Ah, My Dearest Ester! (Early Evening, Day 12)

Once again, I went back to the hotel an unhappy man. Unhappy, disappointed and in pain… So you hadn't returned to Istanbul. Not to Istanbul or to me. And how convinced I had been that you had returned and that I would find you! They were all just empty dreams. Empty dreams and foolish optimism… I had needed to feel hope of some kind and so I had come up with a huge lie in order to create that hope. It was nothing but a flagrant case of self-deception…

After leaving Uncle Leon's office, I wandered the streets aimlessly, not knowing what to do. I just let my legs carry me wherever they felt like going. I went down to Kasımpaşa first, down to the shores of the Golden Horn and walked along the seafront, the way I used to do back in Salonika. I was distraught and wracked with pain, grief and remorse, as though we had split up that day and not years earlier. I sat down on a bench. I could hear the voices of children diving into the sea: wild, frivolous, carefree and joyous. I hated them, and I hated their joy. I got up and walked, for kilometres, but no matter how much I walked, there was no escape, no way out. I was trapped, walking around and around in a vicious circle of fire. Not one of the conditions that had made me leave home twelve days ago and move into the Pera Palace Hotel had changed. I was facing the same threats now that had been a cause for concern to me the day I moved. Life had rejected me completely. No new opportunities would be proffered now. Seeing as you had not come back, any prospects of happiness I may have once clung on to had now vanished for good. I was back in the state of mind I had been in twelve days ago, and it was only right because it was at least rooted in reality.

When I tired of walking, I went back to the hotel and back up to my room. My pen and the sheets of paper on my desk were calling out to me but I had lost the urge to write. What difference would it make were I to write?