The Bastard of Istanbul Read Online Free PDF Page B

let’s wait till her mind is clear. If she wants to have this abortion for sure, she can still go for it afterward. We brought you here and let you sleep. And sleep indeed you did!”
    “You mean there was no . . .” The word she had so daringly uttered in front of strangers just this afternoon felt unutterable now. Zeliha touched her belly while her eyes appealed for a consolation the receptionist was the last person on earth to grant. “So she is still here. . . .”
    “Well, you do not know yet if it is a she!” the receptionist said, her voice matter-of-fact.
    But Zeliha knew. She simply did.
    Once on the street, despite the gathering darkness, it felt like early morning. The rain had ceased and life looked beautiful, almost manageable. Though the traffic was still a mess and the streets full of sludge, the crisp smell of the after-rain gave the whole city a sacred air. Here and there children stomped in mud puddles, taking delight in committing simple sins. If there ever was a right time to sin, it must have been at this fleeting instant. One of those rare moments when it felt like Allah not only watched over us but also cared for us; one of those moments when He felt close.
    It almost felt as if Istanbul had become a blissful metropolis, romantically picturesque, just like Paris, thought Zeliha; not that she had ever been to Paris. A seagull flew close crying a coded message she was almost on the verge of deciphering. For half a minute Zeliha believed she was on the cutting edge of a new beginning. “Why did you not let me do it, Allah?” she heard herself mutter, but as soon as the words came out of her mouth, she apologized in panic to the atheist in herself.
    Pardon me, pardon me, pardon me.
    Far and under the rainbow Zeliha limped back home, clutching the box of tea glasses and the broken heel, somehow feeling less dispirited than she had felt in weeks.
    So on that first Friday of July around eight p.m. Zeliha came home, to the slightly decrepit, high-ceilinged Ottoman konak that looked out of place amid five times as tall modern apartment buildings on both sides. She trudged up the curved staircase and found all the Kazancı females gathered upstairs around the wide dinner table, occupied with their meal, obviously having felt no reason to wait for her.
    “Hello stranger! Come on in, join our supper,” Banu exclaimed, craning her neck over an oven-fried crispy chicken wing. “The prophet Mohammed advises us to share our food with strangers.”
    Her lips were glossy, so were her cheeks, as if she had taken extra time to wipe the chicken grease all over her face, including on those shiny, fawn eyes of hers. Twelve years older and thirty pounds heavier than Zeliha, she looked less like her sister than like her mother. If she was to be believed, Banu had a bizarre digestive system that stored everything ingested, which could have been a more credible claim had she not also argued that even if it were pure water that she consumed, her body would still evolve it into fat, and thereby she could not possibly be held accountable for her weight or be asked to go on a diet.
    “Guess what’s on today’s menu?” Banu continued merrily, as she wagged a finger at Zeliha before she clutched another chicken wing. “Stuffed green peppers!”
    “This must be my lucky day!” Zeliha said.
    Today’s menu looked splendidly familiar. In addition to a huge chicken, there was yogurt soup, karnıyarık, pilaki, kadın budu köfte from the day before, turşu, newly made çörek, a jar of ayran, and, yes, stuffed green peppers. Zeliha instantly pulled up a chair, her hunger prevailing over her lack of enthusiasm for attending a family dinner on such a hard day’s eve.
    “Where were you, missy?” grumbled her mother, Gülsüm, who might have been Ivan the Terrible in another life. She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, knitted her eyebrows, and then turned her contorted face toward Zeliha’s, as if by doing so she