When I told Alma I had seen her partner with another woman, she set down her cup so carefully that I wished for the first time I could take back the sentence. She asked where. I named the café my colleague had mentioned. She asked when. I said Friday, because I knew he had been in town then. Her next questions required more and more answers from me. By the time we finished our coffee, the man I had never seen was holding somebody else's hand in my story.
My colleague had actually only heard that Nedim was meeting somebody. She had not claimed to know what kind of relationship it was. I felt embarrassed appearing before Alma as another person passing on rumors. I wanted to be the friend brave enough to tell the truth. So I invented the authority I did not possess. Afterwards I kept telling myself I would at least make her pay attention. I refused to admit how much I enjoyed suddenly becoming necessary.
Alma called two days later. Nedim insisted the story was untrue. She said she believed me and asked me to visit while he was home too. I suggested they should both calm down first. She replied that she was calm; she simply wanted me to look at him and repeat what I had seen. I could not have asked for better protection for my friend than the same simple thing that now threatened me.
I arrived with a bag of fruit, as though making an ordinary visit. Alma did not take it. Nedim stood beside the window. Before anyone asked a question, I said I had not been in that café. My voice sounded small in their living room. Alma asked who had been there, then. I had to answer that I did not know that either. Nedim began to speak, but she stopped him with her hand. She wanted to hear me out first.
I could not confirm that he was faithful. I could confirm nothing about his Friday. All I could do was withdraw my false testimony and admit that I had turned her life into a space for my own importance. Alma did not shout. She said my certainty had already made her start doubting her own memories of their relationship. She asked me to leave and tell my colleague what I had done, without attributing the invented details to her.
I do not know how the two of them finished that conversation. I do not even know whether they stayed together. Alma did not answer me for months. In the meantime, I admitted everything to my colleague and refused to describe Alma's reaction to another friend. This was not some new wisdom for which I deserved praise. I had simply, for the first time, left an empty space where I had no right to add a story.