boza seller ringing his bell, crying, “Genuine vefaa!” as he passed our door, and I would have the urge to drink some. Sometimes Aunt Nesibe would say, “Aren’t you a bundle of joy today!” Sometimes I’d try very hard not to reach over and touch Füsun. Sometimes, especially on summer evenings, a breeze would stir, slamming the doors. Sometimes I thought about Zaim, and Sibel, and all my old friends. Sometimes flies would land on our food on the table, annoying Aunt Nesibe. Sometimes Aunt Nesibe would take mineral water out of the refrigerator for Tarık Bey and ask me, “Would you like some, too?” Sometimes, before it had even turned eleven, the watchman would pass by blowing his whistle. Sometimes I was overcome by an unbearable longing to say, “I love you!” when all I could do was offer Füsun a light. Sometimes I would notice that the lilacs I had brought on my last visit were still sitting in a vase. Sometimes amid a silence someone in one of the neighboring houses would open a window and toss out rubbish. Sometimes Aunt Nesibe would say, “Now who is going to eat this last meatball?” Sometimes while watching the generals on television I would remember my army days. Sometimes I would be utterly convinced that I was not the only inconsequential one; it was all of us. Sometimes Aunt Nesibe would say, “Who can guess what we have for dessert today?” Sometimes Tarık Bey would have a coughing fit and Füsun would get up to fetch him a glass of water. Sometimes Füsun would wear a pin I’d bought her years earlier. Sometimes I’d begin to think what I was watching on television had a subtext. Sometimes Füsun would ask me a question about an actor, literary luminary, or professor we saw on television. Sometimes I helped take the dirty plates into the kitchen. Sometimes there was a silence at the table, because all our mouths were full of food. Sometimes one of us would yawn, somehow inducing another of us to do the same, until having all caught the contagion we would laugh. Sometimes Füsun would become so engrossed in the film on television that I’d long to be that film’s hero. Sometimes the smell of grilled meat would linger in the house all evening. Sometimes I thought I was abundantly happy, just to be sitting next to Füsun. Sometimes I would say, “It’s about time we went out to eat on the Bosphorus one evening,” to encourage the making of plans. Sometimes I was absolutely positive that life itself wasn’t somewhere else, but right there, at that table. Sometimes we’d argue about something-the lost royal cemeteries of Argentina, the gravity on Mars, how long a person could hold his breath underwater, why it was dangerous to ride motorcycles in Istanbul, the shape of chimney rocks in Capadocia-prompted by nothing more than something we’d seen on television. Sometimes a harsh wind would blow, and the windows would moan, and the stovepipes would clank ominously. Sometimes when Tarık Bey recalled how, five hundred years earlier, Mehmet the Conqueror’s galleys had passed Boğazkesen Avenue, only fifty meters from where we were sitting, on their way to the Golden Horn, he would say, “And the man was only nineteen years old!” Sometimes Füsun would rise from the table after supper and go over to Lemon’s cage, where after a moment I would join her. Sometimes I would say to myself, “It’s good that I came here tonight!” Sometimes Tarık Bey would send Füsun upstairs to fetch the newspaper, the lottery ticket, or his spectacles, or whatever else he had forgotten there, and Aunt Nesibe would call up the stairs, saying, “Don’t forget to put out the lights!” Sometimes Aunt Nesibe said we could go to Paris to attend a distant relation’s wedding. Sometimes Tarık Bey would say, “Quiet!” in a forceful voice, and, gesturing with his eyes, direct our attention to a noise coming through the ceiling, and we would be unable to tell whether the creaks we had heard were from a mouse or a burglar. Sometimes Aunt Nesibe would ask her husband, “Is it loud enough for you, darling?” because as time went on, Tarık Bey was slowly losing his hearing. Sometimes the silence that consumed us would have a mysterious air. Sometimes it would snow, and it would stick on the window frames and on the sidewalk. Sometimes there were fireworks, and we would all rise from the table to see whatever we could of the colors streaming across the sky, and later, the smell of gunpowder wafted through the open window. Sometimes Aunt Nesibe would ask, “Shall I fill your glass, Kemal Bey?” Sometimes I would say, “Shall we have a look at your painting, Füsun?” and we would go into the back room, and as Füsun and I looked at her painting, I realized this was the time when I was always happy.