BOSPHORUS 16

CHAPTER 16

          Sara stared in fascination at the striations of the wood planks of the ceiling. The ones in the living room lay darker than those in the bedroom and with deeper ridges and the knots in their wood were placed haphazardly. If she could capture that what a design it would make...

         She noticed Ali standing perplexed in the middle of the room, looking at the ceiling as he followed her gaze. She giggled.

         “Would you mind telling me what’s up there?”

         He was already dressed and shaven. He had in his hand a glass, inside which an orange-colored liquid swayed threateningly.

         “Watch it,” Sara pointed to the glass. “There are differences between the ceilings of the two rooms.”

         “I’m telling you, you are born to be a detective’s wife.” He grinned offering her the glass, “Taste it.”

         “What’s it?”

         “I don’t know, it came in a juice bottle.”

         Sara drank it. “Something tells me you want to feed me.”

         “There is more to what I want, but I’ll get to that later.” He kissed her and left.

         He was back in two hours.

         “I’m done for the day, unless I get called,” he said pointing to the phone. “It looks like you’ll be stuck in here with me for a while.”

         “I’m looking forward to it.”

         “Lady, I’m liable to turn into a raving maniac. Don’t get mushy on me. At least not before we finish some business here.” He unzipped the brown case he had brought in with him.

         “What business?”

         “As of now, you’re in training. Here, shake hands with this.” He held a small automatic by the barrel and offered it to her.

         Sara swallowed her next breath. She was getting weak around her knees and she did not want to touch that thing.

         “Come on,” Ali urged her.

         Her knees wobbling, she tried to take it with the tip of her forefinger and thumb.

         “Not like that! Here, take it like shaking hands, high up, press it to your palm.”

         “Do you think I’ll be needing this?”

         “Nope, but it couldn’t hurt to learn. Besides, detectives’ wives should know enough to protect the husbands in case they goof.”

         “Stop kidding. You never goof. You really want to train me, don’t you?”

         ”Yes, it could come in handy. All women should know a thing or two anyhow. You’d feel better too, trust me.”

         ”I do.” Well, maybe it was a good idea because Ali would know. She shook her head vigorously. “If you can put up with me, it is a great idea,” she said.

         Ali did not stop with the automatic. He pulled out a mat from under the bed.

         “Now the Martial Arts.”

         “Are you afraid for me?”

         “No,” Ali answered. “We don’t think he would want you hurt. He wants you to get scared enough and desperate enough to go to him.”

         “How do you know that?”

         “The men who shot at you in the bookstore used long range guns. With their training they shouldn’t miss. And none of them guarded the back door. They wanted you to get out. And Madam Arakian’s place was bombed when they knew she wasn’t in.”

         “But if I were to marry you, he’d hurt both of us.”

         He nodded in confirmation with a pained expression on his face.

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         Ahmet dropped by in the evening shortly, after Ali went out on a call.

         “My wife sent you this,” he said, handing her an envelope. Sara put the envelope on the side table. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

         “Later,” said Sara, guessing the contents.

         “Oh, I should have peeked! You met her once, and you’re already comparing notes on us?” Ahmet mimicked.

         “You bet,” she stared straight ahead avoiding his eyes. “I was just going to have coffee. Would you like a tea or coffee?”

         ”Whatever you’re having.”

         While serving him coffee, she asked, “You’re good with break-ins, right?”

         “My specialty,” Ahmet bowed.

         “ Would you like to break into my mother’s apartment?”

         “Did I hear you right?”

         “Since I can’t go and that file cabinet stays there full of things we can use...”

         “I like the way you think, you know. But Ali wouldn’t want that in case something went wrong.”

         “Aren’t things as wrong as they can be?” Sara said. “We could tell him afterwards, if you like.”

         “Do you expect me to break in through a window?”

         “Nope, here.” She handed him the key to the door, the key to the file cabinet, and scribbled Lamia’s phone number on a piece of paper. “Call to make sure before you go. There’s a woman working there until four or five every day and Mother doesn’t come in before six; however, she sometimes doesn’t go to work at all. Don’t worry if you drop the keys or something. Ali has the extras.”

         “I’ll think about it.” Ahmet wrinkled his nose with a grin.

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         Ahmet’s wife had written that she would bring the child on Wednesday; she was asking Sara to see to it that Ali stayed home that day. Hearing Ali’s footsteps on the stairs, Sara put the letter in her bag. Then in order that her face wouldn’t give her away, she rushed to him and pressed her lips to his, clutching him like a vise.

         “Wow! I think I’ll go out more often. To what do I owe this reception?”

         “I missed you.”


         She watched him sleep next to her, his face calm and content. Then imagining the same face, what it would be like on Wednesday, she smiled to herself. ‘I wish I had more to give him,’ she thought as she pulled the lamp-cord.

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         “Are you up to sifting through these?”

         Ali emptied out a canvas bag on the table, spreading some of her articles and papers he had salvaged from Madam Arakian’s place.

         “I might as well.”

         Everything smelled of smoke and charred wood. Despising the unpleasant task, she piled the papers to be thrown away. But she couldn’t throw away the simmering anger inside her, for some of those papers were her best drawings. Except... An idea flashed like a lighthouse in a fog.

         “This is it! This is what I was looking for.”

         Ali leaned over to see. A browned out scraggly spot, caused by the explosion, had come alive almost in three dimensions in one corner of a drawing. If she only moved the Asian hills to the right and elongated the rest of the lines...

         “I have to work now. Please forgive me.”

         He nodded. She knew he understood as he would understand a riddle to be a riddle even if he didn’t see through it.

         Her pen rounded over a blank paper, jumped aggressively through the sweep of the hills, followed an intricate complexity to the shore, and crisscrossed in staccato through some mysterious inner workings. The drawing was no longer a panoramic Bosphorus, but lines and shapes in direct contact with a strange life process. It grew, faded, curved in pain, and exploded. To Sara, it was life and death with the split temporarily healed.

         Sara completed the drawing in less than an hour, but the intensity of the flow had taken its toll. She curled up on the divan and slept.

         Half an hour later when she awoke, he was sitting at the table sipping a glass of something and looking at her as if he had never seen her before. She got up, gave him a wide smile, and went to the kitchen to start supper. Ali followed.

         She knew there was much that he hadn’t understood, but he had accepted it. That counted the most. The words came suddenly from inside her as she started to slice the bread. “I love you so much!”

         He took the knife and the loaf of bread from her hand and placed it on the counter. He placed his right hand under her chin and kissed her. “I love you,” he said. Supper was forgotten.


         He was called to work at daybreak, Wednesday. She got up with him. He didn’t have time for breakfast; he only drank some tea.

         “Make sure you’re here in the afternoon,” she said.

         “Why? Anything special?”

         “Yes. By then I might catch fire.”

         “Wild Lady!” He laughed as he left.

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         Sara knelt down in front of the little round face she had so longed to see. The same brownish hazel eyes with the same amber lights dancing, and same hair, but with more golden rays and more curls. He had to be the most beautiful child on earth.

         “I have some shopping to do. You get acquainted a little; then I’ll leave.”

         “My name is Sara, what is yours?” she asked as if she didn’t know of him before. The child shrugged wordless. He was assessing the situation.

         “I told his mother that we might stop by his father’s. She approved,” Ayten said.

         “Does his mother know about me?” Sara asked.

         Ayten shook her head. “You live downstairs, don’t you Sara?”

         “Yes,” Sara said, looking at the boy, who had started exploring the apartment.

         “I like to draw pictures, do you?” He nodded eagerly. Sara brought some drawing paper and colored pencils. “First you draw a picture; then, I draw one, okay?”

         He drew some circles and dots. “This is outer space,” he said shyly.

         “Outer space needs a rocket ships and a spaceman,” Sara drew them on another sheet.

         “Give him a big laser gun, please, please,” the child begged excitedly. Sara drew the laser gun.

         “I want to keep it,” he said.

         “That is for you, then.” Sara said.

         “My name is Kenan,” The child eased himself on her lap.

         ”Is it okay if I leave now and come back later, Kenan?” Ayten asked.

         ”Sure! Whatever, Sara is here tight?”

         ”Yes, I’m staying here with you until your father comes,” Sara said.

         ”Stay even if he comes,” Kenan implored.

         “You have a way with the male Soners,” Ayten winked at Sara. “I’m going now, Kenan.”

         “I don’t care,” he shrugged.

         “I’ll see myself out,” Ayten smiled as she left.

         The child took to Sara as eagerly as she had waited him. She served him soda and cookies, and made up games that they played together. When Ali entered the apartment, Sara was drawing a big truck picture for Kenan.

         “Sara, did you catch fire?” He called from the hallway. The child looked at her puzzled.

         “I am here drawing,” she yelled. ‘He must think I am so weird,’ she chuckled to herself. When she lifted her head she saw Ali standing at the door entranced.

         “Hello Kenan,” he said, his voice barely audible.

         “Hello Daddy,” the child said, as if he had last seen his father only a few minutes ago. “This is Sara, Daddy. She can draw.”

         “Yes, we’ve met,”Ali said picking the child up. “She is so full of surprises. The kind you wouldn’t dream of.”

         “Like catching fire?” Kenan asked in earnest.

         “Close,” Ali laughed. He took Sara’s hand, his fingers twining around hers, and held her hand to his lips.

         “She drew you a space gun, too?” Kenan’s eyes were wide open.

         “Better. She drew better things. Guns are not her specialty, yet.”

         “Look, Daddy,” He held the spaceman picture with pride.

         “A spaceman, ha...” Ali said to Sara. “Your spaceman grips the gun better than you.”

         Ali thanked Ayten when she came back a couple of hours later.

         “Don’t thank me,” she said. “Sara asked for it, the night we had dinner here."

         “Do you think you can bring him again?” Sara asked.

         “I want to come, if you come up,” Kenan looked at Sara.

         “Come up? Come up from where?” Ali asked.

         “I live downstairs, you know.” Sara said.

         Ali put his jacket on in order to drive them back. Kenan pursed his lips, “I want Sara came in the car and sit with me.”

         “I’ll stay here and wait for you until you come back next time,” Sara told him.

         Sara watched him walk down the stairs, holding his father’s hand. She was closer to tears than she had ever been.

         When he returned Ali asked, “You didn’t want him go, did you? I saw your face when he was leaving.”

         “He’s so like you! He’s the most beautiful child I’ve ever seen.”

         “You are not pregnant, are you?” Ali asked abruptly.

         “No, you know better.”

         “I know you are not on the pill.” This was more like a question than a statement.

         “No,” she said.

         “I’m sorry, Honey,” Ali kissed her. “I thought maybe by this time...”He didn’t finish.

         “Did you want me have a baby?”

         “Not necessarily. Not now. I would be extremely jealous.”

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         Ali stayed with Sara the next day, until he was called at night. Friday morning, he came back tired, his left upper arm slightly bruised.

         “Nothing important,” he said. “Just a chase.”

         He slept a little. When he woke up, he was feeling better.

         “I talked to Madam Arakian,” he said. “I told her under the circumstances you left the city, maybe even the country. I said the same thing to Taner and Nimet. The fewer people know, the better.”

         “For how long?”

         “I don’t know, Honey. I hate to keep you locked in like this.”

         “I wasn’t complaining. This is the happiest I’ve ever been.”

         “I can’t deny it. The same for me. I am not as nervous as when you went to work or school.”

         “Do you think I want much?” Sara’s voice came out in a whisper. “I only want you and I want to not be afraid of what will happen next. Is this too much?”

         “No, not much. Too little, even. What about your art?”

         ”That is secondary now.”

         “It is running a close second, from what I’ve witnessed lately. But I’m happy about that.”

         “I am happy because of you,” Sara rested her head on his shoulder.

         “Luther talked to me. He’ll be coming here to work with you twice a week. He thinks very highly of you.”

         “At least I impressed Kenan,” Sara said.

         “I can’t believe you arranged him to come here. It was next to impossible to see him before. I can’t believe my luck.” He hugged her.

         “Wouldn’t it be nice if no one hurt anyone, and we all lived happily ever after?”

         “Yeah! I would quit the force; get a small store, maybe a restaurant. Near our home, of course. So I can get to you before catch fire.” They both laughed.

         “Funny, isn’t it? Kenan took it literally.”

         “I take it literally, too. Here, I’ll show you.” His mouth came over hers slowly.



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Next:
"Bosphorus 17"