Good Night, Ester (Night, Day 6)

If what I learnt from Captain Cezmi this afternoon turns out to be true, soon I won't need to write to you and what's more, I may also get to leave this hotel. If what he said was true and you have decided to come to Istanbul, then that means you are looking for me. It means you have not been able to find happiness over there and that you have decided to move to my city and with your family too… Well, with what remains of your family. Only your Uncle Leon and your father, Monsieur Naum, remain and I do not think your father would readily leave Paris or the university in which he lectures to come to Istanbul. Perhaps it is just you and Uncle Leon, him leaving Salonika and you leaving Paris. Whatever the case, I shall soon know. I don't remember having felt joy like this in a long, long time.

So yes, perhaps I no longer need to write to you but for some reason I can't help myself. It's as though I come to this room solely to write. No other habit or activity has any importance. So no, I won't stop writing. Even if we get together again and live together, this pen shall not fall from my hand.

Live together? Dear me, will you look at that! My imagination has already started running wild…

This evening I ate alone. Reşit had to go home, as he wanted to spend the evening with his family, the poor guy, so I had some mushroom soup, a salad and a keşkül before coming back to the room.

I would like to return to the past, if I may, to the accursed and shameful days of the uprising when the streets of this beautiful city were awash with blood – blood that had been shed by brothers no less – and to the period immediately after that uprising, when death had left such a profound and ghastly impression on me. Yes, I'm talking about the assassination of Şemsi Paşa. The hesitation I felt after we shot those three Albanian bodyguards, the pangs of conscience, the sudden and overwhelming sense of mercy; I never thought I would experience those feelings again.