Barbara Nadel - Arabesk

Sinan wiped the first bead of sweat of the day from his brow and then smiled. 'You'll be able to pick holes in his method.'

'I expect I will. And I'll probably become angry in the process and might need to be left alone for a while in order to rage.'

'So if I hear you huffing and swearing as if you're actually in physical pain…'

'You will know that I am simply enjoying a good read about murder, Turkish identity and lokum.' 'And not-‘

'And not intoxicated in any way, shape or form. Just stimulated and annoyed.’ He laughed and then lit another cigarette.

'Right,' Sinan agreed, lighting one of his own.

'OK.'

'OK, Dad, fine.' -

Gently, but with some insistence, Sinan reached out and took the book from his father's hands.

Confused by this action, Ìkmen mumbled, 'Hey! What the-'

'Nice try, Dad,' the younger man said as he clutched the book tightly to his chest. 'But if you think that anyone in this family is going to leave you alone in the apartment for more than a minute, even if it is just supposedly to read a book, then you must think again.'

Uncharacteristically, Ìkmen was, for a moment, dumbstruck.

'You see, Dad,' his son continued, 'I know all about your bribing Bulent to buy you a bottle of brandy. Which, by the way, he and his friend have now probably consumed.' He held up one small hand in order to silence his blustering, red-faced father. 'I know this because when you tricked Mum into leaving the house this morning, I got up and intercepted my brother before he could see you. Bulent is now at

Sami's apartment and when he returns some time later on today he will, knowing him, have a very sore head. You will have no brandy and I might as well continue to read this book which will not now provide you with a cover for your drinking activities.'

Ìkmen, livid and desperate, raked his ringers viciously through me strands of his thick, greying hair. 'But I am so bored with this illness! I'm so sick of the pain! I am so humiliated to be so fucking useless!' Then turning to face his son, his eyes just a little wet from tears of frustration, he added, 'And I am so ashamed of what must be the most amateurish attempt at deception in all the history of dishonesty!'

Sinan smiled. 'It was quite dreadful, yes. Were you not unwell I would be afraid that you might have-'

'Lost the plot? Yes,' Ìkmen said, turning to look out into the sun-flooded street once again, 'yes, I feel very much like that myself. When I'm not feeling nauseous I'm having my guts stabbed from inside by some invisible bastard. It's hell! All I want to do is get back to how I was before – go back to work and, yes, have a few drinks just to make the day run more smoothly. Be myself with all my faults and foibles and… and, oh, just do what I do!'

'Until you get better you can't.'

'But while I'm idle like this I'm tense!' As if to illustrate the point, Ìkmen held his slightly shaking fingers up to his son's face. 'What if they decide to force me to accept retirement? They've already made Suleyman up to inspector.' 'At your request, Dad.'

'I can't dispute that Nor would I change it I like him. He's a good man and a fine officer. But,' and here he shrugged, a half smile hanging loosely about his lips – hopelessness tinged with just the slightest hint of his usual sharp humour, 'but if I, ulcer or no ulcer, do not get back to my work soon I am going to turn into one of those contradictory men your Mr Pamuk speaks of.'

'Identity confusion is common to all Turks.'

'Oh, is it?' With some difficulty Ìkmen pulled himself up to his full height 'I think not Well, at least it isn't for me, or rather it wasn't until I got this bastard illness.'

'Yes, but Dad-'

'No! I know you think that all this rest nonsense is the answer to my problems, but I know myself better than anyone and I can tell you that it is not. I need to be out there,' he said, sweeping both arms out across the dramatic panorama of the old city, the Blue Mosque, the Hippodrome, Aya Sofya – his city, 'on the street with Suleyman, Cohen, Arto Sarkdssian, even bloody Ardiç’

Sinan, who found his father's fiery eyes and heroic posture just a little amusing, pulled Ìkmen's arms back down to his sides. 'Sorry, Dad,' he said, 'but the Eva Peron pose was just a little bit too much for me.'

Suddenly deflated and, if the truth be known, also very tired, Ìkmen sank down heavily onto one of the wooden chairs that ringed the small table. 'Sorry’

'That's OK. I just wish I could help you, that's all. But until you've something to do that you actually want to do, I don't see how any progress can be made.'

'I must await developments,' Ìkmen said with a shrug.

Sinan sat down beside his father and took one of his hands gently between his fingers. 'Perhaps you should look upon this time in the same light you do when you are waiting for a break in one of your cases.'

'Dead time.'

Sinan laughed. 'Is that what you call it?'

'Yes,' Ìkmen said, his thin face resolving into the ghost of a grin.

'So what do you normally do during dead time then?' Sinan asked hopefully. Perhaps his father could use some of his dead time activities now.

'Well, first I bend my mind to the problem in as concentrated a fashion as I can,' Ìkmen explained.

'And then?'

'And then I get horribly drunk, consult a few dubious soothsayers and generally come up with some sort of plan from thereon.'

'Dad!'

'Well, you asked,' Ìkmen said, his eyes twinkling evilly. 'You asked, I told you, you didn't like my answer…'

'Which leaves us precisely where?' Sinan said, letting go of his father's hands and lighting another cigarette.

Ìkmen, who joined his son in yet another smoke, put his head down into his hands and sighed. 'Awaiting developments, I suppose’ he said. And then through gritted, furious teeth, 'Patiently, fucking waiting!'

When what is now Ìstiklal Caddesi was called the Grand Rue de Pera, back in Ottoman times when heavily fezzed Sultans routinely appointed food tasters, comical midgets and other such exotica, the apartments that still line this great thoroughfare were predominantly residential. More recently, however, due to a combination of high rents, lack of modern amenities and a certain shabbiness not entirely acceptable to younger Turkish citizens, many of these dwellings are now used as offices or storerooms. Nestling between shops selling Nike, Armani or Hugo Boss, once impressive, heavily stuccoed doorways can easily be found by those with an eye for such things. Lintels bearing legends written in the Roman alphabet proudly proclaim 'Apartments Paris', 'Apartments de Grand Rue de Pera'; examples all of the late nineteenth-century Ottomans' love of and undying admiration for anything and everything Gallic. That most of these once elegant apartment buildings now house either large numbers of fake Lacoste sweatshirts or groups of young men and women working diligently at word-processors and chattering mainly in Turkish is merely, a reflection of how quickly and totally times have changed. So common is it for these once elegant, now draughty apartments to be used for commercial purposes that the few that remain as residences are almost ignored.

It was therefore into an Ìstiklal Caddesi unaccustomed to the tragedies of birth, marriage and death that the young man with the sharp Kurdish features ran when he found the body of the young woman. Out of his home in the Apartments izzet Pasa and into a street that, early in the morning as it was, remained almost as still as it had been at four and five, the dead hours of the night. Only two old men, peasants in felt caps, smoking cheap cigarettes and clacking rosaries between their fingers, saw the youngster as he passed, weeping and red-faced, like a fallen angel tearing madly away from his wrathful God. Not that the men commented, of course. The young man obviously had problems of some sort, but given his current condition, it would be both difficult and probably prurient for either of the old men to inquire what they might be.