The Prisoner of Ankara

by Suat Dervis

Genres: General Fiction; Classics; Cultural Heritage

Synopsis

An idealistic young man attempts to find his place in a changed world after incarceration, in this Turkish classic from the pioneering writer and activist, now available for the first time in English.

Dreaming of a better life for her son, Vasfi’s mother encourages him to attend medical school, so he can become a great doctor. But Vasfi’s infatuation with the beguiling Zeynep, and his fiery temper, destroy this promising future in a night: Quarreling over Zeynep, he kills his cousin in a drunken brawl, and spends the next 12 years in prison.

After his release, he struggles to get by in a world that has moved on without him. He hardly recognizes Zeynep, now a bitter, tightfisted shop owner. Homeless and unable to find work in Ankara or Istanbul, he relies on the kindness of others: an old woman who offers him shelter, because he reminds her of her lost son; a friend from prison who secures him a job as a construction worker.

In this tragic yet vibrant portrait of a life derailed, Suat Derviş offers an insightful, deeply humane perspective on the margins of society.

Release date: December 17, 2024

Publisher: Other Press

Print pages: 192

Sample

Standing there before the great door, he felt his head begin to spin. But not from joy. For he was drained of all thought and emotion. His mind was blank, his soul numb. An impossible calm had settled over him. How strange it was, to be carried so far on this wave of serenity as to think and feel nothing. To feel as cold as a corpse. Were it not for his heart, he might even have thought himself dead. But his heart was pounding, still very much alive.
For twelve years now, he had been waiting for this moment. Not an hour had passed, not a minute, without his dreaming of it. For twelve long years, he had been waiting for those locked doors to swing open. And each time he had conjured up that moment, he had imagined the joy he’d feel. But now the day had come. One by one the doors had opened. Passing through that last door, he would regain his freedom. No longer a prisoner. A free man once again. Could this be true?
The young gendarme standing guard outside the great door gave him a friendly tap on the shoulder.
“Farewell,” he said. “And good luck.”
But long after the door had shut behind him, Vasfi was still standing there, in shock. He was no longer in prison! He glanced over at the gendarme, attempting a smile.
The gendarme smiled back. “What are you waiting for, my friend? Time to get going. If I were in your shoes, God forbid, I’d have beat it long ago.”
Vasfi reached into his pocket for his cigarettes. He offered one to the gendarme.
“Thanks, brother. But I can’t smoke when I’m on duty.”
“Take it. You can smoke it later.”
“Okay then. How long were you inside, my friend?”
“Twelve years, seven days, and three hours exactly.”
The gendarme laughed heartily. Laughed about those last three hours, which may have been the longest and most difficult of Vasfi’s entire sentence.
“What’s three hours,” asked the gendarme, “after twelve whole years?” He spat on the ground and went back to laughing. But how could he be expected to understand—this young fellow who’d seen nothing of life, who had no idea what it meant to be in prison? Vasfi stayed silent. The gendarme kept talking.
“You were inside for a long time, then.”
“Yes.”
“God grants us patience. Thanks to God’s mercy, you have it all behind you now. Once upon a time. Isn’t that the way? It’s vanished into thin air. Like a fairy tale. Like a dream! And now you’re starting life all over. May fortune shine on you, as you set off down the road.”
 
Vasfi shivered. Was that what he was, a dead man returned to life? To a new life—though we have only one life to live? His own had been cut in half. But now he would be picking up where he left off. Not to start a new life but, after twelve years of suffering, to continue the old one.
The gendarme waved goodbye, and then Vasfi picked up his bag to head toward the center of this alien city they called Ankara.
Yes, he had lived here for nine years, but with no chance to know the city. He’d spent his first three years in an Istanbul prison. He was moved to Ankara after he was sentenced.
He had no idea what road to take to reach the city center but, held back by a childish fear, he was reluctant to ask for directions. Lest the person he asked might divine, from the first word he uttered, who he was and what he’d just left. How different he felt from everyone else on the street. How could he resemble them in any way? He’d only been outside the prison walls once over the twelve years, and that was when he was taken seriously ill. How does anyone get through a twelve-year sentence? How can a man get through all that without losing his mind? Vasfi had suffered a great deal during his nine years in Ankara. His days here had seemed so much longer. As miserable as he’d been while awaiting trial in Istanbul, and then awaiting each new hearing, he’d held himself together. There’d been his defense to prepare, and after that the appeal. He’d kept himself strong. He’d clung to hope. And his mother, his dear mother—she was still alive then. His brave, kind little mother, who’d never shied away from making the greatest sacrifices for her luckless only son. While she was alive, Vasfi had always felt her standing at his side. Felt the proof of her love, compassionate beyond measure. Even behind that prison’s thick walls and unyielding doors, he’d known in his heart that she was there with him, ready to help—spoil him even, as if he were still a child. Every day she’d brought him food she’d cooked herself. Never forgetting his cigarettes. Bringing back, washed and perfectly ironed, the clothes she’d taken away.
After he was sentenced and transferred to Ankara Prison, his mother, not wishing him to feel too alone, had followed him. Before returning home, she’d again given him courage by vowing to do whatever she could to have him moved back to Istanbul.
She’d promised to be back soon, but a few weeks later she’d fallen ill. She’d died in a hospital not long afterward.
When Vasfi was small, his mother liked to tell him that he was destined to become a distinguished doctor. “You’ll be the most famous physician this country has ever known. And the most famous professor in a teaching hospital. You’ll be the one to look after me when I’m old and weak.”
This had been his dear mother’s dream for him. A sweet and lovely dream that had not come true on account of one terrible mistake. And he’d been so close. He’d been in medical school with just two years to go when calamity overtook him.
Were it possible to repair the harm he’d caused his mother, he’d have stopped at nothing. He’d have sacrificed anything, just to be at her side when she was dying. Everything changed after his mother died. He’d never had many visitors. But during the nine years since his mother’s death, he’d not had a single one. And how he’d suffered.
On visiting days, everyone else was so cheerful. His fellow prisoners would be busy shaving, combing their hair, sprucing themselves up. While Vasfi just shrank into a corner. For he’d be expecting no one. Every time the guards came in to summon someone, his heart would begin to pound. But all that was in the past now. Those days were over.
Vasfi’s gait was slow and troubled. He was free. Those locked doors and impenetrable walls were behind him now. So too were the handcuffs. The gendarmes and the guards. The wardens. The ferocious, carping head guard. All were in the past. As he was leaving, they’d each shaken his hand, offered him advice, encouraging him with a few conciliatory words. Even though these same men had always treated him like their worst enemy, knowing full well that he’d felt the same about them.
Everyone knew that Vasfi was embarking on a new life. The only one who didn’t was Vasfi himself. He was still struggling to understand what it meant to not be a prisoner. He wasn’t even happy about it. During the nine years he spent despairing inside those luckless walls, he’d thought that only death would free him. It was death he had wished for.

He was walking down straight, bright streets lined by handsome new buildings. On each new street, the same melody poured out through every open window. It was Classical European Music Hour on Ankara Radio. “The head guard must be listening to the same broadcast in his office,” Vasfi thought.
His name was Cemal but the other prisoners called him Count. He loved classical European music. It was through him that Vasfi had come to know and love it, too. He was a middle-aged man. A very cultured one, too, judging by his dignified deportment and way of speaking.
He kept his nails clean, was always freshly shaven. Even in the blue-gray uniforms they made the prisoners wear, he looked elegant and well-dressed. To look at him, no one would know he’d murdered a four-year-old girl for no apparent reason. Possibly just for the thrill of the kill. He was still awaiting his sentence. “He’ll probably hang,” Vasfi thought. “But I’ve served my sentence,” he said out loud. “I’m free. I’m no longer in prison.”
True enough. He was no longer in prison. But his thoughts kept returning to it. Impossible to put those twelve wretched years behind him.
The names and faces of his friends inside had changed all the time. But whatever they looked like, whatever their names, they had been his equals.
They’d all belonged to the same world . . . and Vasfi had grown accustomed to them.
“I’m a murderer, too . . .” This thought sent a shiver through him. As if to jar him awake. “I’m a murderer, too.”
In prison, in the company of so many other murderers, his own crime had not seemed unusually frightening. But now, in this world to which he had just returned, to look at the people around him and think of himself as a murderer was a torment he could barely endure.
Seeing a wide avenue ahead, he thought, “First things first. Let’s find a hotel.” One of his fellow inmates, Veznedar Nazmi Bey, had lived in Ankara for a long time. He’d given Vasfi the address of a small hotel near Anafartalar Avenue. Vasfi conjured up his face. A fat, short, red-cheeked accountant, inside for embezzlement. Always ready to tell his story.
“He’ll be with Big Şefkati, now,” Vasfi thought. “And Muslihittin Hodja, and Artin the Artist.” His own place in that circle left empty. They were probably sad and on edge tonight, these friends who, for an hour now, had ceased to be his fellow inmates.
It was like that every time someone was released. In the days leading up to it, the mood in the cells would lighten. And when there was only one day left, there was joy. All the inmates would be cheered by the thought of their friend’s imminent release. It felt almost like a festival. And when the day arrived, they’d walk the lucky man to the door, showering him with blessings, wishing him peace and the best of luck. And then, as he walked on, they’d call after him: “May God protect you from further misfortune!”
But as soon as their friend had left and all the doors closed again, their faces would fall. They’d do their best to laugh and joke, but it was an act. They’d each be counting the years, months, and hours still to be served.
On nights like this, they’d hide behind their pride, each thinking himself alone in the world. Each thinking how empty the dormitories and corridors.
Vasfi was only too familiar with this sad ritual. How many times had he accompanied a fellow prisoner to that last door, wishing him all the best, but once the man had been set free and that same door had closed, cruelly preventing his own release, he’d sink into despondency. So yes, the friends he’d left behind were sad tonight.
They’d probably lost their courage. Vasfi felt his heart wrenching. It was almost as if he felt guilty about leaving his friends behind.
Every evening at five o’clock, Veznedar Nazmi would brew up a coffee. Sometimes he would share it with his inmates. Tonight they’d be gathering as they always did, and they’d be talking about Vasfi. And trying to look cheerful, of course. This would be easier for Nazmi than it would for the others. He had only six months left. Muslihittin Hodja still had seven years to serve. As for Artin—the poor man was sixty years old. He wouldn’t be getting out until he was eighty. He’d sacrificed his freedom for the woman he called his Lovely. Remembering that now, Vasfi couldn’t help but smile. He knew her from Artin’s paintings, and from the photograph that Artin carried with him and was always showing people. He’d sketch her likeness on bits of paper, and on canvas if he could find it, and on the walls and the doors—whatever surface he could find. His beloved was not at all lovely. But Artin had worshipped her, and in a mad and savage burst of jealousy he had killed her.
 
Now Vasfi was at a crossroads. He stopped to look around him. “Soon these people will be returning to their homes,” he thought, “where others will be waiting for them. They know where they’re going.” That was why they were in such a hurry. Vasfi had nowhere to go, and no one waiting for him. All he had in this alien city where he knew not a soul was the piece of paper in his hand, with the address of a hotel.
Through mournful eyes he watched the crowds around him. “Shall I ever grow accustomed to living among these people?” he asked himself.
He kept walking, until he could walk no more. That hotel where he’d be spending his first night of freedom—he needed to find it at once. “Or shall I go straight to the station?” he wondered. “Would it be better to just jump on a train and head back to Istanbul?” He dismissed the idea at once. “It makes no sense to leave for Istanbul before I’ve had a chance to see this city that’s been my home for nine years now, without my having seen any part of it. And it’s not as if I have anyone waiting for me in Istanbul.”
Suddenly he realized why he felt so low on the day of his long-waited release.
He needed to find his way to the hotel. Looking around him, he caught sight of a young woman at a bus stop, and his heart lifted as his cheeks began to burn.
“She looks so much like Zeynep!” he thought. She was tall and slim, black-eyed and olive-skinned.