Young Turk (35 page)

And so he became my mother and father, my sisters and brothers, and all the countless relatives who had spent an eternity clinging to a cloud, fretting over me.

He even became my son and my daughter. The children I will never have. That’s how well he taught me how to love.

Then darkness came.

It was a balmy Saturday night in July, soon after eleven, when the late diners were eagerly awaiting their
Bela Rugosi
– the
lokanta
’s special dessert, which, Konstantin Efendi swore, had been created by a French chef for Vlad the Impaler, alias Count Dracula.

I was working in the restaurant. On Orhan’s recommendation, Konstantin Efendi had hired me part-time. I did menial tasks: clearing dishes, laying tables, serving drinks. And I loved doing it because I was in Orhan’s orbit.

To add to my happiness, Nermin, too, helped out in the restaurant. I was thus able to drool over Çiçek as she slept or played her strange infant’s games. Nermin had become like an elder sister. And Çiçek, who seldom cried, but busily observed the world around her – and smiled whenever she caught sight of someone – had become as precious to me as if she were my own flesh and blood.

They sauntered in, as if they owned the sky. Five fellows, one with his head shaven, like a corsair from bygone times. Hefty bruisers. Not Cossacks, as I had first thought. Real gangsters. Ready to gouge out a man’s eyes for nothing.

They sat at a table near the entrance.

I glanced at Orhan.

He had seen them, of course, and was scrutinizing them. Then he nodded imperceptibly, indicating that I should attend to them.

I approached their table. ‘Good evening, gentlemen. The kitchen is about to close. But if you order quickly ...’

The shaven-headed man, obviously the leader, barked. ‘Get Konstantin Efendi!’

‘Sir?’

‘Get him, you little bastard! Tell him Octopus wants to see him.’

As I backed away towards the kitchen, Orhan whispered. ‘Ease everybody into the kitchen. Tell them to stay there!’

I nodded.

‘Then serve those pigs raki. A droplet. No more. Tell them it’s from me.’

‘But that would be insulting ...’

‘That’s the idea.’

‘Men with stone hearts – right?’

‘Right.’

‘That’s what I thought. Soon as I saw them.’

‘Go on – move! Then get into the kitchen, too.’

‘I can help you ...’

‘You are. Do as I say!’

I gathered everybody and pushed them into the kitchen. They stood there, huddled by the door.

The men watched, amused.

I poured the raki as Orhan had instructed me and served the men.

The one calling himself Octopus stared at the drinks. ‘What’s this?’

‘For you.’ I pointed at Orhan. ‘From him.’

Octopus looked at Orhan, then began laughing.

Orhan, sipping his raki, smiled back, then gestured at me to go into the kitchen.

I did so, reluctantly.

Octopus stood up and poured the drinks on the floor. ‘Sense of humour – I like that.’

The patrons, sniffing trouble, shifted about uneasily. Some half rose, ready to leave.

Octopus addressed them. ‘Off you go, people! We have some business here. If you haven’t paid, don’t worry. Konstantin Efendi can afford it.’

The patrons stared at each other, unable to decide.

Orhan addressed them. ‘Good patrons, take a breather by the sea. Then come back. Say, in a quarter of an hour.’

The patrons, mostly regulars and chummy with Orhan, left in an orderly stampede.

Octopus turned to his companions and pointed at Orhan. ‘This must be the
kabadayι
we heard about ...’

The men sniggered.

Octopus, assuming a mocking tone, addressed Orhan. ‘Honourable sir, we’ve come to collect from the Romanian shit-face. Insurance premium. He pays up, we protect this place. We see to it that not even a toothpick is broken. With your permission, naturally ...’

Orhan pursed his lips as if trying to think up an answer; then, shrugging his shoulders, he started pulling faces and blabbering.

Infuriated, Octopus bellowed, ‘Hey, vomit of a syphilitic cunt! I’m talking to you!’

Orhan gabbled and prattled even more dementedly.

Octopus nudged one of his companions. ‘Shut the fucker!’ He turned to the others and indicated the kitchen. ‘Bring the old snot!’

As the men moved forwards, Orhan eased himself off the stool and roared, ‘That’s far enough!’

Surprised by the unexpected authority in his voice, the men stopped.

Orhan waved them away. ‘Get back slowly. Collect your Octopus. And goodbye ...’

The men, hesitating, looked at each other, then at Octopus.

The latter screeched, ‘Cut the catamite’s balls off!’

They launched themselves forwards.

Then everything happened so quickly that I almost missed it.

Orhan kicked his stool in the direction of the three men moving towards the kitchen, tripping them up. Almost at the same time, he lashed out at the fourth man, striking him on the bridge of his nose and felling him. Still in the same movement, he grabbed the empty bottles on his table and shattered them on the heads of two of the assailants he had tripped up. As the latter passed out, he seized them by their hair and smashed their faces on the head of the man he had knocked over with the stool.

When he straightened up a moment later, he had unsheathed his knife and was pointing it at Octopus.

Octopus stood frozen, staring incredulously at his prostrate companions.

Orhan, drawing circles in the air with his knife, addressed Octopus. ‘I could carve my name on your chest. But that would be foolish. The police would get involved. Konstantin Efendi would have all sorts of problems.’

Octopus hissed, ‘I’ll get you!’

Orhan grinned. ‘Ssshhhh. I’ll shit in my pants ...’

Some of the men, groaning, were trying to lift themselves off the floor.

Orhan prodded them with his foot. ‘Come on, pick up your men! And out!’

It took Octopus several minutes to drag out his companions. As they piled into the Pontiac parked by the restaurant’s entrance, he turned round and, putting thumb to teeth, mimed the ‘revenge’ sign.

By then, we had all burst out of the kitchen and surrounded Orhan. But he was pushing us away, trying to get to a bucket of sawdust.

Reading his mind, I grabbed the bucket and spread the sawdust thickly on the floor where the men had bled.

And just in time, too. Because a moment later, several police from the local station burst in.

Some patrons, who had obviously called them, followed.

The detective in charge barked, ‘What’s going on?’

Konstantin Efendi pushed forward. ‘Ah, Detective Dursun ...’

‘What’s all this commotion?’

Konstantin Efendi stared at him innocently. ‘What commotion?’

Detective Dursun, uttering the sigh of the long-suffering policeman, started looking around, searching, no doubt, for some evidence of trouble. ‘The commotion they could hear even in Romania, Konstantin Efendi ...’

Konstantin Efendi put his hand to his forehead, as if suddenly remembering. ‘Oh, you mean the drunkards. Ah, yes – a noisy lot! I told them what’s what and they left.’

Detective Dursun turned towards Orhan.

Suddenly I noticed Orhan was trying to hide his knife in the small of his back. Realizing that if the police found the knife on him, he could be arrested for carrying a weapon, I stepped forward as if to clear the way for the detective. Then I tripped myself up and as I stumbled forward I shunted one of the policemen on to the detective. As the latter tried to keep his balance, I took the knife from Orhan and put it in my apron pocket.

I turned to Detective Dursun, looking as contrite as I could. ‘Sorry, sir ...’

He glared at me disdainfully.

I backed into the kitchen, still apologizing. Keeping a distracted mien, I went to the sink and put the knife on the pile of cutlery waiting to be washed.

Detective Dursun stopped by the upturned stool and the broken bottles. ‘What’s all this?’

Orhan picked up the stool. ‘Someone must have knocked it over, sir.’

‘The broken bottles?’

Liliana came forward, giggling. ‘Those drunks. They were playing at being Russian. Drinking, then smashing bottles ...’

‘They drank only two bottles?’

Liliana turned to him indignantly. ‘I stopped them smashing others. Two bottles is two too many.’

Detective Dursun did not look convinced. He turned to Orhan again. ‘Did you use them in a fight?’

‘Me, sir? No, sir!’

‘
Kabadayι
– isn’t that what they call you?’

‘They tease me, sir.’

‘Tease you?’

‘I’m the night-watchman ... So people poke fun ...’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Orhan, sir.’

‘Orhan what?’

‘Orhan Veli. Like the poet.’

Detective Dursun smiled derisively. ‘Really?’

‘That’s why I know all his works by heart. Many others, too ...’

‘Trying to be funny?’

‘No, sir. Listen ...
“The things we have done for our country, some of us died and some of us declaimed ...”
1 Beautiful, isn’t it?’

‘Do you have a gun? A knife?’

‘Me, sir? Never, sir.’

Detective Dursun turned to one of his men. ‘Search him.’

The latter did so. Orhan co-operated fully.

The policeman shook his head. ‘Clean, sir.’

Detective Dursun, still dissatisfied but unable to find anything incriminating, turned to Konstantin Efendi. ‘Something happened here. I smell it. So be warned. I’ll be watching ...’

He gathered his men and left.

The patrons settled down.

Others, who had been lingering outside, wafted in.

Konstantin Efendi, almost in tears with relief, hugged Orhan. Then he and Liliana went round the tables, offering sparkling wine on the house.

On his way back to his table to resume his watch, Orhan clasped me to his chest. ‘Thank you, brother ...’

I tried to shrug, but I felt so gratified that I froze.

Then Nermin kissed me on the cheek. ‘Dear, dear Attila ...’

Even more flustered, I hurried into the kitchen and looked for something to do.

The
lokanta
burned down in the early hours of the following Saturday. I wasn’t working there that night – Friday is my father’s night off – so I can’t say I could have prevented the fire if I’d been there. Yet I knew, all that Friday – sensed it – that something terrible was going to happen. But I thought it would happen to my father. He would be hit by a bus or suffer a heart attack. He had become a heavy drinker and there seemed nothing I – or anybody else – could do to dissuade him from killing himself.

Those who saw the blaze said how quickly it had consumed the
lokanta
. The time it takes a match to burn out. Or a star to fall. Or a pan of oil to burst into flames.

A pan of oil that caught fire was assumed to be the cause. Somebody left it on the cooker, forgot to turn off the gas – and boom! Even though Konstantin Efendi and all the staff swore that this sort of negligence could never occur. No restaurateur would close up before all the cookers were turned off and the cooking utensils washed up and stored away. That’s rule number one. Even beginners know that, let alone old hands like Konstantin Efendi.

I knew Konstantin Efendi was right. But maybe ... So I cursed Providence for not working that night. Had I been there, I would have checked the cookers – several times. I always did.

Moreover, had I been working that night, I might have spotted something else, maybe even what caused the fire. I might have spotted, for instance, a car driving away, the very Pontiac a courting couple claimed to have seen parked by Lovers’ Lane – the secluded footpath, not far from the restaurant. If it had been Octopus’s Pontiac, I would have known. I had memorized its number when I watched the gang pile into it after the trouncing Orhan had given them.

At the very least, if I had been working that night, I might have seen the fire on my way home and rushed back. I might have got there in time to save Orhan and Nermin ... and the child who would have been born in a few months.

But as they burnt to death, I was putting my father to bed and listening to his silent weeping.