Baksheesh (14 page)

I spent the rest of the day mooching around at the shop and phoning the list of book distributors Pelin had given me. I decided I wouldn't bother to go home to change and collect my car, but just hop in a taxi to go across the Bosphorus. After all, I was hardly likely to meet the man of my dreams at a fish restaurant in Çengelköy. And if I did, I was hardly going to complain that the reason I'd missed out on the love opportunity of a lifetime was that I wasn't wearing a backless black-silk dress and teal-coloured stilettos.

That's what I thought. But nobody ever knows beforehand how they will react to such a situation if it occurs. Therefore, to be on the safe side, it's always worth wearing high-heeled sandals, even to go out to the corner shop. Or fishnet tights, if it isn't sandal season.

 

“I think you must be starting the menopause,” Lale said.

I thought only heterosexual men made idiotic sexist remarks like that. And misogynist homosexuals. However, Fofo would never say such a thing, not because he isn't a misogynist but because he's a PC homosexual. Selim might think that way too, but, like Fofo, would never actually say as much. I believe in interrupting anyone who makes stupid comments like that. They should keep their ideas to themselves, whoever they are and whatever the reason.

The only way of dealing with people who refuse to stop spouting such rubbish is to pretend not to hear and to cling to the notion that the spoken word is ephemeral while the written word endures.

That's what I did. I simply ignored what Lale had said.

“Can you imagine? Selim actually hung up on me,” I said.

“Have your periods become irregular?” she asked.

As you know, I'm inclined to violence and a voice deep inside me was yelling out instructions to smash the water jug on the table and rip out this woman's guts.

“You realize I'm only forty-four years old,” I remarked.

“What does age have to do with it, darling? Anyway, forty-four isn't too young. In fact, I think it's exactly the right age.”

“You can be so cruel. To young people as well as old,” I said, with just enough malice to make my point. I just couldn't help it. I mean, Lale wasn't exactly young. She was only five years younger than me.

“Especially young people with no professional future,” I added. That was really below the belt. My dear friend had spent the last year hanging around at home waiting for job offers.

“Hey, I wanted to talk to you about that,” she said.

Amazing! Was her treatment for depression actually working then?

“About what?” I said.

“I've had an offer. Not in the media, which is why I can't make up my mind. But I think it's going to be very difficult to get a newspaper editorship now. And since nobody is going to offer me a job as a correspondent…”

“What's the offer?”

“It's in advertising. From a company that's newly formed and very ambitious.”

According to Yılmaz, my friend in advertising, that line of business was very precarious in Turkey just then. I felt sure it was the same in other countries, but the only people I knew in the international advertising world who might have kept me informed had moved on to writing autobiographical novels.

“Why don't you talk to Yılmaz? It might not be quite the right job for you,” I said.

“My savings have all but gone, and I can't bear living hand to mouth. This crisis is never going to end. So what else can I do?” she said, looking tense and thoughtful. Then she suddenly smiled.

“If the Germans hadn't come here and scooped up our business opportunities, I might have opened a bookshop selling crime fiction,” she said, laughing.

 

As I tried to get to sleep on the uncomfortable sofa bed that Lale had made up for me, I felt glad I hadn't wasted time going home to change. What small things give us pleasure when life is hard!

It's always acceptable to visit someone who has been recently bereaved in order to offer condolences, even if you don't know them well. Turks are like that. They regard it as good manners and are pleased to have you there, especially if you're a neighbour.

For that reason, I didn't think twice about entering the building where the old woman had died the previous day.

The door of the basement was wide open. There was a pile of shabby shoes outside. It was a mess. Like the inside of my head. Like the streets of Istanbul. Like the political, economic and social situation in Turkey. That pile of shoes outside the door assumed an authentic representative value when I added my fashionable and expensive red slingbacks. Among those twenty or so pairs of shabby, down-at-heel shoes, mine stood out as extremely smart footwear that had probably cost more than the other nineteen pairs put together. It was an approximate reflection of income distribution in Turkey, where each lucky person in the top five per cent earned as much as the remaining ninety-five per cent put together.

I entered a room full of women who had their heads covered and were dressed in flowery skirts and blouses. Muslims don't have traditional mourning clothes. It's normal to wear everyday clothes on such occasions. Everyone was whispering in hushed tones. When they realized I was there, they stopped to look at
me. An elderly woman sitting on the carpet patted the floor next to her and said, “Come and sit here, my dear.”

I knelt down on the floor. It wasn't pleasant being the object of such curiosity. A woman rose to her feet and shook my hand.

“Welcome,” she said.

I needed to say something, to explain who I was.

“We're neighbours. I have a shop near here,” I said. “May I offer my condolences? I was passing by here yesterday and…”

“May she rest in peace,” they said in unison.

“The shop that sells books, is that one yours?” asked a young woman wearing a headscarf.

Actually, there's no point mentioning that she wore a headscarf, because all the women had their heads covered. Not a single woman in that room had her hair showing.

“Yes. In Lokum Street.”

“I went there to get my daughter's school books, but the young lady said they didn't keep that sort of book,” said another woman.

“Are there different sorts of book?” asked someone.

“We don't sell school books. We sell novels,” I said.

“Of course,” said a young girl. “There are novel books and poetry books, aren't there, miss? They're never sold in the same place.”

“That's right,” I said, thinking what a strange conversation this was. “Was it your mother-in-law who died?” I asked, addressing the woman who had said “welcome” to me.

“I'm her daughter. My sister-in-law has gone to ask her boss for some time off. It's all so sudden,” she said, starting to cry. A few of the women sprang to their feet and started whispering words of consolation to her, their lips moving as if saying prayers.

The woman sitting next to me took hold of my arm and pulled me towards her.

“She was my older sister. Very ill, she was. God bless her. But she's been spared any more pain now. The way she suffered…
God knows best of course, but it was sad she had to go that way.”

A woman picked up a bottle of cologne that was next to the television and sprinkled it onto the hands of the other women in the room. “Her daughter-in-law was out in the streets half the night,” she said. “There's never peace and harmony in a home if the woman isn't back by evening prayers. Is it women's business to get involved in party politics these days?” The atmosphere in the room suddenly turned icy. Nobody seemed to know what to say. The silence was eventually broken by the young girl who had talked about “novel books”.

“It was cancer, miss.”

“So you must be a granddaughter,” I said. “Do you think I could have a glass of water?”

The girl got to her feet and I followed her, feeling relieved to escape from that room.

“Do you live in this apartment?”

“Yes. We came back yesterday evening. Me and my brother go to our village for the summer vacation. We help out there. My mum and dad can't go because they both have jobs.”

“How did it happen?”

The girl's eyes filled with tears. I should be ashamed of myself, I thought. The girl covered her mouth with her hand and began to sob. When she leant her head on my shoulder and started crying, I felt obliged to stroke her hair, or rather her headscarf.

“She was very ill. So really, she's been spared,” I said. “She would have suffered a lot of pain. God took pity on her and spared her.”

“Don't say that, miss. The whole place was covered in blood. She was stabbed all over her belly.” She moved her hand in a way she thought a belly-stabbing action would be.

“Why was that, do you think?”

The girl was no longer crying. “I don't know. For her bracelets, maybe? But if you saw those bracelets, you'd know they wouldn't
fetch anything. They were like strips of tin. She used to say she'd give them to me if I got to be a teacher.”

Someone called from the sitting room, “Figen, your sister Nurten's leaving.”

Obviously, I was never going to get proper answers to my questions in that crowd.

“I should go too,” I said.

“Miss, can I ask you something?” she said.

“Of course,” I said eagerly, knowing that it meant I would be able to ask something of her in return.

“Wait a minute then, don't go yet.”

“All right.”

“Just wait here, please,” she said as she went to see her sister off.

Finding myself alone in the kitchen, I started to examine my surroundings, as any good detective would do. A row of sacks, presumably containing winter food supplies from the village, was lined up on the floor in front of the worktop. There were several dishes of food laid out on a wooden table. On the wall was a large poster for the United Endeavour Party. It showed a young girl in a green dress and white headscarf looking at a book with her hands open as if in prayer and tears streaming from her blue eyes. Just above her head was the party logo: a white crescent moon rising in an azure sky at the centre of an emerald outline of Turkey. You didn't have to read the newspapers every day to know that the crescent moon emblem belonged to Islamic parties. Nor that the UEP was currently the fastest-rising Islamic party in Turkey.

Next to the refrigerator was another poster for the same party: Say NO to the plunderers of Turkey! Say YES to United Endeavour! UEP for better tomorrows! On this poster, the familiar green outline of Turkey stood out from a picture of dry, cracked earth.

By the time Figen returned, I was sitting on a stool and even smoking a cigarette. There's no need to ask for permission to
smoke in Turkish homes, except of course in those of my friends or Cihangir residents. Some of the Bach devotees who live in Cihangir think it's very modern to ban smoking at home. Even in the open air, they wave their hands about as if chasing a fly away if you smoke near them.

“Miss,” she said, bending towards me as if to whisper something very important in my ear. “I really need to get out of here.”

“Why's that?” I asked. Given that I was being used to assist her in her escape, I thought this question was justified.

“I have to see a friend. I've been away in the village for two months so we haven't been able to meet.”

“Is it a boyfriend?” I asked. Just my curious nature, I'm afraid.

“He's a sort of fiancé. We made promises between ourselves. I won't be long and I'll come straight back, but I don't know how to get out. If you said you had a book for me at your shop, I could leave with you. I'd be back within two hours, I promise.”

Should I have told her there was no need to make such promises when talking to me?

“Yes, but would they believe the book story?”

“They would if you said it.”

“You mean they wouldn't believe it if it came from you, but they would from me?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. A bit illogical, wasn't it?

“Who should I speak to?”

“I'll get my aunt to come into the kitchen and you can tell her. Say, ‘The girl's in a bad way, she's really distraught about the old lady.' I'll keep crying while you're talking. Then say, ‘I have a book for her that will comfort her.'”

This sounded stupid to me. I pursed my lips.

“If you say the word ‘book', they'll think it's something important. I swear I won't stay out long. I'll be back in two hours, miss.”

Her flow of assurances and those strange party posters were all too much for me. “OK then. Go and call your aunt,” I said,
unable to believe I was being drawn into this. But what was there to lose?

The aunt entered, wiping her eyes with the corner of her headscarf.

“You didn't even sit down. I'm sorry. I didn't look after you properly. There are so many relatives here, bless them. But I've hardly had time to catch my breath.”

“I just popped in, anyway,” I said, thinking I should probably have said a bit more, but that was the best I could do in Turkish. “Figen is very upset about her grandmother and I want to give her a book to read. Let her come to the shop with me. It'll do her good.” I felt as if I was taking part in some surreal film.

Meanwhile, Figen was displaying her acting talents, with much heaving of shoulders and loud sobbing. The tears flowed by the bucketful.

“Well, I don't know. What would her parents say?” said the aunt.

Figen started crying and sniffing again, more noisily than ever.