Istanbul Noir - Mustafa Ziyalan [26]
He looked at the transvestite’s messy fake-blond hair, at her determined eyes, seeing the threatening gleam of her gaze that contrasted with her compassion; he looked at her bloody face, and at the blood-red lipstick smeared all around her full lips. Her scorching honesty, which aroused a sense of gratitude, and of indebtedness, stirred something else inside him—an unsettling truth. It was now obvious to him that he had walked through that door, and that there was no going back, and that now he stood on the threshold of yet another point of no return. It was a horrifying moment, when he realized that he derived pleasure from pleasures he had never experienced before. A moment when he surrendered to his true desires, the ones he had run from and hidden, hidden from and ignored. A moment of defeat at the hands of the realization that this startling, frightening, abhorrent passion existed within him too.
AN EXTRA BODY
BY BARI MÜSTECAPLIOLU
Altunizade
Hasan took a puff from his cigarette. “Have you ever seen an anthill?” he asked. “I love ants. They’re just so damned hard-working, those little creatures. They can keep walking up and down the same path for hours, carrying all kinds of shit to their homes—twigs at least twice their size, things to eat, all kinds of stuff. And they never, ever get sick of it. Put your foot down in front of them and they stomp right over it, or walk right around it. It doesn’t faze them, not one bit; they never get tired of obstacles. I adore those little bastards.”
Just then, an ant zigzagging along the stone floor paused, as if aware that it was the topic of conversation; its legs trembled slightly, then it continued along its way.
Murat scratched his cheek and licked his chapped lips.
“They’re just animals, man. They don’t have a choice; they just do what they’ve always done, what the rest of them do. They’ve been around forever, but have they tried to figure out an easier way to carry those twigs? Pick it up with your mouth and carry it, just like your daddy did—geniuses, fucking geniuses! I mean, shit, man, thousands of years and the dudes haven’t made one bit of progress.”
Hasan scowled at the younger man. He felt an odd rage build up inside of him, a rage that he himself couldn’t understand, as if he were the butt of some nasty joke. “Ants are not common animals,” he said, stressing each word. “They’re a lot smarter than many of the assholes I know.”
Murat gave him an uncomprehending look and shrugged.
“Fuck it …”
Murat chuckled good-naturedly. “You want another tea, man? Your glass is empty.”
“No thanks,” Hasan replied. “I’ve had enough today. And you shouldn’t drink so much of that stuff either. You’re gonna get sick.”
“It’s not like we’ll die from drinking tea, man,” Murat said with a chuckle. “We’ll be dead long—”
“Whatever,” Hasan said, cutting him off mid-sentence. “Just don’t drink so much.”
Murat’s eyes moved to the bed where Hasan was perched. “This is so fucked up. How are we gonna get this guy out of here?”
Hasan turned and looked at the figure lying on the bed. He was a bulky man in his thirties, with thick black hair, naked except for a pair of boxers. He had a chiseled face, the kind a lot of women find attractive. The hole in his head hasn’t cramped his style at all, Hasan thought, like it’s some beauty mark or something. His face was perfectly clean below the nose, but his eyebrows were crimson with blood, and his legs and one of his arms were covered in it too. Hasan