Istanbul Noir - Mustafa Ziyalan [72]
I spot a figure over by one of the cars parked on the left side of the street. Why would anyone be out at this time of night? Unless he’s just hitting the streets for no reason at all, like me. He must be headed for the hospital or the police station, can’t be anything but bad news at this hour.
Just as I begin thinking I should turn right to put some distance between myself and the shadowy figure, a car alarm goes off. I’m not the only one startled by it. The shadow starts to run. And I after him.
I have to catch him. I can. I will. He’s fast too. I’ve started to catch up, but I can feel the energy draining out of me. So what happens when I catch him? The question doesn’t slow me down. What am I going to do, beat him up? Turn him in? I think of something Semih told me. He said for days after his cassette player was stolen from his car, he found his car repulsive. That’s what he said. “It was like the car had been defiled, I just couldn’t stomach getting into it.” I wonder if that’s the guy who broke into Semih’s car? Well, it was him or someone like him—those pricks are all alike. How many times have I told him, “Rent a place in an apartment complex like ours, the streets aren’t safe. You spent all that money on the car, you shouldn’t just leave it out on the street.”
How much longer can I keep after this fool? What the hell am I chasing him for anyway? He might pull a knife, or maybe a screwdriver; in any case, something sharp, whatever he used to open the car door. All ties have been severed between my brain and my legs; my thoughts don’t slow me down; I just keep running, pacing myself like a long-distance pro. I never would’ve thought I’d be able to run so fast for so long. The benefits of not smoking. As I run I feel this sense of spaciousness, a kind of freshness within; I can almost catch a whiff of mint. Maybe after I catch up I’ll just run right past him, make it to the finish line first. The more I run, the lighter I feel. Maybe all the sweating is ridding my body of toxins? My heart is racing, and my head’s throbbing just as fast, but my legs couldn’t care less, it’s like they have a mind of their own.
We’re sprinting downhill; if we’d been going uphill, there’s no way I could catch up. Here the streets are even darker. He’s at most three yards ahead of me. But I can’t catch up—we must be running at the same speed. He slows down each time he turns around to look back at me, but it’s not enough for me to catch up. He must know these parts well; he never takes a dead end. My legs have started to shake; it’s a not unpleasant feeling. I’ll be sore tomorrow, but for now it feels good.
I don’t understand how it happened. He was trying to jump over a wall just a couple of feet high when his foot got caught and he fell. First I heard a thump, then I heard a moan.
Oh God! The boy’s face is covered in blood. He must’ve hit his head. I feel sick to my stomach. We’re unable to speak. We’re breathless. He’s looking me hard in the face. But his expression is not one of anger, nor of a desire for mercy. He’s just looking. Finally, looking at him looking at me, I come to. A hospital, a doctor … I take out my cell phone and call for an ambulance. “Where are you?” asks the voice on the other end. I don’t know. I ask the other guy. He mumbles something, Cinema, I think. That’s when I realize where I am.
“You know that old cinema? … We’re over around there.” I give the person my phone number.
The boy on the ground groans, trying to drag himself. He’d probably ignore the cuts and bruises and keep on running, if only he could find the strength. “Don’t move,” I tell him. I sound like the police on TV, yet all I’m really saying is the only thing I know about first aid, right or wrong. He has to keep his head still.
He says something like, Let me go. From the frantic beat of my heart, the puffing of my chest, I can’t quite make out his words.
“The ambulance,” I say, my voice coming out like a whisper, “is on its way.”
It isn’t long before the ambulance shows up. Thank goodness. We make our way back through the same