Istanbul Noir - Mustafa Ziyalan [96]
Clearly, we would not be able to address the matter of this Yani Museum, in nearly pristine condition after some forty years. Two adult males were stretched on Yani’s bed, faceup. The redhead’s eyes were slightly open. He had a black jacket and a burgundy shirt on. Avram, totally bald now, had closed his eyes tight, as if cringing from a blow. His goatee was matted with dried vomit. His right pant leg was rolled up to the knee. The feet of both men were extending out of the bed by ten inches or so; both had their shoes on.
“They arrived at 2 o’clock sharp. We talked. I served liqueur to them too. Enough Seconal and risperidone per person. It was a painless journey to the other side. I got rid of the pharmacy eleven years ago, but my apprentices, bless them all, never fail to show the proper respect.”
“The second bottle.”
She nodded. “Do you still remember Nejat?”
“Nejat with the pencil mustache.”
“Good memory! He never married. I turned my pharmacy over to him. After my first brain hemorrhage. It happened two more times after that, but I survived. Seeing these days was in my stars.”
“But Anfi, why?”
“It’s rather difficult to explain, that whole process. The pressure of those moments when the darkness within strains to get out. And does. One might say … Now, how are you feeling?”
My knees couldn’t carry me anymore. The nausea I’d been feeling since I laid eyes on the bodies was beginning to subside, but I was about to collapse.
“Come and sit. There are some things I want to tell you before the last page is turned.”
She took my arm. For the first time I sensed her body odor overpowering the lilac scent she was wearing. Those two yards to the chair felt like an eternity. I put up no resistance. Though she tried to hold me up, I collapsed onto the chair in a heap. My head snapped back, but fortunately did not hit the wall too hard. Pain was a volatile liquid, evaporating fast.
“You really have gotten heavy. You are okay, aren’t you?”
Her face was very close to mine. Breaking free from the fear that I was about to slide into the dark hole of my demise, I nodded. She smiled, her eyes full of compassion. Of all the women in my life, nearly every one that I had picked myself resembled Anfi, in one way or another. I thought about telling her. But I couldn’t.
“Why? Why all this … ?”
She eyed the two on the bed, sighed, and sat down at the foot. The bed gave a jolt, and the bodies moved, as if to make room for her.
“Kevork came. Two months ago, I told you. His only daughter had died of liver cancer. His wife had become an alcoholic. He was very sad. He told me, ‘It’s like we’re all cursed or something. We have to put an end to it.’ He was a little tipsy, he’d been drinking vodka that day, but he was still making sense.”
“It was an accident, Anfi.”
“The only two people left from that photograph. They are in this room.”
“There is a whole world out there beyond this room.”
“That’s right. If you’d made it this afternoon like the others, there would be three of you lying on this bed now. But since you were late, I had time to weigh the consequences of my actions … and … I changed plans. You remember the gardens, and the meze sellers in this neighborhood, don’t you? I was a baby during the fire of 1929. My father’s two shoe shops burned down in that fire. I’m told my mother used to pray every day at Hagia Dimitri Church over in Feriköy. I once took you and Yani there on Christmas. You were five. You kept insisting that you light each and every candle. You threw a tantrum. I didn’t know what to do. Everything changes so fast and …”
Barely conscious, I struggled to make connections between all the things she was saying.
“When Yani passed away, I soon lost my ability to deal with all the changes happening around me, the way everything was becoming so dirty, so vulgar. It even kept me from properly mourning the death of my husband. He was an only child. His death marked the death of this home. Your mother used to say, ‘The childless home neither laughs nor cries.’ That’s true. I could no