Suddenly İstanbul Municipal Radio starts playing Lili Marleen. Tears in my eyes. I flunked the entrance exam of the German High school; Leyla, my steady girlfriend since the first grade, my eternal love, got in. Our roads, I know, will separate. What a beautiful language, says my mother making my melancholy worse. Don’t let the girls see you crying, advises my younger older-brother, they’ll never go out with you again. This was the song of the Nazi brutes, declares my older older-brother authoritatively as if this historical fact would repair my broken heart |  After taking a sip from his lemonade, my father pitches in, trying to find a gentle side – as always – in everything: All soldiers loved it, Dutch, Hungarian, British, and of course Italian… Then he adds dreamily: Even the Turkish reservists sang it in the dark, in their barracks. I see my parents looking at each other – my father on leave for the weekend in his meticulously ironed lieutenant uniform, my mother, beautiful as a French resistance heroine – sitting in front of our AGA v251 radio holding hands maybe and listening to Lili Marleen. |
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