He lived in a tiny, run-down, top storey apartment accessible by three floors of narrow steps in the red light district of Amsterdam, because he was dirt poor.
Everything in the apartment was primitive. The only window to the left of the entrance overlooked some canal. In one corner of the room, on a counter covered with torn, yellowing vinyl stood a propane tank which gave life to the two burners for cooking.
Opposite the counter was a small refrigerator, bare except for a carton of milk, half dozen eggs and a shrivelled apple. A small water closet with a toilet and sink, beside what he called his kitchen completed the bare necessities of life for someone who was one step ahead of being homeless.
The rectangular room consisted of a bed, a piano which was his only prized possession and one he could not bare to part with even at this direst financial moments, an old wooden arm chair, a banged-up coffee table and two metal bridge chairs.
Yet to me, this was heaven. Even as I followed him, carrying my over-packed travel bag, up the narrow steps I felt my heart burst with disbelief and happiness all at once at the reality of the moment.
The train travel from Schippol and the long walk from the station to his place was already a blur in my mind. I barely remembered the strange feeling at the sight of those tanned girls in their skimpy bras and bikini underwear poised in alcoves, with pasted smiles awaiting their customers. He had smiled and waved back with the unspoken familiarity of those who share misfortunes in different ways.
I feared anyone’s questioning my being there. I had tried hiding my face incase anyone among thousands of tourists on the streets recognized me and asked, "Hey, what are you doing here ? Where is . . . ?"
I felt like a thief, stealing into a forbidden place in an effort to erase the miserable existence I left behind. I felt like one of those girls in the windows, partaking in illicit love.
He placed my heavy carry-on down, turned around and wrapped his arms around me, his tight grasp strengthened by years of separation and longing. Time was frozen in that embrace- so silent yet so loud with the thumping of our hearts against our chests. That was where we left off almost two decades ago when his father pulled him back to Amsterdam, cutting off his allowance, leaving him penniless. He had no choice but to go back, for a student visa allowed him neither a job, nor welfare in Canada.
For me it was a different trip all together. I had already sold my soul to continue university under the shelter of my family home. No one knew that I was in love with a ‘gâvur’ - an infidel. At home I was a quiet, passive, studious and pious eighteen year old , seemingly preparing for a bright future which also meant a marriage befitting my family’s status.
But every day I lived, I died to shed my outer shell and find solace in his arms. School was my escape, my sanctuary. No one questioned my staying after hours in the labs, or spending Saturdays at the libraries.
We each lived a lie to build our mutual reality. We dreamed of keeping house and being independent of guilt or moral debts to our parents. He taught me that a Calvinist family was just as close minded and unforgiving as a Muslim one. Thus, our vast differences brought us closer, bellowing the fires in our hearts.
Then came the fateful letter which never reached my hands. Two years later after his return to Amsterdam, when I was hospitalized with pericarditis and a major depression, Father admitted he had intercepted that letter for my own good. He said he had waited for me one day outside the library I was supposed to be working in. Then he became suspicious and understood that I wasn't being truthful with my parents. He knew keeping G's letter from me would hurt, but it would be better in the long run and I would forget about him in time.
"Trust me," he had said.
Shortly after my discharge from the Royal Victoria, I moved out of my parents' house to hang on to my sanity. But by then it was too late and each of us had moved on in the hopelessness of what our separate realities had dished out for us. He thought I had broken off with him; I had no way of finding out his address and reaching out to him.
For the next fourteen years, I didn’t live a day without thinking of him and wondering where he was, what he was doing or if he ever thought of me if only once in a while.
One July day when I was visiting my sister in Toronto there was a phone call ~ for me ! I was on my summer break from teaching, and on our way to Marineland with my two youngsters and my husband.
When I heard his familiar voice at the end of the receiver, the Dutch accent that I longed to hear , I was speechless ! Out of the blue he had called. But he had been looking for me for so long, trying every means to trace me. When I moved out of my parents' home, I had taken on an unlisted phone number. My parents had sold their home and returned to Turkey.
There was so much to talk about and ask each other ; we could only exchange vital information of our whereabouts and telephone numbers to keep in touch. My two-year old was crying. My husband was honking from the car signalling to hurry up. I was falling apart trying to hide my emotions. I was filled with longing and joy; regret and hopelessness.
The distance and time that lay between us had disappeared with one unexpected phone ring, just like I dreamed; but present reality stretched out there between us like a desert, vast, and impossible to cross.
. . .to be continued . . . if Life permits
Copyrighted Material ~ Copyright © 1997 All Rights belong to Füsun Atalay
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