clock on the wall. The time was eight thirteen. Who could it be at this ungodly hour?
‘He says he's from your hometown. He looks like a war veteran of some kind. He's got an arm missing.’
‘Cafer’, I muttered happily. ‘Çolak Cafer!’
‘That's what he says his name is, sir, yes. Cafer. I asked him to wait for you in the Domed Salon but he refuses. He's standing here now in front of me waiting for you.’
That was difference with Fuad. In the evening, he says he'll do something, and by the morning he's got it done. Whatever promises he makes, he keeps. A few minutes later, I was dressed and downstairs. He was a thin man, Cafer, one of those guys that looks so frail, you'd think a gust of wind could blow him over, and the sight of the right sleeve of his jacket swinging in the air beside him made him look even more unimposing. However, when he saw me, he gave a wolfish grin, displaying rows of uneven teeth stained black by tobacco.
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- Information
- Farewell, My Beautiful Homeland , pp. 517 - 534Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2019