Sıla was waiting for the bus to Bursa. It was scheduled to come from Istanbul’s Esenler bus terminal and pick her up at the Kavacık junction, which was a stop for riders. The reason behind her trip was not what she had learned a few weeks ago. Indeed, the lift bringing Akın down to the ground floor of their building had never come back with him. But he had also not fled abroad. Not to Canada, nor anywhere else. Around two weeks ago, Sıla had called Fatih, a close friend of Akın’s. Of course, her real purpose was to learn about Akın. But out of pride she could not admit it to herself or Fatih. She had made up a reason for the call – talk about a regional development project with the support of the state agency where Fatih was working. Sıla was not engaged in negotiations with regional development of any kind, but why not talk about a pottery production atelier and getting state microcredit to support her business? It was about assisting women, especially those stranded, abandoned and helpless. This was truly a good idea. Sıla thought that she could ask Akın’s friend Fatih how to get support for opening a smallish workplace to produce handmade pottery. She could even employ a few other women and arrange training. “Oh my goodness,” she thought, “I’ve just come up with a beautiful idea.”

She talked with Fatih for a long time without a single mention of Akın. Fatih explained the bureaucratic process for getting microcredit from the government: She must need the credit; her project should be reasonable and promote employment and other items which Sıla couldn’t really remember. While talking to him, Sıla was in some way hoping that the subject would touch upon Akın and then Fatih could tell her what Akın was doing. Almost half an hour passed, but Fatih did not say anything about Akın. As their conversation wound to a close and they were saying goodbye, Sıla waited for a moment to hang up the phone. So did Fatih. Then Fatih said:

“He didn’t do it; he never went abroad.” Sıla remained silent for a moment and replied:

“I don’t really care what he’s doing in whatever corner of hell he’s in right now. I am trying to build a new and definitely more spectacular life at the moment.” Then she hung up.

While the fact that Akın did not flee to Canada – not even leave the country – was a surprising fact for Sıla. That was not the reason why she had decided to make this trip to Bursa, as I said before. The reason was given only 3 days ago. She had been tidying up her flat that day. She’d decided to organize the drawers and cupboards that she’d never cleaned out before because it’d never been their turn: Every time she cleaned, when it came to the corners of drawers and cupboards, she felt tired and left them for the next time. After all, they didn’t cause a mess. But this time she’d decided to start in reverse. She had wanted to turn over a new leaf in her life. The same path had to be walked in reverse so she could return to the beginning.

In the hallway where the final confrontation with Akın had unfolded three months ago, she wanted to rummage through the drawers in the hutch. She took a trash bag and started to empty them one-by-one. There were receipts from years ago, for things like fruit, bread and juice at the market. Littered among them lay warranty letters, user manuals of the stuff they had acquired, coins, many Turkish liras and kurus and even a fifty-cent piece. Here is the pen he lost and searched for but couldn’t find. There was a light and two batteries, which she doubted were still good. Pins, expired credit cards, a museum ticket… There were tablets and containers of pills, some half used, some not even opened. Pieces of paper with quick hand-written notes, telephone numbers, business cards … A pair of keys, and she was not sure what they were keys for. Some nuts and bolts… Their passport-size photos taken at different times… The drawers were like an orphanage of their things – things put inside with the hope of retrieving them, a desperate hope. That was how her marriage had been, Sıla thought. Broken pieces and delayed hopes to fix them…

At last, when Sıla had emptied all the drawers she could reach, her attention turned to a compartment at the top. She was not able to reach it, so she had never touched it. Sıla did not even know if there was anything inside. She brought a chair from the kitchen and stood on it, finally opening the door at the top. There were books, magazines and notebooks. Akın might have put them there when they first moved into the flat. A weird collection of Akın’s remains, Sıla murmured. She pulled out a book. It was “On War,” written by Clausewitz. There were several books on politics. On Turkey and much else… She didn’t understand why Marx’s “On the Jewish Question” had been included in Akın’s forgotten compartment. And notebooks, half full, half empty… Akın had kept a dictionary of French words in one of them. Had he wanted to go to the French- or English-speaking part of Canada? She could not be sure. But anyway, he did not go there. In one of the notebooks were his poems. Okay, Sıla knew that Akın wrote poems, but she hadn’t known he kept drafts here.

As she stood on the chair and held the notebook of poem drafts in her hand, Sıla was not sure what to do with all these belongings of Akın’s. At first, she thought of burning or at least trashing them. But that would be unfair, she concluded. In any case, they were somebody else’s belongings, and she had no right to demolish them. This may have been the first time she had thought considerately about Akın in three months.

She was about to close the door, but peered in one last time. She saw a purple, worn and hard-cover notebook. She pulled it and started to turn the pages. It was a blank notebook. This might not even belong to Akın, considering it is purple. Suddenly, something fell out. Sıla stared at this thing floating down like a butterfly. She put the purple notebook back in its place and climbed down from the chair.

This was what made Sıla plan the trip to Bursa.

Sıla stepped onto the chair again, took Akın’s poem notebook and closed the compartment. Back on the floor, she put the fallen piece of paper in the notebook. She was not sure about the rest lying on the ground. It was Akın’s fault, Sıla thought, to keep these drawers so untidy.

When the bus to Bursa finally arrived, Sıla got on and opened her bag in search of her wallet to pay for the bus ticket. She recalled the drawers of things. There was a gum package, a pen, a comb, a small notebook, receipts, used tickets, an empty nylon package inside her leather bag… As Sıla rummaged through it, she again felt anger at Akın, but did not know why. She was holding Akın accountable for her derailed life – the drawers and her bags that had never been truly cleaned up. Not-properly-working kitchen utensils… The defect in the dishwasher leaves residue in the glasses… The fridge is not sufficiently cooling… And the sliding doors of the wardrobe are making noise… None of them is in good condition… How about Akın? He never cared about what happened at home; he was such an irresponsible person, Sıla thought. Something is broken? Akın would start watching YouTube do-it-yourself videos to fix it. He would fix it for a while… But then it would break again… And when Sıla got angry about the state of affairs at home, Akın would try to relax her: “Honey, don’t worry, we won’t live here for long. We are going to move abroad. Let’s use them like this for now.”

Sıla walked through the aisle of the bus. There were some people at the front, but the rest of the bus was almost empty. She was checking the numbers of seats. As Sıla reached seat numbered 22, she stopped for a moment. A lady was sitting there by herself, checking her mobile phone. She was using headphones and had no connection with the world around her. Sıla was inexplicably annoyed with the girl and walked farther toward the back. There are people in the world, Sıla said to herself, whom she is angry at for no reason; but she firmly believes that there should be a reason.

She sat in seat number 28, which was indeed her age. “I was 22 when I met Akın and he was 29,” she sighed deeply. “Okay, I’m no longer 22, but nobody will be 22 forever.” She remembered Akın saying, “Ageing is the great equalizer of mankind.” When Akın said such things, Sıla reworded it in a poetic manner, like it was a quote from Shakespeare. While settling down in her seat, Sıla did it again. She repeated out loud, “Aging is the great equalizer of mankind,” and added, “Yet raging is the single destabilizer of all kinds.” This second line was Akın’s response to her when Sıla made fun of his words. This had been how Akın countered Sıla’s kidding. Whenever Sıla would tease Akın, he always replied by teasing her in an even more clever manner. This was often followed by Akın hugging Sıla, and Sıla’s feigned resistance to him. Nothing compared to Akın’s hugs, Sıla thought, his warmth and affection.

(… to be continued…)

Transadaptation Volume 5 – Of Flowing Vicissitudes

January: The Night the Stars Stopped Shining – Sarah-Leah Pimentel (South Africa)

February: Three Sides to Every Story – Krisztina Janosi (Hungary)

March: Rain Trap – Adriana Uribe (Columbia)

April: Priorities – Narantsogt Baatarkhuu (Mongolia)

May: The Night in Heaven – Armine Asryan (Armenia)

June: Witches Don’t Burn – Alejandra Baccino (Uruguay)

July: A Regular Flat – Mateusz Tymoszewski (Poland)

August: Many Happy Returns – Svetlana Molchanova (Russia)

September: And Now, It Will All Go Downhill – Jonay Quintero Hernandez (Spain)

October: Planet Qirim – Anastasiia Leonova (Ukraine)

November: You Are Her, Aren’t You? – Seyit Ali Dastan (Turkey)

December: Culture Shock – Veronika Groke (Austria)

Background – Context

Transadaptation Volume 4: Material Dissent – Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2023)

Transadaptation Volume 3: Evanescent – Young Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2022)

Transadaptation Volume 2: Conceived – Childhood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2021)

Transadaptation Volume 1: In the Middle – Prelude to a Contemporary Transadaptation, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2020)

Peripatetic Alterity: A Philosophical Treatise on the Spectrum of Being – Romantics and Pragmatists by Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)

La Syncrétion of Polarization and Extremes Transposée, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)

The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2018)

L’anthologie of Global Instability Transpuesta, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2017)

From Wahnsinnig to the Loony Bin: German and Russian Stories Transposed to Modern-day America, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2013)

Emblems and stories on the international community

Perception by country – Transposing emblems, articles, short stories and reports from around the world

Credits

Background picture: Bursa, Turkey – The bazaar – Evren Kalinbacak (Shutterstock)

Superimposed pictures to the left (top to bottom): 1. Tirilye, Turkey – The village – ColorMaker (Shutterstock), 2. Bursa, Turkey – On the mountain slope – Ozkan Ulucam (Shutterstock), 3. Tirilye, Turkey – The mosque in Tirilye – ColorMaker (Shutterstock), 4. Bursa, Turkey – In the city – Ella Ca (Shutterstock)

Superimposed pictures to the right (top to bottom): 1. Tirilye, Turkey – The cafe – ColorMaker (Shutterstock), 2. Tirilye, Turkey – The square – ColorMaker (Shutterstock), 3. Tirilye, Turkey – Back alleys – ColorMaker (Shutterstock)

Superimposed picture in the middle (toward the top): Bursa, Turkey – Shopping – Evren Kalinbacak (Shutterstock)

Source: The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed