43
In the last week of July, while Sinan was filming in the Southeast, a summer cold that had left Jeannie with a bad cough sent her into premature labour. Although the crisis passed, her doctor decided it would be safer to keep her under observation. She had no cause to complain – her room at the Admiral Bristol Hospital was on a par with what she would have had in the US, and the nursing was up to the same standard. But she was not in a good way. Her small emergency had robbed her of what little confidence she’d had, and her medication didn’t help matters. Although it did what it was meant to do – arrest labour – it also induced anxiety. She was still having contractions, at least two an hour, and she got it into her head that they were trying to squeeze the life out of the baby. She would persist in this delusion until she’d felt the baby kick again. Between crises, she was bored, restless, breathless. She couldn’t concentrate and was no good at conversation, either, but that made her loyal friends try all the harder.
Chloe and Suna visited in the afternoons with playing cards and chessboards and, if all else failed, gossip. In the evening, Suna would arrive with Europe’s best newspapers to save Jeannie’s mind from ‘the ravages of hormones’, to keep her ‘abreast of the world’ and entertain her with her deepest thoughts.
Her latest brainchild was an electronic newsletter called Enlightenment 2000. It did not boast many readers beyond her circle of friends and colleagues. She ran it along the same lines as their short-lived school newspaper. Her pen names were less fanciful but the old fire still flickered in her closely reasoned but rarely reasonable prose. The central feature was a rambling interview, always a battle of wits. She called it ‘a free exchange between friends’ and for the August newsletter, she’d asked Jeannie to be her sparring mate.
What they argued about during the interview she taped that evening in Jeannie’s hospital room was human rights – not the sorry state of human rights in Turkey at that juncture but the philosophical tensions that the international movement carried. Suna drew, as usual, on thinkers most people only pretended to have read – Kant, Heidegger, Arendt. Jeannie drew upon what she knew of the law, the EU, the dilemmas of human rights work in the field, and they spent most of the interview trying (unsuccessfully) to correct the other’s misapprehensions.
But just before the tape ran out Suna asked Jeannie what it was like to be back in Turkey. ‘To put it baldly, I am asking how you can square this with your legacy, this past of yours that so obsessed you. The fact that you are the American daughter of an American spy.’
What a rush Jeannie felt at that moment – finally, an opening! By now she, too, had forgotten to speak carefully – long interviews are like that, you forget the whirring tape. ‘I’ll never square it,’ she said. ‘But I can’t let it end there. I have to find my own way.’ You couldn’t choose your father, she said, but you could choose your legacy – decide what it was about the American tradition you disowned, and what you wished to honour and pass on to others.
‘Such noble thoughts,’ said Suna. ‘But you have evaded my question.’ So she asked it again – what did Jeannie make of Turkey 2000?’ In reply she said she was concerned about the IMF and the World Bank acting as if they owned the place, which, in a sense they did. ‘As someone whose association with this country goes back thirty years, I’m only too aware how long the US government has been pulling the strings here, imposing policies that benefit no one except perhaps for the fat cats in their pay.’ Jeannie had hoped that this crude approach to foreign policy management would end with the collapse of Communism. ‘So I’m concerned,’ she said, ‘when I see the old crooks still prospering.’
Here Suna demurred: ‘This is a simplistic view of things.’
‘Then please,’ Jeannie said, ‘Illuminate me.’ She picked up that day’s issue of Milliyet. On the front page was a large photograph of their old enemy İsmet, who had called a press conference to deny rumours that he was seeding a new political party. But he went on to say just what that party hoped to be: the voice of modernity, dedicated to eradicating corruption and political Islam – the two scourges now threatening to bring Turkey to its knees.
‘Just how can you sit there,’ Jeannie asked, ‘while a man like this pontificates against corruption?’
Suna puffed out her lips. ‘And you are telling me that in your sainted America, politicians have clean hands?’
‘We’re talking about İsmet, the man who…’
As Suna’s hands flew up, she screeched, ‘That’s enough!’
‘You’re afraid of him! Don’t deny it!’
Affecting nonchalance, Suna said, ‘If I were hoping to go into the gunrunning business, then perhaps I would fear this man. But as a lowly sociologist editing a humble journal for the five others who share my views, I do not fear him. For he has even less interest in me than I in him.’
They ought to have known that the Turkish press would be interested in what Jeannie had to say about her father, no matter how obscure the publication.
A few days later, Sinan, who by now had returned from the Southeast, handed Jeannie a printout of the newsletter. From his expression you’d have thought it was his death warrant. Though she was glad to see his calm disturbed, it still irked Jeannie to see that (because of her ‘condition’?) he was keeping his fury to himself. She wanted to say, ‘Stop babying me, goddamn it! I’m your wife!’ Instead she said, ‘I’m sorry. I should have told you. But you were away.’
‘Still,’ he said, ‘you should have known better.’
‘If you’d told me more,’ Jeannie replied, ‘then perhaps I would have done.’
‘There’s nothing you need to know I haven’t told you.’
She watched him clench and unclench his fist.
‘It’s not just a question of need,’ she said. ‘It’s a question of respect.’
‘Oh is it now?’ There was a hint of the old fire in his voice.
‘You’re shutting me out,’ Jeannie said. ‘How can you expect me to get over something I don’t even know about? I can’t live this way, Sinan.’
‘What are you trying to say – that I can?’
He was spitting his words now, the way he’d done as a boy. His eyes had turned to liquid. Part of her welcomed that, too. ‘Do you think this is easy?’
‘Listen,’ she said. ‘As I’ve said before, you’re under no obligation. If I’m a burden…’
‘There’s no if about it. You are a burden. My burden. How many times do I have to tell you! I don’t mind!’
‘But I do mind,’ Jeannie cried. ‘I’ve had enough! I don’t want to live this way!’
To her shock and horror, he turned around and bellowed: ‘Neither do I!’
It was the truth, they both knew it, but after they had sat there for a few stunned seconds – after the nurse had popped her head in the door, and Sinan had gone out ‘for some fresh air’, returning with cakes, peaches, apricot juice, baklava – he apologised. He had no idea where those words had come from. ‘Perhaps it’s work.’
But how her heart ached. How she longed to ask him why. A line from Stevie Smith came back to her, how being almost-but-not-quite-in-love was wholly evil. She knew then what she had to ask him. But she hesitated, afraid, perhaps, to hear her fears confirmed. And then it was too late. The moment had passed, and he was talking about the blasted interview.
‘What game does Suna think she’s playing?’ he asked, clenching his fist. ‘And for what? Because your father is coming for a visit? What harm can he do us? He’s had nothing to do with this country for thirty years. It doesn’t matter who he is. But then you go and dig this up, drag in İsmet…’
‘What does it matter what İsmet thinks?’ Jeannie said. ‘He has no power over us.’
‘You have no idea how much power he has over us,’ said Sinan. ‘And I hope you never find out.’
They made peace, but it was a fragile peace, because the next day, a national newspaper ran the interview in translation; on the next day, three o
thers did the same, and on the Sunday, three more. The headlines were along the lines of, ‘Turkey Is Where My Heart Lies Now, says CIA Daughter.’ and ‘My Father Was a Spy and I Repudiate Him.’ That was the one her father brought from the airport.
The first thing he said was, ‘Hi. I’m the father you repudiate.’ Seeing Jeannie squirm, he said, ‘No apologies necessary, my dear! It’s nice to know that in one place at least, I’m not forgotten.’ He glanced towards the door, where a pregnant woman and an older relative had slowed their passage to get a good look at them. He waved at them affably. ‘The father,’ said one. The other said, ‘Zavallı. Poor man.’
‘So we’re the talk of the town, are we?’ he said as he closed the door. ‘I can’t tell you how refreshing that is, after twenty years in a city where no one reads a paper unless they’re looking for a deal on pool cleaner or the Early Bird Special at The Red Lobster. So,’ he said. ‘How are you bearing up?’
There was something about his careless smile and the whiff of fresh air he’d brought in with him that made Jeannie blurt out the truth.
She said things she didn’t even know she thought. She’d been mad to come back, to think she could turn an obsession she’d carried around her whole life into the sort of love that could sustain a marriage. She couldn’t get the past out of her head. The rest had moved on. When ghosts came out of the woodwork, they just walked right through them, and Jeannie had to hand it to them, seeing their courage did her heart good, but she had no idea how they did it and it was pretty obvious she never would. But here she was, bringing a child into the world, another burden. She didn’t want to be a burden. And now she knew that Sinan was only humouring her, that he had accepted this child out of duty, not love…
‘He said that?’ There was surprise in her father’s voice.
‘Of course not. He’s too fucking polite. He refuses to talk about it. He’s walled himself off.’
‘So how do you read that?’ her father asked. But now the door opened, and it was Hector. At the sight of William Wakefield he opened his arms wide and let out his usual cry of ahistorical joy. Then it was Amy, and more of the same. By the time Sinan arrived, Chloe and Lüset had also joined the party. Seeing his long face, Jeannie’s father said, ‘You’re not worried about this, are you?’ He waved the Sunday paper with his picture on the front. Seeing Sinan’s face darken, he said, ‘I don’t mind. Honestly. It’s just words. I’ve heard them all before. It’s just how we talk to each other, Jeannie and I. Don’t worry on my account. This is just the way the cookie crumbles.’
‘Cookies do not crumble by themselves,’ said Sinan ominously.
‘Politics. What can I tell you? It’s what the English call a mug’s game.’
This sent Sinan back into his silence. When he excused himself, William patted his daughter’s leg and said, ‘If you don’t mind, I’m going to chase after him. Maybe go out somewhere, get a bite to eat. There’s something he and I need to discuss. You don’t mind, do you? Hector? Amy? Can you sit out this shift?’
‘I’m fine on my own,’ Jeannie insisted.
‘You, young lady, need to get some sleep.’
How she hated that condescending note in his voice. Hated sitting there with them pretending to enjoy Amy’s smoked chicken and the special low alcohol champagne she’d brought all the way from Austria. It was not that she wasn’t grateful, and not that she didn’t enjoy their company. She just couldn’t bear being here, being suffered. If she’d been able, she’d have walked out right then.
When Suna arrived, just past nine, all Jeannie wanted was some time alone. So after Hector and Amy had said their farewells, she told Suna she should leave, too. Not a chance. ‘What do you take me for,’ asked Suna huffily, ‘a wolf child?’ She reminded Jeannie that Turkish families never ever left their loved ones unattended in times of illness. ‘Anything less would be barbaric.’
‘So which cat has bitten your tongue this evening?’ she asked.
‘I can’t take this any more,’ Jeannie said. ‘And neither can he.’
Suna sat down on the half-made sofa bed. ‘So what are you trying to say?’
She told her. Suna appeared to listen. When Jeannie said she had decided to leave Turkey, Suna shook her head. ‘No, Jeannie, this would not be best. You must stay here, and resolve your differences. Think of the child. Be strong.’
‘What’s the point of being strong,’ she asked, ‘if he doesn’t love me?’
‘He loves you,’ said Suna. ‘You just refuse to see it.’
‘You don’t know how he looks at me. You don’t know how hurtful it is.’
‘Even so. I cannot let you leave.’
‘But Suna, it has nothing to do with you.’
‘Oh yes, Jeannie, it does. It most certainly does.’
‘I’ll make my own decisions, thank you very much.’
‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Ah. If I want to hear the Voice of America, I’ll buy a radio. In the meantime, you are no longer free to do as you like.’
‘And why not, may I ask?’
‘You are bearing his child!’ Suna snapped.
‘Yes, but he doesn’t want it!
‘How would you know, my fairweather friend? Who knows him better, you who have just wafted in, or me, his lifelong companion? Is it my fault that he wishes to spare you pain? You don’t deserve his love. And that is not all! My friend, you no longer deserve the gift of innocence.’ She strolled over to the light switch and plunged the room into darkness. All Jeannie could see was the ember of the cigarette she now lit and the hint of a ceiling.
‘There are things you should know.’
44
August 27nd 2000
‘This is the difference between us. She can live with herself and I can’t. She can spill out this story, and just when I’ve taken in the full horror of it, she rolls over with that harrumph of hers, turns her back on me and falls asleep. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be able to roll over like that, to take a deep breath without the baby’s foot pressing against my lungs, to stare at the ceiling without wondering if it’s still alive. I even envy her snore.
I am writing this down because it’s only by writing that I can hope to make sense of it. Is it true what she said – that I have not and never will put down roots here? Is there a line to be drawn between my father’s arrival and my sudden longing to get out on the first plane? Who am I trying to run away from, my father or myself? Or is he my out – my “Get Out of Jail Free” card? It stings me just to write this. That must mean there’s truth in it.
One thing that’s been nagging at me all along: why people like Haluk and Lüset, people who want a quiet life, would allow themselves to be dragged into an intrigue of these proportions. Well, I know now. The fire of Suna’s arguments would leave them with no choice. We can count ourselves lucky she did not go into law.
She played all the parts tonight. She was her own most ardent advocate, and her harshest prosecutor. But for all her magnificent rhetoric: something was wrong at the core. Submissive – is that the word I’m looking for?
She was duped, badly duped, but by the end she credits these evil men for teaching her “the ways of the world”. That’s not right, but if I don’t work out why soon… She’ll drown me out. And then she’ll drown herself.’
This is how they did her over: on the morning of May 25th 1971, Suna’s mother woke her up to tell her she had a visitor. This man was İsmet, and in her mother’s presence, he was the ‘essence of good manners’. He claimed to be the representative of a scholarship fund, here to interview her for a bursary. After Suna’s mother left to make the tea, he spoke more curtly, saying he had come to discuss her moral character. When she asked why, he said, ‘Because you have cheapened yourself. You are a Turkish girl, from a good family. But now no Turkish boy will touch you.’
He then told her he knew about her PLO training. When she insisted she had never been to the Lebanon, let alone the Bekaa Valley, he silenced her with a wave. What he wante
d from her were the names of the army officers with whom she and her fellow student revolutionaries had been conspiring. At which she had laughed in his face. At his advanced age, with his advanced rank, could he not tell the difference between a true threat to state security and a schoolgirl fancy?
Her next meeting with İsmet came three days later, in the police station, when they were all taken in for questioning about the car bomb. His first words to her: ‘So – in addition to having a big mouth and a wide cunt, we know something else about you. Congratulations. You are a true revolutionary. Not only will you whore for your ideas. You will sacrifice innocents to save your skin.’ Slamming his fist down on the table, he demanded that she admit to having planted the bomb that almost killed Jeannie’s father. He passed a document across the table. It was the confession he now wished her to sign. It declared that Dutch Harding had been running a bomb factory. His favourite students had been helping him.
‘Who told you this nonsense?’ That’s what Suna said as she threw the confession on the floor. But she already knew the answer. It was her flirt. It was Jordan. ‘Everything he had told İsmet was the purest fiction. But it was just the pure fiction that suited İsmet’s purpose. He wanted Dutch Harding to hang, but I was damned if I would help him.’
Suna steeled herself for a cruel interrogation. But then Jeannie’s father had stormed into the room, demanding her prompt release. Relieved though she was to return to her home and her bed, she was nevertheless uneasy. She had to wonder if they had released her for a purpose. But what could that purpose be? She could not fathom it. She was in Alice’s Wonderland, as painted by Salvador Dali.
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