The Serenity Murders

by Mehmet Murat Somer

  A voice inside told me to run and buy two pairs of Converse sneakers for her. The details she was giving us were worth it.

  “Anything else?”

  “She was wearing a helmet. Like a motorcyclist. Black. With flame stickers on it.”

  “You’re a star, Melek,” I said.

  She really was. I mean, I wasn’t saying it just to be polite; plus, I had found myself a little moved by her Converse story and I liked her shrewdness.

  “I know,” she said. “That’s what everyone says.”

  “Thanks a lot, you’ve been a big help,” said Hüseyin.

  “Oh, I just remembered: on the side of her helmet was a shiny sticker. The size of a stamp but bright and gleaming.”

  Her attention was sharp, her memory spotless. She must have been aware of how ugly she was. We are unbelievably malicious as children. One of her peers at school, or in the neighborhood, who was mad and wanted to hurt her, would have told her. And so she had learned to make up for her ugliness, which would have been brought to her attention at a very young age, with her intelligence and ability to pay attention to detail. I don’t believe that saying about how all beautiful people are dumb, but there is some truth to it. The beautiful don’t need anything else to make others admire them. People just naturally do. And so they don’t need to use their brains. Those who realize they aren’t beautiful seek out, find, develop, and display other qualities in order to impress.

  We thanked her.

  “Let’s take you to the amusement park or cinema one day,” I said in all sincerity.

  “I don’t like the amusement park. It’s always too noisy. But let me consider the cinema offer. I’ll ask my father.”

  Where she had learned to speak like a highly intelligent, fully adult midget remained a mystery.

  As we approached the car, Hüseyin cried out, “You can’t be serious about inviting her to the cinema!”

  “I truly am,” I said. “Why not? If I can’t make it, then the two of you can go. Can’t you see? The girl is madly in love with you.”

  16.

  Now we had the female accomplice to deal with. Based on the information we’d been given, she was probably a university student or something, roaming the very hilly city of Istanbul on a bike. Seeing as she had a helmet, this bike-riding business wasn’t something she did just for pleasure. She had flames and a hologram sticker on her helmet. Those were our clues. Now all we had to do was find her.

  First we need to visit to Ponpon to figure out what was on that chip.

  Hüseyin knew very well where to go but was worried parking would be bad. He was right. Parking was always problematic in Nişantaşı and Teşvikiye. We were going to have to park in a multistory parking garage and walk two streets down from Ponpon’s apartment.

  A strange intuition popped into my head that I couldn’t keep to myself.

  “Hüseyin,” I said as we walked to Ponpon’s, “it’s you who knows where I go, what I do.”

  “Yes…”

  “And you know where all the people I see live…”

  “Yeeeah…”

  “Look, you even found Ponpon’s house without directions. And the office…”

  “I’ve been driving you around for years,” he said proudly. “I should know.”

  “And you’ve got a crush on me.”

  “Alas, unrequited…”

  I stopped and looked at him, narrowing my eyes.

  “You’re not the psycho, are you?”

  He was baffled.

  “Just kidding,” I said. “I was just thinking…You might have planned all this to wriggle your way into my place. If that were the case, you’ve been quite successful. We’re glued to each other like Siamese twins. At this rate, we’ll have to get used to each other. The letter was even delivered to your place.”

  “But the phone call!” he said. “I was with you when he called!”

  “Oh, but you very well could have had a friend call for you!”

  “I swear to God and the heavens above, I’ve done no such thing!”

  “I don’t have much faith in those who swear a lot,” I said.

  “Goddamn it!” he said, throwing the car keys onto the sidewalk in a rage. “You can’t seriously believe that I could possibly murder another human being.”

  He was standing in the middle of the road, screaming his head off. As soon as they heard the word “murder,” everyone in the vicinity snapped to attention. All ears perked up, eager to hear the rest.

  “Slow down!” I said. “Everyone’s staring at us.”

  “They can stare all they like! What? Do I look like a murderer to you? Look at me!”

  I bent down and picked the car keys up off the sidewalk, grabbed Hüseyin by the arm, and started dragging him toward Ponpon. If he went on screaming like this, he’d get more than a simple scolding from me; he’d get the living shit beaten out of him.

  “I wouldn’t do it for anyone, not even you. You understand? I couldn’t. I can’t even stand the Festival of Sacrifice. The only thing I’m capable of killing is a fly. A fly! How could you…Me and murder, for God’s sake, no!”

  He was clearly having a bit of a breakdown.

  I lowered my voice in an effort to get him to lower his tone.

  “All right, all right! Calm down…Let’s sit down and talk about this like two grown adults. It was just a thought.”

  Trying to seem innocent, I gave him my sweetest smile. It usually worked.

  “You have to admit it was a crazy thought. You got me all worked up!”

  I put a friendly hand on his shoulder and gave him a good shake.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  I placed a tiny kiss on his cheek to make peace and calm him down.

  We began walking again—now not saying a word.

  Outside the apartment building was a cardboard box waiting for the trash collectors. Inside it I spotted the boomerang I had bought for Ponpon and brought as a gift all the way from Australia. Magical words had been inscribed on the boomerang by the Aborigines, who believed that the time a boomerang spent in the air before returning to the thrower would become additional moments added to the thrower’s life span. I’d gone to the trouble of schlepping it halfway around the world, and it was sheer ingratitude for Ponpon to chuck it during her spring cleaning.

  I felt rotten.

  I peeked into the box a bit more carefully to see what else she had thrown out. There was an undamaged coffee mug, a checkered patterned tin box, the old kitchen curtain, in a creased ball…Thankfully, nothing else that I had given her.

  When Ponpon opened the door to find me standing in front of her, she stared as if in reproach.

  “I can’t believe my eyes!”

  What was it that she couldn’t believe? There I was, and she already knew Hüseyin. He had dropped her off at home several times after she’d been over for a visit.

  “Ayolcuğum, just look at yourself! I wouldn’t go to my next-door neighbor for a morning coffee dressed like that.”

  “Nice to see you too,” I said, stepping in. “I’m in disguise.”

  “But you look dreadful…”

  Clearly, she wanted to prolong the topic. I, on the other hand, was in no mood to discuss the attire I had donned for my visit to Hüseyin’s. I was still feeling rotten about the boomerang.

  “We didn’t have much choice,” I said.

  “And you say you’ve got nothing to hide from me…You see! You’ve been unmasked, ayolcuğum. The you I know is always elegant, always classy. Even if you don’t keep up with the latest fashion trends, you’re always smart and attractive. But just look at you now! You look like an ironmonger at the Thursday Market.”

  One could only drop so many bricks in a single sentence. Hüseyin’s father was an ironmonger. It didn’t matter if he worked at the Thursday Market or not; I saw that the insult had stung Hüseyin. Of course, Ponpon couldn’t have known this.

  “I picked it out at his place,” Hüseyin s
aid sulkily. “My father is an ironmonger!

  “Ohhh, no! Ay, I’m so sorry, darlings. I swear I didn’t mean it like that. It’s simply my silly rudeness! Ignore me. I sometimes speak without thinking, and then I make such faux pas. Ay, I’m so ashamed.”

  She really was. I was seeing Ponpon blush for the first time in a long time.

  And now, to make amends, she’d drown Hüseyin in compliments, treat him to various delicacies, find a way to give him a gift, and so on and so forth. The thing she liked giving away as a present most was her own portrait. Signed and framed. With a sweet look on her face, or her lips puckered up in a kiss, all the lines on her face smoothed out, an ageless Ponpon in full makeup! The frames sometimes even come in silver, depending upon the importance of the person and the gravity of the occasion. She then expects her portrait to be displayed in the most privileged, honored corner of the recipient’s home. How many Ponpon portraits could any one sensible person possibly have in her home?

  But, unlike Ponpon, I didn’t go chuck them in the bin for the whole world to see!

  Ponpon immediately brought the note and the chip she’d been calling a rosette. We were now back on track.

  The note had again been typed up on a computer, and printed right in the center of an A4 page, in large, classic Times New Roman font. I was sure there were no fingerprints on the envelope or the note itself. I put the note aside.

  It was impossible to learn anything from the chip just by looking at it. I’d only figure what it was once I placed it inside a computer.

  “This is a computer chip,” I said, turning it over in my hand.

  “Which means?” said Hüseyin.

  “I don’t know yet,” I said. “We’ll see once we’ve put it in a computer.”

  I wanted to go home as soon as possible to find out what was on the chip. I moved to get up.

  “Nooo, you’re not going anywhere!” said Ponpon. “You just got here. I won’t have it, cream puff. You can’t just get up and leave. Now, I’m going to give you each a rice pudding.”

  Ponpon had gone on and on about my clothes, had ridiculed Hüseyin and his family, even if it was unintentional, and had carelessly discarded the present I had brought her. I was on edge and impatient as it was.

  “Don’t call me cream puff!” I said.

  “Ayolcuğum, what’s wrong with me calling you cream puff? Cream puff, cream puff, cream puff! There!”

  On the last “cream puff” she had stamped her feet like an obstinate child. She stuck out her bottom lip and crossed her arms. Her chin rose into the air imperiously.

  She couldn’t help but be hilarious! With the way she talked, the words she chose, her behavior and lifestyle, and her attitude toward life, Ponpon has always been the antidote to a rational and consequently boring life. And yet again she had managed to make me laugh and unwind.

  Besides, she makes one scrumptious rice pudding. We decided to stay.

  Foodwise, I was having one delicious day.

  17.

  It was a good thing I’d given my mobile phone number to only a select few. Now that I’d turned it on, the thing was ringing off the hook! It was as if every person who had my number had wasted no time in sharing it with everyone and his brother. Every time I picked it up thinking it might be our psycho, the name of someone already saved or an unfamiliar number appeared on the screen. I couldn’t answer them all. I was now a famous person who was learning the hardships of fame! With a press of my thumb, I let them know I was unavailable.

  I could hardly imagine the bombardment to which my home phone, or rather, my answering machine, had been subjected. After all, that number was common knowledge.

  We got caught in the evening rush-hour traffic as we tried to make our way home from Nişantaşı.

  As we idled, my mind was busy pondering what favor I could possibly ask my new Mafia connection Cemil Kazancı for. I had to think of something good. It had to serve my purposes and help me in my current plight.

  I looked at my phone: some insistent unknown number was ringing me for the third time. I answered, ready to deliver a scolding to someone who had the wrong number.

  It was Andelip Turhan, the tarot card reader.

  “Sorry for disturbing you, but there’s something I have to tell you, and it’s something important to me…” she said. “And it should be to you too.”

  I had no choice but to listen.

  “I see you in every tarot reading I do. It’s not normal. The cards are trying to tell me something, but I don’t get it. Why you? And there’s someone with you. A man, not quite your lover. You’re in a dangerous situation. Maybe it hasn’t happened yet, but it will soon. Every time I flip your cards, I’m filled with anxiety. My chest feels heavy. As if…”

  My Reiki master Gül had already told me that Andelip Turhan really was actually a medium with advanced precognition, and that she only used the tarot pack as a secondary means of confirming her visions. From what she was saying, it seemed that the woman who walked around with boxer shorts on her head was seeing or sensing the situation Hüseyin and I were in. As for her definition of my relationship with Hüseyin, that was particularly apt.

  “The signals I’m getting aren’t so strong from afar. I can’t see clearly enough. It’s always easier in the person’s presence, when I can have physical contact. Please come to my place, and bring your boyfriend with you. I have to read your cards. I’m constantly preoccupied with the two of you. I’m incapable of reading anyone else’s cards. I’m stuck. I can’t stay like this. I can’t sleep at night.”

  “It’s a bit late to come over tonight,” I responded resignedly.

  I was planning to go straight home and investigate the chip. It was going to take time to fit it into the computer, put it through security tests, and open it. If the chip turned out to be problematic, if it required further auxiliary programs to run, then the whole endeavor really would be a challenge and could take all night.

  “I’ll be expecting you, no matter how late,” she said. “I always stay up late anyway. Besides, I can’t sleep in the state that I’m in. Like I told you, my mind is absolutely stuck on you two.”

  From the determination in her voice, I could tell that she was not going to accept no for an answer.

  “But I can’t say when.”

  “Well, then don’t,” she said. “Just call me to say you’re coming. I’ll be waiting.”

  As if the day hadn’t been busy and exhausting enough already, there I was with yet another appointment lined up: a tarot reading with Andelip Turhan.

  I told Hüseyin the good news.

  “Turkey’s most famous tarot specialist, the medium Andelip Turhan, is going to read your cards tonight.”

  He gave me a strange look, as if I were insane.

  When the car behind us honked, Hüseyin shifted into first gear and turned his attention back to the road.

  My mind wandered back to my new Mafia connection. What could I ask Cemil Kazancı for? Something befitting his power and connections…

  At home, my answering machine was flashing away as I’d expected, but first I had to change my clothes. I’d started feeling like a proper ironmonger. Being an ironmonger wouldn’t be as bad as Ponpon had implied, but one could hardly argue it would be an appropriate profession for Audrey Hepburn and me.

  The best thing would be to peel off my disguise and go nude; however, there was Hüseyin. If I traipsed around the apartment nude, I’d not be able to help seducing him. But what could I wear? I didn’t feel like wearing anything manly. I’d gone around dressed like that all day. My hand went for the baby-pink shorts; I slipped them on without thinking twice. Then I pulled on my white Bearded Barbie T-shirt; the neck and arms had been cut off using nail clippers, thus leaving them scraggly with strings dangling here and there—very à la mode.

  It would have been good to have had a shower before getting down to work, but my curiosity overpowered my wish for cleanliness. Hüseyin waited impatiently, pacing up and dow
n and getting in my way, excited as if he were about to witness something extraordinary for the very first time.

  “Let’s listen to the messages first,” I said.

  The phone rang before I had a chance to push the play button. I didn’t want another surprise like Andelip Turhan. I decided not to answer it, for the time being, at least. I could always change my mind once I’d heard who it was.

  As soon as I heard our psycho’s now all too familiar, mechanically deep voice say, “I know you two are home. Answer the phone,” I lifted up the handset.

  “Well, well, well,” I said, sounding light and unconcerned, but with an edge. “Look who’s calling! If it isn’t our psycho liar!”

  He had to be expecting this. The news that the hit man who shot Süheyl Arkın had been caught was all over the news.

  Still there was a moment’s pause.

  Hüseyin held his breath as he listened to the phone, which I had put on speaker. After all, this whole thing did involve him too.

  “There’s been a misunderstanding,” said the voice.

  “What kind of a misunderstanding, ayol? You said you did it, but it’s been proven that it wasn’t you who shot Süheyl Arkın. How could that be a misunderstanding? Next thing you know, we’ll find out Master Sermet poisoned himself by accident. You’re nothing but a lousy opportunist!”

  “Hey, slow down!” he said.

  “You slow down! It must have been very convenient for you to take responsibility for something you didn’t do. You probably thought you’d be scarier. You poor, pitiful soul!”

  I intended to push his buttons; he’d gotten on my nerves and it was payback time.

  “Then you still haven’t found the clues I left for you,” he said menacingly, trying to grab the upper hand.

  No, I’d found no clues.

  “Take a good look around your home!” he said. “I’d expect you to be more perceptive.”

  I quickly scanned my surroundings. There was nothing out of the ordinary in sight.