Behind the Scenes

I suddenly remembered Rafet El Roman. The years 2005–2006. Hair gel, long sideburns, Rafet hats, the transition from old currency to new currency, bell-bottom trousers, Nokia 6230, and the sound of the modem connecting to the internet... Every day, we enter the same chat room. Everyone knows everyone. Ah, a new girl has joined. Everyone starts attacking from different sides. If she replies to someone, the others back off. The guy she replies to moves her from the public chat to a private chat. She never writes anything in the public chat again. Online honor. And Rafet El Roman is playing in the background on the server. A girl from my class is singing a Rafet song: “hiç utanmadık seninle mhmhmhm” — she skips the word “sevişerken” out of modesty and says it silently in her heart... At the last school bell ceremony, we dance to “Seni seviyorum.” A bicycle could pass between me and the girl. “...ve ooooo an geliiir deeee.” That moment never came... At university, everyone thinks they are talented. “Yeni Ulduz” is popular. Everyone hums songs everywhere. You open the classroom door and someone is completely carried away, playing the piano like a drum and singing at the top of their voice. None of those kids became Yeni Ulduz, though :( No, one of them did. In Yeni Ulduz 5! I’m taking bus number 56 to the University of Arts. I have 1 manat in my pocket. 20 qəpik for the ride there, 30 qəpik for a doner from Faiq, 30 qəpik for a single West cigarette from Uncle Shakili, and 20 qəpik for the ride back. Someone I know gets on the bus — fine, I’ll eat a hamburger instead. Another one gets on — I’ll smoke fewer cigarettes. Two of them get on at once — I start wondering who I can borrow money from to get home?! Why is the University of Arts located before everything else?!.. “...sonra neden?!” There is a girl at university who loves me. She loves me like crazy. Whenever I look up, she is watching me from the second-floor window. She had written a whole notebook about me. She described my smoking, the way I walked, and my messy hair so poetically that I was almost falling in love with myself. But I couldn’t fall in love with her. Before New Year, she bought me a present. A teddy bear almost as big as me. You would have been annoyed too. I got angry with her. I said, “Are you Santa Claus?” After that, I never saw her again. Not once. She stopped attending university and disappeared. And in the background, Rafet El Roman was always playing...