Yaziz could’ve asked his driver to drop him off at his apartment near Ulus, but he preferred not to make it easy for the department to know his whereabouts. Bulayir was not a man one should turn his back to.
So, after delivering the news of Umit Alekci’s death to the victim’s mother, Yaziz instructed his driver to return him to headquarters in Yenişehir. It was the end of his shift, but he still had work to do and no family at home to return to.
He could not shake from his mind the stricken look on Umit Alekci’s mother’s face. Yaziz thought his own mother would wear such a look if she were brought similar news, and given his profession and the uncertain times, that possibility seemed more likely each day.
Alone in his office, he removed his tie, rolled it into a ball, and stuffed it into his coat pocket along with the clinking beads of his tespih. Ignoring the papers stacked neatly atop his desk, he nodded at the photograph of Atatürk on the wall, then left, locking the door behind him.
He avoided the boulevard and wound through narrow side streets, where he ducked into crowds to make sure he would lose anyone who followed him from headquarters. Not that anyone should. Until he learned the truth behind Bulayir’s preoccupation, he would stay out of the chief’s way as much as possible.
Even with his limp, Yaziz reached the nargile salon in only fifteen minutes, a walk that would’ve taken most Turks almost twice that amount of time. But he was koreli, a man like any other Turk, yet unlike most Turks.
By the time he reached the inconspicuous doorway, a hole in the chipped plaster wall beside a coffee bar, he felt certain he’d shaken the junior officer Bulayir would’ve assigned to tail him.
Who would it be this time? Resnelioğlu? Çinkay?
The sounds of burbling water and soft conversation mingled with the smell of sweet tobacco and floated down the narrow steps, promising to clear the worries of the day from Yaziz’s mind. At least, for now. Coming here was similar to fondling his tespih. Both his worry beads and his addiction to the water pipe were habits that his personal hero, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, would’ve frowned upon as idle practices typical of Ottoman decadence. But Yaziz, despite his worldly experiences, and despite his Kemalist leanings—although he was openly a member of the Democrat Party—was unable to shake either of these habits.
He paused at the landing to survey the men gathered here. Most of them were on their way home after a day of work and eager to share a bit of gossip and camaraderie. Yaziz, however, was more interested in listening than sharing. His workday never ended.
Low sofas angled this way and that, filled with men of all ages and all levels of wealth and poverty. Yaziz searched for the familiar cascade of snowy white hair that distinguished one old man. If his friend was in town, instead of away at his horse farm, Yaziz knew he would be here at this hour.
Then he spied him. Murat, a long-time family acquaintance and now a retired judge, lazed on one of the cushions beside an open window. He had nothing better to do with his time in town but monitor the lives of his sons and the prospective marriages of his daughters. Yaziz made his way across the room and stood before Murat’s sofa, then waited patiently. The judge had clearly seen him coming, yet he continued to puff on his pipe, whose bowl sat on the thick carpet before him.
Finally, Murat removed his meerschaum mouthpiece. A smoke ring drifted out of his mouth as he offered the back of his hand, which Yaziz kissed to show his respect to his elder. Yaziz sank down to the empty space on the sofa beside Murat, and his movement gave him a glimpse through the window of the sidewalk below.
Erkmen!
Yaziz blinked and looked again. Erkmen, the man out there leaning against a lamppost, was certainly no junior officer. He was Bulayir’s lieutenant, the one who’d tracked down the identity of today’s victim wearing the American’s suit. Erkmen was making no attempt at discretion. His black hair of tangled curls formed a V-shaped mat that made him stand out in any crowd. Perhaps he was meeting someone. Not really tracking Yaziz’s movements to report to the chief.
Murat began the ritual inquiries about the wellness of their families, diverting the detective from the problem outside. That someone as careful as Yaziz had not shaken a tail gave rise to a gnawing sensation of doubt. Perhaps the distraction of the gypsies had clouded his effectiveness.
An attendant appeared beside their sofa just then with a pipe and a tray of tobacco. Yaziz startled, jerking sharply at the interruption.
“Relax, Veli,” said Murat.
Yaziz shrugged in an attempt to regain his composure and selected his usual blend, cultivated on a plantation near Adana. While the attendant fueled the bowl with tobacco and burning coals, Yaziz stole another glance out the window. Erkmen studied his wristwatch.
Yaziz drew in his first drag, then nodded his approval. He would wait until the attendant left before he spoke again, but when the time came, speech escaped him.
Murat coughed, rattling loose phlegm. “There is no need for you to hide behind those movie-star glasses of yours when you are with me, my boy.”
“I’m sorry, efendim.” Yaziz removed the heavy frames with the tinted lenses that he always wore, outside or in. He felt Murat’s curiosity penetrate him, as it usually did when someone—even someone as familiar as Murat—saw him like this, exposed. Yaziz’s one blue eye and one brown eye presented a flaw that compromised his authority.
“That’s better,” Murat said. “Now we are more comfortable, eh Veli?”
“Yes, efendim.”
The comfort Yaziz felt, however, was not from his naked head but from the rich smoke that he drew deep into his lungs. Its warmth spread through his body, and slowly, he felt the tightness in his muscles drain away. The image of the gypsy’s sorrow faded. The nuisance of losing the witness he’d wished for all along—a young veiled woman, the MPs at Anit Kabir had reported to his assistant, Suleyman—no longer mattered. The urgency of Burkhardt’s plot, Miss Riddle’s suspicious behavior, Erkmen’s surveillance, and Bulayir’s preoccupation mellowed. Time slowed, and this became most important, this communion with one’s soul.
“Now, perhaps you will tell me what makes you buck today like one of my proudest stallions?” Murat said.
Yaziz’s right shoulder lifted to his ear and the curve of his mouth turned down, rather than confess the limitations of what he knew. The old man could be tiresome, but he was a friend of his parents, who’d insisted Yaziz renew his acquaintance with the judge when he returned from Korea and settled in Ankara. Now, he found Murat useful with his many contacts in this city Yaziz had learned to love for its rawness and explosive progressivism.
“A gypsy was murdered today, and my boss thinks it’s too unimportant to deserve an investigation.”
“But you disagree?”
“I’m sure it’s more important than Bay Bulayir believes,” Yaziz said, gazing thoughtfully at the window. Or, at least it was more important than Bulayir claimed to believe.
Yaziz couldn’t toss off the gypsy’s murder as the result of a squabble. After visiting the mother, he was certain there was no such conflict, not of the warring nature. The Alekcis were a family on their own, trying to make an honest living.
He didn’t believe that Bulayir really believed his own story of a gypsy squabble. No, Bulayir was trying to sidetrack Yaziz. He wondered what his boss did not want him to find out.
Murat chuckled. “I see that your father has not yet convinced you to give up police work.”
“God willing,” Yaziz said with a shrug, “I will have as long and lucrative a career as you have had.”
The two men sucked on their pipes, producing clouds of smoke to accompany the heavy silence that weighed on their heads.
Murat finally spit out his mouthpiece and shrugged. “Mine was nothing special.” Then he resumed his smoke.
Yaziz regretted his choice of words, even though it was his duty to praise a friend. Turks would not praise themselves. But Yaziz had evoked a memory that threatened to dampen the warmth of their company.
Murat had started his career in a lower court of Istanbul in the early days of the Republic, but he soon moved to Ankara, following Atatürk to the seat of his new government. After a life’s service interpreting the Eternal Leader’s laws, Murat had been rewarded only the year before with a forced retirement imposed by the Democrats. The Democrat Party had won control from Atatürk’s Republican People’s Party.
“It is always necessary,” Yaziz said, trying to explain his poor judgment, “for a policeman to stay informed of troubles on the streets.”
“What you need,” Murat said, “is a wife to keep you off the streets.”
Allah had favored Murat with an industrious wife, three sons and two daughters.
“Are you offering me one of your daughters?” Yaziz grinned. Even if the pleasing, younger one were offered, he wasn’t interested.
Murat jerked his head back and ticked his tongue. “My daughters will have someone worthier than you. Already I am negotiating with Ahmet Aydenli for one of their hands.”
“The assistant minister of the Interior? But efendim...” In spite of the light-hearted tone of banter, Yaziz felt wounded. He was destined for the top one day, perhaps as high as the minister of the Interior, who headed the entire police force.
But not if he failed Bulayir in this assignment.
Yaziz sucked again on his pipe, and the mix of tobaccos relaxed the knots that riddled his clouded mind. How could Murat consider such a match after the way he himself had lost his job? “I will consider myself a lucky man if I do my job as honorably as you have done yours.”
Murat sighed. “What is it that you are asking of me, Veli?”
Yaziz frowned. “The Americans are somehow involved in this business of the gypsy.”
“Ah. That’s why you come to me. You want to know if their involvement means some responsibility. But your chief does not wish to upset our American friends—my American friends—by including them in a messy investigation.”
Perhaps Murat was right, Yaziz thought. Bulayir was not a stupid man. He would’ve seen the connection for himself in the report before tossing it aside. Umit Alekci had fled from Romania—part of the larger Balkan area, where Miss Anna Riddle claimed her young lieutenant had been working undercover. Whether or not the lieutenant existed beyond Miss Riddle’s imagination, geography alone tied her to the murdered gypsy.
Yes, that must be it. Bulayir wished not to pursue the gypsy’s murder because he only wanted to steer Yaziz away from involving the Americans. But Yaziz could not help but wonder what the Americans were up to. Why Burkhardt had given his suit to Umit Alekci.
“This murder is another example of the increasing spread of discontent throughout the city,” Yaziz said, certain at least of this one thing.
“Really? And how is a gypsy important to such issues as the trade-gap? Or rising inflation?”
Yaziz shrugged, implying that the question of relevance was an unimportant matter. He would never admit that he did not know. He did not know yet.
“It is all part of the national unrest,” Yaziz said. “Demonstrations are no secret.”
Murat spit out his mouthpiece. “They protest the Press Law, Veli, you know that.”
“No. There is more to it than that. Besides, Menderes promises to reform the law.”
“The prime minister’s promise is as good as the newspapers’ reporting of the news.”
“Shhh,” Yaziz said, glancing around, almost expecting Erkmen to have come up the stairs from the streets below and to now lurk on the next sofa within hearing distance. Not seeing Bulayir’s lieutenant, Yaziz turned back to Murat. “It is troubling, the stories that are suppressed by the newspapers.” He studied the wrinkled face of his friend for a flicker of recognition.
Instead of complying with the suggestion of a lead, Murat went back to puffing on his pipe.
“Your eldest son works at the Republic News, does he not?” Yaziz asked.
Murat’s head, swathed with white hair as fine as silk, dipped briefly in a nod. Not only did Yaziz know that he was correct, he knew that Murat also knew what Yaziz knew. The question was merely a signal that their business finally drew to the heart of the matter.
“I have heard it said that Republic News prints lies.” Yaziz waited while Murat slowly withdrew the meerschaum from his mouth.
“My son, Nizamettin, only writes the truth,” Murat said, shooting puffs of smoke with each word. “It is the government that does not wish to see the truth of our economy printed for all to see. For this, they arrest journalists? Outsiders call us Yokistan, ‘the land of not,’ but is this the fault of those within who wish to convey the news?”
Yaziz’s gut twisted in sympathy. He inhaled calming smoke, drawing it deep inside.
Spittle formed on Murat’s lips as he grew more agitated. “God forgive me,” he continued. “As a judge, I could never convict any of them for printing the truth. When I lost my job for that small defiance, it was as Allah wills. But one day the Democrat Party will find that it cannot dictate the truth that newspapers must print, not if we are to keep up with the modern world. Not if we follow Atatürk’s vision.”
Like Murat, Yaziz also was a man of principle. But could he go as far as Murat had gone? His own job answered to the very government that had retired Murat for acquitting the accused journalists who’d printed the truth. What would they do to Yaziz if he defied Bulayir’s order to drop the gypsy affairs?
Yaziz glanced out the window. Erkmen was gone. Yaziz turned back to Murat and lowered his voice. “There is much discontent with the Democrats in power. There are rumors of a revolution,” he said. “I am searching for the source of it.” He waited for the offer of help, as it was not Turkish to ask for it himself.
“You have no farther to go than to the banks,” Murat said, “where there is no money.”
Western impatience twisted through Yaziz. “Your son must’ve learned something. He’s told you, hasn’t he? I must talk to him.”
“You wish for him to lose his job, too?”
“Then, tell me what you know.”
“I know that we are going bankrupt as a nation and cannot survive much longer without finding another answer. Most of the income we have so far, we owe to the Americans, but where that came from, there is no more. Their courtship of us is already over, and they grow weary of us. Perhaps we will have to listen to the Soviets from now on.”
“You don’t mean that.”
Murat lifted his thick eyebrows and sniffed. “It is no longer up to me to pass judgment. We will see what the people have to say in the elections next May. We will see if the DP remains in power that long.”
“Then you do think a revolution is imminent?”
“I say nothing.”
“It’s Atatürk’s generals who plan it, isn’t it?”
“I know nothing.”
“Efendim, give me a name, a place where I can start to track them down.”
Murat remained silent. His head tipped farther back.
“Don’t you understand?” Yaziz said, foolishly disrespectful. “It’s not up to them to determine the law. No one is above the government when it has been voted in by the people. It is my job to uphold the law. It is your duty to cooperate.”
“My duty is to Atatürk and his dream, as should be yours.”
“Atatürk’s dream was to have a democracy.”
“And so we have one.”
Yaziz, who had other duties as well, thrust aside his pipe. He jabbed his glasses back in place, and sprang to his feet. “Western democracies don’t have revolutions when the people are displeased with the ruling party.”
“My boy, your trouble is that you have spent too much time outside our borders. You have forgotten what it is like to be a Turk. Why don’t you ever wear your veteran’s badge and let the world know you for who you are?”
Murat, his elder, was wrong. That badge earned Yaziz false respect, only for the killing he’d done in Korea. But Murat didn’t deserve that answer any more than Yaziz had deserved such a blow—the suggestion that his Turkish core was tarnished! Yaziz wheeled around and strode away. His step pounded the wood, but his heart felt heavier than usual.