I Believe Strongly In An

Love Is A Sacred Silence.

The Challenge Is To Lend Conviction Even To The Voices Which Advocate Views I Find Personally Abhorrent, Whether They Are Political Islamists Or Officers Justifying A Coup.

Time Had Not Faded My Memories (as I Had Prayed To God It Might), Nor Had It Healed My Wounds As It Is Said Always To Do. I Began Each Day With The Hope That The Next Day Would Be Better, My Recollections A Little Less Pointed, But I Would Awake To The Same Pain, As If A Black Lamp Were Burning Eternally Inside Me, Radiating Darkness.

It Was In Cihangir That I First Learned Istanbul Was Not An Anonymous Multitude Of Walled-in Lives - A Jungle Of Apartments Where No One Knew Who Was Dead Or Who Was Celebrating What - But An Archipelago Of Neighbourhoods In Which Everyone Knew Each Other.

Ka Found It Very Soothing: For The First Time In Years, He Felt Part Of A Family. In Spite Of The Trials And Responsibilities Of What Was Called 'family', He Saw Now The Joys Of Its Unyielding Togetherness, And Was Sorry Not To Have Known More Of It In His Life.