EQMM, November 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Primitive?"

  "Yes!” Ikmen lit up a cigarette. “Some parts of the city were so poor it was almost as if they were monochrome. Everyone wore the same dull clothes, in winter you choked on the fog from everyone's fires. In the summer, the sewers stank."

  "Oh, yes, well..."

  "And on top of that, we had to endure abominations just up the road here!"

  Arto Sarkissian frowned.

  "Lunar Park,” Ikmen said. “I was telling my sergeant about it earlier today. I said that since it became Gulhane Park it has improved enormously. One piece of good redevelopment, if you ask me."

  The doctor sat back in his chair and smiled. “Oh, I liked Lunar Park,” he said. “It was quirky."

  Ikmen scowled. “Oh, yes,” he said, “full of deformed dwarves, women with beards, cheap, boring little sideshows..."

  "And of course, snakes,” his friend said as he watched Ikmen's reaction to this out of the corner of his eye.

  The policeman reddened. “Well..."

  "Even now, even when I told you about the dead snakes we found in the hands of the old woman in Haskoy, it got to you, didn't it?"

  Ikmen let his head drop a little. “Yes."

  "Cetin, the Lunar Park snake pit was just a hole filled with non-poisonous snakes. It was a silly attraction long since..."

  "It was a horrible, writhing mass of ghastly serpents with a girl in the middle of it!"

  "Whom you tried to ‘rescue,’ yes,” Arto said.

  "I thought they were going to kill her. I put my hand down to her and they all slithered up my arm!” Ikmen shuddered.

  "While everyone else laughed because the girl was meant to be there. The Slave of the Snakes was part of the attraction."

  "I was eleven, my mother had been dead for just six months, and I couldn't look at death anymore. I just couldn't!"

  Arto Sarkissian, noting the tears that had welled up in his friend's eyes, reached across the table and took one of his hands. “I know. I'm sorry."

  He hadn't been in Lunar Park with Cetin when the Snake Pit incident occurred. Cetin's brother Halil had told him about it and, at the time, they had both had a good laugh at the strange antics of the younger boy. Until the early nineteen sixties there had indeed been what amounted to a freak show in the shadow of the Topkapi Palace. One of the “attractions” had been a pit, lined with red silk, wherein lay a rather voluptuous woman who allowed herself to be writhed over by many nonvenomous snakes. In the habit, sometimes, of writhing in time to the movements of her snakes, the so-called “Slave of the Snakes” looked to the eleven-year-old Cetin Ikmen as if she was being attacked. By reaching down to her he had only been trying to save her. But the effect that it had was to make the woman and the man who owned the pit angry, cause the mainly gruff male spectators to laugh, and give the snakes someone new and exciting to slither onto. It had also left Cetin with an almost hysterical fear of snakes.

  Cetin looked up at Arto and smiled. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I overreact where ‘they,’ our legless, eyelid-less friends, are concerned. And this Haskoy investigation..."

  "What have you discovered so far?"

  Ikmen told him about Mr. and Mrs. Lukash, as well as Mr. Koray and his admission with regard to Ofis Hanim and his father.

  "She was Mr. Koray Senior's mistress, according to the son,” he said.

  "And he gave her that house?"

  "Yes."

  Arto Sarkissian shook his head slowly. “That must have been a blow to Ali and his mother."

  "Yes, although they had the other eight houses in that row, which he sold to Mr. Lukash. He said he got a good price and seemed content."

  "Yes, but the fact that your father set up his mistress in your own district has to hurt. Many years have passed, but I don't think that one could easily accept such a scenario. Do you?"

  But before Ikmen could reply, his mobile phone began to ring. It was Constable Yildiz from the crime scene at Haskoy. He had, he said, found someone trying to break into Ofis Hanim's house.

  * * * *

  In common with most people, he imagined, Cetin Ikmen looked down on the thief when Constable Yildiz presented her to him.

  "She won't tell me her name,” Yildiz said as he tipped his head towards the tiny, ancient woman at his side.

  Ikmen looked steadily down into a pair of very dark, but very clear, eyes. “Where did you find her, Constable?"

  "In the bedroom,” Yildiz replied. “Going through drawers."

  "Were you?” Ikmen asked the woman.

  She turned her head defiantly to one side.

  Suddenly angered by her stubbornness, Yildiz said to the old woman, “Do you know who is talking to you? This is Inspector Cetin Ikmen Bey. He is the most famous police officer in this city. He can solve any crime. Any! You should not attempt to conceal anything from him, he..."

  "Yes, thank you, Constable,” Ikmen interrupted with a smile. “Your words are appreciated but...” His voice fizzled out as his attention was caught by something that glittered at the old woman's neck. Yes, he was famous, if not rich to go with it, but he didn't always have exactly the right qualifications for every aspect of his job.

  Briefly he looked at Arto Sarkissian and smiled. Then, turning back to the old woman, he said, “Madam, I can see from the cross around your neck that you are a Christian lady. My friend here, Dr. Sarkissian, is a Christian, too. If you would like to speak to him..."

  "An Armenian?” the old woman growled, swatting the notion away with one hand as she did so. “Why would I want to speak to an Armenian?"

  "Well..."

  She moved towards Ikmen, withered hands on her thin, black-clad hips. “I am Greek,” she said. “I lived here for all of my life until that bastard Koray sold us to the Russian Mafia!"

  "Mr. Lukash is Ukrainian..."

  "Russian, Ukrainian—what is the difference?” she said. “Koray sold us to him, he threw us out. Now I live in one stinking room in Balat. It's so damp it's like living in a hamam!"

  "So why didn't you report Mr. Lukash to the police?” Ikmen asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.

  "And have his men come and beat me to death?” the old woman said. “Famous you may be, Cetin Bey, but realistic you are obviously not!"

  Ikmen suppressed a smile. “Ah, but madam, we are going off the point, are we not?” he said. “You are, according to my constable here, a thief."

  "Yes,” the old woman said simply, “I am."

  "What were you..."

  "Arrest me and I'll tell you everything,” she said. She then held her arms out in front of her as if offering them for handcuffing. “Go on, then, take me away!"

  * * * *

  Her name, Ikmen discovered, was Irini Angelos. She was eighty years old and came from one of the Istanbul Greek families, the majority of whom had moved to Greece many years before. Irini had stayed, she said, because, having seen pictures of Athens, she found that it was not to her taste. “Too provincial,” she declared in that haughty Istanbul Greek way of hers. It made Ikmen smile. The old city Greeks had always been like that.

  Irini Angelos was, of course, entitled to a lawyer, but she declined the offer on the basis that what she had to say would, in time, prove that she was only a minor villain in the story of Ofis Hanim and her little house in Haskoy. However, she did finally agree that perhaps if the “fat Armenian,” as she dubbed Arto Sarkissian, would like to sit in on her interview, that might be for the best. Another witness to her story, she said, would be quite a good idea. Even now, late in the evening, police headquarters beyond the door of the interview room was still heaving with officers and those petitioning their ears and services. In spite of this, Ikmen, Yildiz, and Arto Sarkissian listened to the old woman's story with rapt attention.

  "When I heard that an elderly woman had been murdered in Haskoy I feared that it was Ofis,” she said. “But at first I didn't go to Haskoy because for a little while I didn't really want to know the truth. It is not always
good to be right."

  "You had reason to believe that Ofis Hanim was in danger?” Ikmen asked.

  "As soon as Murad Koray died, she was in danger. She had been his mistress, he gave her that house."

  "But Mr. Koray died a long time ago, didn't he? That's what his son told me."

  "Yes. But while I still lived in Haskoy to keep my eyes on things, that evil witch Emine, that is Murad Koray's wife, and her son wouldn't make a move. I knew that once Ali Koray sold our houses to that gangster there was going to be trouble. I left, I had no choice!"

  "But then,” Ikmen said, “if, as I imagine you are saying, Irini Hanim, Ofis Hanim was your friend, why didn't you go and live with her when Mr. Lukash evicted you?"

  The old woman sighed impatiently. “Because that would have exposed her secret!” she said. “And then we would both have died."

  Ikmen lit a cigarette and then said, “What secret?"

  "About the house of serpents,” Irini replied simply.

  "The house of serpents?” Ikmen looked across at Arto Sarkissian, who just shrugged his shoulders.

  "Oh, God, I suppose I'm going to have to go right back to the beginning, aren't I?” Irini said amid even more apparent irritation.

  "Yes, I think so,” Ikmen replied. “In fact, Irini Hanim, I think that going back to the beginning of whatever tale you are telling is essential."

  She asked for and was given a cigarette and a drink of water before she began.

  "When I was thirty years old my husband died, leaving me alone with three small children,” she began. “It was the mid ‘fifties and most of my family, my brothers and sisters, had gone to live in Greece. So I was on my own, without money and no experience of life. I went to see my landlord, Murad Koray, who was not sympathetic in any way. I told him I would somehow get a job, but he told me that if my rent money wasn't on time as usual, my children and I would have to go. I began to cry. I was not as tough then as I am now. But luckily for me, my tears were not in vain. Overhearing our conversation from another room was Murad's mistress, a woman called Pembe. Murad loved her with all of his soul, but once I had gone she upbraided him about his treatment of me and she suggested how I might be helped."

  "How was that?” Ikmen asked.

  The old woman smiled. “Back in the ‘fifties, as well as having his houses in Haskoy, Murad Koray had an attraction in Lunar Park. Remember that? It is said that Murad's mother was a Gypsy, which was why he was involved with the fair. Anyway, Murad owned something you may or may not remember, the Snake Pit."

  Every bone, sinew, and gram of flesh on Ikmen's body shuddered. “Oh, yes, I..."

  "You've gone a little pale,” the old woman said as she squinted to look into Ikmen's face. “You don't like snakes?"

  Ikmen first looked at Arto Sarkissian, who put a hand on his shoulder and then said, “You could say that, yes."

  Irini stubbed out her cigarette before she continued. “I too was never that keen. But Pembe, now she was a different matter. She liked snakes, she lay in that pit in Lunar Park with the snakes quite happily. The only problem that she had was that sometimes she needed a break. She would, she said, feel uncomfortable and stiff from time to time down there in the pit. But Murad was a devil for money and wouldn't let her go while there were people to come and see the attraction, which was most of the time back in those days before television.” She leaned forward, smiling. “Pembe suggested I pay my rent by taking over from her for a couple of hours every day."

  His eyes wide now, Ikmen said, “And did you consent to this, this..."

  "What choice did I have?” Irini said. “I had children, I needed a roof over my head. And when poor old besotted Murad acceded to Pembe's suggestion, I took my chance. Of course, I was thin then, as I am now, and so I didn't look anywhere near as good amongst the snakes as Pembe did. The Slave of the Snakes, they called her."

  "Yes, I remember,” Ikmen said gloomily, or so the old woman felt. “But both of you at your different times were the Slave of the Snakes, surely?"

  "Yes, except that I was only a poor imitation,” the old woman said. “Pembe was the REAL slave of the snakes, she was their true love."

  "Allah, but what a terrible way to have to make a living!"

  Irini Angelos laughed. “Oh, you get used to it. You can get used to anything if you really want to—or have to. And besides, it did have its good side, that awful job of mine. Pembe and I became great friends. She was so kind and beautiful and fun."

  Even though he didn't often revisit that awful scarring encounter with snakes in Lunar Park, Ikmen did know that the woman he had tried to rescue from the pit had been of a luscious and full-bodied type. It must have been Pembe. The real Slave of the Snakes.

  "I called her Ofis, which means snake in Greek,” Irini said.

  Arto Sarkissian said, “Oh, but we all said what an unusual name that was! She wasn't Greek..."

  "No, she was a Turk,” Irini said. “She was my very best friend. She never had children of her own, but she treated my three as perfect pets. Nothing was too good for my children when Ofis was around. And she had money! Murad was besotted with her and gave her everything her heart desired."

  "Including a house,” Ikmen said.

  "Absolutely.” She held one finger aloft. “But there were conditions on that that I will come to later. So Ofis and I worked at the park until eventually, as I am sure you know, it closed. Neither one of us was very young by then, but ... I did other things; cleaning people's houses, some work in shops. Murad continued to support Ofis, wouldn't let her work without him. And in spite of opposition from his wife and his son, he wanted to set her up in a house near to his own. But there were problems."

  "Like what?"

  "Like the neighbours who knew her and what she was, and who dubbed her a whore. Like the wife and son, who did not want Murad to give what they felt was their property to Ofis."

  "But he gave it to her anyway,” Ikmen said.

  "Only on condition that it revert back to his family on Ofis's death,” Irini said. “Ofis, bless her eyes, wanted to leave that house to my children. But she acceded to Murad's request. Not that the trouble stopped there."

  Ikmen frowned.

  "Murad's wife, as well as many of our neighbours, resolved to persecute Ofis once she arrived in our street. I am not a fool and I have always and will always hear everything. If they could not prevent Ofis from living amongst them, they would frighten and cajole her so much that eventually she would have to leave or go insane. People, often those you live closest to, can be vile,” she said with what Ikmen felt was a lifetime of experience just like this behind her voice.

  "So,” she continued, “it was then that I came up with the idea of the House of Snakes. The show at Lunar Park was over and I knew that Murad was going to have to find somewhere for the snakes. Ofis wanted to keep them, which horrified Murad. But I told him to let her do it. I also told him to tell the world that she, Ofis Hanim, the lover of snakes, had a whole houseful of the things, both venomous and nonvenomous.” She smiled.

  "To keep people away,” Ikmen said.

  "A place where snakes are loose on every surface is a place most people do not want to be,” Irini said. “Even a sultan may be dissuaded in this way."

  "The Mansion of Snakes!” Arto Sarkissian cried. “Of course!"

  "You know,” the old woman said, and then nodding her head towards Ikmen she continued, “Tell him."

  The doctor looked at Ikmen and said, “In Bebek there is a mansion called the Mansion of the Snakes. It was built in the eighteenth century and belonged to one Mustafa Efendi. But the sultan of the day, Mahmud II, was so taken with it that he told a friend of Mustafa Efendi, Said Efendi, that he just had to have it. Knowing how much Mustafa Efendi loved his home, and yet at the same time realising that he could hardly deny anything to his sultan, Said Efendi made up a story to save his friend's home. He told the sultan that Mustafa Efendi was a great lover of snakes and that his wonderful home was fu
ll of them. The sultan changed his mind about the mansion immediately."

  Ikmen, smiling, said, “Allah! That's clever. I like that. So, Irini Hanim, you took this story and you used it to protect your friend."

  "Ofis moved in and nobody came near,” Irini said. “Murad would visit, but people assumed that the snakes were put away when he was in residence. No other person would go inside. Not Murad's wife, his son, or even me. I kept the pretence alive in order to protect her."

  "So the house wasn't full of snakes?” Ikmen said.

  "Only the nonvenomous ones from the pit and then, later, some small Cypriot snakes. The world apart from Murad, Ofis, and myself thought differently, however. Ofis, the snake woman, was left alone, which was just how she liked it. But then Murad died and Ali inherited everything. I knew he hated Ofis, she was like a needle in his pride, an insult to his mother. But he was still afraid to go anywhere near her and she was too poor and old by that time to move. I feared for her."

  "Why didn't she move in with you?” Ikmen asked. “If you felt that she was vulnerable?"

  "Why should she?” Irini said. “The house was hers for the duration of her life, and besides, she liked living with her serpents. Unlike me, she was truly a snake woman in every sense. And although her life was not exactly what it had been when Murad was still alive, it wasn't that bad until Ali Koray's debts began to overwhelm him. He gambles, you see. Badly. He sold my house and the others with it to the foreigner just to pay off his debts."

  Ikmen, who had instructed Ayse Farsakoglu to look into Ali Koray's affairs, said, “Go on."

  "I moved. We all moved, we had to. But Ofis stayed, and I became worried for her. Not because of the foreigner, you understand. I mean, he had been rough with us, the rest of the tenants, but then we knew that he would be. He is a gangster. No, I worried about Ofis because of Ali Koray."

  "Why was that?"