Ordinary Whore

by Dieter Moitzi

  Resisting the temptation to sigh once again, I quickly go through them. My network provider bids me welcome in Turkey, informing me that I’m currently using the Turkcell network, listing the costs for phone calls, text or multimedia messages, and so on.

  There are also three other text messages from three different numbers the international digits of which I don’t recognise.

  All three have the same content:

  we know who you are.

  we know where you are.

  we know what you’re doing.

  Peeved, I check the room to make sure I’m alone. No one else must read these messages. It’s not a rational move, I know, because I’m all by myself in this big, chilly, glitzy, uninspired room, but still. I’m slowly getting paranoid.

  we know who you are.

  we know where you are.

  we know what you’re doing.

  I google the international phone codes. +355 is Albania; +852, Hong Kong; +597, Suriname.

  What the fuck?

  I sit on the bed, stare at the code list, and new questions pop up in my head. How many texts have I received all in all? What do they mean? What’s going on? How am I supposed to react?

  I could simply ignore their existence and shrug them off. I’m capable of that; I’m even an expert when it comes to ignoring things and muttering “Who cares?” The method doesn’t make unpleasant things disappear, but it helps avoid questions, which in turn helps avoid getting unwanted answers.

  God. Ever since Jane invited me to have a nice, cosy chat and ever since I found out about my sister’s email exchanges, I’m stuck in a swamp of doubts. What if Jane was right with her zany explanations, for instance? What if this was a serious situation, as she suggested? What if I was really asked to shake off my certainties and react?

  At first, I found her story ridiculous. Secret services, foreign intelligence agents, baksheesh, and stuff—come on, get out of here. Sure, to spy on his country on behalf of a foreign nation would match his character. Father was capable of getting involved in fishy business. He married Mother, after all. And he was in politics.

  Then the money. Loads of it, it seems. Very much like my father, too.

  But even so. I was really inclined to not believe Jane. Why would the Americans pay my father to update them about what’s going on in the French government? Preposterous! Moreover, as I know now, there is no money anywhere. Father can’t have spent it in no time without anyone noticing.

  Sufficient reasons to write off Jane and her narrative.

  But while I was stranded at the airport in Rome I started to falter. In fact, while I was cooling my heels, someone left me a voice message. A man with a strong Eastern European accent hissing, “Not convinced yet? You should be more careful. Accidents can happen so fast…” The message bore all the signs of a B-movie, all right, but it made everything Jane had told me look, and feel, real.

  I shouldn’t forget the actions of: my sisters, Mother, Maître Chambard, Jean-Paul… and I should add Father as well even though he’s dead. I wouldn’t put it past him to have arranged things to make me miserable.

  What are they all up to? What’s the game? Where’s the loot? Why did Father want me to have his stupid appointment books? I haven’t even bothered opening them yet, shoving them under a pile of fashion magazines when I had come back to my apartment.

  Doubts and questions… they seem to grow and overwhelm me, drawing circles around me. Circles are vicious, for they always remain mysterious, inscrutable. I prefer squares, neat, clearly defined squares.

  I sigh.

  The mobile vibrates again, pulling me out of my fruitless pondering. It’s a new text message written in Turkish (I recognise the undotted “I”s):

  Yapmanız ne yapıyorsun?

  Dur!

  I’ve seen the last word a couple of times on the way from the airport. The word “Dur” written in white on red, on octagonal traffic signs.” It means “Stop!”

  —56—

  After a late lunch, I spend the afternoon slouched on a deckchair, watching the swimming pool scintillate in turquoise, green, and blue. It’s still muggy and hot. I try not to move, wishing for a fresh breeze to sweep away the stillness, but in vain.

  I’m all by myself. When I arrived, the German couple was still there, lost in their no-nonsense universe, reading. I took a little while to choose the right place, so I didn’t pay attention. When I finally settled down, I realised they had slipped away like two embarrassed parents who don’t want to witness their son snogging.

  At five o’clock, I notice that unnecessary hours have passed by in a flurry. I couldn’t say what I’ve been doing all this time. I get up, dizzy, as though waking from a bad dream.

  A little half-hidden door beckons behind the pool bar. I decide to check out where it leads to; I haven’t got any other option, anyway, if I want to avoid the sleek receptionist.

  Behind the door there’s a narrow lane that zigzags between the hotel enclosures. Flowers and lush leaves hang from the high walls: white and violet lilac, wisteria, passion flowers. Their fragrances permeate the air, an overpowering, syrupy, heavy mixture, with just a hint of salty moistness.

  After walking for a little while, I reach the beach area.

  Hiçbiryerde is a tourist resort situated around a bay that forms a perfect semicircle bordered by rugged mountains with razor-sharp rocks and crags. While my taxi was driving me to the hotel, I didn’t see any traditional infrastructure. No old, crooked houses, no photogenic stone bridges, no folklore. Everything looked new, modern, built for entertainment and vacation purposes.

  From where I’m standing now, I’m able to decipher the overall idea of the real estate developers. The hotels follow the smooth curb of the bay without disturbing the natural harmony of the place. They have been built behind a line of vast pinewoods, shadowy gardens, and parks. Several restaurants, bars, and mock-rustic beach stands form the front line. Deckchairs and umbrellas cover the area from one end to the other, an empty, inert army of unused and therefore useless beach utilities.

  I take off my loafers and walk towards the sea, the white, warm sand caressing my bare feet. When I feel the water lick my ankles, I hesitate, looking left, looking right. Where shall I go now? Does it make any difference?

  The answer, ridiculous as always, is no.

  Whatever, then.

  I step out of the water, turn left and follow the seafront to the far end, where sharp, black cliffs overhang the Mediterranean. With each step, the sand crunches and crumbles between my toes. Golden and shimmering, the beach sighs in the faint light while the day, exhausted, gives up and slowly expires. I taste iodine and metal on my tongue. The sea is grey, still and flat like a mysterious mountain lake. The sky above, a low arch in grey and black, ends where the glowing slit of the horizon lies on the waters, a yellow-orange line that reminds me of something I can’t define.

  In the distance, two people are moving away from me at a brisk pace. The German couple? I only see their backs so it’s hard to be sure. They don’t talk, they don’t walk hand in hand; they just move on with regular, measured steps. They seem determined, but also withdrawn, partitioned, each one an isle of hazy loneliness.

  There’s an old fishing boat that people have put between the deckchairs like a show-off trophy. It looks out of place in this organised environment. Behind it, a young man and two little boys are building a sandcastle. The children are laughing and shrieking with joy while emptying the small plastic buckets they’ve filled with sand and water. Despite myself, I feel a smile creep up on my face. The young man smiles back and lifts his hand in greeting.

  The late afternoon keeps humming its melody, the melody of waves licking my bare feet, the hymn of pine trees whispering in the hot, damp breeze, all soaked with the primal fear that everything might last, that everything might end.

  And I keep walk
ing, words dripping in my head, drop by drop. The half silence of the beach becomes eternity, locks up my steps, locks up the grey and flat sea, the dying afternoon, the clouds, the stifling sky, as though reality hesitated to show itself, as though I were floating in a surrogate latency, a strange in-between. Scalding truths linger somewhere, behind a deckchair maybe, under the awning of a beach bar, behind a pine tree, in the crack of one of those rugged mountains rising like improbabilities around the village. My gums start to bleed all of a sudden, and I swallow my saliva, which has the metal taste of blood.

  When I reach the end of the beach, where the black and sharp cliffs brave the sea, I settle down on the terrace of a café. Little neat tables; white plastic chairs. A woman sitting close to the sea is sipping tea. Two old men are playing dominoes.

  I order a bottle of water and a glass of raki to rinse my mouth of iron and ash.

  The yellow-orange slit of the horizon flares one last time, then gets thinner and smaller. The dim light becomes even more diffused, grey, indifferent. I lean back. The end of this long afternoon shall taste of aniseed.

  When I decide to order a second glass of raki, the waiter tells me in English, “You should go now. Mister Zenkin has arrived.”

  He catches me by surprise. “What…? How…?” I stutter while searching for my wallet.

  The waiter inclines his head. “No need to pay. Everything will be taken care of.”

  “Oh. Well. If you need the name of my hotel, I’m booked in at the…”

  “That’s not necessary, sir. We know.”

  Dazed, I stumble down to the beach. “We know,” I whisper to myself. “We know.” An innocent two-word sentence, and yet, how odd to hear it here.

  The waiter, the lonesome woman sipping tea, the two old men playing dominoes stare at my retreating back. I can feel it. As I pass in front of the other beach bars, the sensation remains the same: that everybody’s observing me.

  The beach and the low buildings nearby are empty, however. Completely empty.

  And yet. Even the pine trees seem to have staring eyes.

  After having walked for I don’t know how long, I stumble upon the sandcastle again. It’s abandoned, the young father and his sons have gone, the waves ready to carry away their ephemeral construction.

  At least, one thing that comforts me.

  —55—

  “Could you please switch on the bedside lamp?” Murat asks when we’ve finished.

  “This one?” I ask back, pointing at the small lamp at my side of the bed.

  “If you could be so kind, yes, please,” he says.

  I obey. A discreet click, and shy light chases the darkness that has been surrounding us for the last half hour. Each time we shag, Murat requires the shades to be drawn, the light to be switched off. I don’t know if he’s prudish or troubled by the fact that I’m a guy. It’s probably a blend of both. We rarely act for precise reasons.

  “Thank you very much,” Murat says. He’s always exquisitely polite. I gather it’s for the same, imprecise reasons.

  “Could you hand me the cigarettes, please?” he asks. “If you don’t mind my smoking in your room, that is…”

  “Not at all,” I reply and bend over to pick up Murat’s silver cigarette case, the lighter, and the ashtray he put on my bedside table.

  “Thank you very much,” Murat says as I hand them over. His English is perfect, sometimes a bit outdated, almost antiquated. A side effect of his polite behaviour.

  He has a deep voice and an imposing stature. Not that he is fat, but his body is massive, square, with large shoulders, muscular legs and arms; the build of a rugby player or, more appropriately, of a Turkish wrestler. Of course, since I’ve first seen him, he has become podgier. But for a man in his fifties, he is still a looker. He knows how impressive he is, knows about his crushing presence. That’s why he speaks so softly and warm-heartedly.

  With me, that is. I don’t know how he talks to his fellow countrymen; I don’t speak Turkish. After what I’ve witnessed so far, however, he doesn’t seem to be as tender as he is with me. Maybe because most of them have a social status far below his.

  He sits up in bed and winces. The rough treatment he asks me for takes its toll. Then he lights a cigarette, closes his eyes, and inhales.

  The acrid smell of smoke makes my nostrils tingle. I turn around and observe him. His chest lifts as he breathes in; it’s hairless, certainly depilated; the two nipples stand out, red and long and swollen from the clamps; the skin of his massive neck shows the first signs of chubbiness, starting to hang down in certain places, betraying his age; the lower part of his face is getting dark with stubble even though I’m sure he has shaved before joining me in my room; above his upper lip, the thick moustache, the huge nose…

  Sensing my gaze, Murat opens his eyes and asks, “Do you happen to know where I left my underwear?”

  “On the sofa, I think. Do you want me to get it for you?”

  “I’d be very grateful.”

  I get up, still naked, and walk across the room. Without looking, I know that Murat is averting his gaze, probably fixing the curtains on the other side of the room so as not to see my nudity. I slip into my boxers before picking up his slip, tank-top, shirt, socks, and trousers. “There you are, Murat,” I say as I hand them over.

  “How very nice of you!” He stubs out his cigarette and starts to dress. “I trust you had a pleasant flight?” he says, fumbling with the socks. “We haven’t had time to talk about it yet.”

  “It was okay,” I answer. “Long and nerve-wracking, if you want to know the truth. But all right, I guess. I survived.”

  “Long? And nerve-wracking?” He turns around, blinking nervously when he notices I haven’t covered my bare chest. “Is that so? I don’t understand—would you mind explaining to me?”

  I put on a T-shirt while telling him the story of my never-ending wait in Rome.

  He seems sorry. “Dear Marc, what can I say? Poor you! I feel guilty.”

  “You shouldn’t.”

  “But I do! It’s my fault, after all. I have asked you to come here. It goes without saying that I’ll compensate you for your hardship.” I try to protest, but he lifts his hand. “Say no more! It’s decided. You weren’t meant to spend a whole night at Fiumicino airport.”

  “Well, thanks, then,” I say and get up. “Are you thirsty? There must be plenty of beverages in my little fridge, so if you want a drink…”

  “No, thank you, Marc. I’m all right. Anyway…,” he slaps his thighs, “I think I should be going back to my room.” He buttons up his shirt, fetches his tie and jacket, slips into his shoes. “You need to sleep.”

  “Will I see you tomorrow?”

  “Hard to say. Most probably not. I have, uh, meetings in Antalya and a business dinner with… someone. Why don’t you check out the local sites? There are some splendid places to see around here, or so I’ve been told. I’ll ask one of my men to drive you. And don’t hesitate to ask for touristic information at the reception. The staff has been instructed to help you in every possible manner.”

  Thinking of the insufferable receptionist, I simply nod. Words would betray me.

  “Yes, take the day off.” Murat sounds pleased with his idea. “I owe you for that inconvenience in Rome. Let’s meet the day after tomorrow. You know we have to discuss that… special matter I hinted at in my email. It’s not urgent, but it has to be talked over nonetheless.” He gets up, trying hard not to look at what is lying on the carpet on my side of the bed. “Shall I—um, shall I send someone to clean up that… you know, that…?” He drifts off.

  I shove the little heap of toys under the bed to spare him any further embarrassment. “No, I’ll do it myself.”

  “Are you sure?” He sounds genuinely bothered.

  “Yes.”

  “All right then.” He sighs. “
Good night, Marc.”

  “Good night, Murat.”

  As he opens the door, the automatic strip lighting in the corridor flares up.

  At the far end, where the stairs lead to the ground floor, I notice a quick movement. I know we’re safe in this hotel, yet without thinking I pull Murat back inside the room and move in front of him.

  “What’s the matter?” he asks, nonplussed.

  “I think I saw something…” I’m surprised to hear the fear in my voice.

  The movement in the corridor transforms into a shadow, the shadow into a man clad in black.

  Murat’s bodyguard.

  A young and lean man with melancholic eyes, fair skin, dark, short hair. I’ve already seen him in Istanbul the last time Murat and I met. What’s his name? Habib? Hassan? Hazim? I don’t remember.

  “Oh… it’s only Kerem,” Murat says. He peers at me. “You should really get some sleep, Marc.”

  The young bodyguard doesn’t react when he hears his name. But before they leave, he turns around and smiles at me. A feeble, sad smile, barely perceptible.

  Then they walk briskly down the corridor and disappear around the corner that leads to the staircase.

  The light goes out. I’m alone again.

  —54—

  “Oh, that’s beautiful! What’s the singer’s name?” I ask, leaning forward to turn up the volume.

  The narrow, dusty road winds through the hinterland, all scrub, holm oaks, strawberry trees, japes, junipers, buckthorns, and pine trees. To our right, craggy peaks and rugged rocks cut into the transparent sky. To the left, the sea shimmers in silvery reflections far below us. I let my arm hang out of the open car window, trying to entrap some of the cool mountain air with my fingers.

  Murat has kept his promise, providing not only a car but also someone to drive me around. I don’t know if it’s a random decision or if Murat noticed his bodyguard’s timid smile yesterday. A smile I might only have imagined, to be honest.

  But whatever. My personal tourist guide today is young, lean, melancholic Kerem.