Istanbul Noir - Mustafa Ziyalan [102]
She should run, run away.
And so the girl ran, but not toward her grandma’s, and not toward Kemal’s Tea Garden; she ran down the hill, past Koço, and toward the stairs. She then made her way, stumbling, along the shore, where the sand turned to gravel, and old caïques docked next to the new. She pushed on, into the heavy wind, until her lungs finally gave out. With all her might she struggled, resisting the vulgar hand as it breathlessly closed in upon her from behind. Panting, in a vindictive voice, the hand told her how much it enjoyed watching lonely young girls die lonely deaths on romantic shores in winter. A knife emerged and was pressed to her neck. Its possessor, the hand, grabbed her roughly and pulled her beneath it. It leaned toward her ear and then, wet and warm, so unlike a hand, so unlike a ghoul, stuck its tongue deep inside her ear. The pervert’s tongue slid around her eyes, into her nostrils, over her chin, her dimples, over her cheekbones, onto her neck. In her every joint she felt the other body weighing down upon hers as the hand nearly choked her. Her red coat, it ripped open as a deep silence seemed to descend upon the shore; there was no longer a body of a young girl to be concealed by the coat, the sweater, the lace-lined undershirt with its sewn-in training bra, or the panties with their matching lace; now, there was nothing but a body doused in its own blood. With its fingernails, the hand dug into her flesh, and with its knife, it sliced her open. The girl was barely conscious. She thought that now, finally, it must be over.
She was wrong. At that moment, she met with another invasion altogether. It entered between her legs and jarred her entire body with a deep, searing pain. Againandagain-andagainandagain. The hand’s eyes pierced the darkness. It loosened its grip on the knife for just a few moments, allowing the girl one gasp for breath. In that instant, she felt that she saw death, and it became clear to her that she would have to fight to survive. With a final spurt of energy, she grabbed some sand and threw it into the hand’s eyes. The knife fell; the hand relaxed its grip. The girl knew that this was her chance. She thought of when she and her father used to play tag during the summer. Run, she said to herself, run away as far as you can.
She ran. As far as she could. She ran and ran, her coat in tatters, her undershirt ripped, her underwear in shreds, and her body bleeding and bleeding and bleeding, along the dark shore lined with burnt-out lamps. When she reached the steps leading up to Bomonti, she didn’t look back; she just told herself to run, run. You’re it—run! And she ran. As far as she could. Knowing that she would get caught. Her father always caught her; knowing that full and well.
The girl always got caught. If it were her fate, she would know it. And she did.
And so she would succumb to the hand when it found her this time; this time, she would not put up a fight. He would take her down to the furnace in an ordinary apartment building. Using a piece of the coat, the hand would gag her before tying her hands and feet together. Finally, the girl would feel the knife entering her throat, and with it, a searing pain. Her mouth stuffed full of red plush and soaked with her own red blood, she would emit a sobbing sound—the kind only children make at night in their sleep.
Three hours after the girl was found, the