The Healer's Daughters

by Jay Amberg

  At first light, the truck stops in a remote valley. One man blindfolds him as the other binds his wrists and tethers a rope so that he can lead the boy like a prisoner or a donkey. Neither of the men says a word. They walk a winding path for what must be most of an hour. His saliva becomes gummy. Rocks cut his bare feet, but the pain helps him keep focused. Though he smells freshly turned dirt, he can’t tell what’s growing in the fields. Birds sing, and periodically an engine rumbles farther off. He trips often but only falls once, scraping his forehead and elbow. Cocks crow, and his ears buzz.

  Finally, he is led down creaking stairs into a dirt cellar. His blindfold is removed, his wrists are untied, and he is left alone in the dark. The dimness gradually takes shape. The foundation walls are crumbling brick, the beams above rough-hewn. The odor of decay sticks in his nose and throat, but he sees nothing that’s rotting. There are no footfalls above him.

  After a while, a third man, taller than the others, descends the stairs carrying a cloth bag in one hand and a rolled mat in the other. The door is left open so that light filters down. Dust motes float in the musty air. The man’s face is covered like the others, but his blue jeans and button-down shirt are clean. Even in the cellar’s low light, his eyes shine like the boy’s father’s. His hands are not those of a workman. He sets the bag in front of the boy and says, “Drink. You need strength to complete your mission.” His Arabic is rudimentary but clear, and his voice is not unfriendly. “Go slow.”

  The bag contains a loaf of bread and a bunch of grapes as well as three liter bottles of water. The boy’s hands shake as he twists the first bottle open and lifts it to his mouth. As he sips the water, slowly as he was ordered, it feels like the water is washing down his throat and spreading through his chest and stomach and arms and legs, cleansing him.

  “Listen carefully,” the man says as he lays the mat next to the boy. “Your mission is so important and so secret that you must stay here for three days, unseen by anyone. Two men will be here at all times to protect you.”

  The boy picks one grape, rolls it between his fingers, pops it into his mouth, and chews. The grape is, he thinks, the sweetest taste he has ever experienced.

  “You must never go outside,” the man says in a more commanding voice. “Never make noise. Do whatever the men say. Do you understand?”

  The boy nods as he reaches for another grape.

  “Look at me! Say it!” The man’s voice is imperious, like those he has heard the past three years.

  The boy drops the second grape into the bag. “I must always obey orders,” he recites. “Never go outside. Never make noise.”

  “Good.” The man’s voice softens again. “No one must know of your presence until the holy hour of your sacrifice comes round.”

  46

  ISTANBUL

  As Serkan Boroğlu rides the trolley down Istanbul’s İstiklal Caddesi, a heavily muscled man takes the seat next to him. When the man leans his bulk into him, Serkan shifts closer to the window. The man leans harder, jostles Serkan, and mutters, “Get off at the next stop.”

  “Wha…?” Serkan says. He turns so that he can look at the man, who has a shaved head and small dark eyes. Black stubble covers the man’s cheeks, chin, and thick neck, which slopes to his shoulders like a bodybuilder’s. His tattooed arms bulge from his black T-shirt, and his hands, folded in his lap, are the size of toilet seats. “What?” Serkan repeats. “Move! Get away from me!”

  The man opens his left hand to reveal in his palm an old-fashioned, single-edged barber’s razor. He turns toward Serkan, his maniacal smile revealing crooked, nicotine-stained teeth. “Get off at this stop,” he growls. “Now!” His breath is fetid. “Do what I tell you, and you won’t get hurt.”

  The man’s accent is strong, but Serkan can’t place it. He glances around, but neither the trolley’s other passengers nor the pedestrians on the avenue nor, for that matter, the rest of the world seems to notice what’s happening. As the trolley slows for the Tünel Square stop, the man stands in the aisle and steps back so that Serkan can get up. “Mustafa Hamit needs to talk to you,” he says into Serkan’s ear.

  Shaken, but still as angry as he is frightened, Serkan climbs down from the trolley. The man, who is half a head shorter than Serkan, grips his arm above the elbow and steers him across the avenue toward Galip Dede.

  “Let go of me!” Serkan snarls.

  The man obliges but first jostles him again and then presses his massive hand into the small of Serkan’s back. They pass the gift shops and the ice cream parlor near the entrance to Galip Dede and head up the narrow street. Serkan is seething but says nothing. He has often been in the trendy bars and upscale restaurants in this part of Beyoğlu, and it’s normally not dangerous. Last night he stayed over again at his Bavarian girlfriend’s apartment near Taksim Square, but Mustafa could only have known about his taking the trolley if they had been following him long enough to have learned his routines. This is more than just Mustafa’s faux-spy bullshit—much more. And Mustafa himself, that arrogant prick, is apparently unaware that the government is surveilling him.

  This whole deal has become a mess. Serkan should have taken the original offer and been done with it. Now he somehow has to extricate himself and keep the women in his family safe. When his mother questioned his grandmother about seeing Mustafa on the morning of the funicular bombing, his grandmother was sure that the man she saw looked like Mustafa but was not him. The man’s eyes were different, not green. Still, Serkan remains genuinely sorry that he has dragged the women in his family into this.

  Serkan has kept his part of the bargain, providing Mustafa with documents, including some his mother gave him from her safe, and two days ago arranging Mustafa’s meeting with Jack and Clare. Serkan would have been willing to take this meeting with Mustafa, but not after this heavy-handed crap. It’s not only unnecessary but stupid. The irony is that Mustafa, in his attempted intimidation, is no doubt providing more information to those who are watching him.

  The man takes Serkan’s arm again, the grip tight, and stops in front of the arched steel, stone, and stucco gateway into the Galata Mevlevihanesi, the museum dedicated to Rumi, the thirteenth-century Sufi mystic. “In the back,” the man mutters. “In the garden.” He gestures toward the entrance but does not himself enter.

  As Serkan walks through the shaded passageway that opens into a courtyard, a calico cat saunters along next to him. On Sunday afternoons, Serkan often brought clients to the Mevlevi museum’s whirling dervish performances. Occasionally, some clients also toured the museum’s exhibits, but they never took the time to sit in the garden. The gravestones in the cemetery to his right have cylindrical tops shaped like the hats that whirling dervishes wear. Beyond the ablutions fountain, Mustafa Hamit sits on a wooden bench, his back to the courtyard wall. To his right, a tree provides shade. Off to his left, another man, built like the thug on the trolley, stands with his hands folded in front of his crotch. This guy, though, is older and better dressed in dark pants and a short-sleeved blue shirt with a collar. He is bald, but his head is not shaved. His arms, covered with tattoos, are as thick as logs. As Serkan approaches, Mustafa continues to text on his iPhone. He is, as always, impeccably dressed; his aviators are perched on his head.

  When Serkan stands over him, Mustafa still ignores him. “What’s going on?” Serkan says, glaring down at him.

  Mustafa barely glances up. “Sit, Serkan,” he says as though he is training a dog.

  “You’re having me followed!” Serkan wipes his mouth to keep himself from spitting. “The guy had a razor!”

  Mustafa continues texting.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  Mustafa stops texting. Glowering up at Serkan, he says, “You’re asking me that?” All of the false amiability of their earlier meetings is gone. “Shut up and sit down!”

  Se
rkan does not sit. Mustafa puts his phone away. Only then does Serkan realize he no longer has his phone. “Shit!” he mutters as he pats the pockets of his jeans.

  Mustafa smiles for the first time, a superior, unfriendly smirk. “Our Georgians are rough around the edges, but they are talented—and dependable. And we need to check your call log.”

  “I want my phone back!”

  “Shut up!” Mustafa shakes his head slowly. “Crossing my family is stupid, Serkan. Very stupid!”

  “What? I haven’t crossed anybody.” And, technically, he hasn’t. He sits on the bench, looks at Mustafa, and then studies his own hands.

  “What?” Mustafa says sarcastically.

  “I sent you everything I could get of my mother’s.” Again, the truth—technically. “Some of the materials I got from her safe.”

  “Those things were useless! We’ve had the translation of the letter for months. The map is incomplete. And the notes are a mess.”

  “I kept my end of the bar—”

  Mustafa slams his hand on the bench. The powerfully built man to the left unclasps his hands and takes two steps forward before Mustafa waves him off. “You’ve fucked with the wrong people!”

  “What the…?” Serkan starts to say but then stops himself. He sits back. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about! You owe me money!”

  Mustafa stares at him as though he can’t believe what he is hearing. “And if I want, you’ll be dead in five seconds.”

  “We had a deal!”

  “You stupid fucking idiot.” Mustafa cocks his head and looks at Serkan. “We had a deal, all right. And my family honors our deals.” His voice is lower, not amicable, but factual, informational. “And we deal harshly with anyone stupid enough to sabotage the deals.” His phone pings.

  Serkan is not stupid, and Mustafa calling him that is getting to him. Mustafa is the fool here, acting tough when he’s the one being surveilled. A young couple is working their way slowly through the cemetery, seemingly inspecting the gravestones, and he wonders if they are the watchers.

  Serkan takes a deep breath so he doesn’t lose control, which, he finally realizes, could get him killed no matter how much surveillance there is. He’s frightened, not so much of Mustafa, but that he himself will say or do something to this arrogant hemorrhoid that will bring the Georgians down on him. He looks around at the plain, white, two-story back wall of the Mevlevi lodge and at the lush trees and flowers and at the ablutions fountain, where a skinny elderly man is washing. For the first time since he got here, Serkan can hear birds. He should have come here before, come here with his wealthy clients, especially the younger, more attractive women. He measures his voice as he says, “Mustafa, I don’t have any idea about this…” He does not add the word “shit.” “No idea.”

  “What about Sekhmet!”

  Sekhmet? Serkan looks blankly at Mustafa but does not say, What in hell does Sekhmet have to do with any of this?

  Mustafa stares at him, then shakes his head, looks up at the clear sky, takes out his phone, reads the text, and fires off a reply. When he finally looks at Serkan again, he says, “The Sekhmet amulet.”

  “What Sekhmet amulet?”

  “You’re even more stupid than I thought!” Mustafa’s smile is disdainful. “You’re being played by your own mother.”

  Serkan feels his face flush, but he controls his words. “The Sekhmet amulet?”

  “The one your mother is selling to the Americans!”

  “Clare and Jack?” Except for the insults, Serkan feels like Mustafa is speaking some foreign tongue. “My mother? No! She’s never even met them!”

  “Yes, your mother, you clueless piece of shit!” Mustafa laughs. “At least I offered you a finder’s fee!”

  “Leave my mother out of this. She’s not involved!”

  Mustafa’s continued laughter is derisive. Serkan stands up, feels his eyes welling and his head thundering, stomps over toward the ablutions fountain, brushes both hands through his hair, and, his whole body sweating, turns back. His mother? Selling antiquities? Impossible! He’s not sure he even mentioned the Americans to her. Elif, yes. When they were in Bergama—it feels like centuries ago—Clare bought a half a dozen of the figurines as gifts for friends. She also talked with his sister about Elif making something new for her, but he doesn’t know if anything came of that conversation. And, his mother? He may have mentioned… But it’s not who she is. She would never…

  The old man has vanished from the courtyard. The man to the left of the bench has again dropped his hands and stands poised, as though waiting for a signal. The couple in the cemetery have turned away and seem to be deliberately studying one of the headstones. Serkan stands over Mustafa. “Leave my mother out of this! Stay away from her.”

  Looking up at Serkan, Mustafa, now the calm one, says, “Oh, I will. I no longer have anything to do with it. I’m here in Istanbul doing business as usual. A lunch meeting…,” he glances at his phone, “in less than an hour.” A gleam in his eyes, he adds, his voice almost soft, “Thanks to your stupidity, your mother is already being dealt with.” Actually, the plan has been in place far longer, and he himself has been in charge of the whole operation, planned it all himself, right down to this moment when he gets to savor sticking it up Serkan’s ass.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” he lies. The edge of his mouth turns up in a sneer as he looks into Serkan’s tearing eyes. “But it can’t be good.”

  “I need my phone!” Serkan shouts. “I want my phone!”

  “Get out of my sight, shithead,” Mustafa says, his tone now one of boredom. He lowers his head and begins to text again.

  47

  BERGAMA

  As the boy pulls his knees closer to his chest, the thick vest prevents him from wrapping his forearms around his shins. Though scant light marks the far end of the narrow stone tunnel, the darkness gathered around him unnerves him. He brushes his middle finger across the triggering device. He avoids putting any pressure, but his finger trembles. His breathing is shallow, a huffing he struggles to control. Soon he will enter paradise, but time is moving too slowly now. He is alone in the gloom with no weapon but himself.

  The plastic water bottle he was given when his headband was returned to him is empty. He feels around in the darkness until his fingers touch it, and then he pushes it farther away so he does not later crush it by mistake. He must make no noise until the moment is upon him. Reaching up, he adjusts his headband. His forehead is clammy, but he can’t help that. Voices outside speak Turkish and English, that most detestable of the infidels’ languages. Amplified voices start, stop, start, stop—startling him. He has been told that this would happen and that under no circumstances should he go until he has heard a woman’s voice speaking for the count of two hundred. His bones ache against the rough stone so he shifts his weight but makes no sudden movement.

  Time played tricks as he spent the days in that dark cellar, and he lost track. One of the two guards brought him stale bread and spoiling fruit and bottles of warm water, enough to drink but not to wash, and a plastic pot in which to piss. Though he was too far in the country to hear the call, he prayed regularly. He exercised diligently, for what seemed to be hour upon hour, pushing himself as hard as the sheikhs had, but still he slept poorly and woke to dreams of his mother and father leaving him stranded and starving in a strange forest. He was relieved when the guards again blindfolded him and pushed him back into the open bed of the truck.

  When the truck stopped, his blindfold was not removed. The night air was warm, the smell of horses close by, and the hum of a city somewhere off in the distance. As he was strapped into the heavy vest, the first cocks crowed. Strong tape was wound about him repeatedly so that he could never remove the vest. Though he prayed fervently for continued courage,
the sharp shriek of the tape being torn from the roll caused his legs to wobble as they had when he was removed from the van at what now seems like such a long time ago. He was taken over two more hills and pulled through a cut in a barbed-wire fence that pricked him in the shoulder and thigh. When he yipped, one of the Turks cuffed the side of his head—and he made no further sound.

  The two guards said nothing as they pushed him through a small rectangular opening into the stone tunnel. He crouched, disoriented, for a moment before a stern voice, similar to that of the tall Turk who spoke Arabic, ordered him to take fifteen paces. When he stood to his full height, he bumped his head. As he felt his way along the curving tunnel, the stone was coarse and cool. The bright light that preceded him outlined the blindfold’s edges. After exactly fifteen steps, he was told to sit.

  When the man removed the blindfold, the sudden brightness caused the boy to squeeze his eyes shut and turn his head. He kept his eyes averted as the man wired the trigger to the vest and taped it to his wrist. As the man’s rough hands worked, he repeated all of the earlier orders in a clipped whisper. The man’s voice was sharp in his ear, and the smell of beer and cigarettes was vile. When the man finished, he turned the boy’s chin to face him. The headlamp flooded his vision and sent flashes of pain behind his eyes and through his head. Molten red and yellow spots pulsed and popped—and the shaking began.

  The man commanded him to stop, but he couldn’t make himself do it. The man said something harsh in Turkish, and then his tone suddenly changed. Whispering again, he reminded the boy that soon he would join all of the other venerated martyrs in heaven. He tousled the boy’s hair as his father had, and then he returned the black-and-white ISIL headband, placing it firmly on the boy’s head as though it were a crown. When the man handed him the water bottle, the light was too brilliant for the boy to see anything. The man took a long deep breath and then patted the boy on the side of his head.

  His grip tight on the back of the boy’s neck, the man reiterated that the boy must wait until the woman spoke two hundred words. And then the man let go, and the light began to back away. The man whispered, “Allahu Akbar,” but it sounded distant, an afterthought. The light receded around the bend and then vanished, leaving only the weaving spots.