Two days later, the wounds Şehsuvar had suffered in the bombardment began to close.
Looking at him now, no one would have guessed that forty-eight hours earlier he had been on the brink of death.
Şehsuvar himself knew little about medicine. Because of that, he could not even imagine what Hanım had actually done to his body.
Wounds that should have taken weeks to heal now barely left a mark.
But the wounds themselves were not what troubled him most.
It was himself.
My soul is split in two.
Half of it is in my real body, and the other half is inside a simulacrum...?
He still did not truly understand what Hanım meant.
It would be easier to think of it all as a nightmare.
But his body recovering in an impossible amount of time made denial increasingly difficult.
Then what am I now?
Am I still human?
Or have I become something else?
He wished there were someone who could explain everything to him.
But the only person who had the answers was the mysterious woman who never gave him a complete explanation.
Şehsuvar still remembered Hanım's words before she disappeared.
“Just call me Hanım, and I'll appear wherever you are.”
Yet he still could not bring himself to call for her again.
There was something about Hanım that made him uncomfortable.
Not because the woman had ever hurt him.
Quite the opposite.
Hanım had saved his life.
But the more he learned about her, the more he felt that half of himself was being dragged toward something that could no longer be called human.
He did not yet know whether it was salvation or the beginning of his ruin.
For the time being, Şehsuvar chose to pretend that nothing had changed.
He returned to the trench.
Taking shelter there without doing anything turned out to be more exhausting than he had imagined.
The air was damp and stifling. Mud clung to his boots. The smells of wet earth, sweat, rifle oil, and gunpowder smoke blended into one.
Between the planks and sandbags, rats scurried around in search of scraps of food.
Şehsuvar even saw a rat emerge from behind a sack before disappearing into a gap between the boards.
He wanted to rest longer.
So he held his side as though it still hurt, furrowed his brow, and did everything he could to keep anyone from suspecting that something about him had changed.
Fortunately, no one paid him much attention.
To the other soldiers, a comrade who had just been wounded and still looked pale was nothing unusual.
When it was time to rest, Şehsuvar sat with the other soldiers.
A cigarette passed from hand to hand.
When it reached him, he drew on it slowly.
After two days of doing nothing but lying around and waiting, the tobacco smoke felt almost like a luxury.
Around them, the soldiers of the Ottoman Third Army tried to warm themselves.
Winter was beginning to settle over the Caucasus.
The nights grew longer.
Snow covered the mountain slopes and the roads leading east.
They all knew that winter in this region was more than a mere inconvenience.
The cold could kill a man as easily as a bullet.
Many soldiers had fallen ill.
Some suffered from wounds that refused to heal because of the filthy conditions in the trenches and the limited medical supplies.
Even a small wound could turn into an infection.
In a place like this, a person could lose his life not only to enemy fire, but also to disease, hunger, exhaustion, or the cold.
Şehsuvar watched a soldier named Halil drive away rats with the handle of a shovel.
“Those vermin are getting bolder,” he grumbled.
Şehsuvar only gave a faint smile.
They had all grown used to seeing rats scurrying around the places where they slept.
Sometimes the rats even emerged from behind clothing or sacks of food.
Şehsuvar raised his face.
The sky over the Caucasus looked gray.
Far to the east, artillery sounded like thunder rolling from beyond the mountains.
The war had arrived.
And the war had no intention of leaving.
The days passed.
Russian forces continued moving along the Caucasus Front.
In early November 1914, a major battle broke out around Köprüköy.
Şehsuvar did not know the details of the Paşas' strategy.
As an ordinary soldier, he only knew that the Russian forces had attacked and that they had to defend the road to Erzurum.
Köprüköy became one of the first places where the two armies met in a major battle.
The Ottoman forces held their ground.
The Russian forces attacked.
Then their positions changed again.
Nothing looked like a perfect victory.
Every hill they captured had to be held.
Every trench they lost had to be retaken.
And every night, more names disappeared from the soldiers' rolls.
One afternoon, Şehsuvar stood behind the parapet, watching the snow-covered slope.
Some soldiers were repairing the defensive positions.
Others were stringing barbed wire.
Şehsuvar had helped with that work before.
They had to leave the safety of the trench, carrying wire, stakes, and simple tools, then repair the damaged sections of the defenses.
The enemy could fire at any moment.
So the work had to be done quickly.
A soldier who stood in the open too long would become an easy target.
They worked in silence.
Nails were hammered in.
Wire was pulled taut.
The earth was dug up.
Then it all began again after enemy fire destroyed their work.
The cycle felt senseless.
But war was full of work like that.
Building something only to watch it be destroyed.
Seizing something only to lose it.
Killing someone they had never known simply because he wore a different uniform.
Şehsuvar rubbed his numb hands together.
In the distance, a flare rose into the night sky.
Its light illuminated the snow for several seconds.
Then it went out.
Several weeks later, another rumor began circulating among the soldiers.
The Ottoman forces were preparing a major operation.
Its objective was Sarıkamış.
The name came up repeatedly in their conversations.
Sarıkamış.
An important town in the Kars region under Russian rule.
If the Ottoman forces succeeded in capturing it, Russia's position in the Caucasus could be shaken.
The soldiers discussed it with a mixture of hope and fear.
Some believed victory was close.
Others only wanted to survive until winter ended.
Their Sergeant, a large man with a thick mustache, continued to display his usual confidence.
“We're going to take Sarıkamış.”
Someone asked,
“When will this war end?”
The Sergeant was silent for a few moments.
Then he answered,
“After we win.”
No one laughed.
The soldiers of the Third Army only looked at one another.
They all knew that the word win sounded very easy when spoken from somewhere far from the battlefield.
At the end of December, the troops began moving toward Sarıkamış.
The snow grew deeper.
The roads became white paths that were difficult to recognize.
The mountain wind pierced their clothing and left their fingers numb.
The soldiers walked carrying their rifles, ammunition, and their own equipment.
The higher they climbed, the harder it became to breathe.
Some soldiers began to lose their strength.
Others fell and could not get back up.
But the order remained the same.
Forward.
Şehsuvar walked silently with his unit.
He looked at the figures ahead of him.
They all looked like black shadows moving across a sea of white.
For the first time, he began to understand that the war in the Caucasus was not merely a battle between men.
They were also fighting the mountains.
Fighting the snow.
Fighting the cold.
And perhaps fighting their own bodies.
Şehsuvar lowered his head.
He remembered Hanım's words.
Your body needs to adapt.
To what?
He still did not know.
But every time his body recovered from something that should have killed him, the question returned.
What was really happening to him?
That night, the troops stopped to rest.
Şehsuvar lay down behind whatever shelter they could manage.
His body felt exhausted.
His eyes began to grow heavy.
Then he smelled something.
The scent of flowers.
Very faint.
There could not possibly be flowers in the middle of these snow-covered mountains.
Şehsuvar opened his eyes at once.
Someone was standing near him.
There was no one there.
The other soldiers were asleep or standing watch.
Yet a voice sounded right beside his ear.
“How long do you intend to stay here, Şehsuvar?”
His heart pounded.
He recognized that voice.
Hanım.
Şehsuvar did not move.
“I'm trying to survive.”
“I've been waiting for you.”
“I didn't call you.”
“That's why I came on my own.”
Şehsuvar stared into the darkness before him.
“What do you want?”
There was no answer for several moments.
Then Hanım's voice sounded again.
“You'll soon be heading somewhere worse.”
Şehsuvar swallowed.
“Worse than this?”
Hanım laughed softly.
“Sarıkamış hasn't shown you what winter can do.”
Şehsuvar fell silent.
He did not know whether Hanım was warning him or laughing at him.
Then something strange happened.
The boards beneath his body seemed to disappear.
Not truly disappear.
It was more as if his body no longer touched them.
Şehsuvar tried to move.
He could not.
The world around him began to tremble.
The soldiers' voices grew more distant.
The campfire dwindled.
The sky vanished.
Then the same sensation as before enveloped his body.
He felt half of himself being pulled in a different direction.
“No!”
Şehsuvar tried to scream.
But his voice vanished.
Darkness swallowed him.
A moment later, light appeared.
White.
Cold.
Blinding.
Şehsuvar opened his eyes.
He was standing.
Snow stretched endlessly before him.
The wind lashed his face.
Far in the distance, gunfire rang out.
He turned around.
There was no trench.
No troops.
No campfire.
Only a vast expanse of white and mountains rising beneath a gray sky.
Several steps ahead of him, Hanım stood with her long coat whipping in the storm.
Her gray-green eyes were calm.
Şehsuvar stared at her.
“What are you doing?”
Hanım did not answer.
She only pointed toward the mountains.
There, far beyond the snow, a line of people could be seen moving slowly.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
Perhaps thousands.
Şehsuvar narrowed his eyes.
They wore Ottoman uniforms.
They carried rifles.
They carried equipment.
They were walking toward the mountain.
But something was strange.
They did not speak.
There was no sound of footsteps.
No sound of orders.
No sound of horses.
Nothing at all.
Only a long line of people walking silently toward the snowstorm.
Şehsuvar felt something cold creep up his back.
“Who are they?”
Hanım looked at the troops.
“People who haven't realized they're already dead.”
Şehsuvar turned to her sharply.
“What?”
Hanım pointed toward the mountains.
“Welcome to Sarıkamış.”
Then she looked at Şehsuvar.
“Now look at the real war.”
Şehsuvar looked at the troops in the distance again.
One of the soldiers in the line suddenly stopped.
Slowly, he turned around.
His face could be seen from afar.
Şehsuvar recognized him.
It was a soldier who had fought alongside him before.
The soldier stared directly at him.
Then he opened his mouth.
Though he was too far away for any sound to carry, Şehsuvar knew what he was saying.
His name.
“Şehsuvar...”