Barbara Nadel - Arabesk

Bought, so it was said, with the proceeds of her third album, Tansu's house had been originally designed to emulate the German Bauhaus style. And indeed as an installationesque, artily functional type of building it would have worked. But with big pink painted roses adorning every door plus gaudy posters of now rather old European film stars on every wall, the house looked violated. The fact that the young architect who had drawn up the original plans in 1972 had, co-incidentally, shot himself seven years later was the subject of some mirth amongst those people possessed of taste. It was these same people, usually educated folk, who also liked to laugh at the lady herself.

The woman who was now teetering noisily across her brilliantly polished parquet flooring was, in spite of her young lover's universally acknowledged obsession with her, something of an old joke. Tansu's official line on her own life was that she had come to Istanbul from her home city of Adana in 1970 at the tender age of sixteen. That she left a child who was already ten years old behind her was something Tansu never mentioned. And when the child, now a man of nearly forty, had spoken to a reporter from Hurriyet back in Tansu's darkest days, in the late 1980s, it had caused her to disown her son completely and nearly ruined her career to boot Had Erol Urfa not come into her life three years previously and helped her rebuild both her career and her self-esteem she would now, she knew, be as wrinkled and as unemployable as the numerous fifties European film stars upon whom she had once modelled herself.

Struggling both with shoes that were too high for her and with barely contained anxiety, Tansu reached for the bottle of pills on the coffee table.

'If only he would phone me himself I could rest,’ she said as she attempted to take the lid off the bottle.

Her companion, a woman who looked like a slightly younger, more relaxed and considerably more sensibly shod version of Tansu, calmly reached out and took the bottle from the latter's shaking hands. 'Erol will call as soon as he is able,' she said. 'You will be the first to know if it is anything serious.'

With a petulant flick of her long platinum hair, Tansu threw herself down onto one of her chintz sofas and then let her hands fall heavily between her thin, brown knees. 'That man I spoke to could have been something to do with the bitch,' she growled, her eyes suddenly hard and full of spite.

The other woman, taking Tansu's hand in hers, placed two pills in her palm. 'Here, take these, they'll make you feel better.'

'Could even be her brother.'

'Except that you said his voice was posh,' the other replied, her tone slightly amused. 'Ruya is a village girl, remember, about as posh as your Erol.'

'My Erol is perfect and don't you forget it!'

'That is not quite what you were saying last night, dear,' the other replied as she pawed a little obviously at the small book at her side.

'Why you-'

'Oh, for the love of Allah,' the other woman cried, her patience snapping, 'take your tranquillisers, Tansu, and shut up!'

For a moment Tansu looked as if she might object to what had been said, but then she took the pills and when they had gone placed her hand across her large, heaving breast in a gesture of relief.

The other woman raised an eyebrow. 'Better?' she inquired.

Tansu sighed heavily and then flicked her sunglasses down from her head to cover her eyes. 'You know that the bitch is also a witch, don't you?' she said as she moved her attention from pills to cigarettes.

'No, she isn't,' the other woman said, expressing just enough obvious 'patience' in her voice to give it an edge. 'She is, as I have said before, just an ordinary girl from Erol's village. He married her because he was long ago betrothed. It's village stuff, Tansu. You know the score.'

'No, I don't! I come from a city!'

'Yes, you do, as do I and our brothers. But Mum and Dad came from Peri which, as we all know, is not shown on all maps.'

'Oh, shut the fuck up, Latife!' As she spoke, Tansu dropped her heavy onyx table lighter onto the floor. Its weight shattered one of the wooden parquet panels.

A veteran of many similar scenes, Latife bowed her platinum head just slightly towards the floor, averting her eyes from those of her sister. 'I'd be careful of the floor, Tansu,' she said calmly.

'Oh,-fuck the fucking floor!' shouted Tansu, now up and prowling once again. 'I can always get another fucking floor!' She threw both arms dramatically into the air. 'What I want is my love! I want him to come here to my bed! I want to know that his "indisposition" doesn't mean screwing that flat-chested little bitch!'

'But you have done all you can, Tansu. You telephoned Aksoy Bey-'

'Who has not bothered to return my call! Who has switched his mobile telephone off so he doesn't have to speak to me!'

'Well, if you're that worried, why don't you and I go up to Ìstiklal-'

Her speech was swiftly and effectively cut short by the smart slap Tansu delivered to the side of her sister's face.

'I have to attend a lunch at the officers' club in less than an hour, you stupid whore!' Then gathering her breath and her composure as comprehensively as Tansu ever could, she continued more calmly, 'I cannot let our soldier boys down. If I let them down then I let Turkey down.'

'And you are all of Turkey's darling.' It was said without irony. But had Tansu turned away from dramatically staling at the ceiling (and at scenes from her own legend depicted thereon) she would have noticed that Latife was smiling just a little.

'Yes, I am,' Tansu said and for a moment she held onto the heroic pose before, with a small whimper, she threw herself back onto the couch. 'But how will I endure it without knowing where my darling is?'

'You'll just have to be strong, won't you?'

'Yes. Yes, I will.' Tansu drew heavily on her cigarette and then sat up. Her face, now heavily stained with tear-sodden make-up, was attempting to resolve itself into a mask of passion. 'For Turkey.’

'Yes. For Turkey,' her sister said as if doing something awfully mundane like reading a shopping list. She picked up her book and rose to leave the room. But as she passed the rapt Tansu, she bent down towards her and said, 'You want me to get your favourite columnists there just before or just after you arrive?'

.Without altering her melodramatic pose, Tansu replied, 'Before.'

'And will you be happy brave or choking back the tears brave?'

'I think that military men would prefer real sacrifice,' Tansu said quietly. 'They will want, I feel, to know that I still love them even in the midst of personal crisis. It mirrors their unselfish bravery for the motherland.'

Latife, who was now standing by one of the rose-painted doors, looked down at her-sister and suddenly, with almost overwhelming affection, said, 'Whatever you want, my dove.'

By the time the news about Tansu Hanim's emotional breakdown at the officers' club and the subsequent press dash to the supposedly dying Erol Urfa's Ìstiklal Caddesi apartment had reached the ears of Çetin Ìkmen, Mehmet Suleyman was already on his way to his former superior's Sultan Ahmet apartment With Urfa now being looked after by his manager and forensic all over the apartment, he needed a few minutes at least away from the press corps in order to collect his thoughts. Çöktin, who had not as yet come into contact with the press, was out looking for the elusive Cengiz Temiz as well as co-ordinating activities with regard to Urfa's still missing daughter. The man that reporters were already describing as 'the dashing investigating officer' literally fell across the toy-strewn entrance to the Ìkmen family home.

'If you continue to steal Tansu Hamm's air time she'll pull your face off,' the older man grinned as he warmly embraced his colleague.