F. Semrin Şahin has firmly established herself as a prominent figure in the Turkish literary community through her writing, which has drawn acclaim for its keen insights about social inequalities, women’s rights and environmental concerns. A member of the PEN Turkey Writers’ Association, she also serves as the chief editor of the literary magazine Edebiyat Nöbeti (Literature Watch), which is based in Turkey, where she was won numerous literary prizes, including first place in the Teachers’ Memoirs competition (2012), the special jury award in the Kaygusuz Abdal Short Story competition (2013), and the Nihat Akkarca Short Story competition for her story “Nightwatch” (2013).

To date, Şahin has published five works of fiction and her short stories have appeared in collected works and well-known literary magazines in Turkey such as Notos, Kitaplık, Sözcükler, Trendeki Yabancı, Öykü Gazetesi, Sarnıç Öykü, 14 Şubat Dünyanın Öyküsü, Oggito, Askıda Öykü, Kafka Okur, and İzafi. She also writes essays on literature for a number of prominent literary journals and newspapers.

Şahin, a mother of two and a Turkish teacher, also teaches creative writing to aspiring authors through the workshops she organizes.

Saddam Tape

I could see that my father’s eyelids were growing heavy. When he drifted off to sleep
and his head lolled to the side, I turned down the volume on the radio. It was still loud
enough, however, for me to hear that the announcer said war was coming. I pressed my ear to
the radio’s speaker and listened to accounts of refugees massing at the border and warnings
about the impending threat of chemical attacks. The announcer started to read off a list of
cities that were likely to be bombed. When I turned up the volume a little, my mother shot me
an angry look. I still couldn’t make out the names of the cities so I switched off the radio. As
she was leading my little brother by the hand out of the room, my mother turned to me and
said, “Keep quiet so your father can nap in peace. Let him rest till dinner’s ready.” I could
hear the leaves of the poplar tree in the courtyard rustling in the wind. Snuggling deeper into
my blanket, I went back to playing Atari. It was impossible to win that particular game, as
blocks kept coming down one on top of the other, but I went on with it anyways. If my father
had been awake, he would’ve gotten angry with me, saying that I should’ve been working on
my homework. My grandma was sitting across from me knitting something, the click and
clack of her knitting needles a regular rhythm against the crackling of the coal-burning stove.
Someone knocked on the door. I leapt to my feet, sending the Atari toppling to the floor. My
father opened his eyes. “Who could that be at this hour?” my mother said worriedly. As I
headed for the door, my father got up and followed me. I heard my grandma say, “Boy, don’t
open the door without asking who’s there first!” But I had already opened the door. It was
Uncle Agâh. Playfully tugging one of my curls of hair, he asked, “Hey Zalha, what’s up?”
Before I had a chance to answer, my father pulled me aside.
“Agâh, were you able to find everything?”

I lingered by the doorway. “Everything except the Saddam tape, so I brought a few
rolls from our place. They said we might be able to get some on the black market soon.” My
father swore under his breath. Taking the sack that Uncle Agâh was holding out, he
murmured, “May Allah look over us.”
“I heard that three villages on the border were bombed earlier tonight.”
“Chemical bombs?”
Uncle Agâh nodded. “Most everyone choked to death.”
My mother tugged at my arm. “Get everything ready for dinner.” My brother was
clinging to her leg, tears streaming down his cheeks. I went to the kitchen and got the dining
cloth. As I was laying it out on the rug in the living room, my mother said, “And bring some
bread.”
My father asked Uncle Agâh to eat with us. He said, “I’d better go seal up our place
too, just in case.” I examined at my father’s face as he was closing the door. The bags under
his eyes seemed heavier than usual and the fringe of his mustache seemed to be stained a
deeper nicotine yellow than usual. Stoop-shouldered, he walked back into the living room.
Peering at him over her glasses, my grandma asked, “What did Agâh want?”
“I’d asked him to pick up a few things. He brought them over.”
Wiping my brother’s nose, my mother asked, “I brought out some pickled vegetables.
Would you like me to slice up some onions too?”
“Don’t bother,” my father said. “My stomach’s a bit off.” He sat cross-legged on the
floor and leaned back against the low divan. Glancing at me, he said, “Turn on the radio.”
After switching it on, I pointed the antenna in the direction of the window. As we ate, we
listened to the latest reports about the war. A government minister was talking about how
cooking oil and sugar could only be found on the black market, and he added that traders who
were caught stockpiling their goods would be brought to justice. The signal started to break

up, but between bursts of static we heard the minister say that the government was standing
firmly beside the people. My father muttered a few profanities, prompting my mother to snap,
“Don’t swear over Allah’s blessings of food.” He got up and turned off the radio. I watched
him closely. His dispirited expression was as glum as before. My mother smacked the back of
my hand with her spoon, saying, “Eat up, boy, and mind your own business.” My father got
back up and walked over to the stove. Using a pair of tongs, he stirred the coals, sending up a
small shower of sparks. My grandma set the kettle on the stove and said, “I’ll put on some tea
in a while.” Just then there was a boom like a clap of thunder, so strong that the windows
shook. My mother had been clearing the dining cloth but she stopped, frozen with fear. “Get
down!” my father shouted. We huddled in the middle of the room. My brother started crying
at the top of his lungs, and my father glared at him. The lights glowed brightly for a moment
and then went out. I did my best not to cry. I was afraid of dying.
As we lay there in the dark, I heard my father recite a prayer. My brother was still
bawling, and it was starting to get on my nerves. He was always crying. I slapped him lightly
on the back of the head, hoping it would make him stop. The far wall was set aglow by the
stove, and the tea kettle started to hiss as it boiled. Eventually my brother fell silent. A few
moments later I heard the sound of him suckling our mother’s breast, which explained why
he’d stopped crying. Getting up, my father slowly made his way to the window. He pulled
back the curtain a little and peered outside. Somewhere out on the road a cat screeched. The
electricity came back on, so we started listening the radio again. The announcer mentioned the
name of the district that had been bombed. It was quite close to our village.
Closing the curtain, my father said, “Give me a hand with the sack that Agâh brought
over.” My mother laid my brother, who was now fast asleep, on the divan and covered him
with a blanket. We dragged the sack into the middle of the room.
“Zalha, bring me a pair of scissors.”

I dashed into the other room and grabbed the scissors that were on top of the sewing
machine. First to come out of the sack were four thin snake-like sandbags. He explained that
they would help keep the air outside from seeping in and told me to carefully wedge one into
the gap under every door in the house. The other rooms in the house were freezing. By the
time I got back to the living room, my hands were trembling from the cold so I warmed them
over the stove. He asked, “Are you done?” I nodded. Next he pulled a roll of plastic sheeting
out of the sack. There must have been at least twenty yards of it.
“Son, what’s that for?” my grandma asked. She was watching us as she lay propped up
on a cushion by the stove.
“I’m going to use it to seal up the windows.”
“Why?”
“So we won’t get poisoned if they drop any bombs around here.”
“But we’re not at war.”
“They’re trying to push this country into a war. But Mom, don’t worry about that. Go
back to your knitting.”
Even as my father offered that explanation, there was something strange about his
expression, a kind of involuntary twitch that twisted his features. He cut a piece of plastic
sheeting the size of the living room window.
“Bring me the Saddam tape.”
I found two rolls deep down in the sack, one clear and the other brown. When I asked
which one he wanted, he replied, “Just give me one of them.” We covered the window with
the sheeting and he taped it up all the way around with four or five layers of tape. The air
blowing through the house made the sheeting balloon out.
As she was clearing off the dining cloth, my mother said, “I told you to caulk the
window frames. But did you listen to me?” My father murmured something but I couldn’t

hear what he said. When he was finished with that window we moved on to the kitchen. I’d
already put a sandbag under the balcony door, so all we had to do was seal off the window
with a piece of sheeting. “The balcony door is a problem,” he mumbled as he carried the roll
of sheeting to the bedroom. After we’d sealed off all the windows, we went back and taped
them all again with Saddam tape. Grandma said that the tea was ready.
As she stirred some sugar into her tea, she said, oblivious to everything that was going
on, “Son, how are we going to air the place out if the stovepipe starts to smoke?”
My father took a sip of tea. “Well, Mom, we won’t.” He bit the inside of his cheek to
stop himself from snapping at her. After downing his tea in a few gulps, he went outside.
My grandma must’ve been offended by his curtness because she picked up her prayer
beads and started irritably clacking them. When my mother saw how upset she was, she tried
to offer an explanation. “Those people are dropping chemical bombs all over the place. Your
son’s just trying to protect us.” Dropping her prayer beads into her lap, my grandma sighed,
“What did I say this time? As if everything is my fault.” She pulled off her muslin headscarf
and shook it out behind the stove. When she put it back on, she straightened out the
embroidered edges.
One of my father’s favorite folk songs started playing on the radio so I called out to
him. He came back in, eating a tangerine. After setting the peel on top of the stove, he sat
down on a cushion. The scent of tangerines that began rising into the air did nothing to cover
up the smell of cigarette smoke that lingered in the room. “Would you like some more tea?”
my mother asked. “Okay,” he said. “But make it stronger this time.” Mumbling along with the
song, he got up and stirred the coals in the stove again. The tangerine peel sizzled on the
stovetop. I wanted to ask my father about the war and how the chemical bombs poisoned
people, but I bit my tongue for fear he’d get annoyed.
“Once this war is over,” he said, “we’ll build a shelter in the garden.”

“What about the chickens in the coop?” my grandma asked. My father leaned against
the wall and stretched his legs out. “They’ll be fine. You should be more worried about us.”
She took her head in her hands and started rubbing her temples. I was feeling uneasy because
whenever she did that, it meant that she might start wailing and beating her knees. But she
didn’t. Instead, she let her hands fall into her lap and turned to her son. “If the stove starts
smoking,” she said, “you’ll see what it means to get poisoned. You’ve trapped us in here.” I
didn’t take my eyes from my father. Taking a deep breath, he sighed, “Allah save me,” and
then he began tugging at his mustache. Tucking her long underwear into her socks, my
grandma grumbled to herself, “Because of this good-for-nothing son of mine, the chickens are
going to die. And then he’s going to throw me out.”
No one spoke for a long time. The radio crackled with static as the signal came and
went. A dog was barking outside, and the branches of the tree in the yard scratched against the
window. The smell of the singed tangerine peel filled the room. There was a sudden whistling
sound followed by an explosion, and the windows rattled in their frames. The radio fell silent
as the electricity went out again. “Everybody stay put,” my father said.
The plastic sheeting over the living room window tore loose and started fluttering
behind the curtain. As she reached out to pick up my brother, my mother said, “It would’ve
been better if we’d caulked the windows.” My father grunted, “Well, it’s Saddam tape. What
do you expect?” By this time my grandma was snoring. Getting to his feet, my father used the
rest of the tape to reseal the sheeting, which now bulged inward, taut as the head of a drum.
Wakened by the sound, my grandma murmured sleepily, “That son of mine going to be the
death of us.” As he tossed the empty tape roll into the stove, my father growled, “I’m so sick
of this! All this time I’ve been trying to make sure you’re going to be okay, and what do you
do? Complain and complain!”

He stormed out of the room and a few moments later we heard the front door slam.
“What’s he mad about now?” my grandma asked. I stretched out on the floor. It was quiet
outside. The silence was broken when my brother woke up and started crying. My mother
patted his back, but her efforts were in vain. He only quieted down when she started breast-
feeding him again. I could hear the sound of someone digging in the garden. Grumbling, my
grandma started to get up. “What’s going to happen to the chickens in the coop?” I would’ve
replied if I’d known the answer. But I didn’t. “Grandma,” I said, “go back to sleep. It’s
already past midnight.”
I got up and walked over to the window. A gust of wind made the sheeting balloon
inward again. “What’s going to happen to the chicken coop?” my grandma asked again. How
many times was she going to ask that question? I said nothing. The sound of the coal
crackling in the stove mingled with the sound of my father digging in the garden. If a bomb
didn’t fall on our house that night, he would most certainly build a shelter. Of that I was sure.