Land of the Blind

by Barbara Nadel

  ‘I couldn’t find any broken bones,’ a young man said.

  ‘Oh.’

  He knelt down beside Özgür. ‘I’m a doctor,’ he said. ‘You’ve been in and out of consciousness for some hours. You probably don’t remember. I’ve got nothing with me to help you but if you take some paracetamol that will improve any headache you may have.’

  Samsun gave the doctor a glass of water which he passed to Özgür. Someone produced paracetamol.

  ‘How did I get here?’

  ‘We carried you,’ Samsun said.

  ‘You?’

  ‘Me and Madonna and my nephew Kemal and his, er, his friends,’ she said. A young man in some very bloodied blue jeans waved at him.

  One of the young man’s friends said, ‘Are you one of the Muslims Against Capitalism?’

  ‘No,’ Özgür said.

  ‘Oh.’ He looked down at his nails in what, to Özgür, was a dismissive fashion. He was very effeminate even if he dressed as a man.

  ‘I’m just a Muslim worried about my country,’ Özgür said. ‘To not respect nature is un-Islamic, to hurt trees and plants and people is a negation of everything that is good. I can’t let it go.’

  ‘Well good for you,’ Samsun said. ‘And thank you. Oh, and welcome to the Sugar and Spice. It’s a very gay place but we’re all very inclusive here and you’re really welcome, Özgür.’

  He wasn’t comfortable but Özgür wasn’t miserable either. And he was alive, which was his fate, but which was also amazing.

  Those first months after she’d left hospital had been times of pain, confusion and grief. She hadn’t known what had been in her mind or what the drugs she’d been given had made her experience. All of it had been frightening. But more terrifying than anything else had been the idea that her husband was buried alive. She’d never been able to articulate that to anyone else. Most of the time she blocked it out. But the last time she’d seen Nikos was on the back of a man whose face she couldn’t make out, who had carried him from their shop on İstiklal Caddesi. Bloodied, his face swollen and distorted from the kicking and stamping he’d endured, as Nikos was taken away, she saw one eye open. And although she’d been told that he had been buried some time after the riots – she’d even seen what was purported to be his grave in the churchyard in Şişli – she couldn’t shift it from her mind that while she’d been fighting for her life, Nikos had been put into the ground, somewhere, alive.

  For years she’d heard him scratching. At night, whether she was awake or asleep, he called to her to let him out. She could never move. She could never tell anyone. She especially couldn’t speak of it to Sırma Hanım. Anastasia would have died without the care Hakkı Bey’s wife had given her. When she needed medicine, Sırma would give it to her; Sırma washed her, dressed her and gave her back something that passed for life while she waited for her son to return to her. She’d seen the face of the woman who had taken him. She could have described it in every detail but by the time she could speak just a little again, 1955 had become 1956 and the world had moved on from the September riots.

  Still Nikos had scratched. There was crying too. It stopped only when Yiannis returned, when she had thought herself mad. He had saved her. But now it was back and this time it wasn’t Nikos. This time something terrible had been done and Hakkı and Yiannis existed in grey rain clouds of guilt.

  A creature was buried, alive, just like her husband had been. She could hear his fingernails scratching her walls; his sobs echoed through the house like tolling bells. And they were getting louder.

  If someone other than Çetin İkmen had called him, Mehmet Süleyman would just have let his phone ring. It was after midnight and he was exhausted. But when he saw Çetin’s name appear on the screen, he picked up. Half an hour later he was sitting in İkmen’s car opposite the Negroponte House.

  ‘There was a chamber or a room or something,’ the older man said. ‘It was down on the same level as the kitchen, down a corridor. I never went into it but I do remember a door and, more pertinently, a doorway, which was old.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Ottoman? Byzantine? Who knows? It was a long time ago,’ İkmen said. ‘But significantly, on the two occasions I’ve been to the house recently, I haven’t seen anything like that. On the first occasion I actually saw into the kitchen from the bathroom. The second time the door to the kitchen was closed with Yiannis Negroponte standing in front of it. I knew that something was different, wrong.’

  ‘But you still don’t really know what, do you?’ Süleyman said. ‘Or what it means. What do you think it means?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ İkmen flicked his cigarette ash out of his car window and listened, for a moment, to the sounds of distant voices from Gezi Park.

  ‘But I’m thinking that my dead academic, Ariadne Savva, claimed to have found an as yet undiscovered Byzantine structure. However, apart from being Greek, what connection is there between her and the Negropontes? Aside from a tentative link through Ahmet Öden, I can’t find any.’

  ‘And from what I’ve heard, wasn’t she a bit of a fantasist? Claiming she could positively identify that skeleton she found?’

  ‘Constantine Palaiologos. Is it a fantasy? They have him at the museum now,’ İkmen said. ‘Someone was threatening Dr Akyıldız the forensic archaeologist, trying to stop her working on the skeleton. So someone believes he’s real.’

  ‘Or chooses to. You know how fanatics are,’ Süleyman said. ‘Can’t have a Byzantine emperor turning up on the eve, some hope, of Aya Sofya being turned back into a mosque. Bad omen.’

  İkmen smiled. He was still no less angry with Süleyman for his treatment of the late Ayşe Farsakoğlu, but he was also glad to be able to share ideas with him again.

  ‘So what is the significance of your disappearing space in the Negropontes’ house? Do you think that they’ve put Ahmet Öden in there?’ Süleyman asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t pass through that archway and open that door even as a child, and on the last few occasions I went to the house, I didn’t see it at all. I’ve no reason to suppose that either Yiannis Negroponte or Hakkı Bey have done anything wrong and I know that my memory could be false. When you get to my age a lot of them are.’

  Süleyman smiled. ‘But you’re uneasy and, false memory or no false memory, I have learned to trust your instincts, Çetin. And so have you.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Come on.’

  Süleyman got out of the car. When İkmen didn’t move he said, ‘Let’s get them up.’

  Even with two of them on the job, the wardrobe didn’t move easily. Once he’d shifted it out of the way, Hakkı touched the wall behind. For a few moments he said nothing, until Yiannis prompted him, ‘Well?’

  ‘It’s set.’ He bent down and slowly scooped a handful of pink dust off the floor and smeared it over the small section of wall that was brick, dressed with porphyry stone. ‘There, good as new.’

  But it wasn’t entirely soundproof. Now he was close to the cavity, Yiannis could hear slight tapping inside – and what could be sobbing.

  ‘What did you do with his phone?’ he asked.

  ‘Dropped it in the Bosphorus.’

  ‘I don’t feel good about this.’

  ‘A lot of things in life don’t make you feel good,’ Hakkı said.

  ‘You’ve done . . . For me . . .’

  ‘I’ve done what I’ve done for Madam,’ the old man said. ‘You?’ He shrugged. ‘What are you?’

  He turned away and walked slowly back through the arch and into the kitchen.

  Yiannis stared after him. He should hate him so much that killing him should be just like putting down a rabbit or a chicken. But he couldn’t. He owed him too much, even if the old man had done nothing out of love or even liking for him.

  ‘Come on, you need to get some rest,’ Hakkı said.

  Something that could have been a voice, an unintelligible word, came from behind the wall he’d built with Hakkı,
but he couldn’t imagine what it was.

  He walked back into the kitchen, just as the front doorbell rang.

  He’d heard voices. He’d shouted inasmuch as he could. He’d drunk all the water and now his throat was dry and so shouting was difficult. He’d stamped his feet, but that too had been a puny effort. He was weakening. His head was spinning, as what one part of his mind recognised as hypoglycaemia began to take over.

  Sometimes people who were in danger of death offered something to God in exchange for their lives. He’d read lots of stories where people were saved from certain death in exchange for offering to perform Haj, give up alcohol and women or promise that their daughters would cover. What could he give up? He’d been on the Haj twice, his woman, Gülizar, was dead and Kelime would soon cover anyway. He could always give money but he was already doing that. What was left he needed for Kelime. She would never marry; she’d need his money to be able to be cared for as she grew up and then grew old.

  There was, however, one sacrifice he could make that would be pleasing to God. It was something he knew he would have to do anyway. Ahmet Öden began to shiver. Then he vomited.

  He’d die soon. And nobody would ever know how.

  The kitchen looked exactly the same as it had the last time.

  ‘Cooker,’ Yiannis pointed to it. ‘Fridge, cupboards, sink. I don’t know what else I can show you.’

  İkmen walked over to the sink and looked out of the window into the dark garden. Süleyman, in the kitchen doorway, watched Yiannis Negroponte and the old man.

  ‘When I was a child I remember an archway,’ İkmen said, ‘and a door.’

  ‘A door to where?’

  ‘I don’t know. I never went through it.’

  ‘I think it was a door in your mind, Çetin Bey,’ Hakkı said. ‘Children invent worlds that don’t exist when they are little. And you were a very imaginative child.’

  That was true.

  ‘There’s nothing here,’ Hakkı said. ‘And even if there was, what of it?’

  He didn’t want to say that he feared that Ahmet Öden might be dead inside some secret room he’d never seen. İkmen had asked his brother Halıl if he remembered anything about an archway and a door leading off from the Negropontes’ kitchen, but he’d had a problem even recalling the house.

  When they left the house, İkmen lit a cigarette and told Süleyman that he felt stupid. ‘The place was the same. It was the same!’ he said. ‘What can I say?’

  Süleyman lit up too. He was frowning. ‘Ah, but I wonder,’ he said. ‘Did you see how they moved?’

  ‘Yiannis and Hakkı?’

  ‘When you moved so did they. Not mirroring your movements, I don’t mean that.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘I don’t know. But it was odd, an unnatural movement. I don’t think they always needed to move.’

  ‘Then what were they doing?’

  Süleyman shrugged.

  They were walking back to the car when İkmen suddenly clicked his fingers. He looked at Süleyman and smiled.

  ‘Çetin?’

  ‘Yiannis,’ İkmen said, ‘is a magician.’

  Chapter 25

  The sword, although missing what must have been some enormous precious or semi-precious stones, did have the double-headed eagle of the Byzantine emperors carved into its hilt. But as Professor Bozdağ looked at the fragments of skeleton that lay beside the weapon he wondered if the two were connected. Ariadne Savva had come to the museum with excellent academic references. She’d known her subject and had been an asset to the department. But, since her death, he’d learned that she’d been a fantasist too. How could anyone who believed that a direct descendant of the Palaiologi dynasty still existed be anything but a fantasist?

  He knew the few grand old Byzantine families that still existed in the city and none of them, however much they might desire royal blood, could claim any. Blood was one of the great paradoxes. The purer or more inbred it was, the more dangerous it became to the dynasty that cultivated it. The old Byzantine families had been forced to marry out over the centuries in order to survive. If they hadn’t they would have become diseased, weak and distorted. He’d seen people like that in some of the tiny, isolated villages in the east he’d marched through as a conscript back in the 1970s. If a descendant of the Palaiologi were to exist, he or she would probably be mad and sterile. How could Ariadne have got access to someone like that? Had she met a rubbish picker with delusions of grandeur over in Gizlitepe? There had always been oddities in İstanbul. In spite of a political shift to conform to conservative values, the city still asserted its individuality. Gezi Park was a case in point. There was always a surprise around the corner in İstanbul. Had he missed one?

  ‘No, no, it’s not convenient now,’ Yiannis said.

  İkmen, this time accompanied by Süleyman, Kerim Gürsel and two uniformed officers, said, ‘I have a warrant to search this house.’

  There was a silence. Hakkı Bey, who had been weeding in the front garden, stopped.

  ‘Then I’ll need to make the place—’

  ‘Now, Mr Negroponte,’ İkmen said. ‘I’ve a warrant to search right now.’

  ‘Why? What are you looking for?’

  İkmen held what had been a hastily acquired and hard won document up to Yiannis’ face and moved past him into the house.

  ‘You can’t—’

  ‘Inspector Süleyman, would you and your officers like to secure the kitchen and the basement while I go and inform Madam Negroponte,’ İkmen said. ‘Kerim, come with me.’

  Yiannis Negroponte raced them to the stairs. ‘My mother is sick, you—’

  ‘Please get out of the way, Mr Negroponte,’ İkmen said.

  But Yiannis was already halfway up the staircase. Hakkı, now in the house, attempted to push past Süleyman but was held back. İkmen saw Yiannis look at the old man and then turn away.

  Anastasia Negroponte was still in bed but she was awake. İkmen saw her head turn as her son ran to her and knelt beside her bed. ‘Mama, Çetin Bey and his police have to spend some time in the house so it might be a little noisy,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  İkmen looked into her eyes, which were afraid.

  ‘They think that workmen on the site next door might be stealing building materials,’ Yiannis said. ‘They want to use this house to observe them.’

  It was quick thinking. İkmen was impressed.

  ‘We will try to be as quick and discreet as we can, Madam Negroponte,’ he said. ‘I can only apologise for the inconvenience.’

  When they left the bedroom, İkmen heard Yiannis calm his mother, who was crying. Once she spoke, but he couldn’t hear what she said. Now intent upon getting down to the kitchen, he ran with Kerim at his back and found Süleyman and one of the uniforms standing where he had stood the night before. Hakkı was in his previous position too. The only difference was that the second uniformed officer was walking in through another door that led out to a stone staircase up to the garden. It had been locked, but he’d just kicked it in. And when he saw what was in front of him, he frowned.

  The government media outlets were reporting that the Gezi protesters had thrown Molotov cocktails at the police. But Peri could only remember the tear gas. She had to get to work by lunchtime but her eyes were so sore and her sight so hazy that it was going to be hard for her to leave her apartment.

  Ömer had called three times in the last hour but she still hadn’t answered him. He’d left two messages, one telling her he was going out to Bebek for some reason and another reminding her that she should call their parents to let them know she was all right. Although quite what news had got through to her isolated, computer illiterate parents in Mardin, Peri didn’t know. It was quite possible that they didn’t know anything about the İstanbul protests. She hoped they didn’t.

  She washed her eyes again and wondered what had happened to her Gezi friends – Iris and the transsexuals, the Muslims Against Capitalism and
the gay boys. When the police moved in, everyone had scattered. Where once there’d been flowers, trees and tents, a chaos of gas and plastic bullets had taken hold. Before she’d been gassed, Peri had seen gypsy boys hurling themselves in front of their female relatives as they tried to protect them from the police.

  Peri felt sad more than anything else. When her brother had joined the police a lot of people back home had been surprised, and some, angry too. Whether one was Turkish or Kurdish, the police and the gendarmerie were, in the east, the enemy, with a reputation for corruption and brutality. When Peri and Ömer had been growing up people had always kept away from officers of the law. Then Turkey had got serious about its bid to join the European Union and standards had been imposed from Brussels. Things had improved. Which was why Ömer had joined.

  Now all of that was disappearing into a slurry of violence. Men who looked like Robocop walked the streets of İstanbul as if they owned them and the rhetoric coming out of the government was, to Peri, shrill and unhinged. There had been talk about an ‘interest rate lobby’ being behind the protests, whatever that was. If Peri understood correctly it was something to do with foreigners being jealous of Turkey’s economic success. Someone in power had even named the German airline, Lufthansa. It was crazy. Why would Lufthansa or any other foreign company want to bring Turkey’s economy to its knees? The German staff at the hospital were furious.

  Peri had to go to work. But when her shift was over, would she go back to Gezi Park? She’d have to think very carefully about it before she made a decision. And see what was left of the protest camp.

  Çetin İkmen walked into a room that, illuminated by candles, was every shade of purple. It wasn’t large but it did contain a raised slab of porphyry stone and it was a ‘red’ room similar to the one that Ariadne Savva had described in her notebook. At first he thought that the only real difference was that it didn’t have windows. But it did, or rather it had. Now the small slits that had once passed for windows were blocked off to stop earth from outside coming in. Where the level of the land had risen over the centuries, so the room had slowly descended into the ground.