He didn’t even look my way. His back was turned and he was crossing the road. He was talking to the guy next to him. I could only see him from behind, but it must have been his new boyfriend, the lad with the longish hair; my admirer.
Now that I had filled my stomach, it was time to gather my thoughts. For this I could go and have a thorough, expensive complete skin-care treatment. I was tired of everyone, and I do mean everyone, saying I looked tired, or in other words, that I looked like shit. With masks, creams, massages, and a little solarium, my skin would be refreshed, and at least people would be able to look me in the face again. I didn’t have an appointment, but if I went without one I’d either be handed over to the trusted hands of apprentices or they’d keep me waiting for ages.
Actually, I knew a few other things that made me feel better at times like this: sex and shopping. I didn’t have the energy or the drive for sex. It was going to have to be shopping.
Fully aware of my expensive shopping habit, I knew I had to be careful to choose an appropriate place. If I went to Akmerkez, Nişantaşı, or Bağdat Avenue, where expensive brands and designer boutiques were found, the adventure was sure to cost me a fortune. If I didn’t go clothes shopping but went around to bookshops and music stores instead, I would end up lugging home all sorts of rubbish, buying dozens of books thinking I’d read them someday, and different versions of the CDs I already owned at home, out of simple, silly curiosity. These books and CDs would wander from front shelves, to back shelves, to high, out-of-reach shelves, and then one day I would go to the trouble of sorting them, packing them in boxes, and sending them off to a secondhand shop. I’d get Satı to do the packing.
The second problem was that I had nowhere to take what I bought. Since I wasn’t going home, was I going to carry the books and CDs back to the hotel?
The most reasonable thing to do was to go to Beyoğlu. Chances were I wouldn’t spend too much there, so long as I didn’t go into my favorite boutique, Vakko, that is. I had left home with no other clothes but the ones I was wearing. It wouldn’t be a bad idea at all to get some new clothes to wear. It was, in fact, necessary that I do so.
I ignored the stingy voice inside me telling me to go home and change, that I had plenty of clothes in my wardrobe already. Why did that grating inner voice have to go and interfere, just when I was in the mood for some nice shopping? I would have to turn a deaf ear.
Going to the Terkos Alley first was a good idea. The stuff you could get down there—peanuts—all export surplus.
I picked up my pace. I had already passed Galatasaray.
“Burçak!” I heard a man’s voice call out from behind me.
I turned around sharply.
Bahadır, my Reiki master Gül’s lover, had just exited a bank on the left and was waving.
He couldn’t possibly have known about my dream, but I suddenly blushed as if he had already read it from my face.
He came up and gave me a hug and a kiss. I couldn’t recall having developed such a close friendship, but I had no objections to being kissed by Bahadır.
He was even better looking than I remembered. He looked very smart in his suit, with his trenchcoat hanging over his arm. He was extremely sexy.
“What a nice surprise,” he said. “What are you doing in this part of town?”
He looked even sexier when he smiled. His lips were well formed, his teeth were straight, and the look in his eyes was most certainly erotic.
“Wandering about, hoping to do some shopping,” I said. “How about you?”
“I work here,” he said, motioning in the direction of the Tünel. “I just came down to the bank for something. Good thing I did, because look: I bumped into you.”
The man was giving off hormones like some kind of powerful radiation. He made me have sexual thoughts when sex was the farthest thing from my mind.
“Gül and I called you a bunch of times but we couldn’t get through,” he said. “And yesterday when you called, Gül was out. She had to visit her son’s school. She called you when she got back but couldn’t catch you. We suspected you’d grown weary of fame and changed your phone numbers.”
I’d answer all these one by one.
“I’m constantly on the run these days. I simply haven’t had a chance to call back. I was free for a bit yesterday. In fact, a friend of mine needed an aura cleansing. That’s why I called. But then Cavit and Şirin helped us out. I haven’t changed my numbers, but they need to stay switched off for a while. You know…”
I didn’t know why I had winked at the end of that. Bahadır derived a meaning of some sort from it, though.
“Of course…” he said. “I understand.”
If what he meant by “of course” were the shameless acts I sensed were behind his eyes and that he assumed were behind mine, then he’d gotten it wrong for sure! Well, okay, the look on Bahadır’s face always brought shameless acts to my mind.
“The phone psycho,” I said, to put things straight.
“Ohhh…”
“But I’m going to call as soon as I get the chance. I haven’t forgotten.”
“Come, let me buy you a drink,” he said, placing his arm over my shoulder. “You look like you need one.”
I should have gone to skin care instead of idling in the streets shopping! I would have wanted him to see me on one of my nicer, charming, attractive, elegant Audrey days. It was good he had reminded me of the state I was in. My sexual thoughts subsided out of shame for my appearance, but didn’t disappear altogether.…
“I…ummm…I’d rather not today…because…I need to grab a couple of things and return right away…I mean, a friend of mine is in the hospital…I was going to buy him a…”
It was all because of him that I hemmed and hawed and failed to string a single proper sentence together, like some shy young thing on her very first date.
“It’s okay!” he said. “There’s no need for excuses. Let’s walk together, then, if you’re going down this way too.”
There was no need for him to go flinging my excuse in my face like that.
We started walking.
He was talking about Gül, about the last concert they’d gone to together.
I stumbled twice. Not at all my style. I hate clumsy walkers.
“Take my arm if you like,” he said.
My heart started pounding ferociously.
I was feeling a bit aroused.
Truth was, walking arm in arm with Bahadır was making me horny. I couldn’t help it. My body was responding to the man. His charisma, his energy or aura, whatever it was, it was enough. I grew angry at myself. But then, recalling how long it had been since I’d last made love, I decided it was normal to feel horny after so much time, and especially given all that had happened. Good sex is the best way to dispel distasteful incidents from one’s mind.
We passed the Terkos Alley and walked toward the Tünel, arm in arm.
I felt like I was in a romantic French film. I was walking arm in arm with someone as positively breathtaking as Catherine Deneuve, Sami Frey, or Laurent Terzieff.
Outside Markiz Patisserie, a cyclist rode past us, slaloming between pedestrians. He almost knocked Bahadır over.
Catherine Deneuve evaporated. I awoke from my rose-colored dream. Neither was the bike blue nor the rider a girl with flames on her helmet, but it was enough to remind me of my psycho.
My whole body tensed up. I stopped.
“I need to go,” I said in a determined voice.
I knew that later I’d desperately regret having cut this scene so short, leaving Bahadır in the middle of the street like that.
“What is it?” he said.
He had noticed the change in me, that something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. As a matter of fact, neither could I. It was just something, a feeling I got, that stood between me and my Prince Charming. My libido had plummeted to minus zero in a matter of seconds.
As we parted, I sent my regards to Gül,
just to make sure this little adventure of ours would weigh heavily on both our consciences.
33.
It was getting dark. As I walked briskly toward Tepeba‚ı to catch a taxi, I thought, There has to be something I’m just not seeing, a detail I’ve missed. But what?
My taxi driver was moaning and groaning, because not only was it a busy time of day in terms of traffic, but I was only going a short distance. I wasn’t about to be outdone; I began grumbling even louder than him.
When we reached Taksim, a taxi overtook us and turned in the direction of Sıraselviler, and the people inside waved at us. When I paid no attention, they honked their horn.
“Sir, they’re pointing at you,” said the taxi driver, who’d finally shut up once I’d come out on top in our battle of moan and groan.
I looked. It was Şükrü, grinning from ear to ear and waving, and next to him was someone with long hair. I couldn’t really make out much more than that in the darkness of the night. It must have been his new lover, the one who looked like a chick but wasn’t. My admirer, that is. Having recalled that detail, my curiosity was piqued. I took a more careful look, but traffic had started flowing and we were soon on our separate ways. His silhouette seemed familiar. I might recognize him from the club, or the neighborhood, like Hüseyin had said—as he hadn’t caught my attention before, though, clearly he was just an ordinary boy.
When I arrived outside my apartment building, I realized that Yılmaz wasn’t behind the glass door. He had disappeared again. It seemed the man was a wee bit irresponsible, despite his military training. He was supposed to be watching the place, not me. Just because I wasn’t about didn’t mean he could scram at the first opportunity. I intended to reprimand him the next time I saw him.
I was at the bottom of the stairs when Hümeyra’s door opened.
“Mr. Veral,” she said.
If she was going to ask after the bag she had lost to thieves or something equally ridiculous, I wasn’t in the mood.
“The bey who was waiting here,” she said. “He’s gone. But he left you a note. He said it’s important.”
It seemed Yılmaz enjoyed writing reports.
Leaving the door ajar, she went inside to bring the note. It had been neatly placed in an envelope, and the envelope firmly closed. It was addressed to me in careful, respectful handwriting.
“He used my toilet while you were away,” Hümeyra complained. “But then I guess it is a human need, after all.”
If she thought she’d have me running after stolen items such as her bag out of gratitude, she was gravely mistaken.
“You are very kind.”
For delivering the note, and letting Yılmaz use her toilet.
“Now, he is one clean man, I’m telling you,” she said, shutting her eyes. “He takes his shoes off outside. Washes his hands after he’s done. I can hear the water running. But do you mind kindly telling him that the next time he uses the toilet…”
Now would come the details about how he didn’t flush afterward, didn’t lift the seat when he was peeing, drip-dropped all over the place…So what! All of that was true of the majority of the Turkish population anyway. We still lacked basic toilet training.
“.…to put the toilet paper in the bin, not down the toilet? I’m worried the sewers might get blocked. When it’s blocked, you know it floods my apartment. I was too embarrassed to tell him. If you could…”
She wasn’t embarrassed to tell me.
“Of course, ma’am, I’ll remind him,” I responded as I began climbing the stairs.
She called after me.
“One more thing,” she said.
I turned to look.
She smiled her sweetest smile and batted her eyelashes.
“My handbag. The one I told you about yesterday…with the brass handles…”
People either lost their senses as they got older, or developed obsessions. I wondered if all the obsessions I had were actually signs of aging.
There must have been thunder in my eyes, because she fell silent.
“I was going to ask if there’s any news, if you’ve found it…”
She had asked. I had heard it with my own ears. I stared at her with thunder in my eyes, feeling very much like Zeus himself.
She retreated back into her apartment.
“Okay. I understand. You couldn’t find it. Never mind…”
The first thing I did upon entering my apartment was call the hospital. I wasn’t surprised at how quickly they found the room where Hüseyin was staying and connected. After all, we paid private hospitals loads of money, so of course they were going to do their jobs well. There is this thing called “quality of service.” The hospital Hüseyin was staying in took great pride in its quality certificate, and they charged as much as a five-star hotel.
İsmail Kozalak answered the phone.
Hüseyin was okay. They had given him his medicine and he had gone back to sleep.
“Son,” he said, “there’s a note in the side pocket of Hüseyin’s bag, addressed to you. Could it be something important?”
With nothing to do in a hospital room, İsmail Kozalak must have gone snooping around, putting to use his organizational skills as an ironmonger, and out of sheer boredom read whatever he had found. What he had found was Yılmaz Karataş’s report from yesterday, which I had totally forgotten about: the list of people going in and out of the apartment.
“I’ll take a look when I’m back,” I said. “Don’t throw it away.”
“Your friends came to visit,” he said. “They brought flowers and cologne; it was very kind of them. We had bought some already, but still…”
Who? Panic alarms went off in my head. No one knew Hüseyin was there except for Hasan and Ponpon. Hasan was at the hospital all morning, and must have been at home resting right now. The Ponpon I knew would never go visit.
“Who did you say came to visit?”
“Your friends,” he said. “Şükrü and his friend.”
What was Şükrü doing at the hospital? It had to be that blabbermouth Hasan. He’d just die if he didn’t tell everyone the latest news. Good thing I warned him not to!
Şükrü I understood, fine, but who was his friend? Had he dragged the new boyfriend I’d just seen with him down to the hospital? Maybe he thought I’d be there too, and that I’d be more cooperative this time due to the setting, and he’d be able to introduce me to my shy admirer.
I went into the toilet with Yılmaz Karataş’s note in my hand, and sat down.
He had written the time and date on the top of the page, and “TOP SECRET” in block capitals in the middle, and underlined it. He sure was weird.
“The wanted female with the bicycle visited the Veral apartment building, apartment three, at 2:27. She was wearing the helmet previously described. The same female had visited yesterday without her bike, and gone upstairs. (Please see my report dated yesterday.) I think I’m on the right track. Keeping the urgency of the matter in mind, I shall have to leave my appointed location without your permission and follow the bicycle.”
I couldn’t believe my eyes. I read it over from start to finish. The bike had been here yesterday? Yılmaz was proving to be pretty handy. It seemed he was going to pass this test with flying colors, assuming none of those pesky bureaucratic obstacles got in the way.
It is indeed a fact, not a myth, that time in the toilet enhances brain functions. “Hurray!” I said to myself.
I went out to make my phone calls, given that the house was still bugged.
First I called the hospital again. This time Hüseyin picked up.
“I knew it was you,” he said.
I asked to speak to his father.
“I’m better,” he said, as if I’d asked. “When are you coming? I told my parents you’d be back. They’re going to leave.”
I asked to speak to his father again.
“The note we were just talking about,” I said. “The one you found in the bag. I’m going to as
k you a couple of questions about it, if that’s okay?”
“I don’t have my glasses with me,” he said, embarrassed and self-conscious about the fact that he’d gotten old and could no longer read without glasses. “I’ll give it back to Hüseyin.”
It was easier making myself understood to Hüseyin. He knew what I was looking for.
Yes, the information I was looking for was in yesterday’s note. I had been stupid enough to miss it. At any rate, it meant only one thing: the girl on the bicycle was directly collaborating with someone who lived in my apartment building. In apartment three.
“You’re wonderful,” I said cheerfully.
“I knew you’d realize that someday,” he replied.
I really should have told him it wasn’t him but the situation that was wonderful, or the retired sergeant from the intelligence service Yılmaz Karataş, who prepared such thorough reports; but he was in the hospital. He might be in need of a little love and compassion.
“When are you coming back?” he asked once again.
“When I’m done,” I told him.
Now what I needed was backup. I wasn’t going get the police involved. When Selçuk found out, he’d flip his lid and rip me a new one, but there were going to be no police. I was going to sort it out on my own, with my own special forces unit.
Cüneyt, the bodyguard, though a bit feeble in the mind, certainly liked to show off his muscles. He was, after all, a bodyguard by profession. And now here is his chance, an opportunity to prove himself, I thought. I phoned and told him to come straight over, no questions asked.
Then I contacted Tarık, whom Hasan had always described as good-looking, and who I knew to be Hüseyin’s friend from the taxi stand. He seemed like a strong guy.
While I waited for them to arrive, I did some of the exercises I had been neglecting for days, to stretch myself and warm up a bit. I lifted my legs up one by one and put them against the wall. I realized as I was stretching them that my inner thighs had become stiff. In the corridor I tried two somersaults: the first touching the floor with my hands, the second in midair. I almost hit the wall and smashed my skull to pieces. I focused on the midair backward left-footed head kick I always found so challenging. It’s good to be prepared.
Serenity Murders (9781101603079) Page 21
