“I know Maya very well, and have been in regular contact with her since our divorce. No one who knows her would believe these allegations. She’s a good mother and possesses a strong and honest character. She’s also a woman of strong principles and has always behaved with the utmost responsibility. Of course we’ve had our differences, but I don’t hesitate for a moment to say that these allegations are absurd.
“Maya Duran is a free woman, and her choice of partner is of no concern either to me or to the public. However, it’s inconceivable that she would have an illicit affair with someone of such advanced age whom she’d met only a few days earlier in an official capacity. I simply don’t believe it. I mean, I know it’s not true.”
I couldn’t believe this was Ahmet. Had the editors altered his statement as they had mine? It just didn’t sound like Ahmet. I’d never heard him speak with such confidence and determination.
I put down the paper and picked up the phone, I looked for the number I’d called the other day and found it.
“Hello, may I speak to Sibel please?”
“Yes, speaking.”
“Hello, I’m Maya. Maya Du…”
“Oh, hello, Maya! Have you read it?”
She sounded proud, and seemed to think I’d called to thank her.
“Yes, and there’s something I wanted to ask you. How did you get hold of my ex-husband?”
“The same way I got hold of you. I called him. The first time I called there seemed to be something going on in the background, there was a lot of noise, but I couldn’t make out what it was. He just said something I couldn’t quite catch and refused to be interviewed.”
“But of course you didn’t give up.”
“No, it wasn’t like that. To tell you the truth, I considered interviewing him because I felt I owed you and thought he might say something to support you. But when he refused, I just let it go. But then he called me an hour or so later from a different number and said he was ready to talk to me.”
“How strange!”
“Why are you surprised?”
“It’s just not what I would have expected of him.”
“To tell the truth, I got the impression he was doing something out of character. I can’t put my finger on it, maybe it was the way he managed to be calm and angry at the same time.”
“Do you think he was angry about the news or about something else?”
“I really couldn’t say.”
“OK, I won’t keep you. I’d just like to know if he actually said what you wrote or did one of the editors alter his statement.”
“What they printed was exactly what he said, word for word. To tell the truth, I didn’t think they would use it, but they did.”
“Thank you very much. You’ve been a great help.”
“Not at all, I’m just trying to do my job.”
After I hung up, I read Ahmet’s statement again. What had made him change so dramatically and so abruptly?
I picked up the phone, hesitated for some time, and then finally called. It rang for a long time, and I was about to give up when a woman answered.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I was calling Ahmet.”
“I’m his mother, Maya is that you?”
It was only then that I recognized my ex mother-in-law’s voice. I hoped I hadn’t seemed disrespectful. The best thing was to be straightforward.
“How are you?”
“I’m fine, thank you. How are you?”
“Thanks, I’m fine too.”
There was a short and somewhat strained silence. Then she said, “Ahmet’s not here. He came to see us yesterday and forgot his phone.”
“It doesn’t seem like him not to come back and get his phone.”
“ ‘Well, he had a bit of a disagreement with his father and…It’ll be all right, he’ll come and get it when he’s cooled down.”
I just couldn’t imagine Ahmet arguing with his father. He was usually afraid to look his father in the face, and couldn’t talk to him without stuttering.
“We were sitting together when Ahmet’s phone rang. It was a newspaper reporter who wanted to interview him. Ahmet panicked. He always gets nervous talking on the phone when his father’s within earshot. He said that he didn’t want to talk and hung up. But his father started to mutter about, well, about…you know…er…and wouldn’t let the matter drop.”
“I understand, the things the newspaper said about me the other day.”
“Yes. Anyway, well, after that Ahmet just left and forgot his phone.”
“And he hasn’t come back to get it?”
“He phoned about an hour later. He asked for me to read him the last number for the last call he’d received. He hasn’t called since.”
What I guessed was that Ahmet’s father had started putting me down, and Ahmet finally decided to stand up to him. Then he’d called the reporter and agreed to an interview. At last he’d decided to become his own man.
This must have put his mother in a difficult position. She was used to managing her husband and protecting her children from him. She wouldn’t know how to deal with her son defying his father.
I’d never been particularly close to her, and her attitude toward me had always been neutral. Indeed, her whole attitude to life could be described as neutral and passive.
I suddenly felt the urge to get moving, but didn’t quite know how to end this conversation without seeming rude. Finally I just told her I had to go and said goodbye.
It was still quite early and my body was still aching, but I began to move quickly. I got dressed and went out to buy ten copies of the newspaper before it was sold out. I thought I should have them just in case. I bought them from different shops so that all the shops near my building would still have copies.
Then I went home and had a hot bath to ease my aching joints.
* * *
—
I’d love to have a hot bath right now, too, but you can’t do that in a plane at 26,000 feet. On a plane, your seat is the only space you can claim, and it’s hardly a private space. Long flights make you appreciate the value of personal space.
I realize that throughout this narrative I keep talking about having baths. But it’s a fact that nothing relaxes me more than lying in a hot tub. It’s not just about personal hygiene, it’s a kind of therapy, and the more stressful the situation the more good it does me.
Wilhelm Reich would interpret this as a desire to return to the womb, like curling up under a quilt in the fetal position. I think it’s only a natural thing to want to do when life gets too much for you.
Well, I can’t take a bath now, but even just thinking about it helps.
* * *
—
When I came out of the bathroom, I saw that I’d had several calls. My mother, Filiz, and Tarık. I was sure they’d all read the newspaper, but I’d talk to them later.
I got out the family photo album and started looking through the hundreds of photos spanning the family’s history: the older ones in black and white and the more recent in color.
The older black-and-white pictures had all been taken at studios. Everyone was carefully posed, and the lighting was arranged to show people at their best: a young woman in an elegant chair, and a man in a suit and tie standing next to her; larger family groups, with the older generation seated, their grandchildren on their laps, and their adult children standing behind them. No one smiled for the camera as they do now, everyone’s hair was carefully combed, and all were wearing their best clothes. The formality and manners of a lost age—an atmosphere that I found somehow innocent and tender.
The backs of most of these photographs were dated and bore the words, I’ve come to kiss your hand, written in sloping, cursive handwriting.
I looked carefully at the pictures of my maternal grandmother. Then I took her passport phot
o out of the album. After that I took out my paternal grandmother’s passport photo and placed the two pictures side by side. Then I took out my own passport photo and placed it next to them. Then I put the three pictures in the plastic-covered pocket in my black leather purse. My paternal grandmother, my maternal grandmother, and I were now together. There was a vacant space beside us that I hoped would soon be filled. That’s where I wanted to put Nadia’s picture.
Then I would be united with these three women whose suffering I felt deep in my soul. History had silenced these women and had almost silenced me as well, but now I would speak for them as well as for myself. I was Maya and Ayşe, and Mari, and Nadia, whose picture I had yet to see. I was Muslim, Jewish, and Catholic. I was a human being. I felt a strong sense of excitement as I envisioned the difficult but radiant path before me.
The first thing I had to do was call Ahmet. But he’d left his phone at his father’s house. I looked around and finally found his home number. I tried twice but no one answered. Then, after hesitating a while I called his cell phone again. This time Ahmet answered.
“Hello, Ahmet, how are you?”
“Fine. You?”
He spoke in a low voice that was more timid than usual.
Suddenly I lost my temper. I was hoping to have a nice conversation, and then ask him for the help I needed to put my plan into action. But I made an effort to be patient.
“That was very nice of you. Thank you.”
“Yes.”
I knew that his father was within earshot.
“Where are you?”
“At my parents’ house.”
He’d gone to get his phone thinking his father wouldn’t be home. But he was, and now he was under the old tyrant’s thumb again. His rebellion hadn’t lasted long.
“Listen, I need to speak to you.”
“When?”
“Come to the S café at eleven.”
“But I’ve got wo…”
“Don’t talk to me about your work!” I shouted.
He was probably just saying this for his father’s benefit.
“Just be there at eleven.”
I knew he’d come. I knew him all too well. He’d returned to his usual state of fear and doubt. I could have invited him to come to my apartment but I didn’t want to.
Then I phoned Tarık.
“Did you like it?” he asked.
“Yes, I really would have preferred them to use my own words but…”
“You’re never satisfied, are you?”
I realized he was expecting me to thank him.
“All right,” I said. “Thank you, I’m grateful for your help, are you happy now?”
“No,” he said, “I didn’t mean to say that. Your ex really came through for you. Good for him.”
“Anyway…thank you. I really mean it. You’ve been a tremendous support these past few days. By the way, I’m going to need some of that money you said I’ve made.”
“Sure. Whenever you want.”
“Can I withdraw some euros from the bank?”
“Of course. But I don’t advise it. Foreign currency is very expensive right now. You’re earning Turkish lira. I was planning to convert it to foreign currency when the time was right, but it isn’t yet.”
“All I need right now is five hundred euros.”
“Why do you need it?”
“There’s something I have to do. Can I withdraw it from the bank this afternoon?”
“All right, but wait until after two o’clock.”
After that I talked to my mother and Filiz. My mother was very pleased, and I was sure that she had also bought several copies of the paper to show her neighbors to prove I wasn’t really a shameless hussy. My parents were a bit cold about Ahmet’s statement but gave him credit for it all the same.
“I can’t tell you how relieved your father is. He hasn’t been able to sleep for days. He’s been pacing up and down the living room all night. He never believed it was true, but it still upset him.”
I didn’t tell her I’d been fired. Filiz, though, had already heard, “I’m terribly sorry.”
“Don’t be, I think it’s for the best.”
“Why?”
“It’ll give me a chance to make a new start. I was never terribly happy there anyway.”
“You’re going to get a new job?”
“I’m going to get a new life!”
“I don’t understand.”
“A more creative, more colorful life. More meaningful! This is why I’m so excited, do you understand?”
“No.”
“Let’s get together and I’ll tell you what I’m planning.”
As I made my way through the cold toward the shopping mall, I felt increasingly strong and determined. So much had changed within me since my crying fit in the taxi.
Ahmet was already there when I got to the S café. When he greeted me with his usual phony politeness I was disappointed. I’d hoped he really had decided to become his own man.
“Were you sincere about what you said in the paper?”
He answered with a nod, but I didn’t know quite what it meant. When I looked at him, I felt a sudden resurgence of all my residual anger at him.
“Why did you call me and shout at me when you saw that first article.”
“I guess I just reacted without thinking.”
“Never mind,” I said. “Now listen to me carefully.”
“What would you like to drink?”
“I don’t want anything to drink. Just listen to me for five minutes and then I’ll leave.”
He was thrown off by my determined manner, and I was pleased by the look of suspicion I saw in his eyes.
“I’ve been fired,” I said.
“What! When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Because of this incident?”
“Yes, because of this slander.”
“I’m very sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry for me, be sorry for yourself.”
“Why?”
“Because now I have no job and no salary. I can’t maintain a home, pay Kerem’s school expenses, and feed and clothe him. You’re his father.”
“You mean you want me to pay child support?”
“No.”
He suddenly looked frightened.
“It’s not about child support. This is what you’re going to do. You’re going to take Kerem, clothe him, send him to school, help him study for his exams, take care of him when he’s sick, try to help him get over his psychological problems. I’ll have him for the weekend whenever I choose, take him out, and buy him presents.”
“But I’m a man, how can I take care of a child?”
“You’ll do the same thing I’ve been doing all these years. You don’t have a choice. I’m moving out of my apartment and leaving Istanbul.”
I could see the panic on his face. He tried to interrupt but I wouldn’t let him get a word in.
“If you don’t want your son left out on the street you’ll come get him tomorrow.”
Then I just got up and walked away, and it felt good. I was beginning to feel happy about what had happened, and about being fired. A new Maya was emerging and she was standing up for herself. I went upstairs, sat in another café, and had a large coffee and a delicious sandwich.
Later I went to the travel agency on the ground floor and asked about flights to Kassel. The agent looked at his screen and said, “There are no direct flights to Kassel. You can fly to either Frankfurt or Hannover and then continue by train.”
The next day I bought an economy-class round-trip ticket to Frankfurt and paid with my credit card. I was able to get a good deal because it was low season.
When the travel agent asked if I had a visa for Germany, I told him I had a green
passport. This so-called diplomatic passport, which I’d got because of my job at the university, allowed me to travel without a visa to most countries in Europe.
In the afternoon I went to the bank and withdrew 500 euros. It wasn’t a lot, but I wouldn’t be in Germany long and I could use my credit card if I had to.
That evening I gave Kerem a somewhat cleaned-up version of what had happened to me. I showed him the last newspaper article that had appeared but not the first two.
Then I said, “Sometimes unexpected things can happen to people. This last week I’ve seen what a clever, what a brave and astute young man you are.”
“What does astute mean?” he asked.
“In other words,” I said, “In other words…it’s something like being clever. Knowing what to do and where.”
He nodded.
“You’re very mature for your age and I know you’ll understand what I’m going to say. I’ve lost my job at the university because of the lies someone told about me.”
“You mean they fired you?”
“Yes, you could say that. I think the real reason has to do with those security agents. They are using the other business as an excuse.”
“So the man really was a spy, eh?”
“No, I don’t think he was, but that’s what they think. Now that I’m unemployed, I can’t keep this apartment or support you. That’s why I want you to stay with your father for a while. We don’t have any other choice.”
“For how long?”
“Until I work things out. There are only a few months left in the school year. We’ll stay with your grandparents in Bodrum for the summer and we’ll be back living together in the fall. In the meantime I’ll see you as often as I can. What do you say?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “What can I say?”
I felt a stab of remorse, even though I knew that everything I was doing was to make his future better. I was going to be taking a huge step forward and I needed to be free, at least for a while.
I’d worked for years and had managed to get by on my salary. I’d tried to save a little, and paid for what I bought in installments. You get used to living at a certain standard, and your whole life is spent struggling to maintain that standard. You’ve already eaten into your future salary with your credit card and installment plans. Once you got caught in that trap, it became almost impossible to change your life.
Serenade for Nadia Page 24
