Once in Istanbul

We had waited so long for that day…

First I had dreamed of it. Then you. Then you again, insisting…

We would go to Istanbul.

We would walk hand in hand down İstiklal Avenue, the way happy people do. There would be you. There would be me.

And the Titanic Hotel. Like the film—two different people, no Kate and Leonardo, yet lovers with kindred souls. The resemblance would go no further than appearances: you, fair-haired; I, dark…

We would talk until morning in Taksim, lose ourselves so completely in the tide of people that no trace of us would remain. We would sail the Bosphorus to see Europe and Asia, two eyes belonging to a single soul. On the Princes’ Islands, we would ride a horse-drawn carriage, borrowing a little nostalgia from a century gone by. And there would be bicycles, too.

On the boat, we would sit face to face, so you could look into my eyes.

Perhaps the sorrow hidden there would tell you how bitter loneliness could be. Who did I have, after all? Even God had forgotten me.

Then we would buy simit and eat as we wandered into shops beneath their brightly coloured, glittering signs. You would choose clothes for me, one piece after another.

“Look, darling. This would look lovely on you.”

And I would catch such pleasure in your eyes.

I would be happy as a child.

If only I could see love for me in those eyes, I would forget the whole weight of my sorrow—in Eminönü, in Laleli, in Tophane, in Kadıköy. I would find the strength to bear the wounds life had given me, one after another…

To walk through Istanbul on your arm would be worth the world.

For the love I had sought and longed for all those years, your presence beside me would have been enough.

But…

We would live an Istanbul fairy tale, a real one, full of moments we would never forget. Like Orhan Veli, we would listen to Istanbul with our eyes closed…

And it would rain. It would rain so we could draw closer, so we could be drenched together.

At last, the day arrived.

We went to Istanbul.

For a day.

Just once.

But we did not hold hands. We were not lovers. We did not fall in love.

Our eyes never met.

The rain never caught us together.

To keep my hands from feeling lonely, I wandered the streets with roasted corn in them, then chestnuts.

We were merely two people in a crowd.

You grew bitter. So did I.

One question from me was enough to make you lose your temper. You shouted, you raged, and then you walked away.

Little by little, you vanished from my sight.

Only then did I understand loneliness.

The world I had made for myself—half truth, half make-believe—reeled around me.

A square overflowing with people.

And me.

Thunder rolled. Tears came in a flood.

For a moment, I stood still.

And time stood still with me.

Inside, loneliness screamed with pain. I tried to hold the tears at the edge of my lashes, tried to quiet them.

How heavy it is, being alone in a city that does not know you…

You are a child who has fallen in the street, knees bleeding, sobbing helplessly, with nowhere to go. A child crying for their mother, searching for someone to soothe the hurt.

Not every woman would know that feeling. Some might never live it. Yet any woman who did would long to escape it.

I lived it once.

That one time.

In Istanbul.

Those tears were my wounded pride.

We were simply two different people.

You, a man who was a stranger.

I, a woman who was alone.

What had I come to Istanbul for?