Land of the Blind

by Barbara Nadel

  ‘Madam doesn’t leave her bed often these days,’ Hakkı said. ‘And her speech has been bad since the events of 1955. But at least she can speak a little now. For a good decade afterwards she was mute.’

  İkmen shook his head. ‘You have done well to look after her so diligently, Hakkı Bey.’

  ‘I did what needed to be done.’

  İkmen vaguely remembered sneaking into the bedrooms in the Negroponte house. They were all roccoco gilt-fests complete with Venetian putti floating around the ceilings and trompe-l’œil paintings of fat women with long blond hair and bearded men in loincloths. All the beds were huge and heavily laden with faded blankets and counterpanes. This one was no different, except that it also contained a tiny figure.

  Almost completely bald, Anastasia Negroponte had the look of a tiny, delicate baby bird. Her skin, which was a grey-purple colour, appeared to be just lightly draped over her skeleton, while the nails on her toes looked not unlike the talons of a pigeon. Only the eyes were familiar to him. They alone hinted at the slightly plump, white-skinned woman he had known as a child. In those days Madam Anastasia’s hair, which had been as black as licorice, had reached down to her waist.

  İkmen bowed. ‘Good morning, Madam Anastasia,’ he said. ‘It’s very kind of you to see me at such short notice.’

  She smiled and he saw that, brown and broken though they were, she still had teeth. She beckoned him forwards with one arthritis-knotted hand.

  ‘Go to her. Sit on the bed,’ Hakkı said.

  İkmen moved. ‘Is that right, Madam?’ he said.

  There was a pause. She swallowed and then said, ‘Sit.’

  Her voice, not much more than a whisper, was hoarse and he wondered whether it had always been like that or whether time had ruined it. He couldn’t remember her speaking, only laughing – with his mother.

  ‘Kind . . . child,’ she said. ‘ . . .you.’

  ‘My parents wouldn’t have cruel children, Madam,’ he said.

  She held one finger up. ‘Ayşe . . . Timur . . . İkmen.’

  ‘Yes, Ayşe and Timur,’ İkmen smiled. ‘And my brother Halıl. You used to give us home-made lemonade and chocolate and let us run about all over this lovely house while my mother read your cards. You were very kind too. I’m not sure I’d allow a couple of little boys with too much energy to run all over my home unsupervised.’

  Tears fell from her eyes. ‘Ayşe died?’

  ‘Yes, sadly,’ İkmen said. His mother had been Albanian and had died as a result of a blood feud. ‘My father too, but much later.’

  She nodded and closed her eyes, which still appeared to weep. Hakkı put a hand on İkmen’s shoulder and said, ‘Come, Çetin Bey, Madam is tired now.’

  They left the bedroom, İkmen feeling saddened. Surely the old woman couldn’t live long in such a weakened state? It was a miracle she was still alive at all. When they got to the ground floor, İkmen told Hakkı that he needed the bathroom. He remembered where it was – in the basement, across the corridor from the kitchen. He began to make his way to the stairs.

  ‘Ah, let me show you, Çetin Bey,’ Hakkı said.

  ‘I remember,’ İkmen said.

  But the old man insisted on accompanying him. He even opened the toilet door. However, once İkmen had finished the old man had disappeared to be replaced by Yiannis, who stood in the doorway to the kitchen. It had never had a door to İkmen’s recollection and had always smelt of sugar. That had now gone, as had, apparently, the old decor. Over Yiannis’ shoulder he saw a white, rather than a brown stone kitchen, which, unsurprisingly, given the number of years that had passed, looked a lot smaller than he remembered.

  ‘Öden’s still out there, in his car,’ Yiannis said.

  ‘Of course. He’s playing a game. The fact that Sergeant Gürsel and myself are here is probably a challenge to someone like Öden.’

  Yiannis put a hand on İkmen’s shoulder and led him upstairs. In the salon, Kerim Gürsel was drinking lemonade with Hakkı. The old man offered İkmen a drink.

  ‘Thank you.’

  That taste took him back. Madam Anastasia’s lemonade had been one of the stand-out flavours of his youth. What he was drinking was exactly the same. Whoever was making it now was using Anastasia’s recipe.

  But in spite of so much being just as he had remembered, a lot of things had changed. The house was older, more degraded and shabby. And then there were the people. Yiannis had come after İkmen’s time and Hakkı and Madam were of course old. There was something else too: this thing about being escorted in the house. When he’d been a child he’d roamed free, as he’d told Anastasia. Why was he not apparently trusted to find his way around as an adult?

  Chapter 13

  Gezi Park had suddenly become a wonderland of opportunity for the likes of Nurettin the rubbish picker and his associate, the Rat Boy. The two Gizlitepe residents had all but taken up positions by a bin that, however quickly they emptied it, kept on filling up with plastic drinking bottles. Other İstanbullus on the margins had the same idea and so keeping their bin to themselves wasn’t easy. After much discussion and a few fights they came to the conclusion that the old man should guard the bin while the boy took the bottles to be sold, and then they’d reverse the duties. That way they both had a stake in the bin and the temptation to just make off with money earned was replaced by the desire to obtain more cash in the future.

  As far as Nurettin could see, most of the protesters were weirdos – people with coloured hair and tattoos wearing strange clothes that often didn’t cover their bodies properly. There were gays and drag queens too, and women he felt had to be prostitutes. Nurettin didn’t approve. These were the people the government didn’t approve of either, so it was said, and he agreed with them on that count. But on the other hand it was the same government who were supporting the redevelopment of the city and Nurettin didn’t like that.

  The Rat Boy had gone to sell the latest two sackfuls. It was still early, but if it continued at this rate, they’d be rich by the evening. Although he knew it was wrong to drink alcohol, Nurettin had promised himself a drinking session in Nevezade Sokak. The bars down there would take his money even if he smelt like an old toilet. Admittedly they might make him stand outside, but Nurettin didn’t mind that. It was summer. Rat Boy would go and score heroin, but that was his business. Soon it would be winter again and they’d both be cold and hungry, so now they just had to make what money they could and enjoy themselves while they could. What good was saving when you had no home? Some bastard just robbed you. Better to be broke and have some good memories than in funds with money that could be taken away in a heartbeat.

  Nurettin looked out across the tents of Gezi Park and smiled as he watched the protesters get ready for another day. He was going to make some big money and by midnight, if all went well, he’d be drunk and happy.

  The world had become irrational and had been going that way for some time now, it seemed. Why, Aylın Akyıldız wondered, had she not noticed? Was it because she had been so deeply engrossed in her work that life had passed her by? Or had she just deliberately closed her mind to things she felt were irrelevant?

  Somehow, and she couldn’t help but suspect museum staff, word about the body of Constantine Palaiologos had got out. She’d received one death threat through the post and the lab had been bombarded by similar e-mails. Consequently the remains had been moved, in the dead of night, to the museum under the care of Professor Bozdağ. In a way Aylın was relieved but she was also anxious. Now the professor had Palaiologos all to himself and she couldn’t shake a very small voice in her head that told her he’d set the whole death threat thing up. Intellectual jealousy was very real, as Ariadne had known. Had her pregnancy actually been irrelevant? Or had she been killed because of what someone had discovered she had found?

  Aylın wished she’d called the police when the first e-mails arrived. But then over the years she’d become a bit inured to the opinions of the ‘what you’re doing is
ungodly’ lobby. The difference here had been that these e-mails had mentioned a dead infidel king. How had they known? She’d feared that they might have emanated from inside the police force, which was why she’d called Bozdağ. His solution had been immediate and to his own advantage. Or was it?

  She’d never discussed with Ariadne who she’d had in mind when she’d talked about a DNA comparison between the remains and a living descendant. Had that person lived in İstanbul or in Greece? Like most people, Aylın had always believed that the Palaiologi had no descendants. But what if they did? With half the population demonstrating about too much religion in public life while the other half wanted more and, further, were demanding that the great Byzantine church the Aya Sofya be turned back into a mosque, now was not the time for Constantine Palaiologos to make an appearance. Religious Greeks would see his discovery as a sign that Aya Sofya should be theirs once again while conservative Muslims could be roused to fury. Maybe the professor had taken possession of the body to keep it under wraps while things were so tense? But then possibly he had found out who Ariadne had in mind for the comparison and had made contact with that person himself. But it was useless speculating. She had no proof for any of her theories and, on top it all, she was feeling bad about herself.

  Her husband, Burak, had abandoned his architectural practice and was living in a tent in Gezi Park. The protest had been just what he’d been waiting for. When it had started he’d said, ‘Maybe now we’ll be able to get out from under all these ghastly, unimaginative shopping malls that have grown up like tumours all over the city.’

  Burak particularly hated the faux Ottoman style that was so favoured by developers like that odious man Ahmet Öden. Supposed to be so pious and proper, he knocked people’s homes down with impunity and replaced them with Ottoman style buildings that Burak said were about as earthquake-proof as a stack of empty boxes. Still, Aylın couldn’t help but feel a little respect for him. He had a daughter who had Down’s syndrome, but he was really proud of her, always had photographs taken with her and gave her everything. A man like that surely couldn’t be all bad?

  Aylın had told Burak that she did want to join him in Gezi, although this wasn’t strictly true. In spite of any hopes she may have, she couldn’t convince herself that the protest was going to achieve anything, even though it was spreading beyond İstanbul. All she could do – what she’d always done – was to disappear into her work. There was still the skeleton from Galatasaray Lise, plus two that had come in from a site just outside Edirne. She had things to do.

  ‘I can’t stand it any longer! What’s he doing just sitting there day after day? I’ve got to tell him to fuck off!’

  Yiannis Negroponte was trembling with fury.

  Hakkı put a hand on his arm and pulled him back from the front gate. ‘You’ll do so over my dead body, you stupid bastard!’ he hissed. ‘As Çetin Bey said, he’s playing a game with us. Mainly with you. He just sits in his car. Let him.’

  Yiannis sat down. Then he stood up. ‘I can’t. I can’t!’ he said. ‘Get Çetin Bey. He has to see that Öden is still doing this!’

  ‘No, I will not,’ Hakkı said. ‘Çetin Bey has other things to do. And we don’t want him here too often either. Remember?’

  Yiannis walked back from the front gate with his eyes closed, shaking his head.

  ‘Öden cannot buy this house unless you sell it to him,’ Hakkı said. ‘He wants to wear you down. Don’t let him. Eventually something will come along that will take his attention away from this house.’

  ‘Nothing has so far!’

  ‘But it . . .’

  Yiannis put his face close to the old man’s. ‘He knows,’ he whispered. ‘He all but told me that night he sat beside me in front of the gate. He remembers.’

  ‘How? I told you, I watched him every moment when he was in this house as a young man.’

  ‘Well I don’t know, do I?’ Yiannis sneered. ‘I was still in Germany being someone I wasn’t! You tell me! You were here! Somehow he knows, and if word gets out in times like these they’ll put all their power behind him and force us out.’

  ‘Who will?’

  ‘The state, the ruling party, I don’t know! But if he doesn’t back off and he starts to blab about this house to people in power then we don’t stand a chance. You talked about some sort of distraction? Well, we need that now. When the authorities crush Gezi they’ll be so buoyed up they’ll go for everyone and anyone they see as an enemy.’

  Çetin İkmen was trying to work from home. He needed peace and quiet to re-read the translation of Ariadne Savva’s notebook and he also wanted to Google some of her interests. Namely Constantine XI Palaiologos and the ninth-century Empress, Zoe. But it wasn’t easy. To İkmen’s horror and his wife’s delight, the central heating engineers had made it in from Üsküdar and were making a terrible noise. They had also switched off the electricity.

  İkmen went to see the man in charge, who was in the kitchen drinking tea. He did very little except smoke, drink tea and smack his ‘boys’ round their heads when they did anything wrong.

  ‘How long is the electricity going to be off?’ he asked.

  ‘Ah, that I can’t tell you, Çetin Bey,’ the man said. ‘Depends how long it takes those sons of dogs to put in the pump for your new boiler.’

  Although tempted to ask why he employed ‘sons of dogs’ who he clearly felt were not up to the job, İkmen didn’t. Instead he said, ‘I’m trying to look up something on my son’s computer. It’s important.’

  The man shook his head. ‘Sorry, can’t help you. These things take as long as they take.’

  Fatma, who was standing by the cooker, looked furiously at her husband and then smiled at the gas fitter. ‘Well, Ali Bey, I understand,’ she said. ‘And I think that you’re all doing a wonderful job.’

  ‘Ah, thank you, Fatma Hanım,’ he said with a bow.

  Çetin İkmen rolled his eyes. Both his wife and the gas fitter saw him.

  Fatma pursed her mouth. ‘Don’t you roll your eyes at me, Çetin İkmen,’ she said. ‘You’re the one who shouldn’t be here, not this gentleman. If you want to work, go to work, don’t stay here and get under everyone’s feet.’

  Amazed at how vehement this woman was being with her husband and fearful of witnessing a ‘domestic’, the gas fitter left the kitchen quickly.

  ‘Whatever happens you’re getting your precious central heating, Fatma,’ İkmen said. ‘It’s summer, in case you’ve not noticed, and so there’s no urgency, is there?’

  She moved towards him like a small, grey-haired fury. ‘You’ve never wanted this central heating, have you?’ she said. ‘Rather stick with that disgusting old wood-burning soba.’

  ‘Well, it—’

  ‘It nearly broke my back last year,’ she said. ‘We’re having it and we’re having it now.’ Then she whispered, ‘Do you know how difficult it is to first get and then keep workmen these days? They all want to work for the big developers now. They look down on small jobs like this.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know all about that,’ he said. He lit a cigarette. She wasn’t wrong but that didn’t make his situation any easier. ‘And so I suppose I’ll have to try and work in my noisy, hideously smoke-free, infuriating office.’

  ‘That has secure Internet access,’ Fatma said. She shook her head. ‘I went to the prayer area behind Aya Sofya yesterday and look how I have been rewarded now. These workmen coming are a gift.’

  İkmen shook his head. ‘I wish you wouldn’t pray at Aya Sofya,’ he said. ‘It’s a museum.’

  ‘Maybe not for much longer.’

  ‘You want another war with Greece, do you, Fatma?’ İkmen said. ‘Remember your cousin Hüsnü died in Cyprus in 1974.’

  ‘Yes, but we won that war, didn’t we?’ she said. ‘The Greeks won’t do anything, Çetin. Not now. Anyway, you should be glad that I went out.’

  He was always telling her that she didn’t get out enough. He feared that being indoors all the ti
me was a sign of increasing religiosity.

  ‘I even met a man when I was on my way to the prayer area yesterday,’ she said proudly.

  İkmen rolled his eyes again. She made it sound like bungee jumping – unusual and exotic. ‘Who was that then?’

  ‘Old Hakkı Bey. You know, who looks after the Greek woman.’

  İkmen’s ears pricked up.

  ‘He was with his son, Lokman, and a grandchild. They were visiting. You know, Lokman’s new wife has had three children in three years,’ Fatma said. ‘I wish our daughters were more keen to have babies. None of them more than two. What can you do?’

  İkmen hadn’t seen Lokman when he’d gone out to the Negroponte House. But then maybe he and the child had gone back to Hakkı’s own home, wherever that was. Because he had always spent so much time at the Negroponte House it was easy to forget that Hakkı had a place of his own.

  What Fatma said to him then, İkmen didn’t know. He only caught the last bit: ‘Well are you going to go to your office or not?’

  He went. As he left, he said, ‘I’ll be back when I’m back.’

  Fatma didn’t answer.

  Ahmet Öden put his phone down on the passenger seat of his car and put his head in his hands. He knew it was cowardly and selfish but all he could think about was fucking Gülizar. In the car it could take him hours to get over the Bosphorus to Moda. He needed her now!

  He put a hand on his chest and tried to control his breathing so that he could think clearly. If he drove down to Karaköy he could put the car in a parking garage and get a ferry, then a taxi to somewhere near Gülizar’s apartment. That way he could be over there within the hour. And the sooner he was over there the sooner he was back on the European side again – to his real life. In the meantime, he realised he needed to eat. If he didn’t eat he couldn’t inject himself and that could prove fatal.