Who is this person? And had the journalist really disappeared, or had he simply been hiding all along? Büşra's voice trembles. Elif, she reads. This letter was written to you. The room turns to ice.
Everyone looks at Elif. Elif's face goes pale. She takes a step back, as if the letter were reaching out toward her. To me? She whispers. But I was just a child back then.
Büşra hands her the letter. Elif takes it with shaking hands, her eyes moving quickly across the lines. For a moment, no one speaks. Only the rustle of paper can be heard. Finally, Elif looks up. Tears have gathered in her eyes.
It says... Her voice breaks off. She takes a deep breath and continues. It says he never disappeared. He was hiding. He had to run from the people who wanted to get their hands on the documents.
Why was he hiding? Nail asks. Elif reads the letter again, more slowly this time. Because, she says, her voice cracking, he wanted to protect me. No one breathes. He was my father, Elif finally says, the words coming out with difficulty.
My mother never told me. She only said he had died, or that he had left. She never fully explained it. Ahmet Bey sits down at the table, his face heavy with sorrow. My grandfather must have known too, he says slowly. Maybe that's why I never dared to open it.
Elif continues reading. He writes that he watched me every day. From a distance. He couldn't get close, because he knew that if he did, he would put me in danger too. Her voice becomes almost inaudible. I told you he taught me how to read, remember?
That was true. But I never understood why he had always been so patient with me, why he cared about me so much. Near the end of the letter, there is something else, an address. Or something that looks like one, an old mark that matches a map from forty years ago. What is this? Nil asks, leaning over the letter.
Ahmet Bey looks at the address, his eyes widening. That is the old mill outside the city. It has been abandoned for years. Maybe, Lena says quietly, he's still there. Elif's hands keep trembling. After forty years, she murmurs, could he still be alive?
No one can answer. Is her father still alive? And if he is, why has he never come forward in forty years?