Derda stood in front of the full-length mirror in the bedroom and raised his fists, posing like a boxer. He looked at himself above OĞUZ and ATAY. Until Derdâ came in and broke his pose. She was also naked. She was also smiling.
Derda offered Derdâ his hand like he was a gentleman of another age and he showed her into the bathroom. With a bow. Derdâ walked in and stood near the bathtub. She bent her knees and put two fingers into the water to test it. Then she straightened up and with one movement she took out her hair clip and shook out her hair. Her hair fell over her shoulders like a river. She put first one foot, than another, into the hot water. Her naked body losing itself in the hot water.
Derda brought two champagne glasses to the side of the bathtub and set them on the checkered tile floor. Then he lowered himself slowly into the hot water.
They looked at each other, smiling at each other from behind clouds of steam and then, closing their eyes, they listened to the music.
The notes got slower and slower and their eyelids opened and they looked at each other. They both stretched down and picked up glasses of champagne. Without taking their eyes off their love, they took a sip. Like taking a breath. A breath of poison.
“I love you a little bit,” said Derdâ.
“I love you a little bit less,” said Derda.
They spoke no more.
But just once they looked at the symbol on the wall and together they thought: It began with Oğuz Atay and it will end with Oğuz Atay.
And accompanied with the endless melody called La Folia.
They looked at each other for the last time before they fell asleep.
Fell into death.
They were eighty years old.
For both of them.
Forty years to be together.
And forty years to die together.
For another forty years, they could not have survived.
(music)
Forever La Folia XVI
