'You're saying I will never be safe, wherever I go?'
'With the cultural ground, metaphorically, shifting beneath our feet every minute of the day, who amongst us is safe?' Suleyman smiled. 'My family, Mr Urfa, once commanded vast armies. We were Ottomans, we ruled the rest of you.' He sighed. 'But now I am a Turk just like everybody else and, like a Turk, I must sometimes decide whether I am going to eat today or just simply smoke a few cigarettes. No one is safe from change, Mr Urfa, no one.'
Tansu Hamm stood in silence as Orhan Tepe noted the time, 3.15 p.m. and date, August 16th, of her entrance into the cells.
'Is Latife Hanim prepared?' he asked the duty officer who was, though responsive, almost dozing under the influence of the extreme heat.
'Yes.'
'Right' And then turning to the white-faced woman at his back he said, 'If you'd like to come this way, madam.'
Wordlessly the woman, who was now clad in a very simple black dress, her face almost devoid of all make-up, followed him. For his part, had Orhan Tepe not known that this visitor was indeed Turkey's own true darling, he would never have guessed. Not only was she dressed much more simply than she had been the previous night, she also looked older, much older.
There were two sets of locks to get through in order to gain entry to the festering concrete box in which Latife Emin was now incarcerated. After checking that his charge was ready for her visit via the observation flap in the door, Tepe opened first the top and then the bottom set of locks.
'I'll be outside,' he said as he ushered the woman in black into the presence of her counterpart in grey.
'That won't be necessary,' the singer said, her eyes fixed hard upon those of her sister.
Tepe closed the door on the two silent, standing women. The crackle of fury in the air was so tangible as to be almost audible. But Tepe left them anyway -stood outside with a cigarette and looked up and down at the grim cell walls.
Ten minutes later when he came to tell Tansu that her time was up, the two women were still standing exactly where they had been when he left them. Silent, stone-like, the only movement between them the monstrously developed feeling of fury that, Tepe felt, would utterly crush and destroy bom the women, and him if he didn't leave soon.
Quite what had passed between them neither Tepe nor anyone else would ever know. Or indeed want to know.
Barbara Nadel
Trained as an actress, Barbara Nadel is now a public relations officer for the National Schizophrenia Fellowship's Good Companions Service. Her previous job was a mental health advocate in a psychiatric hospital. She has also worked with sexually abused teenagers and taught psychology in both schools and colleges. Born in the East End of London, she has been a regular visitor to Turkey for over twenty years.
