“Not swallowing it, Ekber Amca. I don’t get whatever it is you’re up to, but I’m out of here.” He started to get up, and the old man smiled again.
“Sit down. What kind of a man are you anyway? Aren’t you the least bit curious? Shouldn’t you be wondering what the hell some old man like me is doing out here like this? Sheesh.”
Tufan turned and stared at the head of the breakwater. Shit! Those guys are still here. There, over there, where I jumped into the breakwater.
“Don’t bother, son. They can’t see you.”
Tufan frowned. What do you mean?
“I mean, they can’t see you. Forget it. Now look here, I’ve got something to tell you: I think heaven’s around here, somewhere.”
“Wha—?”
“Heaven, I said. I think it’s around here somewhere.”
Tufan glanced over his shoulder again. The two plainclothes narcs who’d just been chasing after him, and who a short while before had tried to bust him as he was passing the goods to some upstart, were still standing in front of the two boats he’d slid between after jumping into the breakwater.
“What do you think?”
Tufan looked again at the man sitting next to him. Okay, so this is definitely Ekber Amca. So...
“Calm down now, son. Like I told you, they can’t see you. So now, tell me, what do you think?”
“About what?”
“Boy, would you stop looking around? They can’t see you. So?”
“So what?”
“You know, heaven.” “What freaking heaven?”
“Heaven heaven.” He motioned vaguely toward the sea. “I think it’s somewhere around here.”
“Heaven?”
“Yes.”
“Around here?”
“Yes.”
“You mean, in the sea?”
“No, son. I mean in Şaşkınbakkal.”
“Heaven? Heaven, like, paradise? In Şaşkınbakkal.”
“Yep.”
Tufan laughed. Heaven? You’ve had a little too much to drink there, have you, amca? I mean, if you’re talking about hell, okay, but Ekber Amca, if this haven of lowlifes is any kind of heaven, at best it’s a heaven for rich bastards.
“Shame on you, Tufan.”
What, you saying it ain’t true? What middle-class stiff can buy anything from those stores on the avenue? How much is the rent? But never mind that, you know how nuts they go for these worthless pills? No, of course you don’t.
“How could I know, son?”
Well, then who are you to talk? What kind of heaven could this place possibly be?
“What’s heaven like then, Tufan?”
“Shit, I don’t know... Huris, gılmans, all that stuff.”
“So, let’s start with the huris. You mean to say there aren’t any girls here? But what beauties there are on our street alone!”
“Uhh, for example...?”
“Esra, Arif’s daughter, on the third floor?”
“Who? That slut Esra?”
The old man pursed his lips together and gave Tufan a stern look.
“What?” Tufan said. “You’re not going to tell me about Esra now, are you? Oh man, Ekber Amca... kids these days ain’t what they were back in your day, you know!”
“I know,” the old man said. He sighed, shook his head. “I know.”
Tufan felt his stomach knot up. Man, did I say something wrong?
“No, son, why do you think it’s wrong? If you say so, it is so.”
“Look here,” Tufan said, trying to cheer the old man back up. “Your whole heaven business already went belly up.”
“How’s that?”
“I mean, you’re talking about beautiful girls, and you fell flat with that first example.”
“How so? You mean Esra isn’t pretty?”
“Of course she is. She’s beautiful, but—” He paused. Man, you can’t just come up and tell him the chick puts out to everyone and his brother just for a couple of grams of powder. But then you did already blurt out the whole slut thing... C’mon now, amca, you sit at that window all day. Don’t you see that girl coming and going? You think those sunken eyes are from studying all the time? Can you really be that fucking naïve? Man! He raised his head and looked at the old guy. “You were reading my mind again, weren’t you?”
“I was, son. But there’s no need, I already know about Esra’s predicament. Like you said, I sit at the window all day, and I’m not blind. But anyway, my claim remains.”
“What claim?”
“About heaven.”
“You mean, even if she’s a slut?”
“What exactly are huris supposed to do, Tufan?”
Tufan tried to recall what he’d been told in religion class back in school, or the things he’d heard during his childhood. He hadn’t had anything to do with God for some time. After his father died and he’d gotten the apartment all to himself, he never went to prayer, not even on religious holidays. He could hardly remember a thing. But okay, the duty of huris...
“That’s exactly it, Tufan.”
“What, you mean about them being some kind of whores, right?”
Ekber Amca burst out laughing.
“Nooo! What kind of language is that now?”
Well, what then?
“Theirs is a holy duty.”
“Oh, so you mean if she spreads her legs for every Tom, Dick, and Harry here, she’s a slut, but over there...”
“Slut’s a term we use, son. A label we slap onto people when it suits us. Look up. We can’t know who’s what in His eyes, now, can we? Look, for example, back in Sumer, it was the responsibility of priestesses.”
“Now you’re messing with me.”
“It’s historical fact.”
“Well,” said Tufan, laughing, “then you’re right. Şaşkınbakkal’s crawling with huris.”
“And handsome gılmans too.”
“If it’s like you say, then yes.” Tufan was in a good mood now. He’d forgotten all about the police. But wait, what about the abundance, all that milk and honey in heaven?
“You said it yourself.”
“Said what?”
“That Şaşkınbakkal could only be a heaven for rich people. I mean,” he said, spreading his arms out, “you want abundance, well, here you have it.”
“Like that abundance is for us.”
“Why not? You get your share, don’t you?”
“Selling drugs?”
“However. The fact of the matter is that there is abundance here, and you benefit from it.” The old man laughed again, then stopped and shook his head. “No, I haven’t lost my marbles from loneliness, or from sitting at the window all day. But, well, yeah, when you’ve got nothing else to do, you think... a lot.”
“So, you mean you thought and you pondered, long and hard, and you found heaven, here?”
“Not yet. But it’s around here, somewhere. Or at least, it seems like it to me. Look around you: the sea in front of us. Look at those lights coming from the islands, like a necklace of jewels there on the dark sea. Where else can you find such beauty? This is one of the most beautiful seas on earth.”
“You mean the Sea of Marmara?”
“Of course.”
“That sea in front of us? The one teeming with germs?”
“It didn’t used to be like that.”
That’s right, it didn’t. Tufan remembered going swimming here back when he was five or six years old. Right over there was the sailing club. And a little farther down, Suadiye Beach. A long time ago. Before they filled in the shore and built the road.
“Besides,” said Ekber Amca, “they’ve reopened Caddebostan Beach.”
Tufan laughed again. That’s right, they had reopened it. And the masses had rushed in to get their feet wet. The municipality claimed that the pollution level had fallen. Bullshit. Just pulling the wool over the people’s eyes. But Tufan didn’t want to draw this out any longer than necessary.