Divorce Turkish Style (9 page)

With his head bowed, he walked back towards the village with a stooping gait.

4

“This stink makes me feel ill,” moaned Fofo, closing the window that Rıfat had opened when he was smoking.

“It's just the smell of ‘an acceptable level of pollution',” I said.

“I can't imagine how anyone finds it acceptable. I certainly don't. Poison seems to be oozing out everywhere. And we drank that tea!”

“I don't think we'll die from drinking one glass of tea,” I said, ignoring the fact that I'd glared at my tea glass as if it were full of cyanide. After all, I had to set an example to Fofo.

“Nothing will happen to you, because you're like a real Turk, but I'm still very Spanish,” said Fofo, holding his nose.

He was right, of course. But should Turkish robustness be expected to withstand physical assaults comparable with the Chernobyl disaster, radioactive farm produce, bird flu, or even AIDS?

Needing to digest what we'd learned, we didn't speak again until we reached Lüleburgaz.

I approached a nurse sitting behind a glass partition marked “Patient Reception”, and asked to speak to Naz Kaya.

“Doctor Kaya is on leave until the end of next week. The doctor covering her is—”

“I need to speak to Naz Hanım in person,” I said. “Her father, Rıfat Bey, sent us.”

“You might find her at home.”

I'd made the mistake of not getting Naz's number from Rıfat, but going all the way back to the village would have made it impossible to get back to Istanbul before the evening rush hour.

“Could you please phone her at home?” I pleaded.

“I'll try,” said the receptionist. “Who shall I say you are?”

“Say that we spoke to her father. My name's Kati.”

I arranged to meet Naz an hour later in Nehir Café, opposite the Kubbealtı Mosque.

Naz Kaya resembled the press photos of her older sister in her heyday, and she was just as beautiful.

“People have said we look very similar,” she said with a trace of irony, the significance of which I didn't fully understand, but I let it pass.

“Your father obviously told you we were coming. He should have given us your phone number,” said Fofo.

“He rang me after you left him. He was worried you wouldn't find me as I'm on leave. Lüleburgaz is such a small city you can always find people, but try telling that to someone who's spent his whole life in a village.”

“I suppose your father told you that we're investigating your sister's death.”

“I gather that you believe the factory owners had my sister killed. Is that right?” said Naz, lowering her voice even though all the nearby tables were empty.

“We're actually considering a number of possibilities. But what do you think of that theory?” I asked.

“My father says you're from Istanbul,” said Naz, ignoring my question. “Are you Spanish, too?”

“Your father looked at both our IDs,” I said.

“He actually checked your IDs?” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “Did you notice how frightened he is? They're all afraid of their own shadows. Even my father.”

“Who are they afraid of?”

“Who? The factory owners, of course. Who else? It just takes one to cause an upset and everyone is ruined.”

Fofo and I looked at each other in alarm, sensing the intimidation that engulfed those people.

“What would you like?” asked a grinning waiter.

We ordered three mineral waters.

“I'm from Lüleburgaz, but my parents are Albanian,” said Naz, as the waiter moved away. “They're both Macedonian Albanians. They were born here, but we still have relatives there. In other words, we're not originally from here. As you know, there are lots of migrants from the Balkans living in Thrace.”

We made no comment, in the hope that she would explain why she was telling us this.

“People suffered terribly when they were turned out of their country, both during and after the Balkan War,” continued Naz. “Anyone who lived through that time has it etched on their memory for ever. The last of them were forced to leave Bulgaria during the religious and ethnic oppression of the late 1980s and many settled in Thrace.”

“Where they had kinsmen, you mean,” said Fofo.

“People are forever referring to kinsmen. I use the term too, but I don't like it,” said Naz.

I took a sip of the mineral water that the waiter had put on the table, and prepared to return to the main topic.

“You were asking if the industrialists could have had my sister killed,” continued Naz. “I'm only a cardiologist. An oncologist would be better placed to give an accurate picture of the situation
in Thrace, but I'll give you a few simple statistics. In this region, 30 per cent of deaths are from cancer, which is three times the national average in Turkey. The majority of cases are stomach and liver cancers caused by environmental pollution.”

“Three times the national average?” said Fofo, his eyes widening.

I started to bite my nails.

“It's incredible, isn't it?” said Naz. “Yet we still can't persuade the villagers to unite against the factories, which just goes to show how much fear has been instilled into them. But coming back to your question… My view is that the unchecked development of industry in Thrace means that the industrialists are, in one way or another, committing murder every minute of every day. People have been, and still are, dying from the pollution already created. However, future generations will also die because the factories are depleting the supply of water in the underground wells and contaminating the River Ergene, which is in turn destroying the agricultural land and the forests. You asked me if the industrialists killed my sister. What do you expect me to say?”

I felt mesmerized by her words and unable to respond.

“I don't understand the business about the underground water,” said Fofo.

“We're told there's a six-hundred-cubic-metre table of water in central Thrace that's been there since time immemorial. In recent years, four hundred cubic metres of this water have been used, mainly for industry but also for agriculture and drinking water, and they're continuing to extract the remaining two hundred cubic metres. Therefore, within a very short time, there's danger of serious drought in the region.”

Naz paused for breath before continuing.

“The problem of the underground water supply becoming
exhausted is one thing. But I think what's more desperate is that the water extracted by industry becomes polluted with substances harmful to human health and the environment, and is then pumped back underground. Take the leather industry, for example. There are two types of tanning processes: vegetable tanning and chromium tanning. With vegetable tanning, it takes about four months for the leather to become usable, but with chromium it only takes a week. Chromium is a mineral that is very dangerous to human health: it can cause ulcers and lung cancer. But of course the leather industry prefers chromium because it saves time. And it's not only chromium. Chemicals like sodium sulphate, hydrosulphide and dimethylamine are also used in tanning processes. These substances are then rinsed out of the leather with water drawn from the underground reservoir. Do you understand what I'm saying?”

Naz had been talking fast and furiously, but her explanation was clear.

“Yes,” I said. “I understand. Do you, Fofo?”

Fofo nodded. He had been listening intently.

“The water that is now polluted with various chemicals, the worst of which is chromium, is then pumped back underground,” said Naz. “Our underground water reserves are being irrevocably contaminated.”

“Oh my God! But why? Why pump poisonous water underground?” cried Fofo.

“Because it's illegal to release the water into the river. Checks aren't made very often, but if they're caught, the factories have to pay a fine. So they avoid the risk by pumping the water back underground. As I'm sure you know, there used to be leather workshops in Istanbul and Kazlıçeşme.”

“Fofo wasn't in Istanbul at that time, but I remember. They moved out all the workshops,” I said.

“They moved the workshops at Kazlıçeşme to an industrial district in Tuzla, where they all had to have purification plants. But the industrialists made a huge fuss. Do you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because their electricity bills shot up as a result of using purification plants and, since there was no underground water at Tuzla, they also had to pay for the water they used. The Tuzla industrialists quite rightly asked how they could compete with industrialists in Thrace, where it was possible to process leather so much more cheaply. They had a point. In Thrace, the attitude is ‘take the water and to hell with the consequences'.”

“That's incredible,” said Fofo, his face as white as a sheet. “Abominable!”

“Abominable indeed. But that's just the leather industry. Thrace has many other industries: glass, textiles, pharmaceuticals and so on. They all pollute the environment in one way or another. Unchecked industrialization started here twenty years ago, and I've been fighting against it for ten. We see what's happening, but are powerless to do anything about it. However, a certain amount of good has come of it.”

“What might that be?”

“Well, our popular support has grown over the last few years. We started the campaign ten years ago as five youngsters, three from Lüleburgaz and two from Çorlu, drawing on family and friends for support. They didn't object to the industrialization, just the lack of regulation, which was understandable because the factories were bringing financial benefits to a lot of families in Thrace. But my mother says now that her eyes have been opened. So we're getting there, but it hasn't been easy.”

“I guess yours is the most organized of all the villages.”

“That's thanks to my parents. They've been completely won over. This process hasn't only made people more environmentally
sensitive, it's also changed their views on life. They've started questioning themselves and taking a more critical approach to what's been going on. Of all the villages around Lüleburgaz, Kayacık is the only one that allows Romany workers to set up their tents. I see that as an achievement. Did you see the tents when you drove into the village?”

“We couldn't miss them.”

“As I said, we're mainly targeting the factories, yet we know they can cut us down at any time. Meanwhile, we try to appreciate the little things, because we haven't managed to achieve anything significant so far. A law is about to be passed, but we can't enforce it. Anyway, we've nothing against the erection of a few tents, if they're necessary.”

“It's not much of an achievement if Romany labourers work for lower wages. If everyone was paid at the same rate, then you'd have achieved something worthwhile,” I commented.

“Have you been researching the wages paid out here?” asked Naz in surprise. “What made you think of that?”

“I was involved in anti-discrimination protests in Germany in the 1980s, so I know a bit about this sort of thing,” I said.

“Ah, you have experience in these matters. When we started, our greatest weakness was that we didn't have any. We lost a lot of time learning through trial and error how to get results. I now understand there are certain things that villagers can never be made to accept. For instance, they won't even speak to you if you propose anything that involves putting their hands in their pockets!”

“It's not only villagers, I can assure you. City dwellers are just the same,” I said.

“Pay for Romany workers is one of those issues,” said Naz, with a rueful smile. “I hope we'll be able to change it. This year, for the first time, my father agreed to pay his Romany
workers the same as the Bulgarians. Next year, maybe a few others will—”

“Excuse me,” I said, rising from the table because my mobile was ringing. It was Pelin. I moved away so that I could speak more easily. She said that Batuhan had come to the shop and wanted to know if he should wait for me.

“You didn't tell him I was in Lüleburgaz, did you?” I said to Pelin.

“No,” she said.

“Did you tell him where I'd gone?”

“Are you still at Lale's place?”

“Don't say anything to Batuhan.”

“Okay,” said Pelin.

“Pass the phone to him.”

I told Batuhan that I wouldn't be back in Kuledibi until late and he shouldn't wait for me, but we could meet the following day if he liked.

“Tomorrow's impossible, but we can meet on Friday,” said Batuhan.

We agreed to meet at the shop early on Friday evening.

When I returned to the table, Naz and Fofo were deep in conversation. Fofo was saying how much he loved Istanbul and how he could never leave it.

“Do you ever visit Istanbul?” I asked Naz.