Divorce Turkish Style (27 page)

“I'd like a glass of water, please,” I said, not wanting her to disappear into the kitchen for too long because I needed to get back to the shop in case Sinan dropped by.

“Actually, I'd like some tea,” said Fofo infuriatingly.

I glared at him with irritation. However, it wasn't long before Jasmin returned.

“I searched the kitchen, but couldn't find anything,” she said. “This apartment belongs to my boyfriend's mother. She's in hospital for a minor operation, so we came up to be with her. But I have such bad memories of Istanbul that I can't bear to stay any
longer, and I've decided to go back to Bodrum tomorrow. Now I feel guilty for leaving my boyfriend on his own here. Do you think I should stay a bit longer?”

“It might be better if you stayed, but if you don't want to…” I mumbled, not knowing how to advise someone I'd only just met about something so personal. Fofo said nothing.

“It's a difficult decision, isn't it?” said Jasmin. “I'll just go and look for the teapot.”

“Don't worry about the tea. I'll just have a glass of water,” said Fofo graciously.

“No, no, tea is on its way. I'll find the teapot in no time.”

As we listened to her clattering about in the kitchen, my irritation at Fofo increased. We'd lost fifteen minutes of valuable time thanks to his craving for tea.

“I couldn't find the teapot,” said Jasmin, finally returning with two glasses of water. “I guess Nefise Hanım doesn't drink tea. Either that, or she's hidden the teapot somewhere or other. She even hides the toilet paper before we come, claiming that I use too much of it. It's an age thing. But what can I do? Still, you came here to talk about Sani.”

At last, we could get down to business.

“Did you know Sani?” I asked.

“No, we never met. I read in the press that she died as a result of an accident,” said Jasmin. “But it seemed strange that—”

“Why did it seem strange?” I asked.

“Why? It's always strange for a young woman to die following an accident in her own home, that's why.”

Bravo. Jasmin was making a pretty good first impression.

“So you never met,” I said.

“Do you know anything about the situation between me and the family?” asked Jasmin.

“We've heard one or two things,” said Fofo.

“They act as if I don't exist.
Als ob ich nicht existiere… Verstehen Sie mich?
”

“I believe your parents got divorced,” I said.

“That's what people go on about, but they're hardly going to talk about Mother being killed, are they? Do you know, they had me certified insane so that whatever I said would be regarded as the ravings of a madwoman.”

“Your mother was killed?” I said, knotting my brows.

“It's probably best if I tell you the story from the beginning,” said Jasmin, noticing my interest. I could hardly help being interested if someone made a claim about a killing, could I?

“My father studied engineering in Turkey. When he graduated in the early 1960s, he went to Germany, learned German and found a good job. He studied mechanical engineering and specialized in shipbuilding at a time when Germany needed all kinds of skills. My mother was working as a multilingual secretary for a freight shipping company. Anyway, they met and got married. She was the daughter of a rich Hamburg family, and my father borrowed money from her father to set up his own business, starting with a small freight shipping company which he soon expanded. I was born in 1966.”

I looked at Jasmin again. She looked very old for someone of her age.

“The Sixties were a time when Germans were very inward-looking. They didn't go abroad for holidays as they do now. There were few foreigners living in Germany, and Turks were viewed as figures straight out of a Karl May novel. Instead of struggling with these stupid prejudices, my father decided to return to Turkey. But my mother refused to set foot in a country of wild Turks, or ‘Orientals and Muslims', as her family referred to them. In the end, they agreed on a compromise. My father returned to Turkey and my mother remained in Hamburg with me. The
arrangement was that every two or three months either Father would go to Germany or Mother and I would come to Istanbul.”

“Didn't your mother change her mind once she'd seen Istanbul?” asked Fofo.

It was a reasonable question. Given the chance, anyone who didn't want to live in my lovely Istanbul during the 1970s must have been an idiot, to my mind at any rate.

“All my mother's family and friends were in Hamburg. And of course you have to bear in mind that she didn't know any Turkish,” said Jasmin. “However, despite all that, Mother eventually decided to settle in Istanbul because she realized their relationship wouldn't last the way they were living and my father was becoming increasingly distant.”

“But by that time it was too late,” commented Fofo, the relationship expert.

“It certainly was. My father was already completely caught up in Tamaşa Hanım's web and looking for a way to get rid of Mother. He was eventually able to divorce her without her consent, because they'd lived apart for so long.”

Estranged wives, willing or otherwise, seemed to have become a regular feature of my life.

“You didn't explain how your mother was killed,” I said.

“When they divorced, my mother was still in love with my father, so what do you think she did?”

It was by now perfectly clear how the sad tale ended.

“I don't know,” I said. “She went into therapy and tried to find a way of getting on with her life without your father, perhaps?”

“It wasn't that simple. Not everyone is as strong-willed as you are.”

Strong-willed? Me? Much as I would have loved to be, there was nothing strong-willed about me, unfortunately.

“Did your mother commit suicide?” I asked.

“Yes, it was horrible. I was the one who found her body,” said Jasmin with a deep sigh, as though it had happened just before our arrival.

“Is that why you said your mother was killed?”

“That woman killed my mother. Now she enjoys the rewards of the company set up in my mother's memory. She lives on Mother's money as if nothing untoward had ever happened.”

I decided that Jasmin was stupid rather than mad. It's never easy to accept it when a close friend or relative takes their own life, but she was only making herself more miserable by dedicating her life to the destruction of the person she held responsible for her mother's suicide. It wasn't smart thinking.

“You said you knew something about Sani's death,” I said.

“She killed her too,” said Jasmin, leaning forward in her chair and bringing her face close to ours. “Do you think I'm crazy?”

Even if I'd thought that (and I've already said I didn't), I was certainly in no position to say whether anyone else was crazy or not.

“Of course not,” I said. “But do you really know something about Sani's death?”

“Indeed I do, and it's something they think no one knows about,” whispered Jasmin, rising to her feet. “I'll go and make us some coffee.”

Fofo and I were left alone in the sitting room.

“What do you think?” asked Fofo.

“I've no idea. I don't know what to say to her,” I said.

Jasmin returned with a tray holding three large cups in which she'd mixed sachets of sweetened powdered milk and coffee with lukewarm water. If she drank that disgusting stuff every day, it wasn't surprising that she looked ten years older than her age. I took a few sips out of politeness, but left the rest.

“Aren't you curious to know more?” asked Jasmin.

“We're very curious,” I said, though her games were beginning to bore me.

“
Der is schwul
.”

Ah!

“
Wer? Wer is schwul?
” I asked, wanting to be sure that I'd understood her properly.

“
Na, wer schon, Cem natürlich
.”

“What are you saying?” interrupted Fofo, bursting with curiosity.

“Jasmin Hanım says that Cem's gay,” I said.

“He must be bi,” said Fofo. “People who have relationships with men and women are called bisexuals.” Dear Fofo couldn't bear any ambiguity when it came to matters of gender and sexuality. And there was nothing wrong in that. I wouldn't want anyone to refer to me as a man.

“I know very well what bisexual means. Cem was totally gay,” said Jasmin.

“But he was married to Sani,” said Fofo.

“They were married on paper. But nobody took the marriage seriously. Sani had been offered a deal whereby she was promised a life of luxury in return for living with Cem as his wife, and Sani accepted. It was his mother who organized everything.”

Could it really be true? I certainly hadn't heard anyone say that Cem and Sani were deeply in love or even that they'd fallen in love at first sight, but was all that necessary in order to get married?

I'd have given anything for a cigarette right at that moment!

I was worldly enough to know that not every couple was madly in love when they got married. But their relationship could have been built on so many little things, insignificant in themselves, like how they made up after an argument, agonized when they were apart, wrote little notes to one another or looked at each
other with affection. Yet no one had once mentioned anything like that about Sani and Cem. Why was that?

I began with one of the scores of questions whirling round in my head.

“We'd heard that Tamaşa Hanım didn't want Cem and Sani to marry.”

“Don't believe everything you hear,” said Jasmin, almost choking with laughter. “She couldn't let her friends think she'd given her approval to a marriage between her one and only darling son and someone as unsuitable as Sani, could she? But having made her statement to the press at the time, she decided to say no more about it.”

Jasmin was right. We shouldn't have believed everything we'd heard.

“You're the first person to mention anything about Cem being gay,” I said.

“It's a big secret. Hardly anyone knows,” said Jasmin.

“In which case, it might be more accurate to say he's asexual rather than homosexual, don't you think?” chuckled Fofo.

Jasmin looked offended.

“I meant that very few people in his immediate circle know,” she said sulkily.

“How do you know he's gay? And why is it such a big secret?” said Fofo.

“You live in Turkey, don't you? If something like that came out, it would be the end of Ankaralıgil Holdings. If nothing else, it would certainly have a detrimental effect on business. Have you ever heard of a gay businessman?”

“What a load of rubbish,” said Fofo.

“It's not rubbish at all!” shouted Jasmin, clearly finding Fofo's attitude annoying.

“Anyway, it's not important whether businessmen are gay or
not,” I said, trying to smooth things over. “How do you know that Cem's gay? That's the important question.”

“I'm a member of the family too, you know,” said Jasmin.

Never mind all the stories we'd heard, just hearing her talk in person convinced me that they were unlikely to have said anything to her about this if they'd kept it from everyone else.

“As soon as Cem finished high school, they bundled him off abroad and didn't let him come back for years, which was very suspicious.”

“Let me get this straight. Is what you're saying based on suspicion or knowledge?” I asked.

“I know!” shouted Jasmin impatiently. “He had an affair with his high school PE teacher! It was covered up before a scandal broke out, and then Cem was sent away.”

“Have you been to visit your father while you've been in Istanbul this time?”

“Why do you ask?” said Jasmin.

“I just thought it might have been while talking to your father that you got the idea that Tamaşa Hanım had a hand in Sani's death.”

“My father hasn't spoken to me for six years. That woman won't let him.”

“You mean Tamaşa Hanım?” I said.

Jasmin nodded.

“Is it true that you once tried to throw nitric acid in Tamaşa Hanım's face?” I asked.

“You have done your research, haven't you?” said Jasmin. “I thought that business was forgotten long ago.”

“Was it after that incident that your father stopped speaking to you?” I persisted.

Jasmin didn't reply, but leaned towards the window and stared through the net curtains at the buildings outside.

“How does Tamaşa Hanım dress?” I asked.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Jasmin.

“Is her style classic or modern? Does she wear flat shoes, for instance?”