Istanbul Noir - Mustafa Ziyalan [8]
I reported the matter in a letter to the district attorney with the long face and matty hair. He was good at what he did. He investigated the incident with a meticulousness that was hard to come by in those years, interviewed Nigel, and decided not to press charges. I don’t know what Nigel told him, how he convinced him of his innocence, but I can’t forget those four words the prison director said when he brought me the news: “He proved his innocence.” It was that simple. This couldn’t be the price for a crime I had committed in a fit of madness. lhan was totally innocent here. Why on earth did Nigel kill him?
I became obsessed with reaching Nigel. It was so unfair to expect an inmate to track down an avenger roaming free outside. There were just a few things I wanted to say to him. When I wrote those down, I realized that whatever I wanted to tell him was exactly the answer to the question he had asked when paying that visit to me. How about telling him why I killed his girlfriend? The guilt that I felt for lhan’s death weighed heavily upon me.
Just as I was finally beginning to readjust to everyday life, quieting my conscience and soothing my injured ego after months of agony, a new book arrived. It was delivered to me on the anniversary of Xenia’s death. Again, drawings and red ink on delicate deer hide or Moroccan leather. This time I instantly recognized the warm face of my first serious girlfriend. In spite of all those years, the curling lips, arched nose, and slightly crossed eyes of Zeynep, my first love, left no room for doubt. In the following nightmarish days I read the papers, listened to the radio, and lived in fear. It didn’t take long: Zeynep had been found in her house, dead. She was charred.
I wrote to the district attorney again. I pointed out the similarity between the ways and the dates upon which Zeynep and Xenia had died. I argued that Nigel was seeking revenge and therefore punishing the people I loved in the same way that I had killed Xenia. Two weeks later the district attorney came to see me and reported that Nigel couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with this crime; he had proven that he was performing on stage at the time of the murder. Astonished, I asked the district attorney, “How could you determine the time of death for a charred corpse?” He went through the files he had and hastily read the statements of three witnesses. The super of the building, a shopkeeper of the neighborhood, and Zeynep’s husband, a captain, had all given testimonies clarifying the time of death.
As the district attorney was trying to convince me, I told him about the tricks Nigel performed with mirrors. I told him about how Nigel was able to project his image onto mirrors and thus appear in more than one spot on the stage. The district attorney rolled the pastel-colored folder in his left hand up into a scroll and with his right gave his knee a forceful and impatient slap; he stood up and cut me off. “Don’t worry, I watched his performance three times. Even if he is doing all of it with mirrors, for him to go from Taksim to Vezneciler, to kill Zeynep, and not only that, but to burn her and then return … how should I say it … is next to impossible. I even arranged for a demonstration to test it. If we brought the suspect in front of a judge, he’d be released after the first hearing.”
He had said his last sentence from outside the bars.
I was hopeless, helpless, and shattered. Two people I loved had been killed in the last two years because of me.
For twelve years I was forced to look on as twelve people from my life were slaughtered, all in the same way, all on the same date. Every time there was a book and there were evidence and witnesses resisting the efforts of the district attorney’s office. No matter how hard I tried to get him to come, Nigel refused to see me. I swallowed my pride and sent him imploring letters, begging for forgiveness. Every time, I promised to punish myself