by Alan Drew
“You going with them?” Dylan asked.
“No,” he said. “Not unless Serkan comes. They don’t want me there anyway. My father says I’ll embarrass him.”
The music stopped briefly and then rose with a whirling sound of oud strings that sounded like the traditional songs her father sometimes played on old cassette tapes. Then the strings were overtaken by a thumping beat again. She felt the floor shake beneath her feet.
“This guy,” the girl explained, “started mixing Sufi music with Jamaican beats.”
“It works,” Serkan said. “It’s like dub but more Middle Eastern, more mystical-sounding.”
“Yeah,” Attila said. “It’s like religion stoned on hashish.”
Everybody laughed and rem pretended to understand.
“So,” the girl said, turning to rem. “Where’s your chaperone?”
“Stop it, Berna,” Dylan said.
“Seriously, aren’t you supposed to be chaperoned until your wedding night?”
Dylan spoke sharply to Berna in English, and stabbed the table with an index finger. Berna yelled back at him in English and he turned his face away from her. rem could see the muscles working in his jaw.
“Your father probably wants you to be some kind of slave,” Berna said to her now. “Washing, cleaning, cooking.”
“No. He just doesn’t want me to be like you,” rem said, wanting to slap this girl.
“Oh, okay, I get it now,” Berna said.
“Stop it,” Dylan said.
“So an American boy.” She lit a cigarette, nodding. This girl was mean like a man—meaner than a man. “I get it, of course, meet an American guy, go to America, get your freedom.”
“This is boring,” Attila said. “Leave her alone, Berna.”
“Oh God,” Berna said. “You think he’s taking you to America and turning you into some fairy-tale princess, don’t you?”
“Shut the hell up, Berna,” Dylan said. “I swear, just because your father wanted a son.”
“Allah, Allah,” Attila said. “If I knew I was going to be hanging out with a bunch of Arabs I would have brought a gun to shoot you all with.”
Berna was taking a sip of her beer when he said it and she burst out laughing, spraying the beer out of the corners of her mouth.
“Forget about it,” Dylan said. “C’mon.”
He grabbed rem’s hand and he took her into the crowd of people dancing in front of the man pushing records on the player. She loved him at that moment, as he took her hand, having defended her against his friends. He found a table on the terrace, behind a huge vine lacing up a trellis. Through the vine a few stars shone weakly in the city sky. Beyond the rooftops, the Bosporus was streaked with reflected city lights.
“I don’t get it,” he said, his brow creased, his hands combing through his hair. “I don’t get it, shit!” He kicked the table. “Everyone wants you to be someone.”
“Shh,” she said and touched his wrist.
He sat back in his chair and looked at her, water in his eyes, and she felt her heart would break for him. He was so fragile, so easily hurt.
“Everyone wants you to be something,” he said. “Except my mom. She never wanted me to be anything. I was fine as I was.”
“Shh,” she said again. “I don’t want you to be anything.”
“Sure you do,” he said. “Berna’s right.”
“Berna’s jealous,” she said. “Any woman can see that.”
He laughed and pressed his palms against his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess you’re right.”
A flare burst in the sky, drenching the rooftops red as it arced toward the water.
Berna was jealous. Jealous of her!
The flare disappeared beneath the rooflines of Beyolu, but a streak of smoke remained as a pink smudge in the sky. She smiled. It was the greatest feeling she had ever experienced in her life. She was someone. She could make a woman jealous!
Hollow explosions echoed from the water and soon fireworks bloomed purple and blue and silver in the sky.
Dylan turned to watch.
“A wedding,” he said.
“A wedding.”
The fireworks fell in arcs above their heads and burned out.
Dylan turned around, suddenly excited. He pulled his chair in close and touched her cheek. “It’s just you and me now,” he said, his blue eyes bouncing back and forth, as though searching her out, as though she were the most important thing in the world to him.
A waiter slid two small glasses between them. They were filled with a deep crimson liquid.
“What’s this?” Dylan said.
The waiter pointed back toward the bar, toward Attila, who was holding up his own red glass. “Serefe,” he yelled. “To young love!”
Serkan burst out laughing, as though this was the funniest thing in the world, but Berna just turned her back.
Dylan laughed and held up his glass in a long-distance toast. “Asshole!” he said, and took a sip.
rem looked at the glass; the liquid was a beautiful red, as though it were a newly polished jewel.
“Tastes like red licorice,” Dylan said. “You’ll like it.”
She put her mouth to the glass and let the liquid seep through her lips. She half expected it to burn her lips or strip the skin from her throat. Her father had suggested such a thing. Alcohol was poison, he had said to her once. But Dylan was right; it tasted like candy, like the gumdrops she used to steal from the bins at her father’s store.
SOMETIME IN THE NIGHT everyone must have made up, because she found herself wedged into a corner in the backseat of Attila’s sports car. The car raced through a cavern of apartment buildings and squares of window light melted into streams of color. Attila had the radio turned up and the backseat rattled with the beating bass. Dylan, his arm wrapped around her, took a drag from a cigarette and blew the smoke out the open window. He kept the beat with his other hand and between songs his fingers fell below her shoulder where the slight curve of her breast began and she was aware of his fingers but she didn’t mind.
She didn’t know where they were going and each turn Attila made was like going deeper into a maze until she saw the bridge appear above the hills of the city. Everything else was a blur, her head swimming in what felt like a warm, lazy sea, but the bridge anchored her focus and as long as she stared at it she could remember flashes from the night—she and Dylan dancing, his mouth on her neck; more little red drinks; a brief and tender kiss between Attila and Serkan; Berna lighting a cigarette for her and, smiling, telling her Dylan was “a shit.” These moments of clarity, though, were lost in fragmented images of colored lights and bodies and laughing faces and the thumping of music and the flash of matchsticks and bottles shining on shelves and the remembered feeling that this was freedom, that this, because it seemed to have no rules, was perfect and she had felt light and warm and lost and she liked being lost.
The car now sped around a corner and Dylan’s body pressed against hers.
“Take it easy,” Dylan said to Attila. “You’re drunk.”
“You’re a genius,” Attila said, and she could feel him shift gears and the car raced up a hill, past the darkness of a cemetery on one side and the brilliant brightness of hanging open bulbs on a row of kokoreç shops.
They came to a house on a steep hillside, the glimmering water of the Bosporus below, the arc of the bridge, like a hovering cement shadow, above. Dylan helped her out and she could hear the roar of cars above. They entered a dark courtyard through a gate and were met by a man with a German shepherd. The dog barked and she jumped. Dylan laughed and gripped the back of her neck.
“It’s me, Yusef,” Attila said.
“Attila Bey,” the man said. “Good morning.”
“Günaydn.”
“Your father doesn’t like friends, Attila Bey.”
“My father doesn’t like Serkan and I don’t care.”
“I’ll have to tell him. He likes to know.”
“Your girlfriend visiting tonight?”
The man said nothing, but cleared his throat and moved out of the way.
The courtyard was dark, but she heard water running somewhere and she could tell it was filled with plants and trees.
“That man’s got a wife and kids in Üsküdar.”
“A new dog?” Serkan said.
“Yeah, the last one was poisoned. Someone threw a beefsteak over the fence with rat poison inside.”
“Your father’s still getting threats?”
“Yeah, he’s on some terrorist’s list. When he’s here there’s like ten men with wires hanging from their ears and guns strapped inside their jackets, but when he’s gone it’s just the dog and Yusef.”
“And Yusef’s girlfriend,” Serkan said.
“Yeah. Stupid little Ukrainian girl. He’s probably told her he owns the place.”
She had never seen a house like this. Inside, the marble was polished so that she could see their reflections as they walked toward the terrace in the back. It was cool inside, air-conditioned, and round lights were embedded in the ceiling and shone down brightly on beautifully framed paintings of shapes and color that seemed to represent nothing.
Attila drew open sliding-glass doors that revealed the water and the curve of the bridge above. She heard the rushing of the cars again, a distant honk, a foghorn on a ship. They lounged on leather couches near the open windows, and Berna fell asleep with her arms hanging off the couch and her breasts pressed together to reveal her bra.
Attila laughed. “Night-night, Berna.”
She didn’t move or make a noise.
With her head against Dylan’s shoulder, rem was suddenly exhausted. She had a headache and when she moved her head it took a moment for her vision to catch up, rendering everything a blur before each thing fell back into its place. Out the window, the sky began to lighten, a shade of blue casting the hills as paper cutouts. She wondered if her father was up yet, if he had even slept. She wondered if her mother was snoring now, her arm clasped around smail.
Serkan passed around a small white cigarette that wasn’t a cigarette. It smelled different and when Dylan inhaled, he kept the smoke inside his lungs for a long time before passing it back. Then Attila and Serkan got up and she and Dylan watched them climb a white marble staircase, Serkan holding on to the belt loop of Attila’s jeans.
“Goodnight, sweeties,” Dylan said.
“Get in your coffin before the sun comes up,” Attila said in an ominous voice, making Serkan laugh and press his forehead against his back.
“Let’s go out on the terrace,” Dylan said.
“I’m tired,” she said. “Let’s stay here and sleep.”
“C’mon,” he said, standing up and pulling her by the arm. “You’ve gotta see this.”
She blacked out a moment as he lifted her and he held her and walked her outside as the city opened up beneath them—the water, a blue mirror for the brightening sky, two oil tankers crossing beneath the bridge, the lights of the city on either side of the water, glittering like fallen constellations.
“Attila’s rich—like rich, rich,” Dylan said.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, but the pain was growing at her temples, a throbbing pain that was like her heart banging inside her head.
“I’m tired,” she said again. “My head hurts.”
“Let’s sleep out here,” he said, and led her to an outdoor couch next to a pool.
He laid her down and settled next to her, stroking her hair.
“Where does it hurt?”
“Here,” she said.
He stroked her temples and the pain worsened.
“Try this,” he said, and took her hand and pressed his fingers into the meat of her palm. He found a sore spot and pressed against it.
“Ow,” she said.
“Pressure point,” he said. “It’s supposed to hurt.”
He rubbed it some more and then his hands were on her back, stroking below her shoulder blades, pushing the edge of her shirt up her back.
“I love you,” he said.
She opened her eyes and looked at him. The sky was growing lighter now and she could see the red veins in his eyes.
“I love you,” he said again. “I do.”
She felt her heart jump, and with the excitement her vision blurred again.
He kissed her on the lips and she kissed him back and let his hands explore her bare shoulder blades. His palms were warm against her skin and she felt each finger pressing into the muscle there. He kissed her on the neck and somehow turned her over so that his leg was across her lap. His hands moved up her belly and the feeling on her skin was electric.
“God, I love you,” he said.
His thumb grazed her breast and she knew she would have to stop this soon. But her head was spinning now and her skin felt willing and the sky was growing a perfect blue and he loved her and that was all she had wanted for months, for a lifetime it seemed.
Then he was moving quickly, his hands here and then there and suddenly her bra was falling off her shoulders. Her head pounded and his hands were strong and she heard a siren screeching across the highway above her head. He was on top of her now and he said I love you and she heard him crying and then it hurt, hurt like she hadn’t imagined. Above her the siren moved away, and as she jerked her head with the pain she saw a man and a dog walking away from the pool, just two shadows beneath the morning shadow of the bridge.
Chapter 49
THE NEXT MORNING SINAN REPORTED SICK TO WORK, HID the knife he had quartered the sheep with inside the pocket of his coat, and rode the buses with Marcus into the city. They sat in silence—the kind of painful silence that is full of angry things needing to be said—and from the window Sinan watched the folded apartment blocks along the highway. Whole kilometers of buildings had been tossed onto their sides, broken apart like children’s blocks, until there were only buildings with collapsed roofs and then simply buildings with little holes through the red shingles and then, when they neared the city center, buildings that seemed completely untouched.
They passed beneath the gray towers rising into the blue sky, the cables like steel spiders’ webs trapping the thin road high above the silver water. On either side of the bridge, the Bosporus slithered like a snake’s back between the wooded hills of Europe and the hills of Asia. The bus drove in the far left lane and Sinan peered over the edge toward the sea below where the hull of an oil tanker parted the water in front of it. He had always been scared of heights, and the dizzying emptiness between roadway and sea left his head reeling—they were neither on land nor in the air, simply riding a blade of metal fixed precariously between slopes of solid ground. He gripped the knife inside his coat pocket as though it would save him should the metal collapse.
Then the bus passed into the caverns of the city with roads swerving away like spokes on a wheel to meet hundreds of other roads. They would never find rem in such a place. She would only be found if she wanted to be, and he suddenly felt the futility of everything.
They exited the bus, caught a taxi in front of the kokoreç restaurants, and rode the curving street up the hill to Taksim, where Marcus paid the driver five million lira while Sinan looked away and pretended not to see. Marcus led him down a side street, away from the crowds partying on stiklal Avenue. They ducked into arcaded alleyways, cut between people drinking beer in the midday sun, dodged rickety tables full of tourists eating fish and mezeler. They squeezed through crowds in the Galatasaray fish market, the people gawking at tables of fresh meat sliced open at the bellies, the gills torn open like bloody jaws. Marcus moved so quickly through the crowd, sometimes pushing people out of his way, that faces became blurs; they could have passed rem and he would never know it.
Then they were free of the crowds, standing at an L-shaped corner of a wide street that passed in front of the fortresslike British Consulate. They followed a tall stone wall capped with razor wire, past armed guards in white kiosks,
their hats falling low over their eyes so it seemed they were machines meant only to pull triggers, until Marcus stopped at the door of an old apartment within sight of Galata Tower.
“Dylan still has his key,” Marcus explained.
Sinan expected to climb the circular staircase all the way to the top, but instead Marcus led him to a basement apartment where in the corner of the hallway, near the front door, stood a puddle of water that was as black as blood in the dim light. Marcus had trouble sliding the key into the lock.
“Damn lock,” he said. “Rusted inside.”
Sinan stared at the door, wondering what he would find on the other side, wondering what he would do when he found it. He gripped the knife in his hand and managed to slip it out of the leather with his thumb and index finger without revealing it to Marcus. Sweat beaded on his forehead and a rush of heat passed through his body.
Marcus shoved the door open. A light was on inside.
“Dylan,” Marcus yelled as he strode down the hallway.
Sinan’s heart beat in his ears; it pumped so loud and fast that he thought he might have a heart attack.
The apartment was small—one room sparsely furnished with brown couches, an attached kitchen, and a long hallway down which Sinan could see a bedroom and a bed with the covers turned back as though someone had recently awakened and neglected to remake it.
“They’ve been here,” Marcus said as he came back down the hallway. “They’re gone now.”
Sinan eased his grip on the knife, relieved that his strength would not be tested, but he watched the bed as if it might reveal its secrets, and as they walked out into the sun, the image of that unmade bed, the sheets thrown aside with a mocking carelessness, stoked his anger, like rem herself had fanned the white-hot embers inside him.
Then Marcus took Sinan into a world he could never imagine existed. They searched the underground markets where kids wore black and pierced their skin with ink-stained needles and threaded silver hoops through holes in their noses. The hot passageways smelled of spilled beer and smoke, and music hissed from the open doors of music stores.