Endgame, page 8
She took a deep breath.
‘You’re the cleverest man in the town and now you’re saying that the treasure is both there and it’s not there. The damned thing is enough to drive even the cleverest people insane.’
She stood up and ran her hand up her inner thigh. ‘Come over here and I’ll show you Sümbül’s cat. Now, that’s definitely there.’
Sümbül’s cat was no match for Schrödinger’s and between her legs the last thing on my mind was quantum physics.
She downed the last bit of whisky-cola before she got up to go. As she was stepping through the door, I took her by the arm and said: ‘But you never warned me.’
She looked at me, a forlorn expression on her face.
‘Didn’t I tell you to come and say goodbye before you left town? I was putting the idea in your head.’
That’s when I realised that in this town certain topics were never openly discussed, and when they were you had to pay careful attention to catch innuendo and subtle signs to understand just what people meant.
Now, thinking back on it, I wonder why I didn’t just leave then. What was keeping me there? When there were so many dangers, warnings, the strange happenings, when I always had the feeling that something bad was just around the corner.
Maybe it was simply curiosity.
I was curious to see what would happen. A writer’s boundless curiosity.
And maybe a little pride.
I had the feeling that I would win over the entire town.
To somehow know the truth behind the people there without them ever suspecting me, to see what they were hiding, to let slip details to do with the dark sides of their lives, it didn’t just quench my curiosity but gave me a strange and exhilarating rush of power.
And like all forms of power, it is a pleasure that comes at a price, a pleasure for which you pay later on.
And now I know the price I had to pay.
XII
Two days after that strange conversation with Sümbül, I was sitting in the coffeehouse reading my newspapers when Mustafa’s enormous black car pulled up in front of the garden and his thickset driver, who was also the mayor’s official bodyguard, walked over to me. ‘Mustafa Bey is expecting you.’
Everyone at the tables around me seemed blown back by a sudden gust of wind; but then they were still; it was like a ring of energy had pushed them away from me. For the coffeehouse denizens I’d gone from being a friendly writer to one of the bigwigs.
They gazed at me with admiration, fear and respect.
It annoyed me that Mustafa had sent his driver to order me to come and see him. But there was nothing I could do.
It would have caused a real commotion in town if I’d refused him.
Anyone refusing a summons from the mayor would have upset the order in town, and even my good friends at the coffeehouse would have been angry with me.
This was the way things worked; it was unfair and meaningless but everyone had a place in the order of things, and they were accustomed to this. No one wanted to disturb the delicate balance. Though it was a balance full of threats, oppression and fear, it was a known element; they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves if the scales were somehow tipped.
I got up and walked over to the car.
We drove to the town hall.
I loved the building. It’s a broad, three-storey, sand-coloured stone building with oriel windows and dark blue tiles over the cornices and delicate columns at the entrance.
Mustafa’s office was on the top floor. It was a large room. Two leather armchairs sat in front of a long desk and at the far end of the room there was a round conference table. Between them was a wooden coffee table surrounded by a set of leather armchairs.
Two people I’d never seen before were sitting in the leather chairs and talking to Mustafa. When I entered the room he stood up to greet me.
One of the men seemed carved out of wood; he was a tall, thin, tough-looking man; the contours of his face, like those of his body, were harsh and taut, no flesh and blood, only bone. Under his thick, woolly eyebrows were dark little eyes fixed in a steely gaze.
‘The honourable judge,’ Mustafa said, and the man nodded his head without extending his hand. The other was a stout, young, informal man. A little rosary dangled from his left hand, and he was stroking the glimmering beads. Mustafa introduced him to me as the honourable district governor. Nonchalantly, he reached out his hand, which was soft and fleshy.
Mustafa chatted with me as if we were old friends, ordering me a coffee, and the others listened to us without saying a word. But before long they got right to the point.
‘We would like to ask you to write a speech for us,’ Mustafa said.
‘Me?’ I said, surprised.
I would have never thought I’d be called to a town hall to write a speech.
‘Aren’t you a writer?’ Mustafa asked, laughing.
For the first time since I’d been in town they saw my true face. I was suddenly incensed by all their disparaging jokes about being a writer. I felt the muscles in my face tighten.
‘You’re confusing literature with petitions,’ I snapped. ‘Call a clerk. You’re talking to the wrong man!’
In the heart of every writer there lies a murderer.
Writers spend their lives struggling to conceal this murderous desire from other mortals.
Like God, they ruthlessly destroy the people of their own creation, drag them from one cruelty to another, meting out punishment, and with the callous indifference of a serial killer. And no one knows when he has taken a life from the solitude of his room. But when a writer is enraged the walls of his refuge come crumbling down, revealing his true identity.
In that moment those men caught glimpse of a killer, and they recognised him straight away because of who they were and what they did.
They stirred slightly, moving forward in their seats, and respectfully uncrossed their legs as if they were sitting before their superior officer. They hadn’t expected such a reaction from me. They were flushed with fear. And they didn’t know why.
‘No, that’s not what I mean,’ Mustafa said. ‘We’re asking you to do us favour.’
‘A favour?’
‘I’m due to make a speech before the municipal assembly. Later, copies will be posted around town. So it’s important that we have something that’s well-written. We’re not persuasive writers. We’d only come up with something dry and official, and unclear.’
‘Well, then what do you want to say?’
‘We’re going to forbid people from going up the church hill. And we’re going to present this decree to the public. You see, there are far too many old wells and dangerous ruins up there. We’re concerned that someone might fall and die.’
‘Do you have the jurisdiction to issue such a decree?’
The judge spoke for the first time, in a gravelly but authoritarian tone, like sandpaper running over a wooden board.
‘When it comes to public safety it is within our jurisdiction to make any decision,’ he pronounced.
The district governor reiterated: ‘It is of course a matter of public safety.’
‘Is restricting people from going to such a place really a matter of public safety?’
‘God forbid if something were to happen to someone there,’ said the governor. ‘It is our duty to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening in the first place. Now, if someone were to tumble into one of those wells we would be the ones responsible.’
‘Why not put up a sign? You could simply warn people that way.’
Sensing the discussion could descend into argument, Mustafa cut us off.
‘A sign is out of the question. Someone will go up there at night and not see it … It’s simply not practical. A restriction is the easiest and surest way to handle this.’
‘But then how will you enforce it? How will you stop people from going?’
Running his fingers over his rosary, the governor explained: ‘We’ll post a watchman there.’
Clearly they already had everything planned out. No doubt the governor drove the enormous Mercedes parked at the door.
‘What do you want me to do?’
Mustafa flashed me a smile, and for a moment I felt like he might shoot me right then and there. ‘Instead of a dry, boring speech on the new restriction we need a speech clearly explaining the danger of moving about among the wells and ruins. People must understand both the danger of going there and the rationale behind the prohibition. You see, people here like to gossip now and then and such a speech would serve to cut the rumours … And so we are kindly asking for your help. Of course you are in no way obliged, but we imagine it would be quite simple for you to do. And if you did we would be eternally grateful.’
To agree meant becoming their partner in crime. But I also knew that after my sudden outburst they would be more careful and respectful towards me.
I took a long sip of coffee.
They watched me intently.
Then, with a smile, I said, ‘Fine. I’ll do it.’
I had agreed so that I could stay in town.
The judge and the governor rose and respectfully shook my hand and Mustafa saw me out of the building.
I was breaking the law and, what was worse, it amused me. I was also excited about infiltrating the power struggles in town. I would be able to learn so much more. I might also be killed.
I was dropped off at the coffeehouse.
The people there greeted me with curiosity but also with respect. I was now a powerful and respectable figure in their eyes.
And all this because of a single page I had agreed to write.
As my closest friend there, Remzi had the courage to ask me what had happened.
‘Why did they send for you?’ he said.
‘They are officially prohibiting people from going up the church hill. And they want me to write the announcement.’
Silence.
‘Oh God help us,’ said Remzi. ‘Mustafa Bey is going to dig up the church himself. There’s going to be a war in this town.’
XIII
I feel a strange trembling sensation.
It’s a hot night but I can’t stop shivering.
I’m hungry.
The hunger came over me with such sudden ferocity; how strange to feel hungry under these circumstances.
This adventure began with Remzi’s köfte but could I really eat a plate of them now? I probably could.
Remzi made the most delicious meatballs in the world.
Branded with dark strips from the grill, they were carefully laid out on bread that soaked up the sizzling juices. This was served with sliced onions in sumac and a little cup of hot sauce on the side. I always told Remzi to hold the onions and the hot sauce. Just the meatballs, lightly flavoured with cumin, and bread.
I sat and ate meatballs in Remzi’s garden almost every afternoon. I always praised him for making better meatballs than anyone else. He enjoyed the attention. Maybe that’s the main reason we became friends.
Then I’d drink cold beer he brought me in a thick honeycomb glass mug and listen to the town’s secrets before heading home and going online.
It was a pleasant life and I was happy.
I feasted on mouthwatering meatballs and sin.
Thinking about it now, I was a strange kind of freak in a strange town; but like everyone else I seemed completely calm and ordinary on the surface. Sometimes I used to wonder if I would ever find a town to match my personality. So did I really end up here by chance?
A coincidence.
But there’s form, an internal coherence, unseen connections in God’s divine order, and perhaps that is why his work is so compelling. The way he tightropes between accident and control.
Anyone else but me would have left. He would have shrugged off these strange twists of fate and left. But I chose to stay. A chain of coincidences. God creates them, but lets you decide how to live through them.
Sitting on this bench this hot summer night, shivering with fear, I feel that I’ve made my life with God as my accomplice.
He created coincidences as if they were empty houses for me to furnish. We choose a home and make it ours. But he provides the inspiration.
Maybe God isn’t the only one to blame for everything that has happened.
God is my accomplice.
We have committed the crime together.
We have sinned together.
He opened the door to chance and I walked right through.
Did he know in advance that I would? He did. He knows me. I don’t know him but he knows me.
I didn’t speak to him but he spoke to me.
I perceived him as a silent, untouchable accomplice. But I would be punished and my accomplice would go free.
What a wonderful talent. To create all those sins and remain innocent.
Is that why you’re great, God?
Because you remain innocent amidst all your sins?
I understand God.
I know his secret.
Who can condemn me for a murder in a novel that I have written? Who can blame me for bringing suffering to the characters in my books? Who would think me evil?
The more evil I create, the more I’ll be praised.
And I am one of God’s novels.
We are all the same.
He is praised for everything he does to us and everything he makes us do. Buildings are overflowing with his books. They are read far more than anyone else’s.
He’s a talented colleague.
I write better than you. Your language is inconsistent. Your narrative structure is in disarray. But you’re more believable than I am.
And your inventions are truly wonderful. This magnificent idea of sin. We can’t overcome it; we are forever entangled in it. At the end of the day it is always there, lodged in everything we write.
So you are peerless.
Only you can draw the limits of this novel.
Only you could have discovered sin, and then made sinners of all your heroes.
There’s no escape for me now.
I suppose I’ll wait until morning and then turn myself in.
I don’t seem to have any strength left, or I’ll pull myself together a little later, I don’t know.
Speak to me, why don’t you.
You know they say that people who talk to you are mad?
So are you driving me insane?
Look, I say this as a friend, you’re going too far. You’ll lose all your credibility. ‘He was already mad,’ you’ll say, and the truth is they’ll believe that too.
You don’t like criticism, do you? Who does? I don’t like it either. You relish praise. But let them withhold it from you and then see. Now, this is just between you and me, but you like to advertise – you call out to people every day, encouraging them to gather and sing your praises. And they do. I envy this.
After all you’ve done to me there’s nothing more you can do. That’s why I’m not afraid of your wrath.
Truth is, however, I really do enjoy your ‘there’s more to come’ game, always creating a little suspense, and just when we think the adventure is over the hereafter starts, keeping the reader engaged.
But let’s face it: your early work wasn’t so great. What was the deal with all those dinosaurs? And everything else. That chapter was roughly made and boring. Surely you agree, since you tore those chapters up and threw them away.
Did you burn them?
Some say you did.
What came after that wasn’t so great either.
So you created nature first.
Believe me, the plot was simple.
Survival of the fittest.
No complexity, intrigue or surprise. It’s dull. You repeat yourself again and again.
I suppose you’re tired of the monotony. You say, This novel will never get off the ground. I need more action and dramatic twists. Something left hanging. Something to shock and surprise. I should pick up the pace. Something to pique the reader’s interest.
I’m sure you said this.
So, look, humans are sound characters for a big book like yours. That’s where your mastery can flourish. How did you come up with this?
How did you come up with a character so complex and full of contradictions, who can even work against himself, who can’t even guess what he’s going to do next, full of more emotions than you could find anywhere else in nature?
They appear much too late in the novel, that’s my only criticism. You only thought of people three hundred and fifty million years after you created the shark. But don’t tell me, My time is different from yours, because you really should be more composed in the face of criticism, and I still say that even for you three hundred and fifty million years is quite a while.
Are you about to send a police car around the corner, sirens blaring, because I’ve said all this? Are you going to have me caught just like that? Don’t be angry. We’re speaking like two friends in the same line of work. Two friends in the business of murder.
If indeed the main subject matter is humankind then you dithered some time before getting to the heart of the matter. You have, for example, given much attention to the birds. And insects too. You created so many different kinds of them and I’m curious to know why.
But of course you know your greatest discovery. It is the human mind. You made human emotions as lively and complex as the events that swirl around them.
How did you dream up the human mind?
If I actually believed I could speak to you after death, I would pull out this gun and put a bullet in my head and then ask you this:
‘How did you come up with the human mind?’
There lies your tremendous creativity.
You went through a momentous transformation at one point in your novel, bringing the book to life with the human mind, an entirely new type of character.
We are competing in describing your creation.
That’s what makes you different.
Your story is utterly ruthless.
How many hours until dawn?
It’s still dark outside. A naked mannequin stands in the dewy light in a shopfront across from me.
The weather is warm.
The scent of jasmine and eucalyptus fills the air, a hint of lavender drifting down from hillsides in the distance.
