Red Dress in Black and White

by Elliot Ackerman

  “Yes, and with your son.”

  Murat kneads his chin between his thumb and index finger, figuring why this was the most surprising development to Peter. “So you knew then.”

  “Knew what?”

  “What she was going to do.”

  Peter suppresses an anxious laugh. “You mean leave you?”

  “No,” says Murat, returning a laugh of his own. “She’s aiming to ruin me. There is a difference. When you own a family business and that family comes apart, it obviously affects your business.”

  A coil of ash threatens to topple from Murat’s cigarette. Peter ducks into the kitchen and returns with a saucer, which he rests on the sofa’s arm. “I’m sure your business would recover,” he says.

  “What could you possibly know about that?” says Murat. He jabs a finger toward Peter, one of the two with the cigarette pinned between them. Ash tumbles onto the sofa. Murat curses and then apologizes weakly, brushing at the upholstery but leaving tiny gray streaks behind. “Who is to say that my interests would recover if I faced such a scandal? You know the Beşiktaş football stadium? The debt on that property is mine. You were at Gezi Park. The plunge in the real estate market that followed ruined some of my competitors. It nearly ruined me.” Murat stubs out his cigarette in the saucer, freeing his hands to gesticulate more aggressively at Peter.

  “How do you know that I was at Gezi Park?” Peter asks cautiously.

  Murat lifts an eyebrow, not answering right away. He keeps Peter suspended in a quiet that is charged with the prospect of all Murat knows and the lesser prospect of what he does not know. Then Murat nods across the living room, toward the table scattered with Peter’s portraits, his abandoned project. “In case you forgot, you inscribed a book of your work to my wife. I’ve since kept track of your photos and have seen in the press the ones you took at Gezi.”

  Peter leans back into the sofa. He takes a deep breath. Until this afternoon he and Murat had never met, although they had both assumed outsize roles in one another’s lives. Peter feels a degree of hesitation when dealing with Murat. Bound up as they are, it seems counterintuitive to Peter that Murat should know so little about him. But at the same time, it seems utterly plausible that Murat’s only connection to Peter would be through his photographs. After Peter had gifted Catherine his book, he had hidden his involvement with her, so what else could Murat really know? But as this calming idea asserts itself in Peter’s mind, Murat lights another cigarette and lets slip, “… or was it Kristin who first told me you’d been at Gezi Park? This was the time you were arrested, no?”

  Murat’s elbow brushes against the precariously balanced saucer. It plunges to the floor, shattering. Murat comes out of his seat and apologizes as he sweeps the jagged fragments into his cupped hand. “Look at this mess I have made,” he says absently, seeming to speak only to himself.

  Peter remains on his side of the sofa, sitting very still. “And how do you know Kristin?”

  “Where is your trash?” Murat stands in front of Peter with the largest shards gathered into his palm.

  Peter doesn’t move.

  “In the kitchen?” asks Murat, and then he disappears to the back of the apartment, where Peter hears him opening and closing cabinets until he finds the waste bin. Murat returns to the living room. “How do I know Kristin?” he asks ponderously, picking up their conversation as he wipes his hands together and clears off the last sticky flecks of porcelain. “You could say that I know her in much the same manner that you do. She paid you to do work for her, did she not? She’s paid me to do the same.”

  “She gave me an artistic grant,” says Peter, as if the word grant ennobles his work. “Also, there was an exhibit last night.”

  “So I heard,” replied Murat. “At Deniz’s apartment.”

  “Yes,” Peter says. “At his apartment.” He hesitates, uncertain of Murat’s connection to Deniz and uncomfortable with their perceived familiarity.

  “And was your grant for this?” Murat asks while approaching the photographs scattered across the table. His open palm hovers over their surfaces as if he is casting a spell on them, and then he picks up and shuffles through a few of the black-and-white prints. “What was the concept?”

  “I wanted to show how people keep one another in check,” says Peter, “or how sometimes a person’s conflicting character traits might do the same. The idea was to pair photos that would reveal this.”

  Murat lifts a portrait in each hand, sighting down his arm for the effect Peter was trying to evoke. He ranges over the black-and-white prints, lifting one and then another, searching for a pairing like a cardplayer in search of a winning hand. “It’s an interesting concept,” says Murat, eventually setting down the photos.

  “The project hasn’t worked,” Peter confesses.

  “Maybe you can’t see how it all comes together yet.” Murat ambles back to the sofa. “The idea makes sense.”

  “You mean pairing the photos?”

  “I can’t say about the photos,” answers Murat, “but the concept that people hold one another in place. Let me ask you something: Did it ever occur to you that Kristin had an ulterior motive when providing you with your grant? Did you ever think that she wanted you to meet my wife?”

  “She introduced me to Catherine, of course she wanted us to meet. Kristin thought Catherine could be helpful with my work.”

  “No,” says Murat. “Did you ever think that your work had nothing to do with it? Did it ever occur to you that Kristin understood what you just described? That she knew how one person could hold another in place.”

  Peter points toward Murat’s coat pocket, to where he keeps his cigarettes. “May I have one of those?” he asks. Murat sets the packet between them and Peter fishes one loose. He borrows Murat’s lighter and inhales deeply. “You think Kristin engineered my relationship with your wife?”

  “Catherine has been threatening to leave me for years.”

  “And … ?”

  “I’m very important to Kristin.” Murat’s phone rings. He digs it out of his pocket and glances down at the screen, a wry smile expanding across his face. “Ask her yourself.” He tosses the ringing phone to Peter, who answers it.

  “I know where she is.” It is Kristin.

  Peter remains silent on the line.

  “Hello? Hello? Murat?”

  “No … it’s me,” says Peter, who glances up as Murat crosses the room and returns to the table of photographs, which he continues to sift through, seeing if he can find a matching pair.

  June 21, 2013

  “I wanted you to know that I knew,” said Kristin.

  She was having one of her regular lunches with Catherine, they’d met again at Kafe 6 in Cihangir. The day was turgid and the summer air lay stalled all around them. They sat in the empty garden, at one of a half dozen small round tables set out beneath a lattice that in spring had bloomed with violet explosions of wisteria, but for now was merely a tangle of strangling branches baking in the heat.

  “And why do you think that’s important?” asked Catherine. She then lowered her eyes, her gaze resting on her bowl of cooling soup, her spoon hovering above its surface. Several weeks had passed since she and Kristin had bumped into one another at the Twenty-second Precinct. Catherine had seen Peter almost daily since then. The two of them had resumed their relationship with vigor, as if by so doing they were asserting that nothing had happened, that they hadn’t been found out and that, perhaps, they could carry on as before.

  “Do you care about him?” Kristin asked.

  The door from the restaurant’s kitchen was flung open and the chatter of lunch-hour patrons who had chosen to sit cramped inside beneath the air-conditioning spilled out to the garden. A waiter presented Kristin with the salad she had ordered, an ultranutritious mix of greens and root vegetables. She removed a bottle of Purel
l from her purse, squeezed a dab into her cupped hand and then unwrapped her knife and fork from a paper napkin. Catherine remained silent until the waiter left. “Of course I care about Peter. He lacks confidence in his work, but he has talent. You see it, too. That’s why you introduced us, isn’t it?”

  “I am talking about your husband. Do you care about your husband?”

  Catherine took a sip of her soup, which burnt her tongue. “I don’t know.”

  “Is Murat a good father?” Kristin asked.

  Catherine dropped a pair of ice cubes from her water into the bowl, stirring them into the soup. She pondered the question as she watched them melt. “A good father?” she asked herself. “He works incessantly. He’s hardly ever at home, not that I really want him in the house. When he takes William to school, that’s nice … I don’t know. I haven’t thought about whether or not he’s a good father, at least not for a long time.”

  “Are you being fair to him?”

  “Fair?”

  “He provides well, doesn’t he?”

  “What has that got to do with him being a good father?”

  “Everything,” answered Kristin. “He takes care of you. And of William.”

  “It’s surprising to hear such a conventional attitude from you,” answered Catherine. She set her spoon down on the table and kept her eyes fixed on Kristin.

  “Each of us has to live,” said Kristin. “No matter how we do it. Do you think that I take my daughter to school each morning? If that were my measure as a mother, I would be failing. But I know how to provide for a child. I do that part of the job and do it well.” Kristin glanced impatiently at her slim triathlete’s watch, and Catherine could imagine her waking up each morning as her daughter slept, running however many miles she ran before sunup while she used that same watch to time herself.

  “You’re misunderstanding me,” explained Catherine. She then paused, momentarily weighing whether or not to be explicit as to all she understood about her husband’s relationship with Kristin. “Murat’s business would be nothing without you. So you are our provider, not him. You are the one taking care of us while he does whatever it is he does for you.”

  Kristin stabbed her fork into her salad. She took one bite and then another, contemplating whether or not to acknowledge any of the myriad sensitive tasks Murat performed on her behalf and the many ways her interests, Murat’s interests and Catherine’s all aligned. “Let me ask you a different question,” said Kristin. “If I am the one who has been taking care of you, if I am in fact the person who has ensured that your husband’s business hasn’t collapsed, don’t you think that you owe me something?”

  Catherine took another spoonful of her soup. She glanced up at the tangle of blossomless wisteria above, contemplating the invisible tally of debits and credits that existed between her and Kristin. “And if I do owe you something?”

  “Then we both need to consider that,” answered Kristin. She leaned over the table, closing the distance between her and Catherine. “My concern is that you might do something rash, especially as it relates to Peter.”

  “Like what?”

  “Let me ask you this another way,” said Kristin. “If you returned to the U.S. with William and Peter, do you think it would be good for either of them?”

  “Is that what you’re worried about? That I’ll leave Murat and return to the U.S.?”

  “Shouldn’t it be?”

  Catherine pushed her meal away and leaned forward, matching Kristin’s posture. “Why did you introduce me to Peter?”

  “I thought you could help him with his work.”

  Catherine leaned back in her chair, annoyed by this response. “Thank you for lunch,” she said, and then turned to flag down their waiter, whose eye she caught through the window.

  “Stop it,” said Kristin. “Why did I introduce you to Peter? Because I thought he might give you a reason to stay. And after seeing you at the precinct, I’m worried that Peter might have given you a reason to leave instead. But have you thought about him and what would happen if he quit his work? And your son, what would happen if he lost his father? You can’t afford to only think of yourself in this.”

  For the briefest of moments, Catherine felt a twist of guilt as Kristin held up a mirror to her selfishness. But undermining this interpretation of events were Kristin’s own interests in the matter. Kristin needed Murat. She needed his calibrated understanding of a corrupt system, one that Kristin couldn’t navigate herself and that her invisible superiors demanded she report back on with an impossible degree of clairvoyance. Here, in this city, there was no one above Kristin in authority. She was spectacularly alone. However, a dependency existed between Kristin and Murat. Although the framework of that dependency was not entirely clear, Catherine recognized how Kristin would never permit her to disrupt that framework by leaving, even if Catherine tried. No threat had been made, it didn’t have to be, the facts were evident and Catherine felt certain of Kristin’s willingness to go far further than a pleading over lunch when it came to safeguarding her position in relation to Murat.

  “What would it take to keep you from running off?” Kristin asked.

  Before Catherine could answer, the waiter emerged with their check, which was inside a fist-size wooden box inlaid with semiprecious stones. He set the box between them. “What you’ve said about me isn’t fair. I want what’s best for my son. I want what’s best for Peter. I even want what’s best for my husband, and I’m not certain that you can say the same.”

  “So what does that mean?”

  “It means if Peter stays then I will.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “Help him get his work shown,” said Catherine, “so he doesn’t give up on it.”

  “I have helped.”

  “Not enough. Perhaps you could speak with Deniz? When I asked him to show Peter’s photographs at the Modern, he refused. Perhaps there’s something the consulate could do that would convince him otherwise.”

  “I’m not certain that would work.”

  “Why not?” asked Catherine. “You haven’t even tried.”

  “I guess you didn’t hear.”

  Catherine shook her head.

  “Deniz was fired two days ago, after word got out about his arrest.” Kristin opened the small wooden box with the bill. She dipped her eyes and gave it a quick once-over as she pulled a credit card from her purse. “Listen, as long as you and I have an understanding, we’ll figure something out regarding Peter.”

  Catherine removed a few banknotes from her pocketbook.

  “My treat,” said Kristin. “I’m the one who invited you to lunch.”

  But as much as Kristin insisted, Catherine refused. Standing from her seat, Catherine examined the bill. She made absolutely certain to leave no less than her half of the cash on the table.

  Four o’clock on that afternoon

  They leave Bebek Park and ascend the terraced folds of the city. The Bosphorus disappears from view and the urban sprawl of the interior swallows them. The rain gentles into a mist, which lingers like disappearing crowns among the uppermost stories of the darkened skyscrapers that line their route with shadows. Their taxi has come to a standstill in the traffic. While William waits for them to inch forward, he traces the cityscape on his window’s fogged glass. The outline appears like an uneven staircase, climbing and then falling for no discernible reason. The traffic eases as they pull onto Barbaros Boulevard, which leads them out of the city’s interior, back to the Bosphorus, toward the Kabataş ferry terminal, where on the overcrowded decks rush-hour commuters finish their day huddling beneath a black mosaic of umbrellas.

  The Kabataş ferry terminal reminds William of his father and the afternoon of their failed excursion to the Princes’ Islands. Staring out of his window, through the cityscape he has traced, William asks if his father w
ill be where they’re going. But Catherine doesn’t answer him. She sits with her hands in her lap, clutching her broken phone with its dark, cracked screen, as if she believes that a call from Peter still might come.

  Past the Beşiktaş football club’s incomplete stadium, their taxi enters a warren of incomprehensible side streets, which eventually dumps them onto İstiklal Caddesi. “This is where we were last night,” William observes.

  Catherine turns toward her son. “Yes, it is,” she says, and then leans forward from her seat, passing the driver some last instructions on where exactly to drop them. Glancing back at William, she explains that they are going to see if Deniz is at home.

  “Are we going to stay there?” William asks.

  “Maybe.”

  “Why can’t we stay at our home? Or with Peter?”

  Catherine reaches into the pocket of her blazer. She clutches the single bill that the parking attendant had given her. It won’t be quite enough to take them to Deniz’s apartment, so she asks the driver to stop. They will walk the remainder of the way. As they step out of the cab onto the İstiklal’s cobblestones, William asks once again about his father. “Am I going to see him?” he wants to know.

  “Yes,” says Catherine. And she sounds certain of it.

  * * *

  “Cat, I wish you hadn’t come.” As Deniz opens the front door, his voice is flat, constricted, as though these words are the first he has spoken after a long sleep. The figure in the doorway bears little resemblance to the glamorous man William had met the night before. A day’s coating of stubble has collected along Deniz’s cheeks like some leveled ruin. A freshly lit cigarette dangles nervously from his lips. He kneads his palms against his reddened eyes, which betray that he has just woken from a nap. Deniz allows his gaze to dip toward William. He offers the boy a smile, exposing his perfectly arrayed and brilliantly white teeth, which with wiring, bands and bleach he has hewn into something more presentable than the misaligned smile he was born with.