Baksheesh (15 page)

“Auntie, I feel really terrible. My eyes are streaming. I think I have a fever. Oh Nana, Nana.”

Figen was beating her ribcage with one hand, her knees with the other, and crying out, “Nana, Nana.”

I repeated the tale about going to my shop to get a book. It was dreadful.

“Well, go along then. What's the book called? What shall I say if your mother comes?”

“Say I've gone to get a book. I need it for school. Our teacher gave us some homework. They didn't have the book in the village. School starts again next week, doesn't it? You can tell my mum I went to get a book for school. Say that miss has it and doesn't want any money for it. She doesn't need it any more. What would a grown woman do with a book anyway? She's going to give it to me. I might as well have it if it's free, otherwise I'd have to pay for it. There's no end to expenses. You just have to
set foot outside the door and you've spent five million Turkish lira. Isn't that right, miss?” If she'd gone on much longer, I think I'd have passed out.

“Indeed. What would I do with the book? I'm a grown woman,” I said, holding out my glass for more water to help me swallow. How had I ended up here? Why was I staring at UEP propaganda? Why the sudden need for me to get so involved with these people?

Figen disappeared into another room. When she returned, she didn't look any smarter than before, but she definitely had more material covering her. How could people carry so much material on them? No part of her was visible except for her hands, half her forehead, her nose and lips. Involuntarily, I tugged at the sleeves of my T-shirt. But it made no difference what I tugged at. Next to her, I looked stark naked.

We left together. I took a deep breath as we stepped out into the street.

“Miss, let's go this way. My mum will come the other way. If she sees me in the street, she'll make me go back,” Figen said, tugging at my arm.

“Fine, you go down there. We'll go our separate ways from here,” I said, feeling so deflated I was even prepared to forego any information I thought I might get from the girl.

“No miss, you can't do that. I have to telephone Mahmut to tell him to come to your shop so we can meet there. If my mum sees me out in the street, she'll break my legs.”

I was going out of my mind. Seriously. The girl was looking at me as if she was about to burst into tears. And I needed no convincing that she could repeat her ability to dissolve into floods of tears at will.

I took my mobile out of my bag.

“Call Mahmut now and arrange to meet him somewhere. But not at my shop, you wouldn't be able to talk comfortably there,” I said.

“Oh, please, miss. Don't let her see me out in the street,” she said.

The first signs of a migraine had appeared.

“Fine. Let's go to the shop,” I said.

 

At the shop, Pelin was burbling away, helping some customers who were gazing indecisively at the shelves and picking up the odd book then putting it back. It felt good to be back in my own civilized world. I took Figen through to the telephone. While she was whispering on the phone, I lit a cigarette and waited for the customers to leave.

As soon as the door closed behind the last customer, I said, “Is he coming, your fiancé?”

“He's going to try and get permission. I said I'd call again in ten minutes. You don't mind, do you miss? He can't make calls at work.”

“Do you belong to the United Endeavour Party?” I asked, in a leaden voice.

Her face lit up on hearing the name of the party.

“Of course, miss. We all belong to UEP,” she said, pronouncing it
yoo-ep
. “You can't be a Muslim if you don't belong to UEP, can you?” she said.

I refrained from pulling at her headscarf and tearing her hair out. After all, I'd decided I wouldn't stick my nose into matters that didn't concern me.

“Do you work for the party?”

“My mum does, more than the rest of us. She goes round to people's homes to organize women's meetings.”

“Doesn't your mother have a job?”

“Yes, she cleans at the Haliç Sports Club. When she finishes there, she does Allah's work. It's her salvation. Who are you going to vote for?”

Elections were to be held within a few months.

“I don't know yet,” I said.

Figen nodded her head. “Vote for UEP. The others are all corrupt. They've ruined Turkey. The Muslim people have been walked all over. Their wives and daughters have fallen into prostitution.”

“Does your mother work late hours for the party?”

“Sometimes she comes home in the middle of the night, miss. She's given so much of herself to the party. My dad doesn't say a word. She's doing Allah's work, not going out and enjoying herself. If she gets just one vote for the party, she's achieved one good deed.”

“What does your father do?”

“He serves tea at the Council.”

“Beyoğlu Council?”

“Yes.”

The chairman of Beyoğlu Council was a member of UEP.

“Did your grandmother belong to UEP as well?”

“Of course, miss. We're all working for Allah.”

“Do you think your grandmother was killed for her bracelets?”

Figen didn't reply. She was busy looking at her watch.

“Miss, can I phone again? Sorry miss.”

Pelin was watching me and the girl with wide eyes. I signalled with my eyebrows for her to join me in the area we used as a kitchen, because I owed her an explanation.

When I returned, Figen was standing there looking glum.

“He can't come. Couldn't get permission because there are too many customers today. I came all this way for nothing. I'd better go back straight away, miss,” she said.

“No, wait a minute,” I said. “I want to ask you a few questions.”

“Miss, my mum will be waiting for me at home,” she said.

“That's not very Muslim of you. Didn't we have an agreement? I help you and you help me?” I think Pelin was convinced I'd gone completely mad.

“Quick then, miss. There are lots of people at home and I have to help my mum.”

“Was your grandmother very sick?”

“She didn't have any pain, but we could tell the end was near. She couldn't go out at all. She needed to have check-ups, but there's no doctor in the village. Even if there was, the doctors out there aren't like the ones in Istanbul. It's different in the cities.”

“Has she always lived with you?”

“No miss. She came to us after she got ill. She didn't want to give up her allotment and animals. After Nana came here, we started going out there to help Grandpa.”

“Do you think she was killed because of a robbery?”

“You don't get robberies around here, miss. My brother says it's because all the robbers are neighbours and a robber doesn't steal on his own patch. Anyway, what have we got to steal? Nana had a couple of bracelets, but they weren't even taken. If you're saying there's another reason… But what would anyone want from us, miss? Who'd have anything against us?”

“Perhaps it was because of all this party business,” I said.

“No, miss. Why would that be? Anyway, what would Nana have to do with anyone in another party?”

“Well, why then? What does your brother say?”

“He doesn't say anything.”

“What did your grandmother do at home all day?”

“Just lay in bed. She wasn't in pain, but she was very weak. She used to be such an active woman, a real go-getter in her time. But this illness took it all out of her.”

“Didn't she get bored spending all day at home?”

“Bored? Any woman who's used to working would get bored. And village work isn't like the work here. Out there, people work from dawn till dusk. Nobody stands around doing nothing in the village. That's the life she was used to. Of course she got bored doing nothing. She used to help Mum with the housework and
cooking here. And she did that knitting with five needles, making socks for my brother to sell at the market. Those socks used to sell really well in winter. My Nana was a beautiful knitter, God bless her soul. I'll bring you a pair,” she said, getting up.

“When she wasn't doing housework, did she use to look out of the window?”

“Of course. Everybody does that, don't they miss? Why do you ask?”

“I was just wondering if she used to sit in front of the window, because when I came to your place, there was an empty place on the divan.”

“Yes, that corner was where my Nana sat, miss. She always watched the street from there to see who was coming and going. She didn't watch TV. ‘Never got used to it,' she'd say. My aunt doesn't let anyone sit in Nana's place. She says it has to stay empty.”

“Did she read newspapers?”

This time Figen laughed.

“What newspapers, miss? Do you think she could read and write?”

“Maybe she looked at the pictures.”

“No, miss. Newspapers in the village? Nothing like that has ever entered our house. Who'd pay out good money for that kind of thing every day?”

 

It had occurred to me that maybe the old woman was killed because she'd seen Osman's killer. The woman would have to have been a very reliable witness for the killer to commit a second murder. Enough to frighten him into taking a serious risk. In which case, he must have thought the woman would be able to identify him. In other words, he was well known. Either that or he was someone who was always around there. Say, for instance, the uncle.

The uncle was still on my list of suspects.

Or, it might have been a well-known person from Osman's circle, who was also known to the old woman. If there was anyone like that, of course. If Osman knew anyone well known.

The only way to find out was to call Ä°nci.

That's what I did. She said she was making dolma and asked me to go round for dinner.

After closing the shop, Pelin and I walked home together. She asked me if she was the reason I kept going out in the evenings.

“I can go to another friend's place if I'm bothering you,” she said.

Pelin is Turkish. I forget this sometimes. And she at times forgets that I'm German, though she doesn't really know what Germans are like.

“Look, I'm not Turkish. I'm an in-your-face German and I'd tell you to go if I was bothered about you staying,” I said.

“Would you really say that to me?”

“Definitely.”

“I'd rather die than say that to anyone.”

“I know. You're a polite, hospitable Turk. And I still have just a little bit of German left in me,” I said, demonstrating with the tips of my thumb and forefinger. Some things just never change in people.

 

Osman had lived well. I knew nothing about his wife, but the feast his lover prepared for me that evening was splendid.

“I can't stay long,” I said, but not until we'd finished eating, of course. “I was out yesterday evening, too, so I'm a bit tired. But I wanted to ask you something.”

I told Ä°nci about the old woman's death and my suspicions. She listened attentively. A bit too attentively, really. I was beginning to see myself as someone of importance.

“The police came today,” she said earnestly. “They've finally found out about my existence. See, you're faster than the police.”

This was a compliment beyond my wildest dreams. I smiled, sinking my neck down between my shoulders. I was faster than the police, yeah!

“What did they want?” I asked, my voice coming out like that of a spoiled little girl.

“They asked all sorts of things. Like where was I between seven-thirty and nine-thirty on the Thursday evening. I said I was at home, watching TV on my own.”

“Did they ask what you were watching?”

She looked hard at me.

“No, they didn't,” she said. “They just asked whether or not I was alone.”

I suddenly remembered the bit under my chin where it was starting to sag, and how massaging it with a few rhythmical movements helped me to think.

 

I learnt from Ä°nci that there had been two people in Osman's life who could be described as “well known”. One of them was a former footballer. He had played in premier-league teams and was crowned “goal king” in 1989. But Turkish football wasn't as high profile in the Eighties as it is today. Even if it had been, I doubt if an old woman would be able to recognize any of the players.

The other well-known person was an actor who had been a centre-right MP for one term. He was a favourite in the old-school Turkish cinema, memorable for his roles in romantic films. An idol of young girls. A dark, handsome, moustachioed Anatolian guy, who graced the posters on their walls. He came from the same village as Osman. His name was Ä°smet Akkan. A king among men.

Ä°nci said that Ä°smet was a gambler. His friendship with Osman had indeed started because they came from the same village, but it had developed because of their shared passion for gambling. After casinos were banned in Turkey, they went off on gambling
sprees together for six years or so. At first they went to Bulgaria, but more recently they'd been going to Northern Cyprus. Was this murder because of a gambling debt? Or something like that? Just then, I could think of no other reason.

Ä°smet Akkan was famous enough for an old woman to recognize him. The average Turk would have memorized every scene of at least three of his films. You didn't have to be a TV addict to recognize Ä°smet Akkan. Even I knew a couple of his films backwards from catching their weekly screenings on daytime television.