Dying is Easier than Loving, page 54
“We’ll go out the back window,” said Nizam.
He carried Anya into the room where the piano was, the window frames and the walls were burning, everything was bright red, Nizam wanted to turn back, but the frame of the door he’d just come through had collapsed in flames, creating what looked like a barricade of flames.
They were in the middle of the fire.
He carried Anya over to the piano, he took off his jacket and put it over her shoulders as if it would protect her from the flames. The piano was still intact, it black surface reflecting the red tongues of fire that surrounded it.
They crawled under the piano.
“The piano will protect us,” said Nizam.
They sat side by side, Anya was as calm as if she was sitting on the grass in a park, indeed she even seemed happy.
She lay her head on Nizam’s chest. She took Nizam’s face in her hand and turned it towards her, she looked at him and smiled.
“My name is Anya,” she said with a smile, “I . . .”
Nizam was unable to hear the rest of what she said because of the noise, the ceiling of the room collapsed with a great crash.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Writer and journalist Ahmet Altan was arrested in September 2016, accused of sending subliminal messages in support of the failed coup d’état. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in February 2018. He was released in 2021 after the European court of human rights demanded the 71- year-old’s freedom in a verdict that accused Turkey of violating his civil rights. An advocate for Kurdish and Armenian minorities and a central figure in the Turkish cultural world, Altan is the author of ten novels, including Like a Sword Wound (Europa Editions), Endgame (Canongate), and the prison memoir I Will Never See the World Again (Granta).
Ahmet Altan, Dying is Easier than Loving
