The first hours of the night… Muiniddin knocked on the door of the house at 00:50. His wife Nuran opened the door with worried eyes. But tired from work and excited to see the author of the Dirty Novel, he went inside without noticing Nuran’s worried state. The children were asleep. The night table prepared by Nuran was waiting for him on the table. Freshly brewed tea, cheese, olives, eggs… Even though he was not happy with his growing belly because of what he had eaten at night, he could not eat during his shift on the bus and he was very hungry. Nuran poured the tea;
-Muiniddin, you received a letter today, she said in a shaky voice.
-No, what letter, who sends letters in this day and age? In the afternoon, excited to meet the writer, he asked Nuran;
-You know what happened today? I saw our writer on the bus. We chatted, he was going to Ankara to create the character of the psychopath in the novel. The man works hard, he spends a lot of money to produce a good novel. I hope it will be good, it will sell a lot and we will be famous. How many people will be impressed by me? How many parents will name their children after me? If you look at our past, Nuran, how many people named their children after novel heroes. For example, Ali Ekrem Bolayır, the son of Namik Kemal, named his child after a novel written by his father: Cezmi. Namık, Enver, İsmet, Rahşan, Mahir, Devrim, Adnan… Most of these names are the names of some novel heroes and were widely used in certain periods.
-Who needs your name, Muiniddin! Who would name their child after you! For one thing, your writer gives his heroes strange names. Today there is not even a porter named after you…
-You are right, that aspect of our writer is interesting. I would have named myself Orhan, Kenan, Mesut, Rıza. I don’t like my name, but there’s nothing to do. The man named me.
-Why? Look, Rüveyda calls Abdulgaffar Hüseyin, not his real name. The man doesn’t like his name, so he introduces himself as Hussein to everyone.
-How do you know that?
-The man publishes this novel chapter by chapter on a website called Fikrikadim. I read it there. Since I am not the protagonist of the novel, I can read the novel like millions of others! You are really very ignorant Muiniddin!
-Our writer is very kind-hearted. He publishes the novel chapter by chapter even before he finishes it. He’s not afraid they’ll steal my project. He’s so naive and well-intentioned.
-Yes, of course! I said you got a letter today. You didn’t pay any attention. You didn’t even think of reading it. Read the letter, please read it!
Muiniddin noticed his wife’s trembling voice and worried looks;
-Well, bring it to me and I will read it then. What is the meaning of this fear and hesitation Nuran?
-Read it, you will see the reason!
Nuran got up from the table and brought the letter on the TV stand. She handed me the yellow envelope with only the address written on it.
“Dear Muiniddin, first of all, I wish you and your family happiness. I had to leave the world of literature before I could complete that happiness. I hope you will enjoy it to the fullest. Literature is the infinite universe that created us. We are all stars in this universe. Like the stars clinging to the sky, we cling to the written pages. As long as we do not fade, as long as we are not withered. Even though there have been ideological, economic and theological pressures to silence and wither us in some periods, in the end we have always existed. What they really wanted to do by sending Namik Kemal into exile was to silence Islam Bey, the hero of Vatan Yahut Silistre, but they could not silence him. Those who sent him into exile have been forgotten. He is still on the pages of literature. I always dreamed that I would be like that, but it didn’t happen. I am left as a fictional character who was brutally murdered in a novel by a writer. Now all my effort is to warn the other characters of the novel. Please read what I’m writing to you carefully!
You don’t know who I am. First of all, let me introduce myself. I was the main protagonist of this novel: Sümeyye. If you can go to the first part of the novel, you will find me there and you will read how the author slaughtered me in an instant. You don’t know how he created me as a character in the first drafts of the novel because he didn’t publish them. There was me and Nusret. I don’t know what he did with Nusret. I don’t know if he killed him or if he is still alive. Nusret is a mystery. But I believe I will find him, dead or alive. I spoke to a friend of mine from the police intelligence and he said, “If he is alive, we will find him.”
Dear Muiniddin, your participation in the novel as a physicist is not a coincidence. In fact, you will be the first victim of the brutal murder he has in mind to kill a great scientist. Why? Because by killing you and then the scientist, the author is planning to portray in his fiction our failure to manage our human resources through our science-politics relationship. I don’t know if you know the name of the psychopath he created in your novel who is going to kill you. I can’t tell you his name because it would spoil the novel for the reader. Also, if the author finds out that I have told you his name, he will kill him too and ruin the flow of the novel. As for the scientist to be killed, I don’t know his name, I only know that you are planning to kill a great scientist. It will be one of the most dramatic scenes in the novel.
As for your murder, the psychopath will stalk you for days, weeks, and finally kill you by stabbing you in the windpipe through your lung with twenty knitting needles from your grandmother. Oh my God, what brutality! I think you should kill this writer before he kills you. You have the knowledge and the equipment to do it, Muiniddin!
P.S. I am writing this letter to you quickly from the post office. I didn’t put my name on it because if the writer knew who it was from, he could destroy it. Take care of yourself. Last note: The psychopath is a chestnut seller… Sumeyye.”
-I know the psychopath is a chestnut seller. -This woman is giving me information as if it’s a lesson. You bastard! I was happy that he was looking at me with compassionate eyes on the bus today. It turned out it was because he was going to kill me.
-I didn’t believe much in what this woman wrote, Nuran said, even though I was scared, the writer doesn’t seem like that kind of person to me.
Where is this woman hiding and how did she become a fictional character in my novel? Where are my notes and old manuscripts…
