When the cab reached the Beylerbeyi quarter, snug beneath the bridge, the shower had turned into a downpour. A gray wave wiped out all visibility, mixing cars, pavement and houses into a shifting fog. The entire neighborhood seemed to be dissolving into a liquid state -a pre-historic chaos of peat and mud.
Sema decided to get out of the cab on Yaliboyu Street. She slipped between the cars and took shelter beneath an awning amid the row of shop fronts. She paused for a moment to buy an oilskin-a pale green poncho-then she tried to get her bearings. This neighborhood was like a village-a scale model of Istanbul. Its sidewalks were as narrow as ribbons, its houses clumped together, its roads like pathways leading down to the riverside.
She dived down Yaliboyu Street, toward the river. To her left, the cafés were closed, the bars had shrunk back beneath their awnings, the stalls covered with tarpaulin and to her right, a blank wall, sheltering the gardens of a mosque. A red, porous rubble surface zigzagged, its cracks sketching in a melancholy geography. Lower down, beneath the gray foliage, the waters of the Bosporus could be heard, rumbling and rolling like kettledrums in an orchestra pit.
Sema felt overwhelmed by fluidity. Drops hammered on her head, beating her shoulders, swarming over her poncho… Her lips tasted of clay. Her face seemed to become liquid, shifting, moving…
On the riverbank, the downpour intensified, as though freed by the open stretch of water. The land seemed about to drift away and follow the flow as far as the sea. Sema could not stop herself from shaking, sensing in the streams of her veins the scraps of the continent that were being shaken to their foundations.
She retraced her steps and looked for the entrance to the mosque. The wall she walked beside was flaking, pierced by the rusty bars of windows. Above it, the domes glistened and the minarets seemed to be launched higher by the rain.
As she walked on, more memories crowded in. Kürsat was nicknamed "the Gardener" because botany was his specialty-in particular, poppies. Here, he cultivated his own wild species, concealed in the gardens. Every evening, he came to Beylerbeyi to inspect his papavers…
Going through the gate, she entered a courtyard of marble tiles, with a row of basins along the ground, used for ablutions before prayers. She crossed the patio, noticing a group of white-and-yellow cats curled up along the windows. One of them had an eye missing. Another had its nose covered in blood.
After a further gate, she at last reached the gardens.
The vision moved her heart. Trees, shrubs and undergrowth spreading chaotically. Overturned soil. Branches as black as licorice. Thickets stuck with tiny leaves, tight as clumps of mistletoe. A luxuriant world, animated and tickled by the downpour.
She walked on, lulled by the scent of flowers, the dull odor of the soil. Here the hammering of the rain became more muted. The drops bounced off the leaves in a dull pizzicato, streams of water slipping from the foliage in harp strings. Sema thought, The body responds to music with dance. The earth responds to rain with gardens.
Pushing aside the branches, she came across a large vegetable patch, hidden between the trees. Bamboo props stood high, squat tubs were full of humus, upside-down jars protected young shoots. It looked to Sema like an open-air greenhouse or nursery. She took another step or two. The Gardener was there.
Kneeling on the ground, he was bent over a row of poppies protected by transparent plastic sachets. He was slipping a probe into the pistil, at the point where the alkaloid capsule is situated. Sema did not recognize the species in question. It was undoubtedly a new hybrid, which flowered early. Experimental poppies, right in the middle of Istanbul…
As though sensing her presence, the chemist looked up. His hood concealed his eyebrows, barely revealing his heavy features. A smile rose to his lips, even more rapidly than the delight in his stare.
"Your eyes. I'd have recognized you thanks to your eyes."
He spoke in French. It was a game they used to play-another mark of complicity. She did not reply. She imagined what he could see: a scrawny figure beneath a green hood, with emaciated, unrecognizable features. And yet Kürsat did not seem at all surprised. He knew about her new appearance. Had she told him? Or had the Wolves done so? Friend or foe? She had only a few seconds to decide. This man had been her confidant, her accomplice. So she must have told him about her plans.
Kürsat Milihit shifted about awkwardly. He was only just taller than Sema and was wearing a cotton smock beneath a plastic apron. He stood up. "Why have you come back?"
She said nothing, letting the rain mark the passage of time. Then, her voice muffled by her cape, she replied in French, "I want to know who I am. I've lost my memory"
"What?"
"I was arrested by the police in Paris. They made me undergo special mental conditioning. I'm amnesiac."
"That's impossible."
"Nothing's impossible in our world. You know that as well as I do.”
“You… can't remember anything?"
"Everything I know, I've found out for myself"
"But why come back? Why don't you just vanish?"
"It's too late for that. The Wolves are after me. They know my new face. I want to negotiate."
He carefully put down the flower, with its plastic hood, among the jerry cans and bags of leaf mold. He glanced at her sharply. "Have you still got it?"
Sema did not answer.
He asked again, "Have you still got the dope?"
"I'm the one asking the questions," she replied. "Who's behind this operation?"
"We never know any names. That's the rule."
"The rules have been broken. When I went out on my own, I overturned them. They must have questioned you. Some names must have been mentioned. Who commissioned that consignment?"
Kürsat hesitated. The rain slapped down on his hood, streaming across his face. "Ismail Kudseyi."
The name struck her memory-Kudseyi, the grand master-but she pretended not to remember. "Who's that?"
"I can't believe you've lost that many marbles."
"Who is he?" she repeated.
"The most important baba in Istanbul," he said, lowering his voice, quieter than the rain. "He was setting up an alliance with the Uzbeks and the Russians. The consignment was a trial run. A test. A symbol. It vanished along with you."
She smiled through the crystal drops.
"Things must be rosy between the partners."
"War is imminent. But Kudseyi doesn't give a damn. What he's obsessed about is you. Finding you again. It isn't even a question of money. It's a matter of honor. He can't admit that he's been betrayed by one of his own. We are his Wolves. His creatures."
"His creatures?"
The instruments of the cause. We were educated, indoctrinated, brought up as Wolves. When you were born, you were nobody. A lousy peasant raising sheep. Like me. Like the others. The camps gave us everything. Faith. Power. Knowledge."
Sema needed to find out the essential information, but she could not resist digging for more facts, further details. "Why are we speaking in French?"
A smile inched its way over Kürsat's chubby face. A smile of pride. "We were chosen. In the 1980s, the refs, the chiefs, decided to set up an underground army, with its officers and elite soldiers. Wolves who could mingle with the highest social strata."
"Was it Kudseyi's idea?"
"He started the project off, but with everyone's approval. Emissaries from his foundation were sent to the clubs in Anatolia. They were looking for the most gifted, most promising children. The idea was to provide them with the best possible education. It was a patriotic project. Knowledge and power were being given back to the real Turks, to the children of Anatolia, instead of the bourgeois scum of Istanbul…"
"And we were chosen?"
The pride swelled even further. "Yes, and sent to Galatasaray, along with a few others, thanks to grants from the foundation. How can you have forgotten all that?"
Sema did not answer. Kürsat went on, in an increasingly exalting voice. "We were
twelve years old. We were already little baskans, chiefs of our region. First we spent a year in a training camp. When we got to Galatasaray, we already knew how to use an assault rifle. We knew entire sections of Nine Lights by heart. Then suddenly we were surrounded by decadents who listened to rock music, smoked cannabis, imitated Europeans-fucking Communists… To survive, we stuck together, Sema. Like brother and sister. The two bumpkins from Anatolia. The two paupers with their pathetic grants… But no one knew how dangerous we were. We were already Wolves. Fighters who had infiltrated a forbidden world. So as to struggle all the better against that Red scum! Tanri türk'ü korusunr!*"
"God save the Turks!"
Karsat raised his fist, with his pinkie and index fingers raised. He was doing his utmost to look like a fanatic, but he just came across as being what he always had been: a sweet, awkward child who had been conditioned into violence and hatred.
Motionless among the props and foliage, she asked. "What happened then?"
"For me, a science degree. For you, the modern languages department at the Bogaziçi University. At the end of the 1980s, the Wolves took over the dope market. They needed specialists. Our roles had already been set down. Chemistry for me, transportation for you. There were many more Wolves in high places. Diplomats, CEOs…"
"Like Azer Akarsa."
Kürsat jumped. "How do you know that name?"
"He was on my trail in Paris."
He shook the rain off himself like a hippopotamus. "They sent out the worst one of them all. If he's looking for you, then he'll find you.”
“I'm the one who's looking for him. Where is he?"
"How should I know?"
The Gardener's voice rang false. At that instant, she was pricked by a suspicion. She had almost forgotten her side to the story. Who had betrayed her? Who had told Akarsa that she was hiding in Gurdilek's baths? But she kept that question for later…
The chemist continued, slightly too hastily "Do you still have it? Do you still have the dope?"
"I've told you. I've lost my memory"
"If you want to negotiate, you can't come back empty-handed. Your only chance is to-"
She suddenly asked, "Why did I do that? Why did I try to double-cross everyone?"
"You alone know that."
"I involved you in my scheme. I put you in danger. I must have explained my reasons."
He gestured vaguely "You never accepted your destiny. You were always saying that they'd forced us to obey. That we had no choice. But what choice did we have? Without them, we'd still be shepherds. Bumpkins at the far end of Anatolia."
"If I'm a drug dealer, then I have money. Why didn't I just disappear? Why did I steal the heroin?"
Kürsat sneered. "You wanted more. You wanted to screw them. To set one clan against the other. This mission gave you a chance to get your revenge. When the Uzbeks and the Russians get here, it'll be mayhem."
The rain slowed. Night was falling. Kürsat gradually sank into the shadows, as if he was fading away. Above them, the domes of the mosque looked fluorescent.
The idea of betrayal forced its way back. She now had to go to the bitter end. She had to get this over with. "What about you?" she asked coldly. "How come you're still alive? They didn't come to question you?"
"Of course they did."
And you told them nothing?"
The chemist seemed to shiver. "I had nothing to say. I knew nothing. All I did was to transform the heroin in Paris and come back home. Then no one heard from you again. Nobody knew where you were. Especially not me." His voice was trembling.
She suddenly felt sorry for him. Kürsat, my Kürsat, how have you survived so long?
The fat man went on at once: "They trust me, Sema. Really they do. I'd done my part of the job. I didn't hear from you again. After you'd hidden in Gurdilek's place, I thought "
"Who mentioned Gurdilek? Was it me?" She now understood. Kürsat knew everything but had revealed only part of the truth to Akarsa. He had saved his skin by providing him with her Paris address but had said nothing about her new face. Thus had her blood brother negotiated with his own conscience.
The chemist stood there for a moment, his mouth agape, as though dragged down by the weight of his chin. The next moment, he stuck his hand beneath a plastic sheet. Sema aimed her Glock from beneath her cape and fired. The Gardener crashed back between the shoots and the jars.
Sema knelt down. This was her second murder after Schiffer. But from the confidence of her movements, she realized that she had killed before. And in this way. With a handgun. at point-blank range. When? How many times? She had no idea. On that point, her memory was still a sterile zone.
She looked at Kürsat. lying motionless among the poppies. Death had already smoothed out his features. Innocence was slowly rising back across his face, which was free at last.
She searched the corpse. Beneath his smock, she found a cell phone. One of the numbers in its memory was labeled Azer. She stuck it in her pocket, then stood up. The rain had stopped. Darkness had taken hold of the place. The gardens were breathing at last. She looked up toward the mosque. The drenched domes seemed like green ceramic, the minarets about to take off for the stars.
Sema remained for a few more seconds beside the body. Inexplicably, something clear and precise surged up inside her. She now knew why she had done what she had done. Why she had fled with the dope.
To be free, of course.
But also to avenge a particular wrong.
Before proceeding any further, she had to check that. She had to find a hospital. And a gynecologist.
71
All night spent writing.
A letter of twelve pages, addressed to Mathilde Wilcrau, Rue Le Goff, Paris, fifth arrondissement. In it, she told her life story in detail. Her origin. Her education. Her job. And the last consignment.
She also provided names: Kürsat Milihit, Azer Akarsa. Ismail Kudseyi. She placed each person, each pawn on the chessboard. Describing their precise roles and positions. Putting back together each fragment of the puzzle…
Sema owed her these explanations. She had promised her in the crypt at Père-Lachaise, but above all she wanted to make her story intelligible to the psychiatrist who had risked her life for nothing in return.
When she wrote Mathilde on the white hotel notepad, when she maneuvered her pen around that name, Sema said to herself that she had perhaps never possessed anything so solid as those letters.
She lit a cigarette and paused to remember. Mathilde Wilcrau. A tall, sturdy woman with a mane of black hair. The first time she had observed her bright red smile, an image had come to mind: the poppy stalks she used to burn so as to conserve their color.
Today, now that she could recall her origins, the comparison had recovered its full meaning. That sandy landscape did not belong to the French moors, as she had thought, but to the deserts of Anatolia. The flowers were wild poppies-a hint of opium already… Sema used to shiver with excitement and fear when burning those stalks. She had sensed a secret, inexplicable link between the dark flame and the bright blooming of the buds.
That same mystery scintillated in Mathilde Wilcrau. A burned region within her reinforced the absolute redness of her smile.
Sema finished her letter. She hesitated for a moment. Should she add what she had learned in the hospital a few hours before? No. That was nobody's business but hers. She signed the page, then slid it into an envelope.
Four o'clock flashed on the radio alarm clock in her bedroom.
She thought over her plan one more time. Kürsat had said: You can't come back empty-handed. Neither Le Monde nor the television news had mentioned that there had been heroin scattered around the crypt. So it was quite likely that Azer Akarsa and Ismail Kudseyi did not know that it had been lost. Thus, Sema had a virtual object to bargain with…
She put the envelope by the door, then went to the bathroom.
She turned on the tap in the basin and grabbed a cardboard box, purchased earlier t
hat evening in a hardware store in Beylerbeyi.
She poured the pigment into the sink, contemplating its reddish swirls that faded in the water and froze into a brown mash.
For a few seconds, she looked at herself in the mirror. Her smashed face. broken bones and stitched skin. Under her apparent beauty lay another lie…
She smiled at her reflection, then murmured, "I have no choice." Gingerly, she dipped her index finger into the henna.
72
Five o'clock. Haydarpasa station. A point of arrival and departure for both boats and trains.
Everything was just as she remembered. The central building, a U surrounded by two huge towers, open onto the straits like a greeting in welcome to the sea. Then, all around, the seawalls forming lines of stone, digging out a labyrinth of water. On the second one, a lighthouse stood at the end of the jetty. An isolated tower, placed above the channels.
At that time of the morning, everything was dark, cold, empty. Only a weak light wavered from inside the station, through the windows covered with a reddish, intermittent steam.
The kiosk of the iskele-the departure pier-was also glistening, reflecting a blue stain in the water, which was weaker still, almost mauve.
Shoulders high and collar up, Sema walked beside the building, then alongside the seawall. This sinister scene suited her. She had been counting on just this inert, silent desert, weighed down by frost. She went toward the jetty used by pleasure boats. The insistent slapping of the cables and sails followed her.
Sema examined each yacht, each skiff. Finally she spotted a boat whose owner was asleep, curled up under a tarpaulin. She woke him up and started negotiating at once. The haggard man accepted the sum on offer. It was a fortune. She assured him that she would not go out farther than the second seawall, that he would never lose sight of his boat. He accepted, started up the engine without a word, then stepped out onto land.
The Empire Of The Wolves Page 33
