The Healer's Daughters

by Jay Amberg

  The two men are coming back. Heading straight for the restaurant’s door. No longer talking. No cigarette. Hard faces. Narrow eyes. No obvious weapons. A tattoo on the larger man’s knuckles as he reaches for the door handle. The two men take seats at a table where they can see the TV and him. As the waitress approaches them, Serkan drops a ten-lira note on the table and grabs his backpack. He’s out the door, moving fast, not looking back, hunched and waiting for the blade or the bullet.

  62

  BERGAMA

  Holding her mother’s limp hand, Elif Boroğlu leans farther forward. “Mom,” she whispers, “I know that you can hear me…that somewhere in there you’re listening.” Her mother does not stir. She has been taken off the respirator, but the other equipment in the private room the hospital has provided for her continues to hum. Elif’s face is stony. She has not slept much in recent days. She cannot cry over her mother, over anything at all anymore, but she means what she says. “I love you. We all love you. We need you.” Elif squeezes her mother’s hand—nothing. She rises, leans over still farther, and kisses her mother’s forehead below the bandages that hold the tubes for the brain oxygen monitor and the intracranial pressure catheter in place. Nothing.

  Elif’s mother’s color is not much better than the room’s pale-green walls, but what disturbs Elif far more deeply is how diminished her mother is. She looks to be withering under the sheets. Her cheeks are shrunken, her face gaunt. That energy, that fierce energy that drove her, is gone. Her energy was not always positive, Elif knows, but it was always evident. This person lying on this hospital bed is drained, enfeebled.

  Elif takes her phone from her jeans pocket and watches yet again the video of her mother’s speech at the Aesklepion. She has viewed it more than twenty-five times since Tuğçe Iskan suggested she do so. She has viewed it both before and after she led Mustafa Hamit to the ancient tomb. Iskan wanted her to hear her mother’s conclusion, her call to action, but that is not why Elif has become obsessed with it.

  She scrolls back through the video until she finds the spot where her mother told her audience that they were all meeting on holy ground. As Özlem talks about Galen growing up at the Aesklepion, studying there as a medical student, and practicing as a physician, she watches intensely—not the video itself, but her mother’s facial expressions. First, there is the burst of brightness in her mother’s face when she mentions Galen sitting in that very theater. The moment of epiphany, similar to those at Allianoi and other sites, occurs whenever her mother realizes something that she must have known on some deep level all along.

  Then on the video, her mother’s face tenses, her eyes narrow, and her lips thin. This would seem strange to people, given her epiphany a moment earlier, but Elif knows that for her mother any exhilaration is followed, immediately or soon after, by a stunning anxiety. She is wrung out by distress that someone else might understand as well and by foreboding that some sinister force would obstruct her or, even worse, steal the credit for her discovery. The irony in this video is, of course, that once the bomb exploded, no one, except Elif herself who was not actually there and had to depend on the video to figure out exactly what happened to her mother, would remember anything but the explosion.

  Finally, there is the distant look in her mother’s eyes during the applause at the end of her speech. Again, anyone noticing at all would guess that Özlem’s mind is elsewhere. But Elif knows that nothing could be further from the truth. Her mother is still very much there, already digging, going deep, obsessively. And that explains why her mother reacted to the boy’s attack less swiftly than Recep. Again, ironically, her uncharacteristic hesitation probably saved her life. Elif believes that, if not for her mother’s abrupt journey from joy to dread, her mother, not Recep, would now be celebrated as Bergama’s martyred hero.

  “Mom,” she says aloud, “You’re right! It’s all right here! It has been here all along. Look!” She holds up the phone so that her mother, were she not comatose, could watch. She listens to her digital mother speak to her present mother who cannot, and maybe will not, listen: “Perhaps he even sat in the very seat where you now sit…” Elif’s hand is steady as she moves the phone a little closer to her mother’s face. “…The human spirit, the human psyche is still central to any deep understanding of our health, individually and as a society.”

  Elif continues to let the speech play. “You did it, Mom,” she says. “You figured it out. Everyone seeking the Galen cache, in whatever age, has been searching for his father’s villa.” Elif shakes her head at yet another irony. “After all, his father built the villa to house the Attalids’ treasures that, if it were not for him, would have been melted down during construction of the Temple of Trajan!”

  Elif stares at her mother’s drawn and cadaverous face. The machines keep up their humming, but her mother remains immobile and insensate. A beeping in the hallway does not break Elif’s focus. When the applause begins on her phone, she asks, “And here, Mom, you’re already excavating, aren’t you?” She pauses the video the moment the boy reaches the stage. Although she has viewed the speech so often, she only watched the ending those two times that first night in the hospital. It’s seared into her mind, and she has no desire to ever view it again.

  As Elif puts the phone back in her pocket, she notices her mother’s doctor standing in the doorway. She is wearing sky-blue scrubs. Her strawberry-blonde hair is pulled back under her surgical cap, and her surgical mask is tied loosely around her neck. She holds the tablet she has had with her whenever she visits her mother.

  “What are you doing?” the doctor asks, nothing critical in her voice.

  Elif shrugs, her smile sad. “I thought that if anyone could reach my mom, she could.”

  Nodding, the doctor asks, “Her speech at the Aesklepion?”

  “Yes.” Elif shakes her head slowly. “A call to action… Her final words before…”

  The doctor comes into the room and pats Elif’s hand that is still holding her mother’s. “She’ll come around. Her vitals are strong. You’ve just got to give it, give her, time.”

  They both gaze at Özlem for a moment.

  “I know,” Elif says, though she is not at all sure. “I know.” She is not being curt. She likes the doctor, credits her with saving her mother’s life…such as it is. She looks away at the light streaming in the room’s only window. In less than an hour, she’ll need to make her daily one-minute call to Serkan, who is still hiding in Bostanli. As she glances again at the patient in the bed, she says, “That’s just not my mom.”

  63

  KOZAK

  Tuğçe Iskan and Nihat Monoğlu leave the rented Fiat Fiorino at a respectable distance from the compound’s two-meter-high steel gate. The late morning is bright, hot, cloudless—with not enough wind to stir the dust. The only other people on the cobblestone street are three elderly women in baggy floral salvars, loose blouses, and bright headscarves who are shuffling toward the plane tree at the center of the village. The dogs that barked when Iskan and Monoğlu pulled up have quieted down.

  As Iskan and Monoğlu approach the gate that slides sideways like a panel at a factory loading dock, she asks, “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Though she was only recently transferred to the shadowy unit that most people in the Ministry do not even know exists, she has been placed in charge of this operation. Given her obvious lack of experience, she was also provided with Monoğlu as a “temporary consultant.”

  “It’s your idea,” Monoğlu says, his voice guttural.

  “That’s why I’m asking.”

  He clears his throat. “With Mustafa Hamit and Serkan Boroğlu both gone, it’s your only way to get to Hamit fast.” When he knocks on the compound’s gate, the three women stop and look back.

  “But we’re inciting this man,” Iskan says, “putting him in harm’s way after all he’s been through.”
>
  He nods. “He’s already in danger. And you can pull the plug on the op whenever you want…”

  “But you’ve got his back, no matter what?”

  “I’ve told you, I’ve called in favors.” He knocks again—louder. “From old friends.”

  Engin Suner, little Mehmet’s father, slides the gate open just far enough so that he can see the two people standing outside. “Go away!” he shouts. “Get out!” He stands stiffly, his left hand gripping the gate. His shaking right hand holds an axe handle.

  Iskan and Monoğlu step back. Monoğlu holds up his hand, palm toward the house, and says, “Good morning.” His tone is gruff. Although he is now in his mid-sixties, his shaved head, thick neck, grim expression, and broad shoulders make him look powerful and, at times, he knows, threatening.

  Iskan focuses on Suner’s face. The man’s right cheekbone near his eye is swollen and discolored. The eye is half-closed.

  “You do the talking,” Monoğlu says to her without looking away from the axe handle.

  Iskan holds up her hand and smiles. She is not used to taking the lead, and this op, she has been told, has, because of its urgency, not yet been officially sanctioned. “We’re from the government,” she says. She is, technically, telling the truth, at least in her case. “We need your help.”

  “I’m not selling!” he shouts, his face going red. Blocking the entrance, he holds the axe handle at crossarms.

  “And we’re not here to buy anything.” Her voice lacks the empathy she hoped to communicate. “We just need to ask you a couple of questions.”

  “Leave us alone!” Standing even more stiffly, he strikes the palm of his left hand with the axe handle and then winces.

  “We aren’t…” She pauses, takes out her ID, and holds it up in front of him. It’s hot here in the sun, and getting hotter by the minute.

  Suner stares at Monoğlu, glances at Iskan, and looks again at Monoğlu. “Do I know you?”

  “We haven’t met,” Monoğlu admits.

  “What do you want from us?” Suner’s voice is low, not quite as hostile.

  “We’re here to help you if we can.”

  Suner cocks his head, seeming to measure those words against all the other lies he has been told.

  “How is Hafize?” Iskan asks, the question genuine. She wonders how people feel after this sort of devastating loss she has never experienced.

  Suner raises his eyebrows.

  “Is she sad?”

  His shoulders slump. “Very.” He looks down as he adds, “Too much.”

  Monoğlu gestures toward Iskan. “Is there anything we can do?”

  Suner pauses before shaking his head. “Nothing. Nothing anybody…” He looks up. “Find the bastards that did this to us.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Monoğlu says.

  Suner lowers the axe handle and steps out of the gate, but then stands even more awkwardly.

  Iskan wonders if his ribs are fractured. As she taps the side of her face, she asks, “Who did that to you?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “Are the photographers still bothering you?” Monoğlu asks.

  “No.” The anger in his voice rises. “Men wanting to buy Dede’s land.” He wipes his mouth. “And mine. My land!”

  “Did they threaten you?” Monoğlu asks.

  “No. Not at first.” His look is sheepish. “Not until I hit the fat man in the mouth.”

  Monoğlu hides a smile.

  As Suner tries to lean over to put the axe handle down, he recoils in pain.

  “Here, let me hold that for you,” Monoğlu says, extending his hand.

  Suner stares at Monoğlu for a moment before handing it over.

  Monoğlu sets one end on the ground and braces his hip with the other as though it were a flying buttress. He nods for Iskan to talk.

  “We’re investigating the attack on the funicular,” she says.

  “You tell me nothing!” His voice becomes angry again. “When I ask, nothing! It’s the Irisher and ISIL! But nobody else.”

  “We’re part of a special team. A top-secret group that’s still investigating…” Again, technically, she’s telling the truth. They’re just not exactly a governmental entity.

  “We will find the others,” Monoğlu says. He does not hesitate at all before adding, “The traitors who murdered Mehmet and his grandfather.”

  “Good.” Suner drops his eyes again. “I can’t… It’s not a good time for you to come in. Hafize can’t…”

  “That’s fine,” Monoğlu says. “We can talk here. Or, perhaps, in the shade would be better.” He still has not told him either of their names—and won’t, as much to protect Suner as themselves. This conversation will have never happened.

  “Here,” Suner says. He steps back and ushers them into the compound. After shutting and latching the gate, he leads them across the hard-packed dirt to the shade of a storage shed’s slanted roof.

  “We think,” Iskan says, “that a crime family, the Hamits, were involved.”

  At the mention of the name, Suner glances quickly away.

  “Did you,” Iskan continues, “or your father-in-law have any…contact…with them?”

  “No! Never.”

  His answer comes too quickly, Iskan thinks, way too quickly.

  Monoğlu takes out his smartphone and begins to scroll through photos. His thick, right thumb is crooked, having twice been broken, once while he was a wrestler and once in his work. Frowning, he glances up at the brilliant sky.

  “I have the card,” Suner says. “The card the fat man left. I will get it.” Monoğlu gives back the axe handle. As Suner turns and hobbles toward the parlor, Iskan says, “He has had dealings with the Hamits.”

  “Probably something petty and unrelated,” Monoğlu answers. “And not with the patriarch. He does not waste his time on working people.” Monoğlu takes a pack of Yenice Régie Turques from his pocket. “I shouldn’t,” he says as he shakes a cigarette from the pack.

  “Wait,” Iskan says, “he’ll join you.”

  Monoğlu smiles at her.

  Suner walks unsteadily back without the axe handle. The card has been crumpled and then flattened again. When he gives it to Iskan, Monoğlu offers him a cigarette. Monoğlu’s lighter, an old Zippo, flares immediately.

  Holding the card by its edges, Iskan scans the information. She has seen the company name before, one of the shell operations the Hamits use. “Last night,” she says, “was that when you had the…ah…visitors?”

  Suner nods but then grimaces as he inhales.

  “Who was here?”

  “Two men…three…” He exhales slowly. “I hit the older, fat one when he said that Hafize…that we should move away. She will not. Never.”

  “The other men?” Iskan asks.

  “A young man. Dark hair.”

  “And they’ve been here before?”

  “No…yes… The young man was here before. Not the fat man, no.”

  Monoğlu gazes at a black motorcycle parked under the eaves of another shed. “And, he’s the one who beat you?” Smoke escapes his nostrils when he speaks.

  Suner nods but says, “No. The young man and the third man. They came in a big car. The third man—”

  “A bodyguard?” Iskan asks.

  “I don’t know. He was big. A bodyguard or a driver, maybe.” As he shrugs, his expression goes dark. “All three of them kicked me once I was on the ground.”

  “Could you identify the bodyguard?”

  Suner taps ash into the dirt. “No. Maybe. He was very strong.” He touches the side of his head. “He stayed by the car until I…until they beat me.”

  “Was he Turkish?” she asks.

  He looks at her for a mo
ment. “I don’t know. He didn’t speak.”

  “But the young man, you’ve seen him before?”

  “Yes. He came before…”

  “About buying your land?”

  “Dede’s land. This time, both places. Dede’s and mine.” He takes another drag on the cigarette and exhales before saying, “They said they were coming back. That I would take their offer then. That I would sell.”

  “The other man?” Iskan asks. “The one before. What was he like?”

  “Rich.”

  She cocks her head.

  “The two men looked alike. Both young. Brothers, maybe. But he had on fancy shoes. His hands were soft, like he did no work. And he had a fancy…very fancy…watch.”

  Monoğlu turns his phone toward Suner. “This man?”

  “No. I know him. He grew up in town. The archeologist’s son. But I have not seen him in years.”

  “You know the archeologist?” Iskan asks.

  “Ah, yes…” Suner looks away. “Her mother was good to Hafize. To us.”

  Turning toward Iskan, Monoğlu asks, “The Russian?”

  “No!” she snaps, as though he should not have brought up the Russian. She and Monoğlu agreed earlier to mention an anonymous Russian so that if any information about this meeting ever got back to Hamit, he would be misled.

  Monoğlu scrolls his phone’s screen again. “This man?”

  “Yes.” Mehmet’s father’s eyes grow wide as he looks more closely at Monoğlu. “That’s him. How did you…?”

  “But he did not come last night?” Iskan asks.

  “No.”

  “Have you seen him, that man?” she asks.

  “No. Not since…whenever that was.”

  “He has not come by at all in the last few days?”

  “Not at all.” He gives her a quizzical look. “No.”