Summary

In "The First Time Galip Saw Rüya", Galip wakes up in bed next to his wife, Rüya. He observes his wife sleeping beside him and idly worries about her dreams, fearing that she is dreaming of other men. He hopes she is dreaming that they are sharing a boat ride, remembering their shared childhood experience with the mumps. Their respective mothers took them out onto the Bosphorus Strait in the hopes that the air would help them recover from their illnesses. He then thinks further back to his early childhood, before Rüya and her family had entered his life.

Galip grew up in the Nişantaşi quarter of Istanbul, where he lived in the "Heart-of-the-City Apartments". His extended family lived in the same complex, as they had...