Süleyman was leaning against the hood, smoking a cigarette. I held my hands over the hood to get some of the warmth from the engine.
“What’s he doing?” he asked irritably.
I just shrugged my shoulders. We stood there in silence for a while, and then, just as I was about to get back in the car, Süleyman flicked his cigarette away and started striding up to the ridge. I followed, worried about what he might do.
When Süleyman reached the top of the ridge he stopped and turned to me with an expression of disbelief. I joined him and looked down at the beach. There, in front of the crashing waves, his black coat flapping in the wind, the professor was playing his violin as he looked out to sea.
Süleyman shook his head and started back toward the car, and I began slowly making my way down to the sea. When I was about halfway to the sea I could hear the music intermittently, and it grew stronger the closer I got. I stopped when I was just close enough to hear it clearly. The professor was playing an exquisite, lyrical melody that reminded me a little of Schubert’s Serenade.
As I stood there, at the same time entranced and not quite believing what I was seeing, I heard the car drive up behind me and stop. Then I heard the engine sputter and die. I turned around just as Süleyman was getting out of the car.
“Why did you turn the engine off?”
“I didn’t turn it off, it just stalled,” he answered irritably. “There’s no point in trying to start it when it’s this hot. I’ll try in a little while.”
Just then the music stopped. The professor hesitantly played a few more notes; then he stopped again.
Süleyman swore under his breath, got back into the car, and slammed the door. The professor started playing again, but when he reached a certain point he faltered. Again and again he started from the beginning and played until he reached that passage, but somehow couldn’t get past it.
I decided to get out of the wind, and as I sat shivering in the back seat of the car I saw that the sky was getting progressively darker. A few snowflakes began to drift down, then more and more, until snow began to stick to the windshield.
I got out of the car, wrapped my scarf round my head and began to struggle across the sand. Why the hell had I worn high-heels? But how could I have known that we’d be on a deserted beach in a snowstorm?
When I reached the professor I became alarmed. His face was completely drained of color and looked almost deathlike. Snow had begun to settle on his hat and his shoulders.
“Professor,” I shouted. He didn’t hear me.
“Professor, professor, hey, Mr. Wagner! Please come back to the car.”
I began to shake him by the arm. “Hey, professor!” The breaking waves crashed onto the beach, and I could see the white flowers from the professor’s wreath bobbing and swirling in the foam.
I tried to take his violin, but couldn’t pry in from his frozen fingers. Then I started trying to drag him toward the car. It took all my strength to pull him along a few steps, but he kept turning to look back out to sea. As if he was searching for something out there among the heaving waves. Then, suddenly, he pulled his arm free and started rushing toward the water and I almost had to tackle him to get him to stop and turn around. Süleyman finally came out to help me, and each taking an arm we were able to march him along step-by-step. As we pulled him along, he kept muttering something, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was. Something about a storm, about a storm arriving and then leaving. At one point he turned to me with a wild, desperate look in his eyes and said something in German. Then he tried with all his strength to break free and rush back toward the waves. If Süleyman hadn’t been there I don’t know if I would have been able to hold him. Then he seemed to lose his will altogether. He went limp, and we almost had to carry him the rest of the way. We managed to get him into the back seat, and I climbed in beside him while Süleyman rushed around and got behind the wheel. But when he turned the key in the ignition, the engine wouldn’t start. It just made a kind of whirring noise and then stopped.
Meanwhile, the professor had started to tremble. He’d gone completely pale and his breathing was very shallow and I was afraid he would die at any moment.
“Come on Süleyman, do something, the man’s dying!” I shouted.
He kept trying, but the engine wouldn’t respond. We were out of the wind, but it was very cold in the car and the snow was getting heavier.
“OK,” I said, “I don’t think he’s going to make it unless we can get him somewhere warm. I’ll need your help, let’s try to get him up to that building.”
It wasn’t easy getting him out of the car and putting his arms around our shoulders so we could drag him along. He was completely limp, a dead weight, and much heavier than I would have thought. The Black Sea Motel was farther than it had seemed and the ground was rough and my high heels made the going even more difficult. But we finally got him up the steps to the glassed-in porch and got the door open. There were a few battered tables and some plastic chairs, and a primitive seascape was painted on the back wall. We sat the professor in one of the chairs and I went and banged on the inner door.
“Hello! Is anyone there?”
I heard a shuffling sound inside, then a key turning in the lock, then the door opened and a scrawny boy in a heavy, hooded overcoat peered out. There was something strange about his face, his very angular features. He looked both old and young, sinister and innocent.
“Listen, we need your help. I think this man is dying. We need to get him warm.”
He gave me a baffled look and said,
“We’re closed. We’re closed for the winter. This place is only open in summer.”
“We just need to keep him warm until we get our car going.”
“Well, there’s no heat here.”
“What do you mean there’s no heat?”
“I mean there’s no heat. This place is only open in summer.”
“Who are you and what are you doing here?”
“I’m the caretaker. I stay here to keep an eye on the place.”
“Well, how do you keep warm, you must at least have some kind of stove.”
“I have a little electric heater, but it broke last night. I have to bring it in to Şile to get it repaired, but the bus doesn’t start running for another hour or so.”
“Can we at least put him in one of the rooms? We can lie him down on a bed and cover him with blankets.”
“I don’t know about that…Abdullah might get angry.”
“Who’s Abdullah?”
“He’s the owner.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s in Istanbul; he only comes out in the summer.”
“Well, don’t worry about Abdullah. Let’s get him into a room.”
The boy hesitated, then went over to a small desk, opened the drawer and took out a key. Süleyman and I got the professor to his feet, dragged him inside, struggled up the stairs with him, got him into what had to be the most depressing room I’d ever seen, laid him on the bed, and covered him with a rough woolen blanket.
“Is there any chance of getting the car started?” I asked Süleyman.
“Not without a mechanic. It might even need to be towed. The only thing I can think of is to walk up to the main road and try to hitch a ride into town.”
“That will take hours. What if I called someone out from Istanbul?”
“That will take hours too. I think our best bet is for me to get into Şile.”
“I’ll go with you,” the boy said, “I have to go in anyway.”
After they’d gone I went to see how the professor was doing. He didn’t look at all well and he was still shivering. The blanket wasn’t going to be enough. I had to get him warm somehow. But how? Then an idea occurred to me. I took the blanket off: then took off his shoes, his wet coat, his trousers and sweater and shirt; turne
d him on his side and bent his knees; then stripped to my underwear; lay beside him and drew the blanket up over us; and put my arms around him. At first I felt so cold that my chest tightened and my teeth started chattering, but slowly I began to feel a little warmer. But the professor’s thin, bony body was still cold. He wasn’t showing any signs of coming around, either, and I began to worry. I turned him around and switched positions to warm the front of his body, and continued to switch positions every half hour or so.
I must have dozed off at one point, because the next thing I knew I heard the door open and someone walk in. I opened my eyes and looked up, and there was Süleyman, looking at us with an expression of disgust on his face.
“What the hell is going on here!?”
And with that he turned and stormed out of the room. I called out after him but he didn’t answer.
A few minutes later I heard the sound of the Mercedes driving off. The sound gradually faded and then died away. Now we were stuck here in the cold in the middle of nowhere. And on top of that, Süleyman was going to tell everyone at the university that he’d caught me in bed with the elderly professor.
I got up and dressed and took my phone out of my bag. I’d left it on silent and had missed several calls, all of them from Kerem. I called him back right away, worried that something had happened to him. He answered right away.
“What’s happened, Kerem? Are you all right?”
“They’re here!” he said excitedly.
“Who’s there?”
“Those men?”
“Which men, Kerem?”
“You know, you told me. The three men!”
I felt a mixture of anger and apprehension that those creeps were in my house with my son.
“Is the man with the mustache there, Kerem?”
“Yes.”
“Can you put him on the phone?”
As soon as I heard his voice I started giving him a piece of my mind, asking him what right he had to come into my house and talk to my son.
“We were just paying a friendly visit.”
“Get out of my house!” I said.
“First tell us what you’ve been up to.”
“We’re not up to anything. Just get out of my house!”
“If you’re not up to anything what are you doing up there?”
“Where?”
“In Şile.”
I was taken aback.
“How do you know?”
He laughed and said, “From your cell phone. We can tell where you’re calling from.”
“I want to talk to my son,” I said.
He passed the phone to Kerem.
“Are you OK?”
“Yes. This is actually kind of fun.”
“Good. I’m out of town right now.”
“Yes, I heard. You’re in Şile.”
“I’ll tell you about it later. It’s going to take some time for me to get back, but I’ll call someone and ask them to come to the house.”
“My father?”
I thought a while. “I’m not sure yet.”
In fact Ahmet was the first person I’d thought of calling. After all, he was the boy’s father. But I just didn’t want to deal with him right then because I knew he’d act as if I was asking him a favor or something. I also didn’t want to try to explain the situation to him.
So I called my brother for the first time in years. When he answered he was completely taken aback.
“Maya?”
“Yes, Necdet, it’s me.”
“Wow…hello.”
“Necdet, I’m calling because it’s an emergency and I need your help.”
“What is it, what’s happened?”
“I’m in Şile. I left Kerem alone and there are some security agents in the apartment with him now.”
“Security agents?”
“Yes.”
“Are they military or civilian?”
“I have no idea.”
“Well, what are they doing at your house?”
“I’ll explain, but could you please go to our place now and make sure Kerem’s OK?”
There was silence for a while. Then he said, “But I’ve got guests.”
“Necdet! This is important, think about what might be at stake here.”
At this veiled remark he said, “All right. I’ll head over right away.”
I took a deep breath and said, “Thanks. I’ll try to get there as soon as I can.”
“What do you mean you’ll try? And what are you doing in Şile in the middle of winter?”
“I have a guest, an American professor. He asked me to bring him here but the car broke down and we’ve been stranded at a motel. There’s no one here.”
“Why didn’t you say so? I can send someone to get you.”
“Thanks Necdet, I would really appreciate that. I’m at a place called the Black Sea Motel. It’s hard to describe where it is though. It’s at the end of a dirt road before you get to the town itself.”
“Don’t worry, they’ll find it,” he said. “I’ll give them your number.”
After hanging up I went to wake the professor. Some of his color had returned but he still didn’t look all that well.
I shook him gently and called, “Professor, how are you doing? Do you think you can get up?”
He opened his eyes briefly, then shut them again, reached for my hand and began murmuring again, something about the storm, and Nadia. No, he wasn’t saying storm, he was saying something that sounded like “sutuma,” whatever that was. Nadia was on the sutuuma.
“She was so close but I couldn’t reach her. There were moments I was sure I could see her. There was nothing I could do, there was nothing I could do.”
“Professor, can you hear me? Can you try to get up?”
He kept murmuring to himself, “It’s all my fault. Nadia, forgive me, forgive me.”
He was choking on the words, his voice raspy; and, a few times, I heard him whimper. Small, silent whimpers. He kept begging, “Mein Schatz, forgive me!”
He opened his eyes again and looked around in bewilderment.
“Where are we?”
“We’re still on the beach, or rather at the motel on the beach. You fainted from the cold so I brought you here. Someone’s coming to get us. Please get dressed, professor.”
Only then did he realize he was naked, and he didn’t understand why. As he slowly got dressed he kept giving me puzzled glances.
“Yes, professor, I undressed you and put you to bed,” I said. “I thought you were dying and I had to do something to save your life.”
“What kind of thing?” And then without waiting for an answer, he added, “Thank you.”
I helped him get dressed and then helped him down the stairs. The boy who’d let us in had lit a small fire just outside the door to the glassed-in porch, and was warming his hands over it. He stood when he saw us, but just then a large black car drove up.
A man got out and called, “Maya Duran?”
“Yes?”
“Your brother sent us to get you.”
Meanwhile the driver had got out as well.
“How quick!” I said. “I thought it would take you at least two hours to get here from Istanbul.”
“But we didn’t come from Istanbul,” the driver said. “We weren’t very far away and we got going as soon as the colonel called us.”
I thanked them, and they helped me get the professor into the car.
“Who are these people?” asked the professor.
“They’re going to take us back to Istanbul.”
“What happened to the Mercedes?”
“It broke down, professor. That’s why these men came to get us.”
We were just about to move off, when I asked them to wait
a moment while I went and gave the boy some money. Then I got back in the car and we drove off. The professor dozed off again, and I gazed out the window feeling glad to be warm again.
My brother was probably at my apartment by now, and I had every confidence that he would be able to deal with the situation. It might seem strange that I didn’t call the boy’s father, but anyone who knew Ahmet would understand. He was such a completely spineless person, probably because his father had been so overbearing.
My former father-in-law was a fairly well-known politician and a complete racist with romantic, fascist ideas about the pure, noble, and superior Turks who’d migrated out of Central Asia. Indeed, the political movement he belonged to had once openly supported the Nazis. And he’d dominated Ahmet so much that Ahmet was never able to develop his own character. Ahmet had remained weak and timid, unable to take risks or to confront anyone, and ready to betray anyone if it meant he could avoid taking a stand.
I was exhausted, and all I wanted was to get home, hug Kerem, and get into a hot bath. I didn’t want to think about Süleyman and the things he was going to say to people. I took out my phone and called my friend Filiz, who was a doctor at a hospital near the university. I told her the situation and she said we should bring the professor straight to the hospital. She wasn’t there herself, but she’d call and tell them to expect us.
Then I woke the professor and said, “We’re almost back in Istanbul. These gentlemen will take you to the hospital.”
“To the hospital?”
“Yes. You’re not well and you should see a doctor.”
“All right. But what about you?”
“I’m going home. I’m very tired, I’m exhausted. I’ll come and see you tomorrow.”
“Who are these gentlemen?”
I was just about to answer when the man in the passenger seat said in fluent English, “We’re friends.”
They were going to drop me off first. I whispered in the professor’s ear: “Professor, who is Sutuuma?”
He gave me a puzzled look and didn’t seem to understand. Then he started nodding off again so I shook his arm gently.
“Professor, who or what is Sutuuma?”
Serenade for Nadia Page 7
