Arabesk (31 page)

Suleyman, his face a picture of disbelief, frowned. 'But why?'

'Because she has control of all the money,' Latife said simply. 'All she has ever wanted to do is make us all happy but, Allah forgive her, she has to do it in ways that she likes and understands. She is, in this, like a man, a father, you know. If one doesn't conform then one is thrown out into the world with nothing. And we were all born to such poverty

'But if your sister denied you something that you really wanted,' Ìkmen said, 'then surely killing Ruya Urfa was no punishment for that Tansu hated the girl.'

'Yes. Like I said, you have to understand my sister and my family in order to understand why this happened. You also have to know just how clever I am. I do hope that you gentlemen have a lot of time to spare.'

'My parents were living in Adana, the biggest village in Turkey, when we were born. My father worked packing fruit. We were very poor - poor Kurds. But then just after Yilmaz was born, when I was twelve, my father died and we became still poorer.

'At the time and in fact for some few years previously, my sister Tansu who was then sixteen had been having singing lessons from an old Armenian woman who lived down by the Ulu Cami. My sister's talent had, so my mother always said, been apparent almost from birth. It is said that before I was born, an asik who came to our quarter in order to play and sing the songs of the people heard my sister's voice and predicted a great future for her. So the singing lessons were of great importance even when we were destitute after my father's death. The singing had to go on.

'In order to support this, my mother started working in the fields. It took her two hours to walk to her work and then two hours to come home again. Galip, who was about eight left school in order to shine shoes. I left school too. Suddenly my classes in mathematics, Turkish, history and all the other subjects I had come to love stopped while I stayed at home raising my brother Yilmaz. But still the singing lessons continued. At the end of every week Mother, Galip and Tansu herself, who was now singing occasionally in dubious gazinos, would put all their money into a cup and take out what was needed for various costs. The money for Mrs Nisanyan, the singing teacher, would always come out first.

'But later on that year, my mother's hopes for a glittering career for my sister nearly came to an end. Tansu, who had become fascinated by a married man she met at one of her engagements, became pregnant. You have, I imagine, heard about her son, whom she thought she had paid off years ago. But. . . So then I went off to work in the fields while Mother tended the baby. Tansu went on as before.

'With absolutely no dowry money for either of us, not to mention the loss of my sister's virginity, the idea of either of us marrying was ridiculous. But as Tansu became more and more noted in Adana, and her engagements got bigger and more prestigious, things did start to improve. As the most literate member of our family, I even wrote some lyrics for her, suggesting that she might like to get one of her musician friends to set them to music. But she never did. Of course when she first came to Istanbul in 1970, she was more prostitute than singer. She met her manager, Ferhat Göktepe, in some Karaköy brothel. Not that he didn't know a good thing when he saw it. As soon as he heard her sing he moved his attentions from her body to her throat and from there the Tansu legend was born.

'The following year, when she had made enough money, Tansu sent for Mother and merest of us, except for her son, of course. One of my aunts raised him from thereon. Tansu had just a small apartment in Besiktas in those days, but it was like a palace to us. She even had a radio on which I used to listen to the BBC. Between that and talking to some of the local children who were having lessons, I became quite good at English. I even thought that perhaps one day I might be able to have private tuition and apply to university somewhere -Tansu had always said that if she ever made a lot of money she would give us all what we wanted. After all, we had all made sacrifices for her.

'But as her career garnered pace, so did her commitments. Records, radio interviews, television, films, tours. We moved to the house in Yeniköy which was a place she rarely came to in those days, what with her engagements and her many lovers. But with regard to us, she paid for everything. If one of my brothers wanted new clothes, she had a tailor come and measure him up and within a few days suits would arrive. Whenever she bought clothes for herself, she would buy an identical set for me. She was very, very generous, we wanted for nothing. So much so, in fact, that for a considerable number of years I held off from asking her about tuition for university. It seemed so ungrateful in view of all she had done.

'And then one day I was thirty. Thirty years old, still interested in everything, like a child. Reading, reading, reading in order to educate myself - painfully aware of my own shortcomings. But with no money of my own, I had no choice but to ask Tansu to help me with my ambitions. I was sure that she would. 1 was wrong.

'"If you go to university at your age, everyone will laugh at you and at me," she said when I put it to her for the first and only time. "And besides, while I keep you, you won't need to know anything, will you?"

'"But Tansu," I said, "I want to do something with my life. I want to achieve . . ."

'"Well, why don't you write some nice new songs for me?" my sister said, as she in effect sent me on my way. "That will give you a great achievement in your life."

'And so I did just that. I both hated and loved my sister because of it and I exacted a small revenge upon her by frequently using words I knew she would not understand. But then her interpretation of words was never very good anyway. The sweetness of her tone and her large breasts are what Tansu Hanim has always been about The songs were always credited to her anyway.

'So years came and went, and as my sister's career began to fade, so did my chances of finding a man to love. Yilmaz married briefly back in the 1980s, but his wife never did get on with Tansu and so that didn't last By the time Erol Urfa came into my sister's life, my brothers and I were idle, uneducated and useless. We were like soft, soporific odalisques. Fresh from the countryside, this young man woke me up in ways he could never have imagined.

'I suppose that in retrospect I was a little in love with Erol myself. Perhaps he represented the kind of man I could have had, had things been different Tansu, of course grateful, treated him like a Sultan sometimes and like her personal slave at others. She would still pick up young boys on the streets on occasion too, like she did the night that Ruya died. Not that she has ever been caught doing this. I, meanwhile, just did sad, spinsterly things like look up where Erol came from on the map - some nowhere place up near the Iraqi border. I have always been interested in my country and its various regions but this area seemed to have little to recommend it With the exception of the devil worshippers.

1 read so many things, some true and some false, that at times they made my head hurt Some books accused the Yezidis of human sacrifice, rape, infanticide, while others said that they were simply misunderstood people who worshipped a deity called the Peacock Angel. They were Kurds, like me, but Kurds who would not eat chicken or wear blue or marry anyone other than their own kind; Kurds who lifted up their eyes to pray not to Allah, but to the setting sun. And it was not long after this that I first saw Erol standing in the trees to the side of our house, his arms raised in honour of the great golden ball setting over the Bosphorus.

'I started to think and to watch. And no, Erol didn't eat chicken, he didn't wear blue, but... It was only when I started to include references to the peacock as lover in the lyrics that Tansu passed off as her own that I knew. His expression as she innocently and without any trace of intelligent thought sang those words ... He knew she couldn't know, and her thoughtless words confused and confounded him.

'I, meanwhile, remained silent While Tansu screamed on about how Erol would marry her in an instant if Ruya were not around, I thought about how much my sister had become like a child - and about how devastating it would be for her should something happen to Ruya and Erol then not marry her. It's not, as we know, good to be known as a devil worshipper and so Erol would, I knew, never tell Tansu why he would have to return to his village and marry another child-woman instead of her. Tansu would just simply be denied what she most wanted, seemingly on the whim of another. Just like I had been. Then she would hurt just like me. Then she would become that sad, old odalisque that I have been for so many years. Then I would be content and so I am.'

A few moments of stunned silence passed until Ìkmen eventually said, 'But didn't your sister, once she knew that you were responsible for Ruya Urfa's death, try to get you out of the city in her car?'

Latife Emin smiled. 'Oh, yes. She loves me. She was prepared to deceive you for me. She thought that

I'd killed Ruya in order to tree up Erol. for her. She was very grateful.' 'But

'She's going to be really very badly hurt when she learns the truth.' She smiled again, broadly.

Chapter 18

Neither Ìkmen nor Suleyman saw the sun rise over the sparkling waters of the Bosphorus that following morning as the older man helped the younger compose his report on the Emin affair. And as the heat of the day started to build, both of them from time to time spared some thought for the bitter woman who now sat somewhere far beneath their offices, down in the cells. A woman who, just like the odalisques of old to whom she frequently referred, was going to spend the rest of her life amongst other impotent, lonely women.

'We're burying Kleopatra Polycarpou today,' Ìkmen said as he wiped a tired hand across his features.

'Not the nicest thing to have to deal with after what we went through last night,' his equally exhausted colleague observed.

'No. I was going to ask Sinan to accompany me, but now I'm not so sure.' Ìkmen chewed thoughtfully on his bottom lip. 'In view of what we've learnt about the Emin sisters I'm wondering whether I ought to get Bulent scrubbed up and take him. Show him I know he exists.'

Suleyman smiled. Trying to prevent any nastiness between your two boys in the future perhaps?'

'If Zelfa Halman hadn't postulated such an idea some time ago I would have viewed the Emins as a one-off, but she did and it has made me think. Is she still around here somewhere, by the way?'

'Who? Dr Halman?'

'Yes.'

'No. But I'm meeting her for something to eat after I've spoken to Çöktin,' he looked at his watch, 'in about an hour. You're welcome to join us.'

'Thanks, but no,' Ìkmen said with a sigh. 'I really must wash and then find something to wear for this funeral'

A knock at the door interrupted their conversation.

'Come,' Suleyman called and the door opened to admit a very dishevelled isak (^oktin.

Upon seeing the young man, Ìkmen said, 'Ah, do you want me to—'

Suleyman held up a hand. 'No. Your input could be valuable here.' And then turning towards Çöktin, he said, 'Sit down.'

Çöktin took hold of a chair that had been leaning against the wall, placed it in front of Suleyman's desk and sat down, Ìkmen, who was sitting at what was usually Çöktin's desk, put his pen down and looked across at the young man.

'The events of last night,' Suleyman began gravely, 'have, as you know, thrown up some very difficult issues for some of the protagonists in this case.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Miss Emin, although she has now confessed to Ruya Urfa's murder, has raised certain points which her defence team will, no doubt, wish to bring to light in order to, to some extent, discredit those she has harmed.'

'Like what?' the white-faced young man asked, not for a moment raising his eyes from the floor.

'Like the fact that Mr Urfa and his late wife are Yezidis,' Ìkmen said with a bluntness Suleyman probably would not have employed.

Çöktin turned to look at "him. 'But why are you speaking to me about this, sir?'

'Oh, come on, Mickey!' Ìkmen said with a small if exasperated chuckle. 'You've never got as close to anyone as you got to Urfa. I won't even go into how you have knowledge about eunuchs in Arab countries but suffice to say, Dr Halman was the only other person I could find who knew about that, and she studies religion for fun. Come on!'

Çöktin lowered his head down even further on his chest and cleared his throat.

Suleyman looked across at Ìkmen and sighed. 'Listen, Çöktin,' he said, 'unless, somehow, Latife Emin knows about you then what passes between us here will go no further.'

'She knows nothing because there is nothing to know!' Çöktin suddenly became almost violently agitated. Then reaching into the pocket of his jacket he took out his identity card which he held up for bom men to see. 'Look here,' he cried. 'Religion: Muslim. Official, on my card. What more do you want?'

'Goktin—'

'Erol's bears exactly the same words,' Ìkmen said with a shrug. 'We all know how easy it is—' - 'If Mr Urfa says that his is false then that is his business,' Çöktin said, still holding his card up, 'but mine is not. And besides, quite why you would think that one of these devil worshippers would want to be in the police force, I can't imagine. If you worship Shaitan then you're an evil person quite at odds with the law.'

'On the surface, yes,' Ìkmen agreed, 'but if they are not evil but simply misunderstood . ..' He shrugged again. 'But your protestations are noted even if, as we all know, they are rather too vehement.'

'Believe it or not, we were just looking out for your interests, Çöktin,' Suleyman said.

'I couldn't care less what a man's religion might be,' Ìkmen added. 'I don't have one myself and so—'

'But most people do care.'

'You have an excellent record,' Suleyman said, looking the younger man in the eye, in so far as he could. 'There is no question of your being disciplined or dismissed. It was simply that if Latife Emin knew—'

'She knows nothing about me, I hardly spoke to her.'