Baksheesh (12 page)

“Have you found the uncle?”

“Which uncle?” he said. I clapped my hand to my forehead. How did I know about the uncle?

“How do you know about the uncle?” he said.

This time, I said, “Which uncle?” It was a futile attempt.

He pretended not to hear my question. “How do you know about the uncle?” he repeated.

I couldn't think of a single plausible lie.

“I've spoken to Osman's brother. The one called Özcan.”

“Hah! Our amateur detective is on the case again. Didn't you get enough kicks out of the last one? Look, babe, it's better if you don't get mixed up in this, because even I can't protect you.”

Never mind the rest of that last sentence, I was furious that he addressed me as “babe”.

“I don't think I asked you to protect me,” I said. Actually, I shouldn't have said that. Not because women who are abandoned by their lovers are expected to behave impeccably towards every good-looking man they come across. No, not that at all. The reason I shouldn't have said it was that lots of information about the murder was just waiting to spill out of Batuhan's mouth.

“Fine then. Suit yourself,” he said icily.

“Wait. I didn't mean to say that.”

“Then what did you mean to say?”

“What I meant was that you can't protect me, because we're not together every minute of the day.”

“Well, that's up to you, isn't it?” he remarked.

Argh!

 

It was Fatma Hanım's cleaning day. She hadn't been the previous week because of a family wedding. In the meantime, the apartment had become as dirty as the Istanbul streets outside. Fatma Hanım and I had breakfast together.

“You know about these things, so tell me, is Europe going to let us in?” she asked, looking extremely serious as she spread cholesterol-free margarine and jam on her bread.

“How should I know, Fatma Hanım?”

“You're European, aren't you? You must know,” she said. Getting no response from me, she continued, “I don't think they'll have us. Look who's in charge. A bunch of conmen. Did you see the news yesterday?”

“No, I didn't,” I said. Fatma then proceeded to tell me in great detail about the Environment Minister who had been giving jobs at the ministry to his mates. Fatma couldn't read or write, but she never missed the news on television.

“Europe is stringing us along. You can tell them Fatma Hanım says so. They'll never let us in.”

My mobile rang once and fell silent. I could find out who it was by going into “missed calls”, so there was no point fretting about it. A blessing of technology. I called the number. It turned out to be Kasım Bey.

“Why do you always ring and hang up, Kasım Bey? Why don't you say anything?” I asked. Was I really so naive? Maybe Turks have good reason to treat me like an idiot.

“Your business is going to be sorted out, miss. I wasn't calling for nothing,” he said. Only then did I realize he was letting the phone ring once before hanging up so that I would pay for the call.

“Has there been any development?”

“I got someone to look at the file and I've spoken to a solicitor. He says the case will be finalized within a month, two at most. No relatives eligible to inherit have been found and the owner isn't around. All done and dusted. Just so you know.”

“Was that apartment being rented out?”

“No. It's empty. It's being put straight onto the market. If you like, I could keep it aside for you to rent, but there's no need.”

“Are you sure it's not being rented, Kasım Bey?”

“Miss, listen to what I say. I have the computer right here in front of me. Is a computer going to lie? We haven't rented it out.”

“But there are people in it. It's not empty.”

“Ah, well, that's nothing to do with me. Once you buy the apartment, you'll have to reach an agreement with them, stuff a few million lira in their hands and chuck them out. You could also get them out by going to court, but why make a solicitor rich? The best thing is to negotiate. I can help with that if you like. It's not really a woman's job. When the time comes, I'll see what can be done. In the meantime, don't you worry your pretty little head about a thing.”

“In that case, the ball's in your court,” I said.

“You're quite right, miss. That's very true.”

 

I went out. The apartment was no place to hang around anyway. Fatma Hanım was cleaning the sitting-room windows and singing at the top of her voice. I don't understand why Turks insist on cleaning their windows even in the rainy season. I suppose there must be a reason.

The time had come for me to inform my landlady whether I would be moving out in two months' time or staying for another year. Staying would mean paying an extra 150 euros on top of the monthly rent of 1,800 euros. I might just be able to persuade her that in the current climate nobody could afford to pay the sort of money I was paying, and get her to accept a more reasonable figure. After all, buying the apartment in Kuledibi would mean using up all my savings and taking out a loan as well. On top of that, I'd have to pay for repairs. Financially, I was clearly way out of my depth, not to mention my emotional doubts about living in an apartment where a person I knew had been killed.

Instead of taking my usual route through Çukurcuma and Galatasaray, I decided to go to the shop via Tophane. Both sides of the road were lined with cafés full of men playing backgammon
or card games. I went up to an elderly man standing in the street smoking a cigarette and asked him which café belonged to Osman, not because I thought I might one day need to know, but out of curiosity.

I went over to the café the old man had pointed out with his calloused finger, sat down on one of the chairs lined up outside and ordered a tea. I don't know what it's like in the outlying districts of Istanbul, but in the central areas people no longer bat an eyelid if a woman sits down in one of these men's cafés. Not long ago, say fifteen years, when I decided to settle in Istanbul, no respectable woman would have dared do such a thing. If she had, she wouldn't have been left in peace. All the men in the cafés would have left their card games and backgammon boards to go and stare at her. Some things change so quickly.

The way people dress in Istanbul is another thing that has changed rapidly. Fifteen years ago, only tourists wore low-cut tops and shorts, and the natives would turn round to stare at the arms and legs of foreign girls. Nowadays, all middle-class Turkish women wear shorts, miniskirts and tops with cleavage bursting out, even from high necklines. It wasn't only women's clothing that had changed. Men's had too. Turkish men, who always used to wear trousers and moccasins in the summer heat, never exposing so much as a big toe, were now walking around in sandals and shorts. Lale put this change in dress customs down to a succession of subtropical summers in Istanbul. I'm not a sociologist like Lale, but in my view, it's Turkish mentality that has changed, not the climate.

One of the steep roads going from Tophane to Kuledibi passed right in front of
my
apartment. As I was drinking my tea, I began to think I should stop dreaming about buying anything, forget about the money I'd given to Kasım Bey and find somewhere else to rent. But before reaching a final decision, I needed to walk past the apartment to take a last look at what I would be giving up.

I called out to the waiter and paid my bill. He was a good-looking lad with a shaven head and enormous eyes. Osman would have been that age when he first came to Istanbul. Eleven or twelve, thirteen at the most. Nothing could convince me that families who migrated from their villages to the city in the hope of a “better life” actually found it. At least, not for several generations.

 

Housing wasn't the only thing I thought about as I was drinking my tea. I also decided that, from then on, I wouldn't stick my nose into things that didn't concern me. Especially when my own life was in such turmoil. After all, I had no connection, close or tenuous, with Osman's murder, which was how I wanted things to remain. Interrogating people and listening to their dreadful life stories was of no use to me whatsoever. I was never going to make a career as a detective. I already had a job that I loved. Being the proprietor of Istanbul's only crime-fiction bookshop was quite an achievement, wasn't it?

 

But life does not always turn out according to plan. Surprises leap out at us. Nightmarish surprises.

 

I sensed there was something wrong even before I got there. To say “sensed” is a bit of an exaggeration. Two of my five senses were assailed by a noisy crowd of people shouting and crying outside on the pavement.

At first I thought it must be Osman's funeral cortège. People often need something tangible like a coffin to be able to comprehend death. Then, I decided that was a stupid idea. Why would they bring Osman, or rather his coffin, down the street where his office was?

However, it couldn't have been just a local fight that had brought so many people out. Maybe it was a traffic accident. Maybe.

I went up to the crowd and picked out a girl with a red kerchief edged with little gold trinkets and asked her what had happened. She didn't answer my question, but just sized me up and said, “Have you got a cigarette?”

I pulled a packet out of my bag. She took two and, loosening her headscarf, stuck one behind her ear, then stood waiting for me to give her a light. Which is what I did – what else could I do?

“So, aren't you going to tell me what's going on here?”

“I thought you were a tourist,” she said.

I abandoned the idea that those two cigarettes might get me anywhere and approached a young man.

“What happened?” I asked.

“We've no idea. These women and children keep shouting. I don't know if someone's died or what. The police will be here any minute.”

There are two sayings in Turkish for what followed: “speak of the devil” when someone's arrival is unwelcome, and “good people appear at the mention of their name” when it is welcome. I was undecided as to which of these sayings was appropriate when, just after the young man spoke, someone else took hold of my arm. I turned around quickly and saw it was Batuhan.

“Another murder?” I asked as soon as I saw him.

“Good morning, Kati Hanım. What a nice surprise,” he said. Had my Turkish been twenty times better, I would have realized he was being facetious.

“You know I work around here,” I said. Was any more explanation necessary?

“It's an old woman,” he said, nodding towards a nearby building. “She lived in the basement with her son and daughter-in-law. They both go out to work in the mornings, so she was alone at home. Her grandchildren were in the country.”

“And? A murder?”

“Robbery. We reckon it was for the bracelets she was wearing. We think they panicked and knifed her when she cried out.”

Following the economic crisis, there had been a significant rise in the number of robberies and thefts in Istanbul. Actually, I think the Turks put up with it all pretty well. It's no secret that poverty was the reason why the crime rate had soared. Penury poisons the character of a society. However, wealth alone cannot repair the character of some societies. Take Germany, for instance. Try waiting at a Berlin bus stop when the bus is five minutes late, if you have the stamina, and see how those monsters, each with enough money in their pockets for a taxi, elbow, push and trample over each other to get onto that bus. You would be instantly convinced that, for the sake of universal peace, Germans should on no account ever be denied their social benefits.

“Have you got more work to do here? Can I get you a tea?” I asked.

“I'm waiting for someone from the prosecutor's office, but it won't take long. I'll come round to your shop,” said Batuhan.

“No,” I said. “Come to the tea garden, not in the square but the one further down. Ask for the mukhtar's office and it's next door to that – called Café Geneviz.”

As I set off walking, my mobile rang. A most inconvenient time as far as I was concerned. It was Ä°nci saying that she'd forgotten to ask which perfume I used, which wasn't normal for her, but yesterday her mind was all over the place.

“Scorpio,” I said.

“I knew it!” she cried. “We're in the same zodiac group. I'm Cancer.”

I didn't tell her that I'd given up all that at the age of twenty-one, after a bitter experience with a Pisces boyfriend I'd fallen for in the belief that water signs were compatible. I find less and less to believe in as I get older, but I wouldn't want anyone to age before their time.

I waited for Batuhan, smoking a cigarette and drinking tea at Café Geneviz, confident that the shop was in Pelin's safe hands. My phone rang again. Sometimes that happens. After days of not ringing at all, it suddenly doesn't know when to stop. But it didn't even occur to me that it would be him. I'd given up all hope of hearing from Selim. You stop assuming you're everyone's top priority as you get older.

“How are you?” he said, in a voice that sounded as if he was walking on broken glass. Can a single utterance give that impression? Definitely.

I would have given anything to be able to say, “I feel like shit. Absolute shit!” But I couldn't. It wasn't in keeping for someone of my age to stage a tragedy out of a separation. I'd experienced enough melodrama by the time I was thirty to see me through any subsequent failed love affairs.

However, I wanted to say something meaningful in response to his question. Something appropriate for a lover who hadn't phoned for days and, when he did, merely asked how I was.