The Prophet Murders

by Mehmet Murat Somer

  He pointed to a building next to Odakule, not even looking at us.

  “The top floor of that building.”

  I quickly handed over the fare, then tried to open the left-hand door. The sooner I got out in the street the better. The door refused to open.

  “It’s broken. You’ll have to use the other side,” he said.

  Gönül opened her door, but had no intention of getting out.

  “What if we can’t find it? Come on, why don’t you escort us?”

  He pointed to the building once again.

  “The top floor,” he said. “It’s called Mefharet, or Meserret or something like that.”

  He gave me my change and I gave Gönül a push. She had to be shoved.

  “He was such a looker! Just my type,” she sighed. “And you didn’t help out one bit. Shame on you!”

  I grinned foolishly, the last resort of the truly speechless. It can signal understanding, humility or apology. I left the interpretation to Gönül.

  We took the lift to the top floor, then climbed a flight of stairs to a rooftop terrace with a sweeping view of the Golden Horn.

  The waterfront districts of Balat, Fener and Ayvansaray lay before us. There aren’t many customers, which was a good thing.

  I wanted to get our orders out of the way and get down to business. The second we were handed menus I asked the waiter what he recommended.

  “Prawn casserole as a starter, followed by. . . ”

  Gönül interrupted.

  “I don’t eat prawns.”

  “What’s today’s special?” I asked.

  “Filet mignon with mushrooms; or schnitzel.”

  “Which would you like?” I asked Gönül.

  “Why don’t we order both and share,” she suggested. “That way we won’t be eyeing each other’s plates.”

  It wasn’t a bad idea. We ordered. Once the waiter left, Gönül began to talk.

  “As you may know, I sometimes go out on tour.”

  I didn’t know. But it didn’t seem important, so I didn’t react. Still, she was determined to explain everything in detail.

  “Sweetie, a real merchant knows when and where to make money. You’ve got to wait till the hazelnuts or cotton has been harvested. Then you call in your debts. You’ve got to know when they come to pick cotton in Ceyhan. That’s the time to offer your services. Once the work’s done, when men have empty hands and full pockets, what’s on their minds? Us! So you see, I work systematically.”

  I had to hand it to her. I couldn’t believe no one else had thought of it. If one gets past her affected lisp, her sense of technique is certainly praiseworthy.

  “That’s clever, all right,” I complimented her.

  “Of course. I know what I’m doing. The others think I’m some kind of hick, but I know every trick in the book. I won’t tell you any more, though. That just won’t do.”

  I read somewhere that people can influence the intelligence of others nearby. Gönül is definitely one of those. Sitting across from her, I felt my ability to think dwindle away, my IQ retreat into double digits.

  “Anyway. I headed for Rize last year just after the tea harvest. You can’t imagine how hard it is to keep track of those things. I hear the harvest dates on TV and off I go.”

  The assistant waiter brings us our drinks. Gönül is quiet until he leaves.

  “So I went to Rize, wondering what my share of the tea harvest would be. There are special coffee houses where the tea merchants and workers hang out. I had a seat at one of them. The air simply heaved with kismet. One day a young man arrived. He was a handsome, well-built guy. We reached an agreement. Off we went to his house. There were six or seven of them, all brothers. And Yusuf was the baby of the family. I sized him up at a glance. He was just like a girl. So beautiful. Those eyes. Those lips. That pink complexion. As though he was born with a powdered nose. Once his brothers were done with me, and I was on my way, he followed me all along the road, pestering me with questions about Istanbul, what kind of work he could find if he came. What he was getting at was just so obvious.”

  Our food arrived.

  “Which one do you want to start with?” she asked.

  I let her choose.

  “I’ll start with the wet one. Then move on to the dry one.”

  I carefully divided the schnitzel into two equal portions, pushing hers to one side of my plate.

  “In short, the dear boy followed me around for two days. And I brought him to Istanbul with me.”

  “But he wasn’t even of age. He was still a child.”

  “I know,” she admitted. “But if I hadn’t taken him with me someone else would have. He’d made up his mind. He was determined to come to Istanbul.”

  Her lisp had become still more exaggerated, with thin ‘e’s replacing most ‘a’s. I was concentrating so hard on her liberties with the Turkish language that I missed most of what she was saying. I mean, I was having trouble following what she was saying, even though we both speak the same language. Or at least versions of it.

  “Weren’t you frightened? That’s like kidnapping a child.”

  “Aman, what’s there to be afraid of? They marry off boys and girls that age.”

  “What about his older brothers? What did they do?”

  “I’ve got no idea. We didn’t call and ask.”

  She was totally engrossed in her meal, and speaking much more slowly as a result. First, she cut her meat into tiny pieces, then transferred her fork to her right hand. Each morsel was then conveyed to her mouth, one by one.

  “He was going to be my companion. He’d go off to work with me, learn all the ropes. He’d be like a daughter. I even christened him Gül after his face, which was like a rose. The name stuck.”

  “He’d also make you a lot of money. . . ”

  “Naturally. In any case, he was all set to get into the business. Why shouldn’t it benefit me instead of others? Don’t you agree? And when he grew up he’d look after me. We’d work together, eat together. I have no intention of working the road for the rest of my life.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “What do you think? He met that whore Ceren. My little lamb didn’t have a mean bone in his body. He adored everything he saw, and wanted it. You know me. I’m careful with my money. I don’t spend like crazy. The more Gül saw, the more he wanted; nothing was enough. Then Ceren got on his tail.”

  Her face suddenly grew bitter, lower lip twisted and distended, like Mürevvet Sim. Her eyes rolled sideways, disapprovingly.

  “Ceren peddled him right and left. He was just rolling in it. A hairless boy, like a peanut. And he knew what he was doing.

  Who knows how many tricks a night he turned; you can imagine.”

  There was an unmistakable trace of envy in Gönül’s voice. And she did have a point after all, she’d found the beautiful boy, brought him to the city, and then seen the cream of her efforts skimmed off by Ceren.

  “Do you have any idea how he died?”

  “He drowned. In a well. You know the proverb about the earthenware water jug being broken on the way to the well. Well, in this case it’s true. He died as he lived.”

  “And Ceren died just a day earlier in a fire.”

  “May Allah damn her to hell! May she burn in hell! The whore got what she deserved. That disgusting bitch! What else can I say?”

  “Well, she is dead,” I noted.

  We exchanged plates. I started on the filet mignon.

  “I’m so upset about Gül,” Gönül continued, mouth full.

  “He was just so pretty. Like his name. A beautiful face like the Prophet Joseph.”

  That’s it! The uncanny coincidence, half registered and half hidden somewhere in the shadows of my mind, was lit up as though by a flashbulb: the similarity between what happened to Gül-Yusuf and the story of the Prophet Yusuf! Both were renowned for their beauty. Both were the youngest of a large family. With his perfect temperament and beauty, the Prophet Yusuf was
the most beloved of his father’s children. The Prophet Yusuf also had elder brothers. According to the Holy Book, the brothers were so jealous of their father’s favouritism they cast poor Yusuf into a well. Gül also had brothers. And Gül died in a well.

  The newly arrived cup of strong, black coffee brings me back to my senses. Her brothers must have found and punished her. That sort of traditional justice is still common in some parts. Families gather to pass judgement on members who have gone astray. A verdict of execution is often reached. And this particular execution is usually carried out in the most horrific way imaginable. That could be what happened to Gül, the young Yusuf. If so, it was a truly brutal act. I shuddered.

  Eight

  I got rid of Gönül as quickly as possible. I needed to collect my thoughts.

  If Yusuf had been killed by his brothers, they could have stumbled across Ceren while tracking down Yusuf, and killed her for getting her brother mixed up in homosexuality. But Ceren died first! Well, that was possible. Perhaps they grilled her to find out where Yusuf was; they may even have tortured her to make her talk. And then they found Yusuf . . .

  Okay so far, but even if true how could I prove it? I had nothing but a collection of hypotheses. I might be imagining the whole thing.

  There was a pounding in my temples. Violence of any kind totally rattles me.

  The lady doctor at the coroner’s office could be of help, but that was conditional on one thing: letting her play with my arse. I could clench my jaw and let her. The worst possible scenario was failing to get any information. I’d end up with a sore bum for nothing.

  If I only knew exactly what I was looking for. But I didn’t.

  Perhaps commissioner Selçuk Tanyer, whom I hadn’t seen in ages, could be of some help. I went home and looked him up in my rolodex. He was listed on the last page under the title “police chief”. Right at my fingertips.

  It took some effort to reach him, but I finally did.

  “Hey!” he exclaimed. “Long time no see. You only call when you need something.”

  There’s nothing more irritating then beginning a conversation with a reproach. He acted as though my answering machine was full of messages from him. As though he’d been trying to reach me but I only thought of him when it was useful.

  “I didn’t wish to disturb you,” I said. “I know how devoted you are to your work.”

  “I’ve always got time for you,” he said.

  He meant it. We were childhood friends, grew up in the same neighbourhood. He’d protect me when we played out in the street. Later, we’d suck each other’s lips until they were swollen.

  “How can I help you,” he asked.

  I summed things up for him. I knew his department had nothing to do with the case, but I hoped he’d find a way to get access to the coroner’s report.

  “You’ve got some interesting ideas,” he said. “You might be right on the trail. Our fellows thought of the same thing. They may even be investigating the brothers. Give me a second and I’ll find out.”

  “What about the coroner’s report?” I asked.

  “It’s finished,” he said. “I’ll send it to you.”

  I’d have preferred him to suggest a policeman escort me to the forensic science building. I’d have liked to see the expression on the bottom molester’s face when I arrived with an official escort.

  I told him what was on my mind.

  “Don’t exaggerate, dear,” he said. “There’s no need to turn this into high drama.”

  I gave him my number, and we agreed to meet as soon as possible. I hate waiting. It makes me tense. I don’t know what to do with myself. I feel like anything I start will end up half-done. Sitting and waiting only makes time pass even more slowly. Waiting is torture.

  I decided to kill time on the computer. There are always files that need sorting, programs to be deleted. Or I could surf the net, chat, play cards at one of the game sites.

  I’m a whiz at the PC. My computer is just right for me. The updates I’d added gave it an incredible performance.

  I began with mindless scanning and compression tasks, first sorting through old dossiers. I found records dating back to the launch of our chat room. As I was about to delete them, I noticed the nick Jihad2000. He always ended with the formula bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

  I got online and entered our “manly-girls” chat room. There was no sight of Jihad2000. He could be in other chat rooms. I found him by using a powerful search engine. In alphabetical order, he was in the following rooms: “Islam”, “Istanbul”, “Sex”, “Sweethearts” and “Zurna”. He is fast, and able to keep up with them all at once.

  I asked for a private chat. He responded to my DCC request with the usual prayer formula. I asked for his help. That’s how we started. I also allowed him to float prayers and the slogans he had prepared earlier. When I told him another one of us had died, he flew into a rage.

  >you’re all infidels! death is your salvation

  heretics!

  infidels who alter Allah’s work

  you were born men, you live as women

  death is your salvation

  you too are an infidel

  you too will die>

  I didn’t understand. He was implying that some of us are immortal. I wrote:

 
  Don’t you agree?>

  He hadn’t yet begun writing in capital letters. Once his temperature had fallen, he asked what kind of help I wanted. I asked if he knew anything about the death of Yusuf-Gül.

 
  Their names are sacred

  They can’t be defiled

  Those who do shall be punished>

  I thought I caught his drift.

 
  Salih died in an earthquake

  Abraham was tested in a fire

  Joseph was cast into a well

  The prophets’ names are sacred

  Those who use their names

  Must be worthy

  The Koran lists 25 prophets

  And so much else

  Each people were sent a prophet

  Adam, Noah, David, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed!

  And then came the trademark big, angry letters:

 

  He was no longer responding to me. He was off on a bender. He’d connected to the “manly-girls” room and was floating the same messages there.

  I calculated that if I was quick I would be able to find his server information, or at least where he was connected. Just as I opened the appropriate monitor program the phone rang.

  It was Selçuk. He would have the coroner’s report sent over the following morning. The Seçkin brothers had never come to Istanbul from their home in Rize. There was no reason to suspect them. They hadn’t even attended the funeral and had told a reporter that they didn’t have “a little brother like that”.

  “Come to dinner one evening. You’ll have a chance to see Ayla.”

  Ayla was his wife. She was also from the neighbourhood. Selçuk had sucked her lips as well as mine. He’d preferred hers. They began going out when they were in middle school. In short, they’d been happily married for as long as I could remember.

  “Allah willing,” I said.

  Chatting with Jihad2000 had affected my choice of words.

  The monitoring program had done its job. Jihad2000 had cut off his private connection to me, but it didn’t matter. I’d found out where he was connected. It was just the information I needed.

  I remembered a fair amount about the history of the prophets. Years ago I’d read all the holy books out of curiosity. What’s more, my interest in costume films and devotion to Ava Gardner had led to my watching John Huston’s “The Bible” on DVD. Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Nimrod, Noah’s flood, Abraham, Lot, and Sodom and Gomorra stayed in my mind from the film. The most handsome man of the time, Peter O’Toole, had p
layed the three angels that visit Lot in the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorra.

  In the film, coloured by the conservatism and censorship of the 1960s, Sodom and Gomorra was an ill-defined gloomy place. I couldn’t help imagining how an imaginative director of our own times could enliven it with some well-shot porn scenes.

  I had fuzzy images of the tale of the Prophet Joseph from my childhood, and remembered a film starring Yusuf Sezgin. The similarity between the names Yusuf Sezgin and Yusuf Seçkin was truly unnerving.

  As far as I remembered, the Prophet Abraham was cast into a furnace by the unbelieving King Nimrod, but the flames were transformed into birds. Prophet Abraham escaped unscathed, and his followers increased. Our Abraham-Ceren had simply burned to a crisp. The flames hadn’t become birds.

  Jihad2000 had mentioned Salih, who was caught in a great earthquake. Who was Salih? What earthquake was it?

  I began researching, and came across Prophet Salih’s name. He is mentioned as one of the prophets in the Koran. He was sent to the idolatrous Arab tribe known as the Semud. He called on them to follow the one, true God. They didn’t believe him, and maimed and killed a female camel sent by God. If there really was a God, they wanted to know how he would punish them. Salih told them to hide themselves in caves carved into a cliff-face. Then came a powerful storm and earthquake. The unbelievers perished in their homes.

  So the Prophet Salih really did have some connection to earthquakes and storms.

  But why had Jihad2000 made a sudden reference to Salih? When had a girl of ours named Salih died? I racked my brain, but came up with nothing.

  I called Hasan, our all-knowing muhtar. He was busy, and kept it short. At first he hesitated when he heard the name, then he remembered who Salih was.

  “Ah, that’s right. You know her as Deniz. It happened a few months back. She fell into the elevator shaft and died.”

  I remembered. It hadn’t been considered a suspicious death. She had indeed fallen into an elevator shaft in a district of high rises in Atakoy. I recalled it clearly. It had nothing to do with an earthquake. There had been no connection between a tremor and Deniz’s death. We grieved, but quickly moved on.