by Hakan Günday
Derdâ would just disappear. She didn’t think she’d have trouble finding somewhere to stay. And she’d find a job, too. Maybe she’d move to another city in England, or to another country, somewhere far from Bezir. Anywhere really. Meanwhile, Bezir had completely changed—he’d grown distant and even more silent. And he didn’t beat Derdâ anymore. He never laid a hand on her. Sometimes he didn’t come home for days on end. All of this made Derdâ worry about timing her escape. Best to disappear as soon as possible.
That night she couldn’t sleep. Two hours before the early morning prayer she slipped out of bed as silently as a snake. She watched Bezir for any sign of movement as she quietly backed out of the room. She put her black chador on over her nightgown in the other bedroom, then went to the kitchen. She got her money and dictionary out of the stove hood. Then, with a last look at her dark apartment, she opened the door and slipped outside and left the door halfway shut behind her. She couldn’t make the slightest sound; she wouldn’t use the elevator. With a final glance at Stanley’s door she started tiptoeing down the steps. Then she remembered something. She went back up to the twelfth floor and opened the fire hose box just opposite the elevator. She’d oiled the hinge the day before so she knew it wouldn’t creak. She pulled a bag out from above the thick, red, tightly wrapped hose—she’d almost forgotten all about it. She’d stashed her new clothes here. Then she turned around and walked away, never to return.
Twelve floors later she found herself at the building’s main door, the same one she’d raced through to follow Bezir carrying Ubeydullah in his arms. It was ten minutes later before she figured out how to open it. You had to press the white button on the wall to automatically open the door. She started at the heavy clank of the lock, then she pushed open the heavy door and darted out.
She walked down the dark garden path and stepped onto the sidewalk. Which way? The street seemed so long. She looked right and then left. She saw an indistinct figure in the distance, a man with his hands shoved in his jacket pockets coming toward her. Derdâ was filled with fear. She turned and started to run the other way.
The indistinct figure stopped where the garden path met the sidewalk. He waved at Derdâ to come back and looked up at the building. Then he set off down the garden path. When he arrived at the entrance, he took a piece of paper out of his pocket and used his lighter to check the address and building number. He entered the four-digit password onto the security panel beside the door. There was a metallic clank and he pulled the door open.
The elevator was waiting at the ground floor. He stepped in and pressed the button for the twelfth floor. The elevator door slowly opened and the ceiling light switched on automatically. He checked the numbers on both doors in the hall. He approached the door near the stairs and pulled a screwdriver out of his jacket’s inner pocket. As he lowered it to the lock, he realized the door was ajar. He slowly nudged it open and peered into the dark apartment. He put the screwdriver back in his pocket and drew a gun before he stepped into the apartment. He crept down the corridor, passing the living room and the kitchen. Both were empty. The bathroom was empty, too. There was a closed door at the end of the corridor. He reached out for the handle but before he got there the door swung open. He was face to face with Bezir.
In a flash Regaip pulled the trigger, killing Bezir instantly. He was afraid, at least partly. He did it because he’d once served in the government militia. He did it out of the memory of a fight years ago when he was almost choked to death. But when he couldn’t find Derdâ he cursed himself for killing his only source of information. Bezir had to have known where she was. He would’ve satisfied Gido and he would’ve found his daughter, too, who was now a widow and nowhere to be found. I’ll find her soon enough, he thought, it wasn’t fated to end this way.
Regaip couldn’t know that in the days to come others would say the very same thing—it wasn’t fated to end this way. He didn’t know that ten men would gather in a kickbox club and decide to abandon their plans. “Bezir’s gone, the business is finished,” they’d say. The plan had been to plant bombs in four of the busiest tube stations. The plan was dropped and the bombs were dumped in the Thames. Regaip didn’t know any of this. Just like those kickboxers didn’t know that, years later, a London underground station and a double-decker bus would be blown sky-high by four al-Qaida militants. They didn’t know that in those suicide attacks on July 7, 2005, fifty-two people would die and that seven hundred people would be injured.
In the end, it was left to other people to fuck England. Not to Bezir who had fantasized of blowing London up just because he was angry with himself.
Derdâ was running as fast as she could but she didn’t have any idea where she was going. She ran as if she’d been running away from Bezir all her life. She didn’t know he was dead. She ran because she hadn’t run for five years. She ran faster and faster, her legs feeling lighter and lighter. She sprinted through the spots of light cast on the sidewalks by the streetlamps, through totally deserted back lanes, past bronze statues that made her think that all life in London had stopped to watch her, faster and faster as she was filled with a feeling she’d never felt before: freedom.
The cold night air stung and her eyes teared up, but Derdâ didn’t slow down. Her heart—all but sixteen years old—thundered like a military band, a military band celebrating a victory in war. And she laughed as tears streamed over her lips, but there was no one to share in her joy. Just like Stanley had described it before—she neither walked nor ran. She glided, she flew under the city lights like the dark shadow of a colorful butterfly.
When she arrived at the Crouch Hill intersection, she stopped. Not because she was fazed by the choice of five directions, but to listen to the sound of her heartbeat, so loud it was like the sound was pouring out of her mouth. She looked back at where she came from. She couldn’t see the apartment building and there was no sign of Bezir. It was all history now, everything, her entire past. She spread her arms wide and fell down on her knees. She looked up at the sky where the stars were living behind the clouds and she let out a cry like she’d done five years ago. “AAAAAA!” This time it was a cry of happiness. AAAAAAs of happiness! She saw the lights go on in nearby apartments, so she got to her feet and started running again down one of the five streets. If she could have, she would’ve taken them all, to make up for all the streets she’d never taken before. But she had to choose one. She did, not someone else; the choice was hers. She said, “I’ll take this one.” And she took the one she wanted. She turned and raced down the third street on the left.
When she realized there were fewer and fewer houses and gardens lining the street she slowed down and the smile on her face slowly dissipated like steam off a mirror. She was exhausted. She needed to find a place where she could rest until morning, a place that was both safe and warm. Around the corner, she saw a red phone booth enclosed by panes of glass, a red phone booth, a home for one. Derdâ spent her first night alone in London in a telephone booth, using the space as best she could.
In the morning, she felt a hand on her shoulder and she quickly opened her eyes and covered her face with her hands. Bezir looming over her, his hand raised, always caused the same reaction. Sometimes he’d stretch out his hand for a glass in the cupboard and Derdâ would wince and jump back out of his way, her hand over her face. But this time there wasn’t a slap. She slowly spread her fingers and peered out. She saw a little boy no older than five. He was smiling—his two front teeth were missing. Suddenly his mother seized him by the wrist and dragged him out of the phone booth. They bustled off, the boy in tears, the mother scolding him for talking to strangers.
Derdâ tried to stand up but her legs were too numb from sleeping so cramped up. She rubbed them for a minute and then struggled to her feet. With her first stride out of the telephone booth, her chador billowing in the breeze, Süper Derdâ was brimming with courage, ready to face her worst enemy—her future.
Crouch End was one of those satellite n
eighborhoods. Only a few bus lines connected it to the city center. Here, old, cared-for houses and their gardens lined the streets. The sidewalks were never busy, and the walls along the street were covered in moss. Bob Dylan had once lived in Crouch End. It was a neighborhood where the unemployed lived with their kids who weren’t able to build a life for themselves, who sat on benches all day, making biting remarks to one another, killing time as they absently stared at the other side of the street. But on that day, Crouch End, for Derdâ, was a place to find a restaurant, a place where she could change her clothes and get some food. She approached an older man sitting on a bench. His blond hair was just beginning to turn gray. He turned and looked up at Derdâ. His back stiffened when he saw it was her. But he couldn’t completely trust his aging eyes and he waited for Derdâ to come a little closer. When she was just above him, he studied her eyes carefully. He knew those eyes, those were the black eyes he stared at, transfixed, when he paused the video at the height of a scene.
With Derdâ now right in front of him, he couldn’t help but stretch out his hand and take the girl by the arm. Derdâ pulled her arm back and jumped away, but then stopped, turned back, and looked at the man with grayish-blond hair. The man stood up and put his hands up in the air, open palms facing Derdâ as if to say, “I surrender,” and he said, “I’m so sorry! It’s just that I’m your number one fan. Really, I am very sorry, indeed.”
No one had ever apologized to Derdâ in her own home, but she knew all too well the meaning of an apology at Stanley’s, as part of her job was to force people to apologize and grovel before her. She kept listening to the man. He stood up and was an arm’s distance away from her. He extended his hand for her to shake.
“The name’s Steven. And it’s a real pleasure to meet you.”
Derdâ looked down at his thin, wrinkled hand and then looked at his face. She didn’t take his hand.
“Could I speak to you for a moment?” asked the man. “If you have time, of course? We could have coffee somewhere?”
Derdâ looked just how she did in her films. She was short, but somehow seemed taller than everyone else. She was often silent, but it seemed like she was angrily cursing inside.
“I know you from your films,” said the man. “Sensational stuff!”
Derdâ recognized the word: film. She chuckled from under her chador.
“Please,” the man begged. “Just five minutes. There’s a place just around the corner. I promise I won’t keep you very long.”
Derdâ’s voice cracked—it was the first time she had spoken since her rebirth.
“Alright,” she managed to say.
The man bowed like a true gentleman and held out his hand to show Derdâ the way. “This way, please.”
Derdâ walked three paces ahead of him.
They went to one of the oldest pubs in Crouch End. A group of old age pensioners gawked at Derdâ in her black chador like she’d come from another planet. Soon a waitress arrived and Derdâ hastily asked her where the bathroom was. The waitress gestured toward the back of the pub. Derdâ took her bag and went.
In the bathroom, she examined her reflection in the narrow mirror for some time before she took off her chador and the nightgown underneath. She folded them and put them in her bag. Then she put on a pair of black jeans (clearly an indication of Stanley’s goth taste), a black Cramps T-shirt, and a black leather jacket. She unzipped her thick black plastic shoes and looked at them with disgust before chucking them in a can overflowing with soiled toilet paper. Then she put on her new red Dr. Martens.
She was totally transformed. She was a new woman, her hair flowing freely down to her lower back. She touched it and frowned. It made her mad. She wasn’t bothered by the jeans or the T-shirt, but having her hair in full view was too much too fast. With her bag slung over her back and her leather jacket over her arm, she took a deep breath and opened the bathroom door.
Derdâ’s number one fan couldn’t believe his eyes. So many things raced through his mind just then. The girl was much more beautiful than he ever imagined she would be; her breasts were smaller than he’d imagined them, but her face seemed somehow familiar.
He ordered coffee for himself and was pleased when Derdâ asked for the menu. He would have more than just five minutes with her. After some hesitation over words she didn’t know, Derdâ randomly pointed to a dish on the menu. Her choice was steak with mushroom sauce and French fries. It was her lucky day and she didn’t even know why.
“I’m sorry to say it, but it seems we won’t be able to understand each other?”
Derdâ was inspecting the dirt between her nails and marveling at the parts of her body now fully exposed; she raised her head and said, “Maybe.” She seemed to have a faint recollection of the man.
“Then let me ask you this, could it be that we’ve met before?”
Derdâ didn’t understand.
“Where are you from? Which country?”
She still didn’t understand.
“Spain? Italy? Romania? Somewhere else?”
Derdâ just smiled pleasantly. She really didn’t understand a word. Just then the waitress brought Steven’s coffee and a paper placemat with a history of the pub, a napkin, a fork, and a steak knife for Derdâ. The man went on naming countries.
“Greece? Turkey?”
Suddenly Derdâ tuned in. She didn’t exactly understand what the man was trying to say, but she was sure she’d heard the word “Turk.” Now he knew that he had something and he said “Türkiye?” Derdâ nodded. He continued in Turkish.
“Alright, OK, now I remember you. You were just a child then. You applied for a visa with your father in Istanbul.”
Derdâ squeezed the handle of her steak knife. She knew the decision she’d make at that second was crucial. The son of a bitch who’d opened the door to the past five years of hell was sitting right across from her. Now she recognized Steven. The taste of that horrid chocolate he’d given her that day still lingered in her memory. She imagined driving her steak knife deep into his chest, or skewering his thin, wrinkly hand onto the table. But she didn’t. She kept on listening.
“How many years has it been? Five, six? What an incredible coincidence, don’t you think?
Derdâ nodded her head, forcing herself to smile a little.
“You do remember me, don’t you?”
Derdâ nodded her head again.
“Why don’t you come over and see me sometime?”
Derdâ nodded her head for the last time before cutting into her steak. She’d get her revenge out on this guy some other time. But right now she needed someone who could help her adjust to life in London and he was the only English person she knew who spoke Turkish, so she couldn’t kill him, at least not yet.
Steven’s semidetached house had a garden in perfect trim with stunning red and white roses. It was only few streets away from the pub but Derdâ felt as if each and every person they passed on the way was staring at her hair. Those few minutes spent fantasizing about how she’d gouge out their eyes made her forget her hatred for Steven. Steven unlocked the green wooden door to his apartment and they both stepped inside.
The house was both cozy and tastefully decorated, and it seemed like a happy family lived there. It was extremely neat and tidy. Steven gestured for Derdâ to sit down on the sofa. It had a white and red rose design just like the roses in full bloom in his garden. Derdâ sat down in the armchair beside the couch. She knew that if she sat down on the sofa Steven would sit right next to her. But as it happens he had other plans. He wanted to show Derdâ one of her films.
He picked up the remote and turned on the DVD player. Then he turned to Derdâ, perched on the edge of the armchair, and said, “Please make yourself at home,” adding, “you might want to put your bag down?” Derdâ was still clutching her bag. She slowly set it on the floor but she was startled at the sight of her own image on the TV screen. She felt nothing at all.
It wasn’t long before the film quickly got violent an
d Derdâ looked at Steven who was standing over her. As far as she could judge his expression, he was intently following everything. His face went through a range of emotions. First sour, then pleased, then frustrated. Every now and then he chuckled. This old guy was nothing like Stanley or Mitch. But it did occur to Derdâ that Steven was just as mad as Rahime. Derdâ looked back at the screen and was shocked to see her own two eyes staring right back at her, a frozen frame of her frozen gaze. Steven had paused the film just at a close up shot of her eyes.
He gingerly placed the remote control on the couch and said, with a queer smile on his face, “What is it you wear? Would I be able to find one for myself? What do you call it?”
“A chador,” Derdâ said.
He snapped his fingers, leaned forward on his toes, then rocked backward.
“That’s it!” he cried. “A chador! Where can I find one?”
Unmoved by his surprise, Derdâ simply nudged her bag on the floor with her Dr. Martens.
“I have one in here.”
Steven was sixty years old but he had the build of a child, as if he’d been afflicted by a serious illness in his youth that had stunted his growth.