In the Shadow of the Yali

by Suat Dervis

  His fortune could be counted in the millions, but his reputation knew no bounds. The ambitious railroad project he’d financed in recent years was just one of many ventures. He had shares in a large number of new national initiatives. No one could call him a parvenu. No one could dismiss him as just another entrepreneur.

  His grandfather had made his fortune in quarries. In the early years of the republic, his father had taken that fortune and put it into iron. Over time, this business had grown, but it was not until the family began to invest in the national infrastructure that profits really started rolling in. With the new factories they financed, they got into the machinery business. They took shares in banks, built more factories, and built railroads, bridges, and dams, until the Demirtaş family had become one of the richest families in Turkey.

  And Muhsin’s father, seeing their horizons thus expanded, sent his son to Germany to study mechanical engineering.

  While he was there, he made friends with another Turkish student named Nuri. They were in the same school, studying for the same degree. They worked closely together during those years, and this Nuri was now the managing director of a factory to which Ahmet had sold two power lathes some two years ago.

  Ahmet and his wife happened to be summering in the same hotel as Nuri and his wife. Because the wives spent so much time together, what had started as a working friendship became something much more solid.

  And this had been Ahmet’s lucky break, to be introduced to Muhsin Demirtaş on a ferry out to the islands one summer evening.

  Muhsin was on his way out to the island to see an ailing relation, and Nuri happened to be heading back at the same time.

  It was a weekday, and so the ferry was almost empty. The three men went up to sit on the top deck because it was cooler.

  Ahmet knew Muhsin by name and reputation. Seeing how intimate Nuri was with this man, and wishing the same for himself, he’d had the wits to greet Nuri as if he were a lifelong friend.

  Over the weeks that followed, they became genuinely close.

  Ahmet had been well brought up. He always made a good first impression. And Ahmet was certain that his good manners had won Muhsin over from that very first meeting. He continued to work hard to ingratiate himself.

  At the outset, he was clever enough to take things slowly. No point in coming across as a minor player. Better to wait until he could propose something serious.

  This was the right way of going about it. He was smart enough to know how great the gulf was between a rich man’s concerns and his own.

  If this chance meeting with Muhsin was to reap benefits in due course, it would be important, he knew, to create a personal bond before Muhsin had a chance to place him.

  What he needed to do, then, to cement this personal connection—if at all possible—was to put on all his charm. With that in mind, he had spent the entire trip from the bridge to the Büyükada pier chatting about everything under the sun, and nothing of consequence.

  Suddenly he was no longer that man with the little office in the backstreets of Galata. Once again he became the Galatasaray student and the national football team defender. Ahmet remembered how much everyone had liked him back then. And hadn’t he gone into business knowing how useful it would be to be as well connected as he was, and also universally liked?

  Slipping back into his old ways, he became that charming boy again, bursting with goodwill and off-color jokes.

  Whatever the subject, Muhsin took a slightly mocking tone. Was he being critical? Or just having a laugh? Impossible to tell. But he did seem interested in the conversation.

  Ahmet wasn’t short of general knowledge, after all. He’d read many books and took several newspapers a day. He kept up with world affairs, and his interest in them was genuine.

  He was ready to talk about anything. Anything but business…

  Such was his range that Muhsin had no way of guessing what he did for a living.

  By the time they reached the island, Nuri had already suggested to Muhsin that they all meet for supper at the hotel.

  Nuri was very fond of Muhsin. And to preserve their good relations at work, he had never gone to him, or to any of his factories, with a proposal. He’d never sought financial links.

  Sensing his friend’s pride, Muhsin had likewise never brought him in on any of his ventures.

  This was why Nuri was not afraid to express his affection or his delight at being in Muhsin’s company.

  But Muhsin was not in the mood for company tonight. His plan was to visit his ailing relation and take the six o’clock ferry back to Istanbul. He had important business to see to first thing in the morning.

  And it was, perhaps, because Celile and Müjde had, while waiting together on the pier, been making plans for an evening together that Muhsin suddenly changed his mind.

  It was clear from the way they spoke to each other that Muhsin and Müjde were close friends. They used a familiar tone and addressed each other by name.

  Almost as an afterthought, Müjde introduced Muhsin to Celile. And when Celile first set eyes on this man, she could not have guessed the turmoil he would soon bring into her life. Greeting him with her usual polite but distant smile, she held out her hand.

  Were we to go back to study that moment, we would be hard put to find any spark at all.

  Whereas Celile had no such chance…When she returned in later months to that moment, she would recall that even as she extended that beautiful hand of hers, with its long, slender fingers and its finely polished nails, she felt a wild wind howling deep inside her heart.

  She would remember taking one look at this tall, bronzed, broad-shouldered man, clean-shaven, with white hair, thick eyebrows, and pinched, narrow lips that spoke only of disdain—and knowing at once that everything had changed.

  Could a man so haughty and distant ever charm his way into a woman’s heart? Unlikely. Perhaps even impossible. Anyone meeting him for the first time could not fail to be troubled by his remote manner.

  From the very first moment, Celile felt the full force of his harsh, cold eyes.

  Muhsin might not have known this. But it was after his eyes had lingered for a moment on Celile that he suddenly accepted Müjde’s invitation. He would change his plans. They would dine together.

  He turned to Ahmet. “You’ll join us too, I hope?”

  “But of course!” Ahmet cried, almost falling over himself. “We shall, with pleasure!”

  No doubt about it—this was an important day for Ahmet. He’d always made his own luck. But this—this was the rarest piece of luck he’d ever known. A chance encounter on a ferry, and now here he was with Muhsin, one of the most influential men in Istanbul. Even if nothing concrete came out of it, just to be known as his good friend would be a phenomenal boost. Even just now on the ferry, he’d seen Mazhar Fıratoğlu and Dülger Ziya gaping at them. Mazhar even turned yellow! Until now they’d barely deigned to greet him. Had Ahmet tried to approach Muhsin Demirtaş with a business proposal, he would not have made it through the door. But now here they were, dining as equals and conversing like old friends.

  Ahmet was shrewd enough to know that he would need to take his time winning Muhsin over; when the time came to do business together, it would be as close friends.

  That evening Müjde went upstairs to change earlier than usual, using that opportunity to confer with Celile.

  Müjde came from a family of modest means. It delighted her that her husband could call a man as rich and famous as Muhsin his friend.

  “Muhsin is a very good person,” she told Celile. “He loves Nuri like a brother—even though he is so well known and liked, and in such great demand, he just adores coming to our house for supper. At heart, he’s a humble man. Pay no attention to that haughty manner of his. He really is a humble man at heart.”

  From that very first night, Celile warmed to his voi
ce. It was husky and warm. Warmer than Celile had ever heard. All evening long, she kept listening out for it, wishing him to speak. For Celile, who had never in her life known longing, this was more than just wishing, more than just waiting. She wasn’t listening out for his voice because she was interested in what he had to say. Sometimes she was so drawn into the cadences of his voice that she didn’t even hear him.

  And Muhsin—he kept trying to draw her out. Even when they were discussing matters on which everyone at the table had a view, he would turn his gaze on her and address her directly, doing his utmost to attract her attention.

  Mostly they spoke about the old days, when they were young and footloose.

  Muhsin and Nuri had hilarious stories to tell about Frau Rilke, in whose pension they had lived while studying in Germany. She was always coming up with absurd reasons to throw them out, accusing them on one occasion of walking on the sofas in their shoes.

  And then…Well, there’d been that Sunday at Werder…when Nuri got so very drunk. And then there was that boat they took out on the Wannsee, which capsized…Then it was back to Frau Rilke again. Every morning, she would make Muhsin pay for breakfast.

  “As for me,” said Nuri with a smile. “Well, she trusted me. She’d bill me once a week. But because she had you down as a big spender…she wasn’t going to take any chances. No breakfast for Muhsin, unless he paid in cash!”

  “I think you might have that wrong, my friend. She might have had another reason for trusting you. A personal reason…”

  And then Müjde would pretend to go into a jealous rage, which made the two friends laugh even more. But one would have had to have been there to find such stories amusing. There was nothing in these reminiscences for anyone else.

  Celile could not have been less interested in them. She just listened to his voice.

  Ahmet, on the other hand, threw himself right in. He wanted Muhsin to like him, and what better way than to delight in these stories, as if he had been there with them? Never once was he so foolish as to say “That takes me back to my own schooldays,” and so on, to bore them with a story that no one would find interesting other than himself.

  He devoted all his effort and attention to coming across as the sort of man that Muhsin’s sort of people would find pleasing.

  He knew he could do it. Of this there was no doubt.

  When they got back to their room that night, Ahmet could barely contain his joy.

  To be with them, Muhsin had missed the last ferry and had stayed the night at the club. Before going off to the tables, he announced that he’d be returning to the island on Saturday night, inviting them all to Sunday lunch at the club.

  This wasn’t going to end soon, in other words. Things were developing nicely, Ahmet thought.

  “Oh, Celile,” he cried. “This is one colossal piece of luck! First I meet Muhsin on the ferry, and before the night is out, we’re friends. Do you have any idea how many men there are in Istanbul who’d give their eyeteeth for that? You wait and see, my girl, you wait and see how our lives will change now—change beyond recognition—if I play this right—make the right move at the right time—you just wait and see how I work this piece of luck to our advantage.”

  As was always the case when her husband spoke in this way, Celile struggled to understand what had him so excited. She’d never listened when he talked about his work. And tonight it was the same. Showing her usual indifference, she yawned and said, “I’m very tired, Ahmet. Can’t we go straight to bed? This island is so exhausting. I can barely keep my eyes open.”

  Seeing how his wife was not the slightest bit excited about meeting Turkey’s richest and most influential tycoon—and not at all interested in hearing how their lives would now change overnight, thanks to this chance encounter—Ahmet was astounded, and reminded, yet again, of her fortitude and her high birth.

  This woman—this wife of his—she was beyond compare.

  As for Nuri—he spoke to his friend as if they were equals, but refrained from seeking his patronage. He knew how much power and influence Muhsin wielded, but to honor their friendship, to keep it the same as it was when they were students, he refused to profit from it. There was something heroic in his abnegation.

  Müjde, meanwhile. As much as she tried to treat their friendship as normal, as familiar as she might let herself be with him, she could not hide how proud it made her, or how very, very pleased she was that her husband could stand on the same step with a man of Muhsin’s stature, knowing that his old classmate considered him an equal. It would soon be the same for them, Ahmet told himself. Drunk with great expectation, he conjured up his future successes. He was already living the day when he moved his wife into the most magnificent villa on this entire island.

  Here, at last, was his chance for the big time. Never in his life had Ahmet felt such elation.

  Whereas Celile, however much he said, gave it no importance. No matter how much he told her about Muhsin, his wealth, his connections, and how useful those connections could be to them…

  She acted as if it were an everyday thing to meet a millionaire.

  The island air had tired her and made her want to sleep.

  This was all she’d said, this little businessman’s wife, on the night they met Muhsin Demirtaş.

  What a terrifying woman she was. And on that night, like all other nights, he felt himself small, very small, standing next to her. Celile was his wife. For ten long years, his loyal, faithful wife. But still, Ahmet knew. A man like him could only hold a woman like her by becoming her slave.

  Ahmet was grateful to her. Grateful beyond measure, for having stooped to become his wife.

  FOUR

  The lunch at the club was followed by a supper. And that supper was followed by an outing on Muhsin’s cruiser.

  As a rule, Celile dreaded invitations of this sort.

  But even if she was obliged to spend a great deal of time with people she didn’t know, she couldn’t find it in herself to complain.

  These new friends, though. She genuinely enjoyed their company, even if she couldn’t understand why.

  Neither did she notice that she was spending longer in front of the mirror on days when they were to meet.

  No matter how hard she tried, she could not stop herself from comparing her husband with Muhsin. This mysterious new habit troubled her deeply.

  Because her husband always came out worse. Morally and materially, he was clearly the lesser man.

  Though he was older than Ahmet, Muhsin looked younger and more athletic. It was only now, in fact, that Celile noticed how much weight Ahmet had put on over the last two years. His jowls glistened. If the weather was warm and he’d had a bit too much to eat or drink, his entire face—even his nose and lips—shone with sweat.

  Sweat as slick as oil…

  Whereas Muhsin’s face was always as dry and clean, as if he’d just washed it. He was taller than Ahmet, and more muscular.

  Now that he had put on so much weight, Ahmet looked short and round. He seemed ill at ease in his expensive new suits.

  In spite of all Ahmet’s efforts to dress like the best, Muhsin had an elegance—and a tailor—he couldn’t hope to match.

  Muhsin tended to silence. Ahmet was garrulous and desperate to please. The more he sought to charm and amuse, the more obsequious she found him.

  Muhsin had less to say. And perhaps what little he did say lacked brilliance. But he had a natural gravitas. There was not the slightest hint that he was trying to make people like him. There was nothing false in his voice…

  He said even the simplest things with certainty. Even the most casual remark had the ring of a decree. For he used a tone that left no room for objection. In everything he did and said, he exuded the confidence that can only come from long years at the helm.

  Like so many men of his ilk, he was disinclined to boast. That w
ould have served no purpose other than to remind those around him how much power he had. There was no need to show off, no need to condescend even, when you had as much power as he did.

  Ahmet, meanwhile…

  Ahmet agreed with whatever Muhsin said, even if it ran contrary to his own beliefs. There was more to this than just good manners. He was, Celile saw, trying to ingratiate himself.

  Here was Muhsin, with his gigantic fortune, and there was Ahmet, with his tiny stacks of banknotes. Muhsin and his legendary achievements. And Ahmet, who could barely contain his excitement at a thousand-lira profit.

  “Oh Celile, what a splendid husband you have…”

  “You just wait, little wife. I shall make you the richest woman in the world.”

  “Oh my little wife, I shall drown you in gold, silk, and diamonds, furs, and pearls.”

  I did it…I earned it…I said it.

  There was no modesty in his voice when he spoke like this.

  When did Celile first let these doubts into her heart? How did she come to acknowledge the confounding emotions that came to rule her? She hadn’t the faintest idea! It would be like asking someone to pinpoint the moment she fell asleep. One moment she was herself, and the next moment she was someone else, opening her heart to joy and misery.

  When did it happen? Where did Celile locate the moment that would change her life forever?

  It was, she later thought, at their third meeting. That lunch at the club. They were on the terrace, at a table set with flowers. Müjde was wearing a shade of green that brought out her eyes. Celile was sitting still as a statue, trim and clean, in a creaseless dress. Her gaze was remote and indifferent beneath the arched eyebrows she’d inherited from her grandmother.

  Yes, she was still the old Celile that afternoon. The Celile who had yet to step onto the stage of life. Who preferred to watch from the stalls. Who for all her modesty and good manners always kept her distance. Never joining, never entering the fray.