The Serenity Murders

by Mehmet Murat Somer

  I wonder, if I were to give the psycho his name, might he give priority to Dr. Bedirhan Ender and rub him out first? I was frightened by my own thoughts!

  Because of the crowd and commotion, it seemed I wouldn’t be able to get in to see Süheyl Arkın after all. Frankly, I wasn’t all that bothered. The sluggish feeling that follows a serving of börek was slowly wrapping me in its warm embrace.

  At this point, a little physical activity could only do me good. I decided to go see Master Sermet for our usual program: tai chi to warm up, unwind, and balance my energy, followed by aikido. I hopped into a cab and headed for his apartment, which he always says is in the classy neighborhood of Ulus, but which I would describe as being just up the hill from the rather more ordinary Ortaköy. It was an old building, in which he occupied two apartments on the same floor. One he lived in, while the other he used to hold his classes. He led groups that came at a fixed time on certain days of the week, but I didn’t belong to any of those. I had started off as a private student, and as the relationship between master and disciple transformed into friendship, I became someone who stopped by whenever I felt like it, someone who sometimes popped in simply for a chat, and who had also equaled his master’s mastery of aikido and perhaps had even come to surpass it, as the master occasionally admitted.

  While the side of the road looking onto the Bosporus bore all the hallmarks of prosperity and sophistication, the opposite side appeared equally middle-class. And there, on the middle-class side of the road, was where Sermet Kılıç lived, bitterly calculating ways in which he could upgrade to the other side. “I’d double my fees,” he said. “Think about it, the whole of high society would come rushing!”

  In order to attract new customers, he himself had started taking jujitsu lessons. “It’s a completely different discipline,” he would say, trying to tempt me into learning it.

  Due to a recent increase in hair loss, he had had his head shaven and then proclaimed, “See, I look like a real Tibetan monk now.” He certainly was as skinny as one. He wore baggy trousers and cotton jackets or tunics that he secured by tying a belt around his waist. And he always wore his specially made soft shoes. He was super-sensitive when it came to animal rights and so he preferred not to use leather. Naturally, he was also a vegetarian.

  The lock on the metal entrance gate was broken, so I pushed it open and walked in. They had planted grass in the minuscule garden, but it had failed to flourish due to neglect.

  As I walked up the stairs, I felt the courgette börek I had had at Ponpon’s weighing me down. Ponpon was an excellent cook. She could knock the socks off any housewife. She never skimps on ingredients, especially butter: “That’s what gives it its flavor,” she argues. The third slice of börek I had eaten out of sheer gluttony was now giving me a guilty conscience. But Master Sermet always has green tea. I’d feel much better after a cup of warm green tea.

  I stopped at the landing on the third floor. I could hear the sound of a familiar tune. The soft music was coming from the apartment opposite his home, but the door to the studio was wide open. I wondered if I had arrived during class hours. But then who would come at this time of the day? People prefer sessions either in the early hours of the morning or after work.

  In case they were doing tai chi, which requires intense concentration, I let out an unobtrusive, “Hello, it’s me,” as I walked in through the studio door, doing my best not to make any noise. There was no answer. They might have been in one of the back rooms, where he preferred to work with me as well. The apartment where classes were held didn’t have any furniture, so that people could move around easily. I walked in to find the thin gymnastics mats folded up and piled against the wall. The room was completely empty.

  “Master…it’s me…” I called out again.

  I then swiftly strode down the short corridor and into the room where we always had our sessions.

  Master Sermet was lying on the floor, next to him a cup of unfinished green tea. He was motionless. His eyes were wide open. He was staring at the ceiling. He was dead.

  5.

  Iknew that I wasn’t supposed to touch anything, that I was meant to call the police right away. But, shocked and devastated, I collapsed onto the floor next to him. I tried to lower his cold eyelids like they do in the movies, but the soft stroke that I applied was not enough to do the trick. I didn’t want to fiddle around with the body too much. I left it as it was.

  A storm brewed inside of me. I wanted to scream, shout, beat the crap out of someone. I had learned to remain calm in the face of death, but inside, I still hadn’t gotten used to it. A wave of fury swelled inside of me, nearly engulfing my sanity.

  There was no blood or wound on his body. So he hadn’t been shot. It was up to forensics to find out how he had died. It could have been a heart attack, or something else entirely. But if this was the work of that threatening psycho, he was going to suffer at my hands when I found him.

  I sat next to my master for God knows how long. I wanted to reach out and hold his hand. I didn’t. Those hands had struck me in various parts of my body, and had taught me how to dodge and avoid such blows. He had veiny hands, knobby fingers, and square fingernails. They reminded me of a book I had recently read: Who Are You? 101 Ways of Seeing Yourself. The book covered the 101 physical, intellectual, and spiritual ways of seeing oneself, and it said that hands and nails of this type symbolized elegance and energy, a taste for beauty and harmony. They were described as philosophers’ hands. They belonged to people who were analytical, philosophical, compliant, tolerant, who had a strong sense of justice, and who sought the truth. All characteristics that described Sermet Kılıç. He hadn’t deserved to die.

  The truth was, I just could not bear that he was dead. I wondered if the feeling of injustice I felt inside was because he had died, or because of my own loss.

  I waited with him until the police arrived. The skinny and short-tempered police chief was anything but pleasant. From the way he looked me up and down, it was obvious from the start that we weren’t going to get along. I decided that I wouldn’t back down if he were to make things difficult. After all, my old friend in the police department, the great Selçuk Tayanç, had my back, plus there were the dozens of letters of gratitude I had received from the police.

  I told him how I’d found the body. And who I was. I slipped Selçuk’s name in once or twice. From the way he reacted, though, it seemed that he wasn’t familiar with the name.

  “Well, I guess I’ll be off now,” I said. “I’ve given you my address. You know how to find me if you need me.”

  “Impossible,” he said, grinning.

  “Why, ayol?”

  “You’re the only person we have.”

  He had slim, well-kept hands that I would consider small for a police officer. I always take notice of people’s hands. His nails appeared to be manicured. Could it be that metrosexuality was catching on among cops as well?

  “You don’t even know for sure if it’s a suspicious death,” I said, switching to defense mode and getting ready to call Selçuk.

  “I didn’t say you were a suspect. I said you’re our only source. Does he have friends or family? Who do we need to inform? Who is going to arrange the funeral?”

  Right, these were all valid questions. It was then that I realized I didn’t know much about Sermet Kılıç, even though we had been working together for years. He was divorced when I met him. He had a daughter who refused to see him. She lived someplace down south, like Antalya or Mersin. I think she was married. This place belonged to Sermet Kılıç. I didn’t think he was particularly wealthy. Although he did have fantasies about moving to the other side of the road, he was in no way a money-grubber. That was it. I really wasn’t much help.

  The square-faced police chief was fast, energetic, stubborn, and by the book. Those with forehead and chin of equal height and broad cheeks were hardworking, judgmental, strict, and intolerant. And that was precisely how this specimen was acting. Sudde
nly I realized how deeply Who Are You? had influenced my subconscious. But then again, the book was proving to be correct.

  “So what are we going to do?” I asked. “Are you going to keep me in custody until the forensic results arrive?”

  “Oh, no, hardly,” he said, trying to laugh. “We don’t even have a place to detain you.”

  “So?” I said, implying with my sarcasm that he should get this over with a.s.a.p.

  “I don’t know,” he said in a mocking tone. “This has never happened to us before. I need to call and ask my superior.”

  “Okay, fine, and I’ll call Selçuk Tayanç.”

  I wasn’t going to sit around and wait for him. Selçuk’s secretary, who by now was able to recognize my voice, put me straight through. First I thanked him for his kind gesture the previous evening when he’d called in to the show. I told him how moved I was. The square-faced police chief had his eyes fixed squarely upon me as he listened intently to every word that came out of my mouth.

  “I have a problem,” I said.

  “You wouldn’t be calling me otherwise, would you?”

  This wasn’t an expression of reproach. He always had a lot on his plate as it was.

  “I know how busy you are. You’re an important man. I hate to disturb you.”

  “I understand,” he said. There was a hint of sarcasm in his voice. After all, if I was so concerned about disturbing him, then why the hell was I calling him out of the blue like this right now?

  I explained the situation.

  “Give him to me,” he said, meaning square-face.

  “He wants to have a word,” I said to the chief, as I handed over my mobile.

  He took it, making a sour face as he did so and thereby indicating that he did not think me worth the time of day, and that since he did not know the man on the other end of the line, he had no intention of taking this Selçuk Tayanç, whoever he was, seriously.

  In a smug and smirky, just short of insubordinate, tone, “Yes,” he said, introducing himself.

  Square-face’s name was Hilmi Kuloğlu. He was chief of the Homicide Division.

  Now it was my turn. I was watching him. Whatever it was that Selçuk was saying, square-face’s posture had changed instantaneously. His body shot into an upright position. His face first turned white and then red. I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms as I continued watching him, deriving indescribable pleasure from the view. Unexpected paybacks are the source of small satisfactions.

  Whatever Selçuk was saying, it was punctuated only by the occasional “Yes, sir,” on the part of the square-faced chief.

  Having been put in his place, the latter was receiving orders about how to treat me.

  “Chief would like to speak to you,” he said, as he respectfully passed the phone back to me.

  Selçuk gave me an unconvincing scolding for stirring up trouble, and asked if it had anything to do with the threatening message on television the previous night. I didn’t know. I hoped it didn’t. It was my sincere wish that Sermet Kılıç had died of a perfectly polite, run-of-the-mill heart attack.

  “I’ll look into it,” he said as he hung up. “Don’t go poking around too much. The case is complicated enough.”

  I hung up the phone and slipped it into my pocket. I was deliberately dragging my feet now.

  “Right,” I said cheekily, “so what now?”

  “Whatever you wish,” said square-face, choosing his words carefully lest he fail to show me the respect I was due. “And, I do apologize. I didn’t recognize the chief’s name when you said it, but of course I know him. I mean, I wouldn’t want to be misunderstood…”

  Right, he was trying to cover his ass now. He was alarmed, thinking that if this faggot made any complaints about him, he might end up in a rather unpleasant situation, or with an unnecessary appointment, or on an exile assignment. It was nice to know what he was thinking, but I dislike it when those who are not faggots call me a faggot, or in fact even think it. I assume that they do so in an attempt to degrade me.

  “Now, now, no reason to get upset. Or do you think this faggot might just get you in trouble?” I said. Having witnessed his pathetic state at being confronted by a superior, in my eyes he had already been demoted to the status of pathetic cop.

  “No, no, sir, I would never use such a word,” he said in all sincerity.

  “You were thinking it, though.”

  He’d been caught, and he knew it.

  “But aren’t you?” he asked, in a tone of surrender.

  “That’s a different matter,” I replied.

  You know how I said that according to the personality analysis he was stubborn and narrow-minded? Well, he was, and he insisted.

  “I saw you on TV today. In a news report about Süheyl Arkın being shot.”

  I quickly took back the adjective “pathetic” that I had previously ascribed him. “Pathetic” square-face was not. No, he was a total fool. And an obstinate one, at that.

  “My sexual preferences are my private business and mine alone,” I said, raising my head. “And yours are yours.”

  “But I don’t go on TV dressed like a woman and announce it to the whole world.”

  His obstinacy was worthy of a flogging.

  “I’m leaving,” I said. “Let me know whatever you find out. Don’t make me have to call Mr. Tayanç again.”

  On my way back I thought about Master Sermet, about our respectful and loving relationship, about how polite and refined he was despite his profession, which was to teach people how to fight and protect themselves…How he lay there on the floor. The arrival of the police. And then I pictured Officer Hilmi. I imagined him wearing lace pink underwear under his uniform. Net tights…Secretly shaving his whole body, smothering himself in makeup, and walking around in high-heeled women’s slippers when he was at home alone…I couldn’t help but laugh. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for days for getting carried away like that with such thoughts, to the point of laughter even, when Master Sermet had just died and I had just discovered his body. As punishment to myself, and to impose some discipline upon my body, soul, and will, I forswore sex for five days.

  Five days, I thought. Five whole days! Day and night…It was a long time. Suddenly those five days, a number I had randomly conjured up, loomed large. But I could start the countdown beginning from last night. I hadn’t slept with anyone last night. Yes, in fact, my fast had begun yesterday morning at five a.m. Dreams didn’t count.

  6.

  My beloved Master Sermet Kılıç had been poisoned. A mite of Actaea spicata, a.k.a. baneberries, had been slipped into his green tea, triggering heart failure and resulting in death. This information I had gathered not from the police but from the threatening psycho himself. He was already busy boasting, and had sent me an e-mail detailing his accomplishments. I tracked the address to an Internet café in Ortaköy, which meant that, once again, I was left without a good lead.

  The bastard was playing dirty. He’d said he would kill someone every week, but, apparently unable to contain himself, he’d started killing someone every day. He must have been really, truly pissed off, to go breaking his own rules like that.

  I sent e-mails of vehement protest to each and every one of his e-mail addresses, just in case he did check them. And if he did, at least he’d know what I thought of him.

  Jihad2000 hadn’t been able to turn up anything. He kept writing about how desperately he wanted me, about the visit I was to make to his place in my leather trousers, and what exactly he wanted me to do during my visit. Not a chance in hell. But I could tell that his time with Pamir had done him good; he was now able to identify with some clarity what exactly it was that he wanted. He wanted rough sex, a bit on the nasty side. But nothing too painful. My visit was never going to happen. I was absolutely adamant about it. First, I don’t like S&M. Second, although I do admire his genius when it comes to computers, as a man Jihad2000, that is, Kemal Barutçu, does not make my heart, or any other pa
rt of me, stir in the least. And by the looks of it, he never would. Plus, I was fasting. Out of respect for my master…I had to remain resolute, firm—a veritable will of iron!

  The very thought of fasting was beginning to agitate me, to yank at my nerves, pulling them taut. It turns out I had underestimated our psycho, who, in just two deft moves in less than twenty-four hours had gone from being a perv with homicidal tendencies to a straight-up murderous monster.

  My phone beeped, reminding me that I had a Reiki meeting in half an hour. I’d completely forgotten. I had promised I would be there. We were going to treat a young MS patient. Reiki, which initially I’d had not an ounce of faith in, turns out to be marvelously effective against numerous illnesses and diseases, among them multiple sclerosis. I had attended a meeting upon the recommendation of a friend of mine from the beauty salon, Afet with the ketchup-red hair. “Reiki can’t make an illness any worse,” she had said. “And good for us if it provides some relief.”

  Afet, who was actually a French teacher, had been introduced to Reiki by a colleague of her husband. She had immediately embraced it and quickly seen its benefits.

  “The migraine that plagued me for years is gone!” she had told me. “For years I tried every medicine in the book, every folk remedy available to humankind; none of it worked. But Reiki did the trick! Now I can drink as much orange juice as I like and eat as much chocolate as I can, and nothing happens.”

  During a lengthy skin-care and full-body seaweed massage session one day, she had worn me down going on and on about Reiki, until finally I agreed to give it a go myself. After all, it wouldn’t kill me, now, would it? “Everything on this earth, from the table we are lying on to the seaweed covering us, from the pavement we walk on to our very bodies themselves, everything is made up of atoms, of energy particles. All Reiki does is adjust the energy in our bodies to create a balance. After all, it’s the imbalances in our body’s energy that give rise to mental and physical illnesses. Our channels might be shriveled, crinkled, or blocked. With Reiki, we open those channels back up to create a proper balance,” she had summarized. Since I didn’t like taking drugs and I believed that scientific medicine developed its treatments by practicing trial-and-error methods upon us, this idea hadn’t struck me as odd at all. I simply had very little faith in modern medicine, which banned medications widely used just twenty years ago, ridiculed operations carried out only thirty years ago, and as recently as the 1940s had disastrously practiced barbaric lobotomy surgeries. As she polished her designer glasses that matched her red hair, Afet had explained, “I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that we should ignore Chinese medicine prescriptions dating back thousands of years and the healing methods of Tibetan monks when they can cure certain illnesses like psoriasis that scientific medicine simply still can’t.” That did the trick—I was in.