She woke up in a strange bed. She didn’t know the room either. There were four walls and some old things: a closet, a broken mirror, and a mattress. The rug on the floor was dirty. But Nuran didn’t know about dirt or rust. Girls learn such things from their mothers, just like decency and indecency, silence and obedience, and even remembering and forgetting. She hiccupped, which she did learn from her mother: to hiccup anywhere, whether appropriate or not. How lucky are the girls whose mothers are capable of loving and nourishing them, as well as teaching them the manners and behaviors expected by society. Sadly, Nuran’s mother was ill equipped to adequately support her or help her navigate life.
She looked at the dried, smelly yellow marks on the bedcover. These were the marks of nightmares. The nightmares she had every night, before and during sleep. There was an old dirty rug and a stained bedsheet. That’s all she was … She sat on the bed, sobbing. She wanted to smash everything by the mirror: a razor, a well-used hairbrush, and a pair of scissors.
