Istanbul Noir - Mustafa Ziyalan [98]
“What did you come all the way here for? To hear me say that I forgive you? And that Yani forgives you too? And that he’s happy now, up in the sky? Is that what you came to hear?”
“What did their deaths change, Anfi?”
“As you know, Yani is resting in Feriköy Cemetery. I visited him this morning. One last time. Like everything I did today … one last time.”
I looked at the glass she still held against her face. I thought she must have taken sleeping pills too. In this room, we were closing the book. Meanwhile, I’d grown even more drowsy. There wouldn’t be any drinking with Avram and Kevork at some neighborhood bar. No veiled pissing matches about who had more money or power. Most importantly, we wouldn’t be laying it on the table, dissecting that incident we never ever talked about, never even alluded to, in all those six years we were together afterwards. You pushed. We fell. If only you hadn’t pushed … It was your turn. When the time came, you let it all out. Well, you shouldn’t have kept quiet then. If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t all be lying here now like bags full of shit.
“When Yani was born, our cat Sarman gave birth too. To three extraordinarily beautiful kittens. It was their first week. But then one morning, Sarman was extremely restless. One moment she’d be dashing toward the door, and then the next she’d be leaping at the window. It was like she was trying to tell me, Open it, I’m leaving. She just kept meowing and meowing. I finally gave in and opened the door. She stormed out and got run over by a car a few seconds later. Traffic was heavier than usual. But it’s like that when your time comes. It’s a meeting that you can’t postpone. I tried to feed the kittens milk with a dropper, but it didn’t work. They were too small. They died too.”
I had heard this story from Anfi before. Hearing it again at that moment, in that context, the impact of the omen was intense.
“If only you had opened the door five seconds later and … if only there hadn’t been glass in the hole.”
Anfi offered a smile that was half appreciation, half regret. “That’s not the point. It’s an irrelevant detail. He’d just be pushed again and again, until there was glass in the hole. And the door would be opened again and again.”
“Your logic, it’s flawed,” I said, in all sincerity. “It’s a biased expectation. Life, experience, they change the way we look at things. And now, what use is it, all of this—”
I stopped and looked into her eyes, the eyes of a woman who had left her mark on every phase of my life. And it was she who had determined its finale. I was amazed at the overwhelming power of that part of me ready to go along with it. For a moment, I wondered whether or not Monique would be sad when she heard about my death. She was the one I hurt most and argued with most, yet she was also the one I was once happiest with. Such is the human mind, a timepiece of fascinating inner workings.
“Don’t worry. There’s been a slight change in plans. Only you will wake up. In a couple of hours. You’ll have a light headache. An upset stomach too. Everything is ready in the storage room by the front door. Cans of kerosene. Set the house on fire and go. It should start in this room … There’s one more thing I want you to do before you go, though. I want you to promise me that you’ll bury that small box with Yani’s hair in it on top of his grave. That’s the only thing I want. If you had arrived on time, I wouldn’t have had the chance to tell you that I know, that I knew, how very capable you boys would be of feeling regret, and remorse. We are even now. Burn and go, okay? Don’t worry, the fire won’t harm anyone else. There’s just a condemned building to our left, and a garden with some old, dried-out fruit trees behind us.”
I don’t know if my mouth said anything to Anfi. I was on the verge of sleep. My eyes were no longer open to the room. My thoughts were scattering like a harem of women at the sight of a strange