Arabesk

For a moment the world and everything in it came to a halt as Ìkmen attempted to come to terms with what his son had just said.

'Die?'

'Well, I'm going to the army soon, aren't I?' Bulent spat venomously. 'Same thing!' He dropped his voice. 'And if I don't get killed then I'll go mad like Yusuf

Cohen and that terrifies me. As soon as I heard about him I just lost it, you know: It's not that I'm afraid to fight because I'm not But I don't want to kill people: Some of my friends' families came from the east Why should I want to kill them?'

'Bulent, you don't even know where you'll be sent yet And anyway, it's not for a couple of years. You might not-'

'Dad, I'm not going in as an officer. Boys like me are just gun fodder.'

Ìkmen put his hand gently on his son's shoulder and led him over to a small table that stood in front of a tiny kebabci. 'Let's have some ayran and cool down a bit,' he said.

After settling Bulent into a seat, Ìkmen went up to the window and bought the drinks. When he returned, his son was looking disconsolately at the ground.

'Bulent,' Ìkmen said, sitting down opposite the boy, 'service is, I fear, just part of life. I did it, your brother Sinan has served…'

'Sinan went in as an officer.'

'Because he has a university degree, yes.'

Bulent downed his ayran in one gulp. 'Some boys get bought out and I did think of asking Uncle Halil to do that for me but then I thought that was unfair. He's always bankrolling this family. And anyway he would think I was a coward. Others disappear to other countries, but… but I couldn't do that because of your job. How would it look if a senior policeman's son ran away from his duty?'

Ìkmen sighed. So this was it, was it? All this trouble was about Bulent wanting to live a little before he died – if he died, Ìkmen could not even begin to think about an easy answer to Bulent's conundrum. The boy was right, if he deserted it would look bad for Ìkmen himself and with all the mouths he had to feed, that was not a prospect he wanted to face. Not that he would express this to his son. And then Bulent's thoughts about the action that was not really a war, that raged year in and year out in the eastern provinces, accorded with Ìkmen's own opinions. Although he would never have voiced his thoughts in public and despite the fact that Ìkmen believed that a lot of the PKK fighters were just common murderers, he knew some Kurdish nationals, liked many and was naturally averse to killing anyone or anything. But none of this was any help to his son.

If it's any comfort,' he said as. he placed his half-finished ayran back onto the table, 'I don't think that you're a coward. I think your aversion to killing people is commendable.' He smiled. 'I know I've never been a very good example to you with regard to bad habits, getting you to go and buy alcohol for me and… But your mother and I must have done something right to make you think like this. When you kill, even for the security of your country, you have to live with that knowledge for the rest of your life and that's not easy.'

For the first time that day, Bulent smiled. 'Thanks for understanding, Dad.'

'Not that I can help you at all,' Ìkmen said with a shrug. 'I can't'

'If I knew I was going to be drafted to Cyprus, I'd be OK,' Bulent said, frowning down at the ground once again.

'As you know, my son, I am not a religious man,' Ìkmen said, placing a warm hand on his son's shoulder, 'but perhaps just this once we should trust to Allah or whoever or whatever controls the universe. There is nothing we can do but wait and see and, as your mother would say, Insallah you will go to Cyprus.'

'Yes.' Bulent took his cigarettes out of his pocket and offered one to his father. 'Sinan says that as Turks we sit uneasily in this world. We live so much like the Europeans now, well in the city we do anyway, and yet we still need our women to be chaste, we still go out to fight in what Sinan calls a tribal war.'

Ìkmen, declining on principle his teenage son's cigarettes in favour of his own, lit up and smiled. 'Sinan is right and not so right at the same time. Even in civilised England, they engage in their own tribal war in Northern Ireland. Dr Halman can tell you something about that if you wish. But there are no absolutes anywhere, Bulent, absolutes are impossible.

In this so-called Turkish city of ours we live alongside a lot of anomalies. A so-called enemy can join and care about the forces of law, a Greek can marry a castrated relic of the old Ottoman system.' 'And then kill him.'

'For her own reasons, yes. But the human condition, whether one is Turkish, American, Greek or whatever, is nothing if not entirely idiosyncratic. And when your papers arrive to call you to arms, you and you alone will have to make a decision about that. And you will have to do that without reference to either me or your family or even your country. It's your life, Bulent, and whatever values inform your soul will be all that can and will count And whatever your decision, I will always love you, just as my father always loved me, even after I joined what he always liked to call the "fucking bastard" police.'

But Bulent didn't speak after that. Just a tiny breeze was blowing up from the Bosphorus now and he had closed his eyes in order to enjoy fully the coolness on his body and face. Responding to that which all humans share, the need for a moment of peace.

'Oh,' Mehmet Suleyman said as he approached his office door and saw the figure of Erol Urfa standing in front of it 'Tansu Hanim is downstairs, did you come-'

'Tansu is not too interested in seeing me right now,' the singer said with a sad smile.

'Ah. I understand.'

'No, you don't.' Erol shrugged. 'But then why should you.'

Embarrassed by what he now saw as a faux pas on his part, Suleyman opened the door and showed his guest into his office.

'I just came to assure you that as soon as I have buried Ruya, I will come back to the city.' He placed a small piece of paper covered in rather childish writing on Suleyman's desk. 'Here is my address.'

Suleyman took the paper and glanced at it 'You will have to report to the station in Hakkari. If you can let me know when you are going, I can inform them.'

'Yes.'

The cacophony of honking car horns from outside the window seemed to grow louder as the two men were silent for a few moments, until Erol said, 'When the trial is over I will take Merih, my parents and sisters to Germany.'

Suleyman frowned.

'I am told that Shaitan has a different shape there,' the singer continued. His tone was one of sadness rather than bitterness.

'Will you sing there?'

'I have made more money in three years than most men make in their whole lives and fame, for me, has become… difficult.'

'I see.'

'We are all leaving our traditional homes now,

Inspector, whether they're in this country, Iraq or Syria.' He got up and walked thoughtfully towards the window. 'My kind. We need to be where peacocks mean nothing to men, where people worship only money.'

'Do you not fear that you may become something of an oddity in those lands? Don't you think you might be even more misunderstood?'

Erol turned, the light from the window behind him throwing his face into a darkened pit of shadows. 'I live in hope that questions about a man's religion are questions that the Europeans do not ask.'

Suleyman looked doubtful. 'I think that they do, Mr Urfa. I think that despite what you might think you believe about their overt materialism, such fundamental differences do have meaning for them too. It was, after all, the Europeans who devised the Court of the Inquisition.'

Erol frowned 'The what?'

'Many centuries ago,' Suleyman explained, 'the Christians in Europe devised a special type of court to try anyone suspected of consorting with demons. They tortured, burnt and hung tens of thousands of people.'

'But not now. They don't do that now.'

'No.' Suleyman smiled. 'No, they don't But what Fm saying to you, Mr Urfa, is that they did. They have a history, just like us, of fear and prejudice against that which they do not understand. And just because they do not feel this way now, perhaps, that doesn't mean that they will not do so in the future. Things change.'