Within seconds he’s sitting straight up in his chair. Tearing off his aviator shades he gropes for the reading glasses he uses only when he’s not skimming.
Things right themselves—they always do.
Kurdish partisans in Assad’s roiling Syria are now pretty much in control of the northern region along the Turkish border. A number of them recently slipped across the border and joined up with Kurdish guerrillas concealed there. Yesterday morning a group of sixty or more Kurds ambushed and routed a Turkish patrol—three killed, six wounded, the rest apparently taken hostage—before withdrawing south across the frontier. So, as of now, Turkey’s latest truce with the PKK is in tatters. The Hürriyet quotes the regional Turkish commander as saying he intends to pursue the enemy across the border with a large body of commandos and regular troops, even some armour, to rescue the hostages and to destroy the enemy. He expects the operation and its aftermath to take some time, given that there are several thousand armed partisans waiting just inside Syria and they will not shy from a fight.
Within minutes Kaya, having called to Ömer in the kitchen for another coffee and a shot of raki, lights a fresh cheroot and starts an email to one of his few remaining contacts in Ankara, General Dogan Yilmaz. Kaya and Yilmaz were drinking companions some years ago when they were both stationed in Edirne as first lieutenants. Yilmaz was married here at the club seven years ago and since then has twice returned on holiday, most recently three years ago.
After prefatory salutations, remarks on the belated change of weather in Cyprus, and good wishes to the general’s wife and three sons, Kaya gets to business: At any rate, I’ve been sensing in my adjutant, this Captain Polat, an increasing restlessness and dissatisfaction. As you know, I’ve managed to adapt myself to the quiet administrative, custodial nature of this posting, but the captain is utterly bored. He finds it hard to accept that some duties, such as those of our quiet exile here, are of an undramatic nature. Put plainly, he’s a young idealist (he’s 29), and the kind of soldier who is impatient to test his mettle. Here, of course, he gets no chance. His qualities are squandered. His passion lies fallow. It’s a shame. Not only does he crave larger challenges but also, I feel, truly needs and deserves them. Though physically unimposing, he does not lack for courage. He is dutiful and honest—almost inhumanly so. You wouldn’t much like him—few would, I think—but he has the makings of an excellent officer, in the traditional mould.
Kaya stops and takes a drag on his cheroot, amused in spite of himself. By “traditional” he means, basically, “medieval.”
I also believe he is deeply ambitious and craves opportunities for promotion…Seeing how this phrase could be misconstrued and make Yilmaz uneasy, but loath to backspace, rethink, and rewrite, Kaya simply expands: Ambitious and yet unselfish—the army is everything to him. To speak plainly, old friend, Captain Aydin Polat, both for his own good and, frankly, for mine, needs to be dispatched to some place where he can truly apply his training, and also cultivate his qualities as a leader, for which he has considerable (and, here in Varosha, utterly untapped) potential.
I understand that within weeks, or days, a punitive operation is likely to be launched against the PKK and PYD along the Syrian border. If you could somehow arrange to have the captain transferred to one of the units that General Özel means to deploy in the mission, I would be greatly in your debt. More importantly, I think the captain himself would be so gratified by the transfer, and the possibilities it might afford, that he would not for a minute resent it, or see it as anything less than what it is—(Kaya takes another long, pensive drag)—a kind of situational promotion. All the same, I think it would be best if he did not know that the idea originated with me. And please forgive me for not going through regular channels, but in such a situation, there is no time to waste. At any rate, if you can arrange for him to join the operation, we can only pity the Kurdish fighters who will be subjected to the ferocity he has stored up while raring for action down here…
Yes, and pity the Turkish ones who might have to endure his high-minded little tyrannies. And now it strikes Kaya that if Polat actually were to see action as an officer, he might send some recruits to unnecessary deaths, or be shot or blown up himself (the Kurds know to pick off the officers and NCOS first). Troubled by both possibilities, he simply changes the subject on himself, using for distraction the taste of his raki on the rocks, the aromatic tang of fennel in the bouquet. Then back to the email: he writes that Polat is now actually in Trabzon, enjoying a short holiday after injuring himself by training too hard during the recent heat wave. The PKK will never know what has hit them! He concludes by urging General Yilmaz to be his guest again before too long and tacks on a lyrical, loving description of the beachside patio in mid-morning, the new narcissi, the smell of Ömer’s cooking as he begins preparing lunch: beef shashlik on saffron rice.
Like a stockbroker sealing a briefcase after closing a deal, he snaps shut his laptop with a flourish. He peels off his shirt and walks out from under the trellis into full sunlight. Not a cloud over the sea between this empty beach, his own personal beach, and the mountains of Syria beyond the horizon. He cracks his neck and his knuckles as he strolls down to the water and wades in—the shallows cool but still pleasant—and starts breaststroking along the shore.
On his return he finds a brief but friendly reply waiting. Yilmaz misses Kaya and hopes to visit the club again soon, perhaps with his family. Meanwhile he will try to get Kaya’s “seemingly mis-posted” adjutant transferred. He can guarantee nothing—he knows that Kaya understands—but he will do his very best. (Kaya believes it; his old friend is not only discreet but conscientious to the point of obsession.) Kaya has also received a message from his ex-wife, Pinar, with good news: the children can come to stay here for the New Year holiday. Now if only there were a third message from the hospital, to say that Eylül Şahin has surfaced from her coma or “locked-in” state! Since Kaya’s last visit it has been the same puzzling story: strong vital signs and sporadic high-level neural activity, but, still, this coma. Of course, he remains a touch concerned that she might have been aware of his kiss, but more and more he thinks it unlikely. After all, he himself was fully conscious and yet the act now seems unreal to him, like the vestige of a reverie or spell of deep inebriation. Anyhow, he can talk his way out of trouble if necessary.
Just five days later—the day before Polat is scheduled to fly back from his leave in Trabzon—Yilmaz emails Kaya to notify him that the transfer has been approved. The captain is to report back to Kaya, collect his belongings, then fly through Ankara to Diyarbakir and report to General Özel. When Kaya receives this email on the patio, his happiness is extensive, even by his standards. He gathers that some people see joy as little more than relief in disguise, a remission from worry and pain—but while joy for Kaya is a true presence, not just the absence of suffering, he finally understands the concept.
—
At 5 P.M. on the day that Polat is scheduled to report back (Kaya expected him by noon, but there’s no sign of him and his mobile is switched off, so maybe he’s on the later flight) he receives a call from the hospital. It’s the helpful head nurse, delivering good news in a hesitant tone, as if bad news is to follow. Bayan Şahin has been conscious since early this morning. The nurse apologizes that she herself was not on duty at the time, or she would have called the colonel at once, as promised. She says, “Praise be to God, the patient is doing very well!” and adds quickly, “She has had visits from several doctors and therapists, as well as someone from the military.”
“The military?”
“I’m afraid…the new nurse on the ward this morning failed to receive my instructions and call you, as promised, Albay Kaya.”
The woman is audibly cringing, frightened. It’s widely understood that the army here deals with troublesome Turkish Cypriots by arranging traffic “accidents.” Last month, the north’s only visible gay activist was run down and seriously hurt by a commissary van in north
Nicosia, and Kaya fears it must have been deliberate.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “Please. It’s not your fault. Tell me, though, who was it who came in? And what time?”
“I’m not sure, Albay, I’m so sorry. The new nurse says it was an officer. I’m afraid she failed to ask his name.”
“But no journalists yet? No family? I need to speak to her first.”
“Her father is flying down now. The news people…they don’t know yet that she is conscious, and she asks that we not admit them once they do.” (That sounds promising, he thinks.) “Shall I try to find out who the officer was, Albay?”
“It’s all right—I’ll come in right now.”
“Now?”
“I know visiting hours are over,” he says, “but…”
“Of course, Albay! I’ll be here at the desk myself.”
He’s about to don his resplendent dress uniform and boots, but then—not wanting to remind a victim so vividly of his connection to her attackers—he demotes himself to beige khakis, a crisp yellow shirt, and laceless polished brown shoes. Ali drives him up the beach to Famagusta. They barrel over amber strips of sunlight lancing from between the corroding towers, beyond which the sun is sinking into the dead zone.
In the hospital the head nurse, in her kerchief, with double chin and earlobes reddening, keeps apologizing as she hurries with Kaya to the patient’s room. He tells her again not to worry, everything is fine.
He enters the room alone, eases the door almost shut. Eylül Şahin is sitting up, two pillows behind her, the bed in its raised position. She is sallow, very thin, the bones of her face seemingly trying to break surface, but on the whole she looks well for someone who was in a coma just twelve hours ago. Is that a trace of a smile? He is seeing her eyes for the first time, dark, calm and acute, enormous in her diminished face. Her body and head still bristle with tubes and wires. A monitor displays numbers in flux, which must represent her heart rate and blood pressure, though Kaya knows little about such things. The curtains that divide the room in two are open, the other bed vacant.
He performs a courtly bow. “Forgive me for disturbing you.”
“All right,” she gets out in a dry, constricted voice. The faint smile is gone.
“I’m Erkan Kaya, superintendent of the Varosha Restricted Zone.”
“Hoped you were my father. He should be here in an hour or two.”
“I’m sorry, no. But I’m pleased to hear he’s on his way. Would it be absurd to ask how you’re feeling?”
“Not as rested as you’d think, after a sleep like that.” She reaches for the red-framed glasses on the bed table next to her mobile phone and slowly fits them on. “You’re the colonel?”
“Call me Erkan, please. May I get you anything? A drink?”
“They’re taking care of me.” She lifts a white plastic container and fits the straw between her lips. He sees her mouth and long, sinewy throat working. Her shrivelled arm works, too, to hold up the container, which trembles slightly. With her eyes she indicates the chair to the left of the bed, next to the monitor. “Go ahead.”
He sits. “Teşekkür ederim.”
“I’d prefer to stand,” she says, “after all this. But my legs. Still, I got around the room today, with help. Started exercises. Tomorrow I’ll walk on my own.”
“Is that what they told you?”
“I told them.”
“I see.”
“They say muscles recover fast, at my age. I mean to leave here and fly home with Baba in a few days.” She pauses, sucks up more water. “They say that’s impossible, or at least unlikely.”
“It does seem soon.”
“I can’t leave here soon enough. And unlike you, Colonel, I don’t have to take orders.” He sees now—the eyes are all iris, the pupils tiny with scorn. How rarely has Kaya received such looks in his life! Does she know of his indiscretion? More likely she simply sees him as yet another soldier—and long before that incident on the beach she was critical of the army in her writing, often, in fact, in the Hürriyet. If only she understood that Kaya shares many of her views! He too detests the Polats—and Erdogans—of the world. Not that he can say any of that to a journalist. She adds, “And I’ve work to do in Istanbul, as I told your colleague today. When I explained, he seemed quite upset.”
The numbers on the monitor are rising: 84 and 127/76.
“Who was it you saw?”
“A Captain Polat.”
I knew it.
“He said he helps you with Varosha but has just been transferred.”
“I’m very sorry for this. Captain Polat was meant to report to me today. He has been…on leave, unwell. What did he want?”
“To hear what happened. My story.”
“And you told him?”
“Yes.”
“The truth?”
She looks shocked by the question.
“Forgive me,” he says, “but—”
“He told me your version too. I was being raped, violently. Your men saved me. At least until they shot me.”
“By accident! And it’s not my version, it’s—”
“Your captain embraces it despite all its absurdities”—she pauses for breath; he resists speaking—“and my own objections. Honestly, Colonel, why would I want to protect a rapist?”
“I never believed that part myself”—he’s thinking quickly—“but you can see how the men, in the dark, might have misunderstood whatever was…taking place between you and…You understand, I hope, that they didn’t actually mean to shoot you?”
“He wanted to know what I’ll do with this truth.”
“What did you say?”
“First tell me. He’s alive? Trif? Your man kept saying ‘missing, officially dead.’ You’re holding him?”
“Of course not, no. He’s dead. I’m sorry.” The lie sickens Kaya—it’s harder to tell than expected—but it’s necessary, for the best, for everyone. No use making a fetish of truth; lies are often the more human thing. “I’m sorry. We assume he drowned. Fled and then drowned. We found his mobile in the sea and his clothes on the beach, washed up.”
“No body, then,” she says, just audibly.
“Well, it may surface, in time.”
“If he is dead, it was your men.” The rates rising: 92 and 134/81. “If he drowned, they forced him in. Or shot him and threw him in.”
“We found no sign of that. It could have been suicide, too, I’m afraid. We gather he was on leave, being treated for some kind of, uh…shell shock, or depression. Believe me, please, I’m deeply sorry for everything that has happened. The army will certainly compensate you for your—your trouble, your suffering. But I hope you understand…how can I put it…?”
“You hope I’ll say nothing.”
A sudden draft chills his damp brow and he glances toward the door, where that wall-mounted fan swings side to side, as if recording everything they say.
“Your captain hopes the same,” she says. “He was less polite about it.”
“But surely it would be best, especially for you? You don’t mean to reveal that you were…that you and this Greek, whom you’d only just met…I mean, not that I myself have any…”
“You two are very different.”
“What—I and the Greek?”
“You and the captain. When I said I’d write an article, or book, he tried—”
“A book?”
“—to appeal to my patriotism. He said, did I want to disgrace the army, humiliate Turkey? Though it’s the army he cares most about. Its ‘prestige.’ ” She has been talking expressively enough with just her mouth and eyes, but now she manages to involve her long-fingered hands and wasted arms, lifting them off the bed. “He kept using that word! How I hate it! The army’s ‘prestige’! When people start using ‘prestige’…” She has to pause for more water. She sucks on the straw as if it were the day’s first cigarette.
“I feel the same,” Kaya murmurs, “just the same.”
“I told him—if embarrassing your army helps get it out of here, so the Cypriots can reunify…” Her hands collapse onto the coverlet.
“You’re exhausting yourself, Eylül—Ms. Şahin—please.”
“You’ve no idea—just to be talking, even this way, arguing, angry, remembering what happened—just talking!—it’s a kind of pleasure. I’ve been conscious on and off for days, thinking things, but unable…”
The soaring rates could now be Kaya’s: 95 and 141/82. He glances at the door, leans forward and says, “Our army, rightly or wrongly, will never leave here. That’s just a fact. It can’t be changed. It’s not worth exerting yourself—inviting hatred and scandal on yourself, not to mention on Turkey—for the sake of a truth that, frankly—”
“You admit it’s the truth?”
“How can I know for certain, beyond a reasonable doubt? It’s their word against yours! And as commander I have to assume that my—”
“But you know it, deep down.”
“Truth is not the issue! It’s a matter of—what simply is. I have no choice but to support my men, and there are a number of them, while you—you’re alone. I’m so sorry. And what if I did believe you? It would make no difference—the public would believe them! The public would want to believe them, most of the media would tell them to believe, and so they would believe.”
“It doesn’t gnaw your conscience…he’s now officially a rapist?”
Kaya deflates. He never felt right about that part but could see no alternative.
“He was a good man,” she says. “I saw it.”
He wants to touch her olive-pale forearm, from which the port for the saline drip protrudes, but she wards him off with a look of distaste that pains him very much—a patrician hauteur undiminished by her helplessness, those shaved spots for electrodes among the black roots in her hair, a forlorn blonde dye-job growing out. He says, “Please listen. If you really are willing to face the hostility of, of reactionaries, millions of them, well…maybe you could state publicly that the men were mistaken—that it was no rape. But honestly mistaken—they must have been! You’d have to state that too. It was very dark on the beach, after all, and the Greek did assault the sergeant—I saw his wounds.”
The Nightingale Won't Let You Sleep Page 14
