Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I lunged toward the door, frantic to open it. I screamed for help, but there was no answer. I had no idea why I was here. I had never even seen these people in my life, let alone visited these parts; I had barely even left Istanbul. I pounded on the door with all my might. It wouldn't budge. I kicked, I screamed, I begged, but the door remained sealed. The feeling of being trapped, of being utterly helpless, drove me to the brink of madness. It was a suffocating sensation, dragging me down like a black hole. I don't remember how long I cried by that door, how much I screamed, or how many times I battered it with my fists. Then, suddenly, all emotion drained out of me. I pulled myself together, stood up, smoothed my clothes, and scanned the room. It was as sparse as could be. A low wooden bench in the corner, a hand-woven rug on the floor with visible stripes, and a two-door iron cabinet in the other corner. That was all. It felt less like a room meant for living and more like a space furnished just to keep it from looking empty.

I looked around again, lost and directionless, standing in the middle of the room. The shock of being in such an alien place left me paralyzed. My body trembled with panic, yet I felt an odd, hollow calm. I didn't know what I was supposed to feel, or even what I was actually feeling. I walked over and sat on the edge of the bench, my eyes drifting to my feet. I was wearing thin summer sandals. Thanks to the dusty road and being dragged, both my feet and the black sandals were filthy. They didn't belong here; none of this belonged here. I, myself, didn't belong here. I sat in that same position for a long time, eyes fixed on my shoes. My back began to ache. I shifted, sliding to the right side of the bench, and leaned my back against the cushion propped against the wall. A small window with bars sat before me. Through the bars, I could barely make out a few trees outside. Night had fallen completely, and apart from the calls of nocturnal birds and the occasional bark of a dog, there was nothing. It was a desolate place.

When a faint rattling began at the door, I started to question if any of this was real. I had been alone in this tiny room for hours. I turned my eyes to the door. As it opened, a woman slipped inside silently, carrying a small tray. It was the older woman I had seen on the top balcony of the courtyard. She approached and set the tray down on the bench. She was trembling, aimlessly. She wouldn't look at me; her eyes remained glued to the tray she had just placed. She had brought me food. After setting the tray down, she didn't make a move to leave; she just stood there, waiting, staring at the tray. A moment later, seemingly having made a decision, she sat on the other side of the bench, leaving the tray between us. Emboldened by her presence and the fact that she had actually sat next to me, I straightened up, keeping my eyes locked on her.

"Are you going to help me?" I asked, my voice laced with desperate pleading.

I didn't want to get my hopes up, but the mere possibility that she might help made my heart race.

"Are you going to get me out of here? Please, help me, I beg you," I said, struggling to suppress the tremors of excitement in my voice.

She shook her head left and right—a clear refusal. As every shred of hope began to wither, I decided to try one more time. I grabbed her hands and sat at her feet.

"Please, I beg you," I whispered.

She stared at me, her expression completely devoid of emotion. Once again, with that same icy calm, she shook her head slowly. The hope I had felt when she sat beside me was instantly replaced by a searing rage. I stood up abruptly from her feet. Why was I even begging? If she had intended to help, she would have done so the moment they dragged me in here and locked me up.

I reached for the tray in front of me and took a piece of bread. We were both silent. I needed to eat; I hadn't had anything in hours, and my head was starting to spin. I wouldn't let myself weaken in a place I didn't know. After eating a little, with my eyes still on the food, I spoke to the woman beside me.

"Why are you still here if you aren't going to help?"

My voice was as sharp as I wanted it to be. The food had helped; the light was finally returning to my eyes, just as they say. She remained silent. Her silence irritated me even more; if she wasn't going to help, I didn't understand why she was still sitting there. Was she waiting for the empty dishes? She looked refined, and with the gold jewelry on her arms, she clearly wasn't a servant. Why was she here?

When she cleared her throat, breaking the minutes-long silence, I instinctively looked up at her. She waited a beat, then whispered.

"I am your mother."

It hit me like a physical blow. Direct. Blatant. For a moment, I couldn't grasp if what I heard was real. Had she actually called herself my mother? As the words processed through my mind, I burst into a hysterical laugh. What kind of nonsense was this? They kidnap me, bring me here, lock me in a room without a second thought, and then, as if out of nowhere, she walks in and claims to be my mother?

"What kind of madness is this?" I said, trying to choke back my laughter.

She turned her eyes toward me, seemingly caught off guard by my reaction; she looked almost afraid. She cleared her throat again, starting to say something, then stopped, then started again, but failed. The shock of her words made the shock of the kidnapping look like nothing.

With a shaky, thin voice, she repeated, "I am your mother."

The confrontation I had anticipated for years was finally happening today, in the very place of my abduction. I had spent years wondering what I would say or how we would meet, but this was a scenario that had never crossed my mind. Her faint voice reached my ears again. Why was she whispering? Was this whole kidnapping plot just to tell me this?

"Daughter," she said.

That was the final straw.

I jumped to my feet. "Don't... don't you ever call me daughter. You are the last person on this earth with the right to call me that," I said, shaking a finger at her. I was screaming at her face with everything I had.

She bowed her head and wept silently. Was this supposed to soften me? Instead, it only fueled my rage. The woman cleared her throat again and turned her gaze to me.

"You were a girl," she stated.

She wrung her hands, not knowing where to put them, her face contorting. I stared at her, stunned by her remark. It was as if she were disgusted by the very sentence she had chosen from the thousands in her head. Even if she had written volumes of novels here, I would never have accepted it. She continued, her eyes pleading for understanding. She had ordered my kidnapping, and I had been dragged here just to hear this—what a pathetic, disgusting situation.

"You were a girl," she repeated, this time without contorting her face. She rushed to continue. "Your father was very angry because you were a girl. Yes... yes, he was so angry."

Her eyes widened, but they weren't focused on me. She wasn't looking at me; she wasn't seeing me. It was as if she were talking to herself, trying to explain that she wasn't the true culprit.

"He was going to kill you. I... I didn't allow it. That was the only thing I could do. To leave you behind."

Toward the end, her voice faded, and she returned to that infuriating silence. I didn't know what to do or what to say to the woman who claimed to be my mother. I was too paralyzed with rage to even move. All her explanation for all these years was a dry "you were a girl." How could she fit the reason for all of this into a single word? I was a girl... just a girl. I screamed at her again, fueled by fury.

"You didn't leave me behind; you abandoned me," I said, looking straight into her eyes, emphasizing every single word.

With the words escaping my lips, the numbness holding me back vanished. I paced around the room, feeling as though the walls were closing in on me. I felt as if an invisible giant hand was gripping my throat. I was struggling to make sense of what I had heard, but it was impossible. What kind of mother abandons her child just because her husband doesn't want her, and specifically because of her gender? I didn't know what I was doing anymore. The words "you were a girl" echoed in my head. I wanted to cover my ears to stop the sound from reverberating in my brain, but there was no way. She stood up. She saw me now. We were both standing. She reached out to hold my arms, but I flinched, jumping back as if struck by electricity.

"Don't you dare touch me," I hissed.

Without a word, she pulled back and wept silently. "Get out... get out of here," I shrieked.

I screamed "Get out!" at the top of my lungs.

The door opened, and several people entered. My eyes didn't register anyone. In my mind, the words "you were a girl" continued to hammer away. When the door slammed shut again, I was left alone. My whole life, I had waited for this moment and built fantasies around it. I had crafted different scenarios—some ending in happiness, some in pain—but in every one of them, I had imagined that learning who my parents were would bring me peace. A great burden would be lifted. I don't know what I expected, but I thought I would have answers to life's biggest questions and be able to move toward my future with clarity. That was how I had always planned it.

What kind of parents abandon their child simply because it's a girl? Aren't girls always more vulnerable, more fragile? How could they give up on me, their own child, so quickly? Every ounce of strength in my body seemed to vanish; my legs couldn't carry me. If I could place the thoughts in my head onto a scale, they would probably weigh thousands of tons. I let myself drop onto the bench. I knew it: I had no one but myself. As always, no one could help me but me. I laid down a little.

All of this had literally crushed me, and I was buried underneath it. I was hopeless. If someone asked me now, I would say I never wanted to learn the truths I had desperately sought for years. I closed my eyes and surrendered myself to the safe hands of sleep.