10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World: Part 1, Chapter 3: Three Minutes Summary & Analysis

Three minutes after her death, Leila recalls the taste of cardamom coffee, a flavor she associates with Istanbul’s street of brothels. She’s come a long way from the days of her childhood. By September 1967, she is working in the oldest brothel on the infamous street, a dilapidated building with one flickering light and filled with the stench of smoke. Just outside her bedroom window hangs an abandoned wasps’ nest. Her madam—known as “Bitter Ma” or “Sweet Ma,” depending on whether she’s within earshot—is a stern woman who does not suffer foolish, condescending customers.

A sign posted outside of the brothel provides guidelines for customers regarding condom usage and preventing sexually transmitted infections. Inside the brothel, Bitter Ma instructs the girls to appear casually interested in potential customers, but not desperate or cold. Leila takes two cardamom coffee breaks in a typical workday, telling the madam that she’s prone to migraines without an evening cup.

Leila came to the street of brothels through trafficking. She was sold by a couple she met when she ran away from home at 17. Initially, she thinks she’ll never adapt to brothel life, even contemplating suicide as an escape. No matter how thoroughly she scrubs her body, she never feels clean enough. She’s plagued by the sensation of “invisible parasites” crawling on and inside her body, though Bitter Ma insists she’s merely imagining things.

From her room, Leila can see into the run-down furniture workshop next door, where 40 men squeeze into a small room to work long, grueling hours. One day, a young man catches Leila’s attention with his beautiful singing voice. He tells her to call him Hiç—meaning “Nothing”—before eventually disappearing, much to her dismay. One year later, during a large-scale raid of clubs and bars, Leila is arrested. To her surprise, her cell mate is none other than Hiç, who has transitioned into a woman named Nalan. They talk all night, quickly forming the basis of a lifelong friendship. Though Nalan is Leila’s “bravest friend,” Leila affectionately nicknames her Nostalgia Nalan, as she is always longing for the simpler life she left behind in the countryside.