He was good at insulting me and he had the gift of gab. I was waiting for him to get to the point.
“But who am I? Who is Ferdı Aktan? Let me tell you…”
He was raised in an orphanage. There he was given a name and a surname. He had no idea who his family was.
“You can’t imagine what it means to grow up without love,” he said. “You always had people who loved you. There is no love in an orphanage. There’s only one feeling: fear. Punishment, beatings…There’s the hope that a family will come and adopt the cutest child among us, raise him with love, and there’s jealousy of the ones chosen. Can you imagine what it’s like waiting to be chosen, to want it so badly you could die? I don’t think so…And not being chosen. No one ever wanting you. Feeling so much resentment toward the cute, the beautiful, the one that has a chance of being chosen. And if this is indeed a competition, seeking ways to eliminate the other contestants…Do you understand?”
I nodded.
“You’ve got a blank look on your face. Are you daydreaming again or what?”
“No, I’m listening,” I said.
It was impossible not to listen.
“Have you ever visited an orphanage? Have you seen the looks on those children’s faces? The fear in their eyes, the way they fawn all over every visitor for an ounce of attention they mistake for love? We were shameless in our attempts to curry favor…We’d do anything for a pat on the head, or, if we were lucky, a hug. And the grand prize was to be kissed! Even once was enough! We’d dream about it for days afterwards. It was a like a fairy tale that fed our fantasies again and again.”
I was beginning to feel pretty rotten. The boy had a sad story. Still, it didn’t give him the right to torture me or kill Hüseyin.
“And rape,” he said. “You must have heard about it before. Everyone knows. No one lifts a finger. The abuse of juvenile bodies begins at a young age…Only the fit and the strong survive anyway. The rest just perish. No one even hears about them. The older kids rape the younger ones. Strangers visit every now and then, slip a few coins into the caretakers’ pockets. It was fine by us. In fact, a lot of us liked it. Just think about it, getting close to someone! Being wanted for a moment, no matter how or why; being liked by someone! Ohh! It’s an intoxicating feeling. The pain in your ass doesn’t even matter. Someone wants you. You’re being desired. It grows on you. And the more you want love, the more you want what you think is love: abuse! And every child in there is hungry for love. A vicious circle, right? But that’s the way it is!”
I was moved to tears. I found it difficult to swallow.
“Hatice is from the orphanage too,” he said. “The girl who dropped off the letter at Hüseyin’s place.”
So the girl with the bicycle’s name was Hatice.
“They throw us out once we come of age. Hatice and I got thrown out on the same day. So you see, we share a common fate, hence our solidarity!”
I felt sorry for Hatice too. I hoped she wasn’t being mistreated by Cemil Kazancı’s men.
“We were lucky, because we were smart. We were curious and we understood at a young age that knowledge was valuable. We read a lot. We learned. We tried to educate ourselves by our own means. We did quite well. We were able to find ourselves jobs after we got thrown out.”
An achievement certainly worthy of congratulations, I had to admit.
“Now, to get to the key matter,” he said. “AIDS! The illness. You must know! After all those unidentified rapes, I, as you might guess, caught AIDS. Hatice’s got AIDS too. Hers is from a blood transfusion from back when she was a kid. Her family abandoned her when they found out she had AIDS, saying they didn’t want a cursed child. Actually, they hadn’t wanted her anyway because she was a girl, so the AIDS bit just gave them an excuse to get rid of her. Another element of our common fate! We’re carriers, for the time being…It’s inactive…But you know, negative can turn positive anytime.”
AIDS on top of the orphanage trauma; the picture was getting darker and darker.
“And what did I want? Attention. Whose attention? Yours. And what did you do? You treated me like a piece of shit. You ignored me, looked at me with scornful eyes, lifted your chin each time we met. You are so arrogant! Even right now! Look at how you’re sitting!”
What was wrong with how I was sitting? My back was straight, as I was always careful to maintain good posture, my legs were crossed, perfectly parallel to each other, and my hands were on my knees.
“You’re hilarious!” he said with the same disdainful curl of the lip. “You think you’re Audrey Hepburn! The way you bend your neck, your hands…It’s hilarious.”
I leaned back and pulled my hands back onto my lap.
“All right, why me?” I asked.
“Why you? Good question. When I saw you, I knew you were the right person. You were successful, attractive, you had a wide circle of friends. You had created a sheltered, rose-colored, artificial world for yourself. You were the one. Let’s say it was instinct. Our instincts are strong. Only those with strong instincts survive the orphanage. You can only succeed if you act upon instinct. My instincts told me you were the right one.”
“The right one for what?” I asked.
“For my death…”
I must have drifted off at some point and missed something he’d said.
“This illness is killing me,” he said. “I lose weight no matter what I eat, my blood cells are decaying and dying each day. I want to die without suffering, without agony. At your hands…”
That was going too far. The burden!
“I read a play,” he said calmly, “called The Zoo Story.”
I knew the play. It was written by Edward Albee. Two very lonely men meet on a bench at a zoo and…Oh, my God, now I got it!
“One asks the other to kill him,” I said excitedly. “Wanting to be a memory he would never forget all his life; at least in someone’s head, to be a memory that would never be erased, that would always be remembered!”
“Bravo!” he said. “I knew you were smart. I want to live in your memory, in your fancy world. I want to stay alive in your memory after I’m dead!”
He was asking too much.
“Did you really need to kill Master Sermet, then poison Hüseyin and now threaten to inject air into his veins?”
“Look, you don’t understand,” he said. “They are mere tools! Aren’t we all going to die anyway? What difference does it make if it’s a little sooner than later? We forget all about those who die natural deaths. Think about it, how many people who died in their beds remain alive in your head? It’s always the ones who die of unnatural causes that really stick with you, that always come to mind first, isn’t it? Look at this way: I’ve given these guys the opportunity to be first in our memories, to take precedence. Besides, I mean, aren’t they going to die anyway? I’m just fast-forwarding things a bit. I’m actually doing them a favor!”
Yes, he had had a tough life, but his frame of mind was totally sick. He was definitely crazy.
“Now I’m going to kill Hüseyin,” he said coolly. “That way you’ll find it easier to kill me. You’ll believe that you have a valid reason to do so. It’ll be revenge…”
Hüseyin’s eyes widened in panic. Even though his body didn’t respond, he was conscious. He could understand what was being said.
“Stop!” I said when Ferdı moved the syringe. “What about you, Şükrü? How did you become an instrument in all this?”
“I love him,” he said, as if that were enough.
“What? You love him and you allow all this madness, these murders?”
Have you gone mad too? I wanted to add, but I didn’t want to call him mad and cause provocation. I was buying time so long as we spoke calmly. I needed to do something, but what? The cards (that is, the syringe) were in Ferdı’s hand.
“He explained it all to me,” Şükrü said calmly. “I understand him. I tried to explain it to you, but you wouldn’t listen to me.”
I knew Şükrü wasn’t very bright, but I’d never figured him to be this stupid. It had to be the side effects of the drugs he’d used in the past. He’d quit, been cured, and was clean. As far as I knew, he’d never used during the time he’d been working for me. He knew I wouldn’t tolerate it, and that if he did, he would never set foot in the club again. But then, well, he would never set foot in the club again now anyway.
“Şükrü,” I said. “We’re talking about murder here. Not a Pretty Woman romance.”
“I know,” the idiot replied. “But I still can’t keep myself from doing what he wants.”
“Şükrü loves me,” said Ferdı. “Try to understand instead of judging his passion. He’s lucky to be able to experience such a feeling. How many of us have that opportunity, even once, in our entire lifetimes? Right, Şükrü?”
Şükrü nodded his head. This Ferdı was just like those nutcases who, having the gift of the gab, claim to be prophets and then brainwash their disciples and push them to their deaths with their eyes closed. Ferdı was the false prophet, Şükrü his brainwashed disciple. He listened to the words coming out of Ferdı’s mouth as if completely mesmerized.
If this was a game, I was ready to play.
“All right, how do you want me to kill you, then?” I said, sitting up straight in my seat again, but without placing my hands on my knees this time.
“However you’d like, whatever is easiest…”
He clearly hadn’t given this bit much thought.
“And what if I don’t?”
“You will if I kill Hüseyin too,” he said. “Ponpon is probably about to snuff it. I’m sure she’s eaten all the chocolates. Isn’t all of that enough motive for you?”
He gave me a nasty wink as he said “chocolates”; he was beyond contempt.
Yes, the things he said did provoke me, and they were certainly motives, but I didn’t think I’d be able to kill someone with my bare hands.
“No,” I said, determined. “I’m not going to do it. You can kill Hüseyin too if you like. But I can’t kill you. I can’t. I can’t, ayol!”
Hüseyin’s eyes widened even more. He parted his lips as if to say something, but the only noise he could make was a meaningless grunt. Was it normal for them to drug him so much?
Why didn’t anyone in this hospital come to check on the patients? How much flirting could they possibly do without coming up for air? How many cigarettes could they smoke back-to-back? What TV channel went on for hours without a commercial break? What stupid program could keep its viewers glued to the screen, no matter how pathetic they were, for such a long time? In other words, where the hell were the caretakers and nurses? I had nothing to say for the doctors…I feel like it’s acceptable for them not to be around. A moment’s distraction was all I needed. Just a moment! The distance between us was short enough to deliver a blow.
“What did you say to his parents?” I had to buy time. Someone was bound to walk in. “How did you send them home?”
“We didn’t,” said Şükrü. “Hüseyin did. He said that you were coming and that you’d stay overnight.”
“He insisted they leave before it got late,” said Ferdı, picking up where Şükrü had left off. “He made our life easier. We hadn’t really planned for tonight. Had we, Şükrü?”
“No,” said Şükrü. “We just came to see if they’d used the cologne we prepared.”
The cologne they’d prepared? Just what part of it had they prepared?
“Sulfuric acid,” said Ferdı. “It doesn’t kill. It’s just good for the skin! But they didn’t use it.”
It seemed he wasn’t satisfied with anything he did. He just wanted more and more! To leave more of a trace, to be remembered more often, by more people, and with more hate.
“You’re mad,” I said. “You need treatment.”
“Who isn’t?” he said, with a sly smile on his face. “Do you think you’re normal? There’s no difference between thinking you’re Audrey Hepburn and thinking you’re Napoleon. Besides, the treatment would take too long. AIDS would kill me before they had a chance to fix me.”
I didn’t think I was Audrey Hepburn. She was just my idol. But I wasn’t expecting him to understand that.
Suddenly the door opened and Gönül stormed in.
“Oh, my pups! Why didn’t you let me knooow? I—”
Here was the moment I’d been waiting for. Springing up from where I sat, I shot out in a somersault on my hands, aiming for Ferdı’s head. Bull’s-eye. He tumbled over onto Hüseyin, with the syringe still in his hand. And I on top of the two. I quickly pulled the drip tube out of Hüseyin’s arm. With my other hand I simultaneously delivered a choking blow to Ferdı’s thymus gland. It wasn’t difficult for me to trap his neck in a deadly scissor leg hold.
Not knowing what she had walked in upon, Gönül stood flabbergasted, unable to finish her sentence.
“Oh, my! Help! Help!” she yelled.
Someone had to have heard that. It must have echoed into the corridor.
Ferdı was already under my control when a nurse, followed by a husky caretaker, came in to scold us for making so much noise. Hüseyin was being squashed underneath us. Seeing as his life had been saved, getting a little squashed was nothing to worry about, really.
36.
It was sheer luck that Genteel Gönül had arrived. She had run into Hasan on the street and, Hasan being Hasan, he had told her we were here, and so she had come to wish Hüseyin a speedy recovery.
“Ay, my abla, why didn’t you let me know?” she said in her own unique style of talking. “Okayyy, I ged id, you’re fay-moos now. You won’t have anyting to do with us anymooore…But going into the hosp-it-aall and not letting me know. I’m a helping hand. Tank God I bumped into your Hasan and he told me. Or how would I ever have found out! I know I’m not reeeally your class or anyting, but I believe a friend in need is a friend indeed. Wherever tere iz illness or a funeral, tere you’ll find me. Good time Charlies are plenty. Tank God alllmighty I’m not one of tose.”
I had never been so happy to see her. Besides, I knew she had a crush on Hüseyin.
Ferdı and Şükrü were arrested. I was going to do everything in my power to keep from letting Ferdı slip through the hands of justice on an insanity plea. I called all the psychologists and lawyers I knew. “Obsession,” they said it was. It was more likely he would be sent to a mental institution for treatment than sentenced to prison. Like he had said, maybe AIDS would do him in first. I always opposed the belief of certain extreme conservatives who claim that AIDS is divine retribution that has befallen homosexuals as punishment for their perversion. But there you had it, an irony of fate; perhaps in this special case, AIDS actually was going to bring divine justice.
Ferdı, whom I couldn’t bring myself to pity, had envied the peaceful life I had created for myself over the years and had done everything in his power to destroy it. In his efforts to deprive me of my peace and comfort, he wanted to make those around me suffer as well. After all, their suffering would be my suffering, and I could never be at peace with myself thinking that their pain, or their deaths, were all my fault. So the logic went.
Şükrü, who believed that with Ferdı he had found peace and discovered the light of his life, needed serious psychological treatment as well. I didn’t think I wanted to see him again. He had been working for me all that time. I couldn’t forgive him for what he had done. I was going to have to find a new bartender.
Pulling out the drip tube in a single sudden move, I had ripped Hüseyin’s vein open. They stitched him up before he lost too much blood. He’s going to get better. He’s getting his new car tomorrow. He didn’t borrow money from me. But of course I paid for the hospital expenses. In me he believes he’s found the peace he’s been searching for. He intends to continue our relationship the way he knows it to be. I don’t. I’m going to have to give it some thought.
Süheyl Arkın has been released from the hospital too, but he won’t be able
to prepare or present his show for some time. I watched him being discharged on television. He said that once he was fully recovered, and before he went back to work poking his nose into all sorts of business, he wanted to go on holiday, something he hadn’t done in years. Naturally this news appeared on his own channel, not on any of the others.
I made sure that the girl with the bicycle, Hatice, was delivered to the police safely. She’ll probably be tried for collaboration. Yılmaz was the one who turned her in. I don’t know what explanation he gave them. He wouldn’t be keeping watch at my door anymore.
Selçuk was furious at first when he found out about all I had done; but then we made up. He’s always had a soft spot for me. I had a favor to return to the police. Cemil Kazancı saved my day. He and Selçuk are going to meet. In private. I’m organizing it. Apparently Cemil Kazancı wants to negotiate certain terms in a civilized manner. He had said that they could turn over certain wanted criminals who dealt in matters such as drugs, of which he himself did not approve. In return, the police would have to turn a blind eye to other, minor issues.
I bought know-it-all Melek a pair of red Converse shoes. I sent them to her with Hüseyin. Hüseyin was hesitant to give them to her himself, though, thinking it might give people the wrong idea, so he assigned the task to his mother. According to what Mrs. Kozalac told me over the phone, Melek was thrilled; she’d said she was going to prepare a present for me too, and that she was always ready to help whenever I needed her. Her mother, however, had apparently become suspicious as to why someone they didn’t know would send her daughter a present for no reason.
In return for his assistance both on the night of the operation and with the Cemil Kazancı issue, Selçuk too deserved a memorable gift. I wondered if he, like Ponpon, would be expecting chocolates, the gift Ponpon had apparently, and longingly, expected from me for so many long years. I’d add a box of chocolates to his actual gift.
The Serenity Murders Page 23
