Nizam, the leader of the Silver Wolves, had been right in his monologue tonight to the brothers Turkey was headed the wrong direction. One could never say so publicly, but Atatürk himself had started that, in the eyes of the Silver Wolves. After all his heroism in defining and protecting the nation at the end of World War I, Atatürk—or at least his successors—had veered off course.
Yes, there never would have been a Turkey without Atatürk. One had to admit that. Even Nizam admitted that. But why did the Father of the Turks have to wipe out Islam to save Turkey? Why did he have to embrace the West? Pushing the Greeks into the sea made sense to Erol and his group. Banning the fez and veil did not.
Erol’s purpose in life was to right that wrong, among others. Turkey was not the West; it belonged to the East. It was a magnificent leader in the East. The home of the Caliph. A bulwark for Islam.
Whatever means it took to help Turkey regain its rightful place, he would do it.
Erol was young and idealistic. He did not separate goals from methods.
CHAPTER 4
Already I was being handed from arkadash to arkadash, that word for friendship, one of the most important words in the Turkish language.
Mary Lee Settle, Turkish Reflections
The ferry passed Rumeli Hisar, that great fortress built by Mehmet the Conqueror in 1452. Its stone walls formed an asymetric pattern on the hill. Grass inside the walls was turning yellow for the winter.
When I thought of Peter, my insides felt both asymmetric and yellow. I hoped this ferry ride would clear my jet-lagged brain on where to start. .
Peter’s body must have stayed near the water’s surface or it never would have been found under that veranda in Ortaköy. And it must have entered the Bosphorus near the restaurant. From the north, the Black Sea side.
The currents of the Bosphorus run deep. On top they flow north to south, from the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara. Far below the surface, the water goes the other way—a self-cleansing cycle. Except things kept going into it.
Like Peter’s body. A shudder started at the back of my neck and ran down my spine.
I hardly looked at Macho-Man-with-the-music as I made my way into one of the ferry’s comfortable sitting rooms. But I had to pass him, and I could swear he leaned out to make sure I’d bump him as I tried to slip past.
Whether he was trying to attract or repel me, it was un-Turkish to invade my space like that. Accosting foreigners is looked down on, too. “Ayıp,” they say. Shameful.
As I passed him, I looked straight at the man. His eyes were singularly opaque. I couldn’t read them. He was looking at me but not interested in me. As a person, I was erased.
Feeling as though I’d brushed against evil, I sat beside a fresh-faced young woman wearing the traditional Islamic head scarf, the jilbab. She was one of the few women on the boat wearing one, but seemed as self-possessed as the others.
Since this was Turkey rather than the Arabian Peninsula, the pink jilbab was color-coordinated with the girl’s long-sleeved khamis worn over modest slacks. Not an inch of skin appeared between bottom hem and shoes, but her attractive femininity showed through. I felt a sisterly kinship and we gave each other warm smiles. The chill I’d experienced from the Camel man began to thaw.
I savored a tulip-shaped glass of sweet mahogany-colored Turkish tea bought from a man carrying a swinging tray shouting, “chai, chai!” My new-found friend in the jilbab had one, too. I viewed her as an ally against the big rude guy outside. Turkish women have devastating put-downs for men who get out of line. They turn them into little boys with a flick of the apron string.
Just before we docked, I thought perhaps she’d be called on to defend me. I saw a leather jacket in the opposite row. The dramatic profile. The man in the leather jacket was no longer looking away from me.
He had me in the crosshairs of his eyes.
Past the exiting crowd, the charming scene of Galata Tower from the ferry disappeared in a cloud of dark smoke belched out by our engines. Through that black haze, Istanbul no longer felt like the safe haven I’d always viewed it.
Somewhere behind me, haunting music followed. Too afraid to turn around, I got the message. My tracker wanted me to know he was there.
CHAPTER 5
A nail will come out but its hole remains.
Turkish proverb
Bayram Çengel sat at Peter Franklin’s desk in the Washington Tribune office on the hill stretching up from the Golden Horn, that dagger-shaped inlet of water that once separated the Ottoman government from the foreign envoys on Pera Hill. His knees went weak when he thought of Peter’s sudden death. Peter was big. Not big like Atatürk, of course, no one could be that big, but someone respected by all. A role model for any aspiring journalist. Peter Franklin, the Washington Correspondent. The man who knew everything. How could he have died?
Bayram felt lucky to have gotten this job at the tender age of twenty-two. He’d done a course in journalism at a private university on the Asian side. But it was only a two year course. Everything he knew about news, real news, had come from Peter.
The Turkish newspaper Bayram had worked for was often well-written but it, like others of its kind, expressed a certain political view. Objectivity did not come into it, though investigation did, at times. Peter had combined the two. Pure luck that Peter chose Bayram from other applicants. Or was it? Peter may have seen how eager the young man was to pull himself out of the poverty he’d grown up in. Peter understood.
It was almost sacriligious to be sitting in Peter’s chair. Certainly, it was sad.
Earlier today he’d met the new person at the airport. Elizabeth Darcy. He’d seen her byline on Trib articles.
She had a nice smile, at least.
As a traditional Turk, Bayram doubted that a woman could take the place of a man, especially a man like Peter Franklin.
Perhaps he would give her a chance. Really, he had no choice. He’d stocked the little office refrigerator with a whole case of Kendi bottled water, allegedly taken from one of the plentiful artesian wells in the Anatolian mountains. All Westerners and all Turks who could afford it drank bottled water, never from the tap. Bayram was proud to be in the bottled water class.
CHAPTER 6
If you stared deep into a cat’s eyes, you would be able to see into the world of spirits.
English proverb
Sultana, the pure white Van cat, had her secret passages, which she only visited at night.
For a female cat, Sultana roamed a wide swath of Üsküdar. She knew and was known by the tough neighborhood tomcats, who recognized nobility and let her pass unmolested.
One of Sultana’s favorite places was the fish market down the hill near the wharf. She only visited after the fishermen had left, so she rarely got a bite of fish. Still, the smells were attractive: rodent, fish, people. She was known and admired by the ladies selling flowers at the bus stop. One of them often gave her a tasty snack.
Tonight
