SHORT STORY 𝒃𝒚 Selma Aydın

Preparations were being made in our school, as in all schools, to celebrate April 23 National Sovereignty and Children’s Day. In addition to the students who volunteered for the holiday activities, our teachers also selected a few students they deemed suitable and assigned them some special tasks according to the flow of the holiday program.

Flags and streamer holding students and students’ marches participants and mass demonstrations were trained separately, while active students in the marching band worked harder. After the preparations of weeks, the end was finally approaching and the crucial details were being discussed.

April 23 National Sovereignty and Children’s Day was a holiday — a gift from Atatürk not only to Turkish children but also to all the children of the world. It was a national holiday and very important for the Turkish nation. Thus great care was taken before the general rehearsal, since it was going to be a big show with the participation of all the schools in the city.

Finally, days later, the preparations completed with a general rehearsal at the city stadium, and we returned home, anxiously looking forward to the next day. Although we were tired but were happy, burst with excitement. Now it was time to prepare our clothes to wear upon next day. Our holiday costumes were a black turtleneck sweater, pleated white skirt, and white shoes, as decided and announced jointly by the school administration and the Directorate of National Education. There would also be white pantyhose. Among whole list, my socks and black turtleneck sweater were ready. My mother, who was a very good seamstress, was sewing my skirt. Her belt was on, only the zipper and hooks were to be sewn, and the skirts were to be pressed. It was only half an hour’s work. That half an hour would unfortunately be too long and would be accompanied by fear.

My mother’s pains —we couldn’t know the cause of her pains since the evening — increased in intensity as the hours passed, and we were floundering around the room with our despair. In the following minutes, we ended up in the hospital with the help of our neighbours. Our aunt’s daughter accompanied my mother.

Since we were very young, we convinced out aunt’s daughter, who lived in the near neighbourhood, to accompany my mother. This was not very difficult, because our helplessness was obvious. My father, who was on the night shift, was informed and our mother was immediately taken for the appendix surgery. Later that night, when my father brought us news from the hospital, we learned that our mother was out of surgery and that her condition was better.

My father worked at TTK (Turkish Hard Coal Enterprise). He stayed a night shift that day at his routine job, and we five siblings, fended for ourselves at home. Our neighbours told us that it would be a short-term separation, keeping an eye on us.

 Finally, amidst all this rush, the holiday morning arrived. I accompanied my sister, who had forgotten my holiday clothes in the rush of my mother’s surgery due to her responsibility of taking care of the house. When I remembered, I had already started melt into tears. You know, telling a child of that age that he cannot attend the festival and expecting that child to endure was not possible.

 Even though my sister was only a year older than me, she took over my mother’s duty and tried to press the ends of my skirt with needles in her hand. We didn’t care if the basting threads coming out were visible, as long as my skirt caught up and I could attend the festival, which was all what I desired. My sister’s efforts were exactly in this direction.

 I wore a black turtleneck sweater and pantyhose, my hair was gathered on both sides with the so-called “goat ears hair style”, and it was finalized by tying a white ribbon. I was just waiting for my skirt to be finished. On the other hand, I kept an eye on the clock and kept putting pressure on my sister in a panic as though she wouldn’t be able to make it and I won’t attend the festival.

My older sister said, “Come on, put it on. I don’t know how to sew a zipper.” My world was falling apart. Mothers could overcome everything. I was extremely angry at my older sister’s ignorance and incompetence, and I didn’t know that I had such high expectations, even though she was a sister, not a mother. I was panicking more and more with each passing minute, I definitely wouldn’t be able to go to the festival.

The waist of my skirt was not tied together and was left exposed. My sister soon found the most practical way possible. I was embarrassed because I thought she was incompetent. My sister had pinned the waist of my skirt together with a huge pin. However, as long as I could not stand still, the tip of the needle which had already bent because of repeated insertions, would fall out of place to prick into my flesh.

Well, we had to manage the day like this because time was running out. My sister hurriedly basted the zipper area using the same method and sewed the skirt when I put it on. I covered my turtleneck sweater over my skirt so that it may not be visible. I guess it was done; now I could save the day.

Now it was time to hurry to school and then to the holiday destination, but unfortunately, my shoes were still black and they wanted white shoes. My sister somehow found a solution.

We supposedly worked together to paint the black shoes white with small pieces of chalk we brought home from school. We soaked with blood until we did this. Finally, I set off quickly and ran to my school — Rüzgarlı Meşe Primary School — which wasn’t far away from our home. And finally, I was a holiday child too among the chirping children in the school garden.

However, with one difference; Turns out sweaters were supposed to be tucked into skirts. Of course, this was not possible with the huge fork needle on my waist and the clumsily sewn zipper. Moreover, after hearing a lot of scolding from my teacher, I took my refuge in the section, where the walking students located, with my red eyes. We headed towards the city stadium, keeping up with the tempo with the rapping sounds we made with our feet. My sister followed us with other students’ parents. The other siblings were waiting for our mentally disabled sister at our house — of course, under the supervision of our neighbours.

My flag-carrying rehearsals, which I had been doing for days with my mother’s red gauze tied to the top of the rolling pin, would no longer be of any use. It fell victim by my skirt during my flag-holding duty. I gazed angrily all the time at my friend, who had taken my place.

Then the holiday ceremony — the enthusiasm of which I could not feel at all — started, and it ended in a tasteless, bland way. Of course, this dispiritedness was due to the resentment of my soul. I was about to carry the enthusiasm and the spirit of that holiday but that upset situation spoiled my all spiritual feelings and my apathy kept my away from its joys.

The ceremony was over and we dispersed. We ran to visit my mother to the SSK hospital — now called Atatürk State Hospital. The hospital was right above the city stadium anyway. While I was running hurriedly to our mother, I again fell victim by my childishness or my clumsiness. Almost everything didn’t happened fit during those two days.

As I was walking in a hurry, I fell down. The knees of my new pantyhose shattered, which my mother had bargained for at the market. That wasn’t all; the blood from my bleeding kneecap flowed down to my socks. At the same moment, the forked needle dislocated on my waist again pierced into my flesh. It hurt so much but I didn’t care because I was only a few minutes’ distance away from my mother to see her. When we were climbing the hospital stairs my sister pulled me with my hand, advising me not to cry because our mother would be upset.

 She was also sad. As soon as we saw our mother’s saddened face, we, too, became sadder. With her pale face, we thought how life had tired her. The fatigue of looking after my five siblings and my father was so obvious onto my mother that I extremely embarrassed before my mother because of my holiday victimization that upset me so much in the impasse of my own spiritual world.

The surgery left our mother quite exhausted. Not knowing what to say, we approached her, hugged her and wished her well. Our aunt’s daughter was her companion and we looked at her with grateful eyes, as if we were waiting for her tears to heal us. I felt choking of my throat.

Does a person ever cry out of embarrassment? It happens. Does a person ever feel embarrassed and guilty about his clumsiness? In order to understand the world of children, it was necessary to remember that they are children. This had to be necessarily taken into consideration — especially in emotional moments. But for some reasons, adults always forgot this.

After a while, my mother and I came face to face, I was embarrassed — very embarrassed — and she understood that too all she had to do was only to look into my eyes to read my feelings. She looked at my wet eyes with her pale face and said, “You ripped your pantyhose, even though I had just bought them.”

It was my last holiday as a child.

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(Translated from Turkish by Yağmur Pesen & İlayda Zeynep Kalender)

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