Decisions were made, orders were given. The gendarme would take Yeşim and the child’s body to town where they would receive professional attention. It was an unusual situation. The school’s center of gravity had shifted as the children were left unsupervised.
Like a boat rocked by a sudden wave it swayed to the left and to the right, but Derdâ was the only one in the schoolyard who felt nauseated. The others kept their balance, but Derdâ fell like she was falling into the sea. She didn’t drown, but they rolled her facedown so she wouldn’t swallow her tongue. It didn’t seem like she’d collapsed, it seemed like she’d just lain down.
When she came to she smelled Yeşim. She lifted her head to look for her teacher. But the infirmary was empty. She was lying on the cot where Yeşim had been. She couldn’t hold her head up for very long. She rubbed her head into the pillow, crushing her hair into the pillow, but there wasn’t a sound. Even if there was, Derdâ wouldn’t have heard through her tears.
In one day she had caused both a death and a suicide. She squeezed her eyes shut but still she saw Yeşim and the girl from Yatırca. Maybe Derdâ didn’t have an extra kidney, but she had double the consciences and the extra pains that came with them. She might not go down in medical history as the first person to have a double conscience, but still it was all too much for her little body. She felt like she would never be able to get out of bed.
“They’re going to put me in prison,” she whispered. “The gendarme will figure it out and they’ll throw me in prison!”
But even before the gendarme there was another institution to be afraid of. The oldest institution in the world. Family. Or at least half of it. Mother. She didn’t have a father. He had left for Istanbul four days after he’d gotten her mother pregnant and he never came back. That was twelve years ago. At least he was thoughtful enough to leave her mother pregnant so she wouldn’t be left alone.
They’d married in the presence of God, an imam, and two witnesses, but then everyone else left and she was left with only God. And God would only come help her at the end of her life. It was her one and only prayer. “God, please take my life away so that I will be saved!” Eventually God would hear her—the miracle of death comes to us all—but she was not a patient woman. She married Derdâ off before the girl even had breasts. She was all out of patience. She’d waited eleven years. For the first two years they’d stayed with her husband’s family, cursing her all the way for not having a boy. The rest of those years were spent cleaning the teachers’ residence in town where she’d escaped with her daughter. But she felt dirty. And she was wasting time. Her twisted body was sick of following a bucket up and down the three floors of the teachers’ residence, sick of destroying her knees, grinding them against the floor, sick of the bleach gnawing away at her hands. She wanted to get back to the village. Build a house, get a few animals.
Her daughter didn’t want to stay at school anyway. If she did, she wouldn’t have fainted like that in the school garden, now would she? The assistant director would not have called her to tell her to come and see her daughter. That scumbag assistant director, does he have any idea how much the minibus costs? Is he the one scrubbing the teachers’ toilets? Is he the one coughing his lungs out from inhaling all that hydrochloric acid? She’d take her daughter out of school. If they tried to stop her, she’d kidnap her. She’d find a way. Then they’d go back to the village. In the end, she was one of us after all. Maybe she didn’t have any money, but she did have Derdâ. Her relatives would help her find a way. Who wouldn’t want an innocent eleven-year-old girl? If only they gave her a house and a few animals, she’d let Derdâ go just like that. She’d marry and make her mother comfortable. After all, a child owes it to her mother.
“Sister Saniye!”
She peeled her head away from the minibus window. She shook her thoughts away and gave the driver her fare. As they drove through the school gates she decided that on the way back Derdâ would sit on her lap so she wouldn’t have to pay for her.
“Sister, your daughter’s ill. But don’t worry, it’s nothing serious. Forgive us for making you come out all this way. But the girl will be so pleased just to see you.”
Nezih spoke to Saniye. Then it was Saniye’s turn. It was her turn to speak.
“Let me take my daughter, sir. I’ll take her back to the village for a week. So she can rest. She’ll feel better and then I’ll bring her back.”
Nezih’s mind was on Yeşim. He was thinking that some people just never get used to it. Some people just never get used to this part of the country. It was obvious, he thought, there was a strangeness about her from the day she arrived. She wasn’t right in the head. Why else would someone try to kill themself?
“What do you say, sir?”
“How’s that?”
“The girl, let me take her to the village for a week.”
“To the village? To Yatırca? But the road’s blocked.”
“No, I’ll take her to Kurudere.”
Nezih wasn’t interested and he didn’t extend the conversation any longer than he had to. His mind was on Yeşim. On her breasts to be more precise. He was thinking of that night he had touched them. That night in Yeşim’s room when he sat on the chair by the side of her bed. That night he pressed one hand over the girl’s mouth
