Istanbul Noir - Mustafa Ziyalan [61]
“Ain’t nobody in Bomonti ain’t poked that chick, and you tryin’ to elope with her like she’s some eighteen-year-old virgin.”
(Sinan remains silent.)
“Dude, you fucking idiot, you go messing with some guy you know nothing about for some three-penny whore?”
(Again, nothing.)
“They didn’t teach you back in the army, huh? Khaki outfit, boots, everybody equal, until the day you get your discharge papers. On that day, some guys put on their leather jackets and leave. And other guys, scum like you, they put on ragged-ass jackets all torn at the seams … Now go on and do your paces, and quit bitin’ off more than your runt mouth can chew!”
(Sinan swallows, his eyes wide and rolling.)
“Who do you think you are, trying to stab a man, you fucking piece of shit!”
He didn’t even lower his voice when he saw me approaching. I walked right by them. I followed the wall and dove back inside the ward. They dispersed after me. The other two guys were laughing and cussing left and right.
I didn’t go near Sinan all day. He didn’t talk at all; he didn’t eat; he didn’t go out to the courtyard. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t sad. So what was his deal? He didn’t have the usual fever blister popping out of his lip. And he didn’t seem like a man waiting for his manifest destiny either. He was cold, motionless, as if all the nerves had been ripped out of him. Was it the comfort of simply knowing what’s to come?
Toward evening it started snowing. The men out in the courtyard headed back into the ward, taking cover from the sudden onslaught of slush. I left the crowd and chaos behind and walked up to him.
“What were those guys talking about?” I asked.
No response. He wouldn’t talk. He’d erased me, completely. The Sinan who constantly rattled on to me about all his suspicions had been replaced by this mute dupe. I had no idea what he was thinking. What the fuck was going on? He didn’t talk, not that evening, not that night. I was dying to find out. But that was Sinan. When he shut down, even his fucking maker couldn’t rouse him out of it. I didn’t press him any further. The bastard could stew in his own juices for all I cared.
When I woke abruptly early the next morning, I felt like I was about to come. I found myself trying to suffocate the rod beneath my waist, between a pillow clenched between my legs and the rough texture of the cotton mattress. On the verge of explosion, I got up and went to the bathroom. (When I was new to the ward, Sinan had followed me to the dimly lit bathroom a few times.)
It was still pitch black in most of the ward. It took awhile for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, with just a tiny sliver of light seeping in from under the door. As I walked down between the bunks, I glanced at Sinan’s bed, but he wasn’t there. It was 3 in the morning; all of the doors were locked. Where could he be? I walked toward the stairs leading up to the toilets. When I got to the bathroom door, I heard voices; scuffling and struggling. Slowly, I pushed the door open. There was a pool of blood between the sinks and stalls in their pinkish-yellow glow. I saw the legs of a man, trembling, sprawled out in the pool of blood. The upper half of his body was in one of the stalls. One of his slippers had come off, the other was still on his foot. When I saw his shirt, which had soaked up the blood to the color of rotten cherry, I recognized the broadly checkered design. It was the big guy, the group leader. I took another step