The New Life Read Online Free PDF Page B

wide gestures, indicated that, more than talking, they were having an argument, like a pair of old lovers all too accustomed to fights.
    Then they started to walk again only to stop once more. I was at a great distance, but still I could coolly infer from their body language, and the looks they got from the sidewalk traffic, that they were arguing even more violently now.
    This didn’t last very long either. Janan turned around and began walking back to the building where I was, while Mehmet followed her with his eyes before continuing on his way toward Taksim. My heart kept missing a beat.
    That is when I saw the man who stood at the Sarıyer minibus stop cross the street, carrying the pink plastic bag. Focused as my eyes were on the grace of the purple-clad figure, they were in no state to notice someone crossing the street, but there was something like a false note in the man’s behavior. A few steps from the curb, the man pulled something—a gun—out of the pink bag. He aimed it at Mehmet, who also saw the gun.
    I first witnessed Mehmet take the hit and shudder, then I registered the report; after that, I heard the second gunshot, expecting to hear yet a third. Mehmet stumbled and fell. The man dropped his plastic bag and made for the park.
    Janan was still approaching, her steps wounded and dainty like a little bird’s. She hadn’t heard the gunshots. A truck full of snow-covered oranges rattled rambunctiously into the intersection. It was as if the world had gone back into motion.
    I noticed some commotion at the minibus stop. Mehmet was getting up. In the distance the man was running without his plastic bag down the hill toward Inönü Stadium, skipping and hopping across the snow in the park like a clown bent on entertaining the kids, with a couple of playful dogs on his trail.
    I should have run downstairs to meet Janan halfway and tell her what had happened, but I was riveted to the sight of Mehmet wobbling and looking around in a daze. For how long? For a while, a long while, until Janan turned the Taşkışla corner and disappeared from my angle of vision.
    I ran down the stairs and hurtled past a group of plainclothes police, students, and janitors standing around. When I reached the main entrance, there was no sign of Janan anywhere. I quickly went upstairs but didn’t see her there either. Then I ran to the intersection and still didn’t see anything or anybody related to the scene I had just witnessed. Neither Mehmet nor the plastic bag that the man with the gun had disposed of were anywhere.
    The snow on the spot where Mehmet fell had melted into mud. A two-year-old kid wearing a beanie went by with his stylish and attractive mother.
    â€œMom, where did the rabbit go?” the kid said. “Where, Mom?”
    I ran in a frenzy across the street toward the Sarıyer minibus stop. The world was once more wearing the silence of snow and the indifference of trees. Two minibus drivers who looked exactly alike were much astonished by my queries. They had no idea what I was talking about. What’s more, the tough-looking fellow who brought them their tea had not heard any gunshots either; besides, he had no intention of being astonished by anything. The attendant at the minibus stop held on to his whistle, staring at me as if I were the criminal who had pulled the trigger. Blackbirds congregated in the pine tree over my head. I stuck my head in the minibus at the last moment before it left and anxiously asked my questions.
    â€œA young man and woman hailed a taxi over there and took off,” an elderly woman said, “just a little while ago.”
    Her finger pointed to Taksim Square. I knew what I was doing was not sensible but I still ran in that direction. I thought I was all alone in the world among all the vendors, vehicles, and stores around the square. I was about to make my way to Beyoğlu when, remembering the Emergency Care Hospital, I tore off