Baksheesh E-Book

Esmahan Aykol

• Herausgeber: Bitter Lemon Press
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 389

Beschreibung

Praise for the first Kati Hirschel Istanbul mystery: "The heroine is an offbeat amateur sleuth with a distinctive narrative voice. Fans of such female detectives as Amanda Cross's Kate Fansler and Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher will find a lot to like."— Publishers Weekly Kati Hirschel, the owner of Istanbul's only mystery book store, is fed up. It all started when her lover Selim insisted that she behave like the Turkish wife of a respectable lawyer. Looking demure and making witty small talk were the only requirements. Then her landlord announced an outrageous rent increase on her Istanbul apartment. She has no desire to move in with Selim. She'd rather learn the art of bribing government officials in order to find a new place. Kati is offered a large apartment with a view over the Bosphorus at a bargain price. Too good to be true until a man is found murdered there and she becomes the police's prime suspect. In her second novel Esmahan Aykol takes us to the alleys and boulevards of cosmopolitan Istanbul, to posh villas and seedy basement flats, to the property agents and lawyers, to Islamist leaders and city officials—in fact everywhere that Baksheesh helps move things along. Esmahan Aykol was born in 1970 in Edirne, Turkey. She lives in Istanbul and Berlin. She has written three Kati Hirschel novels. Baksheesh is the second and has been published in Turkish, German, French, and Italian. The first, Hotel Bosphorus, was published by Bitter Lemon Press in 2011.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Also available from Bitter Lemon Press by Esmahan Aykol:

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

A Pedestal Bath, a Stove and a New Neighbour

HOTEL BOSPHORUS

Copyright Page

Esmahan Aykol was born in 1970 in Edirne, Turkey. She lives in Istanbul and Berlin. During her law studies she was a journalist for a number of Turkish publications and radio stations. After a stint as a bartender she turned to fiction writing. She has written three Kati Hirschel mystery novels. Baksheesh is the second in the series (following on the success of Hotel Bosphorus) and has been published in eight languages.

Also available from Bitter Lemon Press by Esmahan Aykol:

Hotel Bosphorus

Once again, for him…

1

“I’ll get the Chinese mafia to bump them off,” she said, stirring her barley cappuccino with an elegance that was totally at odds with her even thinking about doing away with somebody.

“The local mafia are cheap and do a clean job. Why the Chinese?”

“If only they were both still here in Istanbul. But they’re not, sweetie. Çetin’s gone back to New York to get a divorce, and his mother’s gone too, with her darling son, her precious little lamb,” she said. “The New York Chinese would take care of them,” she added, sternly.

With my index and middle fingers, I was massaging the skin beneath my chin where it had started to sag slightly – a habit I’d recently developed.

“So, men are right to fear female vengeance. You’re thinking of killing off the poor man and his mother,” I said.

“Actually, it’s the other way round. The mother-in-law is my real target, not my ex.”

Involuntarily, I pulled a face.

“I know you think it’s just normal rivalry between wife and mother-in-law. But believe me, it’s not,” she said, putting her hand over my right hand. The left was still busy working on the massage.

Over the next half-hour, I had plenty of time to practise my chin massage as I listened to Özlem talking about her relationship with her estranged husband and mother-in-law.

Actually, I was in no fit state to be bothering about my friends’ problems at that time. I had plenty of my own, and they were increasing daily. The discovery that my chin had begun to sag was the least of them.

So think how bad the others were.

Approaching her mid-forties, but looking no more than thirty-five, with a great job… Or put another way: what could be missing in the life of a woman who loves reading detective stories and has a shop specializing in crime fiction that provides her with enough to live on, who lives in a city she adores and has a lover she finds attractive, despite his slight paunch – in fact, precisely because of that slight paunch? I kept asking myself this, but each time I ended up feeling worse than ever. As Fatma Hanım would say: only in Turkey!

If you were wondering what that means, dear reader, you don’t know enough about Turkey. Actually, having trekked around a number of different countries, I no longer think so badly of people who know nothing about places outside the country they live in. In fact, I can’t bear to spend more than five minutes reading about events in the country I live in, let alone the town. Anyway, you’ve already met the person best placed to explain the meaning of “only in Turkey”.

“Only in Turkey”, where rents were paid in US dollars or euros, where becoming a tenant entailed providing the owner with an “undertaking to vacate” document that had been certified by a notary. With this document, as its name indicates, you guaranteed that after a certain period of time you would vacate the apartment you were about to inhabit as a tenant. On the day of departure – and even having a lawyer as a lover could not spare you this – you had to leave the home where you had spent bittersweet days, crying, laughing and making love.

Actually, there was another option, which was to pay the rent increase demanded by the landlord. This at least meant getting out of having to move and leaving behind memories of morning coffees on the balcony, the flush that didn’t work properly, the chipped enamel on the kitchen sink, and the doors in the sitting room that didn’t shut completely. Most importantly, it avoided being thrown out into the unknown.

If you, dear reader, had a childhood anything like mine, spent moving from city to city and country to country, then you will know very well what I mean. You know deep down that the cost of moving cannot be counted in financial terms. You understand that no one chooses to move for the sake of a couple of euros.

But that was the problem. It wasn’t just a couple of euros. My poverty-stricken, dried-up old bag of a landlady suddenly wanted an increase of 150 euros. Can you imagine what that meant for this honest, hard-working proprietor of a small bookshop?

It meant a lot of money.

Anyway, the long and the short of it was that I either had to give in and pay the extra 150 euros, or find somewhere else to live.

I decided to find somewhere else – if I could, of course.

I couldn’t do anything until Özlem had finished explaining her monstrous plans, so I used up three precious hours on matters quite unrelated to house-hunting. However, before paying the bill, I used my mobile phone to call an estate agent in Akarsu Road.

You may have noticed in that previous sentence – because I know you’re very smart, dear readers – that I, too, now had a mobile phone. I’d given in about six months before. It wasn’t a new or expensive model, and it was pay-as-you-go. People looked disparagingly at me when I gave them my number or if they saw me talking on my mobile, because Turks in my circle were always exchanging their mobiles and cars for new models. But as you know, I’m not the sort of woman who bothers about that sort of thing. And that’s fine with me.

Before you read any further, I should tell you about something else that was new in my life: I’d dyed my hair. It was previously deep auburn, but for the last ten days it had been orange. I’m not exaggerating – really orange.

Selim, Lale and Yılmaz loved the new colour, and I couldn’t have cared less whether Fofo liked it or not. Anyway, he hadn’t seen it – neither me nor my new hair.

For anyone interested who has not read the previous book, I should explain that Fofo was my housemate and even my closest friend, until he found a lover and left me. He’s a Spaniard who left his partner, friends and city to chase after a few men. His real name is Juan Antonio. Is any of this important? Maybe not. But it just goes to show that novelties in my life amounted to no more than a mobile phone and a new hair colour. As for disasters – they were all related to house-hunting.

I loathed the high heels that had been all the rage since spring. I mean the contorted, shapeless ones. It was already far from easy walking along the uneven streets of Istanbul, but it had become sheer torture because of these weird heels. However, I was never one to make concessions when it came to keeping up with new fashions, so, despite looking like a lame duck, I wore them to make the arduous walk around Taksim Square, down Sıraselviler Road to Cihangir, where I called in at Rüstem Real Estate, 26 Akarsu Road.

By then, the mere words “real estate” or “estate agent” made me shudder. For two weeks I’d been trailing around from dawn to dusk, as if on overtime shifts. No wonder I’d dyed my hair! Every woman going through a crisis changes either the style or colour of her hair, doesn’t she? Don’t turn your nose up at clichés – they are only reflections of the truth. No one knows better than I do that we Germans are stingy, tiresome and prescriptive, with a reverence for authority and hostility towards anyone different from ourselves.

Rüstem, the estate agent, sprang to his feet as soon as I entered, which was only natural given that, if I were to rent any of the dilapidated apartments he’d shown me, he would get a handsome twelve-per-cent commission. You’re no doubt expecting me to rant about people taking commission for real estate or about parasites making money from doing sweet nothing, but I’d said all I had to say about this to my lover and friends, so now I’ll just say that I was feeling on edge.

I left the shop with Rüstem’s assistant, Musa, who was to show me a two-bedroomed apartment in Özoğul Street.

“It has a marvellous view, madam, but needs a bit of work,” he said. I nodded in reply.

I wasn’t afraid of a bit of DIY. Despite fourteen years of living and even going native in Istanbul, I was still German enough to cut costs by doing my own decorating. The fact that this apartment was much smaller than where I was currently living was no problem. I would just chuck stuff out.

What did worry me was the reputation that Özoğul Street had acquired in Cihangir. It was a cul-de-sac with a good view, linked by steps down to Fındıklı at sea level. However, its reputation was not for the view, but for the frequent muggings that happened there. For years, I’d heard stories of women being dragged along the ground when they fought back against muggers stealing their bags. I knew that women couldn’t walk home alone there at night and that taxi drivers were reluctant to go down it because it was a cul-de-sac.

So you see, the fact that I knew Cihangir inside out, to the extent that I had an almost physical connection with it, was a hindrance rather than a help in finding an apartment. Had I been living in one of the matchbox apartments in those horrid bourgeois blocks on the Asian side, where your head practically touches the ceiling when you stand up, I would probably have fallen for Özoğul Street the moment I set foot in it. Not probably, definitely. However, the moment we entered the street, I found myself looking around anxiously, imagining how muggers would use the steps down to Fındıklı as a getaway route.

I returned to Kuledibi and my beloved shop deep in thought. My friends and Selim had been trying to convince me that there were other areas of Istanbul apart from Cihangir, and that I needed to broaden my horizons. But the one thing I was absolutely adamant about was the district I lived in. If I’d been in Berlin instead of Istanbul I wouldn’t have lived in the smart, leafy district of Zehlendorf or fashionable Prenzlauer Berg. I’d have been very happy living in Kreuzberg, mingling in the side streets with the heavy-browed Turkish adolescents who pull faces and spit on the ground from their fashionable cars.

I didn’t live in Cihangir because everything about it was wonderful. What did it have that was so special anyway? Members of the Turkish intelligentsia boasting about being Bach lovers? Why would anyone with no links to Christianity endure the public self-punishment of sitting on a wooden bench in a Protestant church listening to music, when they could be reclining on a comfortable sofa in a sitting room overlooking the Bosphorus without a care in the world? If they were indeed really listening and enjoying a bit of discomfort, was that anything to boast about? Listening to Bach? Taking pleasure from the pain, despite not being Protestant?

The truth was that I had no alternative but to live in Cihangir. Where else could I live? Nişantaşı – where women with blonde-streaked hair trailed around the streets all day shopping? Moda – said to be the first place an earthquake would strike? The Bosphorus waterfront – beyond my wildest dreams on my small budget? Also, I needed to be near my shop. I was no longer a fit young thing, so the more time I spent walking instead of driving in the mornings the better. Furthermore, scientists were claiming that walking on an empty stomach in the mornings helped to burn off free fatty acids.

As I said, I returned to the shop deep in thought at the disappointing prospect of never again finding a place to live where I’d feel happy. Pelin, my assistant, was sitting at her desk as usual. She’d had a sullen look on her face for three days, ever since a big row with her boyfriend that had involved some hurling of dishes. Whatever I did seemed to infuriate her, so I said nothing, to avoid upsetting her.

I made some herbal tea. We both thought it smelled disgusting. The idea that aroma matters less than colour simply isn’t true. Never mind, herbal tea is good for you.

I sat down in the rocking chair with my cup of tea, rocking back and forth, my eyes fixed on a point above the shop window. Rocking back and forth and drinking tea, while Pelin sat at her desk, also drinking tea.

That was the situation at the shop when she appeared in the doorway.

She was wearing black trousers, a T-shirt and a pair of very smart thick-heeled shoes. They were undoubtedly very easy to walk in, unlike the shoes in fashion that year. When she turned around, I noticed she had “young at heart” written on the back of her T-shirt.

It was my friend Candan. She owned a large bookshop in Beyoğlu, and it was she who had suggested I took on Pelin, one of her former employees.

“What brings you here?” I asked. She hadn’t set foot in the shop since my opening cocktail party four years earlier. But I didn’t mention that.

“I’m looking for a book by Barbara Vine and I thought you might have it,” she said.

She was joking of course. The thought of Candan going out looking for a book was ridiculous. I laughed.

“You do know that Barbara Vine is Ruth Rendell’s pen name, don’t you?”

No, it wasn’t me who said that, it was Candan’s former employee Pelin. She fell silent as soon as she saw my icy stare.

However, Candan just smiled and we exchanged a few polite pleasantries. Have I ever mentioned how much I love the coolheadedness of a true businesswoman?

We went out to the Café Geneviz, just on the other side of Kuledibi Square, so that we could be alone, away from that priggish Pelin, and have a decent cup of tea. We discussed everything under the sun before I got onto my house-hunting disaster. It’s never easy explaining to a rich person that you’re forced to move to avoid paying an extra 150 euros a month.

This is how it goes:

First, the friend listens to me without saying a word, probably worried about saying the wrong thing. Then, unable to hold out any longer, she blurts out:

“Why don’t you buy an apartment?”

How? Where would I find the money to buy an apartment? I was moving because I couldn’t afford a rent increase. Was she teasing me?

You can say anything about fiction, newspaper articles, people or politicians to friends with similar tastes, but money is a subject that divides people. While one person is trying to manage by stretching every cent, another is giving their hairdresser a tip of 150 euros. The very sum that was causing me problems.

“Buy an apartment on the cheap,” Candan said, hastily changing tack when she saw the look on my face and sensed what it was that I was unable to put into words.

Despite everything, I didn’t reproach her, but merely responded, “I don’t want to move away from this area. I want an apartment close to my work.”

“Yes, I’m talking about a cheap way of buying an apartment round here. You know the building where I live in Cihangir? Well, it belongs to a minorities’ charity that has a number of places to let or for sale in Kuledibi and Cihangir. Someone I know at this charity told me they have places to rent out near here and I’ve come to have a look at one of them.” Laughing, she took my arm and added, “Maybe I’ll open a rival bookshop in Kuledibi.”

“Does this charity want to sell any apartments?” I asked, ignoring her previous remark.

“Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. As well as buildings to rent, the charity has apartments that are put up for sale once they’re handed over to the Treasury.”

“Just a minute,” I said, “explain this slowly, in a way I can understand.”

She did.

The situation was this: if members of minorities emigrated from Turkey, leaving behind unoccupied immovable property, after a certain period of time that property could be deemed ownerless by a court ruling and turned over to the Treasury. The Treasury could then either let this ownerless property or sell it. It usually took the second of these options, meaning that the property could be sold off at public auction at considerably less than its market value, and that the proceeds of the sale could be registered as Treasury revenue. All you needed to know was where these apartments were located and the dates of the auction. That meant finding someone at the National Real Estate Bureau, a process referred to as “finding a man”, and handing money over to him. Candan didn’t yet know how much money, but claimed she could find someone working at the Bureau who would take me to see some apartments that were to be sold.

For the first time in a long while, I fell asleep the moment my head touched the pillow that night.

I spent the weekend waiting impatiently for Monday to come, unable to enjoy either my Saturday morning rendezvous with Yılmaz or the sushi I ate with Selim on Sunday afternoon.

2

As I walked to the shop on Monday morning, I found myself carefully scrutinizing the buildings along the way with the eye of a buyer. To be honest, until then, I’d never taken any interest in the past residents of Çukurcuma, an area of junk shops trying to look like antique shops, or of Kuledibi, where cosmopolitan confusion reigned, or indeed in the people who had built the lovely old buildings.

All I knew was that Kuledibi had been a district where impoverished Jews lived until the 1950s and that, after the state of Israel was created, a lot of the Jews emigrated, and waves of people from Anatolia came to settle in the area, which was why most of the remaining Jews moved out of Kuledibi to other districts of Istanbul.

Apart from Neve Salom – Istanbul’s largest synagogue – another smaller but more attractive synagogue and a small butcher’s shop selling kosher meat, there was no longer any trace of the Kuledibi Jews who once lived there. There were, of course, the “ownerless” houses and shops that I had learnt about three days before.

Impoverished Anatolian families with lots of children now lived in Kuledibi, not forgetting, of course, the daytime population of chandelier wholesalers and electricians. Actually, if you looked carefully, a gradual change had started in recent years. The area was slowly taking on a new identity as people bought up the houses and started restoring them. My bookstore had been the first shop to sell anything other than chandeliers, and now there were several bars, cafés and even a few expensive hotels in the neighbourhood. A Spanish woman had opened up a bar serving tapas daily and paella one day a month, and there was even a jazz club that drew in the intellectuals.

Towards noon, I called Candan in the hope that she might have found out the necessary information. Pelin had still not arrived at work and I was trying hard not to call her. One of the difficulties of working with young people is having to put up with the vagaries of their lives.

Candan, that wonderful woman, came up with a name and telephone number. Kasım Bey: 0 538 318 44 54. She told me to say that Varol from the Charities Commission sent his regards.

My heart was pounding as I dialled the number.

My conversation with Kasım Bey was short and to the point. Apparently it was not the done thing to discuss such matters over the phone. We agreed to meet at the Duvardibi Tea Garden in Sultanahmet after work. I put the phone down, realizing too late that we had not discussed how we would recognize each other. I wondered if I would be able to pick out a bribe-taking state employee by his appearance. It would be a good test for me, as one who claimed to have such in-depth knowledge of Turks.

Believe it or not, after the briefest hesitation, I made my way between the twenty or so tables in the tea garden directly to where Kasım Bey was sitting. This exercise undoubtedly showed I was a good observer of Turks. However, I cannot deny that there were certain external factors that helped me.

Several tables were taken by young couples who liked to spend romantic early evenings at this tea garden where the music, termed arabesque by Turks, sounded like the meowing of cats.

Other tables were occupied by Turkish families out for an evening stroll – two adults and at least four children.

Northern European tourists were sitting at the tables without any shade, exposing their arms and calves to the shimmering heat of the sun and gazing with endless interest at the dregs in the bottom of their coffee cups. I could have bet a hundred to one that eventually one of them, a German, would ask the waiter for a spoon and start eating the coffee grounds. Germans are the only people who never forget, even as grownups, the tale fed to them as children that anything edible we leave on a plate will cry.

Then there were four tables, each with a single man sitting at them. One was a handsome young man who was reading intently and could not possibly be Kasım Bey. That would have been too good to be true.

The man at the second table looked well past the age of retirement, for a civil servant.

The man at the third table could have been Kasım Bey.

So could the one at the fourth table.

Thinking of the question “Which part of a man do you look at first?” that frequently appears in women’s magazines, I found myself looking at the men sitting at the third and fourth tables. Ah, but you’re wrong – I was looking at their legs!

Kasım Bey was the one wearing brown sandals with white socks.

His shirt was dark blue and crisply ironed.

It was only when I stood next to him that I noticed he stank of sweat.

He got up and we shook hands.

That evening, I went out with Selim and a few of his lawyer friends and their wives with their streaked or dyed blonde hair. We went to an Italian restaurant in Zincirlikuyu, or maybe it was Esentepe. These wealthy, characterless districts of Istanbul were very alike and had never really interested me. I’m sorry to say I could hardly tell where Zincirlikuyu started and Esentepe ended.

There were more waiters, head waiters and commis in the restaurant than there were customers. I counted, and there were exactly twenty people there. I caused a bit of unease around our table when I started talking about hidden unemployment figures and the social upheaval caused by unemployment. As I spoke, they gave each other sidelong glances, thinking I wouldn’t notice; and then the bald, strangely sexy man sitting opposite interrupted to compliment me on my Turkish. It was nothing other than a crude attempt to change the subject and I found it maddening.

In revenge, I said, “Oh yes? You, too, speak very good Turkish.”

I have to confess it wasn’t original – I pinched it from a novel.

I hate to think women are more stupid than men, but it’s only men who laugh at my plagiarized jokes.

However, the splendid bald creature didn’t succumb. Instead, he asked, “Where did you learn Turkish?”

“In Turkey,” I replied, deciding that my revenge was now sufficient, as I caught Selim narrowing his eyes in exasperation at me.

“I was born in Turkey,” I added.

My mother was a German Catholic and my father was a German Jew. They escaped from German fascism and settled in Turkey, where they stayed long after the war ended. I was born in Istanbul and spent the first seven years of my life here.

For the rest of the evening, they avoided unpleasant topics such as social upheaval, employment, tax rises or the forthcoming elections, preferring to laugh about things like the ridiculous cost of a horrid bottle of Chianti.

I wouldn’t say I was anti-capitalist, but, apart from my friends and my lover, I really disliked rich people. Any reader thinking that such people probably disliked me too should note that the splendid bald creature hung on my every word throughout the evening, right in front of both his wife and Selim.

As soon as we got into the car, Selim picked a fight as if it had been my fault. Or rather, I should say he was silent and tight-lipped. He wasn’t the sort of person to row and he would certainly never start one. But his silence would drive me mad and make me say all sorts of things so it always ended up with me starting our arguments.

They’d go something like this:

“Aren’t people strange? You know, what they talk about and so on.”

Selim remains silent.

“Any serious topic seems to be taboo.”

Selim remains silent.

“Is Chianti at that price ever drinkable?”

Selim remains silent.

I feel I want to scratch his face.

To put my fist through the windscreen.

To kick him in the eye with the heel of my shoe.

To force the dog ends in the ashtray into his mouth.

To smash his brains.

To throw the remains of his brain to the alley cats.

Argghh! Most of all, I hated myself!

“Stop the car. I’m getting out.”

He stopped immediately! See what I mean? As if we were playing out a lovers’-tiff scene for some lousy movie where a girl gets out of the car and bangs the door, hitches a lift and gets raped. Or something else awful happens to her.

A long list of swear words was building up inside me. In two languages. German and Turkish.

Of course I wouldn’t actually swear at Selim, not out loud.

The fifty-dollar sea bass was still being digested in my stomach. Goodness knows which seabed it came from, but it had a very grandiose name on the menu and was paid for by my lover, probably the highest tax-paying commercial lawyer in the city that year. I pulled out a wad of notes – with Turkish lira you always have to pay in wads – and left them on the seat as I climbed out. I wasn’t going to slam the door. Everything was dramatic enough. Tragic. Disastrous. Pathetic even.

Before I closed the door, he reached over the seat and held my arm.

“Don’t pull that ugly face,” he murmured.

His words were like a slap in the face. Pow! Right in the middle.

If only he had said something different. Something like, “Don’t be ridiculous” or “Are you crazy?”

I closed the door behind me.

Everything else like house-hunting, the rubbish-collection tax I’d forgotten to pay for years and the stupid high-fashion heels suddenly lost all significance.

“Will you please get back in?” he said. He had now got out of the car and was standing next to me, holding open the door I had just closed and waiting. Waiting for me to get in. The money was still lying on the seat. If I got back in, I’d have to pick it up and put it back in my bag.

For that reason alone, I hailed a passing taxi. Just to avoid taking back that money.

I had an appointment with my accountant at 10 o’clock the next morning. Before leaving home, I checked to see if Pelin had arrived at the shop. She hadn’t turned up at all the previous day. However, she was there. We don’t communicate much by phone. Neither of us really wants to.

I applied some face cream that claimed to reduce puffiness under the eyes, but there was really no point wasting time in front of the mirror covering myself all over with such things so, deciding to ignore the cellulite, I put on my Jackie O sunglasses and went to have a sugarless Turkish coffee at the Firuzağa Café near where I lived.

From there, I took a taxi to the accountant’s. I quarrelled with the driver for going too fast. Turks are crazy drivers. They’re always speeding off to some important business, without a second to lose. As if rushing will close the gap they’ve opened between themselves and the civilized world. Traffic lights have even been fitted with digital chronometers to show the number of seconds remaining before they change. They count backwards: 20, 19, 18… 9, 8, 7… We’re living in a country where every second is of vital importance! The instant those pedestrian zeppelins – mostly housewives and bearded old men – see there are, say, seven seconds to go before the lights turn red, they start running like there’s no tomorrow, just to avoid waiting for the green light to come round again. What on earth do they expect to do with the fifty-one seconds they save?

My driver was worse than the pedestrians. Taxi drivers are maniacs anyway. Even if they don’t start that way, they become first-rate maniacs within a year of driving in Istanbul.

It was a good thing I hadn’t brought the car and took a taxi that morning. My argument with the driver calmed me down. Even his snidest comments wafted over me like a shiatsu massage. Or aromatherapy. A jacuzzi with a bouquet of oils added. Fifteen minutes in the warm waters of a jacuzzi, followed by scented oils kneaded into the muscles, creating fragrant smells and settling the nerves.

I tipped the driver, something I would never normally do.

By about two o’clock, thanks to the cream I’d applied around my eyes, I looked like a new woman. I was sitting with Pelin, silently chain-smoking. It was a sluggish day. We had only sold three cheap paperbacks. I decided that unless some miracle occurred in the next half-hour, I’d phone Lale. The right side of my head was numb with pain and I’d just taken a couple of aspirin. Having eaten nothing since the sea bass the previous evening, I realized my stomach was starting to rumble. And the aspirin had done nothing for my migraine.

I desperately wanted to be the sort of woman who gets in a fluster over finding a place for her five-year-old daughter at the nursery of a well-established school like the German High School. I wanted to be making phone calls all over the place seeking out influential contacts. That was the kind of problem I wanted in my life: problems suitable for my age.

I wanted to be one of the women with highlighted hair who complain about their snoring husbands, wear lamé ballet pumps, vote for social democratic parties and live in an apartment block with a swimming pool.

I wanted to be aiming to lose a kilo in weight, just one kilo, to smoke those long, thin women’s cigarettes with flowers in the filters, to read Danielle Steele, to complain to my female friends that sex with my husband was over, and to cry as I listened to Mariah Carey.

My mobile phone rang. Just once, then it stopped.

With feverish, almost shameful excitement, as if hunting for treasure, I went into the mobile’s menu to see my unanswered calls. There was one number. Not Selim’s, because he kept his undisclosed and it never showed up on the screen. This was an actual number.

Quivering and trembling, I called it.

My caller turned to be Kasım Bey. The bribe-taking civil servant from the National Real Estate Bureau.

Love it or hate it, the telephone connects people to life. After speaking to Kasım, I felt better. We were to meet that evening at the same time and place as before. Just having an appointment with someone, anyone, made me feel better. I ate two toasted cheese sandwiches, drank some tea and went to the chemist for migraine pills. I didn’t call Lale. She was depressed enough anyway, so I refrained from loading her with my problems. Now, once again, I could love my friends, enjoy luxury make-up products, revel in the fact that I wasn’t the mother of a five-year-old girl, and not feel obliged to smother myself all over with cream. I also loved the fact that I wasn’t married and had no problems in my sex life.

I walked from Kuledibi to meet Kasım Bey in Sultanahmet, along streets cooled by downpours of rain a few days before. I adored Sultanahmet and Yerebatan Sarnıcı, the ancient underground reservoir. I often used to go there if I was feeling very depressed, even worse than on that day. The water dripping from the ceiling would comfort me. Yet, isn’t that a form of torture? Is it in fact possible to use absolutely anything to torture people? Can torture consist of something that would normally give pleasure?

I stroked the external reservoir walls that jutted out onto the pavement, as if they housed a sacred place or a sepulchre. The officials looked at me strangely as they tried to close the doors at the top of the steps that twisted and turned as if going down a bottomless well.

Kasım Bey and I were drinking tea and talking about the forthcoming elections. I was trying to work out which party he’d be voting for, but I didn’t ask him. However, Turks have no qualms about asking each other such questions, not even about how much money they earn. Kasım Bey kept complaining about the difficulties of managing on his low public-sector wages. It was clearly a preamble leading up to a request for a bribe. Finally, he named a sum, saying that it wouldn’t be just for himself, but that he had to distribute it to others who would see the job got done. They would share it. Meanwhile, I was converting the sum he had named into euros. It wasn’t unreasonable. He wanted three hundred euros, twice the amount of the increase demanded by my landlady. So little. So cheap. I was going to pay it anyway, whatever the figure, because it would give me the chance to buy a property and escape the tyrannies of landladies for good. If it didn’t work out, it would merely be a gamble that didn’t pay off.

I went to draw some money out of the bank, and Kasım Bey waited for me at the tea garden. He had with him a list of four addresses in the Kuledibi area that were about to be turned over to the Treasury.

“The court case is still ongoing,” he said. “When it’s over, they’ll be put up for sale. Have a look at them, miss, and we’ll go for whichever one you like best.”

Before returning home, I called in at the Cactus Café, where I collapsed onto a bar-stool by the door like some lonely old tramp and ate a Mediterranean salad. It was my favourite salad, almost an antidepressant in itself – soothing for the nerves.

But, like all small pleasures, the pleasure of a Mediterranean salad didn’t last for long.

I’d been better off when I was single, without Selim, before he had even entered my life. I had hope then. I had that secret hope of starting a relationship that would last for ever. I also had a few dates. I certainly wasn’t like this, torn to pieces and suffering like a wounded animal.

I pressed my hand against my ribcage as if I were in physical pain. Was it possible for a wounded heart to have physical manifestations? Had I forgotten all about the scars of my long singleton days? Had I forgotten how a single word could reverberate in one’s head? Over and over, like a stuck record. I opened my mouth wide and let out a silent scream. As I did when I was a child. Like the screams I used to make in my room under the bedclothes.

Why did that quarrel seem so important? It wasn’t even a proper row.

I shan’t drone on about how I passed that night. I was brought up to believe that people should work through their crises on their own and never show defeat. It was a stupid petit bourgeois mentality, but it had been drummed into me. Or maybe being petit bourgeois was genetic and had nothing to do with nurture.

I felt quite good in the morning, which was a surprise. Life is full of surprises! Isn’t it surprising that people can’t even predict their waking mood? I felt as if I’d just spent years with shaven-headed priests in a Buddhist monastery where spiders were spinning webs over the monastery doors. I felt as if I was flying, as if I weighed no more than seventeen kilos. However, I pulled myself together, or at least most of myself.

I dressed colourfully in a green blouse that revealed a bit of cleavage, a sand-coloured skirt with a slit at the back and red slingbacks with ridiculous heels. I looked like a girl on the make again, but this time with orange hair. I felt the orange hair gave me more chance of finding a man to grow old with.

As soon as I left the house, I realized I wasn’t quite together enough. It was obvious, because I could hardly keep myself upright.

I felt blood oozing down my legs as I walked towards my car. Warm and sticky. Alarmed, I felt my legs with my hand. It was just sweat. Sweat! A physical reaction to mental or emotional suffering. Whenever I was in that sort of state, I would feel as if some part of me was starting to bleed, but of course it never did.

I got into the car and put my foot down on the accelerator. There were four addresses to find. I needed to keep focused on apartments. I could do it. One of the addresses Kasım Bey had given me the previous day might turn out to be my future home. If I didn’t like any of them, my money wouldn’t be wasted of course, because he would keep finding others for me until I found one I liked.

“We’re not conmen, miss,” he had said with sincerity. Should one believe the assurances of a civil servant who accepts bribes? The truth is I didn’t know. Paying bribes wasn’t a daily occurrence in my life. I had no occasion to do it. Why would the owner of a little bookstore need to bribe anyone?

Contrary to expectation, my stomach had not heaved as I handed over the bribe money. I hadn’t felt any self-disgust when I gave the wad of money to Kasım Bey. Many of my acquaintances paid bribes – maybe that was the reason.

Selim!

With superhuman effort, I stopped myself from letting my thoughts get locked around that name. I needed to find an apartment to keep my mind focused. An apartment that would mean using up all my savings, selling my car, getting loans from my mother and brother. Yes, an apartment.

Look at me. Had I even thought of buying an apartment until a few days ago? Hadn’t I been looking for a place to rent? How quickly I’d warmed to the idea of buying property, stacking up debts all over the place and putting down roots in this city.

I was in no mood to get stressed about finding a free parking place, so I decided to pay up and leave my car in a little car park close to my favourite tea garden in Kuledibi. From there, I went on foot to find the addresses. The first two buildings looked very disappointing from the outside. But the first was better than the second. It was a detached, narrow-fronted house, probably with a garden at the back. I’m talking about a proper house, not an apartment block. A family with countless children was living in it, which would mean having to force them out if I were to buy it.

The third address was just behind the second, in Papağan Street, one of the streets that opened onto Kuledibi Square. I’d passed it countless times, not just the street but this very building, and each time I’d gazed longingly at it. How come I hadn’t realized that one of the addresses on Kasım Bey’s list belonged to this building?

I thought I was going to break down in tears at the front door.

That was another surprise.

Such is life.

I didn’t manage to see my very own future apartment, because I couldn’t get anyone to open the door, but I did see an apartment on the floor below when I went back to the building ten minutes later. I blurted out some silly words in convincing tones to the man who opened the door, saying that I’d heard there was an apartment for sale around there and did he know of one in that building.

He had Mongolian-type features, probably a Tatar, and he was clearly less amused by my patter than I was.

“You’re too late, madam. This one was sold a month ago,” he replied with a serious expression on his face.

“You’re joking,” I said.

“Why should I joke about it, madam? It was for sale and a buyer turned up with thirty-two thousand dollars. The new owners have given us three months to get out. I don’t know what they intend to do with it. Live in it, I think. This area has become much sought after recently. But you know that, of course, because you want to buy something here too.”

“OK,” I said, “but could I have a quick look inside? Just to get an idea of prices.”

The man opened the door wide, but before I was even inside he remarked that he thought he knew me from somewhere.

“Yes, we’re more or less neighbours. I have the bookstore on Lokum Street,” I said.

“Which is Lokum Street?” asked the man. Turks are like that – they don’t even know the name of a street two feet away. That’s why streets get defined by some building on the corner – say a mosque, pharmacy, supermarket, school or hospital.

“It’s the street that goes down to the Austrian High School,” I said.

“Oh,” he said. “Is there a bookstore there? I’ve never noticed. That’s strange because I like reading. But I don’t really have the time, what with work and so on. You know how it is.”

The building spread along the street like a top-quality limousine gliding round a sharp corner. All the windows at the back looked out over the Bosphorus, which, you will appreciate, was a very rare feature. The views from the first floor were magnificent. The Bosphorus was even visible from the toilet window. On the hill behind, you could see Topkapı Palace on Sarayburnu. If you leant your head to the right, you could see the golden building of Sirkeci station where the Orient Express once terminated, the minarets that had turned the Byzantine Hagia Sophia into a mosque, a car ferry waiting by the shore, a passenger ferry trying to get alongside the jetty at Karaköy, a sombre-looking tanker, and tiny fishing boats that looked like mere specks on the water. In the distance to the left was the Bosphorus Bridge with its constant stream of cars. Oh, the wonders of Istanbul!

The views from the apartment still to be sold would be even more magnificent. After all, it was higher up, on the second floor. The apartments were 220 square metres. I hadn’t written that down incorrectly. Exactly 220 square metres, with six rooms plus a living room. No bathroom of course. The building was at least 150 years old. With high ceilings! Yes, it was in a state of decay, but that was the least of my worries just then.

3

I called Kasım Bey the moment I got back to the shop. He said he’d heard nothing about the apartment being sold, but he’d go and see the charity’s lawyer to find out more and would call me back as soon as possible.

“I couldn’t get anyone to open the door, so I didn’t see inside the apartment you meant. Can you do something about that?” I asked.

“Be patient, miss. Don’t be in such a rush. All things come to those who wait,” he said.

But I am not the waiting type. Never have been. I wanted to see my new home that day, or the next day at the very latest. I just couldn’t wait to see inside the apartment and plan how I would arrange my furniture, what colour I’d paint the walls, which room I’d convert into a bathroom…

Over the previous two years, I’d had plenty of time to realize that it wasn’t much good just sitting around, praying for Turks to dig into their pockets and invest their last cents in a book.

I rushed out of the shop.