ANARCHISTALES

Inside the deep yellow liquid, thousands of bubbles race toward the surface, only to burst and vanish. Born within a half-liter glass, they join the race to the top, disappear in about ten seconds, and begin anew. Just like everything else happening around me…

When she said, “I want to go home,” I was drinking a beer at one of the cafes behind Kocatepe Mosque, and she, an Americano. The sudden sela, its metallic yet mournful melody echoing from the loudspeakers, coupled with Sebahat’s request, leaves me with no choice but silence. So, taking a pinch of tobacco from my case. After swaddling some tobacco into my rolling paper, I gaze upon Ankara’s most beautiful scenery—Sebahat’s face—while Sebahat tries to find herself behind the tiny table between us.

***

We often make the mistake of calling our home a mere house, Polina. Either we find it easier to say, or we attempt to keep our distance from our home, much as we do with people. By doing so, we use this artificial detachment to protect ourselves from the memories of the miseries we have endured within our walls. A person feels nothing for a house; it is a soulless structure made up of walls, rooms, bathrooms, kitchens, toilets, and the doors and corridors that connect them. A home, however, is a fortress, a shelter, and a beginning—where ghosts drift through the air, where walls bear the marks of frames and nails, where a threadbare brown cardigan hangs on the back of an old chair, and where the scent of life seeps into every object. Sebahat wanted to return to her home because she lost herself with me every single time. She would get lost, grow frightened, break away, and yearn to return home to start all over again, again and again. Every home is a Kaaba, Polina; if you have a Kaaba, you do not fear getting lost—you return to it and begin anew.

Polina, whose distant grayish-blue eyes shifted from the low stool beside the table to the wet pine logs near the stove, was jolted from her reverie by a clap of thunder. Taking a deep, candle-scented breath, she adjusted the sleeve of her petrol-green cardigan and clasped her hands between her legs.

“Where is your Kaaba?”

Throughout those distant minutes, she had been trying to gather the courage to ask this question. I knew it wasn’t the question she feared, but the answer. I could have brushed it off by saying, “I don’t know,” but the idea of a person not knowing where their home lay sounded terrifying rather than comforting. It instilled the feeling of being entirely alone in the middle of a sea with no land in sight—without a bearing, without a compass, without a sail. I needed to have a home. A point of new beginnings. As I searched for the truest answer—more for myself than for her—I knew that one of those dark, provocative silences peculiar to adults was brewing between us, and that the murmurs and stifled cries born from this silence would temporarily veil the answers to every question hidden in the mind.

I chose the hard way and tried to stand up. The dampness and sitting for so long had caused my back to ache and my legs to go numb. I straightened up, struggling to control my body, which slumped over my legs like a heavy sack. Fixing my gaze on her eyes, which were level with my belt, I approached with slow, menacing steps. I walked toward her, watching her heartbeat quicken, her cheeks flush, and her bite her lower lip as she avoided my unyielding stare. Leaning forward slightly, I reached out, grabbed the whiskey bottle from the table, and returned to my seat. The indent I had left on the sofa was still warm and damp. Filling my glass halfway purely out of habit, I set the bottle down at my feet.

“I do not get lost, Polina. I am my own home. “If I stumble, I start anew from within myself.”

***

I finished the beer I was nearing the end of—one I could have sipped away in three or four gulps—in a single draught. After crushing the ember that was harassing my fingers into the ashtray with a harsh motion, I said, “Go.” Everything Sebahat needed to gather must have naturally gathered within her, for she simply rose from the table and left.

I waited for her to disappear from sight, to go too far to return, to be unable to find me. I took a deep breath and coughed. Sensing I was about to cry, I decided to do something to distract myself—to get lost within myself and begin anew. Rolling a pinch of tobacco from my case, I lit the tip, made eye contact with the waiter, and pointed at my empty glass to order another.

Inside the deep yellow liquid, thousands of bubbles race toward the surface, only to burst and vanish. They are born within a half-liter glass, disappear in about ten seconds, and begin anew. Just like everything else happening around me…