Evening sun striking the window pane pierced through the curtain, lighting up the bedroom walls like a stage spotlight. The July heat had truly set in. Nilgün pulled out the dress she would wear tonight from her closet and carefully laid it across the bed. This evening, she was attending the "White Night" party—a summer tradition for Bodrum locals where every guest dressed entirely in white.
She had always loved the color white. Especially in summer, she felt it complemented her sun-kissed skin beautifully.
She sat before the mirror to apply her makeup and took a long look at herself. For her age, she was still considered a very beautiful woman. With thick reddish-chestnut hair cascading down a graceful neck, deep amber eyes, and mature features, she possessed an exotic grace. In fact, whenever she looked in the mirror, she saw only what was missing. She found her face “colorless and pale,” her skin “too dark.” As if trying to complete the coloring work God left unfinished, she would bring her face back to life with brushes of all sizes, like a painter at canvas. Each brushstroke was an attempt to cover a deeply rooted insecurity.
That deep insecurity about her appearance went back to her childhood. Like the tale of the ugly duckling, she was looked down upon by those around her until she bloomed into a swan. But what hurt most was how her elementary school classmates mocked her dark complexion. Ah, children... How easily they hurt one another, mostly without even knowing.
In fact, Nilgün carried a color even in her name: the indigo hue of the Nile... She was named after the popular novel by Refik Halit Karay, prominent in the years she was born. Perhaps that was why her skin bore the mark of distant, warm lands. But for Nilgün, tired of her classmates calling her "Abyssinian," this name was no badge of pride; it was where her troubles began. That was why she disliked her name, too.
To make matters worse, the labeling hadn't stopped with her classmates. Her teacher, as if rubbing salt into the wound, always addressed her as "my dark girl" during class. Emboldened by the teacher, the children grew bolder and more cruel.
When her unhappiness at school began to affect her grades, her mother tried asking the teacher for help, but the painful situation dragged on until the spring term of second grade—right up to the incident that drove even her teacher to reach a breaking point.