Ayşegül Savaş Reads “Many Worlds”

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1:30This is The Writer's Voice, new fiction from The New Yorker. I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at The New Yorker. On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Ayesha Gul Savesh read her story Many Worlds from the June 1st, 2026 issue of the magazine. Savesh is the author of five books, including the novels White on White and The Anthropologists, a nonfiction work, The Wilderness, and the story collection Long Distance, which was published last year. Now here's Ayesha Gul Savesh.

2:07Many Worlds Defne and Mete were at the Moda Promenade when they saw their old friend.

2:14Ayşegül Savaş:It was so strange to run into him there that they didn't immediately recognize him. They were with other people, about to find a bar where they could watch the EuroCup semifinal. It was their first summer in Istanbul since they'd moved back the previous year. They'd gone to the waterfront in the late afternoon with Defne's cousin Sinan, who had invited some of his friends, and the friends had brought along others. Soon, the group had taken up most of the grassy stretch behind the walkway, their beer cans, bags of chips, and pouches of tobacco scattered all around. A conservative-looking man had said something disparaging in their direction as he passed.

2:52Ayşegül Savaş:All right, uncle, you go on home now, Sinan shouted at his back, much to Defne admit as shock. Both of them were still far too polite, as if they were visitors. But instead of getting into a fight, the man simply continued walking. At one point, after the group had got flatbreads from a nearby bakery and more beer, someone suggested playing a game and Meta downloaded Tabu on his phone. By the end of all the guessing, they had the feeling of having completely bonded, just as they used to at the parties of their youth. This was one reason that Defna and Mehta had wanted to move back. For their families, of course, but also for the sake of a community that seemed more robust, far-reaching.

3:35Ayşegül Savaş:Already, they'd met many new people, they could show up at any place in Dzihengir and run into someone they knew. It was still the good times. Turks they'd known in the US were also returning, with something like pride, as if they had chosen a noble path. though it was also true that many of them were from well-off families and were coming back for what looked like a prolonged holiday. Later, many of those acquaintances would leave again, some through their jobs, others by making investments in European countries, which secured them citizenship. For half a decade, Defna and Mete had lived in and around San Francisco.

4:14Ayşegül Savaş:It was a slight embarrassment to both of them that they'd met at a Turkish society fundraiser. They detested such events, the organized camaraderie, the explicit homesickness. They were both doctoral students in social sciences. They'd read far too much theory to be earnest about such things. They had mostly untangled the dogmas of their national education, and that meant doing away with any sentimental nationalism as well. But it was a fact that they were lonely. The researchers in their departments were engrossed in their own lives, and the city was impenetrable, intoxicated with its style. And so, whatever their misgivings, they had turned up at the event to be close to their countrymen.

4:58Ayşegül Savaş:They stood next to each other during the welcome speech. Meta caught a sarcastic look on Defne's face and leaned in to follow up with a joke. During dinner, they realized that they had both grown up in Etilard and that they had attended sister high schools. But they were careful not to make too much of these coincidences. They resisted nostalgia. Anyway, they both knew that these were not really coincidences at all, but rather the rigid order of the world. Everyone from Turkey who ended up at a graduate school in the US was bound to have attended one of four schools. It wasn't impossible that their families were acquainted.

5:37Ayşegül Savaş:This too was something of an embarrassment, as if it proved that they hadn't ventured very far. But it was their cautious attitude that warmed them to each other, a sign that they were aligned in deeper ways than mere geography. There was a lot of food left over from the picnic, and Devna gathered everything in a bag to give to a homeless person, though there were not so many here, unlike in San Francisco. Besides, she was not entirely sure whether such a gesture was appropriate. But it was perfectly good food. It would be a shame to throw it away. Soon she saw a man approaching her on the boardwalk, with many bags and many layers of clothes.

6:18Ayşegül Savaş:She hastened toward him, an arm outstretched with the leftovers. The man lifted a hand as if he were greeting her. Then he stopped and spoke. Hey, he said. It's you. Her first thought was that the man was deranged. It was not so much his words, but the calm look on his face, as if he were talking to someone in a dream. She had an instinct to turn away, but then the face of the stranger shifted. Oh my god, she said. Oh wow, Alexei! Still, she could not shake off the bizarreness of the situation. More than the fact of seeing him after such a long time, it was the way he had spoken, as if he had known that she would be there.

7:03Ayşegül Savaş:What are you doing here? she asked. From the corner of her eye, she could see the rest of the group waiting for her. One of them said something to Mete, who started walking quickly toward them. He must have thought she was being held up by a homeless man, she realized, and he was coming to rescue her. Mete, she shouted preemptively. Look who I just found. Alexei raised his arm once again in greeting. Defna saw the look of bewilderment on Mete's face, though he quickly composed himself. Hey, man, he said. What the hell? I was wondering if I'd see you, Alexei said, maintaining that air of calmness, almost foreknowledge.

7:44Ayşegül Savaş:The three of them stood in silence, trying to determine an appropriate next step. Do you want to come watch the game? Meta asked after a moment. We're with some people. Sure, Alexei said. Who's playing? This was a surprise. Alexei had always been more informed about football than any Turk. Back in San Francisco, he would get up in the middle of the night to watch European games, often persuading Mette to do the same. The group looked at them a bit quizzically when they introduced Alexei as an old friend from California. Defna thought about her first impression when she'd seen Alexei walking toward her.

8:25Ayşegül Savaş:His clothes were torn, unwashed. His hair had grown long, though not in any groomed or deliberate style. His skin was thick, like that of sailors or farmers, so tanned it looked dirty. But more than this, it was his tranquility that made him appear different, as if he were looking at them from another plane. Defna couldn't recall whether he had always been like this, or whether he had indeed changed considerably. Defna and Meta had decided to move in together a few months after the fundraiser. They were old enough to skip a prolonged courtship. They'd known from the very beginning that they were perfectly harmonious.

9:05Ayşegül Savaş:They had no need to play games or tease things out. They were excited about getting a place of their own, putting up bookshelves, cooking meals, reading and writing together. But it was tricky to leave their separate tiny studios, which had been so difficult to find in the first place. The city and all its surrounding towns were expensive beyond belief. Quickly, they'd realized that there was nothing they could afford for just the two of them, so they began to look for shared houses with some resignation. Even then the options were few. They were about to settle for a dingy carpeted apartment with depressingly civilized house rules when they saw an ad for a room in a condo behind the Menlo Park train station.

9:48Ayşegül Savaş:They were the first to arrive for the viewing. They wouldn't have had a chance otherwise. What was on offer was too good to be true. The previous tenant, Amal, had been a Middle East scholar who had moved to Lebanon for research. Defna knew her peripherally because their areas overlapped. The remaining occupant, Alexei, talked about her at some length. The little-known Sufi order that she was studying, how she would read every morning under a tree, her eclectic taste in music, as if trying to initiate them into her cult. Defna and Mette had the feeling that they had to live up to this woman their prospective housemate held in such esteem.

10:29Ayşegül Savaş:Perhaps this was the reason they were so friendly with Alexei from the outset, trying to prove themselves. Alexei had lived in the condo for several years, though the place was mostly empty. There were no chairs or curtains, nothing in the living room on which to place a mug. Still, it wasn't at all gloomy like the other places they'd looked at. The few items of pottery in the kitchen cupboards were handmade. A wooden dining table had been painted white. When they came for the viewing, there was a jar of daffodils on it, although it did not seem that Alexei was precious about any of this. He seemed simply to have a natural sense of order and beauty.

11:09Ayşegül Savaş:Most of the furniture that had once been there had belonged to Amal, they found out, and she'd put it all in storage when she'd left for Lebanon. Isn't that weird? Defne said to Mete some weeks later at IKEA, after they had moved in. Why not just let him keep it until she's back? She was already protective of their housemates and suspicious of this other woman. Alexei said he would split the cost of anything they bought, but he couldn't come with them. It was his shift that afternoon at the bookstore where he worked. He said he trusted them with whatever they decided to buy, which endeared him to them even more.

11:47Ayşegül Savaş:He'd cooked dinner for them their first night there. He'd set to help themselves to anything in the fridge. Defna and Mete couldn't help but remark that Alexei was just like a Turk, even though he had grown up in California. They'd never had such a friendship in their years in the US, though perhaps this was because they had been so focused on their studies, on figuring things out. Alexei had been a graduate student in philosophy, but he had taken a leave of absence the previous year and started working at the bookstore down the street. He wasn't clear about his reasons for leaving school. He had obviously been very passionate about his area of study.

12:25Ayşegül Savaş:Their late-night conversations often turned to philosophy, particularly the question of subjective experience. If one could learn every possible property of a bat, the famous inquiry went, would one know what it felt like to be one? Alexei was good at providing the various sides of an argument in order to ground them in the debate, though he would quickly skip ahead to his own convictions, which seemed untethered from academic frameworks. He'd been disillusioned by academia, he told them, but he never quite explained what exactly this disillusionment amounted to. Defna and Meta were aware of the problems, of course, the competition and inflated egos.

13:08Ayşegül Savaş:In principle, they were all for Alexei pursuing this other sort of life. He often commented on the fact that his work brought him face-to-face with real people, rather than the strange, inbred species that populated higher education. Still, Meta and Defna thought it would be best for Alexei to get back to his doctorate. They were academics through and through. They could not envision another way with which to come to terms with the world. It had nonetheless been a shock for them when they started teaching in Istanbul. They were so used to the comforts of their graduate programs, the resources, the luxury to explore in a pure intellectual vacuum, detached from practical worries, that the everyday concerns of Turkish academia, its lack of funding and its political precarity, seemed an affront.

13:56Ayşegül Savaş:Their colleagues were either exhausted or jaded. They appeared more concerned with getting through each day than with their research. Perhaps this was how it was everywhere. The longer one stuck around steeped in hierarchies, the less noble the pursuit of knowledge became. Six months after they'd moved back, Defna was offered a position at the development agency. Of course she'd had some misgivings, the whole point of her training was to investigate without agenda, but she'd had so little time to do that at the university. And the salary was a relief. It was one thing to be graduate students in a house share and another to adapt to adult life in a metropolis.

14:38Ayşegül Savaş:Defna hoped that Meta might consider a similar change. It saddened her to see how much he was struggling with the bureaucracy, how ardently he fought for his students and for grants, with so little in return. On their way to the bar, one of their groups stopped to buy an ice cream, and everyone else decided to get one too. The historic Alusta shop was a little farther down the street, but this was a new Italian place with many unusual choices and toppings. The city had changed so much in the years they'd been abroad, it was a little disappointing that it now had all the same kinds of trendy businesses as San Francisco.

15:17Ayşegül Savaş:While they were standing in line, Defne's cousin Sinan asked how the three of them knew one another. We lived together, Defne said. We must have told you about Alexei. We had the best time, Meta added. He was going to say something more, but checked himself. And what are you doing in Istanbul? Sinan asked Alexei. Nothing much, Alexei said, and sort of wandering around. He explained that he'd been to India, Jordan, and Lebanon on this same trip. Oh, Defna said, did you see, what was her name? The old roommate, the one who took all the furniture. It was a little awkward to talk in the register of their old friendship, though just as awkward not to.

16:01Amal, Alexei said. I saw her in Beirut, but it was brief. Did she rob you of any belongings? Meta asked.

16:11Ayşegül Savaş:Grand theft furniture, Defna jumped in. It was a joke they'd settled on soon into their cohabitation. At first, Alexei had been defensive of the woman. Later, his loyalties shifted. No, she didn't, Alexei said earnestly. But she was a different person. It was their turn to order, so they didn't have a chance to ask him how this was so. Defna and Meta got a single scoop each. Alexei declined their offer to get him one too. Perhaps there was the slightest note of sarcasm in his demeanor. Something about that shop, the exorbitant sum they'd just paid for those tiny cups. And perhaps it was to make up for this, that when Sinan led them all to a chic bar, Meta suggested going to the run-down place across the street instead, where the neighborhood men were gathered.

17:00Ayşegül Savaş:Alexei accepted the beer Meta bought him and watched the game with silent interest, though in the past he had offered commentary throughout. At halftime, he rolled himself a cigarette, or a joint, Defna couldn't tell, from a large plastic bag then walked away to smoke it. Is that a grocery bag full of herbs? Defna asked. What on earth is he smoking? She was increasingly startled by Alexei, but Meta did not exactly acknowledge her alarm. He even seemed a little hurt that Alexei hadn't invited him to join, though it was true that he rarely spoke these days. That night, Defne explained to Meta how Alexei had appeared to her on the boardwalk.

17:44Ayşegül Savaş:He was just a bit disheveled, Meta said. But you thought so too, Defne said. At first you thought he was homeless. Just for a moment, it was all out of context. And he seemed totally off, didn't he? Like he was stoned. Maybe he was, Meta said. It wouldn't be the first time. Most evenings in Menlo Park, the three of them would sit on the floor in the living room, smoking and drinking whiskey, continuing the conversation of the previous night. They had an animated rhythm of debate. They pushed one another to extremes. Often, Alexei would put forth an outrageous idea that there was no such thing as consciousness, that the many worlds interpretation was surely true, thereby throwing into question any notion of herself, and Meta and Defna would come together in opposition.

18:34Ayşegül Savaş:Eventually, Meta might break off to side with Alexei to try to make room for his vast and unrestrained thinking, which seemed to challenge every assumption and norm. Sometimes he relied on pure illogic. Other times his arguments were refreshing, even ingenious. Following their move and the thrill of their new home life with Alexei, Defne and Meta had fallen a little behind in their research. They'd missed several conference deadlines and their teaching had become somewhat careless. But it was without a doubt a golden era. The three of them went for long walks in the evening, cooked dinners, camped.

19:12Ayşegül Savaş:Defne and Meta had never set up a tent before or made a fire. They could barely follow a trail. Alexei taught them all these things. It was as if they were growing into other selves, or fuller ones, within the security of their relationship and in the presence of a third person. Alexei allowed them joy in their coupledom, perhaps because he enabled a sort of performance and prevented them from settling into monotony and habit. It did not seem particularly unusual that Alexei wasn't seeing anyone or that he didn't really have any other friends. Devna and Mateo enjoyed having him to themselves. They speculated that Alexei had been in love with Amal.

19:51Ayşegül Savaş:He still talked about her from time to time with a sort of pain. He topped every dish with satar, listened to Levantine pop songs. It all belonged to his personal mythology, ardently protected and revered. Defna had also wondered fleetingly whether Alexei might be a little in love with her too. It was self-flattery, of course. But wasn't it the case that all friendships involved some amount of attraction? It was the engine of curiosity, the mystery that propelled any relationship forward. And so he must also be a little in love with Mete. The two of them were so sweet with each other, so enthusiastic.

20:31Ayşegül Savaş:And to be sure, Defna and Meta were a bit in love with Alexei as well. After the game, Alexei departed quickly, saying he had plans. This didn't seem very likely to them. Alexei had said himself that he was just wandering around. He was probably overwhelmed, they thought, by all the people at the bar. He had always been sensitive to big groups. They agreed to meet up again the following weekend. Alexei told them that he had a new email address, which he wrote down on a napkin. He didn't have a smartphone, but would find an internet cafe to check his messages. The email provider was one they'd never heard of.

21:11Ayşegül Savaş:When they asked him about it, he said that he felt more secure this way. There were other small signs like this, little oddities they could not quite remember from their friendship when they met him a second time at the Kadukyoy port. Alexei was talking to a seedy-looking man in front of a SIM card shop. The man must be a dealer, Devna thought. Alexei introduced him as his friend. Then the three of them wandered uphill, through the fish market and back to Moda, to the streets they had walked the previous weekend, then to Fenerbahce. Alexei was the one who kept walking farther. He didn't want to sit down anywhere, and they could see that the cafes they suggested seemed unwelcoming to him, as if Alexei no longer belonged to the same clan as them.

21:58Ayşegül Savaş:Anyway, it was good to walk, despite the heat of the day, because they were finding it hard to settle into conversation. Alexei held back from revealing too much about his current life. He told them again the countries he had visited on his travels, without much insight. He seemed afraid of stepping back into familiarity, clarity, afraid of what he might find there. Defna and Meta offered news on their move, their lives in Istanbul. It was easier to talk about all that had changed than about the life they'd had together in California. That morning, they discussed whether they would bring up Alexei's departure from the house.

22:36Ayşegül Savaş:They'd never got an explanation. The friendship had ended abruptly, though of course there had been months when Alexei had grown sullen, and they'd known that he was not happy. It was better not to say anything, Defna felt. If Alexei wanted to talk about it, he would bring it up himself. How's the teaching? Alexei asked. Great students, Meta said, but the resources are limited and there's a lot of bureaucracy. Must be better than teaching all those entitled kids, Alexei said. This had been among his grievances regarding academia, though Meta and Defna had once been comfortable enough to point out that he hadn't had a very difficult life either.

23:16I couldn't deal with the bureaucracy, Defna said. I quit. Huh, Alexei said. It sounded as if he wasn't surprised.

23:26Ayşegül Savaş:Amal, he told them, had also quit research and was now working for an evil institution. Evil how? Defna asked. Evil as an evil, Alexei said. Isn't it all the same thing? It occurred to Defna that Amal's work might be similar to her own. But she didn't feel inclined to tell Alexei about her job or to ask about Amal's. She did not feel like defending herself. At lunchtime, Alexei again declined their suggestion to sit down somewhere. He was not very hungry, he said. Besides, he was on a sort of detox regimen. He looked at them cautiously as he said this, waiting for a reaction. How does it work?

24:08Ayşegül Savaş:Defna asked. He'd met a healer on his travels, Alexei said. This man had measured the buildup of industrial chemicals in his organs and had given him herbs to flesh them out. Again, he looked at them, searching for a reaction. Defna kept silent, whereas Meta asked him whether there was any proof of this buildup. It's in your excrement, Alexei said. You see it all coming out of you. Listen, man, Meta said, I'd be careful with that stuff. You're right, Alexei said reasonably. There are a lot of people who can lead you off track, but there are still some who know what they're doing. When they parted from him, they walked silently for some time.

24:51Ayşegül Savaş:Then Defna said that it was all a bit of a shock. Yeah, Meta said. I guess something's off. I guess so, Meta said. He sounded so forlorn, and for some reason this upset Defne. That week, they were invited to a housewarming party at the home of a couple they'd known in San Francisco, who had recently moved back to Istanbul. Meta and Defne had always found this couple a little annoying, but maybe they'd been too judgmental. The things that had put them off in California no longer felt very important in Istanbul. Perhaps they were more relaxed here, Perhaps they'd grown up. There were others at the party they'd known in the US, as well as common friends from Istanbul.