Читать книгу Exile - Ciler ilhan - Страница 8

I’m a Bastard!

I’m a bastard! Literally a bastard! God, did I have to see my picture in the paper to realize this? The picture where I’m gagging that young girl? Newspapers said she was eighteen or twenty but she wasn’t even seventeen! After she saw the photograph in the newspaper my wife rang the station and yelled at me, ‘You’re a bastard!’ She said she was ashamed of me. I’m ashamed of myself too.

I just didn’t think. My Boss had given us all strict instructions,

‘Be on your guard during the Tunceli trip of Our Esteemed Mini­ster, or I’ll have you all!... Grab anyone that speaks, that squeaks, that stirs, that budges, or does anything at all and drag’em away!’ he said. Then, when that girl suddenly cried ‘Our Esteemed Mini­ster!’ while Our Esteemed Minister was speaking – and it was just my bleeding luck, I was right next to her, wasn’t I – and I never thought, just shoved both hands over her mouth. And not just her mouth, either, I saw later in that photograph in the newspapers: I’d smothered her – her nose, her eyes – and she wore glasses too, and I grabbed them off in a rage! My mouth pursed in rage as if I’d kill her. And bugger it if our Inspector hadn’t also heard her shouting ‘Our Esteemed Minister!’ and turned up right beside me ordering ‘run her in straight away!’ Chuffed to bits I was doing a great job, I was in his good books, you know, I dragged her away and stuffed her into the patrol car. Mind you, I was still proud of myself. Who could say she wasn’t a separatist?

She started crying inside the car. I didn’t give a damn. I was saying to myself, this little bitch will give us a couple of names now, who knows, we might even corner those responsible for yester­day’s attack. How that would please my Boss! I’ll boast about it to my wife.

We slammed her into a cell at once. Naturally, I joined the interview too; well, we caught her, we’ll make her talk. She’s in custody at the most infamous station, I was saying to myself, she has no choice but to spill the beans. And I’ll become the pride of the station. Boy, was I proud of myself. An hour, two, three – not a word. She was crying buckets. ‘I’m not a separatist or anything, all I wanted was to say to Our Esteemed Minister, “my family is not letting me go to university, please help me.”’ ‘Look here,’ I said firstly, ‘pull the other one, you little bitch, it’s got bells on.’ So Ahmet and me, we tried all the tricks we knew: Anything, you name it but still, nothing.

Then someone pulled strings and we had to let her go after six hours. Without getting a word out of her. Yet at home I was still telling myself that there was definitely something fishy about this girl.

Dear God! Never realized how innocent her little face was! I never realized until I saw it in the newspaper.