“I now pronounce you man and wife,” declared the imam. He cleared his throat and began reciting more verses from the Koran.
While all of this was happening, Derdâ stared at her knees covered in a black cloth and carefully studied the lion figure in the carpet below her knees. The lion was lying near three trees, watching her. Derdâ stared into the lion’s eyes until the woman behind her reached over and touched her shoulder. And just as she was dreaming of the lion leaping out of the carpet and devouring everyone, she lifted her head and saw a hand stretched out to her lips. It was Regaip’s right hand.
Ubeydullah spoke. “Come, kiss your father’s hand.”
She kissed the hand and brought it to her forehead, wondering if what she had just heard was true. Was Regaip really her father? She’d never seen him before, and she couldn’t stop staring. But her gaze was unreciprocated; Regaip stood up after Bezir and left the room. Just as she was about to cry, “Father, take me with you!” another hand was extended to her lips. By the time she finished kissing Ubeydullah’s hand, her father was already gone. She kissed several more hands and touched them to her forehead. No one seemed to notice that Derdâ was running a fever well over a hundred degrees. The little girl’s forehead burned like a stove.
For two days Derdâ was taken in and out of various government offices. She had more photographs taken, but she no longer smiled. For two nights she burned with fever, which broke only after a night of heavy sweating. The women woke her up the next morning and told her to wear her long dark red trench coat, and to cover just her head with a scarf. They brought her to a car. Bezir drove and Ubeydullah sat beside him. They drove along narrow streets and avenues and as the car slowed near a bus stop Derdâ wanted to open the door and run, but instead the door flew open and Regaip got in and sat down beside her. It was the fourth time she had seen Regaip. Derdâ watched her father silently. He stared ahead into space. Derdâ brought her lips to his ear and whispered, “Father.” Regaip brought his index finger to his lips.
Derdâ didn’t give up. She whispered again, “Take me away from here.”
Ubeydullah turned around and said, “You know what to say, don’t you?”
Regaip held onto the headrest in front of him and straightened himself, saying “Yes, yes, I know.”
Derdâ had no intention of giving up. She whispered again, “Father, why didn’t you ever come?”
Regaip waited for a garbage truck to pull up beside them. The traffic was heavy and when the truck revved into gear, he spoke into the girl’s ear, pretending to cough.
“I’m not your father.”
Derdâ didn’t whisper again. She just stared into the leather back of Bezir’s seat. She planned to jump out of the car the next time they stopped at an intersection, but the child lock was on.
Derdâ uncovered her head when Ubeydullah told her to. They were in the waiting room of a building with high ceilings. When their names were announced, they stood up and went through the designated door. A security guard led them along a corridor, stopped in front of a door, and pushed a button on the wall. Two seconds later a green light flashed under the button. Their guide opened the door and showed them in—three men and one little girl. A man in a suit sat behind an enormous desk. Smiling, he stood up and held his hand out to Ubeydullah. He didn’t shake hands with anyone else. When he sat back he asked in broken Turkish, “Are the papers ready?” Ubeydullah said they were.
Ubeydullah then introduced Regaip, a future employee in his furniture company, and his daughter, Derdâ, to the commercial attaché to the UK. The attaché looked at Derdâ and told her there were very good schools in his country. After forms were filled out and a few questions were answered, it was settled that both father and daughter would be given a five-year visa. As the attaché picked up his phone to communicate the necessary orders, he offered his guests something to drink. Ubeydullah declined but the attaché took a piece of chocolate from a jar on his desk and offered it to Derdâ. The little girl took it and looked at Ubeydullah. The old man nodded his head and she unwrapped the chocolate, put it in her mouth, and started chewing. Suddenly she grimaced and vomited the chocolate and everything else in her stomach onto the coffee table in front of the attaché’s desk. After three days she still felt nauseated from high fever. She vomited onto the cover page of one of three magazines on the coffee table between Ubeydullah’s and Bezir’s knees, the one with the Queen of England emblazoned on the cover.
Ubeydullah was the angriest. No surprise considering that he was the one who most passionately swore his loyalty to the Queen of England twenty-six years ago when he became a British citizen. As they were both British nationals, Bezir and the attaché were not overly put out.
Regaip took Derdâ in his arms and carried her out of the consulate, wiping the wet hair out of her eyes and off her brow and pressing her head to his chest, like he was a father who had abandoned his child before
