Yasemın Aydinoğlu - Istanbul Noir

Still doubled over, he slipped out of his hiding place and started weaving his way through the boats. He’d forgotten all about the fuzz; his hand went to his pocket and he pulled out his switchblade.

He approached the man in complete silence, deftly, carefully, but then, just as he was about to assume his position, the man turned his head.

And Tufan, there before a face he recognized even in the dim light of a distant lamp, did not know where to hide his knife.

“Ekber Amca? ”

The old man squinted at him. His eyes searched the face of the younger man, who swiftly moved to conceal his weapon behind his back. Ekber Amca’s eyes, wrinkled around the edges, sparkled at finally having found what he was looking for, and a smile immediately spread across his face.

“Tufan?”

“Amca, what are you doing here at this hour?”

“I’m waiting.”

“For what?”

Instead of answering, the old man motioned for Tufan to sit next to him. Come, sit down. Don’t stand there, I don’t know how long we’ll be waiting. Tufan looked at him, puzzled.

“Come,” the old man said. “Don’t be afraid, they can’t see you anymore.”

“Who?”

“Weren’t you just running from the police?”

Tufan continued to stare at him with uncomprehending eyes.

“Just come here and sit down. It’s good that you’ve come. We can have a chat.”

Tufan didn’t know what to say. It was their downstairs neighbor, Ekber Amca.

Oh man, Ekber Amca was on my case all the time when I was a kid! Don’t play in the garden, watch out for the flowers, don’t pick the plums until they’re ripe... He’d yell at me all day, and go tattle to my daddy at night. Got plenty of ass kickings thanks to you, huh, Ekber Amca? But then, can’t really blame you much. You don’t really get it when you’re a kid though, do you? Your wife had passed away, your kids had grown up to be useless ingrates, and nobody ever called on you anymore. You were screwed, nothing left, nothing but your house. Loneliness. I didn’t understand it at the time, of course. Crotchety old man just looking for somebody to yell at, that’s what I thought. My mom, may she rest in peace, she stayed out of it most of the time, but my dad, he’d beat the crap out of me, just ’cause I’d ruffled your feathers. Probably because he was sick of your nagging. My dad was a crank anyways, had no tolerance for me getting on anybody’s nerves. A call from the principal’s office, and whap . Someone in the neighborhood ratted on me and it was, “Come here, boy!” Ekber Amca, man, you know what, you were the freaking bane of my existence; you still like that now or what, you son of a—? I was a kid, man, how could I know what you were up against?

“Of course, how could you?” said the old man, his eyes still fixed on the horizon, which was covered in a sheet of darkness, pierced only by the lights of the Princes’ Islands. “You were a child.”

Ah fuck! Is this guy reading my mind?

“Of course I am. What’s wrong with that?”

Fine, then read this!

“Shame on you, Tufan. All grown up, but still the same old good-for-nothing punk.”

What the hell do you know about what I am?

“I know you got mixed up in drugs and whatnot, dropped out of college, and made a royal mess of your life. And I know that you deal out on the avenue. That enough for you?”

Oh, c’mon! Man, what’s going on here? Is this some kind of dream or something?

“Dream...” The old man peered intently at Tufan. “A dream, of course. What did you think it was? I’m sitting here at the breakwater, by myself, at some ungodly hour. It’s dark out. I’m alone. You run away from the police and come here. Yep, a dream. All of it. Life, etcetera. It’s all one big dream... What? ‘Cheap-ass philosophy,’ you say? Now look here, you little twerp!”

“Not swallowing it, Ekber Amca. I don’t get whatever it is you’re up to, but I’m out of here.” He started to get up, and the old man smiled again.

“Sit down. What kind of a man are you anyway? Aren’t you the least bit curious? Shouldn’t you be wondering what the hell some old man like me is doing out here like this? Sheesh.”

Tufan turned and stared at the head of the breakwater. Shit! Those guys are still here. There, over there, where I jumped into the breakwater.

“Don’t bother, son. They can’t see you.”

Tufan frowned. What do you mean?

“I mean, they can’t see you. Forget it. Now look here, I’ve got something to tell you: I think heaven’s around here, somewhere.”

“Wha—?”

“Heaven, I said. I think it’s around here somewhere.”

Tufan glanced over his shoulder again. The two plainclothes narcs who’d just been chasing after him, and who a short while before had tried to bust him as he was passing the goods to some upstart, were still standing in front of the two boats he’d slid between after jumping into the breakwater.

“What do you think?”

Tufan looked again at the man sitting next to him. Okay, so this is definitely Ekber Amca. So...

“Calm down now, son. Like I told you, they can’t see you. So now, tell me, what do you think?”

“About what?”

“Boy, would you stop looking around? They can’t see you. So?”

“So what?”

“You know, heaven.” “What freaking heaven?”

“Heaven heaven.” He motioned vaguely toward the sea. “I think it’s somewhere around here.”

“Heaven?”

“Yes.”

“Around here?”

“Yes.”

“You mean, in the sea?”

“No, son. I mean in Şaşkınbakkal.”

“Heaven? Heaven, like, paradise? In Şaşkınbakkal.”

“Yep.”

Tufan laughed. Heaven? You’ve had a little too much to drink there, have you, amca? I mean, if you’re talking about hell, okay, but Ekber Amca, if this haven of lowlifes is any kind of heaven, at best it’s a heaven for rich bastards.

“Shame on you, Tufan.”

What, you saying it ain’t true? What middle-class stiff can buy anything from those stores on the avenue? How much is the rent? But never mind that, you know how nuts they go for these worthless pills? No, of course you don’t.

“How could I know, son?”

Well, then who are you to talk? What kind of heaven could this place possibly be?

“What’s heaven like then, Tufan?”

“Shit, I don’t know... Huri s, gılman s, all that stuff.”

“So, let’s start with the huris. You mean to say there aren’t any girls here? But what beauties there are on our street alone!”

“Uhh, for example...?”

“Esra, Arif’s daughter, on the third floor?”

“Who? That slut Esra?”

The old man pursed his lips together and gave Tufan a stern look.

“What?” Tufan said. “You’re not going to tell me about Esra now, are you? Oh man, Ekber Amca... kids these days ain’t what they were back in your day, you know!”

“I know,” the old man said. He sighed, shook his head. “I know.”

Tufan felt his stomach knot up. Man, did I say something wrong?

“No, son, why do you think it’s wrong? If you say so, it is so.”

“Look here,” Tufan said, trying to cheer the old man back up. “Your whole heaven business already went belly up.”

“How’s that?”

“I mean, you’re talking about beautiful girls, and you fell flat with that first example.”

“How so? You mean Esra isn’t pretty?”

“Of course she is. She’s beautiful, but—” He paused. Man, you can’t just come up and tell him the chick puts out to everyone and his brother just for a couple of grams of powder. But then you did already blurt out the whole slut thing... C’mon now, amca, you sit at that window all day. Don’t you see that girl coming and going? You think those sunken eyes are from studying all the time? Can you really be that fucking naïve? Man! He raised his head and looked at the old guy. “You were reading my mind again, weren’t you?”