The Serenity Murders (28 page)

I hadn’t sent her a present or written her a card.

And since I hadn’t, it had to be my psycho’s latest deadly plan. He might have sent her a bomb. The Internet was full of descriptions of how to prepare homemade bombs.

“Ponpon, I didn’t send it!” I said. “Don’t open it!”

“But I already have…” she said, and by the sound of her voice I was certain she had puckered up her lips while doing so. “I was so happy to receive a present from you that I actually liked—it’s the first time in years! You always buy me such weird stuff…”

She didn’t refrain, even now, from needling me. It was her nature…

“I’m telling you again,
I did not send you a present
,” I said loud and clear. “Still, will you tell me what I sent?”

“Well, if it wasn’t you, then it’s none of your business,
ayol
!”

I wasn’t in the mood to deal with her coyness.

“Look, dear,” I said, “it must be the doing of the psycho I told you about. It could be something dangerous. He poisoned Hüseyin last night. The boy is in the hospital. He almost died. We had his stomach pumped. Do you understand?”

That she would understand.

“You could have explained it to me without shouting,” she responded resentfully. “What good will it do to frighten me? Do you want me to lock the doors and sit at home crying after I put down the phone? Then my eyes will get puffy, and I’ll be a disgrace onstage tonight. Is that what you want? Please, I don’t want to have anything to do with your psycho!”

“What has he sent?” I asked once again.

“A huge box of mixed chocolates from the Gezi patisserie!”

This couldn’t possibly be the gift she had been expecting from me all her life. After all the things I had bought her, a box of chocolates had won out over all of them!

“They could be poisonous. He might be doing the same thing to you as he did to Hüseyin last night…Don’t eat them, throw them away, all of them,” I said.

“No way,
ayol
!” she said. “What a dreadful waste…”

I told her in repulsively vivid detail what would happen to her if she were poisoned. Finally, she understood, but she still couldn’t bring herself to throw them out.

“I’ll offer them to guests,” she said, as if that were a solution.

“Don’t be crazy,
ayol
. Are you going to poison your guests?”

“Why not?” she said, giggling. “Sometimes they get on my nerves. I’ll offer them one at a time. Not enough to kill them…Just enough to give them a stomachache.”

“Don’t you dare!” I said. “Okay, don’t throw it away. But don’t eat it either.”

We’d have it tested in a lab and find out what it was later, when we had time. If it was clean, which I didn’t think it would be, she could sit down and gobble up the whole box.

Before hanging up, I had to ask one more question—or else I wouldn’t be able to sleep, no matter how tired I was.

“Do you really think a box of chocolates is the best gift possible?”

“Of course,
ayolcuğum
. I already have everything I need, thank God. I can buy whatever I fancy anyway. I can’t fit anything else into my wardrobes, they’re already packed full. And I have no room at all for any more furniture…Besides, everyone likes chocolate…”

I
t was afternoon by the time I woke up. I’d had no dreams, but then, I hadn’t really slept either; I’d literally passed out. I opened the curtains. I lay in bed for a bit, stretching and yawning, then I called room service and ordered a cup of black coffee and headed for the shower. I’d be out by the time the coffee arrived.

Hasan was in the corridor when I arrived at the hospital. He was leaning against the wall near the room door, cleaning underneath his nails.

“They’re giving him an enema,” he said. “He didn’t want me to stay. I came out so he wouldn’t feel embarrassed. I’ve been waiting here.”

Best that I wait outside too until the nurse came out.

“So, how is he?” I asked, not really expecting anything new.

“Same. He’s getting better. Otherwise, pretty much the same. They’ve given him his medicine, a new drip, and stopped the oxygen…He just woke up.”

“Has anyone called?”

“Nope,” he said. “No one…I’ve been chatting with the nurse out of boredom. Found out who’s staying in each room and what’s wrong with them. Wanna know?”

No, I didn’t.

I thanked Hasan and sent him home. There was no need for
both of us to be there. I told him I didn’t know whether I’d show up at the club that night, but I’d call to let him know.

When the nurse had left, I went into the room.

Hüseyin lay there with an angelic expression on his face. He looked horribly thin. They had taken his catheter out. His face lit up when he saw me.

“Hello,” he said, smiling. “Just look at what’s happened to me…”

“Don’t you worry,” I said. “You’re getting better already. Would you like anything to eat?” I asked. “I could order—”

“Not allowed,” he said, twitching his nose.

It must have been doctor’s orders to not let him eat in the state he was in. The truth was, I was hungry myself.

“I thought about it while you were gone,” he began. “Perhaps this happened for a reason, to help us bond with each other. A twist of fate. I mean, look at us…”

It really wasn’t the right time for lovers’ talk. At least, for me it wasn’t. Of course I had feelings for Hüseyin, but I didn’t know how much of it was compassion, how much of it sympathy, and how much sexual attraction. The only thing I knew for sure was that I wasn’t in love and I had no intention of analyzing it, or sitting and talking about it right then and there.

“Let’s discuss that later,” I said.

“Why? It’s not like we have anything better to do. It’s just the two of us…”

His mom and dad entered the room, interrupting a conversation that I had had no intention of pursuing.

Hüseyin’s father, İsmail Kozalak, was perfectly logical and reasonable, just as he had been on the phone with me. He approached the matter with a resolute trust in God. As a result of his wife’s feeding regimen, he was fat. He was the ideal family guy. His eyebrows, which hung low, lent a confused and sorrowful look to his
face. The expression in his eyes was soft, gentle. He had a mustache, the middle of which was stained yellow from nicotine.

Mrs. Kozalak, on the other hand, was doing her best to stand strong; she sighed, biting her bottom lip every now and then, and wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. As soon as she walked into the room, she rushed over and sat down at her son’s side. She could hardly bear not touching and embracing him, but she couldn’t, for fear of hurting him. She kept wiping Hüseyin’s forehead with wet wipes that she pulled out of her bag, and massaging his feet.

I felt like a stranger among them. My presence in the room was unnecessary, but I couldn’t leave. I was so paranoid that someone might come in while I was away and attack Hüseyin again that I couldn’t bring myself to move.

“Dad, you go,” said Hüseyin. “You should be at the store.”

“No, no, son. I won’t hear none of that.”

İsmail Kozalak seated himself in the other armchair and crossed his arms to show that he had no intention of leaving. He carried traces of all the affectionate father characters engraved in my memory from Turkish cinema. He had the sense of humor of Gazanfer Özcan, the strict but sweet disposition of Hulusi Kentmen, and the sensitivity of Münir Özkul.

“What’s a dad for, if not to help his son through the rough patches? You know we’re here for you, through thick and thin.”

He turned to me for backup.

He looked funny, settled there in the armchair with his folded arms, chubby body, and drooping eyebrows.

“He’s my son! Where am I supposed to be if not here, isn’t that right?”

“Yes, yes, it is,” I said, smiling.

Mrs. Kozalak finally stopped fighting back the tears. She didn’t speak or move but just sat there crying as she held Hüseyin’s hand,
the one without the drip attached. Because I didn’t cry, I searched my pockets for a tissue.

“Here, Auntie…” I said, moving closer to her.

I didn’t know what to say next.

“Let her cry, son,” said İsmail Kozalak from where he sat, in an authoritarian tone. “She’ll feel better if she does…”

There was quite a bit of mischief hiding beneath İsmail Kozalak’s paternal compassion. It may not have seemed that way from the way he was seated, but one could tell it from the sound of his voice and the look in his eyes.

“Let her cry; it’ll do her good…It’s better she cry than go eating herself and me up about it. Let her pour out the pain in her heart. She’ll feel better…much better.”

She was his wife. Who was I to intervene? I stepped back, the tissue still in my hand.

Mrs. Kozalak threw a glance at her husband, then reached out and snatched the tissue from my hand.

“What harm have I done to you, husband?” she said to him reproachfully. “Leave me be. So I’m crying, so what? Mine is a mother’s heart. You wouldn’t understand.”

If I were to hear these sentences any other time, especially accompanied by the expression on Kevser Kozalak’s face, I would have laughed my head off. A marriage that had turned into a habit over the years now clearly sustained itself on sweet little squabbles and tiffs. One picked on the other, and the other shot right back, with no intention of being outdone.

Perhaps there was something wrong with me: maybe there was nothing to laugh about. Or maybe what the writer Michael Cunningham had said about those who watched a lot of movies being better able to see the humor in everyday life applied to me too.

Mrs. Kozalak, who really was a very ladylike woman, had her final word. Slamming her hand against the bed, “I’ll cry if I want
to, what’s it to you!” she wailed. She was like an obstinate child having a fit, and then she began sighing deeply. As far as performances go, it was really very good.

We then moved on to a phase of silence that only served to exacerbate my anxiety. Well, it wasn’t complete silence: Mrs. Kozalak continued to sob and blow her nose at regular intervals.

“I’ll be leaving, then,” I said in a low voice. “There are a couple of things I need to sort out…”

In other words, I needed an excuse in order to leave; otherwise, I would be expected to stay.

“When will you be back?” asked Hüseyin.

I was going to have to ignore the love and hope in his eyes.

“Your mom and dad are here,” I said as I left.

I know: it wasn’t exactly an answer to his question.

M
y apartment was under my psycho’s control. My home, the place where I would normally seek refuge, was no longer my private space. I didn’t want to go home. If I went to one of the girls’ places, I’d be expected to explain for an hour all that had happened. What I needed was to gather my thoughts and think things through clearly.

I was hungry. Since I wasn’t going to give birth to a robust, clever plan on an empty stomach, it seemed a good idea for me to get some food in there first.

It wasn’t yet lunchtime and the Marmara Hotel café was close. Would dining at the same place two days in a row turn me into one of those obsessive-compulsive people who never break a habit and always live by the exact same routine? I had been very pleased with the salad I’d eaten the previous day, but today, though, I had no intention of settling for just a salad: I was starving.

Because it was in between mealtimes, there were seats free on the terrace. I sat watching passersby while eating a huge hamburger. I drank grapefruit juice, hoping it would burn the fat intake from the burger. To finish, I enjoyed a tasty vanilla-flavored filtered coffee.

Just as I was finishing my coffee, I saw our bartender Şükrü among the crowd of people waiting to cross at the traffic lights in
the near distance. If he saw me, he’d rush over, take a seat, and go on and on for hours about how perfect his new boyfriend was. Wasn’t every new lover like that? When they’re new, we see their good qualities; once they’re old, we see their defects. And then, as if having to listen to all that weren’t enough, I knew I’d have to foot the bill because I was the boss. I leaned back so he wouldn’t notice me. I wished I’d had a newspaper to hide behind.