Belshazzar's Daughter

by Barbara Nadel

  “Çetin?”

  He put the bottle down again and looked up. She stood in the doorway; her nightie buttoned up to the neck, sweating heavily, her pregnant belly making her legs buckle. He was surprised to see her again. She’d gone to bed several hours before. “Fatma?”

  She staggered across the room like an agonized elephant and flopped down on the arm of the sofa nearest his feet. He pulled them up toward his chest very quickly. “What is it?” He looked up into her flushed face and felt his heart instantly leap into his mouth. Oh, no! Not now! Not with all the Meyer business going on. “Fatma, it’s not…!”

  She smiled. “Oh no.” She leaned back and patted her belly gently. “He’s not coming out for a little while yet. You’ll have to wait another three or four weeks…”

  “Well, thanks be…”

  “Oh Çetin, you are looking forward to it, aren’t you?” His relief had been too quick and too obvious and now she was hurt.

  He sat up and let the sheet drop down to his waist. He took one of her dry, puffy hands in his. “Of course I am! I didn’t mean…” He made a pointless gesture with his other hand. “It’s just this case! You know how it is! And this one’s driving me mad!” He tapped his forehead with his fingers. “I know it’s all in here! I…”

  “Come to bed, Çetin?”

  He let go of her hand and leaned forward, frowning. “What?”

  She looked down at the floor as if embarrassed by her own words. “Come to bed? With me?”

  “You mean…”

  “Yes.”

  Still hiding his nakedness under the sheet, Çetin swung his legs on to the floor and sat up. He looked at her lovely, rosy face. “But, Fatma darling, you always say I take up too much space and make you hot when you’re pregnant.”

  “Don’t you want to then?” She looked so sad.

  “Well, yes, but…” Çetin shuffled over to make some more room for her and patted the seat beside him. “Come and sit down.”

  Like a dutiful wife she shuffled down on to the seat, her eyes modestly downcast. Çetin was worried. This wasn’t his usual blood and thunder Fatma at all! He slipped one arm around her plump shoulders and put his other hand on her knee. “What’s the matter, darling?” Now she was close he could clearly see that she had been crying. “What’s happened?”

  Her bottom lip trembled as she turned to face him and she blurted rather than spoke her words. “Oh, Çetin, you do love me, don’t you?”

  “What!” He couldn’t believe it! Fatma? Unsure of him? He kissed her trembling lips and smoothed her damp hair with his fingers. “Sweetheart, you know I do! I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you!”

  But her face was still agonized. “You don’t sometimes feel a younger and more attractive—”

  “Fatma!” He still hugged her, but his back stiffened with shock. “Younger women? Are you serious?” He slapped one of his knees loudly and shook his head. “Women, younger, older or whatever, don’t interest me. I’ve got you. You’re my wife and my lover, you’re the mother of my children and”—he pulled her chin around so that she had to look him right in the eyes—“I think you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!”

  “Do you…?”

  “Well of course I do, you silly girl! I wouldn’t say it otherwise, would I?” He didn’t want to shout but he really was angry. How could she doubt him? “What the hell is this about anyway, Fatma? This isn’t like you!”

  She cast her eyes downward again. “Oh…”

  But then he knew. Attention—that was what this was all about. Sometimes when he was working on something particularly complicated he only turned up at home in order to sleep. That was happening now, but in her present condition that usually normal state of affairs had made Fatma nervous. “Look, I’m really sorry I haven’t been around much lately, but you know how it is. I love you all. I even love the bloody job on occasion…”

  “Ah, but Çetin, don’t you feel old sometimes?”

  “Fatma, I’ve been old all my life! My brother and I had to run our house after Mother died! I was ten! I only know about responsibility! If I took off with some teenager and left all of you to fend for yourselves the worry would kill me!”

  Fatma put her hand on his shoulder. “So you still love me then?”

  “Oh!” He threw his cigarette violently into an ashtray and kissed her full on the lips. Even though his breath was stale and his mustache tasted of tea, she opened her mouth to him. She wanted him to feel her passion. Even pregnant she desired her tired, smoke-dried little husband. He moved closer to her and she felt his kind hands massage the side of her neck.

  After a few seconds he pulled away and smiled at her. “Does that answer your question?”

  For a moment she suppressed her rising smile, but then she gave in and laughed. “I suppose so.”

  He pursed his lips and tapped her lightly on the nose. “Good!” He winked wickedly. “Sexy girl!”

  “Oh, Çetin!”

  He leaned against her and rested his head lightly against her belly. “Well, you are! Red-hot lover you…”

  “Çetin Ikmen!” She was laughing but she was shocked. His head rolled about wildly on her quaking stomach and he had to sit up.

  “Trying to deafen me, Fatma!” But he was laughing too and she put out her hand to touch his face. Then her laughter died and she suddenly became serious.

  “I love you so much, Çetin!”

  “Well, somebody has to!” He could be so glib, but Fatma was used to it. That was Çetin, her man. It had been his humor, plus that wild wicked smile of his that had first attracted her to him. There had been plenty more attractive boys in Üsküdar at the time; boys with more money and decent prospects. But none of them were even half as intelligent and fun to be with as Çetin. Çetin knew things, he lived in a house full of books, he could speak foreign languages. He took her on the most daring and dangerous rides at the fair. Çetin understood a girl who liked to be thrilled. And when he kissed her … Fatma’s mother had known Ayşe Ikmen before she died and like most of the women in the quarter she had believed that the statuesque Albanian had been, well, a bit of a sorceress. The first time Çetin kissed her, Fatma thought that she knew why. He had excited her so much! And yet what had he been, the young Çetin? Thin, swarthy, no beauty even then!

  “Is that all that was troubling you, Fatma?” His voice cut into her sweet memories and the old and treasured scenes dissolved.

  “Er…”

  He laughed. “Where were you? The planet Jupiter?”

  She smiled. “No. Just back a few years. When things were a little simpler.”

  He nuzzled his long nose affectionately against her cheek. “Remember you, me, that old deserted house up by the Selimiye barracks?”

  “When you seduced me, you mean!”

  “Only a little bit.” He laughed. “Only at the beginning.”

  Fatma knew that what he was saying was true, but she pouted in mock disapproval anyway. She remembered the day he was talking about well. Although she would rather have died than admit it, she’d wanted him desperately. They had gone to that old house specifically to make love. Because it had been her first time, it had hurt a bit, but Çetin had been as gentle as he could. And after the pain had come a lot of pleasure. She’d conceived S’nan on that day, her very first time. She and Çetin had been just one month away from their wedding day. She pursed her lips and tried to look hard. “Witch’s child! You put a spell on me!”

  He looked into her eyes and his hands came up to massage her breasts. “Yes, nice, wasn’t it?”

  “Çetin!”

  He put his mouth over hers and licked her closed lips with his tongue. A familiar excited fluttering tickled the inside of her chest and she felt her skin flush and sensitize. Fatma knew that were she not pregnant she would now be entirely at his mercy. He took his mouth away from hers and nibbled her hot, throbbing neck. Fatma closed her eyes and breathed his name.

  Unfortunately neither
of them heard the door creak open. The darkness curfew didn’t apply to old men and Timür could not sleep. He saw what his son and daughter-in-law were up to straight away and simply couldn’t suppress his laughter. Loud and dry, it hit Çetin’s ears like a thunderbolt. He leaped backward away from Fatma like a scalded cat.

  “Timür! You disgusting old—”

  “Sorry, son, I came back for my cigarettes.”

  “There is no privacy in this place, is there!” He gathered his sheet tightly around his crotch and looked at Fatma. “I’m so sorry, darling.”

  “It’s all right, Çetin.” She was smiling. It was all right really. They’d both got a bit carried away, but Fatma had known all along that sex probably wasn’t a good idea in view of her advanced condition. She just felt sorry for Çetin. She knew how frustrated he could become during her pregnancies. She put her head against his shoulder and kissed his neck. “I’d better get back to bed now or I’ll be good for nothing in the morning.”

  Çetin breathed deeply for a few seconds in an attempt to calm himself down. He took her chin between his fingers and kissed her lightly on the mouth. “All right. I suppose it’s for the best.”

  The old man coughed. “Oh, it is. When your mother was eight and a half months pregnant with Halil—”

  “Shut up, Timür!”

  Fatma eased herself slowly up from the sofa and rubbed the now permanently sore small of her back. If he hadn’t been naked Çetin would have helped her, but the thought of revealing his body to his father was too much for him. Instead he scowled at the old man and hoped that he felt just a little ashamed of himself.

  Fatma padded wearily toward the door. During her clinch with her husband, her nightie had got hitched up at the back and as she left the room, Çetin could see the small bunches of varicose veins that marred the otherwise smooth skin on her calves. He didn’t understand why, but he knew that he even loved those ugly things. There was nothing he didn’t love about Fatma. To him she would always be the pretty, plump little girl from whom he had stolen forbidden love in that old ramshackle house back in Üsküdar. The girl who hadn’t been able to wait for their wedding night. The girl he’d had to cut his hand for, to smear his blood onto their marriage sheet. She closed the door behind her and he heard her footsteps disappear down the hall toward their bedroom.

  As soon as she was out of earshot Çetin retaliated. “Well done, Timür! Thanks!”

  The old man coughed richly and lit a cigarette. “No problem, son. Any time you want your sex life ruined…”

  “Oh shut up, Timür!” Çetin rolled on to his back and looked up at the ceiling. The old man rarely angered him to distraction, but this time was an exception. He was nearly forty-six years old and still he had no privacy! Would he and his beautiful Fatma ever have a life together? Would the children ever grow up, the old man ever die? It was a nasty thought and Çetin felt very guilty about entertaining it, but it wouldn’t go away. Perhaps he needed a holiday or a wild night out with the “boys?” He thought it unlikely but he continued to stare at the ugly nicotine pools on the ceiling, divining for inspiration. But none came and he just remained angry. Timür was comfortable, the children were, with great difficulty, provided for. When was it going to be his turn?

  Chapter 18

  Nur Suleyman licked a corner of her handkerchief and then scrubbed vigorously at the side of her son’s face. There was an almost invisible patch of dirt marring his fine features and Nur was having none of it. Unfortunately she and her handkerchief came at the young man suddenly, with the result that he swerved violently and very nearly ran his new Renault off the road.

  “Mother!” It was not his favorite word and he flung it at her through tightly gritted teeth. The car directly behind sounded its horn loudly and disapprovingly.

  “Well if you washed your face properly I wouldn’t have to!” she whined in reply. It was a sound that he hated and he scowled accordingly.

  But then Mehmet Suleyman was not a happy man anyway. The previous night had brought him little in the way of sleep, due to a combination of the thick and sickening summer heat and a growing fear that he and Ikmen might never get to solve the Meyer case. For days they had been wandering down strange avenues; pursuing old people; talking to all manner of oddities; trying to make sense of the old man’s past. But still they had nothing really! Just a bag of confusing, contradictory facts—although sorting out which facts were untrue was about as easy and reliable as placing a bet at the Casino. In the small hours of the morning, all had seemed utterly hopeless.

  But then daylight had not proved to be a friend either. A furious altercation with a faulty electric razor had given way only to the greater horror of being bullied into taking Nur to the Eminönü Docks. It would have been nice just to go straight to work, but his mother wanted to catch the ferry to go and visit her sister and Mehmet had learned many years before that resistance to her wishes was useless. He might have known that the queue of traffic waiting to cross the Golden Horn would be horrendous. Lane discipline was nonexistent and he simply barged the car forward whenever the risk of an accident seemed minimal. Mehmet frequently wished that he lived somewhere “civilized” like Holland where people learned to drive properly before being let loose on the open road. Holland also had the added advantage of not being famous for arranged marriages. Although he’d successfully avoided dinner with his aunt and intended, the stupid marriage plans were still well and truly on course. And just to make sure that everyone was “happy” about everything, Nur was now going to check on “Auntie” and Zuleika for “dear Mehmet” herself. He swung the car sharply to the left at the end of the Galata Bridge and fixed his mind firmly onto the practical considerations of his day.

  “I’ll drop you in front of the Yeni Cami, Mother,” he said. “It’s easier for me to carry on to the station from there and it’s only a short walk across the road for you.”

  “If it’s simpler for you, darling.” His rough translation of this whine was that she was deeply disappointed he was putting his desire to get to work before her. He resolved not to give in.

  “Good.” He glanced quickly at her and could see that she was crushed, but he just carried on concentrating on his driving and trying not to feel bitter. Knowing his mother, there could now be very little time left for him to indulge his fantasies about big, buxom blonde women. He wished he’d started sooner, wished he’d gone out, fallen in love with one and brought her home. Sadly, he realized that if he was ever to have the woman of his dreams she would have to be a prostitute or some transient, and possibly superior, foreign tourist.

  He brought the car to a halt beside the massive square in front of the Yeni Cami. Of all the magnificent mosques in the “old” city, this was his least favorite. Uniformly gray, it always seemed to lower unpleasantly at him. The interior wasn’t much better either. Uninspiring. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that it had been built by a Sultan’s mother? He looked at his own mother and decided that this grim association probably didn’t help.

  Nur kissed her son on the cheek and ruffled her fingers through his beautiful hair one last time. “I love you, Mehmet,” she said as she swung her slim legs out of the car and on to the pavement. “I’ll give Auntie Edibe and Zuleika your regards.”

  He smiled weakly in reply and once she was clear of the car he lowered his foot down on the accelerator. But then he stopped. Over by the steps leading up to the mosque, something caught his attention. A uniformed officer was talking to what looked like a bundle of rags on the ground. He wasn’t making much progress as the bundle, from Mehmet’s point of view, appeared to be raving.

  Of course he could have just driven away from the situation and forgotten all about it, but the uniformed man was very young and the bundle had very nasty, livid little eyes. With a sigh, Mehmet switched on his hazard warning lights and got out of the car. The heat hit him like a sledgehammer and as he walked toward the incident he put on his sunglasses and took his badge out of his pocke
t. A group of what were either English or American tourists crossed his path, including a very well-built blonde woman. She was about forty and she stared at him as he passed. Just the right age too! he thought, sadly. But he didn’t stop, he could hear what the officer was saying now. He was in trouble. “Look, Metin, nobody killed her, she just died!”

  The bundle, which Suleyman could now see had no legs, was not easily convinced. “She was a witch, they don’t just die! Look at her!” He pointed one filth-encrusted finger at an even sorrier bundle of rags slumped against the wall opposite. “Somebody killed her!”

  Suleyman nudged the uniformed policeman with his elbow and showed him his badge. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  The noisy bundle keened pitifully and rubbed what was left of its legs with its hands.

  “This man’s friend has died. Sometime in the night. As far as I can see there’s nothing suspicious about it. The old beggars die all the—”

  “Oh, Sevin!” He wasn’t an ancient man, like a lot of them, but he was old. Suleyman went down on one knee in front of him and looked at his face. It was wet with tears and his furious eyes were red as if he’d been drinking.

  “Sevin was your friend?”

  The old beggar paused for a long time before answering. Suleyman stole a glance at the other bundle balanced precariously between the wall and the step above him. If he hadn’t overheard that the deceased was female he would never have known. The eyes were shut and the heavily lined jowls had already started to sag. Her beard and mustache were both luxuriant and very gray. Repelled, he stood up again, just as the beggar man started to speak.

  “Last night, late, somebody came. I heard her talking.”

  Suleyman bent down toward him again. “Man or a woman?”

  “Wasn’t human.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Azrael! He murdered her!”