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In her life, Matilda Aseo has known abysmal horrors. She has lived through her entire family being ripped from her hands, the life she had led torn into pieces by people she’d once considered her dearest.
She has withered away in prison for a crime she couldn’t avoid committing, with it, she condemned her unborn child to live in the ruins of a world she had burned down. Against all odds, she had found life again. Seventeen long years spent in prison treated like a vermin by the guards and the other prisoners. The world outside the thick walls progressed, developed beyond imagination while she was stuck in a world long gone like a ghost of the past displaced.
She does count her lucky stars, though, as after her release she had had a chance to build her life anew, a chance not everyone got.
And what a life she has carved for herself! She has a beautiful daughter, could never regret her, not even on days when Raşel resembles her mother in her behaviour and looks in determination like the spitting image of her father.
On the top of finding her daughter, she has a home now, a place at the table, and she is loved by those she considers family. Tasula had been so quick to take her under her wing, and had adopted her as their mother without any objections from the rest of the staff. The dancer girls had been delighted to side with them against the worrying wrath of the seamstresses. In the end, they had begun liking her, too.
When he had had time, Hacı had helped her reorganize the backstage so it suited better for Selim Songür’s quicker-than-a-heartbeat costume changes. After the Club had closed for the night, the two of them used to go through lighting plans for upcoming shows. Selim would join them too, would go through his plans over and over again until he himself forgot what he was saying and they would all laugh, call it a day, and wander downstairs for a cup of tea.
Fixing the blanket on her shoulders so that it covers her better, Matilda smiles to herself. After moving in with Aziz she now has the luxury to sit on a window bay nursing a glass of tea. The ince belli bardak is old, maybe as old as her, yet it’s clearly well-loved and taken care of. The style of the golden ornaments is similar to of those her family used, simple yet sophisticated.
Matilda takes another sip and lets herself get lost in memories. Thinking of the past, and fondly of that, is an indulgence she couldn’t allow herself, not with needing to be strong to survive. On nights like this, when the threads of life are almost visible in the shadows between a dark sky and dimly lit cobblestones, it’s ridiculously easy to be fond of everyone in one’s life, and that’s exactly what she is.
Fond.
And how could she not, not when Memnum the cook shares the best gossip with her, when the dancer girls come to her for advice? When Hacı asked her permission to court Tasula, when Selim is quick to share every detail of his life with her, eyes bright and brown curls disarrayed, asking for her guidance, her support, her love?
Matilda cannot deny it. Selim is like a son to her.
She knew of his dalliances, how could she not when she'd been there from the beginning, had known the awkward and clumsy man who didn't know what to do with long limbs and a pretty face. Selim is like a son to her, she is so proud of him it makes her breath itch in her throat and her chest burst.
She had heard them once, had heard of softly murmured endearments in the shadows of Orhan’s office. There had been hope in his eyes afterwards, but then the riots happened and Orhan disappeared, taking Selim's heart with him.
It had been painful to watch, and Matilda’s heart had ached in agony every morning she saw Selim stumble out of his dressing room after spending yet another night on its floor, sobbing himself to sleep. For five long years he had lost himself to work, to constantly writing new songs and recording pre-existing ones, making sure his legacy was properly preserved when everything else faltered. She’d seen him going through choreographies over and over and over again, until his feet barely carried him back to the stage, back into the spotlights.
In the cold light of Selim’s dressing room, she’d seen him adding more blush to hide the hollowness of his cheeks and powder onto the dark circles under his eyes; she’d helped him, too, on evenings when his hands had trembled and eyes filled with tears long gone dried.
It had taken five long years of weekly crashing at Matilda and Raşel’s place with breath smelling of cheap alcohol and morning dawning with an unyielding sense of shame and guilt, but the beginning of a new decade had returned the twinkling of happiness back into Selim's eyes. After that, when Keriman had already begun challenging his position as the brightest star of Club Istanbul, Matilda finally saw joy and pride and contentment back in Selim’s eyes, but the hope she'd once witnessed had vanished altogether.
Things could never go back to how they were, time was a rancid thing of progression, and the people in their lives back then had changed; those who’d stayed had changed, too.
One morning a few weeks ago, when Aziz had been deep in sleep and Matilda too anxious to pretend otherwise, she’d walked to the Club with the first rays of sunshine warming her back. Once inside, she’d taken in the familiarity of the place, had reminisced about the people who brought Club Istanbul alive. Selim had been there too, of course he had been after sleeping in the dressing room yet again. He’d made her tea and they’d drunk it on the backstage steps like they used to do in the beginning, back when she’d been just as new to the Club as he’d been, their worlds separated by societal walls created by small-minded men in high chairs.
Selim had looked so small then, holding the slim ince belli bardak and its saucer with shaking fingers, clad in the clothes he’d worn the day earlier.
“Matilda, Matilda,” he’d sung with a wavering voice, the melody soon replaced by sobs and hollow chuckles, “We’ll get by this, too.”
The weight of his head in her lap had been a familiar one, and just like now, Matilda had wished she could’ve done more to protect his fragile, all-loving heart.
The urge is not as strong as back in the early days of their friendship, but still from time to time she wishes to wrap her arms around him and be the parent his should've been. Most often than not, she does exactly that, the Club workers hustling and bustling around them. Nobody pays them any mind anyway, except maybe Tasula, who comes to sit down with them with a kind smile and all-consuming compassion. He welcomes them both with open arms.
It's getting late, Matilda notices, the sky is at its darkest hour and the bustling of the city beneath her quieted down for the time being. Istanbul never sleeps, not truly, but for now the streets were void of street vendors selling fresh food and trinkets and of children's laughter and shouting. There are no lights on in the windows around her, and she alone bears witness to the dark night.
From her spot on the bay window, she looks at the windows on the opposite side of the road. The curtains were drawn early, right after Matilda had spotted Raşel in the kitchen window on her way home. She’d look down at her with cold eyes, her expression bordering on arrogant spitefulness.
Matilda misses them both, she misses Rânâ’s babbling and drawings, misses Raşel’s fierceness that got them into this situation in the first place. Matilda has made several mistakes in her life; finding Raşel never being one of them.
Raşel and Rânâ must be deep in slumber already. Matilda knows deep in her heart, against all her hopes and dreams, that whatever Raşel has going on with İsmet won't last. Despite motherhood and the burden of reality, she is too young, too lost in the fantasies in her own head to see him already withdrawing farther, his presence in their home growing fainter with each passing day.
She wishes the best for them nonetheless. Raşel is her daughter after all, and İsmet has crawled his way into Matilda's heart little by little with stubbornness matching Raşel's. Rânâ deserves to have her father in her life. Coming from a family with broken parents in two generations, her life won't be an easy one in this matter, but if she has inherited even a fraction of her mother's temperament and a lot of her father's wisdom, she will do well in life.
Rânâ is of Aseo blood after all, and thriving despite cruelty of date is what Aseos do best.
There’s rustling from behind her. A door opens.
Aziz sounds worried when he comes to stand behind her. “Matilda? Why are you still awake?”
His hair is a mess and he looks just as weary as she feels. His hand on her shoulder is a welcomed weight, anchoring her back to presence from worrying.
She sets aside the slim tea glass, properly turns to him. “I couldn’t sleep,” she says and for the first time since properly moving in with him, she crumbles. He catches her, of course he does, they’ve leaned on each other so many times in these five years becoming an unit of two had been unavoidable.
When she was hired for the Club, Aziz Somuncuoğlu had not been Aziz Somuncuoğlu but a man of cruel leadership and uncaring attitude. He’d been frightening, had poisoned the air with his own toxicity and foulness-born-from-pain.
With Matilda, and time, and healing, he’d become a man of great compassion, had begun to properly look after those that had become his family, who had accepted him even after everything that happened.
She’s so, so proud of him.
“Do you think,” he says after her hiccups have faltered and breathing is once again easier, “you could try resting for a while? Just for a few hours, until morning.”
It’s not a terrible idea. She is weary, and Aziz radiates warmth that she craves, longs to bask in. It has been so easy to fall into the routine of going to sleep together, of waking up and making breakfast together. Aziz was not Mümtaz, should and could never be, but he was her last living connection to her past and family, just like she was his, and that created a special layer to their bond.
Gently he helps her up, and trustingly she follows. When Aziz twirls her around like the bedroom was the finest dance floor in all of Istanbul, she laughs freely like she was created to, and when he wipes the lone pair of tears from her eyes, his own eyes are so full of love and understanding it only makes her tear up more. He wipes those tears off, too.
“Try to rest, beloved, morning comes soon enough anyway,” he says once they’re back under the blanket, Matilda curled against him so that they’re touching from head to toes. She closes her eyes, knowing sleep won’t find her this night at all.
For his sake, she lets the rhythm of his breathing lull hers into the same nonetheless. She likes the thought of that, of their hearts beating together in an unified rhythm of existing.
She really, really likes the thought of that.