If you like a man enough, you dote on whatever he does. Years ago, a vivacious great aunt of mine not greatly treasured by the family had said something that shocked us all: “After a certain point, every man I see turns my head.”
She never married, and some of our family elders could be heard to remark, “born a virgin and going to die a virgin.” But that’s not what I overheard them saying behind closed doors. When I heard my mother and her friends refer to my aunt as a “nymphomaniac,” I’d hauled down the unabridged family dictionary. I never looked at my aunt the same way again.
I don’t take after my aunt: My sexual appetites are healthy, not excessive. But when it came to Haluk Pekerdem, I could see myself becoming a nymphomaniac, or anything else. Just the thought of him left me breathless and weak-kneed.
I floated out of his office. I don’t remember how I walked to Taksim, how I got down the hill to my flat. I reenacted in my mind, over and over again, everything he’d said and done, every word and every gesture.
I didn’t want to get my hopes up too high. I’d barely recovered from a breakup and couldn’t face refusal at the moment.
Yes, it was true that he didn’t fancy me as much as I fancied him. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t interested. He hadn’t refused me; he’d fitted me into his busy day, put aside time just to chat with me. He’d touched me; I’d touched him. He hadn’t retracted his hand after placing it on my knee. Just that one act was surely a sign of something.
As I approached my apartment building I noticed Hüseyin at the taxi rank. His was the only taxi there. He was alone. I’d once taken him into my bed, worn down by his insistence and pleas. But then he thought he owned me. I’d been forced to correct him, to demonstrate to him with a good public thrashing that he’d gotten me all wrong.
He turned his head away when he saw me coming. He hadn’t been my driver since the beating. Either it wasn’t his turn every time I called for a cab, or he was avoiding me.
I still had to find Okan Sarıdoğan and Ziya. I knew taxi drivers and minibus drivers weren’t on the best of terms, but they were both members of the same general community, members of the fraternity of the steering wheel. Perhaps the taxi drivers could be enlisted for help. And Hüseyin wasn’t such a bad sort; he’d even proven to be quite handy on a few occasions, and he adored being involved in sleuthing.
I’m not one to stay put out with anyone, barring a few names I won’t mention here. It was time to offer the peace pipe. I walked up to Hüseyin’s cab; he pretended to be adjusting the rearview mirror, but I knew for a fact that he had seen me.
“Hello, Hüseyin,” I said.
Lowering his eyes and turning his head, he looked at me. He was tense and hesitant.
“You’re not cross with me still, are you?” I smiled.
He got out of his cab and stood there sulkily, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans, shoulders hunched, eyeing me suspiciously.
“Aren’t I?” he asked.
A sulky child, he scratched at the ground with his left foot, his eyes never leaving mine.
“There’s no reason to be, is there?”
“You…” he began, the informal sen slipping out before he switched to the formal form, “know best, I suppose.”
That he’d remembered my insistence on good manners was a point in his favor.
“You hit me in the patisserie in front of everyone…”
My response was brisk and pleasant. “You asked for it, hitting on me all the time. Everywhere I looked, there you were. On my tail every second of the day.”
“I can’t face the other guys,” he complained. “After they heard about it, they all laughed at me. Thanks to you, my reputation’s shot to hell.”
“Surely you exaggerate. And I didn’t hit you. I knocked you flat with a couple of well-placed kicks to the head. That’s all.”
“That’s all, huh, baby.”
He pretended to have tacked on the “baby” by mistake. I knew all his tricks; he was quite the performer. Now he was pretending to be embarrassed, peering out at me from below his heavy eyebrows.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I gave him a friendly thump on the shoulder.
“All’s forgiven,” I beamed.
Then I extended my hand, taking care to remove my glove first, of course.
“Still friends?”
He took my hand without hesitation. His was rough and cold.
He made an “uh-huh” sound, which I interpreted as a response in the affirmative.
Smiling sweetly, I asked if he would be willing to help me out. Raising his head, he looked into my eyes.
No, that’s not what I was after.
“I need some information about a couple of minibus drivers. I haven’t been able to find out much. When I ask about them, everyone talks them up. I’m not entirely convinced. You’ve got sharp ears. You might overhear them saying things they wouldn’t say to my face. Could you keep your ears pricked for me?”
“Not more of that detective business, I hope. I got the stuffing knocked out of me last time.”
He’d once done an errand for me, just the innocent delivery of a package, as a result of which a bunch of thugs had worked him over. Now that’s what I call a thrashing, not the couple of kicks I’d delivered.
“I’m afraid it is detective work,” I said. “A driver was murdered. I indirectly knew both the guy who was killed and the one who’s been accused of killing him. But there doesn’t appear to be a motive, and the driver didn’t exactly have clean hands.”
“You don’t mean that minibus driver from Sariyer, do you?”
“Volkan Sarıdoğan!”
“Yeah, that’s him. Everyone’s talking about him. If he’d been so famous when he was alive, he could have retired. Life’s funny like that.”
“What have you heard?” I pressed him.
The phone rang. There were no other cabs. Gesturing for me to wait, Hüseyin went into the taxi shelter to answer the phone.
When he returned he was smirking. Just two words from me, and he already was becoming insolent.
“I gotta run,” he said. “But I’ll stop by for a tea later, if you want. You can tell me all about it.”
Here we go again.
“He’s got a brother. A druggie they say. And a brother-in-law. Okan and Ziya. Ask around,” I shouted after him as he drove off.
He gave me a military salute in his rearview mirror, flooring the accelerator of his Şahin taxi, even managing to lay a little rubber.
I suppose he thought I’d be impressed.