An impossible dream for an impossible country — chapter sixteen: Diyar heads to Ankara

Diyar opened his eyes. Nilgün was sleeping deeply as a stone, embracing him above his waist and with her head close to his chest. He contemplated her dark hair, now all messed up. He felt like touching it, but stopped himself in the last moment.

Diyar should get up, but he did not want Nilgün to wake up. With delicate movements, he undid her embrace around him. Her head was still over him, he tried to get up slowly, not to bother her sleep. She moaned when he set himself free from her touch. Diyar still looked back at her face on the bed before standing up.

He took his backpack and chose a new, clean suit. He wore these clothes and threw the messed up clothes of the evening before into his case. Slightly he headed for the room’s door. Diyar stopped at the doorway and chased a gaze back at Nilgün.

Passing through the narrow corridor, Diyar stopped by the boy’s room and looked at Mohammed, sleeping as deeply as his mother. His father smiled and went on. He looked for a piece of paper; he didn’t want to leave without giving an explanation of why going away and not saying goodbye.

Diyar found a notepad and a pen on the kitchen’s table. He sit on the chair he had been last night while talking to Nilgün. He wrote:

Dear Nilgün,

Sorry for leaving you so early and without saying my farewells looking into your eyes. The reason why I do this is that I don’t want to see you cry again. You can cry later, when you read this and I’ve already been gone. Please, don’t be mad at me. As I told you last evening, I have business to do in Turkey, I’m going to Ankara now. I should meet my friend that went ahead of me. I just came here ’cause I missed you so much, but so much that I couldn’t resist changing my plans a bit to see you and the kid. I want also to thank you for last night, it was amazing! I hope we can repeat that someday. But now, it’s time to go. I’ll leave my cellphone and my address in Erbil here if you need something. I don’t want to lose contact with you.

Love you, Diyar.

After finishing his message, Diyar headed for the front door. His heart was weighting a ton and his mind was still too sleepy to think straight. He closed the door behind him and went downstairs. Diyar left the building without looking back like a thief who is ashamed of what he just did.

There sun had not gone up when he left the building and started walking by foot until Diyarbakir’s bus station. Diyar used to wake up before Fajr prayer’s time since the time he was a member of a so-called terrorist group that fought for Kurdish rights in Turkey.

At a certain point of his walk, Diyar stopped to take some rest. He seated on the sidewalk, with his backpack between his legs. He then remembered about his cellphone. He opened the little pocket that was aside and took it on his hand. He had turned it off while waiting for Nilgün to return the day before. At that moment, Diyar turned it on again. He saw Mahmoud’s message and the calls. He decided to phone him back later, he did not want to wake his friend up so early.

Diyar felt anguish in his chest. “I shouldn’t have left them this way…It seems I ran away from my responsibilities as a father… I should have given them some money…it seemed as if I wanted to take advantage of her emotional fragility…Why have I done that, Allah?” He asked looking at the sky.

He put his backpack on his back again and the cellphone in his pocket. He continued walking fast. A sound that came from far away reached Diyar’s ears. It was the “music” he had been deaf for years, since he had left his normal life to fight among those he thought were his friends. It was the call for the prayer, that he knew since he was a child. For years he had not prayed; he had even forgotten how to perform it. He felt angry with himself for this as he entered the bus station, looked around and saw some people performing the prayer.

Diyar tried not to pass in front of those who were praying and went straight to the cabin, where a man wearing a blue uniform was selling tickets. Apparently, the seller was sleeping, so Diyar knocked at the glass to call his attention:

- A ticket for Ankara, please.

The man jumped and looked around. He was shocked by the vision of Diyar.

-Oh , sure, sure…it is 30 Turkish liras.

Diyar gave him the money and the office gave him the ticket. The bus would leave within half an hour, so he had some time to eat. He went to a snack bar, where a few other people were also eating. Diyar entered on the queue and while waiting he looked at the menu above his head to decide what to eat. When his turn came, he asked for a börek. There was a table available so he seated and ate.

While eating, Diyar looked around. He saw women with and without a headscarf, men with beard and mustache and also some with a clean face. Diyar observed a kid that burst into tears and was on the ground, while his mother looked at him in desperation, holding tight the hand of her older son. Some people gathered to see what was going on, attracted by the loud screams of the boy. Diyar could not see well what was going on, there were many people around the scene to see; he was not really interested. Anyway, he had to leave. As soon as he managed to go away from the crowd in front of the snack bar, a metallic voice was calling for the people of his bus to go on board.