217 Babel Street | Apartment 11
There is a box of photographs in a kitchen drawer. The top picture shows five young soldiers in army uniforms. Shaven-headed, they look like dusty potatoes. They appear to be jostling for space; you can almost see them move. The one in the centre is Mustafa.
Mustafa is smiling but seems unsure of his smile. He is nineteen years old. His eyes are too big, his cheekbones too prominent. Mustafa has now been at the base in Istanbul for three months, marching, sweating and being shouted at. Some men don’t mind marching but Mustafa can’t bear to lift his feet in time with the others. Tiredness pulls at the soft skin around his eyes, tiredness from his long journey across Anatolia, the wrench from his family, the marching.
On days off he walks by the sea, sometimes with friends and sometimes alone. He smokes Camels, drops the matches into the Bosphorus and gazes on Asia from Europe. Some of Mustafa’s friends talk of staying in the army beyond their compulsory service and becoming officers. It’s a career, they say. Later, when they are sent eastwards to show their strength to Kurdish villages, some will regret this decision. Even at nineteen, Mustafa knows he can neither stay in the army nor return to Diyarbakır. For him, there must be somewhere else to go. Of course, he hasn’t met Fehmi yet.
The photograph box is always closed. Mustafa doesn’t know why but even to open the drawer would make him feel sad.