The Dervish House (46 page)
Authors: Ian Mcdonald
He can’t swim, he’s only four. Even if he could, the shock, the splash, the sudden cold would paralyse him. He goes in, he goes down. Adnan can still see the water over his head, looking up at the concave lens of light between the two boat hulls. He can still feel his legs kicking, but still going down, the bubbles rising around him and how strange they were. Bubbles. The line of light dwindling, narrowing to a thread as that unpredictable cat-sea pushes the hulls together. To blackness. He remembers kicking, kicking down in the black water, lungs, head buzzing with motes of a black darkness, head humming, chest spasming with the need to breathe but he can’t but he must but he can’t but he must. Kicking kicking but he can’t see the light, is he going up or is he still sinking.
Up in the light, screams from the bikini women,
Oh my god the boy he dropped the boy
. The speedo men jump to their feet but the crew are already pushing the gülets apart with boat-hooks. As clear water opens, Adnan’s father and Uncle Ersin dive. They pull him out cold, limbs flopping. Uncle Ersin pumps his chest, Adnan’s father picks him up by the ankles and swings him like a cat. Adnan chokes, coughs, spews up seawater and phlegm and bile. The doctor is waiting on the quay as the gület ties up. It’s a dash in the doctor’s car to the emergency room at Olu Deniz. He’s released the same evening. Four-year-old boys can take a lot of water without drowning. It’s the dive reflex, primeval behaviour hardwired into the brains of the very young that adults learn to forget. Children go calm and limp, their heart rate slows, blood is diverted to their brains. They can survive up to twenty minutes under water. Adults panic and drown. For the next three days aunts and other generous relatives come to visit the miracle boy and bestow sweets and kisses on him. But Adnan never forgets that slit of light closing down to darkness, going down into the black water. He remembered it on Ferid Bey’s boat, bounding across the riffles towards the lights of the Golden Horn. He remembers it every time he drives across the Bosphorus Bridge, over that slot of deep dark water between the hills. He remembered it, remembered it so well when he saw the red Toyota spin out into the air, and drop with a diver’s subtle splash into the water. He felt what it would be like to go down in that car; the black water pressing hard against the door, jetting in through the cracks and vents and loose seals; filling up the footwell, the compartment, the light dwindling in the water dazzle and going out.
Oh my god the boy he dropped the boy
. The speedo men jump to their feet but the crew are already pushing the gülets apart with boat-hooks. As clear water opens, Adnan’s father and Uncle Ersin dive. They pull him out cold, limbs flopping. Uncle Ersin pumps his chest, Adnan’s father picks him up by the ankles and swings him like a cat. Adnan chokes, coughs, spews up seawater and phlegm and bile. The doctor is waiting on the quay as the gület ties up. It’s a dash in the doctor’s car to the emergency room at Olu Deniz. He’s released the same evening. Four-year-old boys can take a lot of water without drowning. It’s the dive reflex, primeval behaviour hardwired into the brains of the very young that adults learn to forget. Children go calm and limp, their heart rate slows, blood is diverted to their brains. They can survive up to twenty minutes under water. Adults panic and drown. For the next three days aunts and other generous relatives come to visit the miracle boy and bestow sweets and kisses on him. But Adnan never forgets that slit of light closing down to darkness, going down into the black water. He remembered it on Ferid Bey’s boat, bounding across the riffles towards the lights of the Golden Horn. He remembers it every time he drives across the Bosphorus Bridge, over that slot of deep dark water between the hills. He remembered it, remembered it so well when he saw the red Toyota spin out into the air, and drop with a diver’s subtle splash into the water. He felt what it would be like to go down in that car; the black water pressing hard against the door, jetting in through the cracks and vents and loose seals; filling up the footwell, the compartment, the light dwindling in the water dazzle and going out.
‘Two to three on Arsenal?’
‘What?’
‘Tomorrow, you know? Bookies are offering two to three on the English fuckers.’
‘Oh, yes, ah, yes. Arsenal.’
‘Sorry, you’ve other things to think about.’
‘It’s just a deal.’ Adnan pats his pockets. ‘Shit. I’ve left my gear in the car. Any chance I could use yours?’
‘Your need is greater than mine.’
Adnan lifts the betraying vial and tosses it in his hand.
‘I owe you.’ He twists off the cap. Now is the trader’s sense of timing. He closes a nostril, prepares to inhale, then bursts into a spasm of coughing. The nano sprays from him in iridescences; fractured rainbow. ‘Fuck. Sorry about that. Fuck. I’ll just balls it out bare-brained. Could you call someone in health and safety to clean it up?’ Under Brussels regulations, nano spills are toxic disposal, like energy saving lightbulbs.
One car over the Bosphorus is enough for any day. It’s enough for any lifetime. He’ll go and make the money and work out later how to get it clean, get it safe. He always does.
‘Fuck me a million,’ Kemal calls.
‘Oh, considerably more than that. Element of Air assist me!’
As he steps on to the trading floor, Adnan twists off the cap of Kemal’s stolen nano and snorts it down. There’s ballsing it out, and there’s buck stupidity.
EQUIPMENT LIST FOR BOY DETECTIVE ON COOL MISSION
1. Large backpack, at least 30×40×15 centimetres. Internal capacity for item 2 (below). Lots of side/front pockets with zips. Black, red, grey. No pink, purple of branding for kids’ TV/movies/toys. School backpack by default/necessity.
2. Computer. With charger. Computer battery at full charge; battery life, eight hours. Computer contains all known information about Case of the Mysterious Robot/Case of the Vanishing Shaykh (title undecided).
3. Ceptep. With charger. For emergencies only. Ceptep will remain switched off until absolutely completely utterly needed as Boy Detective can be traced through the positioning system. Utility doubtful, but better safe(ish) than sorry (very).
4. Headphones, small, in-ear ear-bud style, for monitoring item 2.
5. Packet of sticking plaster.
6. Water, two seventy-five centilitre bottles, sports tops. Can be refilled from public fountains: Istanbul drinking water (historically) pure and fresh and sweet.
7. Antiseptic wipes, for chafing from backpack straps — the Boy Detective estimates he will be carrying the backpack for at least eight hours — cleaning fingers after eating hand-food, cleansing toilet seats, general hygiene needs.
8. Underpants, change of socks.
9. Waterproof; nanofibre, v. good. Rolls up in ball the size of fist. Rain not forecast but it could get chilly later.
10. Rollerball pens, three of.
11. Small journalist’s notebook, black bound with an elastic strap to hold flip-cover open/closed: v. professional.
12. Sun block. Factor thirty. Boy Detective doesn’t get outdoors as much as he should/would like.
13. Sunglasses. Ditto. Also, can’t be detective without sunglasses.
14. Antiperspirant spray, footspray: cooling peppermint. Chewable toothbrushes (four) from vending machine at Tesko. Why does a supermarket need to sell chewi-brushes? Comb for hair.
15. Money. One hundred and twenty euro, in small denomination notes, in three rolls secreted in different locations for security. Roll three, in highest value notes, curled up in the space between the toes and ball of right foot. The Dire Emergency Get Me Home Fund. It’s enough for a taxi from any part of Istanbul to Adem Dede Square, by Eskiköy Taksis online booking prices. Phone cash is find-me cash. Cash cash is safe, anonymous. Cash cash is king.
16. Tourist map of Istanbul with transport lines clearly marked. Less detailed then the ceptep map but secure. Home-printed map of the Kayişdaği district, with the GPS readings from the Rat Baby flagged. The last reading is a business park off Bostancı Dudullu Cadessi.
17. Pants with lots of pockets, cotton socks, comfortable trainers well-worn in, no rubbing, with lots of wiggle room for toes. T-shirt in dull, anonymous colour, no logo. Spare in backpack as padding for computer.
18. BitBots, in Snake incarnation, carried curled around the left wrist and up Boy Detective’s arm, hard pressed to his warm pulse.
Say what you see.
I see . . . I see the world of djinn, the creation of fire, where nothing is fixed and form flows into form, spirit into spirit, everything flickering, everything changing and budding and being swallowed up, creatures of living flame.
Say what you see.
The words . . . he doesn’t know how he knows these are words, they flow from and merge into the ceaseless creative fire of the creation of the djinn. But now they take a permanence, a visual echo, a shadow that lingers on the fire even as it’s consumed, something that’s more than vision:
sound
.
sound
.
‘Say what you see.’
Necdet hears the words.
‘I am in a room with white walls and a grey carpeted floor. I am lying on a mattress. The mattress is covered in a floral print. The door is open. In front of the door I see a woman kneeling on the ground. She is wearing jeans and square glasses. She has green scarf over her head. She has the sleeves of her sweater pulled over her hands. There’s a man next to her with big hair and a leather jacket. At the back of the room is a third man . . .’
‘Enough. He sounds lucid enough,’ says the man with the big hair in the leather jacket. Necdet struggles to keep him in focus. Otherworldly flames flicker around him.
‘Do you know who you are?’ the woman asks.
‘I’m Necdet Hasgüler. Who are you? Where is this?’
‘We can’t tell you,’ the woman says. ‘If it helps you can think of us as Divine Engineers, and you are our experiment.’
‘You took me. You lifted me from outside the tekke, I was on the way home, where am I, what time is it?’
‘It’s later than you think. It’s morning, you’ve been here since last night. You’re unlikely to remember much of what happened.’
‘We subjected you to targeted suites of nanoagents,’ the big hair man says. ‘We know quite a lot about you, Necdet.’
‘You’re not the police.’
The man with the big hair laughs.
‘Oh no, but I can see why you might think that. The police were moving against our subjects, they forced our hand, we had to take you before the police did.’
‘We are God’s Scientists,’ the woman says. Her face is familiar to Necdet but he can’t place it. The square glasses and the green scarf make her look older than she is. Every body, every line and edge flickers with the invisible fire of djinn, like heat haze.
‘Could I have some water?’ Necdet asks. The other man passes him a fresh bottle of Sirma, flipping the sports cap. He’s a big square guy in a green shirt. The green moves, flows, coalesces on the edge of Necdet’s field of vision as he sucks like a baby on the water.
‘What do you want from me?’
‘Your vision,’ the woman says. Now Necdet sees through the flame-edged outlines that Big Bastard Square Guy has a gun, a big military service assault rifle.
‘I see djinn,’ Necdet says simply. ‘This room is alive with them. Your bodies are crawling with them like lice.’ Big Guy twitches but Green Headscarf Woman says,
‘We know that.’
‘I see Hızır,’ Necdet says. The three look at each other. ‘He’s in the room. He’s in all places at once. That’s why he’s the eternal traveller. You say you’re God’s Scientists; they’re not from God, the djinn. My brother thinks they are, but they’re not. They’re not even from the creation of fire. There is no creation of fire. They’re from my head, from all the stories and ghosts and movies and saints and medreses and comics I ever heard. I see djinn, some see peri. But I don’t know where Hızır comes from.’
Big Hair and Green Headscarf exchange glances.
Are they together?
Necdet wonders. They leave the room for a moment and through the swirling vertigo Necdet hears them talking. It can only be about him but it’s too much effort to concentrate to try to listen through the aural fire-roar of djinn. When they come back they resume the exact positions and postures they held before.
Are they together?
Necdet wonders. They leave the room for a moment and through the swirling vertigo Necdet hears them talking. It can only be about him but it’s too much effort to concentrate to try to listen through the aural fire-roar of djinn. When they come back they resume the exact positions and postures they held before.
‘We interviewed you under nano partly to draw an accurate picture of your life. We don’t have time for lies and evasions. We know who you are and where you come from and what you do and what you did.’
‘Kizbes?’
‘Yes. At the time you felt no guilt, no remorse, no emotion of either pain or pleasure at having left your sister permanently disfigured with third degree burns. Your motive was that she was bugging you. In the act itself, you showed no rage or aggression, you carried out the act as if you were a robot. These are symptoms consistent with massive dissociative disorder.’
‘I don’t know what that is,’ Necdet says. ‘But believe me when I say, that wasn’t me. That was another me. That was someone who looked like me and sounded like me, but he was just dust. In the head. Dust. I was in so many parts, so strung out, so far apart I was like dust. Nothing connected to anything. Can you understand that?’
‘So your personality has changed.’
‘Yes, no. I don’t know. There’s another person I remember being . . . It’s like all the dust in my head has blown out and turned into djinn. And then there’s Hızır. You did this, who are you? Some kind of tarikat? Some kind of Salafis?’
‘We are God’s Engineers,’ Green Headscarf says. ‘We are spiritual people, we burn with divine fire, we are on a jihad but we are not Islamists. We come from different religious traditions. There is a Sunni, an Alevi, an Orthodox, a Nestorian. Jihad is the eternal struggle towards the divine. All faiths know it. One of us was the bomber on the tram. She was not a martyr, she was a researcher. She was my sister. She was . . . she had . . . No. That’s not for you. The press commented that no one else was killed. This was the plan: the bomb was designed to deliver a package of nanoagents. You and several others received the payload.’
‘These djinn, they’re just, chemicals?’
‘You said yourself that you knew they were not from God,’ Green Headscarf says. ‘What is important to us is that you are another Necdet Hasgüler. The old Necdet Hasgüler is dead. Killed in the nano attack. The question we want to ask you next, what is Necdet Hasgüler now? We’ll give you some time to think about that. Our brother here will keep an eye on you and get you anything you need. Rest. Reflect.’
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