Authors: Maureen Freely
I am coming to see the point of silence.
A few last words, then.
So that I can say I truly understand how I’ve come to this.
Sinan went straight from Edinburgh to Ankara, and the night of his return we’d arranged to meet at the Hisar İskele at eight. It was another sultry August evening. Emre and I had walked down from the house. When we reached the Bosphorus road, traffic was at a standstill. There was a famous singer performing at the castle, and there was nowhere for his thousands of fans to park. We crossed over to the shore, where I took Emre out of his backpack and while he stared at the idling engines on the road, I looked at the water, which was still steel blue to the north beyond the bridge and, to the south, tinged with pink.
Then Emre turned to the sea and began to babble and kick and point. It took me a few moments to see it: the Bosphorus was teeming with boats and ships, but not a single one was moving.
It is not an easy feat to stand in place on the Bosphorus. The current is too strong. The boats and ships had to keep their engines running to stop the drift. It made them sound like planes preparing for take-off.
We were fifteen minutes late. So despite Emre’s pleas, no lingering at the fish tank. We went straight out to the porch, to the corner table Sinan had reserved for us. But it was already taken. When I asked why, the waiter looked perplexed. Wasn’t the gentleman at the table one of our party?
It was İsmet. After he had admired Emre, he invited us to sit down. Beckoning for the waiter, he ordered me an Absolut and mineral water. “That’s your poison, Jeannie, isn’t it?”
He went on to ask me a string of avuncular questions. How old was Emre now? How was his father? How was mine? Was I settling into motherhood? Did I find Istanbul a pleasant place to live?
“I seem to be upsetting you,” he said with a smile.
“Not at all,” I said. “It’s just I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
“I take your point,” he said. “Because in the grand scheme of things, you’re not important. But I still feel a responsibility for you. Your dad and I go way back, after all. And the same must be said of this little fellow’s father. We’re practically related, as you know.” He looked up: there was Sinan standing over us. His expression was unreadable. Or rather, there was no expression at all.
İsmet stood up. “I am taking your seat, I think,” he said affably.
“Please,” said Sinan in a low voice. “There is no rush.”
“How kind of you to say so. But I won’t stay long. You see, it’s my daughter’s birthday. I’m such a family man these days. It’s my only thought! We’ll be at that long table over there.”
He bared his teeth. “I love children so much, as you know. And this child gives me such a special pleasure. He looks just like his father, Jeannie, don’t you think?” İsmet leaned forward to pinch Emre’s cheek. “And he’s the spitting image of his grandfather, too.”
“Take your hands off him,” Sinan said. “Get away from him or I’ll hit you.”
İsmet’s face went blank. “So you believed him,” he said.
“No,” said Sinan. “For thirty years, I believed you.”
İsmet stood up and the two men glared at each other.
“You should still believe me,” İsmet said. “You should always believe me.”
“You lied to me.” Sinan spat out his words.
“So you may think, but who can ever know…”
“I know!” Sinan bellowed. “I have proof!”
“But why would an old family friend wish to lie to you?”
“You lied because you wanted to ruin my life.”
“I was just trying to protect you,” İsmet said.
“Protect me from what?”
İsmet’s face went very dark.
“Leave us in peace,” Sinan said. “Or I’ll piss in your daughter’s face.”
There was a flurry of activity after İsmet left the table. The ashtray was replaced, the table brushed. New glasses arrived, and then new napkins and knives and forks. There were muttered apologies from the waiter. “The gentleman has bothered you.” It was a question.
Sinan waved it away. “It was nothing,” he said to the waiter in Turkish. “What you did was correct.” He ordered himself an Absolut and soda and asked the waiter to replenish mine. It was only after the drinks had arrived that he spoke.
“I’m sorry. If only I’d been here on time…”
And perhaps he was struggling to find a way to tell me. But then a glowing orange bumblebee of a hovercraft came barrelling past us, and Emre fell out of his chair.
The hovercraft seemed to belong to the maritime police. It was soon joined by two others that pulled up alongside the tugboat sitting underneath the bridge. İsmet (who was not with his family after all, but with three sharply dressed business associates) seemed to be party to whatever was going on. When ships were free to move up and down the Bosphorus again – after a glowing bumblebee had come to pick him up, I turned to Sinan. “So what was that all about?”
“Who knows? It could have been some sort of exercise. Or a bomb scare. Or maybe they were doing some sort of repair.”
“I didn’t mean that,’ I said. ‘I meant that argument with İsmet.”
“You’re surprised I’d want to argue with İsmet?”
“You’ve always said it’s dangerous to talk back.”
“I should have talked back to him years ago. I already feel so much better.”
“What was it about, though?”
“Nothing,” said Sinan. “Really nothing.”
“What did he lie to you about?”
“It’s over. For now, that’s all you need to know.”
But his voice lacked conviction. Late that night, he changed his mind.
We were in bed, and I’d just finished reading a column about the Edinburgh screening of
Van Comes to Europe
. The author, a renowned nationalist, accused Sinan of treason.
“How dare he?” I said. But Sinan was unruffled.
“He can say what he wants. So long as he doesn’t stop me doing what I want, who cares? Things are different now.”
“Are they?”
He laughed. “You’re not trying to warn me, are you? You’re not trying to tell me I should compromise my principles?”
“No, but…”
“Let me guess. You approve, of course, how could you not approve? But you’d still like me to curb my impulses a little, take things slowly, and above all, avoid a confrontation with İsmet.”
“Yes, that would be nice,” I said.
“Very nice indeed,” he said. ‘But also, alas, very European. It’s not the way we do things here. It’s not the way things work.”
“So how do they work?” I asked.
He smiled and for a moment he looked nineteen again. “We’ve been through this before. Don’t you remember? Except…” he wagged his finger. “Except – last time we were wrong.”
“About what?”
“The revolution. Do you remember why?”
“Let’s see. Could it be that the seeds were planted long ago?”
“And?’
“The roots must spread under the ground…the saplings must have time to grow. But when the sap starts running…”
“You can’t stop the course of history.”
“The Judas trees must blossom…until one day…”
He threw his head back in laughter. “Okay then. I’ll tell you. You
might as well know. That day they took us in. You know, in 1971, after they blew up your father’s car, and İsmet took you all in. Well, this is what you don’t know. He took me in first. Yes, I had the first, and the most private, interview! And I suppose you’re going to ask why I’ve waited all this time to tell you.” He was speaking so fast I could barely follow him. “Well the reason is I knew you’d want to know the whole story. But I didn’t want to think about the story long enough to tell it, and now I’ve told you and have no choice to explain, this is what I ask of you. No questions. No nothing. Are we agreed? Here, come into my arms, turn off the light, I’ll tell you as quickly as I can and I’ll be so tired by the end I’ll fall asleep and you’ll stare at the ceiling, trying to imagine every gap in my story, but this can’t be helped, all stories have gaps and this is the only time I will ever say what I am about to say.”
I struggled to find my voice. “If it’s too painful…”
“Too painful? Of course it’s too painful! But please, just listen. I won’t take long. He caught me by surprise, Jeannie. I had no idea what was coming. When he shut the door behind him, I was not even nervous. I assumed he’d brought us in to discuss the bombing of your father’s car, of which I knew nothing.
But first there were to be preliminaries. You would think we were in Sürreya’s, chatting over
piroshki
. First there are the reminiscences – the first time we met, too young for me to remember. Then something odd that still makes no sense to me – about a jeweller in Ankara, a former Yugoslavian who may or may not have been a drop. Then my own first memory of İsmet, on that Russian ship in 1962. I was with my father, he’d just been posted to Cairo. Why İsmet was on the ship I cannot tell you. There was also a group of Egyptian officers on board, and now he wanted to know if I remembered them, what else I had seen. In Caracas, in Washington, in Karachi, how often was my father the guest of the Soviet embassy? Might my father be vulnerable to blackmail because of his ‘varied proclivities’? What was the true reason for my parents’ divorce? Had my mother not confided in me? My answers were vague and without effect.
Then İsmet pulled up a chair to sit next to me. He fixed his eyes onto my lap. Put his hand on my testicles. Squeezed them hard and
said, ‘Do you know what they say about you and Haluk? They say you share your balls. This is what they say. This is what they say you do for each other.’ So he began. He said, ‘Ah! What kind of man are you?’ But then, later. After he removed his hand. I was my father’s son. This is what he told me. His vices were my vices. Our fates were the same. He pushed me into the corner. And made his prophecy come true.
But I did not let him hear my pain. This must have bothered him. He must have known he’d have to do more than this to destroy me. And so he sat me down on the chair again and continued talking. He told me lies.”
“What lies?” I asked.
“Lies about my father – who he really was, what he’d done to my mother.”
“Like what?”
“I can’t remember. I can’t! Oh, Jeannie – please! Don’t stay up all night dreaming up wild guesses! You asked why I picked a fight with İsmet. Now I’ve told you. Can we leave it at that?”
Of course – I couldn’t, any more than if I’d been raped myself.
But after he had turned his back on me, after he had extracted himself from my poor attempt at an embrace and asked me to stop asking him if he was okay – I made myself a promise – to close the door on this, to kill every question that tempted me to do otherwise. To see him through this, help him put it behind us and move on.
And it was just as well that I had made this resolution, for when we picked up the paper the next morning, we were to discover what İsmet had been up to with his bumblebee hovercrafts. He was splashed across the front page, standing in front of the speedboat that a crane had just lifted from the depths of the Bosphorus, less than fifty metres from where we’d been eating. Kitten II.
Sinan became ashen-faced when I passed him the paper, but for once I knew better than to press for details. When he asked, “Is that all they found?” I just told him what I knew. According to the paper, at least, all they’d found was the shell of an old boat. But still he seemed unconvinced. “There may be more to this story. There might
be something they’re holding back.”
For once I made a sensible suggestion. Why didn’t he ring Haluk? He was sure to find a way to the inside track. “Good idea,” Sinan said. But he remained tense all day. Every time the phone rang, he jumped. There were long conversations with Suna as well as Haluk. Each left him gloomier than the one before. When the phone rang again that night at half past eleven, I expected the worst. But I was wrong, thank God. For Haluk had indeed found his way to the inside track. They’d found nothing inside Kitten II. We were safe. We were in the clear.’
So once again, the secret is safe. The invisible hand binding them to the unspeakable past begins to wither. Sinan and Jeannie live happily ever after with little Emre, whose joy in the here and now so confounds his grandfather that even he stops chasing ghosts.
İsmet drifts into retirement, Chloe into the arms of another saintly husband. Suna carries on with her fine works. Haluk and Lüset write the cheques.
Sinan’s films lose their edge. He does not become a terror suspect, and his wife does not come to me for help. She does not go missing. I do not set out to find her.
This is how the story ought to have ended. Could have ended.
Would
have ended, if a certain someone hadn’t decided it should not.
Who was this person?
Was it Jordan, refusing to let anything get in the way of a good story?
Was it William, stirring for revenge?
Was it İsmet, sensing danger?
Or was it his shadow?
The time has come to tell you where I am.
I am sitting on the balcony of an apartment in Bebek, in a building near the top of the steep steps, and as I’ve been writing, dawn has come and gone.
I can see all of Bebek Bay stretched out before me. From the southernmost towers of Rumeli Hisar to the fishermen huddled
outside Arnavutköy. There must be a hundred yachts and rowboats moored in the still waters before me. The Asian shore looks close enough to touch. Were it not for the steady stream of tankers, the speed with which they cut across the bay, the swirl marks that mark off its still waters from the churning currents, I could be at the edge of a lake.
This is the apartment that Dutch Harding shared with Billie Broome from September 1968 to June 1971.
William Wakefield lived here, too. From 2000 to 2005.
Though he has been gone for several months now, the furnishings remain the same. I am sitting in what I’m told he called his watching post. It’s a creaky but comfortable garden chair with floral cushions. This was where he was meant to have been sitting when an unknown assailant crept up behind him on the evening of October 16
th
2005 and shot him in the head.
The story is not corroborated in any autopsy report. There
is
no autopsy report. No blood, even, on the cushions of his favourite chair.
After weeks of searching, I have not been able to find a single piece of paper, faked or authentic, attesting to his death.
When his daughter made enquiries, only days before she herself disappeared, she was informed by a State Department
apparatchik
(or someone who identified himself as such) that his body had been ‘repatriated.’
I know differently, though it remains to be seen if my evidence will stand in court.
But here, for what it’s worth, is my eyewitness report.
A fortnight after William Wakefield’s murder and repatriation, he paid me a visit at my home in North London. He was a good twenty pounds thinner than when I’d last seen him, and his complexion had a grey tinge to it. He looked hunted and desperate but (perhaps naïvely) I took those as signs of life.
He wanted to know if I’d heard from Jeannie. When I told him I hadn’t, he caved into a sigh.
Did I have any theories? His voice was thin and for a moment I pitied him. Then I remembered who he was and what he stood for
and went to retrieve my folder on the Patriot Act.
‘Why are you showing me this?’ he asked, tossing the documents onto the table. Keeping my voice neutral, I explained. ‘I think she went back,’ I said. ‘Not to JFK, or any other airport, for that matter. She wouldn’t be that foolish. No, I think she went back via Canada. She was that desperate to find her son. She must have thought friends would hide her. Perhaps they did. Perhaps the authorities had been tracking her all along. Anyway, I think they nabbed her. And as you know, the Patriot Act allows them to hold her for quite some time without informing her family. Or anyone else.’
‘Where do you think she is right now?’
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘On a spy plane?’
‘Who do you think is behind this?’
‘One of your old friends?’
‘I have lots of old friends,’ he snapped.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘And some have more to hide than others.’
‘Show me what you have, then.’
‘I will, but not until you’ve answered a few questions.’
He clasped his hands and bowed his head. It brought out my cruel streak. ‘What I’d like you to explain is how you justify what you do.’
‘What – is this the International Criminal Court?’
‘What I want to know is why you’ve stayed silent,’ I said. ‘Even though you know.’
‘You think words ever put things to right? You journalists know nothing. The action is behind the scenes, my friend. Things have to happen quietly or they don’t happen at all.’
‘That’s rich coming from the darling of CNN.’
‘You of all people should never never believe what people say on CNN.’
‘Did you ever find time in your busy schedule to explain this to your daughter?’
‘Oh glory be! Don’t you know I did everything…’ But here his voice cracked. Ashamed of my venom, I reined myself in.
‘I’ll take a risk,’ I said. I went back into my study and returned with the other files. The life and death of Dutch Harding. The complete works of Stephen Svabo. Manfred Berger’s glittering career.
He went through them in silence. When he had returned the documents to their folders, he studied me instead.
‘So,’ he said. ‘Where do we go from here?’
‘You tell me,’ I said. ‘As you know, this is not my usual terrain. I just write about mothers and babies, remember? So tell me I’m over my head.’
‘You’re over your head,’ he said. ‘But you’re getting very warm.’
‘By which you mean to say that…?’
‘You need to go back,’ he said. ‘I mean to Turkey. Find out what he’s up to. What he doesn’t want us to know. That’s the first thing you need to do.’
‘And the second?’
‘You need to spook him. Make him show his face. And when you have…’
‘If I’m still alive by then.’
‘When you’ve caught him redhanded, you are going to write it all down.’
‘I thought you said words could never put things right.’
‘Oh they can if they stay secret.’
‘How the hell do I write something up for the papers and keep it secret?’
‘Who said anything about the papers? No, what you do is write in confidence. Write for the inside track. Win their confidence. Gain their trust. Bring this story alive for them. Give them no chance but to live and breathe it. Make them grieve. Make them cry for their country! But never let them forget that – should they treat you badly – you will take your story elsewhere.’
He took out his wallet and extracted a card, placing it carefully on the table, so that I could read it without touching it:
‘The Center for Democratic Change?’ I said.
‘That’s the one!’
‘I’ve never heard of it,’ I said.
A beady grin. ‘I’m not surprised.’
‘Where are they located?’
‘If they wanted you to know that,’ said William, ‘they’d put it on the card.’
‘But if I assumed it was Washington, let’s say on the Beltway…’
‘You might not be far wrong.’
‘So,’ I said, picking up the card now. ‘Tell me about this Mary Ann Widener.’
‘You roomed with her older sister in your sophomore year. Kelsey Widener? Name ring any bells? Apparently you visited the house once or twice. Mary Ann remembers that distinctly. I take it you do, too. That’s good. It’s always better if there’s some sort of personal connection.’
‘So you want me to write to her,’ I said.
‘Tell her everything you know.’
‘Why?’
‘She’s honest. And principled. She genuinely wants to help.’
‘How far can I trust her?’ I asked.
‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘Though I can’t say I can vouch for her friends.’
I can’t either, Mary Ann. But you I’ve always trusted. Which is why – though I have never quite managed to forget that my letters to you are not as private as I might have liked – I have tried to write as truthfully as circumstances allow. Where there are gaps in my story, I have tried to mark them clearly. But to obfuscate now would protect no one. For I have done my master’s bidding, and the game is up.
As I write these words, I can hear him padding down the corridor in his slippered feet. How odd this is. Shouldn’t I be shaking with fear? I’ve never felt calmer. As he crosses the balcony, holding his coffee mug close to his chest, his strange lank hair pulled back by the sea breeze, I can see he is as haunted as I am. Wherever he goes, whoever he becomes, whatever riches and secret glories he accumulates, this is
the place he revisits in his dreams. Now here it is in front of him again. Could it be that he is still asleep?
Leave him to it. There are still things to explain.
There being no justice in the world, the story of the last four years goes like this: