by Jay Amberg
“We would love to visit with you, Mother,” Elif says. “But after our walk, if that is all right.”
Looking up again at Boroğlu, the woman says, “My son died.” She chokes back more tears, takes another piece of firewood, and sets it at an angle over the first. “My husband is long dead.”
“What happened to your son?” Boroğlu asks.
The woman swipes at her tears. “He never really came back after his Service. Lived in the town.” She begins to shake her head. “A motorcycle accident between İzmir and here.” Her thick chest heaves. “He was driving too fast at night. He had a daughter, but I barely know her.”
“How long have you lived here?” Elif asks, though she already knows approximately.
“Many years.” The woman’s smile is sad. “Since I was eighteen.” Her eyes glazed, she glances up at Boroğlu. “I came here from my village when Bulent married me. He’s gone, even before my son. Lost to cancer. Our goats, gone, too. Everyone.”
Boroğlu’s eyes narrow. “You’ve lived here about seventy years?”
Shrugging, the woman pulls at the corner of her scarf.
“And your husband was a goatherd?”
“Yes. He loved our goats.”
Boroğlu stares at Elif for a moment before turning back to the woman. “This is your land?”
The woman shrugs again. “My husband’s family. Some of it. After he died, I herded the goats for a long time. But I got too old. My son, he didn’t come back.” She sobs twice. “He died.”
Boroğlu looks again at Elif, who says to the woman, “My mother is looking for large stones. Smooth ones. Cut. When your husband and you were herding your goats, do you remember seeing any? Arranged in rows?”
“Yes.” The woman leans over and nudges the upper log until it starts to flame.
Boroğlu takes the chair closer to the woman. “Cut stones? Three or more together.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Upstream or downstream?”
“Yes. In the meadows.”
Boroğlu leans forward. “Both? Upstream and downstream?”
The woman’s eyes focus through her tears. “Three. In the meadows where the goats fed.”
“Mom,” Elif says. “I think she’s trying to tell you that there are three places. Three sites.”
The woman looks up at Elif, smiling and nodding thankfully—but her tears keep running.
34
ISTANBUL
At dusk, the two powerful and influential businessmen in their mid-sixties sit at a table at the Ciragan Palace Hotel’s posh terrace bar overlooking the Bosphorus. They are about the same height, but the Turkish patriarch is far more fit and trim than the Russian oligarch. The Russian drinks Krug Vintage Brut 2000, the Turkish patriarch Perrier. The three closest tables are empty, and the ring of tables beyond are occupied by bodyguards. The oligarch insisted that the meeting be on his yacht, and the patriarch countered with a demand to use his plush Istanbul apartment. Both men are deeply concerned that the subject of the negotiation be private, but neither is willing to enter the other’s domain, and so this neutral site was a compromise, arrived at only an hour earlier. The Russian’s name and his reputation for tipping extravagantly convinced the maître d’ to locate other patrons away from the immediate area. Neither of the two men is a politician, and so they can be seen together in public, but the subject of their conversation is not fodder for social media.
“The boy has done nothing,” the Russian says. “Nothing at all.” His voice holds superiority as well as belligerence. “Fucking nothing!” He leans forward, his elbows on the table. His neck is fleshy, but the skin of his face is taut, as though it has been stretched. His hooded eyes are dark. “I have heard nothing. Not one fucking word!”
“Have we ever disappointed you, Vladimir?” the patriarch asks. Unlike the Russian, he will not stoop to vulgarity. Both men speak English because neither has deigned to learn the other’s language—and English is the language of international business. They have done deals before that benefited both exceedingly, but they have never done a deal of this magnitude—and they have never been amiable. The patriarch gives up invaluable artifacts but retains a deep sense that Anatolia is the cradle of civilization and that Russia is a dreary wasteland. The oligarch covets the artifacts but does not receive from the Turk the obsequiousness that his incredible wealth and power demand.
The Russian sips his Krug before answering the question. “No, Mustafa, you have not. And your willingness to take this meeting is, finally, a step in the right direction.”
The patriarch looks over at the hotel’s infinity pool where wealthy foreigners are frolicking with their screeching children. The emphasis on the words “you” and “your” is another deliberate slight toward his son, which he should, in the name of profit, ignore, but he cannot. “We are making significant progress.”
“Your son made promises. I assumed he was speaking for you.”
The patriarch’s green eyes flare. His receding hair may have gone gray, but the fire in his belly when his family, his name, has been insulted is still stoked. Barely able to keep his tone civil, he says, “My son speaks for my family.”
The Russian pulls at his gold cufflinks, leans back, and smiles maliciously. “The boy makes promises he doesn’t keep.”
The gilded monogram on the Russian’s shirt pocket has always provoked irritation, but now it proves even more maddening because his statement has some truth to it. “The situation is complex,” the patriarch says.
“So, there is no statue? No Dying Gaul?”
“There is,” the patriarch says flatly. “Absolutely.” He is not blowing smoke. Like his son, he believes the statue still exists. There’s the photo circulating. And, the statue was specifically mentioned in the document. Not as The Dying Gaul, of course. That name was given to the statue by Europeans only a couple of centuries ago. But The Galatian and The Galatian and his Wife were both referred to in the letter, a copy of which was forwarded to him from the Ministry of Culture shortly after his highly placed sources there learned of it. “There is another player.” Though it isn’t quite true, he adds, “And a second bidder. But your deal, will, as always, be honored, Vladimir. Yours first. Yours always.”
A tourist boat playing traditional music is passing on the Bosphorus. The Russian inspects his manicured fingers and then gazes at his ancient Minoan bull’s head ring, the only one of its kind known to exist outside a major museum. “You understand,” he growls, “that the deal must not fall through. The statue is to be a gift for the President. I clearly made that point to the boy.” He lifts his champagne flute and glowers across the table. “This deal has to be your priority. If it isn’t, your business, your family will…” He waves his hand dismissively.
The patriarch nods but does not answer. He is not one to forget—or forgive—a threat. He folds his hands on the table, careful not to clench them. This Russian, no matter how prominent he is, will have to be dealt with—but only after the deal is done.
“I certainly hope the boy is aware that nothing can fucking go wrong,” the Russian says.
Yet another insult directed at his son. But the patriarch merely nods again because he knows that the way to manipulate a narcissist like this shithead is to flatter him rather than combat him—and with each of the Russian’s insults the price of the statue, already eight figures, is rising. “We will deliver, Vladimir. And the piece will exceed your expectations.” His tone is factual and pragmatic, not defensive. He gestures toward the ring the Russian is fondling. “You, of all people, know that.”
The Russian stares across the table, but his eyes are losing their ferocity. The surgically tucked skin around his eyes and the unnatural red-orange hue of his facial skin suggest some deep insecurity beneath the imperious meanness. The patriarch wonders if procuring the sta
tue is so crucial because Vlad’s influence with the Russian president is waning—if the man’s position, his entire financial empire, is in jeopardy. You can, the patriarch knows, amass immense wealth and surround yourself with opulent trappings and heavy security but still live in fear—especially if you’re Russian. In a country where there is, essentially, no real rule of law, you can lose everything—the yachts, the dachas, the London real estate—in an instant if you displease the leader. You can become the envy of all the babushkas, be seen on All-Russia State TV as powerfully influential as well as supremely rich, but you cannot save yourself should you fall from grace.
“I hope, for your son’s sake,” the Russian says, “that you’re correct.” He then smiles sourly and adds, “If you need help in eliminating competition…”
Although the statement is an even more direct threat against his son, the patriarch says only, “Thank you, Vlad. If this was an international issue, I would gladly call on your expertise and advice. But it’s a local dispute, and we will deal with it.” The simple-minded bullying of these Russian oligarchs makes them in some ways even easier to manipulate than the European aristocrats his father and grandfather once dealt with, but their deep insecurities also make them far more dangerous—and it’s best to keep them at a distance. “We will do whatever is necessary, Vlad. You know that, too.”
35
BERGAMA
Serkan Boroğlu spins the floor safe’s combination lock again and then tries his own birth date, but that doesn’t work either. Frustrated, he rises from his knees and smacks the heel of his hand against the closet door. He is in his mother’s bedroom, which has doubled as her home office for as long as he can remember. He has already checked her desk’s drawers, sifted through the file folders piled on her desk, and inspected the two hundred or so books and journals on the shelves that line two of the room’s four walls. Everything is related to archeology, especially that of the Aegean area, but only two journals, both in German, are dated this year—and nothing suggests what specifically she is working on these days.
Nine of the twenty cardboard file boxes piled five high against the bedroom’s windowless back wall dug into the hillside are labeled “Allianoi.” Most of the others have “Akropol,” “Red Hall,” and “Aesklepion” written boldly in his mother’s clear script. Two of the boxes in the top row have “Tumuli Rescues” scrawled across them in heavy black marking pen, but one has the date “2014” and the other “2015.” He has hidden the fifty American hundred dollar bills in his Istanbul apartment, and he has got to give Mustafa, that arrogant prick, something tangible—but he doesn’t want to provide anything that might actually damage his mother’s work, whatever it is.
When he hears the front door closing, he places the two German journals back in the stack on the desk, scans the room to make sure he has not altered any of the usual clutter, and steps out into the courtyard. As he passes the long table where his family often ate as he was growing up, his mother and grandmother stand glowering by the front door. He is used to the expression from his mother but not from his grandmother. “Anne!” he exclaims. “Anneanne! Surprise!”
His mother huffs, and his grandmother blinks back tears.
“Where have you been?” he asks. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Both women are wearing long dresses and floral-print scarves. They have been in the village up near Kapıkaya where little Mehmet’s funeral was held. Being women and outsiders, they did not, of course, participate, but they stood on the periphery with some of the other women from neighboring villages as the Imam said the prayers. Then, they remained at the mosque as the village men escorted the boy’s body to the cemetery.
“Why are you here?” Serkan’s mother asks, anger in her voice.
He smiles. “I just came home. Do I have to have a reason?”
His mother’s eyes continue to harden. His grandmother bows her head. As she crosses toward her bench in the courtyard’s corner, she takes one of Elif’s statues from the alcove’s shelves.
“What?” Serkan says to his mother.
“What’s going on, Serkan?”
“What? What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.” She is using the tone she used during cross-examinations when he was a boy.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She can’t possibly know.
“What were you doing?” Her voice is ice.
“When? What do you mean?”
“Now. Right now!”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing!” She mimics him in that voice he used to hate.
“I was just…” He stops, memories of confrontations with his mother flooding his mind. Sweat breaks on his forehead and neck. He glances at his grandmother, who continues to stare at the terra-cotta goddess she is holding. He moved to Istanbul after university partly to get away from this look of condemnation on his mother’s face. He always made good grades and was a starter on his lise basketball team, but she still berated him if he stayed out too late or came home with the smell of beer on his breath. When he went to university in Ankara and lived with his father, he didn’t have to answer his mother’s sorts of questions. His father, who had a new wife, his third, provided Serkan with a place to live but little else. Serkan’s years there were essentially free of constraints, much less regulations. His decision after university to try to make it on his own in Istanbul was easy, even obvious. But whenever he returns to Bergama his mother just keeps nagging him about her strict house rules.
Shaking her head, Boroğlu lifts her cell phone from her purse and taps a number. “Your brother’s here.” She pauses. “Not sure… Yes…” Glancing at her mother, she adds, “I don’t know… Up to no good, I’m sure… Okay.” She clicks off the phone and turns again to him. “Elif needs to talk to you.”
“Fine,” he says. “Is she in her studio?”
“No. Yes, but she’s on her way here.”
“Good.” Elif often stood up for him when they were younger, and she has, it seems, offered to help him now.
“You are so much like him!” His mother’s voice is venomous. “So self-involved!”
He has heard this all before, of course. Too often. It makes him seethe, but he certainly knows better than to answer. He will not give her an opening to start ranting again about his father.
“Wait on the porch,” Boroğlu says. “We need to show you something.”
It sounds too much like an order, but there’s something else in his mother’s voice he can’t quite identify. Something more than ire. Agitation? Unhappiness? It might even be sorrow.
Alone on the rooftop patio, Serkan looks out at the haze hanging in the sunlight over Bergama. The town, the whole area, needs rain. He crosses the patio to where his grandmother’s herbs are lined in pots. The soil is dark and moist—she must have watered them this morning. Still sweating, he needs a Bud or Coke or water or something—but he’s not about to call down to ask for anything. He feels like he did when he was in trouble as a boy, but he hasn’t done anything. Nothing at all, really.
He can’t keep his hands still. They drum the railing along the periphery of the porch, a hollow sound. He looks down across the street at the concrete wall where, when they were children, Elif sometimes left him secret messages. “The graffiti wall,” they called it. Now there are names, “Burak” and “Mehmet” and others, scratched and marked there. The town keeps patching the concrete and whitewashing it, but new messages keep appearing. It all seems so anachronistic—and so innocent.
Sekhmet drops from the arbor to the glass-topped table and from there to the tiled floor, but she doesn’t come over to him. Doesn’t rub against his leg as she usually does. The haze feels heavy, the air close. Down the street, Elif is pedaling her bicycle toward the house. Her head is down, as though she can only see the cobblestones. She should
look up and wave, but she doesn’t.
36
BERGAMA
Özlem Boroğlu taps the manila envelope against her left palm before passing it across the patio table to her son. Elif, sitting between her mother and her brother, folds her hands on the table’s glass top and stares at her thumbnails painted black with silver skulls. Still drumming his fingers, Serkan doesn’t touch the envelope. He leans back in his chair, looking at nothing rather than at either his mother or his sister.
“Get your head out of your ass, Serkan,” his mother says.
“What is this?” he asks, his anger rising again.
“Photographs,” his mother hisses. “Look at them!”
“Not those!” he shouts, hammering the envelope. “This!” He waves his hand in the air. “I feel like I’m on trial for something I don’t even know about.”
Elif leans forward and presses her hands on the table. “Please look at the photographs, Serkan,” she says. Her tone is more hurt than hostile.
He glances at his mother for a moment before picking up the envelope and bending the metal clasp. As he slides the photographs out, he sucks in his breath.
His mother reaches over and spreads the photos on the table.
Serkan’s neck and back stiffen as he stares at the pictures. “Where…where’d you get these?”
“What’s going on, Serkan?” Her voice sounds more calm, a mother wanting to help her son, except that Serkan thinks he knows better.
He grabs the edge of the table, glances at Elif, and then looks back at the photos. “Where’d you get these?”
“Who is he?”
Serkan is sweating again. “Where’d you…?”
“Serkan!”
He brushes his hand across his face. “He’s…he’s a business associate.”
His mother clears her throat.
“He’s a guy I’m doing a deal with…”
She coughs loudly. Elif looks up at the grape arbor. His grandmother comes out onto the patio carrying a tray with four teacups. As she sets the cups on the table, no one says anything or makes eye contact. When she sits in the fourth chair, her dress swishes. She gapes for a second at the photographs, which she has not seen before. She begins to say something but then stops herself. Traffic mutters down in Bergama.
