Belshazzar's Daughter (42 page)

Emboldened by his need for alcohol, Robert stepped

forward and pushed the door wide open. Twenty or thirty dark, bearded faces looked up from their liquor-filled glasses and stared. One nose shaped like a scythe and surmounted by a tall faded Homburg sniffed loudly as if in disgust. The only woman in the place, the fat gold-spangled singer, kept up her mournful rendition of whatever the song was, but she had seen Robert and she was staring too. None of them looked in the least bit kind, in fact most of the eyes that met his were openly hostile. It wasn’t something to which the Englishman was accustomed and for a moment it rendered him totally incapable of all movement. It reminded him of the time he had inadvertently stepped into a Kurdish coffee house in the east, out near Mardin and experienced the open, rather dangerous hostility in the people’s faces, that creeping feeling that if he crossed the threshold he might live, or not, to regret it.

And yet these were only Jews! These were only people like Marion and Martin from Hornsey, the Charles family who used to live next door when he was at primary school!

None of the eyes before him so much as flickered as they hardened. As he stared back Robert realised that he couldn’t even begin to wonder what they were thinking and nor really did he care. He meant them no harm and he wanted a drink for which he was willing to pay. The cold black eyes made him angry again and he staggered forward across to the shabby, poorly stocked bar.

It was then that the woman stopped singing.

Samsun breathed in deeply and looked down into the bowl of water on the table. Apart from herself, Cetin and a few quiet stragglers, the Bar Paris was empty now. Of course the staff would still serve anyone who was capable of buying a drink, but with each passing minute that was becoming less and less likely.

Samsun closed her eyes for a second and tried to cut out all external distractions. She listened to the sound of her own bronchitic breathing and mentally washed the far corners of her mind in a stream of crystal pure water. Cetin had come specifically to her for this reading and he only did that when it was important. Samsun’s ‘sight’, though so often devastatingly correct, was not an easy gift to be around. It could be frustratingly random in character and frightening. Samsun rarely saw good in her scrying bowl, which led many to believe that she was beholden to some sort of devil or djinn. The way her life had progressed thus far, Samsun sometimes wondered about that herself.

Still breathing deeply she opened her eyes and stared into and beyond the thin meniscus that covered the surface of the water. All was gone now: the bar, Cetm sitting opposite, the faint sounds of the grieving alcoholics. There was just water where Samsun was, completely still like the lens of a camera, giving her access to, at the beginning, strange jumbled images.

As if printed on rags the edges of these images were feathered and frayed. Without noticeable movement one gave into the other, melding like soft clay from shape to shining shape. For just an instant she saw Coin’s face, his eyes clamped tightly shut, his brows knitted as if in great distress or pain. But then it was gone, replaced by a small group of children running down the road which leads from Aya Sofia to the Eminonii Docks. Samsun saw her own young face amongst their number, a sharp-tongued boy of twelve.

High up. She didn’t know where but above the roofs of the city, the sun burning on the back of her neck like a torch and beneath her feet … beneath her feet was hot too. It hurt, just like the pavement had done against her bare feet when she was a child. The image didn’t go and although she knew she didn’t want to Samsun looked down.

Below was a street, very narrow and winding like a twisted vein on the back of an old man’s hand. There were people down there and a car. They were all looking up, but she couldn’t really see their faces clearly. Some were quite still, but a few, including one in a fine grey suit, were waving up at her and shouting. Although she tried very hard she couldn’t say what they were shouting, but they were afraid.

And then she wasn’t alone in her high place any more.

Turning her head to the side she saw a young man. He was dark and quite beautiful in a feminine, beardless sort of way and she was gripped by the most horrible feeling of dread. Something red spread out across her feet and lapped against the legs of the young man and he smiled. His mouth was like a door and through it she saw the picture of a woman falling down a wall, her blood searing and staining the plaster behind her, for ever.

Then with one short bound the young man was gone,

flying through the air like a rocket, hovering for just a second and then descending. Down there. And a beautiful sight it was too. The young man was so graceful as he swooped and dived on to and away from the currents of air that blew to and fro between the gaps in the buildings. For an instant the sight quite bewitched Samsun’s mind until she saw where the falling and suddenly now limp body was plummeting. Down below, on the ground, another

young man, grey-suited, familiar, rushed forward, right into the path of the other’s descent. Samsun wanted to call out to warn him but she knew he wouldn’t hear her. It wasn’t real. It was just waiting, that was all - preparing to be real.

Samsun’s eyes flew open. She licked her lips. ‘It’s tomorrow.’

Cetin’s

hand shook as he took a cigarette out of his packet and put it between his dry, cracked lips. He averted his eyes from Samsun’s. ‘And?’

‘You’ll be all right, little cousin.’

Cetin turned back to face her and she looked him straight in the eyes. ‘But only if you’re alone. You mustn’t under any circumstances take that young sergeant with you. Do you understand?’

It wasn’t that Rabbi Isak didn’t enjoy these occasional meetings he was obliged to attend together with other

members of the local clergy, it was just that there were problems. The priests, both Roman Catholic and Orthodox, liked to accompany the proceedings with a convivial glass of wine or two. Of course the wine wasn’t kosher, which meant that he and his colleagues had to bring their own if they wanted to indulge. However, the Imams were not comfortable with it and he had always felt that it created a barrier between them and the rest of the party. Rabbi §imon said that it didn’t matter and the Imams understood and were quite happy with the arrangement but then he was a foreigner. Rabbi §imon, although well meaning, didn’t understand the Middle East any more than he understood old age. Accompanying him through the streets indeed!

Who did the young puppy think he was! These were

his streets, even if he were blind he couldn’t get lost in them, but then the man was a Pole and therefore couldn’t possibly understand. Rabbi Isak knew his way home and if he was attacked, well, it was God’s will. Europeans didn’t understand that; if something was written it was written and there was nothing he or the whole Turkish army could do that would change it.

But the meeting had gone well. As usual the Moslems had been the least forthcoming and the Christians the most, but then that was just life. Islam disliked change as much as Orthodox Judaism, mainly because neither faith really needed it. The synagogues and the mosques were always full, unlike the churches. So he supposed the priests had to do something: build more orphanages; try to persuade the Pope to visit again. Turkey was such an outpost of the Christian world he had often thought that it could not be easy. But then was it easy for anyone?

Strange fierce-eyed men with beards had been seen on the streets for some time now. Many of them came from the east and the doctrine they preached had little to do with the traditional tolerance the natives of Balat had come to expect. All over the world, it seemed, people were embracing extreme ideologies again, willingly. War in Yugoslavia; Fundamentalist violence in Egypt; the resurgence of Fascism in

Germany. Manifestation of this last phenomenon had even appeared on their own doorstep. That old Russian tortured, his wall daubed with a swastika not two minutes away!

§imon for one was very worried, but then his parents had been in the camps. He didn’t understand Turkish Judaism and was fearful that old Meyer’s death was only the beginning. Isak smiled and turned slowly into the tiny back alley that ran behind the houses of the street on which he lived. §imon was, in his opinion, taking one isolated, if insane, incident and blowing it out of all proportion. Vile though the act undoubtedly was, it meant little as far as Isak could see, beyond the fact that somewhere in the city a lunatic was at large. Things such as this had and always would happen where a lot of people lived in close proximity to each other. The real issues didn’t involve old alcoholics being done to death in filthy apartments, they involved Governments and the manipulation of nationalist or religious fervour by Governments. There was nothing of that nature happening in Turkey, at least overtly, apart from the situation with the Kurds of course. But then, rightly or wrongly, that was their affair and so long as their admittedly sad situation did not impinge upon his own community, Rabbi Isak was content simply to forget about the Kurds, poor souls! But … but most countries had situations of that sort with which to contend.

He passed along behind the back yard of Mr Zarifi’s garden and glanced briefly at the wide-spreading branches of his lemon tree. It had taken a lot to get that thing to grow in the rough and exhausted soil of the inner city, but Zarifi had done it.

It was as he was taking his leave of Zarifi’s lemon tree that isak heard the singing. Although instantly recognising it as a drunken lament he was incapable of saying what the tune was or even which language it was being sung in.

That it was even one song was also impossible to deduce as the singer periodically stopped and mumbled angrily before continuing. The only thing he could be sure of was that it was coming from that part of the alleyway directly in front of him, the bit he had to travel down in order to reach his home.

isak didn’t like drunks but he didn’t actively dislike them either. In his long life he’d seen too much poverty and suffering not to understand the sweet oblivion and even relief a full bottle of raki could bring. Sometimes he’d even resorted to it himself, although he’d never actually been blind drunk. That was a terrible state to get into. Drunks were a nuisance, they pissed into gutters and vomited on buses. Poor creatures.

With a sigh Rabbi isak set his feet in the direction of his house. The singing was louder now and as he peered into the thick darkness he fancied he saw a figure, its long limbs swaying close to the ground like an ape, lurching past the outhouse at the bottom of the Cohens’ yard. But he couldn’t be sure. Maybe he was alone in the alley, but maybe he wasn’t. In reality it made little difference, he still had to get home and if he was obliged to pass some stinking drunk along the way then so be it. From the sound of the singing, the person, whoever he was, was almost certainly too inebriated to do him any harm. Rabbi isak took his keys out of his pocket and whistled a little tune to himself. The old songs from his youth were always a comfort when he was alone. Suddenly, however, the status quo changed very quickly and with deadly intent. A limp hand flew out from nowhere and touched him lightly on the chest.

isak gasped, but more out of shock than fear. It had happened so suddenly that it made his heart jump and for a second he felt quite breathless. The hand slid down his coat and as he bent towards it he could clearly smell the sharp reek of cheap raki-laden breath. Although he couldn’t see him Rabbi isak knew that his singing drunk was lying just in front of him, stretched out across his path like a human carpet. A sad state to be in and one that required him as a member of the clergy to assist. He bent his old back low and as he descended he became aware of a pair of small but glittering eyes staring bewildered into his.

Rabbi Isak put his hand out towards the creature and lowered his voice to a gentle whisper. ‘Oh dear, you poor thing. Let me help you.’

‘What the hell are you doing out of bed?’

As usual when he was in one of these states he wasn’t so much angry at her as he was at himself. Cetin ikmen drank but actual drunkenness was a rare occurrence. It usually meant that he was very depressed or worried about something, although even those excuses cut little ice with Fatma. It was gone two o’clock in the morning and he was drunk. Her eyes cold, she snapped back at him.

‘I’m out of bed, Cetin, because I found your performance of “looking for my key” at the front door just too absorbing to miss.’

He peered at her through blurry half-closed eyes and stabbed the air in her direction with his finger. ‘Very good, Fatma, a reply worthy of a born ikmen.’

She turned her head away from him and muttered, ‘Well if you’re going to be insulting …’

‘Oh, I didn’t mean anything, Fatma! It’s‘ - he took off his jacket and flung it across the back of a nearby chair - ‘it’s because I’m having a bad life. First this case, then bloody Suleyman—’

‘Mehmet?’ She turned back to face him again, her brows knitted. ‘What’s he done?’

‘Oh, it’s not what he’s done.’ He moved one hand

awkwardly to emphasise his point and then sat down. ‘I went to see Samsun for a - you know, and he said—’

‘I don’t believe you!’ Fatma moved forward, hands on hips, and stood furious in front of him. ‘Samsun! A great authority that is! Honestly, Cetin, I thought you’d done with all that occult nonsense. If our friends knew—’

‘I know! I know!’ He put his head in his hands and rubbed his brow vigorously with his fingers. ‘It’s just that it’s all been so terrible recently.’

‘And you think that peering into bowls of oil or shuffling cards is going to make any difference? And Samsun too!

The man is unglued, Cetin, not to mention immoral!’

‘Oh, I—’

‘And Samsun of course means the Bar Paris, doesn’t

it! Lovely! My husband down among the pimps and the prostitutes! My husband the police inspector no less!’

He took his hands away from his face and looked at her.

He had to make her understand - somehow. It was late and he was drunk but what Samsun had told him hadn’t lost its awful power during his long and tiring walk home.