Tamila Bahshieva was born in Pavlohrad, Ukraine. Her poetry appeared in magazines during childhood. A graduate of Tchaikovsky Music College and the Kharkiv State Academy of Culture, she has worked as a professional singer for more than twenty-five years and also teaches voice. At forty-three, she returned to writing through short fiction. Her work draws on memories, family folklore, and experiences across more than sixty countries, exploring love, loss, humor, and the supernatural. Her story “Kintsugi” was published by Storyhouse in September 2026. Her growing collection includes thirty-eight completed stories.
THE DOVE
By Tamila Bahshieva
He was tall, big-built, about fifty-five. She walked beside him — no longer young, but still beautiful, unhurried, as if floating. Now and then the wind caught at her hair.
He kept offering her his hand, but she was in no hurry to take it. The man kept bumping into passers-by, stepping on people’s feet, apologizing, weaving clumsily through the crowd. His linen shirt, soaked with heat, had gone dark with patches of sweat; the heavy, damp fabric clung to his shoulder blades, turning an elegant shirt into a compress. He kept wiping his face with a handkerchief.
She drifted half a step away, unnoticed — not pointedly, just so as not to touch the damp cloth.
He had prepared this evening with special care: planned the route, found the spot where a beautiful view was supposed to open up. On the way, she stopped — her attention caught by a woman with a white rabbit on a small table. Beside it stood a box of colorful fortune-telling scrolls. For a fee, the little animal would nose out a note meant for each of the pair. Wanting to please her, the man handed the elderly lady a couple hundred lira. The rabbit chose a blue scroll for her, a pink one for him. She hadn’t even had time to unroll hers when the man, clearly missing the point entirely, held out the paper to the rabbit like a treat. The rabbit ate it without so much as a glance.
“Why did you do that?”
“I thought it was a sugar cube.”
The rabbit’s owner swore under her breath and shook her head.
A few more steps, and the Bosphorus opened before them.
Now it will all come together, he thought.
But the sunset came out pale, unremarkable, and faded out within minutes.
“Lovely,” she said, sensing his disappointment.
He took out his handkerchief again and wiped his face, remembering the nights he’d written her letters and thrown them in the wastebasket. Why hadn’t he met her sooner — when he was younger, better-looking, braver…?
She knew about his feelings and allowed herself to be loved — that was enough.
Dusk was already gathering over the Bosphorus. She glanced at her watch. Her flight was tomorrow. Time to head back.
At the airport they embraced. He stood watching her go until she vanished into the crowd, a white scarf fluttering behind her like a wing.
In the morning he woke up alone. From the hotel balcony the whole city was visible: red tile roofs melting in the heat, slender minarets rising above the houses, the muezzin’s voice drifting in from somewhere far off.
He drew back the curtains and breathed in deeply. In the daylight, something glinted on the floor near the writing desk — a broken fingernail, lying there alone.
Must ask them to clean the room, he thought mechanically, and hurried out into the street, into the crowd.
The sun was blazing. He walked on, jostled by the crowd, when suddenly everything grew distant. His legs simply gave way.
He sat down on the cobblestones, still clutching the handkerchief.
“This man needs help!” — the words reached him through a haze.
***
That morning, housekeeping at the hotel was running on schedule — everything to be done by noon. Rufiya, as her badge read, gathered the towels left on the floor and dropped them into the laundry bin.
Her eye fell on the wastebasket beneath the writing desk: a sheet covered in small, careful handwriting stuck out of it. She pulled it out and unfolded it.
“My little dove, there are things easier to write than to say aloud.
When I think of you, I hear music. I don’t know why. As if someone were barely touching the keys — and everything around grows quieter for a moment.
I love watching you when you don’t notice. The way you squint at the sun. The way you push your hair back from your face. The way you suddenly stop in the middle of a conversation, having noticed something interesting, and gaze at length at what others would walk past without a glance. You probably have no idea how many such small things I’ve come to remember.
I’m not asking you for anything. I just wanted you to know: somewhere in this vast world there is a person whose life became better simply because you exist in it.
My foolish heart keeps reaching for you.
Give me your hand…”
Rufiya folded the letter and, after a moment’s hesitation, set it back down on the desk, weighting it with an iron ashtray. Somehow it felt wrong to throw such a thing away.
Outside, evening was falling.
A draft stirred the curtain gently. Lights had already come on in the windows of the neighboring houses, while the room with the letter remained dark.
As though its owner were in no hurry to return.