Many and Many a Year Ago Read Online Free Page A

added to the strain. Maybe what I saw in my mother’s eyes was the compassion of parents who get over the fear of losing their children. My father and my aunt, on the other hand, were anxious and irritated. Like investors whose efforts have come to nothing, they could no longer swagger around L. as relatives of the future Commander. When my uncle began sermonizing, I had to tell them that my whole body was in pain and would they please leave and stay away until I called them back.
    Forty-eight hours later the colonel leading the Accident Investigation Team stopped in with his lieutenant. Despite the sensitive way in which they questioned me I could barely refrain from crying. What finally ended my nightmares was the report they filed concluding that the crash hadn’t been caused by pilot error. But my lack of interest in the outside world continued. I was susceptible to sudden headaches, and my right hand had developed a tremor.
    They said I would walk again in six weeks, and I did. My appetite returned and I started reading the newspapers. A week later the hospital chief paid me a visit. His tone was carefully optimistic as he told me that my recovery was underway and that my place at the Air Force Academy was being held for me. Flawlessly modulating the tone and dosage of command and advice, he informed me how helpful a period of desk work would be in regaining my concentration. I was sure they wouldn’t even let me get close to a helicopter if I failed to resolve my psychological problems.
    It was a good two months after the crash before they assigned me to a temporary job at Air Force headquarters. I went to Ankara full of misgivings, responsible for coordinating a top secret translation project on which ten hand-picked university graduates were working while performing their military service. The job had to be finished by the time their term of duty was up three months later. Though they’d all come from good universities in England and the U.S.A., they acted like high-school delinquents. I knew I wouldn’t be bored living with them in our military housing. Suat Altan, the most efficient and mysterious one, held diplomas in literature and computer science. While looking through the staff files I discovered he had been a technology consultant in New York. Like the old-time Indian chiefs, he said little but what he did say was meaningful. He had no trouble beating everybody else in chess and backgammon and sat in the corner reading tomes while the rest of the group sat around talking big. He seemed fragile, and maybe it was because of this and because of his mournful blue eyes that I felt sympathy for him. Twice I reprimanded the surly banking trainee, Mahmut, for harassing Suat; I even went so far as to dock his holidays when I caught him bullying the poor guy one day.
    I ran into Suat once on a bus to Istanbul, and after that we started traveling there together the odd weekend. On others, if we stayed in Ankara, I would take him to a concert or a play. His attitude seemed at once calculated and suspicious. Once, when I invited him to my usual kebab joint in Istanbul, he seemed startled and pretended he hadn’t heard me. He reminded me of those mysterious priests in Westerns to whom the Mexicans readily confess their sins. Three weeks before his mustering-out I summoned up, without quite knowing why, my life story for him. He listened attentively with his head bowed.
    As for him, I could tell all I knew in a few sentences. He was the son of a rich father and a Sephardic Jewish mother, and he’d obviously had a colorless but carefree childhood and youth. His superior intelligence ill-befitted his environment, and I was sure he bore a secret wound he was cavalierly disregarding.
    When the time came to say goodbye I embraced everybody on the team except Suat. He shook my hand distractedly and practically ran away as he murmured something like an apology.
    Later I heard that he beat the daylights