Snow

Description

A mound concealing what lies beneath, and snow covering the city’s ashes.

This is how Kars—a city in Anatolia—appears, so far removed from Istanbul, mired in poverty, political divisions, and misery.

Its turbulent history simmers beneath the white mounds.

It bears traces of the Ottomans and Armenians, and of the Russians and Turks, the remnants of human suffering.

Ka’s journey was no ordinary one. He is a gifted poet, a communist and a leftist, who was exiled from Turkey ten years before his trip to Kars.

He returned to Istanbul after obtaining political asylum from Germany to attend his mother’s funeral.

While in the city, he is commissioned by a well-known Istanbul newspaper to visit Kars and investigate a wave of suicides among veiled young women. He is also asked to cover the town’s elections, in which the Islamists are expected to win.

Aybek, oh Aybek!
She wasn’t the love of his life; she was merely his classmate. What he remembers of her is her unique beauty and compelling allure. One of his friends married her, and she had recently separated from him.

When he learned of her presence in Kars, he was eager to go to her, captivated by her image.

He suffered from loneliness and emptiness; his hair had dried up over the years, and exile enveloped him in sorrow wherever he turned.

Death was his constant companion. Why not seek refuge with her? Why not marry her and bring her back to Frankfurt?

This obsession drove him to remote Kars, and on his journey, the city was struck by a snowstorm, forcing him to stay for three days in an inn owned and managed by Aybek’s father.

And he saw Aybek… more beautiful than he remembered, more desirable than he had ever dreamed!

Just as the snows of Kars poured down on its inhabitants, torrents of love surged through his heart! He experienced a brief encounter with her, a fleeting moment of happiness, which he would reminisce about for years after returning to Germany. Aybek has a younger sister, Kadevi, who leads a movement of veiled girls who refuse to remove their headscarves and demand their right to education. Between Aybek, who is separating from her husband because of his Islamist leanings and his insistence that she wear the hijab, and Kadevi, the daughter of a prominent secularist who covers her head, endless questions arise about who she is, how she comes to be, and why she is unique.