Divorce Turkish Style (22 page)

“How should I know?” I said.

“He paid out €100,000,000.”

“You mean Pavarotti the tenor?”

“That's the one. And guess how much Paul McCartney's wife asked for as a divorce settlement?”

We couldn't guess.

“€300,000,000. Paul McCartney supposedly had €1.2 billion to his name, and his wife demanded a quarter of it.”

“I wonder how much money Cem has,” I said.

“Well, there's the enormous Ankaralı Holdings,” said Aylin. “Who knows how much that's worth? It's certainly one of the top ten companies. If you ask me, I don't think Cem really meant those threats about throwing Sani out with nothing.”

“Can I just say something?” said Naz. “You keep talking as if all women do is try to fleece their husbands.”

“Mmm, like getting hairs out of a pig,” I commented.

“Well, I find that attitude very upsetting,” said Naz.

“What do you mean?” asked Aylin.

“Well, when Sani returned to Turkey, her situation was excellent,” said Naz. “She was in a position to find work with a good company. Alternatively, she could have stayed and worked in America, where she'd been offered several jobs.”

“Yes, that's true,” said Aylin.

“But what happened?” said Naz. “Cem wouldn't stop grumbling and quizzing her about where she was going to work and why. In the end, Sani couldn't take any more and decided to find a way of amusing herself rather than actually working.”

“That's right,” said Aylin.

“And the same goes for you, doesn't it?” said Naz. “Before you were married, you had a good job as a simultaneous interpreter. Why did you give it up?”

“I couldn't have kept it up after I got married. It would have been too much, with all those trips abroad and spending several days a week in Ankara.”

“You were earning well, doing a job you liked,” persisted Naz, “yet now you tell us you're trying to bleed Remzi for a few pennies.”

“The worst thing is that you lose all self-confidence,” said Aylin.

“It happens so often to women who give up working after they get married,” said Naz. “It's not easy picking up where you've left off if you take a break from work. A person's self-confidence becomes so damaged during marriage that—”

“…she can't bring herself to start all over again,” said Aylin, completing Naz's sentence. “What do you advise?”

“Me? I'd try to get back into work, of course,” said Naz.

“I doubt if I'll ever get as good a job as I had before, but I'll certainly have a go. Perhaps I can find a nice little niche for myself somewhere.”

“Shall we go now?” I asked, thinking I had better things to do with my life than spend it advising women on how to go about getting a divorce.

“Aylin hasn't finished her salad yet,” said Naz.

“Sani was always eating salad whenever I saw her at lunchtime,” I commented, noticing that Aylin hadn't even touched hers.

“She was always on a diet. But it wasn't a healthy diet. I kept telling her that one plate of salad a day simply wasn't enough,” said Naz.

“The only way to shed kilos is to stop eating,” said Aylin.

“That's not true. But I'm sure you do what you think is best, so I'll keep quiet,” said Naz.

“Actually, you're right,” said Aylin. “Hunger affects the nerves. Sani was totally worn out, what with the divorce and her strict dieting.”

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Naz blurted out. “I meant to ask you if… I'd suggested that she got some help from a psychiatrist. Do you know if she went?”

“Yes, yes. She went to one at a clinic in Nişantaşı,” said Aylin. “In fact, we met up here that day. It was the Friday before the terrible event. She went from here to go and see him.”

“Can you remember which doctor she saw?” asked Naz.

“I didn't ask his name, but I could find out. I know who recommended him to her,” said Aylin.

“Yes, please do,” said Naz.

While Aylin was prodding her mobile with her French-manicured nails, I leaned towards Naz and said, “What are you going to ask the psychiatrist?”

“About the needle marks on her arm,” said Naz. “I think he may have some ideas.”

“But he'd never divulge a patient's secrets to us. It would be unethical,” I said.

“I don't want him to tell me any secrets. I just want to get an idea from him,” said Naz.

“She's going to send me the number of the clinic, and the doctor's name is Ethem Tuğlacı,” said Aylin, and as she spoke her mobile started ringing.

“Tell me the number, and I'll write it down,” said Naz.

“The clinic's in Rumeli Street,” said Aylin, and then read out the phone number.

“Why don't you phone the clinic? We could go there now,” I said to Naz.

“All right, but I'll go outside to make the call,” said Naz.

“It's noisier outside than in here,” I said.

“It doesn't matter. I can talk more comfortably outside.”

Naz went outside and Aylin started playing with her salad before finally giving up and laying her fork down.

“You never met Sani, did you?” she asked.

“I used to see her at lunchtime sometimes,” I said.

“But you didn't actually know her,” said Aylin, adding suddenly, “I think Sani was very jealous of Naz.”

I had absolutely no idea what to say.

“Well, you do sometimes get a bit of sibling rivalry,” I said, as if I was talking about two children.

I actually knew nothing about sibling relationships, because my much older brother had left home when I was still an infant.

“I'm not talking about normal jealousy. Hers was almost pathological,” said Aylin.

“What makes you think that?” I asked.

“For instance,” said Aylin, “she'd imitate everything that Naz
did. A month after Naz coloured her hair brown, Sani claimed there'd been an ‘accident' at the hairdresser's and she came out with her platinum blonde hair turned brown.”

People base their conclusions on such strange evidence!

“But it might have been a genuine accident,” I said.

“Then why was Sani devastated, like it was the end of the world, when Naz went lighter again?” said Aylin.

“I really don't know,” I said. What could I say?

“And that wasn't the only thing,” continued Aylin. “A week after Naz signed a petition about animal cruelty, Sani led a protest against raising hens in battery farms. When Naz had the misfortune to have her handbag stolen, Sani magically retrieved it from the thieves a few days later. That was quite a coincidence, don't you think?”

“It certainly was,” I said.

“Do you realize how much Sani resembled Naz?”

“Yes, of course, but they're sisters.”

“Take a look at their childhood photos. Would you have known they were sisters then?”

“What are you suggesting?” I asked.

“I'm suggesting that Sani presented pictures of Naz to a cosmetic surgeon and said, ‘I want to look like her',” said Aylin.

“It can't be that simple to look like someone else, even after endless operations, can it?”

“Not simple, but not impossible. After all, we all look pretty much alike here, don't we?” said Aylin, indicating the other women in the restaurant, who certainly all had a very similar look about them. “Apparently, Sani had her operations while she was at university, so it went back that far. Must have been some sort of mental illness.”

Aylin was talking rubbish now.

“But she had no money when she was at university, and
cosmetic surgery is expensive, isn't it?” I said, wondering if I should start finding out about such things.

“Sani taught maths and chemistry at a high school while she was a university student,” said Aylin. “So she obviously wasn't that hard up.”

“How did you find that out?” I asked.

“This is a small place. Everyone knows everything. You aren't from Istanbul, are you?”

“No, I'm not,” I said, realizing that Aylin hadn't really worked out where I was from. “Was there a lot of talk about Sani having surgery to make her look like Naz?”

“No, not that much, but some people certainly knew about it. They also say that Sani stole Naz's lover when she was at university.”

“So Orhan had been Naz's lover first?” I asked, but received no reply because Naz had returned.

“If we leave now, we can see him in ten minutes,” said Naz. “Sorry to rush you, Aylin. I'll pay for these.”

“Never mind me. You carry on,” said Aylin. “Can I take your number, Kati Hanım? I might need your help.”

“As I said, I don't spy on people,” I said.

“Give it to me all the same.”

There seemed no option but to exchange phone numbers.

The psychiatric clinic was on the second floor of a beautiful art nouveau building with a stairway covered in claret-coloured carpet leading up from the entrance hall. A concierge dressed in a grey jacket and baggy jodhpur-like trousers sat at a desk on the landing at the top of the stairs. Was that the best they could do?

A blonde girl opened the door to the clinic. I couldn't help thinking that if I spent much more time in Nişantaşı, I'd start to think that Turkey was a nation of blondes.

“Ethem Bey is waiting for you,” said the girl, leading us to a room with a glass door.

Ethem rose to his feet to greet us and directed us to some easy chairs opposite his desk while he seated himself on the sofa.

“You said you're a cardiologist at Lüleburgaz State Hospital. Is that right?” he asked.

Naz nodded and said, “My sister Sani Ankaralıgil was a patient of yours. She'd been having a hard time because of her divorce and I advised her to seek help.”

“I read in the papers that she'd died. I'm so sorry for your loss,” said Ethem.

He looked more like a greengrocer than a psychiatrist to me, but he must have been good at his job because becoming a society psychiatrist was no mean feat.

“The autopsy found a needle mark on her left arm, and I thought you might know something about it,” said Naz.

“Her treatment hadn't even started, so I hadn't prescribed her any medication,” he said. “I checked her file again before you came. She'd been under a lot of stress recently and complained of spells of dizziness and breaking out in a sweat. On one occasion, she had a particularly bad turn—”

“Bad turn?” interrupted Naz.

“…and she collapsed,” said Ethem.

The three of us exchanged glances. Why would a person fall, unless they tripped up or slipped on something? Low blood pressure? A brain tumour? Those were the only possibilities I could think of.

“What could cause someone to collapse?” I asked.

“It could be for all sorts of reasons,” he said.

This was what I hated most about doctors. Why couldn't they simply tell you which disease your symptoms point to?

“Did she have a brain tumour, perhaps?” I asked.

Ethem clearly found my intervention unwarranted because he fixed me with an icy glare and said, “That's one possibility. But this patient's history of anxiety, exhaustion, sweats, blackouts and dizzy spells suggested a hormonal imbalance which could have resulted in goitre, a disturbed menstrual cycle or diabetes. I advised Sani Hanım to speak to Hale Gürsel, the internal diseases specialist at the American Hospital, and to have all the recommended tests done.”

“Her appointment with you was on the Friday. Do you think she went straight from here to the hospital?” asked Naz.

“By the time Sani Hanım left here, our polyclinic was closed, so I asked my secretary to make an appointment for her. I checked the notes and she was booked in for Monday at two o'clock. If she attended that appointment, then—”

“Thank you very much, Ethem Bey,” said Naz, rising to her feet. “You've put my mind at ease.”

That's exactly what a good psychiatrist is meant to do, of course.

“If the specialist asked for a blood sample,” said Naz, as we descended the carpeted stairway, “that would explain the needle mark on Sani's arm. But we'll have to wait until tomorrow morning to find that out.”

“The American Hospital is just here. Why don't we call in now?” I suggested.

“The doctor will have gone home. No one will be there at this time,” said Naz.

“We don't need to speak to the doctor,” I said. “If an analysis was done, we can get the result from the lab.”

“They wouldn't give us the results.”