The Applicant

A NOVEL Grove Press New York Copyright © 2023 by Nazlı Koca Jacket design by Michel Vrana Jacket photograph © iStock/Getty All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or [email protected]. This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between these fictional characters and actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Published simultaneously in Canada Printed in the United States of America This book was designed by Norman E. Tuttle The book is set in 11.5-pt. Sabon LT Pro by Alpha Design & Composition First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: February 2023 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title. ISBN 978-0-8021-6054-6 eISBN 978-0-8021-6055-3 Grove Press an imprint of Grove Atlantic 154 West 14th Street New York, NY 10011 Distributed by Publishers Group West groveatlantic.com To Whom It May Concern, I obey, I work, I appreciate. I scrub, I vacuum, I mop. I want you so bad I’ll do whatever you ask. I can kill, I can steal, I can take the blame for anything you need. I can dance, I can sing, I can be your exotic queen. I can carry, I can build, I can drive you from building to building. I can be the star of your football team. I can fight all your wars for a tiny shiny coin. Two coins and I will proudly work in your rotten hospitals, universities, tech companies. I can live in your apartments and take care of your babies. For free. It would be an honor to live under the same roof as you, your creepy husband, and your newborn baby. I can be your cheap prostitute, right here, right now, I can take it all in. If the earth collapses in on you one day, take this oath, I will be your human shield. Will you let me stay, let me stay, let me stay. August 15 Today I started working as a cleaner at a hostel. I’m not officially registered to work yet because of my visa status. Well, not really. I’m not registered because I still haven’t sent them a copy of my visa, because I’m afraid they’ll think my status is complicated. But this has nothing to do with cleaning toilets. Or it has everything to do with it. The hostel’s name is Looking Glass. Dusty kitsch portraits of Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the queen hang on its sky-blue walls. It says “we’re all med heir” in ugly letters down one whole side of the room, and there’s a huge kaleidoscope mirror on the other. When I walked in, a couple of pale and tall people, tattooed and pierced, were behind the bar, which is also the reception desk, talking about their wild weekends. I asked for Ali, my trainer for the day. I found him in the storage room, which is also the changing room. Ali is a Turkish graduate student who works three extra jobs so he can afford to be an unpaid lecturer at a university here. He’s a barista, a delivery guy, and a cleaner. We kind of look alike, except we don’t. Well, we’re both Turkish and we both have dark hair. First, we looked up how many checkouts there were today, using the company app on the androids assigned to us. Then we went to the Putzkammer to fill up our cleaning baskets. Things we must put in our cleaning baskets: Yellow cleaning cloths for the shelves in each room Yellow sponges (or were they pink?) Blue cloths and blue sponges for sure, for the toilets Tea towels, also for the toilets Mops An empty Ikea bag for the dirty mops Two spray bottles, one blue, one pink (first pink, then blue, like ladies first) “Welcome to the bottom of the immigrant hierarchy,” Ali said, handing me a pair of yellow latex gloves. He explained how at the end of every shift we must refill the spray bottles and put them on the shelves where they belong. We must put each dirty sponge, cloth, and tea towel into its own dirty basket. We must throw used bedsheets and bath towels into the laundry room through the little window in the basement. If we find anything that looks valuable, we must take it to the lost and found basket behind the reception. But if we find small things like bottles with Pfand, shampoos, or food left in the common kitchens after the guests have checked out, we can take them home. In Ali’s words, they’re our “treasures to keep.” Treasures of the day: One shampoo One shower gel Five tampons Half of the Pfand money (3.15 euros) we made recycling the bottles we found in the rooms Finally, he said that all Putzis get two free beers at the end of each shift. I knew this already. If Looking Glass weren’t the only place that had responded to my job application in months, this would’ve been a deciding factor. I’d visited Defne at the hostel a couple of times before she quit working here to start working at my old company, which I warned her many times against, but she didn’t listen. She’s now monitoring Turkish social media for child pornography and self-harm alerts and getting paid 4 euros per hour more than I am. She thinks it’s worth