Istanbul Noir - Mustafa Ziyalan [97]
“You were the first to agree to come, you know. They just followed. If you had refused, they wouldn’t have come, either. This meeting hinged on you.”
I remained silent, at a loss for words, and so she continued.
“All three of you came from abroad to meet with Anfi, an old woman already north of seventy-five. The lengths one goes to, to appease such long simmering guilt, right? And now fate beckons. It’s impossible to resist. A most definite rendezvous. You come, and you meet your end.”
“The arrangement in the photograph is a coincidence. That everybody … that everybody except the two of us is dead … it’s your doing …”
“I was the one who gave you the volumes of Les Pardaillan and Fantômas to read. You had the gift of language. Yani didn’t like to read as much as you. You were always good at math too. Your envy of Yani didn’t stem from any lack of yours, it was because you were so self-centered.”
“What about the hands, the hand that placed the glass in that hole, Anfi?”
“If it hadn’t been for the glass, you would’ve come up with something else.”
“That’s terrible, Anfi. We were kids. We’d all have gone our separate ways to college …”
Anfi ran her hand through her hair and sighed again, then she stood up and left the room. I imagined myself making an effort toward the door. But my legs were like putty. I peered helplessly at the corpses on the bed. It was true, Kevork had not changed at all. Over the years, since I’d last seen him, he’d put on perhaps a couple of pounds for each year, but otherwise looked the same. His red hair was as thick as before. Avram, though, was a different story. I probably wouldn’t have recognized him at all. But then they might have said the same about me, of course. I’d lost a lot of hair, and I’d grown a paunch.
Yani’s desk was exactly the way I remembered it, with its marble top, his snowball, his brass pencil case. It was then that I realized once more what a curse a strong memory can be. I couldn’t help but envy those with a more permeable sieve.
Anfi came back, this time with a glass made of china. I couldn’t tell what was in it. She took her place. Lifeless legs strained to move again.
“How unrecognizable this Sopalı Hüsnü Street has become, hasn’t it? It took Kevork a full hour to find the house. Oh, do you know what they brought as presents? Avram brought some luxury chocolate thins, and Kevork brought chocolate with cherry liqueur. Chocolate for the old Anfi. It reminded me of High Life Bakery. You boys used to go there for ice cream. That was the first thing Avram said. He hadn’t changed one bit. He summarized all his problems in a single breath. His boyfriend had left him for someone younger. Canada was a very boring place. He’d return to Istanbul in 2020 for good, and so on and so forth …”
I remained silent. Anfi took a few sips from the liquid in the glass and continued.
“Presents of quick, easy consumption, perfect for someone with both feet in the grave. Only you brought something for my heirs. For distant relatives. They’ll just sell everything and be on their merry ways. The fact that you brought an engraving of alpha and omega means a lot, doesn’t it? An implied suggestion to turn the page, yes?”
She was right. I nodded.
“You all wanted to become tram conductors when you were kids. Do you still remember? A second-class seat in the tram was five kuru. A first-class seat was ten. All those shenanigans you boys did for a free trip used to scare me to death.”
“Yani used to pay and get on though. And then watch us.”
“He looked up to you guys so much. Too bad you didn’t have more time together …”
“That’s not why Kevork came to you, Anfi.”
“When he entered this room, he cried, and then he hugged me, sobbing. He told me how much he regretted it. Maybe a hundred times.”
“He lost his only daughter. He was devastated.”
“So he knew what it meant to lose your only child. It was his idea to organize this ritual, this communal confession.”
“This is no ritual.”
“What is it then?”
“It was an accident.”
Anfi murmured something I couldn’t