I lay a hyacinth down in the middle of the stone book. A bookmark to note the page, though it will never change. Impressed by the literary shape of the gravestone, I place the single stem meticulously in the crack of the stone volume leaving just a few buds hanging over the edge. Around me is a circle of grief and concern but its words do not reach me, though I am but a few steps away. I overhear the song of a couple of birds as surprised by their winter location as I am of my presence in the cemetery.

The tall pine trees seem to have sealed off the sounds of whirring Istanbul traffic that I know must be continuing on the highway just behind us. Mouths open and close next to me, sobs disturb the well made-up face of a fur coated woman in the corner of my eye and a family friend pounds his enormous fist on the cold marble surface of a massive gravestone. Yet I do not hear anything except the chill in the wind. I imagine instead that I hear the hundreds of teardrops as they fall to the icy earth and Red, a favourite soundtrack, echoes in the chambers of my mind. Zbigniew Zamachowski's familiar coarse voice sings lyrics I have heard a million times before:

Mais, tout commencement, on n'est qu'une suite

I roll the words over like tired childhood marbles and suddenly drop them as a new understanding of the song enters me. I am but a continuation. I am the next page... There is the book I've heard described at the head of the fresh grave I stand before. The perfume of the hyacinths cradled in my arm and the blunt cold bring me back to the task of laying down the flowers and my sister's black wool coat brushes some feeling back into my fingers. The touch of the soil that separates us now numbs my soul and for a second I want to dig frantically, convinced it is only dirt not death between us. A crow commands as my sister and I place the armful of white bulbs on the grave, authoritative in the crisp silence, he yelps:

"To the right a bit"

"Even out the left side"

"Good. Well done girls!"

"Now something special with the red and yellow carnations"

"Yes, yes, oh how he loved that soccer team."

"There. Lovely!"

The sun, having graced us with its appearance at the ceremony, leaves us to ponder the somber side of winter and slowly we walk through the other graves back to the gravel path. We have just buried our father. My sister's gloved hand reaches out for mine as we pass the adjacent grave the men trampled while carrying the coffin. Through her tears she smiles and points at the lone white carnation she has left on the grave. It is an apology for disturbing the owner's Friday morning slumber, though I am sure the dead don't take offence. Surely they must see that we have no practice walking about cemeteries.

"You remind me of a man."

"What man?"

"Man with the power."

"What power?"

"Power of voodoo."

"Who do?

"You do."

"What do I do?

"You remind me of a man."

I murmur the words again and again as if I can weave a shield against the irrevocable certainty before me. His lines contain all the answers. My lines ask the questions.

"Zeynep, come into the bedroom. It's your daddy on the phone. Quickly." I clamber over the beige bedcover in the dimly lit bedroom and pick up the receiver, pleased he's kept his promise.

"Hello Zeynepcigim. How are you?" The sing song quality of my father's voice saved especially for my sister and me. Full of excitement and energy, as though each time he speaks to us he relives the surprise and joy of having daughters. So different from the adult voice that articulates world affairs to mysterious men on the other end of phone lines or the questioning voice booming out half-hatched articles to the click clack critique of his typewriter. This is his father voice and it is the first phone call I remember receiving from him. The beige receiver is too big for me so I hold it with both hands like I clutch his arm.

"Hey, you remind me of a man."

"Oh daddy, come on. Don't be silly."

"Who's being silly? You remind me of a man."

"OK Goofy." I give in, secretly delighted that he's brought up the limerick he taught me just before he left on his first overseas assignment. He'll be gone a week but he'll call.

"What man?" I ask as if stumbling on the question like candy forgotten in my pocket. My mother rolls her eyes as she listens to us go through the game time after time, both adamant not to be the one to stop. You are supposed to pretend you don't know the next line and the enthusiasm in our voices mounts as we search for fresh tones for the memorized lines.

"Power of vvvoodoo." I giggle at the vvvvvvv sound he draws out, I have only been learning English a few months. Vs and Ws are still new to me and voodoo sounds like a made-up word, packaged just for me.

"OK Daddy, I have to go play now. Good night, don't let the bed bugs bite." I give the phone back to my mother sitting next to me on their bed. The cool of the Athens evening settles in as I sit listening to the way she pronounces my father's name as though it is a one word reply to everything. Always emphasizing all three syllables. "Mus-ta-fa!" Leaving me guessing at the real meaning beneath her voice.

Her voice becomes the color of a spring night as I focus on the beige Formica bedside table the phone sits on. My father can make horses gallop on that Formica when he's home. His knuckles and fingers dance wildly on the surface as my sister and I watch in great amazement. I steal into the room sometimes and try to find the horses when he's gone by drumming my fingers on the Formica but they never gallop for me the way they do for my dad. Mine clop clop like deformed milk horses clunking their way on asphalt.

At the morgue with my sister to see my father one last time, we don't talk much because neither of us has a vocabulary for loss. My life has always been full of plenty. I note that dad would've appreciated the fact that there is no exit sign at the morgue, only an entrance sign. It is gray cold and we wait quietly for the men to come and get us. In the small smoky waiting room a kettle boils in the corner. I wonder if purgatory looks this dingy. Finally it is time to go in and say our farewell.

I walk into a white room that smells of life lost and sterility. Wrapped tightly in a white shroud is my father's body. I look down at his face and am transfixed between recognition and disbelief. Never have I seen my father's face expressionless before. His was a life of roars of laughter, greatly amplified political criticism and bellowed out declarations of devotion. Surely the calm emotionless face before me that resembles my father so cannot be that of the man I love most on earth. I bend down to kiss his cheek and my lips chance upon a drop of rosewater they have sprinkled on him. Immediately I taste the memory of the only box of roses I've ever gotten - my first day of university and a card signed "Mustafa."

Someone signs for his body and we set off for the mosque. My sister and I ride in the hearse with the coffin, accompanied by a driver with few words to spare and an imam who is more than naturally interested in the well being of his clients. As we get caught in Istanbul traffic on this sunny Friday morning, I let my mind wander in its maze of memories. My sister holds my hand tightly. As we cross the Galata Bridge I look out at the hustle of everyday life that has been going on uninterrupted for thousands of years in this city: The fisherman hawking their morning catch, men rushing through traffic selling bread rings to those rushing by in cars, dreamers crowded around a newspaper checking the lottery results, mothers dragging lethargic children on and off buses and ferries, the endless cries of the lemonade men coated in the exhaust of trucks piled with vegetables, two policemen chasing a salesman whose chestnut stall is not registered and dozens of people shrieking their messages on to overworked orange public phones. I am not a part of that today.

The imam fidgets in the front seat telling the driver which route to take and restraining comments about the driving around him. He keeps peering back at us as if to measure the size of our grief. He clearly isn't impressed and in a genuine effort to help rouse our feelings he begins asking questions. No sooner have we told him that my father was only 53 that he slaps his hand on his thigh, sighs and cries out, "Oh, and you think that's a tragedy do you? Why that's nothing! Yesterday I buried a 20-year-old medical student. Father was a doctor. She committed suicide, she did. He was beside himself." We nod politely, making no attempt to match the grief of yesterday's doctor. Visibly upset his story has not resulted in the requisite stream of tears, the imam watches traffic for a while before he speaks to us again. A dedicated man, he is clearly not about to give up on us.

"Why, I went back to my village last month," he claps his hands together and proceeds to tell us in exquisite detail the three deaths he confronted back home. "First my cousin. Drowned in the river. He was only in his thirties. Allah takes when Allah wants. There's no fighting it. Aaah ah. There's no point crying about it, he's gone. And then the town's blacksmith - came down with some terrible disease and died all within a month. Oh yes, Allah ..."

My sister and I hide behind our light brown hair as the imam shakes his head, snaps, sighs and gestures for emphasis. It is all I can do to keep from chuckling for I imagine my father in the back seat, introducing himself congenially to the ghosts of the coffin’s previous occupants, roaring with laughter at the imam's attempt at small talk.

At the mosque, my sister and I stay back and watch my father's closest friends carry the coffin to the platform at the end of the courtyard. Despite the many days of rain preceding the funeral, the trees surrounding the courtyard have been dipped in the copper light of December sunshine. The outline of the nineteenth century mosque glows in triumphant light. Even the gray shadows of the wreaths don't detract from the honey warmth of the courtyard. There are still two hours before the funeral and waiting I am reminded of Bergman's Barefoot Countess - one of hundreds of films my father and I watched together. A brilliant opening scene at a soggy funeral punctuated by dozens of black umbrellas. Perhaps the same celestial cinematographer is at work here in this mosque near father's childhood home.

The courtyard slowly fills with hundreds of people and I find myself watching them as they come up to me to pay their condolences. I cannot hear their words. However, I am acutely aware of the many hugs from strangers who hope to touch a part of him in me, the wools and furs and gloves that seem excessive in the sunlight, the clink of an earring, a muffled horn from the busy downtown avenue behind us, a whisper laden with grief, the unexpected warmth of a falling teardrop and the overwhelming sense that any minute now they will start rolling the credits. I half expect my father to sit up and quote Roy Schreider in All that Jazz, "This is just a rough cut you know. The story's not done. It's not finished. I need more time..."

Just as I focus on another face engraved by grief, the hot spicy odor of fresh döner kebap explodes before me. I am about to shake hands with a well known media personality as the rushed delivery boy bolts right in front of me and, having already decided on this as the shortest route, elbows his way through the crowd to the street on the other side of the courtyard. I glance over at my sister who catches my eye and she too struggles to hide a smile.

There he is before us smiling in the photo placed on the coffin. I took the photo last summer as we climbed a cobblestone path during a walk on the island. A casual photo of my dad and it has become the face that says goodbye to hundreds of mourners. The prayer comes to an end and, as if cued, dozens of pigeons that have watched the ceremony in stillness from the trees fly into the milky blue sky and swoon twice around the minaret. I wink to the photo of my dad, congratulating him on perfect choice of lighting and impeccable direction. Bergman himself couldn't have done better.

I stroke my father's captivating smile as I hold the photo before the line of men carrying his coffin to the grave. My sister and I each carry an armful of hyacinths given to us by mother and their sweetness keeps us distant from the cold that is setting in and the low ebb of sobs around us. Someone stands with an arm around my mother. My sister and I watch from the marble steps of another grave, perched apart from the others. They remove him from the coffin and lay him into the embrace of the earth. No, we don't want to join those gently covering his shroud with dirt. Our job is to keep him alive.

An uncle's purple voice recites the final prayer but my private words drown out his:

"You remind me of a man."

"What man?"

"Man with the power."

"What power?"

"Power of voodoo."

"Who do?

"You do."

"What do I do?

"You remind me of a man. You know I love you Zeynep."

"I love you too daddy though I think you’re a nut."

Our last words. The phone call following my trip to Vietnam just weeks earlier. The childhood limerick is still our way of crossing vast distances though it is my journeys now that put the kilometers between us. By now, I have discovered all the hidden meanings in my mother's "Mus-ta-fa" and memorized my father's imperfections, many of which I share. Yet, despite them, he can still make horses gallop for me where everyone else sees a Formica tabletop. He still has the power of voodoo.

. ----.----.----.----.----.----.----.

I've come to say goodbye. Thick snow covers Istanbul today and even this ancient chaotic city has had to take a day off. I've cleared the snow away so your hyacinths show. I'm wondering what jokes you've told the gypsies for them not to steal the flowers off your grave. I haven’t missed you for I sense your presence every day. Your words are the click clack critique for my writing and mother jokes that I am but volume II of the same text.