Land of the Blind

by Barbara Nadel

  ‘And that is your right,’ İkmen said.

  ‘So did Öden go missing after he was here?’ Hakkı asked.

  İkmen took another spoonful of menemen. It was delicious but he was full, even though he’d only eaten a third of it. ‘No, he went to his home and then went out again later on that evening without telling anyone where he was going.’

  Yiannis shrugged. ‘He didn’t come here, if that’s what you want to know. When he left in the morning, our business was concluded.’

  ‘He didn’t tell you, maybe while making small talk, about where he might be going that evening?’

  ‘Öden never made small talk with me,’ Yiannis said. ‘I told him he couldn’t buy the house and he left in a fury. If one of your colleagues was following him, why doesn’t he know where he’s gone?’

  ‘He wasn’t following him, he saw him,’ İkmen said. ‘As I’ve told you before, Mr Negroponte, we can’t ban Mr Öden from this area. The way he pesters to buy this house is annoying and, to my mind, borders on coercion, but I can’t stop him doing it.’

  ‘Well, wherever he’s gone, he can stay there,’ Hakkı said and he laughed.

  But Yiannis didn’t. And neither did İkmen. Being in that house again brought back the same feelings of disconnection that he’d experienced the last time he’d visited. Again, he was accompanied when he went downstairs to the bathroom. This time, though, the kitchen door was closed and when he finally left the house he heard Madam Anastasia calling and was shocked by the way that both Hakkı and Yiannis ignored her.

  Kerim Gürsel was trying to stave off the evil moment when he had to call Dr Savva’s father in Greece. He didn’t have good news and so he carried on contacting cab companies in the city. But so far nobody had picked up anyone answering Ahmet Öden’s description in Bebek the night before last. Not that most of the cab office controllers really gave his request too much attention. Half of them didn’t even bother to get back to him. Then his mother rang.

  ‘Is Sinem all right?’ she asked. ‘I’ve been calling and calling and she doesn’t answer the phone.’

  ‘She must be out,’ he said. He didn’t tell her that Sinem was at Gezi. Fortunately his mother didn’t have his wife’s mobile number. Sinem was with Pembe and that American, Rita, and, last he heard, they were leaving the park and heading off to the Sugar and Spice cafe on İstiklal Caddesi – provided that hadn’t been attacked. Gay venues were, Kerim imagined, prime targets for his colleagues while Gezi was being battered.

  ‘Out? Out where?’ his mother said. ‘The woman’s a cripple! You chose to marry a cripple who never gets pregnant and will never get pregnant.’

  ‘I love—’

  ‘Yes, I know, you love her,’ his mother said. ‘But it’s not enough, Kerim. Your brother has children and your sister, ten years younger than you. It’s shameful. You must divorce her.’

  It was a conversation he had with his mother a lot. She wanted grandchildren. She’d always said that her sick daughter-in-law would never get pregnant and she’d been right. But not for the reasons she supposed. Maybe Sinem could have become pregnant had she and Kerim ever had sex, but they hadn’t.

  ‘Um . . .’

  Kerim looked up and saw Süleyman’s sergeant, Ömer Mungun, at his office door. He beckoned him in. ‘I have to go now, Mother,’ he said into the phone. ‘Sinem is fine, I’m sure.’

  His mother said something else but he put the phone down. ‘Ömer Bey.’

  Ömer Mungun had one of those sharp eastern faces and slanted eyes that Kerim always associated with the very few Syriani boys who had been at his school. Ömer – like his sister, whom Kerim had met in the grounds of the Aya Triada Orthodox church – was all angles and bones. In fact the sister probably looked the more masculine of the two.

  Ömer sat down in what was usually İkmen’s chair. ‘Kerim Bey,’ he said, ‘you’re working on the disappearance of Ahmet Öden, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Amongst other things.’ He still had to call Mr Savva. His heart beat a little faster.

  ‘So you know about his dead mistress . . .’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’ve a lot of forensic material from the crime scene which, so far, matches with no one on record,’ Ömer said. ‘Because Öden was undoubtedly her lover, we need samples from him. I know he’s missing, but there must be hairs in his brushes, on his clothes – you know what I’m saying.’

  ‘DNA.’

  ‘I know we’ve all had to be very hands off with Öden. But now he’s missing, surely if we can get a DNA sample it will help us match that with any possible samples we may find.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know. Didn’t he take a taxi when he disappeared? If a cab driver says he was in his cab . . .’

  ‘Mmm. It’s a thought.’

  ‘It can help both of us,’ Ömer said. ‘And if the request comes from this office then I can’t see how the family can object.’

  ‘No. Was this your idea or—’

  ‘Yes, it was mine. Inspector Süleyman is on his way in. He’s been to Gezi Park this morning.’

  ‘What for?’

  Ömer shrugged. ‘I don’t know. We’re not involved, although . . .’ He shrugged again. ‘What can you say about Gezi?’

  His face crumpled a little. Kerim wondered whether his sister was still in the park. After a short silence he asked him.

  ‘As far as I know, yes,’ Ömer said.

  A longer silence followed until Kerim said, ‘Are you worried?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you be?’

  Kerim knew that if he said ‘no’ he would be lying. But it was different for him. His own sister was a virtual prisoner in a smart gated community in Göktürk. Sinem, his wife, was either still in Gezi or in a gay cafe with his lover, Pembe. And yes, he was worried about them.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘What can I do?’ Ömer said. ‘My sister is older than I am and she’s a nurse, and she’s always telling me to mind my own business.’

  Kerim smiled. Peri Mungun had come across to him as a feisty woman.

  ‘But that’s beside the point,’ Ömer said. ‘Will you ask Çetin Bey about the DNA?’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘The family can’t object.’

  ‘No, it’s a good idea.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Ömer walked back to the office door. Then he turned. ‘Oh, have you heard anything about that child those two girls found in an outhouse?’

  Kerim shook his head. ‘Sadly, yes.’

  ‘And? It’s not your dead woman’s child?’

  ‘No, it isn’t. We don’t know who it belongs to, but it isn’t the late Dr Savva. And now I have to tell her father.’

  Ömer Mungun shook his head. ‘Tough day.’

  ‘Help me. Help me! Help me! Help me!’

  He tried different tones, emphases, even accents. Because although he couldn’t hear anything through the dark red walls, he couldn’t be absolutely sure that he couldn’t be heard. Sound was organised in frequencies which, although he didn’t understand what they were, he gathered could be heard by different species and sometimes different people according to their age, health and hearing ability.

  There were other sorts of frequencies too. Hitting wood with a hammer would be one, while bashing away at metal, another. He experimented. God knew he had time. God knew he had to so the madness and the panic didn’t overwhelm him. Light tapping on the stone with his knuckles, clanking the water jug – being careful not to break it – against the wall, kicking, stamping, slapping his trousers against the stone. They’d had to go when he’d finally been unable to stop himself defecating any longer. Heavy with urine, he used them to beat time in between smashing a shoe on the ceiling and screaming long, senseless vowel sounds.

  For a while, before he’d eventually slept, his head slumped down on his chest, smelling his own piss-stained crotch, he’d managed to fool himself with the idea of rescue. Eventually some
one would come and let him out and take Negroponte and the old man away and put them in prison. Or maybe Negroponte himself would change his mind about what he’d done and let him out.

  But what if Negroponte didn’t know? What if the old man had put him in there on his own? But how could he? He was old and weak. No, Negroponte had to know. But no one else did. The old man had told him to come alone and tell no one and so he had, because he had wanted so badly to be exactly where he was now. In the Red Room.

  Chapter 24

  Her eyes couldn’t take any more. One more exposure to gas and she was sure they’d melt, even though she knew that wasn’t possible. Trying to see anything was painful and terrifying and, as Peri staggered forwards, she tripped over something that could have been a bundle of someone’s possessions or another human being. As far as she knew it hadn’t made a sound as if it were hurt.

  Dull thuds on the ground signalled the coming back to earth of spent tear gas canisters – almost a cause for joy when they didn’t hit some poor soul on the head or gouge an eye out. The assault on the park had grown during the day, as had the level of resistance. People were pouring in from all over the city and beyond. But Peri had had enough. Exhausted, sick and sore from the tear gas, she staggered off in what she hoped was the direction of her apartment.

  Even the noises got to her now. She had thought that she’d become inured to the scream of sirens in the past couple of days, but now they made her head ache. That and the screaming. That was almost organic, seeming to rise up from the earth rather than from people. What fanciful, magical thinking! Peri chided herself for it. People in İstanbul didn’t want to hear what they would class ‘nonsense’. That she’d seen – actually seen – the great Sharmeran snake goddess walk the Mesopotamian Plain as she held her parents’ hands at dawn as a very young child, was a fact. But then again it wasn’t. As Ömer always said, it ‘depends on who you’re telling’.

  An explosion to her right had Peri hurling herself to the left. Someone screamed and she tried not to imagine what was happening to that person. Had he or she been shot? A combination of darkness and streaming eyes meant that she couldn’t see much and so was incapable of helping.

  Eventually the screaming subsided and Peri picked herself up and continued on her way. All she could think of now was her home, her parents and her goddess walking the silent plains of Mesopotamia. All she wanted to do was join her.

  ‘If the boy says he’s OK then we have to believe him,’ İkmen said.

  Fatma paced the living room, stopping only occasionally to look at some dating show on the television. ‘But I could hear screaming and shouting in the background!’ she said. ‘He was still at Gezi! After everything you said to him! Or said you said to him.’

  Kemal had finally answered his phone to let his parents know that he was unhurt.

  ‘I told him to come home and so did Samsun,’ İkmen said.

  She shook her head. ‘But he’s still there! With all that going on!’

  ‘No he isn’t, he’s leaving. And all what?’

  He knew, but he wondered how she did. There’d been a news blackout on television.

  ‘All the violence in Gezi Park,’ she said. ‘If you go out on to the balcony at the back you can hear it. And Deniz Hanım’s son is there too. But he’s in opposition to the protest. He’s a sensible boy.’

  ‘He’s a little thug,’ İkmen said.

  ‘Çetin!’

  ‘Any twenty year old who goes around accosting young women in short skirts to tell them how immoral they are, needs some serious watching,’ İkmen said. ‘What does he take his frustrations out on, eh? What’s his nasty little vice?’

  ‘Oh, he doesn’t have one,’ Fatma said. ‘Why do you always think that people who publicly espouse morality and modesty have secret vices?’

  ‘Because they usually do,’ he said. ‘And my job means I have to be a student of human nature which, Fatma dear, is largely governed by hormones and greed.’

  ‘No it isn’t!’

  She flung herself down in a chair and stared at the television, but without really seeing it. ‘I wish Kemal would come home.’

  Nothing İkmen could say would make her feel any better and so he stayed silent. His son had sounded as if he was perfectly in control of his situation in Gezi Park and had even teamed up with a group of other young people, including a couple of girls. With any luck he’d be violently attracted to one of them, date and eventually marry her. He was a good kid, with a kind heart, but İkmen had been raising children for forty years and he wanted some peace – at least in his apartment if not in his mind.

  Whether Yiannis Negroponte knew anything about the disappearance of Ahmet Öden was a good question which İkmen couldn’t answer. If Yiannis had somehow had the property developer spirited away, while İkmen could imagine why, he couldn’t see how. The Negropontes were broke, and to really get rid of someone, permanently, took money. What was undeniable was the feeling of unease he got in that house. When he’d gone there as a child, he’d loved it because Madam Negroponte had let him play wherever he liked. Now her son followed him and if the place could not be proven to be filled with ghosts, it was definitely infected with Yiannis’ paranoia. İkmen wondered whether this stemmed from the possibility that he wasn’t really Madam Anastasia’s son. Did Yiannis himself even know that? İkmen had no idea, but he doubted that old Hakkı really believed in him.

  ‘Fatma, you must remember the Negroponte House when you were growing up?’ he said.

  ‘What?’ She looked away from the television. ‘Why do you ask me about that now? Our son is—’

  ‘Kemal said that he and his friends were heading for one of the boys’ apartments in Cihangir,’ İkmen said. ‘He’s leaving Gezi, Fatma. He’ll be safe.’

  ‘With anarchists and communists? I don’t think so!’

  He shook his head. ‘Let the boy grow up,’ he said. ‘Let him have his own opinions.

  ‘Your—’

  ‘I’m not getting into an argument about how I have indoctrinated our children – again,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, for your sake, that none of our children hold their religion very dear but that has been their choice. Now, Fatma, the Negroponte House. What do you remember?’

  There was a moment when she could have carried on arguing with him, but it was late and she was tired. ‘You knew it better than I did,’ she said. ‘You went there.’

  ‘Your father knew Hakkı Bey. You must have heard stories.’

  She sighed. ‘Why—’

  ‘Just answer the question, will you?’

  There was a pause, then she said, ‘I don’t remember a lot beyond Hakkı Bey and my father in the old coffee house that used to be on İshak Paşa Caddesi. They used to meet there. A couple of times I took tobacco to my father and they let me sit and watch them play tavla. But I don’t remember Hakkı Bey talking about Madam Negroponte. He’s always been very loyal, I do know that. He rescued her from that disgusting mob who attacked the Greeks in 1955. Her husband died and her child . . .’ She shrugged.

  ‘Do you believe that Yiannis Negroponte is Madam Anastasia’s son?’

  ‘I don’t know him, so how can I tell? Hakkı Bey stays. He must believe, don’t you think? When I saw him with his son Lokman and his children I thought how much more appropriate it would be for Hakkı Bey to live with them now he’s so old. But he continues to work in that house and keep the apartment he’s had for years. As for stories . . . Well, all I have, Çetin, is one memory and that’s hazy after fifty-plus years.’

  İkmen leaned forwards in his chair. ‘Which is?’

  ‘Hakkı Bey told my father there were ghosts. This was after Madam’s husband was killed. He said that the old emperors of Byzantium were angry with the city and that they’d come back, through the house, to get their revenge.’

  He saw her shudder. He felt a chill pass down his back too. And then he remembered something from almost sixty years ago.

  When he could finally focus
, Özgür Koç found himself looking at a group of completely unfamiliar faces. Some young, some older, but all, apparently, were heavily painted. There was also a lot of jewellery.

  ‘Don’t try to get up,’ some red lips said.

  ‘What’s your name, love?’ Another, deeper voice from behind his head.

  ‘Özgür . . .’

  He was on a floor inside a building that smelt of cigarette smoke.

  ‘Where am I?’ he asked.

  There was a pause. Odd, almost cartoon-like faces looked at each other and then someone said, ‘I’ve got aspirin and paracetamol and I know Samsun’s got codeine if your head hurts. Which it must.’

  ‘When those bastards kick you, you know you’ve been kicked.’

  The speaker was a drag queen. Özgür had seen them. He’d always tried to avoid them. What was he doing here with them?

  ‘Do you want water? Or a cigarette?’

  A disgruntled voice said, ‘He won’t want a cigarette! Don’t be fucking stupid!’

  He’d tried to rescue some drag queens. Now it came back. The police had moved in on them like wolves and it wasn’t right. It wasn’t Islamic. He’d reminded them of that and they’d beaten him. Now he was . . .

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘You’re at the Sugar and Spice.’ The smiling face was vaguely familiar and really quite old. ‘I know it’s not your sort of place . . .’

  ‘Not many here but us fairies,’ a very deep voice said. There was laughter.

  ‘But you are safe here and that’s important, because you saved my life earlier today.’ A gnarled, heavily jewelled hand reached out towards Özgür and, although he never usually shook hands with anyone, much less a transsexual, he took it. ‘I’m Samsun.’

  ‘Özgür.’

  ‘Yes. Would you like a drink and some tablets?’ Samsun said. ‘By drink I mean some water or . . .’

  ‘Water would be good, thank you.’ He sat up.

  It was a cafe or bar of some sort. Very plainly decorated in contrast to its many flamboyant patrons. Özgür rubbed his head. It ached even though that was the only place the police hadn’t hit him. He looked down at his shirt, which was covered in blood.