August 27, 1984

August 27, 1984, is the day Kemal Basmacı and Füsun finally leave Istanbul together, beginning a journey to Europe after years of separation and longing. The date gives their departure a double charge: it falls exactly nine years and four months after they first met at the Şanzelize Boutique, yet Kemal does not dwell on the coincidence. What matters is the change from imagining Füsun across a city shaped by absence to traveling beside her, with a night at the Grand Semiramis Hotel seeming to bring his long-held hopes within reach.

A city organized by longing

Before this journey, Kemal tried to protect himself from memories of Füsun by turning the city into a system of prohibitions. He removed the Merhamet Apartments, the Şanzelize Boutique, Kuyulu Bostan Street, and other places associated with her from his mental map. Red areas were forbidden; orange ones could be crossed only when absolutely necessary, sober, and at a run; yellow streets required caution because they were crowded with recollections. Even familiar routes between work and the Merhamet Apartments had become snares capable of plunging him back into pain.

The restrictions could not keep memory at bay. Füsun’s imagined figure appeared in public places, including the Palace Cinema, the Beşiktaş Market, and a window in Gümüşsuyu. Though Kemal knew these visions were not Füsun, he sought the brief consolation they offered and marked the places where they appeared on his mental map. Istanbul became a galaxy of signs pointing back to her: not merely a setting for his grief, but a landscape he repeatedly reread through it.

His search also drew him into neighborhoods where he hoped to find Füsun and her family. In Vefa, Zeyrek, Fatih, and Kocamustafapaşa, he drove over cobblestones and potholes, looking for her among the streets and their residents. Even when an apparition proved false, he lingered, persuaded that Füsun might be close by. A broken marble fountain, party slogans and death threats, old people reading newspapers in coal-smoked coffeehouses, and young men watching a stranger pass all became part of a landscape he wanted to inhabit more fully. Against that history of avoidance and searching, leaving Istanbul with Füsun marks a profound change in what the city and the road can mean to him.

The date and the departure

At 12:15 on August 27, Çetin parked in front of the house in Çukurcuma, ready to drive the group toward Europe. Their departure had been delayed by Kemal’s mother’s tears and advice, as well as by traffic. While Çetin loaded the suitcases belonging to Füsun and Nesibe, neighbors waved and children gathered around the car. Kemal appeared petulant at the delay and the attention, but inwardly felt a pride he did not want to acknowledge. For years his relation to Füsun had been bound to waiting and imagined scenes; now her luggage was being placed in the trunk for a journey they would take together.

As they drove down toward Tophane, Füsun waved to Ali, returning from football practice. Kemal imagined that before long he and Füsun would have a child like him. Crossing the Galata Bridge, the travelers opened the windows to the familiar Istanbul air, with its mingled smells of sea and moss, pigeon droppings, coal smoke, exhaust, and linden blossoms. Füsun and Nesibe sat in the back; Kemal rode in front with Çetin, as he had in his dreams, and turned to give Füsun a contented smile as they passed Aksaray and the city walls.

The road to the hotel

The pace of the journey quickly became part of its intimacy. At the Çatalca exit, while Çetin filled the tank, Füsun and Nesibe bought local fol cheese from an old roadside seller, then had tea and simits in a neighboring teahouse. Kemal sat across from Füsun and felt a familiar sweetness, but it was no longer the corrosive agony of thwarted love. It was the impatience of a lover whose affection was returned. The stop suggested that the tour might last months rather than weeks, but he did not complain.

As evening fell, the sun shone into the travelers’ eyes before sinking behind sunflower fields. After Çetin switched on the headlights, Nesibe urged the group not to drive in the darkness. On the two-lane road, oncoming trucks failed to dim their lights. Just past Babaeski, Kemal noticed the blinking purple neon sign of the Grand Semiramis Hotel and asked Çetin to slow down. They turned in near a Türk Petrol station; a dog barked as they approached. For Kemal, the hotel’s appearance made the night feel like a threshold: after nine years of longing, he believed that his dreams might come true there.

A night poised between hope and fulfillment

The Grand Semiramis was a clean, modest, three-story hotel, its grandeur suggested chiefly by its name. The retired army officer at reception gave the group three rooms: one for Füsun and Nesibe, one for Çetin, and one for Kemal. Alone in his room, Kemal realized that sleeping separately from Füsun for the journey might prove harder than the years he had already waited. The arrangement thus preserved the distance even as the trip seemed to promise its end.

When Füsun entered the small dining room later, her appearance made the evening feel transformed. She wore Le Soleil Noir, a perfume Kemal had given her years earlier, and a red dress whose color matched her lipstick; her makeup and dark hair gave her an elegance he associated with a grand European hotel. Around them sat tired families, including workers returning from Germany, while curious children and lustful fathers turned to look. The scene sets Kemal’s private expectation against the ordinary, watchful public world around the couple. August 27 ends not with their arrival in Europe, but at the charged pause before the night and the journey continue.