Divorce Turkish Style (16 page)

I remained silent.

“The secretary at her office saw us together. Maybe she told you.”

Again, I remained silent.

“Aren't you going to say anything?”

“I gave my word that I'd say nothing,” I said.

There was an uncomfortable silence, which only became worse as I tried to think how we could make our excuses and leave.

“Do you know anyone who might want to kill Sani?” I finally asked.

Sinan leaned back in his armchair and laughed. Alkan looked at his brother and also laughed. Those brothers seemed to know how to enjoy themselves.

“You sound just like someone who reads crime fiction,” said Sinan. “Mother is the same. Whoever it is and however a person dies, she always assumes that it's murder. When her aunt of eighty-seven died, Mother was convinced that she'd been poisoned by the man from the corner shop. Even reading about a traffic accident sets her off looking for a sinister motive behind it. And she wonders why we don't read crime fiction!”

“It doesn't seem to occur to her that thoughts like that can actually make you paranoid,” said Alkan. “Supposing the husband killed Sani, supposing he was trying to avoid paying alimony, supposing this, supposing that—”

Sinan stared hard at his brother and then turned to us, asking, “Do you suspect her husband?”

“It's common procedure to suspect those closest to a murder victim,” I said, sounding like a typical reader of crime fiction. “If you asked your mother, she'd say the same.”

“If all the husbands who don't want to pay alimony started killing their wives… Oh no! I don't think Cem Ankaralıgil is the type to commit murder in order to avoid paying out a bit of alimony. However, if Sani took up with someone else after me, and he found out about it… Well, I don't know. Jealousy would at least be a rational explanation.”

“Money, jealousy, revenge, broken heart, hurt pride…” I said. “Any of those could be a reason for a person who's been rejected.”

“In that case, I must also be on the list of suspects,” said Sinan, narrowing his eyes. “I told you myself that Sani had left me.”

“I'm not saying that you're on a list of suspects. We're merely talking,” I said, thinking that it was hardly polite to accuse a person of murder when you're sitting in his house drinking his coffee.

“Sani upset me, if you really want to know,” said Sinan. “I was very unhappy when she left me and I tried to persuade her to give it another go. But killing her or wanting her dead—”

“Yes?” said Fofo expectantly.

“I wasn't that smitten. Not enough to kill her,” said Sinan as he paced round the room, his eyes filling with tears.

He seemed very convincing, though I couldn't quite put my finger on why. It certainly wasn't because of his tears, nor his eloquence, which was unusual in a man of twenty-five.

“We should go,” I said. “You can call me if anything else occurs to you.”

“Sani and I were only together for three months,” said Sinan. “When we met, she was about to leave her husband. Everything happened so quickly… and then it was all over.”

“How did you meet?” asked Fofo.

Good question, I thought.

“She was working for the same organization as my aunt Aylin. We were asked to do a performance for their organization, which was when we met. Do you know Aylin?”

“We want to talk to her, but apparently she's been abroad. Do you know if she's due back yet?” I said.

“I didn't even know she was away,” said Sinan.

Since it was unlikely that we'd learn any more from Sinan or that he knew anything else that could help us, I signalled to Fofo that we should go. However, he appeared to have no inclination to move, and would probably have been quite happy to spend another few days gazing at the two brothers.

“Come on, Fofo, we're invited to a party. We mustn't be late,” I said.

“I'm saving your number in my mobile,” said Sinan. “I'll call you.”

“If you come to the shop, we'll definitely give you a reduction,” said Fofo, finally rising to his feet.

At the time, I honestly didn't think there was the slightest probability that Sinan would either phone or call in at the shop.

*

“Well, we didn't learn much, but those two brothers are quite superb. There are few people with looks as good as theirs – including Hollywood stars,” said Fofo as we left the house and made our way towards the seafront.

“You're not serious.”

“Why not? To me, Brad Pitt looks like an oaf compared to Alkan.”

“That's not what I meant,” I said. “You said we didn't learn much.”

“So what did we learn?”

“If it's true that the husband was having Sani followed, then whoever was following her must know if she was alone when she died. Why didn't Cem say anything to the police?”

“Oh darling, it didn't take long for you to abandon your theory about Ergene industrialists, did it?”

“You know very well that we're still in the process of creating theories. This is just a new one.”

“So did you really take that business seriously about her being followed? It's just a cheap trick used by cougars who fall for younger men,” said Fofo, shaking his head as if he despaired of me.

“What do you mean? What trick?”

“Our little Sani invented that story to get Sinan excited. She was saying, ‘See? Everyone's after me, but I'm giving myself completely to you.' It's a cheap whore's trick, so learn, baby! He was just an infatuated toy boy who thought, ‘Wow, what a woman! With a husband like Cem Ankaralıgil still chasing her, she actually chooses me.' Think how exciting it must have been for young Sinan!”

“Fofo, you're terrible!” I cried, laughing out loud.

“Me? I'm terrible? Me?”

“What on earth makes you think up things like that?”

“Sani wasn't so different from me. I know exactly how she'd have gone about ensnaring a man like Sinan,” said Fofo. “This hair of mine hasn't turned grey from running after crusty old lawyers like you do.”

Fofo disliked my lovers as much as I disliked his, but he had a particular distaste for Selim, whom I'd left the previous year. The barb about “crusty old lawyers” was obviously intended for him.

“All right, all right. Next time, I'll ask for your approval to make sure I fall for someone better than Selim,” I said. “Now, listen to my theory.”

“I can't concentrate at the moment. The fact that you didn't understand Sani's cheap trick has really thrown me. I need a bit of time to build up my respect for you again.”

“Oh, stop being silly!”

“Believe me, I'm serious.”

“Fofo, listen!” I shouted in his ear, as he so often did to me.

“Okay, okay. Carry on!”

“If we suppose the husband really was having Sani followed, who else might know about it? Aylin? Naz?”

“Sani probably told her sister. But never mind all that. I told you, the business about her being followed was a lie.”

The
köfte
party was in the garden of a house in a complex of nine villas. As expected, the male guests were all accompanied by their wives, children and, in some cases, dogs. Fair enough. After spending a few hours with Sinan and Alkan, the only things I noticed about the men at the barbecue were their expanding waistlines, squeezed into carefully laundered jeans, and their sausage-like fingers.

Also as expected, once the
köfte
were eaten and the children asleep, the women sat around the table discussing Sani, while the
men were at the bottom of the garden talking politics and making salacious comments. Fofo stayed inside watching television.

“Did you know Sani Ankaralıgil?” I asked a dark-complexioned woman with an enormous mouth and hair that stood up like a parachute.

“I didn't know her, but Simin told me that that she'd moved here. Her husband knew Sani from Istanbul Technical University.”

“I used to say hello to her when I went out jogging in the mornings,” said a woman with stylishly cropped hair sitting next to me, the only person there worth looking at, other than Lale and myself, of course. “There's not much opportunity for sports in Paşabahçe, so we all go jogging.”

I considered mentioning how Beyoğlu, where I lived, was a mecca for sport lovers. You could indulge in long jump, skating, obstacle courses, steal and run, chase the hooligan… It was all there, whatever your heart desired. However, I didn't want to digress, so I remained silent.

“This isn't a very desirable area. It's too far from the city centre. However, we can get to Levent in twenty minutes via the second bridge.”

“But shopping is very difficult, especially with small children,” said another woman, leaning over to Parachute Hair and whispering loud enough for everyone to hear, “I heard that Simin's husband used to be Sani Ankaralıgil's lover. Do you think it's true?”

“Really? I've never heard that before,” said Parachute Hair. “Have you seen the winter roses in Simin's garden? They're imported. Isn't the way they open out divine?”

Was she intentionally changing the subject?

“Simin's garden is truly magical. I wish she could pass on some of her knowledge to us.”

“She's out there every day, planting seeds and cuttings. There's no gardener – she does everything herself,” said Parachute.

The subject had changed radically, and I felt a panic come over me.

“Did Sani Ankaralıgil really have a relationship with Simin's husband?” I asked, not caring what anyone else thought.

“Of course she did, darling. They were the talk of the university in those days. It was everyone's idea of ‘true love',” said someone else with a short bob which she'd had blow-dried into a most unfashionable style.

“She was a truly beautiful woman,” said the woman with cropped hair.

“She'd had too much cosmetic work done for my taste,” said Parachute.

“Everyone gets work done these days. Even Demi Moore's had her knees lifted,” said someone else.

The ladies glanced surreptitiously at each other's knees. I was glad that there'd been no time to change out of my cargo pants. Life was full of surprises! Who'd have thought that I'd be pleased by something like that?

“My stomach was quite deformed after the second birth. It was a Caesarean.” said the hostess.

“Darling! You call that deformed?” said a size twenty blonde sitting to the right of Parachute.

“Stomach operations are very risky,” said Lale, who of course knows everything.

“Operations don't carry risks if the surgeon's good,” said Parachute.

“The main thing is to be at peace with oneself,” said Size Twenty and, thinking she'd been ignored, added, “Fat is beautiful.”

“Who is Simin?” I asked in a low voice so that only the woman with the cropped hair sitting next to me could hear.

“Simin and Orhan Soner are a couple. Don't you know them? Orhan Soner is one of our best-known architects. He built the
blue skyscraper in Levent, the Venus Hotel in Bodrum and the Zeugma Museum building in Antep. They live around here,” she said, indicating the roof of a nearby house. “Why do you ask?”

“Her name came up and I just wondered.”

“Everyone watches everyone here. It's like a village.”

“Is Sani Ankaralıgil's house here too?”

“You can't see it from here,” said Cropped Hair, sitting up and looking towards the Soners' house. “But Sani lived opposite Simin and Orhan. Most of the houses on that side are vacant. Apparently, there was a construction problem and they didn't sell, so a number of them are rented out. Sani lived in one of those.”

“It seems odd that, of all the places in Istanbul, she should move to a house opposite that of a former lover,” I commented.

“Do you think so?”

“Don't you find it strange?”

“The past is the past. They had an affair and it was over. I'm on friendly terms with some of my previous lovers. Why hate someone you've been so close to?”

I didn't ask whether Cropped Hair's husband was on friendly terms with her previous lovers, because it was irrelevant. Instead, I merely said, “If the affair is over for both parties then what you say is true, but it isn't always like that.”

“I wonder if Orhan was still in love with Sani. Or she with him? We'll never know now,” said Cropped Hair.

We didn't know, but I could always find out.

7

“What do you know about your sister's love life?” I asked, as our latte macchiatos arrived.

Naz and I had taken refuge in a café to escape the crowds of men who made a habit of strutting around on Sundays. Every day was crowded in Beyoğlu, but the sight of these Sunday males was scary enough to make the cranes, trucks and diggers that wrought havoc on other days in İstiklal Street seem quite welcome. For one thing, the men never operated alone. Taking courage from each other like ancient warriors, they'd set out on the prowl in groups of at least three, pestering any single women they encountered, no matter what their age. They'd come to Karaköy by bus from outlying neighbourhoods, visit the brothels in our area and then go to wash in the hammam at the end of the street. Then they'd set out in high spirits, pushing and shoving each other, to ogle, assault and terrorize the women in İstiklal Street.