English Translation: The Turkish Chronicle: The Arrival

The woman steps outside the door visibly anxious. She carries a small suitcase and holds a mobile phone in her hand. She looks at it in earnest. Maybe she called the wrong number. Maybe her plane arrived too early. She looks around her. A couple is helping an old woman with a humped back and dressed in black from head to toe. The three of them are walking very slowly. A few taxi drivers are talking to each other without paying any attention to her.

She should call again. She knows that yesterday, while they were arguing, she said she would not be coming to Istanbul. But in the end, they had made up. Or so she thought.

She's already been waiting for ten minutes. Should she let go of the suitcase? It hardly weighs anything. She had planned on staying just three days. She gives the phone another look. Maybe something happened. Maybe the taxi or the bus got into an accident. She imagines him hurt, trying to find the phone. In the midst of people that do not understand him. She feels tears coming to her eyes. No, she cannot cry now. Now is not the time.

Fifteen minutes. Maybe she should try calling again. What if someone else answers? Perhaps he asked her to come only to take revenge. To laugh at her. To abandon her in front of everyone. Perhaps he's a bad person. She closes her eyes and considers going back into the airport to rest a while.

Twenty-five minutes. She switches her suitcase to her other hand. She holds on tight to her mobile phone. A group of Japanese tourists pass by like a flock of happy sparrows. Her nails hurt her. Her head spins. She made a mistake. He is not the man she thought he was.

And suddenly, like a summer shower, the heat makes her legs give way, her eyes blur, her hands loosen and she lets the suitcase fall to the ground. He steps out of the taxi with his tie askew and a huge bouquet  of yellow tulips.

Translated by Lina Strenio