Honour (34 page)

*

The night before in the dusky flat on the edge of the desert, Adem had gambled again and lost – an amount so large he could never pay it back, no matter how many extra shifts he worked. Now as he wiped his eyes he sniffed in surprise at the teardrops on his hand. He didn’t know he was crying. But it wasn’t exactly sorrow that he felt. A deep indifference washed over him, an acceptance of the things he could not change – including himself.

He took off his watch and put it aside, careful not to break it. If it were a real Rolex he would have liked to leave it to one of his sons, probably to Yunus. But he didn’t want to bequeath to any son of his a fake gift. He only hoped that the night guard would be the one to find it.

***

Shrewsbury Prison, 1991

The next morning at dawn Zeeshan wakes me up to meditate. Unlike other days I don’t grumble. We sit cross-legged on the floor, facing each other. He beams. I wonder where he gets his zip from.

‘Clear your mind,’ he says, like he always does. ‘Air pollution no good for cities. Brain pollution no good for humans.’

For ten minutes we sit in silence. This is an exercise he taught me last month. I’m supposed to not think anything, which I can never manage. Sure enough, my mind starts zigzagging and soon it’s a witches’ coven in there. I’m worried about the mysterious visitor. I cannot stop running through possible candidates. Uncle Tariq, the Orator, my old buddy Arshad . . . I don’t want to see any of them. I blame them all for making me the person I was. And yet they are all free, enjoying their life, while I am here burning.

So the meditation doesn’t work. It never does. But Zeeshan doesn’t look put out. He never does.

‘Iskender, when you think of others, all energy inside you goes to them. You have nothing left for yourself.’

In Zeeshan’s world there are invisible networks in space that connect people, incidents and places. Through these tubes we send things to one another. Like a crazy science-fiction film.

‘Human heart like cooker. We produce heat, we make energy, every day. But when we accuse others, when we say terrible things, inner energy goes elsewhere. Our heart becomes cold.’

Zeeshan says, ‘Always better to look within. Leave other people to themselves. Every bitterness is heavy bag. Why carry? You are hot-air balloon. Tell me, you want to go up or down? Let go of anger, hurt. Drop the sacks.

‘There are two arcs in the universe. One is ascent, the other is descent. Every human being is constantly moving. Some go down, some go up. If you want to climb, start criticizing yourself. A man who cannot see his faults can never heal.’

There have been many times since the day Zeeshan showed up in my cell when I wanted to punch him in the face or just tell him to shut up. Strangely, I can’t. I must have a high tolerance threshold for this bloke. I listen to his twaddle, on and on, sometimes amused, sometimes half convinced. So when I hear what he says next, I even listen to that.

‘When visitor comes from past, promise Zeeshan you don’t go banana.’

I laugh. ‘Ba-na-nas.’

‘Yes, yes. No quarrel with anyone. You are working on yourself, don’t forget? You are a gem, but you have rough edges, very rough. Have to labour on your heart, like workman.’

He is very confusing to me, this man. In the same breath he manages to call me a cooker, a hot-air balloon and a construction worker. Then I hear myself say, ‘I’m not a gem, Zeeshan. Unlike you, I’ve committed a crime, a big one.’

Eyes closed, Zeeshan exhales. A long, deep wheeze that reminds me of my father’s asthma attacks. ‘Many people in this world go down. But few of them fall all the way down. At the end of arc of descent, you know what is there?’

‘No.’

‘Hell,’ he says. ‘You have been there. Ah, your soul is in flames. But it has to be. Because you did terrible thing. You have to burn. Afterwards you start to work your way up. Arc of ascent. You know what is at the end of it?’

‘Heaven?’ I offer.

‘Yes, when we love and when we are loved, when we free of harmful energy, we get close to heaven. Every day one small step. I cannot promise you can achieve. But we try, Alex. We work.’

That same week I walk to the visitors’ room not knowing what to expect. Officer McLaughlin is there. He doesn’t look at me, but it doesn’t take a wild leap of imagination to guess that he wants to watch the spectacle, should there be one.

Then I see him. It is Yunus. My kid brother whom I haven’t seen in years. Since the day I was banged up he has come to see me just twice. Once, right after the trial. We didn’t speak a word. He just sat, looking at his hands. He came back a year later. Again no words. Then he stopped coming.

He is a grown man. Medium height, slender, quite handsome. As much as he has changed, his eyes are the same. Soft, kind, heavily lashed. The eyes of a boy in love with a punk girl.

‘Hi, mate.’

‘Hello, brother,’ he says.

We stare at each other. I avert my eyes first. It was easier for me to face Esma. She hates me. Plain and clear. Every now and then she would come here to vent her anger. She would say all sorts of things to my face and no doubt behind my back too. And yet she never made me feel half as guilty as I do now. In Yunus’s eyes there is something I cannot stand: the need to understand. He is still looking for an explanation. He still believes human beings are good and something bad must have overcome me for such a horrible thing to have happened.

‘How’s your music going?’

‘Great,’ he says keenly. ‘My first album just came out. I brought you one but they took it. They said they’ll pass it to you.’

‘Yeah, don’t worry about that,’ I say. I know I will never get that album. ‘Why are you here, Yunus? Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy to see you. It’s just . . . I’m surprised.’

He hesitates. A shadow crosses his face. ‘You’ll be out soon,’ he says. ‘I need to know what your plans are.’

My plans? It sounds so lame. So boy-scoutish. But this is my little brother. I’m not going to break his heart. And I promised Zeeshan that I’d start to climb, whatever that means.

‘My plan is to find a decent job. Pay my way. Live a quiet life. If Katie is prepared to be reasonable, it’d be nice to catch up with my son.’ I wait a beat. ‘And spend more time with you and Esma. If you want me back.’

Yunus straightens his back, looks at me squarely. ‘I’ve been wondering whether or not to tell you this and I decided not to. All these years, I didn’t. And neither did Esma. We had an agreement. But now I’m not taking any chances.’

I chuckle, unsmiling. ‘Hey, stop talking in riddles. I don’t know what you’re on about.’

He takes a deep breath. ‘I was a kid when you killed Mum. I couldn’t stop you. If you harm her again it’ll be different. I’m not a kid any more. I’ll fight you.’

For a second I fear my brother has lost his mind. I’ve seen it happen before. Men in the loonies’ wing, out of their minds with grief.

‘Yunus, what are you sayin’?’

‘I’m saying I love Mum and I won’t let you hurt her again.’

‘Brother, Mama is . . .’

‘No, I haven’t finished yet,’ he interjects loudly. Officer McLaughlin looks our way with a glint in his eyes. The drama he has been hoping for is about to begin.

Then Yunus drops his voice to a whisper, so low and gruff that afterwards I’m not entirely sure I heard him right.

‘Iskender, listen to me,’ he says. ‘Mum is alive.’

Iskender Toprak

London, 30 November 1978

Yunus raised his head from his breakfast plate, smiling at the two women on the sofa. A miracle had happened. His aunt Jamila had come to London. It had been three years since the boy had last seen her. Before that, they had visited her occasionally, summers mostly, encounters so brief and intense that it had left them almost dizzy. For the last three years, however, the family had stopped travelling, holidays having become an expense they could no longer afford. Now, after much mutual longing, the sisters were under the same roof again: Pink Destiny and Enough Beauty.

Sitting back, Yunus searched for the differences between the mirror-image twins, as if he were playing a game of odd-one out. Pembe was left-handed, Jamila right-handed. Pembe had a dimple on her right cheek, Jamila a dimple on her left. Pembe’s mole on her face was to the right of her forehead while Jamila’s was located on the other side. Their cowlicks grew in opposite directions. Overall Jamila was half an inch taller, her limbs a tad longer, her fingers slightly bonier.

‘What else, Mum?’ Yunus asked.

‘Well, actually, there is one more difference. You’ve forgotten the most important one.’

Yunus barged in, ‘Really? What is it?’

The answer came from Jamila. ‘Our hearts beat on opposite sides.’

‘What do you mean?’

They had a condition rarely seen in twins. Pembe’s heart beat on the left side of her body, while Jamila’s heart was situated on the right.

‘Wow,’ Yunus exclaimed.

Seeing their excitement, Pembe laughed, feeling lighter, and somehow more complete, than she had in a long while.

None of them paid much attention to the fact that Jamila had been unable to greet two other members of the family: Adem, who had left London for Abu Dhabi, and Iskender, who had come home the night before after everyone was asleep and gone out before Pembe had had a chance to tell him his aunt was there. They were planning to surprise him that evening.

Yunus begged his mother to let him stay at home. He was not feeling very well, he said,
sore throat, feeling very poorly
. Pembe knew that even if there were some truth in that, he was stretching it very far, but such was her joy to be next to her twin that she let her son skip lessons for a day.

As they sipped their teas by the window, they began to speak in Kurdish, which effectively excluded Yunus from the conversation. Pembe confided to Jamila that somehow people had got wind of her affair with Elias. There was tittle-tattle, bad-mouthing. It had reached Iskender’s ears. He didn’t look at her face any more, she whispered. Iskender had forbidden her to go to work, and, when that was not enough, had barred her from leaving the house. She explained all this with a forced smile, so that Yunus couldn’t sense how fretful she was.

Jamila said, ‘We’ll solve this, God willing. Let me talk to my nephew.’

Then, as if the exchange she had envisaged had, in fact, already happened, she smiled gaily. ‘Tell you what, why don’t I go out and do the shopping today?’

She would choose fresh vegetables, get good bread and find the best herbs. She didn’t speak a word of English, but if Yunus, whose throat suddenly seemed on the mend, could lend a hand that wouldn’t be a problem.

Yunus, thrilled to spend time with his aunt, seized the opportunity. ‘Yes, yes, Mum, let me go!’

‘But don’t be late,’ was all that Pembe said.

It was a day like any other. Only better. The 30th of November, a Thursday. Just as Jamila and Yunus were putting on their shoes and coats, Pembe stopped them.

‘Oh, wait a sec!’

She fished a lipstick out of her bag, a deep plum, and painted her sister’s lips, which were dry and pale from years of sun, wind and neglect. Then in one move she pulled the headscarf off her twin’s head. Jamila’s thick hair fell on her shoulders in a cascade of sepia and brown.

‘You look prettier like this.’

Jamila hesitated. In the narrow mirror in the corridor, she caught a glimpse of herself. This new dress, this new hair, this new her made her uneasy. Standing beside her, Yunus urged in Turkish, ‘Come on, Auntie. You look terrific.’

She yielded. ‘If you say so.’

Smiling, Pembe gave some banknotes to her sister and a fistful of change to Yunus. Then she kissed them both. ‘Don’t forget to buy cardamom. We’re having meat tonight. And I need it for the coffee.’

Thus they left the house. Jamila and Yunus, delighted with each other’s company. She tried to speak Kurdish to him and was disappointed to see he didn’t grasp anything at all. Both of them being poor in Turkish, they conversed little, holding hands, enjoying themselves. As happy as Yunus was to be with her, after two hours of shopping he saw an opportunity to peel away on the journey home. He had other things to do, more important things, having run into Tobiko on the street.

The punks were planning to retake their old house. Finally the big day had arrived. At midnight the crew, having mustered their forces, were going to launch the long-awaited comeback. Using crowbars to get behind the hoardings surrounding the Victorian house, they would reoccupy the place with their sleeping bags and ammunition. The next morning the entire neighbourhood would wake up to their presence, and if the council sent along its
troopers
, they would chase them away with stones and bottles.

Seeing how agitated Tobiko was, Yunus asked his aunt if it was okay for him to hang out a little bit with his friend. They were nearly home anyway, he said, and they had bought everything on the list.

‘Are you sure your mother would say okay?’ Jamila asked.

It sounded less like a question than like a light reprimand, and Yunus assured her, ‘I’ll catch up with you in a jiffy, I promise.’

Nodding, Jamila grabbed the bags and headed in the direction Yunus had shown her. Along the way she stopped a few times: to listen to a street musician, to stare at a mural on a wall, to glance in shop windows, marvelling at the array of things on sale. Such was her distraction, and her sense of awe and wonder at being in a city this strange, that she did not notice that someone had started to follow her.

London, 30 November 1978

Pembe was in the kitchen, humming an old Kurdish love song, ‘Susan Susie’, which had a melancholy that weighed down the spirits of the singer, as most old Kurdish love songs tended to. She was, however, far from forlorn. Though her mind was in a whirl and her heart ached for Elias, Pembe couldn’t help but feel a sense of bliss. Her sister’s presence had renewed her faith in life and given her fresh hope. A few months ago she had written a letter to Adem, explaining to him that they needed to separate for good. He had never responded. Now she would find a lawyer. Adem would be sad but not surprised. It might even come as a relief that it was she, and not he, taking the first step. No doubt it would be much harder to convince Iskender, but perhaps she could make him understand. She would tell him no more lies, only the truth. Things would be different from now on. Pembe didn’t know how, but she trusted that it would be so.

Having formed a plan, she set about preparing a lemon-meringue pie – a recipe she had learned from Elias. She was hoping to surprise Jamila with this luscious treat. When they were girls, they used to love nibbling salted lemons, and even had a rhyme for it:
Sour plus sour equals sweet.
Their elder sisters could never manage this, their faces crumpling at each attempt. Yet the twins could eat five lemons in one sitting, and their favourite jams were always the sour-sweet ones.

There did not seem to be much left of Jamila’s old appetite, though. She had arrived in London the day before, and since then she had eaten little, said little about herself. She had changed, her sister. Her eyes were shadowed with dark circles, her smile was hesitant, almost apologetic. But the changes were so subtle that only Pembe had noticed them. The children were amazed to observe how identical their mother and their aunt still were. Once Jamila had shed her rough woollen garments and put on one of Pembe’s dresses, combing her hair the same way – towards the front of her head where it naturally broke – they were impossible to tell apart.

When she had finished whisking the eggs and sugar to a thick foam, Pembe turned on the oven. Elias had advised her to add a generous amount of grated lemon. Pembe always kept the lemons, oranges and limes in a bamboo basket on the balcony. In the past she had tried to grow lemon trees, but each time they were killed off by sudden frosts.

Still humming the same song, Pembe scurried out on to the balcony. Inadvertently her eyes slid beneath the steel railing towards the street below. Something held her gaze. A second later she saw her twin enter Lavender Grove, carrying a number of bags. Pembe craned her neck over the railing and waved. Her sister didn’t notice at first.

‘Jamila . . . Look up! Here!’

Jamila lifted her gaze towards the balcony, a placid expression on her face. Pembe broke into a smile. There was, beneath her sister’s solemn countenance and dignified bearing, something of her childhood naivety, as delicate as mist. She couldn’t help but be envious of how eye-catching her twin was. For, although they were similar, they were not the same. Charm came to Jamila naturally, the way a bee homed in on a flower. Jamila was brimming with life and light, full of grit and composure, Pembe thought, unlike herself.

‘I’m making a dessert for you!’

‘What?’ Jamila asked, distracted by a passing car.

‘I am –’ Pembe stopped, having just noticed Iskender walking up the road.

For a second or two Pembe watched her elder son trail behind her sister. Iskender’s eyes had narrowed into slits; his jaw was tight, his lips moving incessantly, as if quarrelling with himself.

She couldn’t figure out what was going on. Even when she saw him lunge towards Jamila, even when she noticed the knife in his hand, even when he blocked her sister’s way and uttered words that could only have amounted to steeling himself against any doubts, what was taking place in front of her eyes continued to make no sense. But then suddenly the curtain that was clouding her vision lifted, and she saw the full truth, the full danger. She felt the air go out of her. Still clutching the lemons, she flew from the balcony to the living room, through the corridor, out the door, into the street.

Pembe ran. She was eight feet away when she saw her son stab her sister. Iskender swung the knife sloppily and hastily, as though he wanted to get it over with at once and go on his way. The blade drew a half-circle in the air, entering Jamila’s flesh on the right side of her thorax. Behind them a strangled sound came from Pembe. She knew instantly, she knew in her bones, that the knife had gone into her twin’s heart.

Iskender took a step back, paused for an instant, frowning at the knife in his hand. For a moment he seemed confused, as though he didn’t know what he had done, as if he had been a puppet dancing to the pull of strings and was only now waking up. With a jolt he threw the knife aside and sprinted in the opposite direction.

Pembe could hear someone scream. A piercing howl in the wind. It would be another minute before she realized the sound was coming from her. She couldn’t budge, for she had no body. She had no substance. She was only a voice. Her entire being was reduced – or magnified – to a cry that gave way to new ones in spirals, independent of her will, spinning, swirling, melting into an endless echo.

Her eyes wide open, her stomach churning, Pembe stumbled towards her sister. The contents of the bags were scattered on the street. Bread rolls, cheese, green apples, a pot of basil, a pack of cardamom.

Like a sleepwalker, Pembe cuddled her twin. She kissed Jamila’s face – her forehead, her cheekbones, the soft hollow in front of her neck. She checked her pulse, but it was muted and her body felt limp, already losing warmth. All the sparkle was drained from her face, except for her lips, which were now the colour of her wound. Pembe began to shiver, as if life were bleeding out of her too. A pool of blood so dark it was almost black widened and thickened on the ground. She heard hurried footsteps, hushed tones. The siren of an ambulance turning the corner. Slamming car doors, police radios. She staggered away from her twin’s body, the tarmac hard against her slippers.

Half a minute later an elderly woman, a kind-hearted Albanian neighbour, approached the street from the other end, having just noticed the commotion. Puzzled and fearful, she dived towards the body on the ground. She fell on her knees, shrieking, wailing.

‘Oh, poor thing! What happened to you? Pembe, dear!’

Further down the street gooseflesh had broken out all over Pembe’s body. Hearing herself being mourned was uncanny and chilling, but, in an odd way, it helped her to disconnect herself from her surroundings. She neither stopped nor glanced back. Her arms folded over her chest, her head lowered as if walking against a strong wind, she floated through the crowd like the ghost she already felt she was.

*

For the rest of the day Pembe roamed the streets, seeing parts of East London she had never been in before. She knew she couldn’t go back home or to Elias when Iskender was out there somewhere, unrestrained. It was surely only a matter of time before her son realized his mistake and came back to find her. Such was her fear that she wasn’t able to grieve for her sister. She became increasingly apprehensive, as if anxiety were a substance, a liquid that filled her up little by little.

Several times she had to stop and take deep breaths to steady herself. Her feet drew concentric circles around the Crystal Scissors, until she came to a stop opposite the entrance. She had left her work without an explanation. She had put the keys through the letterbox and called it quits. Now, hiding behind a Royal Mail van, she watched the flamboyant profile of Rita through the window. There were two customers inside and someone who must be the new apprentice – a young Asian woman with hair the colour of an aubergine.

Pembe sneaked into the area behind the salon, where they dried the towels, smocks and aprons. If she was lucky she would find something to wear. Her blouse was stained with blood, which she had been hiding by keeping her arms crossed and her shoulders hunched. Funny how those she passed had failed to notice. Or perhaps they simply had preferred not to see. She opened the back gate, crept in and stopped.

Swaying from side to side in time to the music playing in the salon, a piece of chewing gum in her mouth, the apprentice was coming to collect the towels off the line. It was too late to go back and there was no place to take cover. Pembe found herself gaping at this stranger, who now was gaping at her.

‘Sorry,’ Pembe said, her cheeks growing hot. She lunged forward, grabbed a smock and scurried away.

‘Hey, what’re you doin’?’ the assistant yelled. ‘Thief! Thief!’

But Pembe was already gone.

Over the next few hours she kept wandering, the setting sun a tepid caress on the back of her neck. She had nowhere to go. If she went to the police, they would interrogate her. Unable to understand the language, she would fail to answer their questions, and perhaps end up being held responsible.

She couldn’t seek refuge in a neighbour’s house either. Who would want to take the risk? Besides, she didn’t know whether Iskender had acted alone or been guided by others. If so, who else was involved? Was Tariq in on this? How about her husband? Had the two brothers convinced Iskender, her sultan, the apple of her eye, to kill his own flesh and blood? Her head was throbbing. She couldn’t trust anyone, except Elias. The thought of him sent a shudder down her spine. This was it. She would not see him again. It was a good thing that Iskender didn’t know where Elias lived or worked, she thought. As long as she stayed away from him, Elias would be fine. It was better that he came to believe her dead.

Guilt, that sneaky serpent that had been feeding inside her chest for months, growing stockier each day, had now emerged in all its ugly grandeur and was gnawing at her soul. She blamed herself and herself only. It was her love affair with Elias that had brought on this calamity. How could she bear to see him again? The truth was that even then, even there, Pembe was trying to excuse Iskender. She longed to see her other two children. What would they do when they found out that their aunt was dead and their mother had gone missing? What would the police tell them and what would they, in turn, say to the police?

When darkness fell, Pembe plodded back to her neighbourhood, though she knew it was dangerous. Hiding herself as best as she could, she arrived in Lavender Grove. In the spot where Jamila had died only hours ago, there was now a silhouette that had been drawn with white chalk. The site was cordoned off and a few people were smoking near by, commenting. Unable to get any closer, she decided to vanish.

That night Pembe found a litter-strewn corner in front of a Barclays bank and curled up there, wincing each time a car went past. She used a public toilet, begged some water and food from a restaurant owner and cried herself to sleep.

‘Wake up! Get up, you slag!’ A homeless man was towering beside her. Tall and beer-bellied, with a swollen face, bushy eyebrows, missing teeth. ‘Bloody hell! What d’you think you’re doin’ in my place?’

Pembe bolted in panic, her lips quivering. ‘I . . . I’m sorry.’ She caught his smell in the air. A mixture of wine, tobacco, mothballs and urine. The man tottered towards her with intent. Pembe dodged him and ran for it.

‘Hey, come back, little birdie! Why’re you so afraid?’

The tramp watched her hurtle down the road until she disappeared around the corner. Sniggering as if sharing a joke with himself, he settled himself in the corner that was still warm, sighed as he took off his boots and began to nurse his feet absent-mindedly.