Istanbul Noir - Mustafa Ziyalan [4]
So there I was, gliding through the Sea of Marmara on a ship rocked by a rough and humid breeze. I could see the Princes’ Islands lined up in a row on the horizon, rising like the décor of a dream emerging from the fog. I thought that as I drew closer, certainly the spell would come to an end and I would be confronted with the cold reality of the island’s earth. Spread over the hilly terrain of Büyükada, a dark forest shivered in the blast of harsh wind, allowing a glimpse of magnificent mansions before quickly concealing them once again. This shiny paradise that I used to visit as a child during summer vacations now stood before me in a diabolic visage, surrounded by fog and dark clouds heavy with rain. The closer I got, the better I understood why Nigel had chosen this place for our final showdown. He didn’t want anyone else involved in this final reckoning. Nobody else would see us there in that little world of forests and isolated houses. We were now in the heart of nothingness. This is where we were to settle accounts. Ours was to be the confrontation of two ferocious, raging animals. Far from everyone and everything … But why was he dragging me all the way out here, when in his own twisted mind he’d already gotten his revenge for Xenia’s death?
The death of Xenia was the result of a complicated and unfortunate game he could never buy into, he could never understand. When he was burning my loved ones alive he was righting a wrong in his mind, yet what he did indicated how hard it was for him to accept the state of things. Yes, his girlfriend Xenia was in love with me. That, essentially, was the fact he could not stomach. That was the reason why he was rubbing out my loved ones; the massacre he had carried out was not a response to my burning Xenia to death in a hotel room. I’m not fooling myself; I say it in all sincerity: The only reason Nigel killed twelve people I loved was his girlfriend’s passionate love for me. If you asked him, he’d play weird games with his broken Turkish, so you’d see that his profession as an acrobat and juggler had shaped his speech too. He was an acrobat of the mind, a juggler of thought. He knew very well that he could fool others as long as he could fool himself. The way he put it thirteen years ago in Çiçek Pasajı: “If you want others to believe your lie, you first have to believe it yourself. That way you’ll at least have a chance of convincing everybody else of equal intelligence.” During that first lengthy conversation we had, spiced with laughter, Xenia did not look impressed by all his cunning, quasi-philosophical talk; she kept looking at me with a bored expression. You didn’t have to be a genius to realize that she wasn’t enjoying her lover’s conversation, that she did not share the same world with him. Xenia, in stark contrast to the magnificent harmony they created on stage, was remote, disinterested, and cold to Nigel in everyday life.
When Nigel went to the bathroom, I leaned closer to the young woman and said, in way of striking up a conversation: “You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself.”
I expected her to say something like, I’m a little tired, but she kept her eyes on me for some time before finally responding: “I’m so bored of him. But that’s understandable, isn’t it? That I should grow tired of listening to the same joke a thousand times? Women like novelty more than men do, that’s why it’s the men who have always been heroes, and women the prizes.”
I stared at her, my mouth agape. Back then neither Nigel nor Xenia spoke Turkish; our common language was English. I was wondering whether or not I had understood the woman correctly.
“I’m Count Dracula’s homegirl, you better watch out,” she said, and laughed. She placed her mouth on the red wine glass lasciviously; she puckered her lips, which were the same color as the wine, and sucked the half-full glass dry in one long sip. She closed her eyes, savoring the intense pleasure coming over her; she stayed like that for a moment, then peered at me intensely. She wasn’t smiling anymore; she