At the Breakfast Table by Defne Suman

Author:Defne Suman [Suman, Defne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781800247031
Publisher: Head of Zeus

21

Burak

It was the first time Nur had come to our house in years. I say ‘our’ house even though it was just me living there and my mother had been dead for seven years already. I’d cleared out the back room where Mum used to sleep a long time ago. I’d got up on a ladder and painted the walls and ceiling, then I moved my desk from its corner in the living room, and my bookcase, into that room. I ordered a new armchair from Ikea and put that in front of the window overlooking the back courtyard, and I spread a green and orange kilim that I’d bought on the road to Assos on the floor. If you didn’t count the novels on the top shelf of the bookcase, there was not a dust mote of Mum’s left in that room. But still I referred to the apartment as ‘our house’. Ours. Mum’s and mine. Nebahat and Burak’s house.

Nur plunged into the apartment as soon as I opened the door. There was something strange about her. She’d had a few drinks, I thought. I looked at my watch. A little after 9 p.m. It was a sweet spring evening, and with the lengthening days I hadn’t noticed day becoming night. I’d been absorbed in my work. I’d done an interview with Madam Anastasia in her magnificent apartment on Balo Street the previous week, and I was writing it up for my column. My hips and waist were aching from having sat in the same position in front of the computer for so long. When I stood up, my left knee cracked. You’re getting old, Burak, my boy. Though you might lose yourself in your work and forget all about time, your body is aware of every passing minute.

‘Welcome, Nur. Are you all right?’

She didn’t answer, just slipped into the wingback chair in the entrance hall and began undoing her sandals. She was wearing capri pants, which showed off her slender ankles, and a very becoming dark blue silk blouse.

‘There’s no need to take off your shoes. You can wear them inside now.’

She lifted her head and looked at the furniture in the little hallway. Mum’s furniture. Then she bent down over her shoes again, as if out of respect for Mum’s things she still needed to take them off. In spite of her stylish clothes, I thought she looked tired and a bit messy, and I wondered again if she’d been drinking.

Our (‘our’!) apartment had two doors. One was meant for guests, because it directed you straight to the living room, without passing the kitchen, bathroom and bedrooms, and the other was what used to be called a service door because it was near the kitchen. It was a narrow door to the left of the stairway. When Mum and I first moved to Istanbul, years ago, I was very excited about having two doors. I remember that while the porter my uncle had hired was carrying our stuff upstairs, I was busy racing in through one door and out through the other.

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