Ìkmen shrugged. 'I guess my mother would have known him then.'
'I should imagine so,' Father Yiannis replied. 'But it was all a very long time ago now, Mr Ìkmen.' Nodding in the direction of Bulent, he added, 'We must look to the future and, especially, to the young.'
Noticing that Bulent was now squinting in the harsh sunlight, Ìkmen wordlessly passed his sunglasses over to his son who put them on.
'Yes, that's true, Father,' Ìkmen said, smiling.
'You do know, of course, that the haman has been left to Mrs Arda?'
'Semra?' Ìkmen shrugged. 'Well, that's good. Whether she sells it or gets it going again, it means that the extra money will enable that daughter of hers to leave the streets.'
The priest frowned. ‘I understand that Mina is still in your cells right now though, Mr Ìkmen?'
'Yes,' Ìkmen said gravely. 'We cannot overlook attempted abduction charges. I mean she did intend to keep that child even after she discovered her identity. And there are drug charges too, involving her pimp who is a foreign national. It's complicated.'
'When she is released she will however have somewhere to go, though,' the priest said.
'Which is good, yes.' Ìkmen smiled.
'Yes,' Father Yiannis agreed. Then he shook hands with both Ìkmen and Bulent and returned to the confines of his church. The Ikmens, for their part, walked the short distance back up onto istiklal Caddesi and then turned left.
'Do you want some tea before we go home?' Ìkmen asked his son as they walked past a tram that was headed for Taksim Square.
'No, I want to get this suit off’ Bulent replied in his customary mumbling tone.
'It looks good on you. Smart,' his father observed. 'It's Orhan's.'
'Yes. But if you would like one of your own . . ‘
'Suits aren't really my style.'
This effectively killed the conversation and the two continued walking in silence, the tall son slouching along in front of his much shorter father, Ìkmen tried to divert himself from his son's mood by looking into the windows of shops and restaurants as he went but eventually he felt that he had to speak again, he had to try. In spite of the heat and his own lack of fitness, Ìkmen speeded up until he drew level with Bulent's bowed shoulders.
'What
is
your problem, Bulent?' he asked, attempting but failing to catch his son's eye.
'What do you mean?' ,
'I mean, why is it that you can behave so well with others, like you did in the church just now, and yet when it comes to myself and your mother and indeed anyone who has authority over you—'
'I don't want to talk about it'
'No, you never do.'
'Look,' the boy turned to face his father now, an almost violent expression crossing his eyes. 'You're not at work so don't try to come on to me like a policeman, OK?'
‘I’m not'
'You are.'
Resisting, for once, the urge to fly into a rage and men justify it with his authority over his son, tactics which so far had not worked, Ìkmen took a deep, calming breath before he spoke again.
'So is it my job? Does it bother you that I'm a policeman? Is it that I'm an establishment figure?'
The boy just shrugged.
'I mean that could explain your drinking and—' 'No.'
'Then is it your older brothers and sister?' Ìkmen asked, now quite desperate for some sort of explanation from his son. 'Are you jealous of their achievements? Do you feel that you have to try and live up to them?'
'What, be a doctor?' Bulent sneered. 'Not likely!' 'Well what than?'
1 don't want to talk about this any more.' Thrusting his hands deep into the pockets of his brother's suit, Bulent walked off rapidly.
'Bulent!’
Once again Ìkmen found himself chasing, breathlessly, after this miserable boy - a boy who, if he wasn't too careful, was going to cause his father to have a heart attack.
'Bulent!'
The boy stopped and then rounded on his father with an expression of such naked animosity that for a moment Ìkmen was rendered speechless.
'What?'
'Bulent...' And then he saw that a trickle of water was dripping from underneath the sunglasses he had given his son. 'Bulent, are you c—'
'No!' He turned away quickly in order, it was easy for Ìkmen to see, to wipe the tears from his eyes.
'Oh yes you are,' Ìkmen said and then quickly changing to a far older strategy, he firmly took hold of his son's arm and steered him into a small and shady side street.
'Now, what’s the matter, Bulent?' he said sternly. 'No more games, no more guessing. Just tell me what is going on in your brain and tell me now.'
'I can't.'
'Yes, you
can’
his father said, watching all the time to check that the small group of headscarfed women opposite did not take too much notice of them.
'Why do you have a problem with authority? Why can't you keep the simplest job? You're not stupid! Why are you drinking?'
'Well, if I'm going to die in the very near future then why not!'
For a moment the world and everything in it came to a halt as Ìkmen attempted to come to terms with what his son had just said.
'Die?'
'Well, I'm going to the army soon, aren't I?' Bulent spat venomously. 'Same thing!' He dropped his voice. 'And if I don't get killed then I'll go mad like Yusuf
Cohen and that terrifies me. As soon as I heard about him I just lost it, you know: It's not that I'm afraid to fight because I'm not But I don't want to kill people: Some of my friends' families came from the east Why should I want to kill them?'
'Bulent, you don't even know where you'll be sent yet And anyway, it's not for a couple of years. You might not—'
'Dad, I'm not going in as an officer. Boys like me are just gun fodder.'
Ìkmen put his hand gently on his son's shoulder and led him over to a small table that stood in front of a tiny kebabci. 'Let's have some ayran and cool down a bit,' he said.
After settling Bulent into a seat, Ìkmen went up to the window and bought the drinks. When he returned, his son was looking disconsolately at the ground.
'Bulent,' Ìkmen said, sitting down opposite the boy, 'service is, I fear, just part of life. I did it, your brother Sinan has served . . .'
'Sinan went in as an officer.'
'Because he has a university degree, yes.'
Bulent downed his ayran in one gulp. 'Some boys get bought out and I did think of asking Uncle Halil to do that for me but then I thought that was unfair. He's always bankrolling this family. And anyway he would think I was a coward. Others disappear to other countries, but . .. but I couldn't do that because of your job. How would it look if a senior policeman's son ran away from his duty?'
Ìkmen sighed. So this was it, was it? All this trouble was about Bulent wanting to live a little before he died - if he died, Ìkmen could not even begin to think about an easy answer to Bulent's conundrum. The boy was right, if he deserted it would look bad for Ìkmen himself and with all the mouths he had to feed, that was not a prospect he wanted to face. Not that he would express this to his son. And then Bulent's thoughts about the action that was not really a war, that raged year in and year out in the eastern provinces, accorded with Ìkmen's own opinions. Although he would never have voiced his thoughts in public and despite the fact that Ìkmen believed that a lot of the PKK fighters were just common murderers, he knew some Kurdish nationals, liked many and was naturally averse to killing anyone or anything. But none of this was any help to his son.
If it's any comfort,' he said as. he placed his half-finished ayran back onto the table, 'I don't think that you're a coward. I think your aversion to killing people is commendable.' He smiled. 'I know I've never been a very good example to you with regard to bad habits, getting you to go and buy alcohol for me and . . . But your mother and I must have done something right to make you think like this. When you kill, even for the security of your country, you have to live with that knowledge for the rest of your life and that's not easy.'
For the first time that day, Bulent smiled. 'Thanks for understanding, Dad.'
'Not that I can help you at all,' Ìkmen said with a shrug. 'I can't'
'If I knew I was going to be drafted to Cyprus, I'd be OK,' Bulent said, frowning down at the ground once again.
'As you know, my son, I am not a religious man,' Ìkmen said, placing a warm hand on his son's shoulder, 'but perhaps just this once we should trust to Allah or whoever or whatever controls the universe. There is nothing we can do but wait and see and, as your mother would say, Insallah you will go to Cyprus.'
'Yes.' Bulent took his cigarettes out of his pocket and offered one to his father. 'Sinan says that as Turks we sit uneasily in this world. We live so much like the Europeans now, well in the city we do anyway, and yet we still need our women to be chaste, we still go out to fight in what Sinan calls a tribal war.'
Ìkmen, declining on principle his teenage son's cigarettes in favour of his own, lit up and smiled. 'Sinan is right and not so right at the same time. Even in civilised England, they engage in their own tribal war in Northern Ireland. Dr Halman can tell you something about that if you wish. But there are no absolutes anywhere, Bulent, absolutes are impossible.
In this so-called Turkish city of ours we live alongside a lot of anomalies. A so-called enemy can join and care about the forces of law, a Greek can marry a castrated relic of the old Ottoman system.' 'And then kill him.'
'For her own reasons, yes. But the human condition, whether one is Turkish, American, Greek or whatever, is nothing if not entirely idiosyncratic. And when your papers arrive to call you to arms, you and you alone will have to make a decision about that. And you will have to do that without reference to either me or your family or even your country. It's your life, Bulent, and whatever values inform your soul will be all that can and will count And whatever your decision, I will always love you, just as my father always loved me, even after I joined what he always liked to call the "fucking bastard" police.'
But Bulent didn't speak after that. Just a tiny breeze was blowing up from the Bosphorus now and he had closed his eyes in order to enjoy fully the coolness on his body and face. Responding to that which all humans share, the need for a moment of peace.
'Oh,' Mehmet Suleyman said as he approached his office door and saw the figure of Erol Urfa standing in front of it 'Tansu Hanim is downstairs, did you come—'
'Tansu is not too interested in seeing me right now,' the singer said with a sad smile.
'Ah. I understand.'
'No, you don't.' Erol shrugged. 'But then why should you.'
Embarrassed by what he now saw as a faux pas on his part, Suleyman opened the door and showed his guest into his office.
'I just came to assure you that as soon as I have buried Ruya, I will come back to the city.' He placed a small piece of paper covered in rather childish writing on Suleyman's desk. 'Here is my address.'
Suleyman took the paper and glanced at it 'You will have to report to the station in Hakkari. If you can let me know when you are going, I can inform them.'
'Yes.'
The cacophony of honking car horns from outside the window seemed to grow louder as the two men were silent for a few moments, until Erol said, 'When the trial is over I will take Merih, my parents and sisters to Germany.'
Suleyman frowned.
'I am told that Shaitan has a different shape there,' the singer continued. His tone was one of sadness rather than bitterness.
'Will you sing there?'
'I have made more money in three years than most men make in their whole lives and fame, for me, has become . . . difficult.'
'I see.'
'We are all leaving our traditional homes now,
Inspector, whether they're in this country, Iraq or Syria.' He got up and walked thoughtfully towards the window. 'My kind. We need to be where peacocks mean nothing to men, where people worship only money.'
'Do you not fear that you may become something of an oddity in those lands? Don't you think you might be even more misunderstood?'
Erol turned, the light from the window behind him throwing his face into a darkened pit of shadows. 'I live in hope that questions about a man's religion are questions that the Europeans do not ask.'
Suleyman looked doubtful. 'I think that they do, Mr Urfa. I think that despite what you might think you believe about their overt materialism, such fundamental differences do have meaning for them too. It was, after all, the Europeans who devised the Court of the Inquisition.'
Erol frowned 'The what?'
'Many centuries ago,' Suleyman explained, 'the Christians in Europe devised a special type of court to try anyone suspected of consorting with demons. They tortured, burnt and hung tens of thousands of people.'
'But not now. They don't do that now.'
'No.' Suleyman smiled. 'No, they don't But what Fm saying to you, Mr Urfa, is that they did. They have a history, just like us, of fear and prejudice against that which they do not understand. And just because they do not feel this way now, perhaps, that doesn't mean that they will not do so in the future. Things change.'
'You're saying I will never be safe, wherever I go?'
'With the cultural ground, metaphorically, shifting beneath our feet every minute of the day, who amongst us is safe?' Suleyman smiled. 'My family, Mr Urfa, once commanded vast armies. We were Ottomans, we ruled the rest of you.' He sighed. 'But now I am a Turk just like everybody else and, like a Turk, I must sometimes decide whether I am going to eat today or just simply smoke a few cigarettes. No one is safe from change, Mr Urfa, no one.'
Tansu Hamm stood in silence as Orhan Tepe noted the time, 3.15 p.m. and date, August 16th, of her entrance into the cells.
'Is Latife Hanim prepared?' he asked the duty officer who was, though responsive, almost dozing under the influence of the extreme heat.
'Yes.'
'Right' And then turning to the white-faced woman at his back he said, 'If you'd like to come this way, madam.'