Читать книгу Endgame - Ahmet Altan - Страница 16

XI

‘gülten? she fell in love with haldun when they were at university and then got married. they had a big wedding. he’s a dentist. his dad’s an olive man. they’re loaded. had two kids. but haldun started hitting the drink. why … i don’t know. and i think he started beating gülten. then they split. now she has a lover in the city. he’s married. what does he do? he’s a dentist. strange. they say that kamile’s a lesbian. she’s got a sharp tongue. that’s why everyone stays away from her.’

When Zuhal was chatting with me online she had this way of answering her own questions, and that day she told me a lot about the people she knew in town.

‘but it was like she was flirting with me,’ I wrote.

‘they say that when she goes to the city she calls a gigolo. i don’t know. anything’s possible with kamile. i’m afraid of the woman. and her husband raci bey. but it’s like he’s blind to it all. or he has no choice but to turn a blind eye. there’s nothing he could do anyway. they say that raci is close to the refugees. he’s probably the most powerful man after mustafa. some people say he has the deed to the treasure. but then again everyone says someone else has it.’

‘does the deed really exist?’

‘i have no idea. that’s what everyone thinks. if not for that church the town would fall apart. talk about that treasure keeps everyone together. or at least it seems like that to me. strange. mustafa is convinced there’s treasure there. why … i don’t know. babies know about the treasure before they’re born. take serhan abi. who? the pharmacist. with the quiet wife. she never says a word, always knitting. he’s a sweet man. he says nothing’s there, it’s all just talk. how does he know? i don’t know. but everyone’s looking for the deed. you’d be amazed to see how much money people spend trying to find it. they are all watching each other like hawks. sometimes i wonder what will happen if they really dig up the place … if there’s nothing there. the next day everyone would be dead … strange.’

‘when did all this talk of the treasure start?’

‘i don’t know. nobody really knows. people hear the story from their fathers, grandfathers, their great-grandfathers.’

Then she changed the subject.

‘i saw mustafa in a dream last night. he was driving in some kind of roman chariot. but he was wearing a black suit. he said he was going to war. then he disappeared through a hole and popped out in the olive groves. god, if only I could forget this guy. i can’t get him out of my mind. he sent me a message last night. asking where i was. i told him i was in the city. and then he said he would come and see me. i was about to tell him to come but then i knew he would just make me cry. i told him not to come. why, he asked. i said i had work. what work, he asked. meetings, i said. i’ll come later, he said. but i won’t meet him. i hate it when he gets drunk and calls me. he only wants me when he’s drunk. and when he sobers up he’s the same mustafa.’

‘maybe when he’s sober he can’t bear the pain of losing you.’

‘i’m the one in pain. he suffered in the past. now i’m suffering. he got over it. have you ever been in love?

‘of course.’

‘have you ever been heartbroken?’

‘no.’

‘i woke up in tears this morning. i was crying because i didn’t ask him to come. but i’d cry if he came. sometimes he can be so cruel. such hurtful and poisonous words. then i attack him with my own words. and we always hurt each other. it was so wonderful before. we had such a good time together. are you angry with me for loving him?’

‘no.’

‘i will never be able to love you the way i love him. you know that, don’t you?’

‘i do. that’s fine.’

‘why fine?’

‘what do you want me to say?’

‘don’t know, just not that.’

‘all right.’

We were both surprised by our own indifference. I wasn’t jealous.

And I didn’t really know why.

I knew that Zuhal loved another man so passionately that she would never be able to let him go. She belonged to him, loved him with all her heart. So perhaps it was the thought that I would never lose her – because she never was mine – that kept me from being jealous.

Maybe I was satisfied: she was betraying her great love with me, and this stroked my ego.

Jealousy was a damaged soul, a painful crack in the wall around our sense of self. But Zuhal wasn’t a part of my life, she wasn’t a part of who I was and so I didn’t feel jealous at all. Though I felt strongly connected to her, in a strange way she wasn’t a part of me.

As much as I tried I just couldn’t understand it.

Why wasn’t she a part of me? How was I both so intimate with her and so distant?

I didn’t want her to be mine. No. I wanted her to entertain me. To excite me. I wanted to win her heart. I wanted her to betray her love with me. That’s what turned me on. I confess that I felt a kind of malevolent joy as I challenged an overwhelming and absolute love that had nothing to do with me. I wanted to break it apart.

Lacerating her love and the man she loved gave me a feeling of triumph; but I didn’t really understand that I was also hurting myself – conquering them left me cold.

But if the wounds were opening, I still couldn’t feel them.

Sometimes I can’t solve even my own mysteries.

Was there any reason for me to feel jealous? I know the emotion. It’s easy to describe. But not to be jealous in this situation? It was inexplicable. If she left Mustafa and gave herself to me, but still loved him, would I be jealous? I suppose so. Was I not jealous because she didn’t give herself to me, didn’t choose me? Mulling all this over, I hadn’t noticed the words flashing on the screen.

‘do you miss me?’

‘yes.’

It was the truth. I missed her.

‘what do you miss?’

‘i miss everything about you.’

‘everything? tell me.’

I knew straightaway where the conversation was going. I was already aroused. We were going to make virtual love.

Our relationship had two principal foundations: the pure love she felt for another man and the pure lust she experienced with me through written words.

The former was such a powerful bedrock that it seemed as if the relationship would be shaken if she were to one day leave Mustafa; something would be missing.

We began to make love.

I don’t know if it was because of this virtual lovemaking, or because we’re all born with the need to feel another living being, or because of the darkness in the unseen face of my life, or my fondness for the prostitutes who eke out their existence in darkness, but it wasn’t long before I discovered Sümbül. That was her real name. She was honest about that and the kind of life she led. Between the wealthy neighbourhood where I lived and the lower part of town where the middle class had settled there was a belt inhabited by the very poor.

The neighbourhoods had not been arranged in hierarchical order.

The poor had settled between the rich and the middle class.

In fact the middle-class homes that extended as far as the centre of town were the newest and most unattractive. The rich lived in vast old mansions and the poor lived in little old stone houses, while the middle class lived in short apartment buildings.

Sümbül’s home was in the poor neighbourhood. But I never went there. She came to me. She had a pink telephone with sparkling gems (something I’d never seen before), and music for a ringtone. She was always getting calls. But I was usually her last customer, calling her around midnight.

It was strange the way people in town looked after Sümbül; they never let anything bad to happen to her. Once a drunk teenager was rough with her and the next day they broke both his legs and left him on a street corner. The kid never even went to the police and hobbled around on crutches for months.

They called him Sümbül’s gimp.

I suppose people felt that her presence offered some security, stopped the young kids in town from pestering other women and provided an outlet for their wild desires. She had friends and neighbours. Like the other poor women, she carried her groceries in a mesh bag and covered her head with a scarf when she left home.

She wasn’t beautiful but she was cheerful – she had a good sense of humour.

‘I’m this town’s lightning rod,’ she would say. ‘Lightning always strikes me first. I keep this place honourable.’

It’s not easy for me to make friends with other men but I can quickly befriend women. For me talking to a woman is like wandering into a gift shop filled with a thousand different ornaments. There are so many different things to talk about – gossip, secrets, petty jealousies and personal troubles – that speaking with a woman is like playing with little ornaments that you can pick up and look at without getting bored and without having to buy them. If you don’t bore women by over-selling yourself, you can talk about things that will entertain you for hours.

They have none of the boring, ostentatious self-satisfaction that men have, and to those men who proclaim themselves able to solve all problems they say, Well, go ahead and solve it then, and seem to leave all kinds of problems on the sideline as they have a good time; they know that these problems can be solved easily and believe they can solve them much better than men, and they do. I enjoy them most when they’re putting men down but they really have to believe I’m a true and close friend to do that. Sümbül and I quickly became good friends.

She came to me around midnight. Somehow she’d picked up the habit of drinking whisky and cola – she must have had customers from the big city who met her in fancy hotels.

‘Take off your clothes,’ I would say to her, and she would undress and sit in front of me. She was completely comfortable naked.

Unlike the other women in town, she was fascinated by politics, and she never missed the nightly news. Occasionally we’d discuss popular issues. I always found it amusing to talk politics with her when she was naked. I suppose because I was a writer she always enjoyed talking with me and in time she started telling me about her other clients, though never disclosing names. She pitied men’s hang-ups but was never surprised.

‘Write about prostitutes,’ she’d say, ‘there’s great material there.’

‘Now I’m not the type of girl to just finish the business and send a fellow on his way. But that’s not to say I can’t finish a guy off in five minutes – they just can’t last any longer – but that’s not my style. There was the miserable guy who came to see me, his wife never listened to him, no one ever listened to him, but I did, which is why he even called for me when he was out of town. There’s nothing I won’t do, I never say no.’

Men can never really know other men and that’s why I was curious to hear about what these men did with her. And she told me. There was one I’ll never forget. She didn’t give me his name but I assumed he was one of the town’s better-known gangsters.

‘The man would come and just sit down opposite me, look at me and then start crying. We would never speak. Never did anything either. He’d just look at me and cry. He’d bawl his eyes out. Then he’d pay me and leave. Once I asked him why he was crying and he said that if he told me he’d never come back. I didn’t push him but one day I’m going to ask him again, I’m dying to know.’

One night I asked Sümbül what the people in town thought about me.

‘You got off lightly.’

‘Got off lightly?’

‘One of Oleander Ramiz’s men was going to beat the living daylights out of you.’

‘Why?’

‘So you would leave town.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Everyone knows.’

‘Everyone knows?’

‘Of course they do,’ she said. ‘The whole town was talking about it.’

A sadness suddenly swept over me as I realised how much I cared about the people in town, and it broke my heart to think that as I chatted and joked with them, believing them to be friends, they could look me in the eye knowing that I was going to be beaten and not even tell me about it. I felt betrayed. This feeling only proved how much they meant to me. I was fond of them but they had betrayed me; they had never cared for me.

Sadly I said, ‘No one ever said a word about this to me.’

‘No one could tell you. They were afraid. One day you’ll leave, but they have to stay. I’m sure they dropped hints, though.’

‘No, they never did.’

She raised her eyebrows, pursed her lips and said, ‘Didn’t Remzi ask you if you were bored here, tell you to try somewhere a little more fun? Didn’t Centipede tell you the mountains were beautiful this time of year, that you should spend some time up there? Doesn’t Hamiyet wonder why you don’t go back to the comfort of your own home? Didn’t you ever stop to think why they were saying all these things?’

‘No.’ But I was pleased to think that they were trying to warn me, which means at least I hadn’t been betrayed. ‘But why didn’t they beat me up then?’

‘Mustafa said you were harmless and that they should leave you alone for now. That’s why.’

‘Mustafa got me off the hook?’

‘He’s got something in mind. He always does.’

‘Do you know him?’

‘I’ve known him since he was a kid,’ she said, laughing. ‘But I haven’t seen him for a while. I don’t really see much of those guys after they grow up.’

‘But then why were they planning to beat me in the first place? What was the problem with me? Is it because of the treasure?’

‘Of course. They don’t like strangers poking around here.’

‘Do you think there really is treasure there?’

‘God, I don’t know, but that’s what they say. And even if it’s true, what use is it to me?’

‘It’s like Schrödinger’s cat,’ I said, softly.

‘Whose cat?’

‘Schrödinger’s.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘He says put a cat and poison in a box, and the cat is both dead and alive until you actually open the box.’

‘So you’re saying that the treasure is either there or it isn’t?’

‘No, I’m saying that it’s both there and not there …’

She took a deep breath.

‘You’re the cleverest man in the town and now you’re saying that the treasure is both there and it’s not there. The damned thing is enough to drive even the cleverest people insane.’

She stood up and ran her hand up her inner thigh. ‘Come over here and I’ll show you Sümbül’s cat. Now, that’s definitely there.’

Sümbül’s cat was no match for Schrödinger’s and between her legs the last thing on my mind was quantum physics.

She downed the last bit of whisky-cola before she got up to go. As she was stepping through the door, I took her by the arm and said: ‘But you never warned me.’

She looked at me, a forlorn expression on her face.

‘Didn’t I tell you to come and say goodbye before you left town? I was putting the idea in your head.’

That’s when I realised that in this town certain topics were never openly discussed, and when they were you had to pay careful attention to catch innuendo and subtle signs to understand just what people meant.

Now, thinking back on it, I wonder why I didn’t just leave then. What was keeping me there? When there were so many dangers, warnings, the strange happenings, when I always had the feeling that something bad was just around the corner.

Maybe it was simply curiosity.

I was curious to see what would happen. A writer’s boundless curiosity.

And maybe a little pride.

I had the feeling that I would win over the entire town.

To somehow know the truth behind the people there without them ever suspecting me, to see what they were hiding, to let slip details to do with the dark sides of their lives, it didn’t just quench my curiosity but gave me a strange and exhilarating rush of power.

And like all forms of power, it is a pleasure that comes at a price, a pleasure for which you pay later on.

And now I know the price I had to pay.