I stood frozen where I was, as if I had been judged for a crime I never committed. I couldn't part my lips to say a single word, I couldn't even breathe. Were they playing a game on me collectively? Deceiving me? Why did they need to deceive me?
"I'm not seeing visions or anything," I said in a sharp voice. I looked at each of their faces one by one. Though, their faces were no different from the bright, blue screen of the holo-screen. The deep breath I took drained away from my lungs. "Why are you saying such ridiculous things?"
I tried to be sure that they had reached an agreement among themselves. But as if wanting to prove otherwise, my body shook with a violent stomach ache.
An expression full of pity passed through the eyes of Hülya, who was looking at me specifically.
"Why?" I said in a low voice. I shivered from the cold. Maybe it was from the pain. "Why are you playing games with me? I am not your enemy!"
"Such a moment as you mentioned never happened, but..." Hülya said, with the warmth of a person hugging me to compensate for her mistake.
The only moment in this life that I resisted, that I rebelled... If this moment never happened, who would I be?
While Sis looked disinterestedly at the bomb's screen; Mert bowed his head.
Simultaneously on the holo-screen, the riddle written on the bomb's screen flashed.
When the lamplighter in the tunnel told me this, I hadn't believed it at all. But now I felt a crumb of belief. The moment I thought Sis stabbed me, the feeling of death that came twice. None of these were jokes. They were truths that hurt when I stepped on them.
I left their side. There was no safe castle for me to take refuge in with them.
I started walking towards where the tunnel was. That cold, narrow space had unexpectedly become my sanctuary.
It was like a stop for me to breathe, unlike the other coffins.
I pulled the cover of the manhole with all my strength.
***
The Mechanism, Smoking Room
"The paper is torn, sir," said Mr. J, carefully buttoning his front.
He looked into the President's eyes, which resembled a lamp flickering under his furrowed brows. His anger was obvious. His breathing became irregular.
"We will switch to a punishment system." J understood that the final point was made after what he said.
"What do you want, sir?"
The President spoke as if he had lost touch with the subject, "If we could have gotten the letter, we would have quickly understood whether they were from Özlem's hand or not," he said. "It would have been nice..." He lit a cigarette. "Now we're like sitting with our hands tied against a damn player. What do you say?
Bringing along the file of a red-haired woman from the past files, Mr. J left the folder on the table.
"I can't handle this, J," said the president, in a semi-cold voice.
Despite everything, there was a bond between them that continued to develop even if it was battered.
"Sir, you might want to look at this... I need some information for the best moves." Light was reflected in his pupils. It was raining outside, the sound of water drops hitting the glass was heard.
"Show it then," said the President. "Show it."
As soon as Mr. J opened the cover of the folder, the photograph of the red-haired woman appeared.
"Who is this, sir? For you?"
The President furrowed his brows after taking a puff from his cigarette.
"I know," Mr. J said stuttering. "This is a private question for you, but you told me to learn everything about you."
Hadn't the President appointed his favorite assistant to the task to restore the memories lost in his mind?
"Everything of mine was taken by her years ago." His voice faded. He knew the one in the picture like his own name. "She took my all and left betrayal in its place."
"She is your—"
"We shared only a single night with her. I thought she loved me with everything I had. I was a miserable man in good standing back then."
The face in the picture pulled the president towards the whirlpool of past memories. His cigarette finished, he lit a new one. He was smoking fast.
Mr. J said, "Her name..." he said; "Lale Kalkan."
The President said disinterestedly, "She said we had a child," he said. A fragile tone of voice had now taken the place of the ruthless tone. Ashes piled up on the table like falling plant leaves. "She was my first wife. I didn't know what it meant to be a man. That's why I didn't know what to do with this child. I told her to have an abortion. Lale said, crying and screaming in front of me, that she would give birth to this child. As for me, I was already afraid of that child and the bonds that could form between me and him.
Mr. J nodded carefully.
"She gave birth to the child, but she wanted to come to me constantly, to raise our child together. I wasn't ready for this." The president closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "When she couldn't get what she wanted from me, she gave birth to the child at the cost of breaking her mental health. She stayed in a psychiatric clinic. For long years... And then she was referred to the mechanism."
The face of the lined, beautiful woman in the photo stood like a missing file of a criminal.
Mr. J murmured, "Your child, sir," he said. "Do you know him?"
The president's coal-black eyes misted over.
Mr. J grew smaller and smaller in front of him.
He was surprised at how much this woman suffered, unlike Özlem, the second wife the President loved with a madness of the mad.
"J, I need to be alone for a while..."
Mr. J closed the cover of the folder, nodding his head rapidly.