by Diana Renn
I was startled, too. It was Nazif standing there.
He laughed—nervously, it seemed, as if he’d been caught doing something ridiculous or wrong. He ducked his head a little.
He slowly crossed over to the edge of his rooftop.
In the moonlight and out of uniform, he looked ordinary, like the guy next door. Wearing jeans and a T-shirt, he looked like anyone I might know at school. But he was also so different from anyone I might know at school. Back home, I didn’t know bellboys or puppeteers. I didn’t know guys who got up before dawn to eat and pray. We were now separated only by a five-foot gap between our buildings, yet we were worlds apart.
“So. You’re a puppeteer?” I said. Then I winced. I could see he was embarrassed, as if I’d just said he played with dolls in his spare time.
“I know it must seem like a children’s game,” he said. “But actually, shadow puppetry is a serious tradition in Turkey. I practice up here sometimes, at night, alone.” He stole a glance at me. “I don’t usually have an audience. I did not know you were watching.”
“I didn’t mean to spy on you,” I said. “I wasn’t here long. I came up because I couldn’t sleep. But it was really good. Like having a show put on just for me. And you know, as a typical American, the whole world does revolve around me, so . . .”
“I am sorry I said that the other day. I was a little bit wrong about you.”
“You were?”
“You are so concerned with your aunt, and with finding out the truth about your uncle’s death. You are also concerned about a friend you made after only two days on a boat, even though she did something bad that got you in trouble with the law. By the way, I found one of her former teachers.”
“What?” I took a step forward, eager to hear every detail, and then remembered there wasn’t a full railing to catch me. Four stories below, a stray cat leaped off a garbage can.
“Careful,” said Nazif. “Please don’t fall. Your aunt is hoping to build a fence here. Until she does, guests are not technically allowed on this roof.”
“I won’t fall. But tell me about the teacher.”
“Her name is Gamze Inan. She teaches history at the International School.”
“I can’t believe you looked up Sage’s school!”
Nazif shrugged, though he seemed pleased by my reaction. “It was not a big problem for me. I had a little extra time this evening. First I found an Amy Miller of Oregon, USA, in the student directory. It said ‘withdrawn’ by her name. Then I looked at faculty to see which history teacher she might have had. This is how I found Gamze Inan. She teaches a class on Ancient Lycia. This topic interested your friend, right?”
“Definitely,” I said. “Sage geeked out over Ancient Lycia.”
“I sent this teacher an email asking if she knew where Amy Miller might be. Hopefully she will reply.”
“Wow. You didn’t have to do all that, you know.”
“Your aunt and uncle were good to my family. So I want to help you. This problem, it seems too big for one person.”
Suddenly it was as if neither of us knew where to look. I remembered that I was completely without my face makeup, uncovered and exposed. Probably the moonlight and my hoodie obscured the blotches on the left side of my face, but I couldn’t be sure.
I pointed to the puppets in his arms, which looked like a pile of shadows. “My uncle Berk gave me a set of Turkish shadow puppets once, when they came to visit us. Thick paper on sticks, not as elaborate as yours.”
Nazif looked pleased to hear this. “Really? Did you try using them?”
“Sure. I did one show for the family. I was behind the screen, so I never saw it from the other side. It’s amazing how lifelike those puppets are when you see them from the audience. I’m sure I couldn’t make mine do half the things yours did.”
“Do you want to see them?”
“Sure!”
“Wait here. I will bring them and pass them over, if you— Oh! What are you doing?”
It was like something took over my body. I backed up a few steps, then ran forward and leaped onto Nazif’s rooftop. I easily cleared the five-foot gap and landed on my hands and knees.
Nazif shook his head in disbelief. “Did you really do that? You are crazy!” He gave a rich laugh, tossing back his head. “Wow. That was like from a video game!”
“Yeah, I guess I did just do that.” I stood up, brushing the dirt off my hands. I felt a slight twinge in my left knee, but otherwise I was fine. And Nazif was fine, too—fine to look at. I noticed the way his eyes danced in the moonlight, the languid way his body moved now that it was free from the binding structure of his bellboy uniform. I took a deep breath. I hadn’t felt this alive, this awake, since the night of my midnight swim with Sage.
“So impressive! You are not afraid of heights?” said Nazif.
“No. I’m actually a rock climber, so I’m used to heights. Hey, can I see the puppets?”
“Of course.” He took me over to the screen he’d rigged up. I could smell roses, sweet and strong, and I could just make out the outline of bunches of grapes hanging from vines threading through the trellis.
Nazif reached behind the screen and turned on the light.
I jumped back, hitting my head on part of the grape arbor in my haste to get away from the harsh light. “Are you all right?” Nazif asked, peering around the side of the screen.
“Yeah. It’s just bright,” I mumbled, covering the left side of my face. “Can you turn that down?”
But it was too late. He’d seen me. Full-on. I let my left hand slowly fall to my side.
“Well, do you want to see these puppets or not?” he finally asked.
I nodded.
“Then come. You have to see them in the light.”
I came closer, dragging my feet. A far cry from the girl who’d just leaped between two buildings in a single bound.
Nazif held up the two puppets from the first show I’d seen, using a stick attached to the back of each one. Up close, in the light, they were surprisingly colorful. The puppets were of two men, both with beards. One beard was pointed, the other rounded. The puppets were seen in profile. They wore elaborate hats, ornately decorated knickers, and pointy shoes. The pointed-beard puppet was wearing only one shoe, as his leg had come off during the show. The puppets’ joints had hinges, and when I reached out to touch them, I was surprised that they felt as if they were made of dyed leather. The hinges had an almost translucent look.
Nazif ducked behind the screen with them, making them grow to twice their size. “Meet Karagöz,” he said, shaking the puppet with the rounded beard in a type of jig, “and Hacivat,” he went on, making the one with the pointed beard appear to lurch drunkenly.
“Nice to meet you both,” I said.
He came out from behind the screen and put the two puppets into my hands. When I looked at their faces, I recoiled in horror. I could swear they looked exactly like Lazar and Vasil. I shivered. It was weird how a pair of puppets sent my mind straight to the thought of Lazar and Vasil, reminding me they could pop up anytime.
“These are Karagöz shadow-theater puppets, traditional in Turkey,” Nazif explained. “But maybe you know that already?”
“I didn’t know what they were,” I said. “Uncle Berk just handed me the package. He never explained it.” There was a lot Uncle Berk had never explained, not even to his own wife. Aunt Jackie seemed clueless about Uncle Berk’s side dealings with Lazar and the Lycian Society, and what was probably the true source of funding for their expensive baby-making project.
“These two puppets are from maybe the 1940s,” said Nazif. “They belonged to my grandfather. He was a shadow master, a highly respected puppeteer. He left them to me when he died, thinking I might become an apprentice to this art. But my father has other ideas. He believes that puppetry is a dying tradition, and
there is no future, no money in it. He wants me to go into hospitality. He thinks tourism has a better future.”
“But you’d rather be a puppeteer?” I guessed.
“An animator, actually. The puppetry interests me, too. I’d like to help keep this tradition alive. But I’d also like to make contemporary stories and media that people can relate to better.” He set down the pair of Karagöz puppets and pulled out the boy and the bird. “These I made,” he said, handing them to me.
“No way. You made these?” I turned the puppets around in my hands, marveling at the delicate cutting of heavy black paper, the perfect hinges and joints.
“Yes. I am still learning puppet-making techniques. Mostly from books and YouTube.” He sighed and ran his hand through his hair, making it even messier.
I resisted a sudden impulse to reach out and smooth it back down.
“I wanted to attend a youth arts conference in the city of Bursa this summer,” he went on. “I told my father I would work extra hours at the hotel and pay for it myself. But tonight, he told me no. He thinks it is a distraction and will only fill me with impossible ideas. He thinks it will not prepare me for a career in hospitality.”
“Well, hospitality is a reliable business,” I pointed out. “People always need a place to stay and food to eat when they travel.”
“Yes, but this is not a business that holds any interest for me.”
I nodded, smiling in sympathy. I handed back the puppets, then sat down opposite Nazif and leaned against a potted rosebush, hugging my knees to my chest. For some reason, I didn’t care about my face now and the light exposing my white patches. Nazif seemed completely unbothered by it, too. I wondered what he’d think if he knew there were white patches on my arms and legs as well, if he knew I was practically disintegrating even as I sat there.
“I know how you feel,” I said. “I didn’t get my ideal summer, either.”
He raised his eyebrows. “No? You did not want to come here, to Turkey?”
I shook my head. “I wanted to do an advanced teen climbing program this summer, and maybe teach little kids in a climbing camp.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“My mom thought we should come here and help my aunt.”
“And your father?”
“He’s, um, a little tied up.”
“With work?” Nazif looked at me expectantly, as if waiting to hear my story. As if he had all the time in the world.
I took a deep breath and told him the short version of my dad’s scandal, leaving out my whole shoplifting incident—I wasn’t quite ready to show him all of myself. It was a big deal just to tell him who my family was, and what had happened, and why Mom and I had run so far away.
“Basically, my family thinks mostly about themselves,” I concluded. “I guess we’re a bunch of self-entitled Americans. To the extreme.”
Now it was Nazif’s turn to smile sympathetically. “Not you,” he said. “I can see you are different.” As he talked, he made the shadow bird come to life in his hands. It preened and fluttered its tail feathers. “At night, when my parents are asleep, I come out here sometimes,” he said. “It is peaceful for me, maybe like your rock climbing.”
I nodded. It was comforting to think he had conflicts with his parents, too.
We sat across from each other in contented silence for a while, and he continued to play with the puppet, making the bird’s feathers flutter as if it were flying. Our feet seemed to gravitate toward each other’s and suddenly his shoes touched my bare toes. He jerked his feet away.
“It’s okay,” I said, longing for them again.
“I should probably go,” Nazif mumbled. He stood up and turned off the light behind the screen. Then he took down the screen and wrapped the puppets inside it.“It’s getting late. And those German tourists, they are killing me. So many things wrong with their rooms, so many misunderstandings. Two of them are threatening to leave, and if they do, the others will follow. Your aunt will be out a lot of money if they go.”
“Oh, no. Maybe she should take my mom up on her crazy idea after all.”
He paused in his folding. “What is this crazy idea?”
I tried to draw out my words, to keep him on the roof with me. I didn’t want the evening to end. “She wants to throw a big party, with a band and caterers and stuff. She says we could sell raffle tickets and encourage donations toward renovating this historic building.”
“Can she really do all that?”
“Sure. She was an event planner in her past life. And she’s good at it. I just don’t think my aunt’s too into the idea.”
“No, it’s good, this party,” said Nazif. “The hotel is invisible here, on a mostly residential street. And if people can see what is good about the hotel, maybe they will be inspired to help pay to fix it. When will it be?”
“Two nights from now. Hey, you know what? You could have an audience for your show, if my Mom got a bunch of people up here.”
“Oh, no.” He waved away my comment.
“Why not? Your show was beautiful! A perfect blend of traditional Turkey and modern Turkey, just like this hotel could be. And the puppets are amazing—do you have more?”
“A few,” he admitted. “Okay. In confidence?” He lowered his voice to a whisper. A whisper that made my skin tingle. “I have made close to twenty.”
“See? You need to get your real work out there, Nazif. If you did a performance at a party, you could show your dad how good you are. I’ll mention it to my mom. I have a feeling this party’s going to happen whether my aunt wants it to or not.” I realized I was babbling now, nervous at how close he was, but I couldn’t stop talking. “When we left Aunt Jackie’s apartment tonight, Mom mentioned inviting everyone who’d been on our Blue Voyage, since almost all of them are in Istanbul. Even if she can just get six people, believe me, she’ll call it a party.” I sighed as reality hit me. “I wish I were in more of a partying mood.”
He nodded, somber. “Have you told anyone about Lazar?”
“Just you.” And then I told him about my encounter with Lazar at the Grand Bazaar.
Nazif whistled under his breath. “Not good,” he said. “He is following you.”
“He’s trapping me,” I said. “He thinks I’m hiding something. And he’s writing me fake notes from Sage to get me to talk. The one in the door wasn’t really from her, but I fell for it.”
He looked worried. “Have you called Inspector Lale to tell her all of this?”
“No,” I said, a little too loudly. “I don’t know if I can really trust her. And I’m thinking of going to the embassy, because someone there must know who to trust. My dad is in government back home, so I’m guessing people at the embassy will be more willing to help me. But I have to have something more specific for them to investigate. I can’t just say that a creepy guy is stalking me when I have no evidence or witnesses, just these two notes. And I can’t say Sage has the Karun Treasure urn because we don’t even know for sure that she does. I mean, she might, but what if she doesn’t?”
“Yes,” he said, deep in thought. “You need to find something to link Lazar to the urn and to your uncle’s death.”
“Right.”
“And Sage is that link.”
“But what if she doesn’t have the urn?”
“Still, she will know something, and she is useful to the authorities. But she may have connections who can help her cross a border. We must work faster to find her.”
We. We were in this together. I felt a warm stirring inside me, almost like what I’d felt on the Blue Voyage when Sage wanted to be my friend. I’d trusted her, and I’d been burned. Was Nazif different?
My thoughts were interrupted as a yellow light flicked on from the door to the stairwell on Nazif’s roof. I shrank back into the trellis, the vines concealing me from view.
Mustafa talked to his son in Turkish. He said something that seemed like he was still vaguely annoyed—like my own dad might—before he switched off the light and went back inside.
Nazif turned to me. “I must go,” he whispered.
“Did he see me?” I said.
“No. I told him I came up here for the evening prayer and that I am going to bed soon.” He chewed his lower lip. “How will you return to your room?”
“Same way I came.” I flapped my arms. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He grinned and tipped an imaginary hat.
Wow. He didn’t care about my skin. Which meant that for the past fifteen minutes, I hadn’t cared, either. As I took my running jump back to the Hotel Mavi Konak rooftop, I felt my heart soar a little bit, too.
30
The next morning, I flew through my breakfast prep tasks fast enough to earn a five-minute break. I swung by the front desk just as Nazif was arriving for work.
“Hey, did you hear from that history teacher?” I asked.
“Well, merhaba to you, too,” he said, his dark eyes twinkling. “Don’t Americans say hello?”
“Oh. Sorry. Selam.” I stared at him. Had I dreamed last night on the rooftops? I hadn’t, because he suddenly gave me the biggest smile, and I couldn’t help smiling back.
“Yes. She replied.” He turned on the computer and brought up his email. “I will translate for you. Amy Miller was her student in the fall. She was a good student and eager to learn, and she was paying for the exchange program herself. But then something happened to her money. The teacher was not sure what happened, but Amy said she could not afford to continue the program. Ms. Inan offered to give her a spare room in her home, so that Amy could avoid paying fees for the dormitory, hoping that would help, but Amy declined the offer. The last she heard from her, Amy had taken a job with a tourism company that was hiring English speakers for video tours of Istanbul. She expected to earn enough money to pay for the course and come back in the spring, and she said she had friends she could live with.”