“Controlling all I did, but almost never there,” Sinan said. Dad then asked him two questions he couldn’t answer: “What effect did he have on your politics? Who angered you and your friends most – ‘imperialists’ like me, or people like your father, the Turks who worked with us?”
It seems never to have occurred to Sinan that his almost-never-present father might have shaped his politics.
Needless to say – now that it has, he thinks there might be a film in it.
“Why are you rolling your eyes?” he asked me. “Isn’t this always the way you wanted me to be?”
He’s right. I did. I do. It’s just that I feel sidelined. These easy-going free-ranging conversations Dad’s been having with Suna and Sinan have not led on to similar exchanges between dad and me.
Our relationship, set in aspic thirty years ago, must not be touched. He remembers my first year in Istanbul like this: we had a wonderful time together, really got to know each other as human beings. It was one big happy family – not just him and me, but also Amy, Chloe, Chloe’s brother Neil, and Sinan. But then politics marched in to shut the whole thing down.
“You make it sound like an invading army,” I said. “But it wasn’t. It was you.”
“What? I started the Cold War? I pulled the strings of the entire student left? Personally planted the bomb that blew up my car?”
“No, of course not. But as you say yourself, you were here to do a job.”
“Yes, but so were a lot of other people, and some pretty unsavoury people at that. You have no idea. You know why? Because you had your dad here protecting you.”’
June 15th 2001
‘Summer school began this week. Today I met my class. There are only six of them, but they all seem keen. One in particular asked very good questions – unfortunately I couldn’t answer several, and one I totally muffed as I had no idea whatsisname had died. It must have happened on a day when I didn’t see the paper. Or saw the paper but didn’t get around to reading it. In other words, it could have happened any time last year.
I fessed up, and of course we had a laugh about it. But I am going to have to get serious. No need for a cold shower, though. One look at the pile of very important unread monographs on my desk will do the trick.
It was good to be back in the classroom. Good to be wearing grownup clothes. Good to have lunch with Suna at Kennedy Lodge and conduct serious conversations with serious colleagues about matters that matter.
It was better getting home. He shrieked, opened his arms wide, laughed, babbled as he crawled across the floor – no valued colleague has ever given me such a welcome.’
June 27th 2001
‘Today we had a man from the Human Rights Foundation come in to talk to us. He said nothing about his own life but had the haunted but strangely peaceful look that I’ve seen so often on people who’ve survived torture. A few of the students had a hard time believing him, but he disarmed them by saying that this made him glad. They’d lost the terror that had gripped their parents – the terror they’d learned in the 70s and again in the 80s, in the country’s political prisons. They assumed they lived in a free country, and although this was not so, their insistence that it should be so would be a force for change. All this without quite looking them in the eye: his voice, though certain, was also weary.
One day soon, Turkey would be an enlightened republic, he said. That day had not yet dawned. He told us how many members of his foundation had been killed over the last two years. He talked about the reports they’d still managed to relay to the European Court of Justice, about the forensic doctors who’d put their lives, their families and their careers at risk to gather evidence. He impressed upon us that torture is still systematic, occurring wherever a person first comes into contact with the authorities. On being asked, he told us what this was likely to entail. Or rather recited this.
After class I took him to Kennedy Lodge for lunch, but we took the cloud with us. At the very end, he asked if I’d decided about the “mission”. To my shame, I had no idea what he meant. Tonight I dredged through my ever-growing backlog, and there it was: a delegation from the Council of Europe, passing through Istanbul tonight, en route to Van to inspect several prisons. All familiar names, one of them a former colleague. I managed to catch him in his hotel. We’ll meet for breakfast, take it from there.’
June 28th 2001
‘I know I should do this, but how? Van is roasting hot this time of year, and I can’t see taking a ten-month-old baby on a prison tour, either. But I can’t see leaving him either. Not if Sinan comes, too.’
June 29th 2001
‘Handing him over to Lüset this morning – the hardest thing I have ever done.
All day, I’ve been seeing all the things he would have noticed – cranes, road repair machines, unusual trucks. Knobs, rusty nails, strange looking pieces of bread.’
June 30th 2001
‘To think, after what we saw today, that I almost brought Emre with us… I need to get my head checked.’
July 3rd 2001
‘I’ve joined the gym at the Burç Club. I’ve been doing a half-hour on the machines after class as I’ve found that clears my head.’
July 15th 2001
‘Today I made the mistake of putting him in his sandpit and expecting that he would be so entranced with his new dump truck that I’d be able to write my lecture. I gave up when a gust of wind took all my papers and blew them over the ledge. Oh the fury and the frustration – until I saw him laughing. We decamped to the Burç Club – after three hours in the pool he’s asleep in his deck chair, and I am free to work. But just the sight of those books next to the suntan oil makes my head hurt.’
August 12th 2001
‘Yesterday morning I handed in my grades – reformed character that I am, I stayed up all night. Made the deadline with a half-hour to spare. This left little time for packing, however. Plus I could barely see straight.
This time, Emre looked through the window, not at it. When he saw the earth fall away, he gasped.
We were somewhere over Bulgaria when I remembered that I had left Emre’s suitcase in the upstairs hallway. I felt like shooting myself, but Sinan wasn’t phased. When we got to Heathrow, he phoned Lüset, and by the time we got to her flat in South Ken she had been out to Boots and stocked up on milk, nappies and pyjamas. We went out this morning to buy the rest.
Today we flew up to Edinburgh. Sinan’s event was this evening. We had been planning to leave Emre with a babysitter organised by the festival people, but Emre had hysterics, so we took him with us. Or rather, Sinan went first, and Emre and I went over after the screening. I’ve seen it many times already, so I didn’t mind missing it, but I was curious to hear the questions afterwards – this film is bound to cause controversy just by virtue of its subject matter, and I wanted to gauge the reaction.
There were quite a few Turks in the audience – you could tell from the way they treated Emre. If he whimpered, or rocked a chair, they would turn around and smile, or they’d pinch his cheek and say, “Ne cici! Or Yavrum!”
Very different response from the Nordics, though the maternal veterans in the audience did make some effort. When Emre was really beginning to work himself up and I realised I was going to have to let him run around outside for a while unless I wanted a kicking tantrum, one Mat Vet got out of her seat to let me pass, and as I did, she smiled at me wearily, to indicate that she understood exactly how I felt and was with me one hundred percent – though I could also tell (from the smile she gave Emre) that she pitied him for being saddled with an unfit mother who kept him up after his bedtime.
In the corridor was an elegant, agitated woman in her 40s; she was hissing into her mobile phone. Emre, meanwhile, was practising his walk.
When he toppled over in her vicinity, he looked up at her and smiled. But instead of the endearments that he has come to expect in Turkey, all he got was an icy glare. He shot me a puzzled look: what had he done wrong?
; He dared to laugh, and the elegant, agitated woman still hissing on her phone cast me a look of pure hatred. That was when I recognised her – less than a year ago, that woman was me.’
August 20th 2000
‘I’ve decided I’ve spent too much of my life thinking, wondering, asking, looking under stones best left unturned.
I am coming to see the point of silence.
A few last words, then.
So that I can say I truly understand how I’ve come to this.
Sinan went straight from Edinburgh to Ankara, and the night of his return we’d arranged to meet at the Hisar İskele at eight. It was another sultry August evening. Emre and I had walked down from the house. When we reached the Bosphorus road, traffic was at a standstill. There was a famous singer performing at the castle, and there was nowhere for his thousands of fans to park. We crossed over to the shore, where I took Emre out of his backpack and while he stared at the idling engines on the road, I looked at the water, which was still steel blue to the north beyond the bridge and, to the south, tinged with pink.
Then Emre turned to the sea and began to babble and kick and point. It took me a few moments to see it: the Bosphorus was teeming with boats and ships, but not a single one was moving.
It is not an easy feat to stand in place on the Bosphorus. The current is too strong. The boats and ships had to keep their engines running to stop the drift. It made them sound like planes preparing for take-off.
We were fifteen minutes late. So despite Emre’s pleas, no lingering at the fish tank. We went straight out to the porch, to the corner table Sinan had reserved for us. But it was already taken. When I asked why, the waiter looked perplexed. Wasn’t the gentleman at the table one of our party?
It was İsmet. After he had admired Emre, he invited us to sit down. Beckoning for the waiter, he ordered me an Absolut and mineral water. “That’s your poison, Jeannie, isn’t it?”
He went on to ask me a string of avuncular questions. How old was Emre now? How was his father? How was mine? Was I settling into motherhood? Did I find Istanbul a pleasant place to live?
“I seem to be upsetting you,” he said with a smile.
“Not at all,” I said. “It’s just I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
“I take your point,” he said. “Because in the grand scheme of things, you’re not important. But I still feel a responsibility for you. Your dad and I go way back, after all. And the same must be said of this little fellow’s father. We’re practically related, as you know.” He looked up: there was Sinan standing over us. His expression was unreadable. Or rather, there was no expression at all.
İsmet stood up. “I am taking your seat, I think,” he said affably.
“Please,” said Sinan in a low voice. “There is no rush.”
“How kind of you to say so. But I won’t stay long. You see, it’s my daughter’s birthday. I’m such a family man these days. It’s my only thought! We’ll be at that long table over there.”
He bared his teeth. “I love children so much, as you know. And this child gives me such a special pleasure. He looks just like his father, Jeannie, don’t you think?” İsmet leaned forward to pinch Emre’s cheek. “And he’s the spitting image of his grandfather, too.”
“Take your hands off him,” Sinan said. “Get away from him or I’ll hit you.”
İsmet’s face went blank. “So you believed him,” he said.
“No,” said Sinan. “For thirty years, I believed you.”
İsmet stood up and the two men glared at each other.
“You should still believe me,” İsmet said. “You should always believe me.”
“You lied to me.” Sinan spat out his words.
“So you may think, but who can ever know…”
“I know!” Sinan bellowed. “I have proof!”
“But why would an old family friend wish to lie to you?”
“You lied because you wanted to ruin my life.”
“I was just trying to protect you,” İsmet said.
“Protect me from what?”
İsmet’s face went very dark.
“Leave us in peace,” Sinan said. “Or I’ll piss in your daughter’s face.”
There was a flurry of activity after İsmet left the table. The ashtray was replaced, the table brushed. New glasses arrived, and then new napkins and knives and forks. There were muttered apologies from the waiter. “The gentleman has bothered you.” It was a question.
Sinan waved it away. “It was nothing,” he said to the waiter in Turkish. “What you did was correct.” He ordered himself an Absolut and soda and asked the waiter to replenish mine. It was only after the drinks had arrived that he spoke.
“I’m sorry. If only I’d been here on time…”
And perhaps he was struggling to find a way to tell me. But then a glowing orange bumblebee of a hovercraft came barrelling past us, and Emre fell out of his chair.
The hovercraft seemed to belong to the maritime police. It was soon joined by two others that pulled up alongside the tugboat sitting underneath the bridge. İsmet (who was not with his family after all, but with three sharply dressed business associates) seemed to be party to whatever was going on. When ships were free to move up and down the Bosphorus again – after a glowing bumblebee had come to pick him up, I turned to Sinan. “So what was that all about?”
“Who knows? It could have been some sort of exercise. Or a bomb scare. Or maybe they were doing some sort of repair.”
“I didn’t mean that,’ I said. ‘I meant that argument with İsmet.”
“You’re surprised I’d want to argue with İsmet?”
“You’ve always said it’s dangerous to talk back.”
“I should have talked back to him years ago. I already feel so much better.”
“What was it about, though?”
“Nothing,” said Sinan. “Really nothing.”
“What did he lie to you about?”
“It’s over. For now, that’s all you need to know.”
But his voice lacked conviction. Late that night, he changed his mind.
We were in bed, and I’d just finished reading a column about the Edinburgh screening of Van Comes to Europe. The author, a renowned nationalist, accused Sinan of treason.
“How dare he?” I said. But Sinan was unruffled.
“He can say what he wants. So long as he doesn’t stop me doing what I want, who cares? Things are different now.”
“Are they?”
He laughed. “You’re not trying to warn me, are you? You’re not trying to tell me I should compromise my principles?”
“No, but…”
“Let me guess. You approve, of course, how could you not approve? But you’d still like me to curb my impulses a little, take things slowly, and above all, avoid a confrontation with İsmet.”
“Yes, that would be nice,” I said.
“Very nice indeed,” he said. ‘But also, alas, very European. It’s not the way we do things here. It’s not the way things work.”
“So how do they work?” I asked.
He smiled and for a moment he looked nineteen again. “We’ve been through this before. Don’t you remember? Except…” he wagged his finger. “Except – last time we were wrong.”
“About what?”
“The revolution. Do you remember why?”
“Let’s see. Could it be that the seeds were planted long ago?”
“And?’
“The roots must spread under the ground…the saplings must have time to grow. But when the sap starts running…”
“You can’t stop the course of history.”
“The Judas trees must blossom…until one day…”
He threw his head back in laughter. “Okay then. I’ll tell you. You might as well know. That day they took us in. You know, in 1971, after they blew up your father’s car, and İsmet took you all in. Well, this is what you don’t know. He took me in first. Yes, I had the first, and the most private, interv
iew! And I suppose you’re going to ask why I’ve waited all this time to tell you.” He was speaking so fast I could barely follow him. “Well the reason is I knew you’d want to know the whole story. But I didn’t want to think about the story long enough to tell it, and now I’ve told you and have no choice to explain, this is what I ask of you. No questions. No nothing. Are we agreed? Here, come into my arms, turn off the light, I’ll tell you as quickly as I can and I’ll be so tired by the end I’ll fall asleep and you’ll stare at the ceiling, trying to imagine every gap in my story, but this can’t be helped, all stories have gaps and this is the only time I will ever say what I am about to say.”
I struggled to find my voice. “If it’s too painful…”
“Too painful? Of course it’s too painful! But please, just listen. I won’t take long. He caught me by surprise, Jeannie. I had no idea what was coming. When he shut the door behind him, I was not even nervous. I assumed he’d brought us in to discuss the bombing of your father’s car, of which I knew nothing.
But first there were to be preliminaries. You would think we were in Sürreya’s, chatting over piroshki. First there are the reminiscences – the first time we met, too young for me to remember. Then something odd that still makes no sense to me – about a jeweller in Ankara, a former Yugoslavian who may or may not have been a drop. Then my own first memory of İsmet, on that Russian ship in 1962. I was with my father, he’d just been posted to Cairo. Why İsmet was on the ship I cannot tell you. There was also a group of Egyptian officers on board, and now he wanted to know if I remembered them, what else I had seen. In Caracas, in Washington, in Karachi, how often was my father the guest of the Soviet embassy? Might my father be vulnerable to blackmail because of his ‘varied proclivities’? What was the true reason for my parents’ divorce? Had my mother not confided in me? My answers were vague and without effect.
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