My leaves reflected the moonlight. I looked up at the moon, and it looked back at me brightly. But even its lights seemed somehow unfamiliar to me.

I slowly turned my flower head to the right to watch my brothers and sisters. They all looked pretty exhausted from the long journey, and in their face I saw the same concerns as mine. They, too, felt like strangers here.

Feeling a little bit depressed, I sighed and just wanted to sleep, but in this precise moment a move in the dark bushes that separated the garden from the fence attracted my attention. I caught sight of a small hyacinth. She looked at me curiously, as I smiled at her with mild exertion.

My smile was returned immediately, and visibly excited she gave a sign to those behind her. All of a sudden, there appeared a bevy of hyacinths, closely followed by – I could not recognize them right away – small carnations and roses.

Chatting and giggling, they hopped over to me and I realized that they were thrilled. A small carnation stumbled while running and fell to the ground. The hyacinth, which I saw first, ran back to her and helped her up.

The flower children surrounded me, eyeing me curiously. I smiled back at them kindly, a little nervous. Unexpectedly, they all erupted into laughter. I hadn’t seen such vivid flower children for a long time.

The hyacinth took the little carnation that had stumbled by the hand and started to speak:

“You and your siblings did arrive just now, didn’t you?”

I nodded, hoping that she was old enough to guess that I simply wanted to have my peace and quiet. But unfortunately, she apparently wasn’t… None of these little children were.

A murmur went through the swarm of children.

“Wow! Then you are a tulip, aren’t you? We have heard of you tulips. You guys are the first tulips coming from there,” said the hyacinth, pointing east. Her big eyes were shining with enthusiasm.

Yes, the East. From there, I came here; from a land where the sun rose and sometimes only reluctantly went down again.

My petals cramped. It had been very painful to leave that wonderful place, my home and my people.

As if reading my gloomy thoughts, the hyacinth said:

“It’s really beautiful here in the West! God showers us with water and it is pleasantly cool, sometimes even colder than we would like. Besides, we are well treated. The people are really fond of us.”

These words reminded me of the magnificent brightly lit tulip festivals, which used to be celebrated in the Ottoman Empire, of the nights made into days, and of the wonderful names we have been given, like face of the beloved or lucky star. At once I felt warm all over my carpels.

But once again, grief seized my flower head, and my sepals sank slightly due to their oppressive severity. “How long are you here, now?” I asked the kids, only to divert my attention from these thoughts.

The hyacinth shrugged her leaves:

“I don’t know exactly, but I think it was my great-grandparents, who were brought here.” The other flower children nodded doubtfully. They didn’t know anymore.

“Do you actually know anything of the country from which you, and…” – I briefly swallowed – ” … I originated?” They shook their heads. They were so young, so inexperienced. I smiled and sighed acquiescently, because I had to suppress my fatigue.

“Would you love to learn something about your country from me?” I asked.

The hyacinth politely set me straight:

“Here is our homeland. Here we were born, and here we are living in peace and joy with each other. I know my homeland. But I would pretty much like to hear something about the country where you and our great-grandparents come from.”

Smiling back at her, I was slightly confused about this answer. She was very smart, for sure, and would be a wise flower.

“Well, then sit down. I want to tell you about my homeland that is also the land of your ancestors.” They bounced close, and formed a semicircle around me with their eyes curiously focused on me.

“I am a tulip and I used to live and prosper in the Ottoman Empire, where I was surrounded with every imaginable flower. The Turks love us so much so that we have become an important part of their art and literature.”

Again a murmur was heard, and I had to smile about the naive way of these children. My fatigue and my gloomy mood slowly vanished. It was nice to relive those memories again.

“I don’t want to dive too deep into this topic. But we all are common motifs of the so-called Quatre-Fleur style of the Ottomans in the crafts.” It still made me very proud when I thought of it.

The hyacinth intervened:

“In this country, people say that we flowers have our own language. Each of us has a very special meaning for them and is given away as a present on certain occasions.”

I looked at her in surprise and let her continue. It sounded exciting.

“And not only have the flowers special meanings, but their colors as well.” The children in the semicircle nodded in agreement. “Tulips, for example, symbolize love and affection. Lovers present each other red tulips. Orange symbolizes fascination and blue means a promise of fidelity.”

My stamens trembled with joy when I heard that. How beautiful, indeed!

“This brings me back to the Ottomans,” I smiled at the children. “They also have something like a language of flowers, but somehow different from yours. They, for example, place yellow roses on the window sill, which is saying something like: there are sick or old people living in this house. In this way, passersby were prompted to behave quietly, which they did.”

I gave the flower children a short while to digest this new information, which apparently pleased them.

“By the way, do you actually know where I originally come from?” I asked them. They shook their heads. “My ancestors once left their home as well and were brought into the Ottoman Empire.”

The astonished hyacinth interrupted me:

“Does that mean that this isn’t the first migration?”

I gave her a nod. “Your ancestors were not the first, and I certainly won’t be the last who moves from one place to another in this wide world. There have always been trade relations between nations, and this will certainly remain so.”

The children smiled at me.

“And from where did you come to the Ottoman Empire?” the little carnation asked me timidly.

“Well, my real home … We tulips were already mentioned by the Greek writer Xenophon, who lived from 430 to 354 BC. And in the fourteenth century the Persian poet Hafez introduced my species into literature. He called us Lale, and this name so much appealed to the Ottomans that they adopted it.”

“In Turkish garden culture we had our heyday with Sultan Ahmet III. At that time, a whole era was named after us: The Tulip Era – Lale devri, which began in 1718. The tulip hype exceeded all bounds. There were 1323 different varieties.”

“Do they only have tulips over there?”

I shook my flower head. “No. The Ottomans had many flowers, including hyacinths as well. A part of the courtyard gardens of the Sultan were always reserved for you, the hyacinths; and this is still the case today.”

The hyacinths giggled again and whispered to each other. “See, I told you,” the first hyacinth whispered to the others.

“The poet Fazli, an Ottoman poet, often wove the hyacinth motif into his poems,” I continued. “And in Edirne and Istanbul, there are meadows covered with fragrant hyacinths.”

“Do you also know where we came to the Ottomans from?” another hyacinth, tall but very thin, asked.

“From the gardens of Baghdad and Aleppo,” I told her. A murmur rose again. The crowd of children thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

“How exciting,” they blurted.

Thus I added, “by the way, you folks came to Europe in the sixteenth century.” While they kept on jabbering with each other, the little pink carnation looked at me expectantly. Then she squeaked hesitant and softly:

“Have you also got flowers like me in the Ottoman Empire?”

I smiled at her. “Carnations, you mean?”

She nodded eagerly, and her cute petals shook with her head.

“Of course, even at the time of Theophrastus, in 300 BC, you were already growing. But I guess it was the Arabs who brought you to the Ottomans. At least, you got your name from them. The Arabs call you Qaranful, which is probably derived from the Latin Caryophyllus or from the Greek Karyphillon. And the Ottomans call you Karanfil.”

The eyes of the flower children widened and they tried to repeat the name slowly. Apparently they liked it very much.

For the first time, a small rose spoke up, slowly and gracefully as is to be expected from a rose:

“And what about us? What did we mean to the Ottomans?”

Again, I had to smile. What a question!

“Roses are sacred to all Muslims and, therefore, also to the Ottomans. They play a major role in Turkish culture.” The roses looked at me in surprise. “The Ottomans never left rose petals lying on the floor because rose in their tradition symbolized the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.”

“Wow,” the children whispered reverently, as with one voice. The carnations and hyacinths respectfully looked up at the roses. They, in turn, humbly looked at me, waiting for me to go on, which I did:

Again, the flower children were whispering to each other. At the sight of them, I rejoiced. Now, they were my new neighbors. What luck! With them, I would certainly never get bored.

I looked over at my tulip siblings. They had already made themselves comfortable and were sound asleep. Out of the blue, I felt tired again. “Dear children! Tomorrow I’ll tell you more, if you want. But for today, it’s enough.”

A disappointed murmur rose. But the hyacinth encouraged me.

“Okay friends. She’s right. It’s enough for today. We should go back. Our parents are probably already worried. It’s getting late.”

“But I certainly would like to know more about my ancestors in Albania,” the little carnation complained.

“Arabia! Your ancestors came from Arabia! Just listen more carefully,” the hyacinth chastened her. She stood up and pulled the others behind her. “And now let’s go home!”

“Didn’t you forget something”, the hyacinth asked the flower children. As if on command they all turned again to me and shouted:

“Thank you very much, Mrs. Tulip!”

I laughed. The hyacinth had a very good grip on them.

“You are welcome,” I replied. “Good night!”

“Good night,” they echoed back, and with a broad grin and still fidgety, they retreated. I was alone again, and at once felt a little lonely. So I hurried back to my brothers and sisters.

This country seemed to be very exciting, at least more exciting than I would have thought. I smiled and suddenly did not even remember why it seemed so strange to me in the beginning.

Halima walked into the living room and smiled at what she saw. Ahmet was sitting on the edge of the sofa deeply immersed in a book. He had taken off his shoes on the doormat and dropped his backpack nearby.

Although this wasn’t the first time his love for books had captivated her son-Ahmet had mastered reading two years ago in 2nd grade-Halima couldn’t help wondering about the content of this book that had kidnapped him. She placed his shoes on the rack, stored his backpack in the closet, and sat by his side sneaking a peek into the pages he was reading. She realized that it was an elementary school version of the Guinness Book of World Records.

As her son turned the pages, she saw pictures of the tallest man on earth, of the woman with longest fingernails, of the man with longest ear hair, of the woman with the most body piercings.

The book also displayed pictures of a man who pulled a plane, of a man who held 10 rattle snakes in his mouth by their tails, of a man who balanced a car on his head, of a man who ate 36 cockroaches in one minute, of a man capable of producing the loudest burp-you name it.

Reading the “fun facts” beside each picture, Halima was overtaken by a desperate wish to censor her son’s book selection from the school library. But how possible is that? As she felt at a loss for the right words to begin a conversation without triggering objection, Ahmet looked up and misjudging her interest in the book, he asked genuinely:

“Mom, which record should I break?”

Caught off guard, Halima rummaged through the pages with a let-me-see pose and decided to turn the question around:

“Which one would you like to break?”

“I think I could grow really looong nails,” Ahmet answered stretching the adjective.

“Goodness gracious!” sighed Halima trying to conceal her repulse. She looked at his face and resisting the temptation to snatch the book from him, she spoke softly.

“Ok, my son. Let’s say you broke the longest nails record. Who would benefit from it? You would spend your life growing your nails and depending on others for your basic needs, right?

“Your name would appear in this book,” she continued trying not to sound offensive, “you may earn some money, too, and then what?” Halima fell silent to let her question sink in.

Seeing Ahmet inconsolably disappointed, she switched into a softer tone so that Ahmet would not feel guilty for expressing his childish wish.

“The achievements you read in this book may look cool and fun, but are they bringing any good to anyone?

Ahmet, half-convinced, shook his head.

“Yet, there is a record I want you to break, my son,” Halima said, ending the silence with a new excitement that caused his eyes to shine with interest.

“Really?” asked Ahmet without disguising his thrill.

“Sure. I want you to break a record in …”-here her voice turned low and soft, almost into a whisper, as if confiding a secret or waiting for him to fill the blank-“… good deeds.”

Ahmet looked at her in disbelief. What kind of record is that?

“Yes, my sweetheart, there is such a record, and there are infinite ways to achieve it,” she said pausing to collect examples. “For instance, you can be a very trustworthy person who has never told even the tiniest lie.”

“Wow, that’s hard.” Ahmet said, the very thought making him blush.

“Yes it is,” Halima agreed. “But you can try your best.”

Halima decided that she should suggest more appealing options to her hard-to-convince son. “How about being a very generous person who donates all his wealth to help the less fortunate?” Halima continued. Ahmet couldn’t figure out how he could do that. His own allowance never seemed to be enough.

“You can open schools in areas of the world where people can’t even write their names.” Ahmet shot her a disbelieving look, “Can’t even write their names?”

“Think of a scientist who finds a cure to a deadly disease,” Halima went on slowly picking up the ideas along the way. “Imagine being a firefighter who risks his life to assist others in times of disaster. What do you say? Wouldn’t that be nice?” Ahmet nodded with a grin. He still had his toy firetruck as a keepsake.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Halima added. “You can be an influential leader who stands for justice and peace.”

“Like Martin Luther King?” asked Ahmet, as elated as a student who has found the right answer before time has elapsed. He had visited Dr. King’s home in one of his social studies field trip.

Halima nodded with an assuring smile and continued, “How about being a super environmentalist who keeps our planet clean.”

Halima purposefully paused to see his reaction at her last words. Environmental awareness was one of the mission goals in his school. As she expected, a sparkle of recognition shone in his eyes which poured into words in no time.

“Yeah, I can fight against pollution and preserve the natural habitats for endangered animals,” he said very confidently.

Halima hugged Ahmet and smiled. Of all aspirations, no wonder this one had touched the cord of his animal loving heart.

“Throughout history,” Halima continued in a lecturing tone, “many men and women of great integrity have made an impact on the world. Some of their names are written in books, some not. Yet believe me my son that no goodness, even as small as mustard seed, ever perishes.”

As Ahmet was trying to figure out how a goodness can be as small as a mustard seed, his mom brought his train of thoughts to a halt. She took him gently by his shoulders and asked out of the blue: “Do you want to know a hero of our times?”

As soon as Ahmet nodded, they headed to the computer in his room. Ahmet pulled up a chair and sat nearby as his mom typed an unfamiliar name into a Google search.

Haji (Hacý) Kemal Erimez. Ahmet could tell right away that the name was Turkish. Born in USA, to Turkish parents, he was fluent in both languages.

In 0.19 seconds 5,200 search results came up arousing his curiosity. Ahmet watched a 45-min-Turkish video in silence trying desperately to match the pieces of information together and process them in his little brain. He wouldn’t be surprised if his mom asked him to summarize the video content, out of habit of course. His teacher did that too.

“O.K.,”-he thought to himself trying to make mental notes,-“this uncle, called Haji Kemal, spent all his money for the opening of three schools in Turkey and five in Tajikistan. If only I had a paper and pen to take notes,” Ahmet wished.

He thought of asking his mom to pause the video. Then he dismissed the thought altogether because he saw on the screen an army tank strolling through some dusty streets accompanied by soldiers carrying guns.

All ears, Ahmet listened as the video host explained that Haji Kemal not only spent his senior years tending to the needs of schools instead of retiring and relaxing with his grandchildren, he also refused to leave Tajikistan during a civil war that broke in 1992.

Ahmet couldn’t figure out who fought against whom. Despite the urge from Tajik authorities to leave the country, Haji Kemal and other Turkish teachers had very bravely decided to stay and defend the school if necessary. Apparently this had made a deep impression on local authorities, some of whom Ahmet heard mention Haji Kemal with great respect in their interviews, referring to him as “Ata,” which as mom explained to Ahmet meant father in the Tajik language and interestingly in Turkish, too.

Later Ahmet watched a group of Tajik students happily smiling at the camera, showing off their gold medals that they had earned for their country in international math and science Olympiads.

Then the video showed parts of Haji Kemal’s funeral in 1997.

Thousands of people stood in rows under the rain to pay their respects to a great man-as the video host put it. In tears, one Tajik student promised that he and his friends would never forget Haji Ata and that they would work hard to fulfill his dream: serving Tajikistan to prosperity.

At this moment Ahmet noticed that his mom was crying too. She looked back at him and trying to smile she said, “See Ahmet, these Tajik students have found their higher goals in life. That’s a good record to break.”

Ahmet was overwhelmed by a strange apprehension that he was missing some important point in all this discussion. “Haji Kemal amca,” Ahmet thought, instinctively replacing the word uncle with its equivalent in Turkish, “is a very good person, no doubt about it. In fact, he looks like my grandfather with his white hair and beard.” But what makes him a hero? Why do all these people admire him? Ahmet wondered. Realizing that the video, which had ended moments ago, had no more to offer, he decided to ask his mom.

“Mom, why is opening schools so important?”

Halima stood silent for a couple of seconds to think of the right shortcut to simplify this complex topic.

“Long ago,” she said, “I came across an inspiring saying that I think answers your question in a nice way. I don’t remember who said it, but anyway the quote went like this:

“Whoever opens a good school closes a prison.” By the way Ahmet fixed his gaze on her, Halima could tell that her curious son was perplexed by the school-prison link.

“Lack of education leads to ignorance, which in turn leads to poverty, and poverty most of the time leads to many unfortunate troubles for the individual or the society. Do you know what the word society means?” she asked to double check.

“Mom!” Ahmet protested in a tone that gave a hint that he was either amused or upset by such an easy question. “I am studying and comparing the Greek and American Democracies for my social studies this year!”

“Oh, so sorry to assume,” Halima smiled at his sensitive scholarly pride and continued. “Sound education-that is, nurturing of the mind and the heart-is a foolproof way to build a better, peaceful world.”

Ahmet, still not sure whether he understood everything right, felt a peculiar desire nonetheless to go back in time, meet Haji Kemal amca and kiss his hands, a typical Turkish gesture of showing respect.

Halima, looking at the digital clock on the computer screen, realized it was getting late and got up to set the table for dinner.

“Ahmet!” she called to shake him from his daydreaming, “Why don’t you start training for your record breaking by helping me in the kitchen right away?”

Ahmet, smiling, stood up promptly and, as erect as a soldier before the commander, duplicated the response of obedience, “Yes, ma’am!”

Halima laughed at his wittiness and patting him on the shoulder she said,

“Then go wash your hands, my champion.”

Mirkena Ozer had her major in Turkish language and literature. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

It was spacious but darkened by the shutters on the windows. The fluorescent lamps were on round the table in the middle of the room, but the rest of the room remained dark. There were already some students gathered round the table, talking in low voices, gesturing at the corpse draped in white. Some looked quite pale, other’s smiled coldly. Salih, his friend, seemed to be standing apart from the others, alone, so Selim took his place beside him. The room felt cold.

Laid out on the table, under a white cloth, there was the dead body which they were supposed to study. Selim realized that it was this corpse which made the room feel cold. The realization made him tense. He felt quite sick. In order to relax himself, he tried to say something to Salih, but the words would not come out.

Salih noticed and asked him: ‘What’s the matter? Are you frightened’?

Selim managed to find his voice, and said weakly:

‘No, no, I was just thinking…’

‘What?’

‘I was thinking,’ Selim answered, indicating the other students, ‘that here we are standing round a corpse… And we are unmoved. It’s just something ordinary. We are quite indifferent toward it.’

‘You are right,’ said Salih. ‘We are being trained that way. Death never becomes an occasion for us to understand the reality of our situation. As a scholar once put it, “Death is enough to warn people”. But we seem not to understand the warning.’

Meanwhile, the teacher had come in and started his lesson: ‘Today you are going to examine various parts of the body. You’ve looked at pictures and diagrams in your Anatomy Atlases-now you will see the real thing, as it were, in the flesh. Most of you will never have seen a corpse before. Don’t be alarmed or put off as I remove the cloth. You have to get used to such things. You will have to face them in the future as part of your job. There is nothing to be frightened about-what we have here is after all only a dead body.’

Soon the teacher was ready with his gloves on his hands and his mask on his face. As he moved to the head of the corpse and took hold of the cloth to remove it, a deathlike suspense prevailed in the room. Expressions were frozen on the students’ faces and, in the stillness, even seemed as if no one dared to breathe. Selim was still struggling with his thoughts when the teacher slowly pulled back the cloth from the corpse. When he saw what he saw, something like an explosion or a volcano erupting happened in Selim’s head and heart. The tears welled in his eyes, threatening to spill over. He was utterly confused and trembling all over. He was about to faint but with a desperate effort managed to rush from the room, spluttering, ‘No, no, no…’.

His fellow-students, unaware of what was going on, looked on bemused. They heard his footsteps in the corridor. One of them broke the silence: ‘He was frightened, I suppose.’ Then the others had some comment or other to make, except Salih who stood motionless, not sure what he should do.

Selim rushed out of the faculty building into the gardens outside. He stopped to lean back against one of the trees. He remained still for a moment, his eyes closed and his head pressed against the trunk of the tree. His muddled thoughts and feelings cleared as he slipped away from the present moment into childhood memories. As always, when he recalled his early years, he remembered his mother’s tears and his father’s shouting which was the cause of her tears and his father, for no reason at all, hitting his mother in the face. He remembered the mealtimes after which they still felt hungry. He was very young then, in the early years of school. Before that, what he could remember was happy and peaceful. His mother was a good, pious woman, brought up by a good family. His father was a teacher: they were considered well off on his salary. His father did his best to meet the demands of his family and everybody liked him. He hardly ever went to a coffee house to spend time with his friends, nor was he ever seen to quarrel with his wife at home

Unfortunately those happy days did not last long. The society was corrupting, and for some reason anything uncorrupted was to be rejected. Moral values were being made fun of and knocked down; good was considered bad and bad good. One had to struggle hard in mind and spirit to hold on to values and character in such a degenerating society. Selim’s father could not resist the pressures. He became used to attending coffee houses and made new friends who introduced him to harmful habits. Then he started to come home late and drunk. Sometimes, after he came back, he would wake his wife and demand a meal. Poor woman, when she would say, ‘But what can I cook? There is nothing in the kitchen,’ he hit her in the face. Selim hid under his blanket, sobbing as he heard the shouting and weeping. Once, when he took hold of his father’s legs and begged him: ‘Don’t, don’t do it, father’, he got a beating too.

After Selim’s father was banned from teaching he became an alcoholic. During that time, his mother did some work sewing clothes at home and, when the need was desperate, she even went out to clean houses for money. His father took this money by force to spend on drink. When his wife tried to refuse to give him the money, he hit her until she gave in. Over and over again, she would plead: ‘Give up drinking. Can’t you see that it is ruining us all? Can’t you see how unhappy we all are? Please give up drinking, then our old happy life will return. I can work to support the family until you are all right.’

The poor woman’s health was deteriorating day by day, and the mistreatment by her husband grew unbearable. So, one day, they left the house to go shopping and never returned. They went to live instead in the house of the widow of Selim’s grandmother’s uncle.

Selim finished school and wanted to go on to high school but he knew that his mother could not afford it. His mother wanted to get him an apprenticeship of some kind. For the time being, during the school holidays, he studied the Qur’an in the neighbourhood mosque and quickly learnt the Arabic alphabet. That did not take long. After that, Selim became an apprentice to a hair-dresser.

That was just before the schools opened. Selim was aware of the hardships his family faced. Even so, he really did want to attend high school. He said nothing to his mother. He only cried about it alone, to himself in his bed. One day, the imam of the mosque came to the hairdresser’s to have his hair cut. He was keen to find out if his former pupil whom he had taught how to read the Qur’an would go on to high school. Selim said quietly, ‘I would like to, but…’ He couldn’t finish the sentence. But the imam guessed from the tears in Selim’s eyes what the situation might be.

The imam asked where Selim and his mother lived and paid them a visit. In a long talk, Selim’s mother explained their story to the imam, weeping as she did so. Before he left the imam said: ‘Don’t worry! With the help of God, I will do everything I can to help Selim to attend school. Believe me! The only thing I need is your prayers.’ The mother and son were hopeful and happy.

The imam told his friends the circumstances and they all agreed to help. Together, they managed to get a place for Selim in a good boarding school whose aim was to bring up students dedicated to the service of their religion and their homeland. It was at this school that Selim met and made friends with Salih. Not many years later Selim sat for the university entrance examination. When he opened the envelope with his results, he gave thanks to God and hurried to give his mother the good news: he had won a place in the school of medicine. When he reached home he found his mother on her death-bed, drawing her last breaths. He held her hand and said nothing. She opened her eyes and looked at him. They were eyes full of a mother’s suffering and a mother’s love. ‘Well,’ she asked, ‘What happened? What were your results?’

‘I’ve won a place in the school of medicine. I will become a doctor and treat you. Believe me, mum! You will be the happiest woman in the world.’

‘I thank God that I have lived to see this day,’ his mother said, and wept a little with contentment and relief. Then, she went on: ‘I am so glad that I have a son obedient to God. Finishing school is nothing by itself, my son. Remember that your father was an educated man but his ignorance brought us to those bad days which we all suffered. It is ages since we heard anything of him. Who knows where he is drinking now, even if he is still alive? I don’t think you will be like him. Study, my son, study much and become a professor. But never lose your faith. Without it, you are nothing. I’d rather you had not gone to school if you end up following your father’s example, destroying both yourself and the ones around you, instead of being helpful to them. With the knowledge you have, feel the greatness of God. That is my wish.’

She held Selim’s hand very tightly. He kissed her again and again, and said: ‘You are very ill, mum. Don’t tire yourself! I will call a doctor.’

In a voice that grew ever weaker, she said: ‘I dont need a doctor now. You can stand up to any difficulty. I have always tried not to do anything bad, as God has warned us. I don’t feel any pain now. I hope I have managed to bring up a son who will pray for me after my death. Please don’t forget what I have told you. May God be of great help to you, God…!’ At this point, her voice failed her. She relaxed as if falling into a sweet deep sleep and so passed away.

Re-living these sad moments, Selim, leaning against the tree in the grounds of the faculty of medicine, shook with emotion. Absorbed in himself, he had not noticed Salih who had followed him from the lecture room.

‘Hey what happened to you?’ Salih asked, shaking him gently by shoulder. ‘I would have believed that you were frightened if I did not know you well. We believe in God and we know that death is certain. Why then did you run away like that?’

Selim looked up at Salih and spoke slowly and carefully: ‘You are my closest friend. We stayed in the same boarding school, we both won scholarships to this university and right now we have been living in the same house for two years. I don’t think I care much what other people might think, but I do care what you think. I know I can trust you to keep secret what I’m going to tell you. Do you remember saying to me today-“We are going to work on an actual corpse, a dead man. I wonder if he had any children, poor man!” Do you remember saying that?’

‘Of course, I remember,’ said Salih. ‘Why? Did I say something wrong?’

‘No, Salih,’ answered Selim ‘You said nothing wrong, but do you know who he was?’

‘How could I possibly know that?’

‘Well,’ said Selim with a sigh, ‘I don’t know if it is enough to call him “poor man” but I do know very well who he was. He was my father.’

I could hear the voices of children crying in the ward at the other end of the corridor. My own poor child could only say ‘mum’ in fear while he was being examined. A little later, he fell asleep. After the examination the specialist took me aside. He had a look of deep concern and sorrow on his face:

-‘I am very sorry, doctor. It could be polio,’ he said.

I stared at him blankly, not believing what I was hearing. I could believe that some other mother’s child caught polio but I could never imagine that such a disaster would touch my own child. I no longer felt like a doctor but like a mother, waiting at her child’s bedside in an agony of anxiety.

-‘But he has not caught polio yet, has he?’ I asked again.

-‘No, not yet. I hope he will not’, the specialist answered. When he looked at my face, he noticed my worry and went on:

-‘He is sleeping now. You’d better go and get some sleep, too. I’ll call you if there is any change.’

I decided to do as I was advised. It was already very late, past midnight. I had been very busy since five o’clock in the morning, along with the other doctors. Everyone had been working very hard as the epidemic had got worse. I looked at my son’s red lace, longing to help him, to take away his pain, but there was nothing I could do except wait. I wanted to take him in my arms and surround him with all my love. But that was not possible then, so after a time I left his bedside and headed home.

The house was still and quiet when I opened the door. My husband had gone to Chicago on business. I did not tell him about our son’s condition. I did not want him to panic. Besides, if there was no change in his condition overnight, chances of his not getting polio would be very high.

I had to take some pills to help me sleep. I was deep in sleep when I heard the phone ringing. I got out of bed. It was four o’clock. The person on the phone was a woman, obviously very agitated and anxious.

-‘Is that the doctor?’ she asked.

I heaved a sigh of relief as I understood that I was being called out to visit a patient. As the woman described her son’s condition, I realized that it was probably another case of polio. After taking a note of her name and address. I couldn’t help taking a minute to phone the hospital to find out about my son: luckily, there was no change.

I felt utterly alone as I drove through the streets of the silent, sleeping city to the woman’s home. After some time, I noticed that this was the poorest part of town. On reaching the address, I stopped the car and got out. The desperate woman had been waiting and ran out to me, holding a candle. She grabbed my hand and said urgently, almost shouting:

-‘Be quick doctor! Be quick!’

I looked at her face, which was wet with crying. I couldn’t tell in the dark if the woman was young or old. I was quite shocked when I stepped into the cold one-room house. Even though I saw lots of different kinds of patients in my job, I had not seen poverty such as this before. Three thin children with pale, bony faces were sitting around an empty table in the corner of the room dimly lit by the one candle the mother was holding. The rest of the room was quite dark. However, I could just make out a child doubled up in pain at the other end of the room, moaning under a very old, patched blanket. The boy was about five years old, very thin and very weak. I told the woman I must go out to call the hospital. I did so from a telephone box in the market near the house and asked them to send an ambulance at once.

I went back and examined the other children. They were very weak but not in danger of polio. Just then the sick boy started to cry. The mother held my hand pleadingly. She wanted to learn what the illness was and how serious it was. I did not have the courage to tell her the truth.

-‘Your child is very ill, but we will do whatever we can,’ I said.

After lovingly caressing her son’s hair, the woman turned to me and said:

-‘Let’s pray’.

Although I had been visiting patients for years, I had never met one who offered to pray. I felt this woman must know something that I did not, so I agreed. I joined the children and the mother in their prayer. As the woman prayed, her mild soft voice pleading so sincerely touched me to the heart.

For a moment the hospital corridor came to mind again, the worried face of the specialist, my own dear son’s lovely face. Though far from the hospital, I felt just as if I was at my son’s bedside. I saw him as if standing in front of me and smiling. I tried to clear my mind of this picture. I watched the woman and the children still praying, now silently. The sincerity of their faith moved me so much that I could not help saying out loud and with utmost sincerity:

-‘Our Lord, do please accept these prayers!’

The mother then went over to the bedside of her sick child. The boy was sleeping peacefully. She straight away turned towards me and said joyfully:

-‘Do you see? Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate, has accepted our prayer.’

I was totally lost for words. The boy did not even wake up while being carried to the ambulance. By the time we got to the hospital, his breathing and pulse had returned to normal. I drove back to the woman’s home with the good news and, before leaving again for my day’s work at hospital, I gave her what money I had.

-‘I’ll call back again tomorrow evening,’ I said.

As I walked to my car, I looked up at the sky. The sun was rising and everything was becoming lit up. I was not worried this time as I drove to the hospital. A voice inside me was saying that my son would meet me smiling when I next saw him.