Sabahattin Ali

'The pain of losing something precious can be forgotten over time. But our missed opportunities never leave us, and every time they come back to haunt us, we ache.'

A shy young man leaves his home in rural Turkey to learn a trade and discover life in 1920s Berlin. There, amid the city's bustling streets, elegant museums, passionate politics and seedy cabarets, a chance meeting transforms his life forever. Caught between his desire for freedom and his yearning to belong, he struggles to hold on to the new life he has found.

Madonna in a Fur Coat

Jiya

He had, I imagined, poured the soul he'd hidden from us all into these pages, and now he wanted to take it with him.

I looked at this man who wished to leave nothing of himself behind, who, even as he moved towards death, wished to take his loneliness with him.

I had yet to learn that nothing in this world can ever match the marvels that we conjure up in our own minds.

I cursed the world around me, with greater vehemence than ever before.

Once again, I had revealed myself to be a puppet of my imagination, a captive of make-believe.

Never before had I felt such happiness. I could feel my heart opening, as if for the first time. How was it that a person could bring such happiness to another without really doing anything at all? A friendly greeting, an innocent smile….and at the moment i wanted nothing else. I was the richest man in the world. 

How familiar her voice was! This must be because I was so intimately a taunted with every line in her face and could read between them.

We were silent for a while. I had so much to say to her, enough to fill whole years or an eternity…but at that moment, I couldn’t think of a single word.

For the first time since childhood, I drifted off to sleep without mediating on the meaninglessness of existence and the despairing of the day just passed, which had no more than a religion on of the one before, and had led nowhere.

She had swept me away from my dark and silent world, delivering me to the land of truth and light. 

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