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illegality, thereby finding a “felon foreigner” in the persona of Feride. She thus became even more suspicious of this crazy daughter whom she had not trusted in the first place. In stark contrast, for Feride’s sisters, the concept of “border” mainly invoked the idea of edge, and the idea of edge invoked the image of a deadly cliff. For quite a while they treated her with utmost care, as if she were a walking somnambulist on a wall meters high and could fall down any time. However, the word “border” invoked the trim of latticework for Petite-Ma, and she studied her granddaughter with deep interest and sympathy.
    Feride had recently emigrated into another diagnosis nobody could even pronounce, let alone dare to interpret: “hebephrenic schizophrenia.” Ever since then, she remained faithful to her new nomenclature, as if finally content to achieve the nominal clarification she sorely needed. Whatever the diagnosis, she lived according to the rules of her own fantasyland, outside of which she had never set foot.
    But on this first Friday of July, Zeliha paid no attention to her sister’s renowned distaste for doctors. As she started to eat, she realized how hungry she had been all day long. Almost mechanically, she ate a piece of çörek, poured herself a glass of ayran, forked another green dolma onto her plate, and revealed the piece of information growing inside her: “I went to a gynecologist today. . . .”
    “Gynecologist!” Feride repeated instantly, but she made no specific comment. Gynecologists were the one group among all the physicians she had had the least experience with.
    “I went to a gynecologist today to have an abortion.” Zeliha completed her sentence without looking at anyone.
    Banu dropped her chicken wing and looked down at her feet as if they had something to do with this; Cevriye pursed her lips hard; Feride shrieked and then oddly unleashed a whoop of laughter; their mother tensely rubbed her forehead, feeling the first aura of a terrible headache approaching; and Petite-Ma . . . well, Petite-Ma just continued to eat her yogurt soup. It might be because she had gone quite deaf in the course of the recent months. It might also be because she was suffering from the early stages of dementia. Perhaps it was simply because she thought there was nothing to fuss about. With Petite-Ma you never knew.
    “How could you slaughter your baby?” Cevriye asked in awe.
    “It is not a baby !” Zeliha shrugged. “At this stage, I’d rather call it a droplet. That’d be more scientific!”
    “Scientific! You are not scientific, you are cold-blooded!” Cevriye burst into tears. “Cold-blooded! That’s what you are!”
    “Well, I have good news then. I have not killed . . . it— her — whatever!” Zeliha turned toward her sister calmly. “Not that I did not want to. I did! I tried to have the droplet aborted but somehow it did not happen.”
    “What do you mean?” asked Banu.
    Zeliha put on a brave face. “Allah sent me a message,” she said tonelessly, knowing it was the wrong thing to say to a family like hers but saying it anyway. “So there I am lying anesthetized with a doctor and a nurse on each side. In a few minutes the operation will begin and the baby will be gone. Forever! But then just when I am about to go unconscious on that operating table, I hear the afternoon prayer from a nearby mosque. . . . The prayer is soft, like a piece of velvet. It envelops my whole body. Then, as soon as the prayer is over, I hear a murmur as if somebody is whispering in my ear: ‘Thou shall not kill this child!’ ”
    Cevriye flinched, Feride nervously coughed into her table napkin, Banu swallowed hard, and Gülsüm frowned. Only Petite-Ma remained far off in a better land, having now finished her soup, obediently waiting for her next dish to arrive.
    “And then . . . ” Zeliha carried on with her story, “this mysterious voice commands: ‘Oooo Zeliha! Oooo you the culprit of the