{"id":1972,"date":"2020-05-26T10:37:37","date_gmt":"2020-05-26T09:37:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prod-2018.frictions.co\/?p=1972"},"modified":"2021-06-18T12:36:04","modified_gmt":"2021-06-18T10:36:04","slug":"captures-decrans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prod-2018.frictions.co\/english\/stay-away-if-you-love-me\/screenshots\/","title":{"rendered":"Screenshots"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Life in Turkey has always had its dramas and tragedies. I\u2019ve lived here during military coups, curfews, terrorist attacks, devastating earthquakes and the arrival of millions of refugees. But then I was a worried witness. Now, I\u2019m a direct target.<\/p>

 I receive a reassuring text message from the Ministry of the Interior addressed to a Valued Senior Citizen<\/I>. As I\u2019m a precious part of the community<\/I>, I should stay home and look forward to a brighter, more hopeful tomorrow<\/I>. This means: not leaving my house for any reason \u2013 no exercise, no shopping, nothing.  <\/p>

 Now what ?  <\/p>

Here in Izmir I have a group of Turkish, British and American friends. Much of our professional lives were spent together teaching English literature to attentive students. A powerful, creative team, we loved nothing better than a challenge or a problem to solve.<\/p>

We\u2019re still on task.<\/p>

Saturday afternoon, and we gather for a Zoom \u2018department meeting\u2019.
&#9'Did you know,\u2019 I say, \u2018studies have shown some people would rather give themselves electric shocks than be left alone with their thoughts?\u2019
Smiles flicker across the patchwork squares of on-screen faces.
&#9\u2018But we\u2019ll be fine,\u2019 I say.
&#9\u2018We\u2019ve got rich internal lives,\u2019 Marie adds.
&#9\u2018We\u2019re not dead yet!\u2019 says Elvan.<\/p>

Alone in her high-rise apartment, Elvan is lifting the layers of her life. She\u2019s back in the political turmoil of the 1970s, reading letters: those from her husband written during his two years in prison; her own, written to support him when she could barely support herself. She lived with their two children in what she calls Dead End Street. She was often cold and hungry. Sometimes, all she could afford to buy from the corner shop was a loaf of bread and a lettuce.
&#9\u2018Although it was different, it was still a lockdown for both of us. But we survived!\u2019<\/p>

Elvan raises a glass of water, with ice and lemon, towards the screen and we join her - coffee mugs, bone-china cups, long-stemmed wine glasses - in a toast to survival.
\u2018And let me tell you,\u2019 Elvan continues, \u2018this book isn\u2019t about misery although there's plenty of hardship. My writing\u2019s about strength I didn\u2019t know I had. And hope too, hope I knew I had to encourage.\u2019 
She takes another sip from her glass.
&#9\u2018One thing though, don\u2019t expect me to include the romantic bits. I\u2019ll keep those to myself. Introspection has its boundaries!\u2019
After a pause she adds: 
<\/span>\u2018Though I might read some to you all later:
\u2018\u015eerefe!\u2019<\/I> We applaud in time-lagged chorus. \u2018Cheers!\u2019<\/p>

I imagine Elvan, a doctor\u2019s daughter who went to the best schools and universities in Turkey, will depict how her life was turned upside down during turbulent times. Her stories will take us to that damp room in Dead End Street where, sitting cross-legged on the carpet by the wood-burning stove, a cast of squabbling relatives and supportive neighbours will share warm-hearted and humorous anecdotes.<\/p>

*<\/strong><\/p>

In Marie\u2019s screenshot we see she\u2019s knitting.
\u2018Getting ready for Christmas,\u2019 she grins. \u2018What colour hat do you want?\u2019
\u2018Now I know the world\u2019s gone mad. You? Knitting?\u2019 I reply. \u2018Don\u2019t you have enough to occupy your mind? What about your content writing for that website, the Facebook updates and Instagram posts?\u2019
\u2018I need time to clear my mind.\u2019
\u2018Why so mysterious, Miss Marple?\u2019<\/p>

Agatha Christie\u2019s grey-haired armchair detective, once said, 
\u2018Sitting here with one\u2019s knitting, one just sees the facts.\u2019
Marie, tall and elegant, is staying at home to protect her vulnerable husband. She\u2019s not solving a village murder but reflecting on the British-French-Dutch-Italian community in Izmir she married into.
<\/span>\u2018I\u2019ve heard the stories, read the letters, seen the photographs and studied the archives.\u2019 she says. \u2018I\u2019m wondering which thread will unravel into a gripping tale. Meanwhile, who wants this red hat?\u2019<\/p>

 I imagine a thick novel set in the merchant\u2019s warehouses of Izmir, in the gardens of their country villas and by the harbour where the tall ships sail in. It will be the story of at least three generations of families living through wars and kidnappings, feuds and love affairs. I know writers don\u2019t like to be told \u2018Here\u2019s a good idea for your next book,\u2019 but I think Marie will have to work in at least one murder.<\/p>

*<\/strong><\/p>

Kate, who also lives on her own in her sixth-floor apartment, has structured her lockdown life - shopping, exercise, leisure, online socializing.
\u2018I needed a purpose though. This is all so mindless! 
Suddenly she disappears from view, her screen picture an empty black square.
\u2018She\u2019ll reconnect in a minute, I expect,\u2019 Marie says. \u2018What about you, Fiona, how\u2019re things?\u2019
\u2018Well I\u2019m impressed listening to you and Elvan. A total lockdown\u2019s not great inspiration for my travel blog.\u2019
\u2018You must have something new to add,\u2019 I say. \u2018You\u2019re probably the only person who\u2019s been quarantined in three countries, one after the other. Then, when you'd completed your days, found out you\u2019re an elderly person who can\u2019t leave home!\u2019
We all appreciate the irony.
Fiona has just finished fourteen days of enforced seclusion at her home in Izmir, after fourteen days of self-isolation at her daughter\u2019s house in Vienna, after several weeks of lockdown in Florence, where she was teaching.
<\/span>\u2018One lockdown is much the same as another. The only difference? In Italy I looked out at a vineyard, in Vienna I could glimpse the river and here in Izmir there\u2019s the sea.\u2019
\u2018There\u2019s your blog! Views from my quarantine windows!\u2019<\/p>

*<\/strong><\/p>

Kate\u2019s name pops back up on our screens, then her face and finally her microphone connects.
\u2018So there I was this week,\u2019 she continues, \u2018doing my exercise, thirty steps along the corridor, turn, thirty more steps, turn, when an idea hit me. I found my purpose!\u2019
\u2018Sounds promising.\u2019
\u2018I\u2019m going to take Mehmet\u2019s memories and match them with the events in the war. The stories of his childhood and how he ended up in Turkey are definitely worth saving for the grandchildren.\u2019<\/p>

Kate is referring to her late husband, who fled the Crimea with his family during the Second World War.
\u2018I want them to understand how events they learn about as history reach out, through their grandfather, to their lives today.\u2019<\/p>

 I imagine a dramatic story of survival: days drifting in a barge on the Black Sea, the dangerous train journeys, a bomb blast that shattered his leg, his five years in camps in Germany woven together with the advance and retreat of the German and Soviet armies. A story of adventure and opportunities.
\u2018Mehmet never thought his life was extraordinary,\u2019 says Kate. \u2018It was just the way it was.\u2019
\u2018I understand that\u2019, says Elvan. \u2018One day, if our grandchildren ask how we managed our days of isolation, we\u2019ll shrug and say, \u2018It was just the way it was.\u2019\u2019
\u2018But there\u2019ll be our writing. Proof of our vitality!\u2019<\/p>

*<\/strong><\/p>

We take a while waving goodbyes. The faces of my friends disappear, and I stare at the empty screen. I click on my folder of photographs of my six-month old grandson. There he is, content and happy, smiling at me with love and trust that everything in his world is fine. How is he going to know me, except as a face on a video link?  <\/p>

I open another folder, Coronavirus 2020,<\/i> and scroll down to continue my writing: Week 7<\/i>.<\/p>

 Now where was I?<\/em><\/p>

 Oh yes, in lockdown.<\/p><\/div><\/div>

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Don't miss the next episodes... !<\/p>

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