Regaip couldn’t know that in the days to come others would say the very same thing—it wasn’t fated to end this way. He didn’t know that ten men would gather in a kickbox club and decide to abandon their plans. “Bezir’s gone, the business is finished,” they’d say. The plan had been to plant bombs in four of the busiest tube stations. The plan was dropped and the bombs were dumped in the Thames. Regaip didn’t know any of this. Just like those kickboxers didn’t know that, years later, a London underground station and a double-decker bus would be blown sky-high by four al-Qaida militants. They didn’t know that in those suicide attacks on July 7, 2005, fifty-two people would die and that seven hundred people would be injured.
In the end, it was left to other people to fuck England. Not to Bezir who had fantasized of blowing London up just because he was angry with himself.
Derdâ was running as fast as she could but she didn’t have any idea where she was going. She ran as if she’d been running away from Bezir all her life. She didn’t know he was dead. She ran because she hadn’t run for five years. She ran faster and faster, her legs feeling lighter and lighter. She sprinted through the spots of light cast on the sidewalks by the streetlamps, through totally deserted back lanes, past bronze statues that made her think that all life in London had stopped to watch her, faster and faster as she was filled with a feeling she’d never felt before: freedom.
The cold night air stung and her eyes teared up, but Derdâ didn’t slow down. Her heart—all but sixteen years old—thundered like a military band, a military band celebrating a victory in war. And she laughed as tears streamed over her lips, but there was no one to share in her joy. Just like Stanley had described it before—she neither walked nor ran. She glided, she flew under the city lights like the dark shadow of a colorful butterfly.
When she arrived at the Crouch Hill intersection, she stopped. Not because she was fazed by the choice of five directions, but to listen to the sound of her heartbeat, so loud it was like the sound was pouring out of her mouth. She looked back at where she came from. She couldn’t see the apartment building and there was no sign of Bezir. It was all history now, everything, her entire past. She spread her arms wide and fell down on her knees. She looked up at the sky where the stars were living behind the clouds and she let out a cry like she’d done five years ago. “AAAAAA!” This time it was a cry of happiness. AAAAAAs of happiness! She saw the lights go on in nearby apartments, so she got to her feet and started running again down one of the five streets. If she could have, she would’ve taken them all, to make up for all the streets she’d never taken before. But she had to choose one. She did, not someone else; the choice was hers. She said, “I’ll take this one.” And she took the one she wanted. She turned and raced down the third street on the left.
When she realized there were fewer and fewer houses and gardens lining the street she slowed down and the smile on her face slowly dissipated like steam off a mirror. She was exhausted. She needed to find a place where she could rest until morning, a place that was both safe and warm. Around the corner, she saw a red phone booth enclosed by panes of glass, a red phone booth, a home for one. Derdâ spent her first night alone in London in a telephone booth, using the space as best she could.
In the morning, she felt a hand on her shoulder and she quickly opened her eyes and covered her face with her hands. Bezir looming over her, his hand raised, always caused the same reaction. Sometimes he’d stretch out his hand for a glass in the cupboard and Derdâ would wince and jump back out of his way, her hand over her face. But this time there wasn’t a slap. She slowly spread her fingers and peered out. She saw a little boy no older than five. He was smiling—his two front teeth were missing. Suddenly his mother seized him by the wrist and dragged him out of the phone booth. They bustled off, the boy in tears, the mother scolding him for talking to strangers.
Derdâ tried to stand up but her legs were too numb from sleeping so cramped up. She rubbed them for a minute and then struggled to her feet. With her first stride out of the telephone booth, her chador billowing in the breeze, Süper Derdâ was brimming with courage, ready to face her worst enemy—her future.
Crouch End was one of those satellite neighborhoods. Only a few bus lines connected it to the city center. Here, old, cared-for houses and their gardens lined the streets. The sidewalks were never busy, and the walls along the street were covered in moss. Bob Dylan had once lived in Crouch End. It was a neighborhood where the unemployed lived with their kids who weren’t able to build a life for themselves, who sat on benches all day, making biting remarks to one another, killing time as they absently stared
