Through the window, she observed each detaiclass="underline" the red Turkish flags, decked with a golden crescent and star, which marked the town like a wax seal; the blue walls and the brown buildings, stained with pollution; the green roofs and domes of the mosques, which oscillated between jade and emerald in the light.
The taxi drove along a walclass="underline" Hatun Caddesi. Sema read the names on the signposts: Aksaray, Kücükpazar, Carsamba… They resonated vaguely inside her, evoking no particular emotions or distinct recollections.
Yet, more than ever, she sensed that something, anything-a monument, a sign, a street name-could stir up that quicksand and shift aside the memory blocks within her. Like wrecks lying on the seabed, which you only need to brush against for them to drift back up to the surface…
The driver asked, "Devam edelim mi?"' ("Shall we continue?")
"Evet." ("Yes.")
Haseki. Nisanca. Yenikapi.
Another cigarette.
The din of traffic, the tide of passersby. The urban press culminated here. Yet, the overall impression was of gentleness. Spring was making the shadows quiver above this tumult. A pale light glittered though the ironlike air. A silver gleam hung over Istanbul, a sort of gray coating smothering any violence. Even the trees had something worn about them, a cinder coat that calmed and soothed the spirit…
Suddenly, a word on a poster drew her attention. A few syllables on a red- and- gold background.
"Take me to Galatasaray," she told the driver.
"To the school?"
"Yes, the school. To Beyoglu."
69
A large square. on the outskirts of the Taksim quarter. Banks, flags and international hotels. The driver parked at the entrance of the pedestrian precinct.
"It will be quicker on foot," he explained. "Take Istiklal Caddesi. Then after about a hundred yards, you-"
"I know"
Three minutes later. Sema had reached the railings of the school, jealously protected by the somber gardens. She went through the gate and dived into what was almost a forest. Firs, cypresses, eastern planes and lime trees, with their green blades, soft shades, shadowy mouths… Sometimes a patch of bark added some gray, or even black. On other occasions, a tip or bough split into a lighter line-a broad pastel smile. Or else dry almost blue thickets with the transparency of tracing paper. The whole spectrum of vegetation was on display.
Beyond the trees, she spotted a yellow facade, surrounded by sports fields and basketball courts. It was the school. Sema stayed hidden among the boughs and looked at the pollen-colored walls, the neutral cement surfaces. The badge of the school, an S intertwined with a G, red trimmed with gold, on the navy blue sweaters of the pupils walking there.
But above all, she listened to the rising din. It was a sound that is identical in all latitudes: the joy of children freed from school. It was noon. Time for the lunch break. More than a familiar noise, it was a call, a rallying cry. Sensations suddenly gathered around her, entwining her.. Suffocated by emotion, she sat down on a bench and let the images of the past flood in.
First her village, in distant Anatolia. Beneath a limitless, merciless sky, the wattle and daub huts, clinging to the sides of the mountains.
The rippling planes of high grasses. The flocks of sheep on the steep slopes, trotting along at an angle, as gray as filthy paper. Then, in the valley, the men, women and children living like stones, broken by the heat and the cold..
Later, the camp-a disused spa resort, surrounded by barbed wire, somewhere in the Kayseri region. The daily indoctrination, training and exercises. Mornings spent reading Alpaslan Türkes's Nine Lights, repeating nationalistic doctrines, watching silent films on Turkish history. Hours devoted to learning the basics of ballistics, telling the difference between different sorts of explosives, shooting with assault rifles, handling knives…
Then suddenly, the French school. Everything changed. A suave, refined environment. But it was probably even worse. She was the peasant. The girl from the mountains, among the sons of notables. She was also the fanatic, the nationalist holding on to her Turkish identity and ideals amid middle-class, left-wing pupils all dreaming of becoming Europeans…
It was here, at Galatasaray, that she had fallen so much in love with the French language that in her mind, she turned it into her new mother tongue. She could still hear the dialect of her childhood, those clashingly crude syllables, being gradually supplanted by these new words, those poems and books that modulated her slightest thought and molded each new idea. The world then, quite literally, became French.
Then the time came to travel. Opium. The fields in Iran, set in steps above the jaws of the desert. The patches of poppies in Afghanistan between the fields of corn and vegetables. She could picture that nameless, undefined frontier. A no-man's-land of dust, dotted with mines, haunted by wild buccaneers. She remembered the wars. The tanks, the Stingers-and the Afghan rebels playing their game of buskachi with the head of a Soviet soldier.
She could also see the laboratories. Airless structures full of men and women wearing cloth masks. The white dust and acidic fumes, the morphine base and the refined heroin… her real work had begun.
It was then that the face became clear.
So far, her memory had worked in only one direction. Each time, a face had acted as a detonator. Schiffer's appearance had been enough to bring back the previous months' activities-the dope, running away concealment. Azer Akarsa's smile raised up the camps, nationalist meetings, men brandishing their fists, with their pinkie and index fingers raised, screaming high-pitched wails or else crying "Türkes basbug!" -and had identified her as a Wolf.
But now, in the gardens of Galatarasay, the opposite was happening. Her memories revealed a pattern of leitmotifs that crossed each fragment of her recollections'… At first, a clumsy child, right back at the beginning. Then an awkward teenager, at the French school. Later, a fellow smuggler. In those underground laboratories, it was definitely always the same pudgy figure, dressed in a white coat, that was smiling at her.
Over the years, a child had grown by her side. A blood brother. A Grey Wolf who had shared everything with her. As she concentrated, his face became clearer. Babyish features beneath honey-colored curls. Blue eyes, like two turquoises placed among the rocks of the desert.
Suddenly a name emerged: Kürsat Milihit.
She stood up and decided to go inside the school. She needed confirmation.
Sema introduced herself to the headmaster as a French journalist and explained the subject of her report: former Galatarasay pupils who had become celebrities in Turkey.
The headmaster laughed in pride. What could be more natural than that?
A few minutes later, she found herself in a small room, its walls lined with books. In front of her, the files covering all the classes over the past few decades-names and pictures of former pupils, the dates and any prizes awarded each year. With no hesitation, she opened the register for 1988 and turned to the final year. Her year. She did not look for her previous face; the very idea of looking at it made her feel ill at ease, as though she were touching a taboo subject. No. She looked for the portrait of Kürsat Milihit.
When she found it, her memories grew even more precise. The childhood friend. The traveling companion. Today, Kürsat was a chemist. The best in his field. Able to transform any gum base into the best morphine, and then distill the purest heroin. His magician's fingers knew better than anyone how to manipulate acetic anhydride.