Happy Birthday, Turk!

by Jakob Arjouni

  A small, dirty ventilation fan hummed on the ceiling. Its noise blended with some distant trilling sound. I crossed some fifteen metres of floor space, put my elbows on the counter, and said, “Yes, I would like to speak to the detective assigned to the Ahmed Hamul case.”

  “The small, thin-faced man who had been hunched over a typewriter, papers, stamps, and more papers, looked up. He had a large, red, runny nose.

  “Who? Ahmed Samul?”

  “No, Ahmed Hamul—the guy who got killed a little while ago, near the railroad station.”

  “A Turk?”

  With a contented expression he inhaled all the snot back into his brain.

  “Yes. That too.”

  “Oh yes, well, you too, right …”

  “Yes, I’m a Turk as well. Now please be so kind as to tell me to whom I should talk about this matter.”

  He stuck his finger up his nose and stirred things around a bit. It was almost possible to observe the snot-filled brain at work. Finally he said in a plaintive tone, “Well, I really don’t know if I can help you with that. What I mean is, I don’t know if it’s proper for me to do so. You see, anyone could just walk in off the street, and …”

  “Listen: I am an envoy from the Turkish Embassy, and I have orders from the highest authority there to interview the detective who is handling this case. If you don’t start picking up a little speed, I may have to file a complaint against you.”

  He looked at me with an incredulous expression and sniffed. Then he became animated. “Oh, in that case … of course, naturally … It’s just that you never know … I am sorry. Now if you could just wait a minute, I’ll make a call, it won’t take long. I hope that the detective in question is in his office.

  He rushed over to the telephone.

  “Hello, operator? Yes? This is Nöli at reception … Yes, could you tell me who is working on the Ahmed Hamul case? Yes, it’s urgent! It’s a man from the Embassy! What? What Embassy? The Turkish one, what else! All right, all right—I’ll wait.”

  He gave me an earnest nod.

  “Yes, hello, yes … who? Detective Superintendent Futt? … You are in your office … What’s the number again? One-seventeen? Very good then, all right, thank you.”

  He hung up and snorted.

  “Superintendent Futt is in his office, on the fourth floor. He’s expecting you. Now if you go back into the hall there, you’ll find the elevator to your left, about ten metres to your left. Take it up to the fourth and turn right. The fifth or sixth door down the hall should be one—seventeen.”

  After I had thanked him and he had apologized once more, I left him and took the stairs to have a moment to decide what I should say to Mr. Futt. I had been told that he was a pretty tough guy. I passed more Nöli types laden with files, some unattractive policewomen, and numerous other friends and helpers before ending up in front of door number one-seventeen. I knocked and entered. Futt stood by the window, tanning his bald pate.

  “Ah, there you are. You must be the envoy.”

  A metal desk, two metal chairs, and four metal cabinets adorned the otherwise empty room. The monotony of dirty white walls was relieved only by a calendar with a picture of a jumping German shepherd.

  “Good afternoon, Superintendent. Yes, the Turkish Embassy has sent me to find out the facts in the Ahmed Hamul case.” Futt was circa six feet four; his bald head had dents in it, his chin a vertical cleft. He wore a pink shirt unbuttoned down to his navel, and around his neck hung one of those gold chains that look like a prize from an arcade game. He held a cigar between the fingers of one of his strong, hairy hands. The smoke hung in a thin fog in the air between us. He looked like a butcher on vacation.

  “Have a seat. I don’t really have all that much to tell you. So far, our investigations have not been very productive.”

  We shook hands. His palm had the texture of low-grade toilet paper. He led me to one of the chairs, sat down at his desk, opened a file, and said in a matter-of-fact tone, “I don’t know what details you’re interested in, but I can give you all the facts we have come up with so far.” He coughed.

  “You must have access to Ahmed Hamul’s personal data, so we can skip those … Last Friday, Hamul was found dead with a knife in his back, in the district around the railroad station. His body lay in an interior courtyard. A woman living in the building discovered it that evening when she was on her way to dump the garbage. Hamul had been living with his wife and his wife’s family for ten years—ever since they were married. He worked in a small factory that makes parts for electrical appliances. We questioned every person who lives in that building, but no one knew anything about him.”

  That was brief. And short on details.

  “I regret to say that’s all I can tell you at the moment. Please believe me, I wish we had been able to find out more.”

  All along I’d been wondering why a man in his position was so ready and willing to provide me with information, incomplete as it turned out to be. Had he received directives from above to be accommodating to envoys of the Turkish dictatorship?

  What the hell, I thought, why not ask him the things he hasn’t told me.

  “What is the name of the street, and the number of the building? What is the name of the factory where he worked? When exactly did he die, according to the doctor’s report? And do you have any ideas who might have killed him?”

  Just as I had expected, he became suspicious.

  “Tell me, why do you want to know all those things? I’m sure you understand that we have to keep our information confidential.”

  “The security services of my government have reason to believe that Ahmed Hamul was the victim of an assault by Leftist radicals, people who have fled the country and gone underground here in Germany. That’s all I can tell you. The matter has been classified top secret, and I myself know no more than that.”

  Bingo.

  “Oh well, that puts a different complexion on things, doesn’t it? Please forgive me, I was not aware of that. We have been treating the case as a run-of-the-mill murder, if you see what I mean?”

  I did. I was beginning to enjoy the game. I produced my pen and notepad and leaned back with a suitably sombre expression. Futt opened another file.

  “All right—you have something to write on? Good … the address is Sumpfrainerstrasse twenty-four. The factory is Fuchs & Son, Electrical Parts … You got that? Good. According to the doctor’s report, death must have occurred instantly, probably around eighteen hundred hours … As to possible suspects, I regret to say that I have to disappoint you … Frankly, you seem to have made more progress in that respect than we have.”

  That was enough for me. He probably didn’t know much more in any case. I got up, pocketed my pen and notepad and took a stride toward the desk. He got up too, and we shook hands again.

  “Superintendent—I really appreciate this. Should we have any further questions, I’ll get in touch with you. You have been a great help.”

  We wished each other a good day, and I left him to his German shepherd. It was six o’clock, time to change shifts, and the hallways were buzzing. Just to the left of the staircase was a switchboard tended by a buxom blonde who clearly had a problem finding the right size uniform. Still enjoying my status as a VIP from the Turkish Embassy, I stopped and gave her a big smile. She scrutinized me with raised eyebrows.

  “Hey, Aladdin—where did you leave your lamp?”

  At the beginning of my career as a private investigator, I had ordered a stack of business cards, thinking that this was the proper way to go about it. I hardly ever used them, but always carried some on my person. Here was an opportunity. I pulled a little card with the words KEMAL KAYANKAYA, PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS out of my brief case, slapped it on the blonde’s desk, and growled, “Give that to Superintendent Futt when he leaves—or take it to his office. Don’t forget, now.”

  She didn’t bat an eyelid. “All right.”

  Whether it was a wise move or not, I enjoy
ed the thought of the expression on Futt’s face when he saw the card.

  I went down the stairs, paid a brief visit to the counter to inform Nöli that he could expect a disciplinary hearing for his earlier behaviour, and stepped out into the sunshine. Rush hour traffic sloshed through the streets. I didn’t feel like diving into it, and stopped at the nearest bar. Over a beer I wondered whether I was beginning to behave like a cop. My stomach put an end to that. I decided to go home to the refrigerator, which still contained two or three hamburgers. It was a long walk, and I had time to figure out my further plan of action in the service of Ilter Hamul.

  4

  TURK!

  HANDS OFF AHMED HAMUL!

  FIRST AND LAST WARNING!

  I held the piece of paper up against the light. No watermark, just ordinary white typing paper. Anything else would have surprised me. Whoever had taped the note to my mailbox had been pretty quick off the mark. The text wasn’t particularly inventive. Then again, it probably didn’t mean to be.

  I took a drawing pin and stuck the note to the wall above the stove. I could study it closely there. Then I unwrapped the waxed paper from the hamburgers, tossed them in the skillet, opened a can of peas, and tossed them in too. The letters had been cut out of newspapers and pasted to the sheet. I had never believed people really did that, and even now I wasn’t sure whether I should find it amusing or not. I took my apartment key, ran down stairs and around the corner, and bought all the major dailies. On the way back I glanced at two front pages. The H in HANDS and the I in WARNING came from the same headline. I opened the apartment door and walked into an ambiance of burnt hamburgers. I whipped the skillet off the stove, dumped everything on a plate, opened a bottle of beer, put the papers on the table, chewed, and read.

  The headlines of two papers sufficed to provide every single letter of the note. TURK came from the spectacular headline TURK BEATS DACHSHUND TO POINT OF HEART FAILURE. I had spent only six hours with the former Ahmed Hamul. Only the Ergüns, and Futt, and possibly some of his colleagues were aware of this. Did that taciturn family have a talkative member, after all? Or did the police have an aversion to letting anyone moonlight on their turf?

  There was one further possibility. What if I had accidentally hit the bull’s-eye in my spiel as an envoy from the Turkish Embassy? After he received my business card, Futt must have called the Embassy to make enquiries. What if the Embassy people hadn’t just burst into peals of Oriental laughter, but had smelled a rat? Maybe it worried them that some obscure compatriot was spreading information they themselves wanted to pursue. Maybe Ahmed Hamul’s death fit into the plans of Turkey’s dictators, but they did not want to be associated with it.

  One after another, questions came to mind that I would have to ask the Ergüns. Had Ahmed Hamul been politically active? Had he received a lot of mail from the homeland? Had he perhaps joined—here in Germany—a bowling club whose members were seriously committed to the overthrow of the Turkish government?

  I picked a crumb of ground meat from between my teeth, took the scissors-and-paste job off the wall, and examined it.

  Would the Turkish Embassy use the salutation “Turk”? Well, why not? I lit a cigarette and looked up the Embassy’s number in the phone book. I let the phone ring eight times. The receptionist must have gone home for the day. I hung up.

  Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun are the holidays before which every German wraps packages to send to his or her relatives. In preparation for this onslaught of mail, the post office hires temporary workers to deal with the mountains of carefully wrapped cookies and pyjamas. The railroad station is the centre of their efforts, and if I wanted to find out something about Ahmed Hamul’s life as an occasional labourer, I would have to go there and ask around. I had another beer. Through the wall I could hear a Western movie hero’s voice booming out of the set in the apartment next door, whose inhabitant was a shaggy social worker.

  I too would have preferred to watch some Indian wars, but I shuffled out again into the light blue August evening. Birds were twittering in the sleepy rays of the setting sun. It was pleasantly warm.

  My Opel was still there in front of the office. I passed it on my way to the nearest subway station. The escalator carried me down into the clammy corridors. Two characters with glittering pink hair and a lot of hardware in their faces reeled towards me. I pulled a ticket out of the machine and sat down on a bench. Next to me three old men were recounting their adventures in the old folks’ home.

  The train thundered in. The three men carefully got up and tottered to the sliding doors. Tired of listening to clacking dentures, I took a seat at the other end of the car and studied the advertisements.

  “Take a Lick!”

  The advertising card depicted an oblong plastic cylinder with a tube of vanilla ice cream inside it. For a lick, one could push the tube out, then pull it back again, until the ice cream was all gone. Why hadn’t I ever thought of going into the advertising business? How about a can with a shoe brush on top, and when you tickled that, pink raspberry juice would flow …

  The train stopped and I dived into the chaos of the railroad station. A youngster waving a bouquet almost ran me down. Two slit-eyed Minoltas wanted to know where women could be obtained. Finally I reached one of the ten post office windows and contemplated the back of an employee.

  “Good evening. Hey, could you tell me who to see about a job with the mailbags?”

  “Huh?”

  “I have a lot of muscle but no work.”

  “Huh?”

  “All right, what I want to know is where I can find the guys who load parcels and packages and such?”

  At last, he turned and waved his thumb in the direction of downstairs.

  “Track One. There’s a door, says Mail.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Uh.”

  I found the door, pushed it open. Another window, another back, another bout of repartee. He pointed me to the nearest door, indicating that the personnel manager could be found somewhere behind it. I entered a hallway and walked past a big cage filled with parcels, then some kind of changing room, and finally came to another door, with the sign PERSONNEL OFFICE. I knocked, but didn’t wait for a reply before entering.

  “Never heard of waiting to be asked in?” came a grumpy voice from a corner. It was Flabby. Flabby had a red skipper’s beard with a clean shaven upper lip, a pimply forehead, and greasy hair combed straight back.

  The office was nondescript: cheap pressboard furniture, grey linoleum floor, car dealer’s calendar, lighting like that in a public toilet.

  The bottle of beer hadn’t quite managed to reach its hiding place behind a pile of documents.

  “I’m sorry. I knocked several times.”

  “What do you want?” he rumbled.

  “I would like to know if a certain Ahmed Hamul ever worked here, loading parcels.”

  “Possibly. A lot of people have worked here.”

  “But I have to know the dates. Surely there’s a file on him, if he ever did work here.”

  “Why do you want to know that?”

  I produced my license.

  “Well?”

  “The guy is dead, and I’ve been hired to find out what he was up to while he was still walking.”

  Flabby raised his eyebrows. “All right, I’ll have a looksee. When was he supposed to have been employed here?”

  “Some time in the last two, three years.”

  Flabby farted.

  “Beg pardon.”

  He got up and shuffled to a shelf full of files.

  “Last two or three years, eh?”

  “Yes, that’s what I’m told.”

  He pulled out two folders, tucked them under his arm, and lurched back to his armchair.

  “Many of them work here only for a short while … Let’s see … What was his name again?”

  “Ahmed Hamul. Spelled just the way it sounds.”

  “Uh huh … You folks all sound the same … all
right … Hamul … Ha … Ham …,” he leafed through the file, “Ha … Hamu … Hamul! There he is. You’re right, he worked here for a couple of weeks at a time, on several occasions.”

  “When exactly?”

  “Here, why don’t you see for yourself,” he muttered and handed me the file.

  Ahmed Hamul, fourteenth April nineteen eighty-one through second July nineteen eighty-one was the first entry. It was followed by others indicating ever shorter periods, up to the last one, twentieth December nineteen eighty-two through third January nineteen eighty-three.

  I closed the greasy folder and asked, “Do you think there’s anyone here who remembers him?”

  “Possible. Why don’t you ask up front? I’m sure someone knows.”

  “Will do. Have a nice evening.”

  “You bet.”

  I left Flabby and went back to the window. Another posterior view. I knocked on the glass pane, and the man turned around.

  “It’s you again. Did you find the boss?”

  “I found the boss. Now, do you happen to remember a temporary worker by the name of Ahmed Hamul? He did several stints here.”

  “Listen, you better ask the boys out there by the tracks. They would have been the ones that worked with him.”

  I returned to the booming railroad hall. On Track three, a mail car was being unloaded. I walked over and watched the strong men at work.

  One of them took a cigarette break. I walked up to the six foot-six hunk and tried a comradely “Good evening.”

  “Same to you,” he growled. He turned, jumped back into the car, and started heaving mailbags out of it. When he reappeared at the edge of the car I shouted through the noise, “Hey, boss, you happen to know a fellow by the name of Ahmed Hamul?” He disappeared again, returned with more bags, and roared, “Yeah. He worked here for a while.”

  “Anyone here who knew him at all?”

  It took a while before he appeared again.

  “Why don’t you ask them up there in the shack? They’re on break.”