Bitter Remedy: An Alec Blume Case Page 8

  It was a mixture of Turkish liras, euros, and some dollars from the Arabs. Every day she looked at the exchange rates glowing in red lights at a currency exchange booth near the clubs and recalculated the value in her head. When she squirrelled away Turkish liras, she mentally converted them into euros.

  Although the women were not allowed to keep money, there was always talk about their buying their way out. The main purpose of this outrageous falsehood seemed to be to give the girls false hope of freedom, and perhaps that worked with the very dumbest and the youngest. Admittedly, a lot of them were really dumb, and a lot of them were very young. But even the dumbest and the youngest learned eventually – hadn’t she? The Russians told the same lie over and over again in Russian, Romanian, Turkish, English, Italian. ‘You make me back the investment, you will be free woman 18 months, no problem.’

  When a girl was nearing the end of the promised period, they sold her onwards again, and the new owner would tell her she had to make good the price he had paid. What Alina did not get was why they almost always sold the girl on – they could simply renege on the promise. But somehow the owners felt the need to sell, as if they were really keeping a bargain, and the bad guy was the new owner. After all else that they did, they were somehow still ashamed of this lie.

  Sometimes, a girl did simply get ‘freed’, which meant abandonment, without shelter or food. Sometimes an offer would come through for a ticket home, or a trip onwards to an oil state. Very occasionally, a girl would become a home help. There were stories of some vanishing into the vast plains of Anatolia to work as farmhands. There were even rumours of marriages.

  More got murdered than married, of that she had no doubt. Many committed suicide. Then there were overdoses, sexual diseases. She had seen a dead girl lying in the corridor, like something floppy and lazy and thin. Alina’s first reaction was annoyance. She was annoyed with the dead girl before she was afraid of her and what she signified. The fear moved in waves up and down the corridor all day, and it was as if a cold, untouchable spot remained where the body had been, but there was not much hysteria. Sobs, gasps, some mutinous mumblings but the general effect was to harden the girls’ faces, as if they were trying to borrow the blank and uninterested look on the dead girl’s face. Selina, she had been called. It was not until days later, as she fed her tree, that Alina found a moment to feel pity, too.

  She had learned to know and not to know at the same time. She knew the job in Italy had never existed, yet she still told herself that she was working towards it. She knew as soon as she tried to use the €2,100 to go somewhere, she would probably be caught, but she liked to think that with Nadia’s help they might make it. It was now two years since she had been able to talk to Nadia, but they had spotted one another three times without having a chance to speak. Nadia was still alive and still in Istanbul. Perhaps she was saving up as well. Nadia had always been the resourceful one. She had probably saved twice as much as Alina. That would make more than €4,000.

  When she first asked permission, Fyodor listened to her carefully, an expectant smile on his face as he waited the punchline. As she politely explained that all she wanted to do was get back across the busy road and find Nadia, reassure her, and then come back, his face fell in disappointment. But he did not beat her or even scream at her.

  She was learning things. Languages, how to read clients, which women were freer, which owners to fear most. She also learned to her surprise that a lot of women entered semi-legitimate jobs. That some women had come deliberately seeking work in the sex industry somehow surprised her, even though she probably belonged to the same category. She also learned that no matter what they said or how nicely they said it, no owner was ever going to allow you to buy your freedom until you were over 26, or had contracted a visible disease.

  ‘We are like the old taxis.’ Lyudmila, 28, who looked older but was still very popular among clients, told her. ‘We do not cost so very much. The real gain comes in how far you drive it, how far it goes, how much fuel it needs, and how reliable it is. Even the best investment and the most expensive car is worth nothing in the end, but the taxi driver can make a lot of money.’ Lyudmila suddenly found her own metaphor very funny and laughed throatily. Alina liked the woman. A few days later she approached her again, and asked for advice on how to find Nadia.

  Lyudmila’s advice was simplicity itself: walk across the busy intersection to the other part of town, and start looking. If she got caught, they might beat her, but hadn’t she been beaten before? Alina said she was afraid Nadia would have been moved since.

  ‘It is easy to find out. What was the name of your pezevenk when you were together?’

  ‘Tamer.’

  ‘Did you have policemen as clients?’

  ‘No. Mostly foreign tourists.’

  ‘That’s Çağdaş Tamer, then. I’ll bring you there.’

  ‘Oh, would you?’

  ‘Sure, tomorrow, 10 o’clock.’

  ‘Thanks, Lyudmila, I won’t forget.’

  ‘No problem. Eighty euros, yes?’

  Chapter 10

  He was closing his suitcase and checking he had his wallet as well as the car keys so kindly returned by Silvana when he saw she had left her exercise book at the end of his bed. If he hurried, he might still catch her since, presumably, she was waiting for Niki. The way he had ordered her out, like she was his to do with as he wanted, puzzled and angered him. He considered whether she might not have left this exercise book as some sort of cry for help.

  A flick through the pages, as he walked across the room and out the door, showed that it contained a collection of children’s stories about talking trees and animals, written in a tight precise script. She dotted the letter ‘i’ with little flowers. It did not seem to contain anything else. Well, maybe just leaving it was a cry for help in that she wanted him to reappear in person and give it back.

  He was in the middle of the corridor when a nun floated past him, and he paused, disconcerted by the fact he could not hear her. He coughed loudly.

  ‘Yes?’

  The voice came from directly behind him, and he spun round to find another nun, this one without a wimple but wearing a blue uniform of some type, right behind him. Apologetically, he explained he was looking for the exit.

  ‘Are you leaving us? Shouldn’t you be accompanied?’

  Blume did not know the answer to this. The wrinkled face smiled at him. ‘Why don’t you wait for the doctor to come back?’

  Behind them, a door stood open. He could see part of a wall, baking golden in the warm sun. He pointed towards it.

  ‘That’s the cloister. You want to get some air and sun there? It is a lovely place.’

  Blume considered the face as white as talcum powder before him. She was friendly enough, but looked like she had never seen the sun. He was expecting more advice, perhaps even an order to go back to bed.

  ‘Is that exercise book for him?’

  Blume looked at his hand in surprise.

  ‘No, it’s . . .’

  But she was on her way. ‘If I see the doctor, I’ll tell him you’re in the cloister.’

  When she had gone, Blume turned around a few times to get his bearings. If the cloister was there, he had to go in the opposite direction to escape. One corner and a few steps later, he was out in the open, at the front of the clinic.

  There were about 20 or so cars in the car park, which occupied a corner of the piazza. At the far end, near the gate, he spotted some movement, as of people going to their car. He looked up and down for Silvana and Niki, listening for voices and, sure enough, he heard a woman’s voice raised in anger, and he recognized it as Silvana’s.

  Clear as a bell, Silvana’s voice shouted out the word putane! He could hear the anger and disgust in her voice. Niki was keeping his voice down. A typical male trick. Keep your voice low as you say terrible things, make the woman sound hysterical. He had used it a few times himself.

  Blume made his way quickly betwee
n the parked cars towards the voice, then spotted them standing beside a Range Rover, the purpose of which might as well have been to draw attention to Niki’s small stature. He was close enough to hear them now, and still they had not seen him. Instinctively, he crouched down.

  ‘Whores!’ Silvana was shouting. ‘I have put up with it, but this –!’

  Niki said something.

  What Blume heard at this point seemed to be a sharp intake of breath followed by a crack, and a gasp of disbelief. Dropping the exercise book, he jumped up from his hiding place just in time to see Niki make a staggering lunge at Silvana. As Blume moved towards them, she slowly turned her head in his direction. Their eyes locked and she began to weep. As for Niki, he hardly had time to register the new arrival before Blume was upon him.

  Niki was still fumbling with the fastener on his satchel, when Blume’s first punch hit him on the cheekbone. The other side of his face hit the car door, and as he was on the rebound, Blume hit him again, in the lower jaw. Blume pushed him back so that from a distance it might have looked as if he was trying to steady Niki, and keep him from falling. Instead, he was lining him up for a more direct punch. As the fist came straight at him, aimed directly at the tip of his nose, Niki instinctively raised the satchel to his face. The blow caused it to open and shed its contents all over the ground. The sight of a pistol, now lodged beneath the front tyre of the Range Rover, seemed to release a wild rage in Blume, who kicked him in the groin, then grabbed Niki’s throat with both hands, and pressed his thumbs against his windpipe.

  ‘Stop! No!’

  The voice seemed to come from far away.

  But he knew he had to obey it in a minute. Just one more squeeze, he said to himself, enjoying the squawking noise coming from beneath his hands. He pushed down. Forcing Niki backwards, bringing their lips almost to touching. Niki was flapping his hands like a little bird now, and his eyes stood out in fear.

  ‘No!’ It was Silvana again, and she sounded like she meant it. He’d let go just as soon as he had pushed Niki’s head all the way to the ground. Fucker tried to pull a gun, the front of his mind was shouting, while the calmer part, where thoughts seemed more deeply embedded and arose more slowly, turned over the idea that Niki had simply been in possession of a weapon, without having made any attempt to draw on him, and that usually he was in better control of his temper.

  ‘Blume!’ A new voice, a man’s. Reluctantly, he released his grip, and Niki fell back on the ground with a strange sigh, almost as of contentment.

  To his surprise and disappointment, Silvana immediately flung herself down and began tending Niki, who was already gasping and making a comical hooting sound.

  Blume straightened up and turned his attention to the new arrival.

  ‘Good afternoon, Dr Bernardini. As you can see, I’m feeling much better now.’

  Chapter 11

  That Nadia was almost broken was evident from the moment they met, but Alina could not admit it to herself until later, when she was on her return journey across town. The girl who had guided her, advised her, comforted her, played elder sister to her had become thinner, uglier, haunted and fearful that she was being watched. Nadia, Alina felt, should have been more generous with her time. After all, Alina was the one running the greater risk for having left her district.

  Nadia’s attention drifted and her answers were short, and she had little to tell. The life and spirit had been drained from her, and she had a few visible puncture marks on her left arm. Alina asked her if she had managed to save anything, but Nadia did not seem to understand. When Alina spoke of the two of them getting away, really away, she saw a small spark of hope and the old defiance in her friend’s eyes. Then Nadia, momentarily resuming her elder-sister role, said, ‘It takes money, Alina. Lots of money.’

  ‘I have money!’

  Nadia looked at her sceptically. ‘I mean real money.’

  And Alina realized, with sadness, that she did not want Nadia to know about the cache in the tree. Maybe she would tell her another time, but without being able to talk about the money or discuss escape, Alina found she had nothing much to say to her old friend. The conversation between them became halting and awkward, and finally they both fell silent.

  After half an hour, Alina decided there was no point in staying, and declared her intention to return to her district, she leaned in to allow Nadia to embrace her, and, as she pulled back, Nadia unexpectedly said, ‘How much have you put aside?’

  ‘I never said . . .’

  ‘But you have. You’re planning to get out of the country. Where to? Greece? Italy?’

  ‘Anywhere. Italy ideally.’

  ‘I know a man,’ said Nadia. ‘A taxi driver. He would help. Maybe for 14,000 liras? €5,000.’

  ‘For both of us?’

  Nadia pulled Alina’s head back against her shoulder and stroked her hair, as she used to do. ‘Each.’

  Alina took a taxi back to her district to save time and, she hoped, get back before her absence was noticed. But she might as well have walked and saved herself the fare. The traffic, always slow, was gridlocked. The taxi driver cursed and thumped his steering wheel, and threatened her when she announced she was getting out. He held her responsible for getting him stuck. She scrambled out of the car and thrust some money at him, a few liras more than was on the meter. ‘Fuck you,’ she said in parting, and eased her way between two stationary cars in the next lane.

  As she walked, she heard the wail of sirens, which, she realized, were coming from the direction she was headed in. She thought nothing of it. Sirens were a common sound in Istanbul. She cut through some side streets, which were also filling up with motorists seeking to escape. The sirens kept bleating at the same pitch. They, too, must be caught in the traffic.

  She was back in her quarter. Some very angry police cars, furious at the traffic for not giving way, tried to force a passage through for a fire engine. Three ‘Dolphins’, as the motorcycle units were known, were homing in on an area, shouting at drivers, who were uncooperative or helpless or both. Sometimes the PKK set off bombs, but she had not heard any explosions. She did not care about Kurd separatism or even bombs in Istanbul. For her, Kurds were the ones who sold heroin. If they planted bombs, too, they might have good reason. Nadia had had marks on her arms. Nadia had been dealing with Kurds.

  Still indifferent to her surroundings and thinking of the impossible sum of €10,000 and the marks on Nadia’s arms, she barely registered that the source of the trouble was a hotel, the Arden, which had thick black smoke billowing out of it. As she watched, the firefighters let loose with three jets, one of which seemed not to have the pressure to reach the smoking window, or perhaps they were keeping the rest of the building cool. Only now did she begin to worry.

  She reached a police cordon, manned by five aggressive paramilitary police in black combat gear decorated with a red half moon and star. Whether or not it was a PKK attack, they were treating it as such and all onlookers as likely terrorists. They stood with their automatic weapons slanting downwards, just, and stared into the crowd, defying anyone to trespass into the restricted zone. But as the spectacle was not much to behold, with the smoke whiter now, already considerably less, and no flames to be seen, most pedestrians merely paused for a few moments before going about their business, or shrugging and turning back as they found their way barred.

  Alina, however, stood rooted to the spot, unable to take her eyes from the scene. Had she not already been picked out by a policeman for her red hair, she would have been for the intensity of her gaze. She was transfixed, not by the hotel and its smoke, but by the coils of firefighter hosepipe snaking around her tree in the middle of the traffic island.

  A policeman hoisted his automatic weapon higher on his shoulder and walked over and flashed a knowing smile at her. She stepped neatly to one side and continued to watch the tree. Now the policeman was saying something. It might have been a challenge, a warning, or an invitation. Or all three. Her Turkish w
as good enough now to understand most things that were said to her, especially since they mainly had to do with her body and what the speaker would like to do with it, or, if the speaker professed religion, would like to have done with it. But she was not listening. At least six people were at her tree now. Two of them were smoking. They looked as if they planned to be there for some time.

  The policeman said something, and she ignored him. He stepped outside his own cordon. ‘Chukumu yala.’ He made an obscene gesture with his thumb in his mouth. She stared through his invisible head at the firemen who were now looking in the tree. One of them was laughing. She could not hear it, but she could see him, his head thrown back, his mouth wide open in mute laughter. She felt tears running down her cheeks. The policeman looked at her, then stepped back behind the cordon.

  Alina turned and went back to the brothel she called home.

  All she could feel was a dull rage. It had completely swept away all her feelings of apprehension and fear. She spent the rest of the afternoon sitting at a bar, sipping apple tea, and feeling almost nothing. A young Georgian girl was sent to fetch her. Alina said she would be back immediately, then ordered another tea, and spent another hour till night had set in and her bladder was full.

  Her absence had been noted. She had no earnings to show for the entire day. Worst of all had been the leisurely pace at which she obeyed the order to return. It might still have gone well enough for her, with only a few slaps had she begged forgiveness and promised to make it up by working all night and all the next day, but she was sullen and refused to comply. She found it hard even to hear what was being said.