“So, where did you fit into all of this? You said you didn’t support the Nazis, which must make you either Jewish or an anti-Nazi activist.”
“Neither. I’m not Jewish, and at the time I’d never been actively political. That is, I’d never been part of any anti-Nazi movement. Which is not to my credit. I should have been.”
“So what brought you to Istanbul?”
“That’s a long story that I’d rather not get into now.”
“Actually, what I’m really curious about is what brings you back to Istanbul after all this time.”
For a brief moment he seemed to tense. Then he smiled and said, “That necklace is very beautiful. In fact it’s quite remarkable, and it also looks quite old. It must have a story attached to it, and I’d love to hear it.”
It was my turn to smile.
“You’re not the only one who has secrets. All I’ll say is that it once belonged to my grandmother.”
He raised his glass and said, “Well, let’s drink to our secrets then.”
“So, what are you planning to do for the next two days? I usually take people on sightseeing tours, and shopping at the Grand Bazaar, but that doesn’t strike me as your kind of thing.”
“I’d like to just wander around a bit on my own tomorrow. But if you don’t mind there’s something important I need your help with the following day, the twenty-fourth.”
“Of course, what is it?”
“Could you pick me up early in the morning with the car?”
“How early?”
“Would four o’clock be possible?”
I was taken aback, but did my best not to show it. Where could he possibly want to go at four in the morning?
“OK, where are we going?”
“I’d rather tell you then.”
I was somewhat alarmed, and in the taxi home I began to feel increasingly uneasy. And when I got home I found Kerem waiting by the door with his brass knuckles and the can of mace, still caught up in the excitement of the game, telling me that he’d seen two white Renaults but that no one had tried to get into the house. He was wearing the knuckle-dusters and the can of mace was on his desk. I was a bit concerned that he might be taking this too seriously, but at least he wasn’t slumped in front of his computer. Indeed, he seemed cheerful and relaxed. And when I reached out to stroke his head he didn’t push my hand away. I got another surprise when I told him it was time for bed and he didn’t object.
Then I watered the pine sapling, one of the three I’d brought back from the Kafkasör highlands, the only one that had survived. This one had almost died as well; they hadn’t liked the climate in my living room at all. But I’d done everything I could to keep it alive, and finally it had begun to grow. Now, when I sat and looked at it, it brought me some of the peace and happiness I’d felt in those snowy mountains.
CHAPTER 4
The next day was rainy and windy and even colder. The traffic was worse than ever—somehow people seem to forget how to drive when it rains—and I got soaked just walking through the campus. And even though I was wearing a wool sweater and a heavy coat, and had a purple pashmina wrapped around my neck, the cold wind seemed to cut right through me. I was late for work, and had barely hung up my coat when the rector’s secretary called and said the rector wanted to see me immediately.
As soon as I walked into his office I got a shock. There, sitting comfortably and drinking tea, were the three men I’d seen in the white Renault, and again in the lecture hall.
“What’s the matter, Maya? You’ve gone pale. Please sit down.”
I sat down in the only free chair, which I realized had been moved so that I would have to face the men. The older man, the one who’d been at the wheel and who’d taken notes, and who seemed to be in charge, gave me a look that was almost a sneer. The other two just stared at me with blank expressions. I tried to pull myself together, and looked back at them with as much confidence as I could. I noticed that today the men were all wearing jackets and ties.
The rector broke the silence, “These gentlemen are security agents, they have something they’d like to talk to you about.”
I didn’t know what to say. Then the rector got to his feet, and so did the men, so I stood as well.
“I have some business to attend to, but you can have your talk here.”
After he left, the older man leaned toward me. He was in his late forties and had the kind of thin mustache that right-wing militants used to have.
“How are you, Mrs. Duran?”
The question seemed out of place, but I answered.
“I’m fine, thank you.”
“As the rector said, we’re security agents.”
“Yes?”
“The thing is, there’s something important we’d like your help with.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“What?”
He paused, and again he almost sneered.
“Are you a patriotic Turk, Mrs. Duran?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Are you willing to serve your country?”
“In what way?”
“Just answer the question.”
“I just don’t understand why you’re questioning my patriotism.”
He paused a moment and looked at the others.
“Why does this question bother you?”
“It doesn’t bother me. I’m just not sure what you mean by patriotism.”
“What if I were to ask you about your family history? Your grandmother, for instance.”
I saw where he was going with this.
“I’m a Turkish citizen.”
This time he actually sneered, and so did the others.
“We need to be sure you’re loyal to your country.”
“Of course I am. What is it you want me to do?”
“You’ve been assigned to escort Professor Wagner during his stay here.”
“Yes.”
“Well, we want you to report to us on everything Wagner does and says.”
“Does he pose some kind of threat to the country?”
“We just need you to tell us everything he does. Who he meets, whom he calls, what he talks about.”
“You mean you want me to spy on him.”
“We just need to be informed about his activities.”
“How will I report to you?”
“We’ll take care of that. Just remember that this is an opportunity to prove your patriotism, to prove that you’re not…”
He left the implied threat hanging in the air, and without another word the three of them got up and walked out.
I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know any more about these men than I had before. They said they were security agents, but from which agency? Nor did I have any idea of what they were after. It made me feel very uneasy, indeed almost violated, that they knew everything about me, even more than most of my friends knew. It made me even more uneasy to realize that these were the kind of people who could make someone disappear without a trace. Then there was Professor Wagner himself. I still couldn’t imagine him being any kind of threat to the nation, but why was he always so evasive?
I went back to my office and stared out the window for a while. The trees were bending in the wind and rain slanted across the yard, and every once in a while people with umbrellas dashed from one building to another. I had work to do, I didn’t have much time to get things ready for my daily public relations meeting, but I just couldn’t get started. Why hadn’t Professor Wagner wanted to see me today? What was he doing? Who was he seeing?
I called the hotel and asked to be put through to the professor, but then I hung up as soon as he answered. I had a sudden urge to get out of the office. Then it occurred to me that, in fact, I could. I could just say I spent the day showing Pro
fessor Wagner around. It might seem strange that I hadn’t taken Süleyman and the car, but if anyone asked I could say we took a walking tour of his old neighborhood.
So without giving it any more thought I put on my coat and slipped away. As I crossed Beyazit Square the rain was beginning to turn to snow and the wind seemed to cut right through to my bones. I got into a taxi and went straight home. Then once I got there I turned on the heat, took a hot shower, and went to bed.
It was after three when I woke up, and I felt groggy and disoriented. I had a quick coffee, then went straight to Kerem’s school to pick him up. I waited outside his classroom, and when the bell rang I watched the children pour out, all laughing and talking and joking with each other, full of life and exuberance. Then I saw Kerem. He was the last one out of the classroom and he was alone, walking slowly with his hands in his pockets, looking at the floor. He was very surprised to see me. In fact he seemed alarmed.
“Did the school call you in?” he asked.
“No, I just decided to come pick you up.”
“Why?”
“I felt like it. I thought we might do something together.”
“Like what?”
“I thought we might get something to eat, talk a little, maybe go to the movies.”
He made a face.
“I’m not really in the mood. I’d rather go home.”
He meant that he’d rather be in front of his computer.
“I thought you were going to help me. I got a visit from those men in the white Renault today.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“How could I possibly help?”
“For one thing you could do some research on the internet.”
“OK, then let’s go straight home.”
“No, we have to talk first.”
We went to one of the more upscale restaurants in the shopping mall. I had soup followed by lamb chops, with a glass of red wine. Kerem had what he always had wherever we went. Hamburger, fries, and cola. Though it cost twice as much here as it did in the fast-food places.
As we ate I was happy to see that he’d forgotten his misery for a moment and actually seemed to be enjoying himself. I felt a wave of tenderness, and couldn’t help reaching out to stroke his head. Which was a mistake. He pushed my hand away and looked around in embarrassment.
“All right, all right,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Then I told him I wanted him to find out everything he could about Maximilian Wagner and Istanbul University during World War II. And anything else he could find out about Istanbul in those years, and particularly about the Germans who were here then.
“Is this real or are you putting me on?” he asked.
“I swear, it’s real.”
His eyes lit up, and he took a notebook out of his bag to write down what I’d asked him to look up.
“You’ve got my grandmother’s eyes,” I said.
“So what?”
“I’ll tell you about her one day. She was quite an extraordinary woman.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
I let him chose the movie, and afterwards, when we got home, he ran straight to his computer.
“I have to leave very early tomorrow morning. Can you get yourself off to school?”
“Yes.”
“Let me know if you see anything unusual.”
“Does your leaving early have to do with that German man?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you going?”
“To tell the truth I don’t know. He didn’t tell me.”
“Are you scared?”
I wasn’t, but I said I was.
He turned his attention to his computer. I said good night, and he mumbled in response. I set my alarm for three and went to bed.
CHAPTER 5
I dreamt that I was with my grandmother. We were walking through a barren, desolate landscape toward a ruined church on top of a hill. The church was very old, yet somehow I remembered how it had been. All that remained were parts of the walls, standing amid piles of tumbled stones. Yet I could vaguely envision it filled with worshipers. My grandmother took me by the hand and led me toward the crypt. She brushed away cobwebs, and then, as we began descending into the darkness, I woke with a start. The digital clock on the bedside table showed 2:35.
The dream had been so real, it was as if I’d actually been with her, and as I lay under the covers in the darkness I began to think about her and remember her. I remembered how she used to rouse me in the morning by stroking my hair, and how the first thing I saw when I woke would be her smiling face and her dark, animated eyes. I felt a deep longing for her, a deep sadness that she was gone.
Her husband had been a mailman who’d left her widowed at a young age with three children, the middle of whom was my father. I grew up in an apartment in Üsküdar with my parents, my brother Necdet, who was eight years my senior, and my grandmother. My father was a bank clerk and my mother was a teacher, and my grandmother took care of us while they were at work. She always had bread and butter waiting for us when we got home from school.
On Sundays my brother and I would be sent to the bakery with a tray of food to be baked in the oven. I used to love watching the baker slide the tray in over the hot coals on a long wooden paddle. Then we would go outside and play in the street until it was ready. Almost all the other children in the neighborhood would be sent to the bakery like this as well, and we had enormous fun. Then, when it was time, we would go back in with our number. By then the bakery would be filled with the mingled smells from our trays mixed with the smell of freshly baked bread. We would carry the hot tray with cloths and towels and, maddened by hunger, would rush to get home as quickly as we could.
I looked at the clock. It was almost three and time to get up and start getting ready. But I was so comfortable in the warmth of my bed and my memories, and the darkness of the night seemed so cold and uninviting.
Where was this strange man going to take me at four in the morning? What was he up to? What had my grandmother wanted to show me in the crypt of that ruined church?
I remembered one of the last things my grandmother said to me before she died. She told me that I would encounter people who wanted to harm me as well as people who wanted to help me, that I shouldn’t allow my view of the world to be colored by either, and that I should be wary of both.
I was studying literature at the university at the time, and my brother had just graduated from the military academy and become an officer. One night I heard my grandmother making strange sounds, and I went to see what was wrong. She couldn’t breathe, she was wheezing and in pain, and she squeezed my hand so hard she almost cut off the circulation. We called the doctor who lived downstairs. He gave her something to calm her down, and told us we had to bring her to the hospital first thing in the morning.
In the morning my grandmother was breathing regularly but she was pale and weak. My brother and I got her ready and helped her to the door, but at the door she stopped and looked slowly around the apartment, taking it in, as if she knew she would never see it again.
We were able to get her into a military hospital because my brother was an officer. They put her in a small room and for the next several hours performed a series of tests. Then my brother and my parents left, and I sat holding her hand and watching the serum drip into the tube that ran to her arm.
In the evening a senior doctor came, a very stern and serious military doctor. He spoke gently to my grandmother, though. He told her that they were close to arriving at a diagnosis and deciding on a course of treatment, but first he needed some family medical history. Had any one in her family suffered from heart disease? Particularly her parents. Had either of her parents ever had a heart attack?
My grandmother didn’t answer, but looked away, at the ceiling. The doctor assumed she
hadn’t heard, and repeated his questions. Then, when she still didn’t answer he assumed she hadn’t understood, and rephrased his question.
“How did your parents die? What was the cause of death?”
She looked at me and tears started rolling from her eyes.
There was a long silence, after which the doctor repeated his question, this time a little more loudly, and with a little less patience.
My grandmother looked at him for a moment, and then said, “They didn’t die a natural death!”
Her tone was so bitter and anguished that both the doctor and I were taken aback.
“What do you mean?” the doctor asked.
“I mean that they didn’t live long enough to have heart problems. They were killed. The cause of death was man’s inhumanity to man.”
The doctor didn’t know how to respond to this. He opened his mouth to say something, then changed his mind, turning to me instead, and telling me that they would start her on medication and see how she responded.
After he left I sat on her bed and put my arms around her. She’d begun to sob bitterly and I did my best to comfort her. She kept crying for a long time, and all I could do was just hold her. After a while her sobbing started to diminish, and then finally she was still. As the room began to grow dark, she pulled away from me and looked at me.
“There’s something I need to tell you, something I’ve never told anyone.”
I didn’t say anything, but just held her hand and waited, and watched the sky outside change slowly from dark blue to black. Then slowly, almost in a whisper, she began telling her story.
At first I didn’t quite understand. It seemed as if she were telling me random memories from her childhood in a town in the east of Turkey. She and her two brothers, and a large stone house with a large walled garden. She told me the first thing she remembered was playing in the garden with her brothers. She must still have been very young then. It was a warm day, and greenish light was filtering through the leaves of the fruit trees. She remembered looking up and noticing how the leaves moved in the breeze, and how they seemed to sparkle in the sunlight. Then she saw her mother watching her from a window. Her mother smiled, and she was conscious at that moment of being very happy.
Serenade for Nadia Page 5
