Enlightenment

by Maureen Freely

  In January 2005, an agent called from New York suggesting Sinan take the final film on a nationwide tour. He flew in to convince him personally, pumping Sinan full of praise. Whenever Sinan alluded to some episode in his past, the agent would say, ‘You know, there might just be a film in that.’ Did he put the idea into Sinan’s head? Or had William Wakefield already done so?

  It was not long after the agent’s visit that Sinan began the project that was to be his undoing.

  This was how he sold it: the world had changed and so had the purported enemy – it was no longer Communism we were meant to fear. It was Islam. But the cloud had a silver lining. Now that Communism was no longer a menace, at last it was safe to talk about what we’d all been through in the name of the Free World. To see how strange this little chapter of history had been.

  But here was the strangest thing. For all the changes we had seen – the world felt more like 1970 with every passing day. The war in Iraq, and the war against the war. The insurgents. The bombs. The surges of anti-American sentiment, the terrorists and counter terrorists. The isms. The atrocities. The invisible threat. The paranoia. The spies. All too often – the same spies.

  He finished My Cold War in the winter of 2005. He took it on the festival circuit that spring, picking up an honourable mention here and there and one small prize. On July 6th 2005 he did a screening at the Frontline Club in London. One of the people in the audience was Jordan Frick.

  He kept quiet at the question and answer session, and either Sinan failed to recognise him or he chose not to do so.

  The same thing happened, or rather, failed to happen, on the plane they both boarded the next morning.

  49

  In the 90s, when Chloe was between careers, she’d done some sort of cordon bleu course. She was an adventurous and rather showy cook – though she never seemed able to produce anything without saying how awful it looked. It was a persona that served her well when she got pulled into a cookery show that one of Haluk’s companies was developing for television. The main cook was the bejewelled socialite who lived in the villa next door. Chloe played her clueless American apprentice. Though her Turkish was fluent, Chloe still made what Suna called ‘typical American mistakes’ and this, apparently, added to her comic charm.

  On July 7th 2005 – the second anniversary of their collaboration – Chloe and her neighbour took down the fence between their magnificent gardens with their stunning Bosphorus views and invited all their friends to a garden party. Among them were my parents, who remember Sinan arriving straight from the airport with his suitcases. He was cordial, but preoccupied…

  His gaze, my mother recalls, went first to Amy Cabot, who was looking very bronzed in her red and white cocktail dress. Sitting at the table right next to her, and watching her with proud, proprietorial smiles, were Hector and Jeannie’s father. Next to them was my mother, whose smile he did not know quite how to read.

  He smiled back. Perhaps too quickly. ‘Have you seen my brood?’

  ‘They’re in the pool,’ my mother said.

  ‘The pool?’

  She gestured towards the garden of the society cook.

  Off he wandered. Did he feel my mother’s eyes on him? As he ambled past a huddle of restive adolescents, he paused. Was it something they had said? Their parents, who had congregated under the next tree, had summer villas in the same Bodrum complex as Chloe and the society cook. One was the architect who’d designed the complex. The others were doctors or engineers or developers or something in television.

  He nodded at a few of them, then wandered on. Only to stop again. Yes, something was wrong. At the other end of the lawn was the Spanish Consul, who was talking to the British Consul, who now turned to talk to the man from Procter and Gamble. Next to them was a Turkish artist, her German husband, and a physicist whose education had been interrupted by a stint in political prison. Now he was the rector of one of the new private universities.

  Suna was sitting under a tree. With her were two journalists. They were nodding contemptuously in the direction of another former ‘comrade’ who had reverted to type just in time to take over his family’s gun running business. So much history! So many grudges and ironies! This must have been what had unsettled him. This was the sort of thing he noticed whenever he stepped off a plane. It was in the air. The menace just lurking behind the mannered smiles. What Suna called the art of civilised terror.

  His eyes travelled further, to the society cook’s terrace. There was Chloe, conversing with a man – a foreigner. He was wearing dark glasses but there was something familiar about him – who was he? And why did Chloe keep glancing over her shoulder? Perhaps she was nervous about the rumours that everyone, including Sinan, had read in that day’s paper. An insinuating piece in a scandal sheet owned by İsmet’s relatives, implying that Chloe’s clinic laundered money for an old friend (clearly Haluk) in exchange for ‘favours.’ This was untrue, but there were details of Chloe’s previous relations with Haluk that could only have come from someone who’d known her well in the 1970s.

  Sinan’s eyes kept travelling, until he’d found his family. There was Jeannie, standing next to Chloe’s neighbour’s pool. There was Emre, laughing and splashing. He was looking up at a man. This man was crouching at the water’s edge. He was wearing dark glasses and his face was in profile. But still Sinan knew him. Even after all these years.

  His first response – and how he would ponder it later – was anger. Why now? Why here? What could possibly justify this risk?

  As the man turned his head – to gaze at the lawn? to welcome his old comrade? to chastise him for showing surprise or to counsel silence? – Sinan noticed that he’d had more surgery done. His nose was longer, sharper. Almost Mediterranean. But then again, not Mediterranean enough.

  As Sinan headed across the lawn, he studied his wife’s back. He could always tell her mood from the way she held her shoulders. He would know from her shoulders if they’d already spoken, if he had arrived too late. But then there was a hand on his arm. An old classmate, wishing to introduce him to a visiting archeologist. Then it was an old friend of his mother’s. The next time he looked over at the pool it was just his wife and his son. His old comrade had gone.

  Or had he just disappeared over the brow of the hill? Quickening his gait, Sinan brushed past the sister of the society cook. But she, too, detained him for an exchange of niceties. Then it was Chloe herself.

  ‘At last! We’d given up on you! Hasn’t anyone got you a drink? Listen. I have a blast from the past for you. It took me twenty minutes. Let’s see how long it takes you.’

  ‘I know you already,’ said Sinan. He offered his hand. ‘Or am I wrong? Are you not Jordan Frick?’

  When he saw Jordan approaching, did William Wakefield want to crow? He gave nothing away. He was one big welcoming committee, pulling out chairs, making introductions, fetching drinks.

  There was the usual exchanging of notes. William had read something by Jordan in the Observer, and Jordan had heard William on the World Service. ‘So what’s coming next?’ William asked. Sitting back in his chair, and folding his arms, Jordan said he was writing a book.

  A book. How interesting! Another fearless exposé?

  ‘You’d better hope not,’ said Jordan.

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Because you’re in it.’

  A ripple of laughter. Jordan turned to Sinan.

  ‘I’ve seen your film.’

  Sinan smiled, waiting for the verdict.

  ‘Interesting stuff.’

  Sinan thanked him. But Jordan was not done. ‘You know what I find strange?’ he said.

  ‘No, I don’t. But please do say.’

  ‘Okay I will then. Let me put it like this. You circle around the subject like a hawk. But you never…’

  He paused, perhaps hoping Sinan would speak. Why make it easy? Jordan tried again. ‘Every film has a hole in it – the most important person isn’t there.’

  Now Sin
an spoke. ‘What exactly are you suggesting?’

  Staring straight into his eyes, Jordan said, ‘I think you know.’

  ‘I want to hear it from you, though,’ Sinan said.

  ‘I am tired of innuendo. I want direct answers to direct questions.’

  ‘So what’s your question?’ Sinan asked.

  ‘Who killed Dutch Harding?’

  ‘Is that really all you want to know? I’m disappointed!’ Fearing that his voice might shake or his lips tremble, Sinan flashed what he hoped was a superior smile. ‘After all these years of chasing all these groundless rumours, have you never thought to ask yourself if…’

  ‘I have. Of course. I’ll tell you what I don’t understand, though – why, after all these years, you’re still protecting him.’

  That, at least, is what my own dear mother recalls him saying. She is not to be discounted. Not only can she remember who said what at parties thirty years ago, but what they were wearing, and how much they drank.

  She recalls the silence that fell over the table after Jordan’s ‘veiled threat’. Then my father came walking through the glass doors. Seeing something familiar in Jordan, but failing to recognise him, my father took the conversation back to the beginning. They had not quite finished exchanging notes when Suna appeared. How her eyes flashed! But when Jordan greeted her, she was careful to return his smile. Which made my mother suspicious. Or to quote her exactly, intrigued.

  ‘Naturally I had to ask myself. Was there a history between these two? When, why, where, who, how? I’m sorry, M. You know what I’m like. Maybe I’m the one who should have been a journalist. Because you know what? I knew there was more than met the eye. Especially when I glanced over at Jeannie. She was standing by the pool and just from the way she had folded her arms I could tell something had gone terribly wrong.’

  ‘I was standing by the pool, watching Emre. (Jeannie wrote in the final pages of her letter.) His plump little legs were churning. A drop of water got into his eyes. He blinked with shock. Then he laughed, looked up. Way up, as if to thank the sun.

  But it chose just that moment to slip behind the hill. As the shadow slipped across his face, I saw his smile slip away with it. I looked up, and that was when I saw him. A man. A stranger. A composite picture. His jet black hair did not match his pale skin. His square jaw did not match his pinched and pointed nose. He was wearing dark glasses so I could not see his eyes.

  “Is this your son?” he asked. He had a faint German accent. This, too, struck me as odd. I could not place the voice but it did something to me. It kicked open a door. As he leaned down to smile at Emre, I was overcome by what I can only call a terrible premonition. I wanted to jump in and grab Emre and run. But as usual I was seeing danger in the wrong places. All this man did was toss Emre his ball.

  There was the tiniest rustle of breeze. I used that as my excuse. By the time I had swaddled Emre in his giant towel, his friend had gone. I turned to carry Emre back to the house. And then I saw how right I’d been.

  I recognised him at once.

  I mark this moment as the end of my happiness.’

  Her father waved her over. ‘You two remember each other, don’t you?’ She managed a smile. And Jordan too? What was he doing here? Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? Hadn’t she suffered enough? Or would he not relent until she was as lonely and loveless as he was?

  It was Jordan who broke the silence. ‘So where does this leave us? Are we or aren’t we going to talk?’ All eyes turned to Sinan – whose face was a mask. As he rose from his chair, he beckoned for Jeannie to do the same.

  ‘What were you arguing about?’ she asked as they got into the taxi.

  ‘Dutch Harding.’

  ‘Dutch Harding? Why?’

  ‘Don’t ask,’ he said.

  She tried to remember how long had it been since she’d last thought of Dutch Harding. She could barely remember what he’d looked like. Later that evening, after they’d put Emre to bed, she said as much to Sinan. He said nothing in reply, but she could see the tension in his hands, and she said so. He denied he was tense at all, but tersely. Then he left the room.

  So the next day Jeannie asked her father. ‘Seeing as you love to brag so much about your adventures. What do you remember about Dutch Harding?’

  ‘Dutch Harding,’ said her father. ‘Dutch Harding. Hmmm. Let’s see. Well, he was a card-carrying Communist. I mean it. He really had a card. He went out with that teacher of yours. Miss What’s-her-name. Oh yes, Miss Brainless SDS Groupie.’

  That was all he’d say about Dutch Harding. So she moved on to Jordan. She asked her father what Jordan’s real job had been that year.

  ‘In 1970? Let’s see now. What exactly did I ask him? His job was to get to know the students, I guess. But he was too full of himself to be a good observer. This hasn’t changed. If I were you, I’d just ignore him.’

  But Jordan was everywhere that week. She’d take Emre up to the college terrace with his tricycle, there he’d be, perched on a wall, getting to know the students. He seemed to know everyone and everyone wanted him to meet Jeannie. By Wednesday, they had been introduced at least eleven times.

  By Wednesday, something else had happened. A crew had appeared out of nowhere to dig a hole in the garden of the Pasha’s Library. They wouldn’t give a reason, and since Sinan was away Jeannie called for her father. At first he seemed perturbed, but after conferring with the crew, he told her not to worry, it was part of this new sewer system the city was digging. When Jeannie pointed out that it had finished digging in their area a year earlier, he told her the workmen had said they were ‘just tying up loose ends’. Which might have been a lie, he conceded. But since there was nothing they could do about it, the best thing was just to sit back. When Jeannie finally reached Sinan in Paris later that day, she got a long silence. ‘Oh well,’ he said finally. ‘But it’s a shame for our trees.’

  So she went to Chloe. Chloe seemed her usual casual self, ‘It’s nothing, just relax,’ she said. But she was worried enough to phone Suna, and Suna was at the house within the hour. The diggers had left by then, but the work was not finished. They had left their first hole unfilled and were at work on a second.

  Suna surveyed the holes from a distance, her arms crossed and clutching her sides. She looked very pale but what alarmed Jeannie more was her determination to stay cheerful. ‘It’s the curse of this city,’ she said. ‘Always they are digging something up. And never do they tell us anything in advance. Why a sewer? Why here? Why now? This would never happen in Europe,’ she said.

  On Friday there was a party at Kennedy Lodge. Somehow Jordan and Jeannie ended up at the same table. One of his gullible new friends asked him how he was going to spend the rest of the summer, and he took this as an invitation to tell everyone at the table about his book. He launched into the story of Dutch Harding – the friend who’d turned out to be a double agent. The legend who’d come to a sorry, murky end. Feigning a headache, Jeannie left after the first course.

  She’d left Emre with the maid, who’d hoped to put him straight to bed, so she was surprised to hear his laughter in the garden.

  There he was, at the ledge, sitting in his father’s lap. And there, sitting next to him, was İsmet. No argument this time. No conversation, either. The moment İsmet saw her, he stood up, gave her a crisp handshake and took his leave.

  ‘When did you get back?’ Jeannie asked Sinan. ‘I thought you were in Venice until Friday.’ He put his finger to his lips. They listened to İsmet’s car leaving the meydan. Then Sinan turned to give Jeannie his coldest smile.

  He stood up. He still had Emre in his arms. ‘Let’s see these holes, then.’ There were three of them by now. ‘So,’ he said, ‘So this is a sewer.’

  ‘So they say.’

  ‘What else do they say?’

  ‘Nothing. They’re workmen. We hardly talk.’

  ‘So who else have you been talking to?’

  ‘My father. Chloe. Suna.’r />
  She did not mention Jordan, because, though they’d shared the same table for two hours, they had not spoken. But she did bring up his name later, when she and Sinan were sharing a salad at the table outside – only a few feet away from the holes, but now it was dark and they couldn’t see them.

  When she went on to confess that she was mystified, but also unsettled, by ‘that scene at Chloe’s party’, by what Jordan had said about Dutch Harding, Sinan snorted. ‘He’s bluffing. I hope you know that.’

  ‘Why are you so sure?’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Then tell me.’

  ‘I suppose I should. What choice do I have anyway? For all I know, they’ve already found it, already taken it away for tests.’

  ‘Taken what away?’

  ‘The body.’

  ‘Dutch Harding’s body?’

  No answer.

  ‘So what happened to him?’

  ‘What do you think happened to him?’

  ‘You’re not going to tell me you killed Dutch Harding, are you?’

  ‘There was a very long silence after that, and it is painful to recall the thoughts that went through my mind as we sat there in the dark, surrounded by those gaping holes.

  Two women were walking along the path beneath our garden. They were conversing in whispers, stopping every few paces to catch their breath. Were they carrying something heavy? For the first time in three years, for the first time since I discovered happiness, I thought of Suna and Lüset on that same path, dragging the trunk.

  I thought of what I’d said to set them on that path.

  My worst fear. And it was true.

  “So let me guess,” said Sinan in a hard voice I did not recognise. “You’re asking yourself how it would come to pass that a boy would kill his trusted mentor.”

  I shook my head. For that was the only question to which I had the answer.