Last Train to Istanbul (48 page)

David got up and whispered in Ferit’s ear, “Let’s offer him a bribe.” Ferit nervously lit a cigarette by the window.

“How? Do you mean money?”

“Why not? Money, wine. I’ll even sacrifice my Moselle.”

“Let me see,” said Ferit.

“Monsieur Kohen said he could offer money.”

“Fine. We’ll see.”

Ferit threw the butt of his cigarette out of the window and looked out. Already there were some passengers from the other carriages standing by the train. Ferit reluctantly returned to the door of the compartment.

“Right then, everybody off!” he announced.

No one moved.

“Do you want that inspector to force you to get off?”

Ferit turned to Siegfried and pleaded, “Monsieur Kohen, will you please leave Monsieur Asseo where he is and get off the train.”

Marcel, Constance, Selva with her son in her arms, Margot, Samuel, and Perla left the compartment.

“Would you like me to stay, Monsieur Ferit?” asked David. “I mean, can I be of any help?”

“No, thank you, David. You go ahead. Monsieur Kohen, come with me.”

David left the compartment too. Ferit got frustrated when he realized Siegfried wasn’t about to move. “Believe me, I do sympathize with you, but surely you can understand my situation too.”

“You think you understand, monsieur, but you don’t. I know that you intend to bribe the inspector and you need to be alone with him, but I wish to remain behind so I can raise the amount if necessary. I can raise it until he can’t refuse!”

The inspector was approaching the compartment just as Margot was about to get off. Suddenly she decided to return, bumping into the inspector in the doorway. She took his hands in hers.

“Will you please help me,” she pleaded. “The old man lying on the seat is my father. He’s extremely ill. He was in pain, so we gave him a sleeping pill to help him sleep. I beg of you, don’t wake him up now. We’ve only got a couple of hours’ journey left. If you force him to get up, he might not make it. Please allow him to stay where he is. Even if he shouldn’t last the journey, let him at least die in his own country.”

The inspector looked at Asseo from where he stood in the doorway and walked toward him. Weak at the knees, Margot could hardly breathe. For a split second she and Ferit made eye contact. All the color had drained from Ferit’s face. Suddenly, the inspector stretched out his hand and lightly stroked the red coat covering Asseo.

“Beautiful coat,” he said. “It’s so soft. Is this what they call cashmere?”

Margot moved between the inspector and Asseo. “I’d love to make a present of it to you in gratitude for not disturbing my father.” She removed the coat from the corpse. “Please take it; you can give it to your wife or daughter, perhaps, maybe your girlfriend. I know I can’t give it to you here in front of everyone, but I will forget it in the customs area.” She put the coat around her shoulders. “Now, please be kind enough to take me to customs.”

When Margot left with the inspector, Siegfried rested Asseo’s head on the seat, got his raincoat from the rack above, covered Asseo with it, and left the compartment. Ferit followed him, shutting the compartment door firmly.

The train pulled out of the station as soon as the formalities were completed. It wasn’t long before Selva screamed with joy, “
Kapikule!
” The train moved very slowly, and then stopped.

Ferit stepped out into the corridor and shouted, “Welcome to Turkey!” as loudly as he could. Everyone applauded, hugging and kissing each other, their eyes filled with tears. Some shook hands, congratulating each other, others screamed with joy. Selva’s compartment was the only one where there was no sign of enthusiasm. Not even the radiant Turkish sun shining through the window was enough to disperse the melancholy.

Ferit greeted the policeman and the customs officer at the door as they boarded the train.

“I’m afraid we have some sad news,” he said. “One of our fellow travelers has passed away.”

“Our condolences,” said the customs officer.

“Should we inform the frontier garrison?”

“No,” said the policeman, “this has nothing to do with them. They are not here anyway; they are off playing soccer right now. We’ll do whatever’s necessary. Don’t you worry.”

After carefully supervising Asseo’s removal on a stretcher, Siegfried took down Asseo’s violin case and suitcase, and then his own belongings.

“My friends,” he said, “what a pity that I’ve got to bid you farewell now. I hope to God that our paths cross again. I thank you with all my heart.” He hugged each and every person in the compartment. Then he offered Margot Asseo’s violin. “Please accept this from me, mademoiselle,” he said. “It’s a precious violin. Even if
you can’t play it yourself, maybe one day in the future your children might.”

Margot was taken aback. “You shouldn’t do this, Monsieur Kohen,” she said. “Really you shouldn’t. This is far more precious than my coat, I couldn’t…”

“You’d make me very happy if you did. It has nothing to do with your coat…It’s simply a humble token of my gratitude.”

“But this is a Stradivarius! Surely Monsieur must have some relatives, maybe…”

“He does,” said Siegfried. “Only one brother—and that’s me.”

The train set off on its journey from Edirne to Istanbul with two fewer passengers. Selva handed over her son to his father, rolled her jacket up like a pillow, lay down, and closed her eyes. Why couldn’t she feel happy? She didn’t want to cry, as if there mightn’t be anyone to meet them at the station. It was as though she were empty inside, as though her nerves had gone and she could feel nothing. All she knew was that she was tired, very tired. Not physically tired, but tired of having chosen to live in exile…

The train was finishing its journey through its homeland. The
clickety-clack
,
clickety-clack
was like a lullaby and sent Selva to sleep.

“Look, Selva, isn’t that the ancient Sinan bridge?” asked Constance.

“Selva is sleeping,” said Margot. “She’s been talking in her sleep.”

Selva was now on one of the Princes’ Islands in the Sea of Marmara. She seemed to have been transported back to her youth and was following Sabiha through some pine trees.

Just as Selva was catching up, Sabiha kept dodging behind the trees. The skirt of Sabiha’s dress was billowing like froth in the wind.
Each time Selva got near enough to reach out for the hem, her hands clutched at nothing but thin air.

“Selva can’t catch me! Selva can’t catch me!” Sabiha taunted, disappearing in and out of the trees. Sabiha’s dress suddenly turned to pomegranate red. Selva almost caught up to her, but just then her sister turned into a pomegranate-colored butterfly. Selva still ran after the butterfly as it flew away.

She fell over a cliff, down and down into a bottomless abyss. Finally, when she reached the bottom, her father was standing there with his arms wide open. Selva was screaming, “Father, catch me…Catch me, Father!”

“Selva, my love, wake up. Wake up, we’re almost there.”

“Almost where?” she said, looking at Rafo with startled eyes.

“Istanbul, Sirkeci Station, of course.”

“What?”

She sat up straight and blinked her eyes. She could see the iron columns of the station, and there was that familiar smell, that blend of sea and seaweed, the smell of Istanbul. The train was approaching the station slowly, almost like a coquettish bride dragging her veil.

The lines and colors of the city that Selva had missed so much; the outlines that reflected the Selcuk style; the crowds at the station with its colorful stained-glass windows typifying the mystic atmosphere one associates with the East; the porters almost crushed by the heavy loads secured on their backs by ropes. There were gentlemen in fedora hats and double-breasted jackets, men in breeches, ladies wearing hats and scarves, cheeky children being spoiled by their mothers, and of course the
simit
sellers. When she spotted those
simit
sellers, tears started streaming down her cheeks.

The platform was extremely crowded. It was like thousands of hands swaying together. Selva scanned the crowd anxiously…No,
he’d never come. Wasn’t he, after all, the one who had remonstrated with her in front of the big mirror in the sitting room, saying, “You’ve not only disappointed me. You have also turned six centuries of tradition upside down!” Surely he wouldn’t come! Some children were yelling at each other, a few pigeons fluttered their wings, a grandmother was greeting her grandchildren, two lovers hugged each other…Suddenly, in the distance, she spotted Sabiha in her fuchsia two-piece suit. Her mother was standing next to her. They were waving their white handkerchiefs to attract her attention. Leon, Rafo’s brother, was standing behind them; he didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, and placed them firmly in his pockets. He stood stiffly with a cigarette in his mouth. Selva searched the platform: he hadn’t come.

She lowered her head so that no one would see her disappointment. Extinguishing that spark of hope in her heart was painful. Why had she hoped anyway? Didn’t she know how similar she and her father were, both with that strong-willed character that never went back on a decision? Had she not had endless arguments with her father over his opposition to the formation of the republic, despite his secretly offering money for the troops during the war of independence in Anatolia? He was in awe of Atatürk, but his loyalty lay with the sultan. Sabiha used to tell them off: “Don’t tell me that you’re back on that same old subject again! Don’t you ever get tired of arguing and not coming to any conclusion?” They never tired. Selva continuously pointed out that their father’s progressive ideas about freedom suited the republic’s ideals, while Fazıl Reşat Paşa never stopped insisting that it was wrong to end the sultanate. They had argued for hours.

When Selva pleaded for her father’s blessing to marry Rafo, she used the same logic she had learned from him. But deep inside, she knew he would never give his consent. When she sat at his bedside after his humiliating attempt at suicide, she knew he would never
forgive her. She could never forget how, when he had recovered, he’d opened his eyes and looked at his family gathered around the bed, but closed his eyes when he saw her. He’d not only closed his eyes, but closed his heart, forever. Selva wondered if her decision to leave the country had been encouraged by this attitude. Could it be that she had decided to leave because she couldn’t bear to be ignored by her father? God knew how often she had thought this through. Before falling asleep in her husband’s arms, she had thought about it hundreds—no, thousands—of times. Once Rafo’s passionate thrusting was over and he held her affectionately, she forgot her passion for him and opened the window of longing for her father. Sometimes she’d think about him until the early hours of the morning. Missing him, longing for his love and care, her heart breaking into pieces.

She’d paid a high price for offending her father, but she was never able to talk about her bitterness with Rafo or anybody else. What was the name of that stout German man, the one working for the immigration department in Istanbul? Until the day he had informed her of her father’s concern, she hadn’t hoped for forgiveness, even though, from time to time, she’d said to Rafo, “It may all settle down one day.” But now she began to realize that forgiveness and concern were two entirely different things. Fazıl Reşat Paşa would do all he could to carry out his fatherly duties, but that was all. She had hoped in vain. She could still vividly remember that awful echoing sound, the shattering of the gigantic mirror and the china vases in the living room. That sound, similar to the shrill sound of a soprano, still echoed in her ears. Surely her father, who had broken those rare objects as if breaking the ties that held them together, wouldn’t meet her at the station. No, he wouldn’t.

Rafo passed Fazıl to Selva so that she could show him to her mother, who was standing behind the glass partition by the exit.
She tried to pull herself together and lifted her son high up for her mother to see. It was just then that she noticed a gray-haired gentleman, holding a cane, waiting farther away from the crowd. He was leaning against one of the cast-iron columns in the distance, without moving a muscle.