Divorce Turkish Style by Esmahan Aykol Page B

didn’t write down Aylin Hanım’s phone number when you gave it to Batuhan yesterday. Would you give it to me?”
    â€œI wonder when Aylin Hanım will be back from her trip,” pondered Sevim. “She has bad migraines and goes to see a doctor about them every month.”
    â€œWhat a coincidence,” I said. “I have a migraine starting now.”
    Which was true.
    It was not every day that I ventured outside the city, so I was excited when we set out the next morning. Most of the route consisted of a lovely broad motorway, lined on both sides with fields of sunflowers. We reached Lüleburgaz after two hours and parked opposite the town hall. I immediately started looking for a place to eat. It’s strange, but I only have to travel out of the city for half an hour before visions of food start floating before my eyes, yet a journey within Istanbul can take two hours and I don’t have a single pang of hunger.
    Lüleburgaz was full of small cafés specializing in tripe soup, obviously a local delicacy. Tripe soup was a favourite of mine, but I refrained from even tasting it. Nor would I let Fofo have any, because I didn’t want us to be breathing out garlic fumes when talking to Sani’s grieving family. We took the advice of an old man drinking tea in a run-down café and ate braised lamb at what was probably the poshest restaurant in town, before setting off on the road to Kayacık.
    What first caught our attention was that everyone was able to give us directions. Anyone who has got lost trying to venture out of Istanbul’s suburbs would understand. It was easy enough getting someone to sit next to you as far as the main road, but almost impossible to find anyone with the wit to give plain instructions like “Straight ahead, turn right before the lights, then left after fifty metres”. However, thanks to Lüleburgaz locals, we found the road that led out of the city without difficultyand were soon on our way to Kayacık, enjoying the Turkish countryside.
    â€œWe’ve got it all wrong,” said Fofo. “We’re much too stuck in Istanbul.”
    â€œI’ve never even been to Ürgüp or Pamukkale,” I said.
    â€œAnd I haven’t seen Izmir yet.”
    â€œIf Pelin were to become a tour guide, she could take us to all Turkey’s—” I suddenly broke off and held my nose because of a terrible stench. “Can you smell that?”
    â€œImpossible not to,” said Fofo, also holding his nose.
    â€œWhat is it? Is that the notorious Ergene Basin?”
    I took a right turn. The narrow asphalt road was completely empty apart from some miserable-looking storks and crows floundering in the mud by a pitiful stream. We got out of the car. The stench was hard to describe. Imagine the smell after thousands of rotten eggs and animal corpses have been thrown into a cesspool and left in the sun for months on end. Well, this smell was even worse than that.
    The stench pursued us for the twenty minutes it took to reach the village. I slowed down as we passed some dilapidated tents just outside the village.
    â€œWhat’s this? A refugee camp?” asked Fofo.
    â€œI don’t know. Maybe they’ve come to work in the fields.”
    We sat down in the most central of the three cafés overlooking the village square. After a few minutes, the owner came up to us.
    â€œWelcome,” he said. “Are you looking for someone?”
    Clearly this wasn’t a village that attracted tourists.
    â€œYour village headman’s surname is Kaya, is that right?” I asked.
    â€œAre you looking for Rıfat Bey? I’ll get him for you.”
    â€œAnd we’ll have two teas,” I added.
    After a while, a skinny man wearing a cap approached us.I noticed that his cheeks were hollow and his face was etched with lines of sadness.
    â€œWelcome. You were asking for me.”
    â€œWe’ve come from