‘Forgive me, I’m asking you because you broached the subject. Your father and Jiyan Hanım … Was it in Sweden? I mean, I haven’t quite got the hang of it … it seemed a little complicated. Was your mother Swedish?’
‘It’s not complicated. In fact it is simpler than the plots of your novels. My mother is from Diyarbakır. My father is from further east, from around here. I, too, was born in Diyarbakır. Then when the soldiers came in 1980 Diyarbakır and the whole of the east became hell. My parents had to escape and went to Sweden as political refugees. At the time I was six or seven, I can remember our arrival by plane. It was the first time I had boarded one.’
‘And, after that, your father and Jiyan, I mean how did he meet her?’
‘It was a love story. At the time I was a young lad of nineteen or twenty. Jiyan had come to visit her elder brother in Sweden. We used to visit them as a family. My father met Jiyan by chance at their home. He was over fifty then. And as for Jiyan — I don’t know whether I have to explain — she was young and quite enchanting. Don’t get me wrong. My father was not particularly interested in women. He was still married to my mother, and in Sweden there are plenty of beautiful women. All the same, my father had eyes only for his work and research. But Jiyan, especially at that age, was more than just beautiful. Now I understand it better. In those days I was an adolescent preoccupied with northern blondes. My father said, “It’s as though the essence of my country, its heart, mystery and rebellion have come together in this woman. Jiyan is not just a beautiful woman but a country; the country from which I was thrown out, that I left, the country I long for.” It seemed to me too romantic or even rather maudlin at the time. I was angry, too, because he left my mother. Now I understand what he meant.’
He is silent for a moment. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t be telling you all this seeing that Jiyan has not told you herself.’
They leave the deep valley and turn on to an earthen track. The last shafts of light from the setting sun strike the steep cliffs. Like opposing mirrors the granite rocks reflect the light back and forth.
‘We’re almost there,’ says the young man. ‘There is a checkpoint a kilometre further on. If we can reach it before the sun sets, we can pass. Otherwise they close the road. They haven’t quite evacuated everywhere here. Officially it hasn’t been named as such yet, but after the last period of tension, the explosions and operations it has long since been a forbidden zone.’
The days are long, twilight has not yet fallen. They reach the point before sunset. It is a long wait. Papers, identity cards. ‘Open the boot!’ ‘Where have you come from?’ ‘Where are you going?’ … Questions asked in harsh, commanding, scornful voices. Ömer has now learnt to keep quiet in such situations, to hand over his identity card and wait in a corner. Like the skilful actors in a play that has been well rehearsed, the people here know the questions, the answers, the gestures, where to be silent and where to speak.
The leading office at the checkpoint — he must be a junior officer or a military police officer — gives the command in a deep voice with the air of a general. ‘Pass! Next time you are this late I won’t let you through. Go on, get going!’ They make slow progress along the deteriorating road, full of potholes and stones, in the four-by-four that Ömer later realizes is armoured. They spot a clump of trees that seems to jump out at them from among the rocks as they take a bend.
‘We’re here!’
When Elif returned to the hotel she was pretty drunk. It was a night that began with champagne and ended with champagne. And, to top it all, the superb French wines that were drunk in between. By northern standards Le Coq Rouge was an excellent French restaurant. Her date really knew about food and drink. Was that all? His command of his scientific field was not to be sneezed at either. They spent half the night talking about their research, the latest findings in genetics and, of course, the resulting ethical questions. What she liked about the man was his talking with her as an equal — not patronizing her.
As she took off first her trousers and then the lilac blouse, her eye caught on the full-length mirror on the door of the wardrobe. She took off her tights designed to make her look slimmer than she really was, that squeezed in her stomach and her bottom and the specially cut bra that showed off her breasts to their best advantage. She examined her body objectively. Not bad at all for a 52-year-old! ‘My youthful wife,’ Ömer used to say as they made love. His words, his caresses, his closeness gave her far deeper pleasure during sexual union than the physical enjoyment. He used to say, ‘You make love with your brain.’ She never worked out whether this was a compliment or whether he was teasing her. She used to imagine Ömer knowing women who made love with their bodies, their whole beings, perhaps abandoning themselves to their basic instincts like animals, and comparing them with her, and then she would be upset.
She thought how long it was since they had made love. Was it a month, two months? It wasn’t more than that. Ömer had returned from a book-signing day at a major international book fair. In the past he would return the same day by plane when he had been to those sorts of events. However much they urged him he would never extend his stay, resorting to the excuse, ‘I have to work, my publisher is waiting for me to finish my book.’ That time he had stayed there almost a week, the length of the fair. This was because when he came back there was nothing to do. Elif knew that he had writer’s block, that he could no longer write. She felt that it was for this reason he had gone east, that the source for his work had dried up and that he was looking for new inspiration.
‘This time you stayed too long,’ she had reproached him.
‘You are right, dear. I did stay a long time. I’ve missed you.’
They had made love. Just like the old days, right there on the couch, covering themselves with the twilight. Calm, safe, sound, unexciting love-making without waste, without surprise, where they both knew each other’s likes, all their sensitive points, the curves of their bodies.
As she looked at her body in the mirror, she had a feeling of longing that she had not experienced for a long time. She felt as though she had been left suspended in the middle of making love, as though she had been cut short just as she was about to have an orgasm. The bitter taste of adultery that had come to nothing and a feeling of humiliation coupled with shame. The emptiness of an intended but failed attempt at murder…
Why did I meet up with that English colleague? Was I really interested in talking science? And what about getting dolled up to the nines … Wasn’t everything, from the bra to the silk jersey blouse, chosen to show off your femininity, to get him excited? At one stage you even considered at the last minute wearing a thin cotton top without a bra at all — so that your nipples would be visible. So why didn’t you? Was it to play the mysterious woman from the east? You are Turkish. A man should find something in you that he can’t find in western women; a little reserve, a touch of coyness or coquetry. Aren’t all these pathetic ploys contrived to arouse a man, to ensure that the fish swallows the bait?