Young Turk (26 page)

At this, Adem would stride off. I’d want to go after him, but I’d restrain myself. I’m not one to knife Mama Meryem’s trembling heart, particularly when it trembles for me.

‘I’m a killer,’ Adem declared solemnly in his usual sunless way one Monday, our rest day.

This outraged Mama Meryem. ‘What nonsense you talk!’

We were having a picnic at Çamlιca, the pine wood on the Asian side of the Bosporus, the beauty spot nearest to our circus.

Adem held up his hands. ‘Look! Killer’s hands.’

‘I know killers. You not one of them ...’

Mama Meryem was sewing – a new outfit for Vahit, the tightrope walker. She made all the troupe’s costumes. Babacιk was carving his chess pieces. They were never idle – not even during a picnic.

I started laying out the food. ‘I hope everybody’s hungry. I’m starving.’

Adem dropped his hands on to his lap and stared at them. ‘What’s terrible is – it’s so easy ... to be a killer ...’

Mama Meryem cast a quick glance at Babacιk as if seeking his permission to speak. When he showed no sign of displeasure, she erupted. ‘You listen! Killers I know! That’s how met Kudret, our Baba! Like everything in world, they come two kinds: the mad and the not mad. The mad kill to cure some pain they have or because maniacs have poisoned them; and they kill until they dead themselves. Those not mad kill because guardian angels take eyes off them a moment; then rest of life they try repair world in atonement. Baba is second kind. You neither.’

Adem looked at me as if I shouldn’t have heard any of this. I smiled at him sweetly and continued sorting out the food. I knew the story – Babacιk won’t permit secrets in the family. Also I was enjoying Mama Meryem’s outburst. Her accent was so thick she sounded as if she was singing one of her favourite arias.

Adem asked Babacιk in awe. ‘You killed, Grandad?’

Babacιk’s eyes clouded as they always do when he’s reminded of the bad times. ‘Yes.’

‘How?’

Mama Meryem replied instead. ‘He hit man! One blow!’

I nudged Adem. ‘Ask why!’

‘Why?’

‘He was still wrestler then. His outfit had engagement in Italy. Trieste. His boss make deal with gamblers. Kudret to lose match. But Kudret’s opponent useless. When Kudret touch him, he crumble. So gamblers go for Kudret. With iron bars. Kudret fight them. When he kill one, others run. But not before they shoot Kudret. Luckily police come. Kudret rushed hospital.’

I interjected proudly. ‘He had five wounds. Mama Meryem saved him. She was his nurse.’

Mama Meryem chuckled. ‘I to be nun. Nurse to serve God. But when I see Kudret I forget religion. When he recover, I decide I be Kudret’s, not Jesus’ bride. No Sister Maria. Mama Meryem.’

‘But didn’t they charge him with murder?’

‘Sure. But obvious self-defence. Get two years.’

‘That was lucky.’

I interrupted again. ‘It still took them six years to get married.’

‘Why?’

Mama Meryem sighed. ‘Because suddenly war. Kudret to labour camp. I to field hospital. Then Americans capture me. I nurse for them. When war end Kudret and I have no contact.’

‘But Babacιk found her.’

Babacιk shook his head. ‘No, the Gypsy clairvoyant, Fatma, found her. They had sent me back to Turkey. I’d found work in a circus. I consulted Fatma at a fair. She told me Meryem was working in a hospital in Genoa. I went to a scribe – got him to write her a letter ...’

I concluded proudly. ‘She was here within the month.’

Mama Meryem nodded sentimentally. ‘Twenty-one days, four hours, eight minutes.’

Adem was moved. His voice became sad and wistful. ‘And you’ve lived happily ever after ...’

Babacιk scrutinized the chess piece he had just carved. ‘Yes. And no.’

‘Why “no”?’

‘Because I’ve lived with the fear I might kill again.’

‘Why should you?’

‘If someone hurt Girl or my Meryem ...’

Mama Meryem muttered in trepidation. ‘And I – that someone might kill Baba ...’

‘Who would? Everybody loves him!’

‘But will they protect him?’

‘From whom?’

Mama Meryem faced Adem. ‘From himself – mostly.’

Adem averted his gaze and turned to me. ‘What do you fear?’

I laughed. ‘Nothing. I fear nothing.’ I pointed at the food. ‘Lunch!’

One day, Babacιk was going through his wrestling exercises in the meadow. He still did them every day. I always went with him. That’s when I practised my juggling.

As he formed the defensive move where the wrestler anchors himself with his head and legs – like an upside-down ‘U’ – in order to keep his shoulders from touching the ground, Adem appeared.

(I should confess: since Adem’s arrival, I often imagined that I was using him as my juggling prop, throwing him up in the air, then catching him as he flew into my hands!)

‘That looks difficult, Grandad. Where do you go from there?’

‘It’s a bridge. Defensive move. To stop your opponent pinning down your shoulders.’

‘Looks pretty indestructible.’

‘I’ve seen better.’

Babacιk was being humble. We know from Hacι Turgut that no one has ever broken Babacιk’s bridge. I also remember that, when I was younger, all the children in the troupe used to climb on him and his bridge wouldn’t even shake.

‘I hear you were the best, Grandad.’

Babacιk straightened up. ‘I was all right.’

‘Glad to have retired?’

‘Who likes retirement?’

‘I do.’

‘You expect me to believe that?’

‘Well ...’

‘Have you ever wrestled, Adem?’

‘No.’

Babacιk offered his hand. ‘Try it. Work the muscles we’ve been given. Understand what it means ...’

Adem shunned Babacιk’s hand. ‘What what means?’

‘Wrestling.’

‘Wrestling is wrestling ...’

‘It’s much more than that. It’s love – to put it simply. We wrestle because we love. We look at a man and see he’s beautiful, inside and out. This creates respect, admiration. We want to touch him – love him. So we wrestle.’

Adem cast an embarrassed look at me. ‘Sounds great, Grandad. But surely, when all’s said and done, it’s just a contest. Win or lose.’

‘Not for the wrestler. Never a contest. More a celebration. You wrestle to the best of your ability. You honour Creation. Who wins when you make love? Both partners. And by their example – everybody else.’

‘That’s the strangest rule I’ve ever heard!’

‘Rules, you learn in five minutes. I’m talking about classic wrestling. About what makes a man fight fair, what makes him see his opponent as his equal.’

‘What about hate? What happens when you hate your partner – I mean, opponent?’

‘No room for hate. That belongs to fist-men, pretenders, cheats. Not for us.’

‘Us?’

‘When you and Yorgo performed magic in the air – what was it like?’

‘I don’t know, Grandad ...’

‘I do. I saw you. Union. Simple. Natural. Perfect union.’

‘Maybe ... I mean yes, often it was as if we breathed at the same time ... Like when we did the triple ... When he let go of his trapeze on the last swing – so high he could have touched the cone – I felt him stop breathing, same time as I did. And as he performed the somersaults, as I swung to meet him, we held that breath. And he fell into my hands like a feather. And you heard our hands lock – clack! Perfect grip. Clean as anything you’ll ever see. And we breathed out – same time, as if we had the same lungs ...’

‘That’s what I’m trying to say, Adem. When flesh touches flesh lovingly, there is beauty. There is union.’

Adem smiled.

Babacιk stretched out his hand again. ‘Come. Let’s wrestle ...’

Again Adem shrunk away. ‘Another time, Grandad ...’

And he walked off.

Some weeks later, Adem finally dared enter the Big Top.

Babacιk took that as a sign that Adem was feeling better in himself. He went into the Big Top, too.

Mama Meryem and I followed.

We found Adem watching Osman on the trapeze.

Osman, obviously inspired by our presence, performed magnificently.

Hatice, I noted, kept looking uneasily at Adem. Like Mama Meryem who worried that Adem was bewitching me, Hatice feared that Osman, too, was falling under Adem’s spell. Perhaps Mama Meryem should have told Hatice, as she told every woman who asked her advice, that providing she had made a home for Osman between her legs, she would have nothing to worry about.

Osman finished his exercises and jumped off the bar. He ran straight to Adem. ‘Was I good?’

Adem nodded graciously. ‘Yes.’

‘Might we try ...?’

Adem shook his head curtly. ‘No.’ Then he softened his tone. ‘Sorry ...’

Osman tried to hide his disappointment. ‘Another time ...’

Hatice, who had been towelling off Osman’s sweat, dragged him away. ‘Come, you mustn’t catch cold ...’

Mama Meryem, taking advantage of their departure, pushed me forward. ‘Let’s go. Nothing will happen today.’

I followed her out, then telling her that I had promised to help out in the menagerie, slipped back in.

Babacιk and Adem were squatting in the ring and talking. I stayed in the shadows and listened.

Babacιk asked, man to man, ‘Is he good – Osman?’

Adem nodded grudgingly. ‘Yes.’

‘As good as Yorgo?’

‘No!’

‘Could he be?’

Again Adem nodded dismissively. ‘Maybe ...’

‘Let’s hope he doesn’t get a liking for opium ...’

Adem’s anger rose. ‘What’s that supposed to mean ...?’

‘Not what a flyer needs – opium ...’

‘Is that what they’ve been saying? That Yorgo was an addict?’

‘Was he?’

‘He smoked the odd one. We all indulge now and again!’

‘I don’t. Meryem and Girl don’t. I’ve never seen you use it ...’

‘So what? No harm if it’s the occasional one ...’

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why did he smoke – the occasional one?’

‘To relax. To get out of his skin.’

‘Wasn’t he happy in his skin?’

‘Sure, he was. Like everybody else.’

‘Most people are not.’

Adem laughed nervously. ‘So sometimes he got depressed. It’s natural.’

‘What about?’

‘How should I know? People get depressed! Something – out of the blue – upsets them!’

‘He never told you about the things that upset him?’

‘No.’

‘The night he fell – had he been smoking?’

Adem sneered. ‘You can’t smoke when you’re on the trapeze!’

‘What about before the performance?’

‘Grandad, I don’t know what you’re getting at, but ...’

‘Was he depressed – before the performance?’

‘Who knows ...?’

‘Can you think what might have depressed him?’

Adem protested. ‘I didn’t say he was depressed!’ He stared at his hands wearily. ‘If he was, I don’t know why! I never knew what was in his mind!’

‘But you were so close ...’

‘Even so ...’

Babacιk shook his head. ‘I think you know what depressed him.’

‘I’m telling you, I don’t!’

‘Your eyes are telling me you do ...’

‘To hell with my eyes!’

‘They’re saying there’s a weight around your neck – and you’re sinking ...’

Adem wailed. ‘Grandad!’

‘Talk about it. Throw off the burden. Free yourself.’