Snow

In a restroom stall at the National Theater, Necip gives Ka the love letters he’s written to Kadife and asks him to deliver them. Necip describes a horrific vision that haunts him at night: a snowy road with a leafless tree in flames at its end. Necip calls this “the road where God does not exist” (142). On stage at the National Theater, Ka recites a poem that precisely describes Necip’s landscape.

Sunay Zaim and Funda Eser, his actress wife, perform My Fatherland or My Headscarf. Funda Eser plays a woman who rebels against her family and tradition by burning her headscarf. The boys from the religious high school heckle throughout the play. The audience becomes increasingly hostile and anxious, and when Funda burns the headscarf, the theater erupts into chaos. Much of the audience, including Ka, leaves in fear of violence.

The boys from the religious high school increase their shouts and boos, and the audience goes along with their interruptions, laughing and clapping. Sunay Zaim appears onstage dressed as the government soldier who will save Funda Eser from the fundamentalist mobs. Sunay speaks directly to the audience, and soldiers with rifles march onstage and open fire directly on the audience.