patience, mulberry leaves become satin.
Work as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die tomorrow.
Two Turkish proverbs
The next day was as gray as the solid multi-storied building in Cağaloğlu with the newspaper’s name, Cümhüriyet, down a corner in big letters. I folded my umbrella and shook rain off my coat as I stepped into the gloomy reception area. Walking, it had taken me seven minutes from the Tribune’s little office. By car in all that traffic, it would have taken twenty.
“May I see Haldun Kutlu, please? He’s expecting me.” A spindly, downtrodden clerk asked me to wait on an old wooden chair, one of several. The others were occupied, I guessed, by nervous job applicants, or in some cases, young writers trying to sell their free-lance work. The trousers of one young man’s suit didn’t quite match the jacket. I hoped he had better coordination between his verb tenses and nouns.
Digging into my bag, I found Tony Hillerman’s Dark Wind and started reading. The red mesas of New Mexico lent their familiar and comforting presence to this dreary waiting room. Navajo officer Jim Chee had often felt out of place, too, caught between his native culture and the white man’s world. It’s not easy to live in two universes at once.
Chee and his boss, Joe Leaphorn, had barely finished their first argument when the clerk returned to escort me to Haldun Kutlu’s office.
The room was shabby but spacious. Kutlu ranked high within the tough world of Turkish journalism, especially here at the country’s largest newspaper.
The room had another attraction: an elegant white cat with varicolored eyes, one blue, one green. The cat occupied the chair facing the desk. I went over, presented the tips of my fingers for approval, and petted the beautiful creature. She looked exactly like the cat I’d seen at the Eminönü wharf.
“Sit down,” said Kutlu, looking up from his writing to give me a professorial inspection.
The cat deigned to let me have the chair. Jumping down, she sat on a stack of papers on the floor, cleaning her whiskers. Entranced, I asked what her name was.
“Sultana,” he said.
Kutlu was balding and paunchy and looked as though he had slept in his clothes. He lit one brown Yeni Bahar from another, scattering ashes over the red-brown carpet that had clearly been used for that purpose before.
“Do you take one or two sugars in your tea?”
Feeling a little like Alice with the March Hare, I held up one finger, and wriggled into place on the reclaimed chair. After searching through the papers on his desk, Kutlu found and rang a bell. A tea boy responded, and was given the hospitality order.
The cat exited when the assistant opened the door.
I started by identifying myself as a friend and colleague of Peter Franklin’s.
Kutlu gave me a hard look and nodded brusquely. “That was a blow about Peter.”
“It certainly was to those of us in Washington!” I wondered how much I should share. “Did you know Peter well?”
Kutlu nodded through a haze of cigarette smoke. “Yes. Pretty well. Very well, actually. We worked together on some stories.”
“So did I! Do you believe the police story about his death?” I was jumping in pretty fast, but I had no idea how long this busy journalist would put up with my questions. Why did I trust him? Was it the cat? I tend to give animal lovers the benefit of the doubt.
After a long pause, Kutlu gave me a piercing look, as though he were weighing my trustworthiness, too. At last he said, “No.”
A timid knock came on the door.
“Evet? Come in, and put the chai in front of us. There. Close the door as you go out!” A semi-smile softened the harshness of the words.
No sign of Sultana. I guess she had left for good.
“So you agree with me that Peter would not have overdosed on drugs.” For the moment, I’d forgotten all about being a journalist. I was just a friend.
“Not a chance. Somebody did this to him.” Kutlu took a couple of long puffs on his Yeni Bahar. Each of us lifted a glass of tea to our lips.
“Any idea who?” I asked.
“I’m working on it,” was the brusque reply.
For some time, we sat without speaking. “Are you going to tell me anything more?” I ventured.
“Soon,” he promised. “I think we should meet again. I’m working on an angle.” He got up, gave me a quick smile, and politely indicated the door. “But right now I have a deadline. Tomorrow?” he asked.
Not satisfactory, but I had to respect a deadline.
CHAPTER 36
Tell us, giddy goats, the tale of Midas.
Tell about the awful thing
That happened to our noble King
The day he stepped between two gods.
Güngör Dilmen, “The Ears of King Midas” (play)
Faye Mollington sat in the Altın Küpe, her favorite little restaurant up the hill from Cağaloğlu. The owners knew her preference for an anonymous corner half-hidden behind a screen and saved her that seat every day.
Another set of regular customers played tavla, backgammon, at a table in the front. She could hear the roll of the dice and subsequent click of the wooden pieces counting down their moves on the inlaid board.
It wasn’t time for dinner, but delectable smells seeped out from the kitchen not too far from her table. Köfte, lamb patties, vied with deep-fried potatoes and simmered eggplant mousakka.
Faye enjoyed the smells and the presence of distant waiters who gave her warm smiles when she came in. Here, she could be alone but not alone, able to work in privacy without retreating into isolation.
In many ways, working in plain sight was safer than hiding in a room, anyway. People don’t see what’s right before their noses.
CHAPTER 37
After leaving Galata you ascend to Beyoğlu or old Pera. The most direct approach on foot is via Yüksek Kaldırım, a lively street which climbs up the hill from the main square before the bridge, passing close to the Galata Tower halfway along.
John Freely, The Companion Guide to Turkey
Jean Le Reau rose early and went for a walk to the edge of Pera, from where he could see the Golden Horn. He hadn’t slept well. He’d never seen the dead man before. The modus operandus of the person who knifed him did, however, have a familiar feel. It looked professional. Trained.
Why did the incident happen at the Pera Palas? Surely it had nothing to do with him. Or Elizabeth? He hoped not. He was beginning to like her, in spite of her snoopy inquisitions.
As
