The busboys, who were no older than fifteen or sixteen, and the middle-aged, mustached waiters were circling us. We ordered another bottle of rakı. The old man (Cevat, that was his name), who had been born and raised in Fener, was talking about how drinking was the only curative he’d been able to find in this city, which so viciously laid waste to human life. He was a man with nine lives, who had managed to survive so many dangers, so many nights, so many miseries, so many adventures...
“Your father and I first met in front of the Red Church,” he said. “I enjoyed meeting new people when I was young, now I prefer solitude. We remained friends after we met, your father and I. I lived nearby, on Çimen Street, where I still live today. But everything is in the past now. Frankly, that devastating incident did away with it all, all the beautiful memories we had, everything.”
I dredged up the courage: “Do you know something?”
He remained silent for a long moment, staring at his plate, before he finally answered: “No, nothing at all. I want to forget all about it, the whole thing.”
I refrained from exalting my father, praising his goodness and generosity, but I did give in and let myself get carried away by the memories. I shared a few, though names largely escaped me. At first, my words contained nothing too far beyond the conditions that fate required. It was as if I was in two different times, two different places at once, and that made it difficult for me to speak. In spite of this, words began rolling off my tongue of their own accord; I just kept talking and talking. There are moments when one feels hopeless and does what he can to evade that feeling. But that wasn’t my only problem, for it was as if a wall had come tumbling down, and there I was inside the chamber of my childhood. I don’t think there could possibly be anything at once so mysterious and familiar as the eternal texture of childhood.
It wasn’t easy to keep up conversation with the old man, because he kept interrupting me.
“Come to my home and be my guest tonight,” he said, “we have a lot to talk about.”
His proposal surprised me; I turned down his invitation with visible mistrust. I suggested meeting the next day. It was late; we got up and left. I took a cab and returned to my hotel.
The following day, at around 2 o’clock, I met Cevat Bey in Fener. We sat in a café, we talked very little. It was from him that I learned the name of my father’s and mother’s murderer: Kenan.
My memories of that time from my childhood were permanently etched in my mind: the decrepit walls of Dimitrie Cantemir’s palace, the stone wall of the Red Church, the narrow streets, the muggy, reclusive evenings, a history drunk with glory, and so on and so forth. Yet, for me, none of that was enough to explain away that particular night, and the way the neighborhood’s reflection gleamed so ghastly upon the dark waters of the Golden Horn. Cevat Bey finally spoke the words that I didn’t dare to say: “Are you ready to face the man who changed your destiny, Vasili?” Though the question sent an unfamiliar rage coursing through my body, I was a coward, frozen with fear. The visible change in Cevat Bey, though, was something else altogether: In that moment, he became a machine designed to resist, a machine built to withstand not only physical attack, but the impact of time. He motioned for me to get up.
We left. The heat, not at all tempered by the night, was unbearable. Later, it was said to be the hottest night Istanbul had had in recent years. I hadn’t slept a wink in days. In my exhausted state, I didn’t have the willpower not to follow him. Still, I was afraid. Not because I thought everything would be in vain, but because the meeting would drag me to the inevitable, to the very last thing I should do.
We turned into a street on the right, the last one before reaching the Greek Church of Fener. We were both silent. At that moment, Cevat Bey’s face seemed devoid of any distinguishing features, except for his huge eyes shining in the darkness. I doubt I looked much different; he must have been as afraid as I was. We went up to the third floor of a bay-windowed building. An old man of medium height opened the door. He was in his pajamas. Seeing me, a stranger, at his door, he peered at me closely, inspecting my face. His expression was one of dread.
“I brought you the son of an old friend,” Cevat Bey said. His voice was calm and reassuring.
We entered. The man told us to have a seat, to make ourselves comfortable. There was a grave sadness in his old face, as there is in mine now. I let my imagination wander through the past, through our blood-soaked home, and through Fener. To my mind’s eye I summoned the hilly streets of my old neighborhood, its people of different religions, different ethnicities, the flowers on our windowsill, flowers which obscured our view, flowers my mother adored, and pictures of the crucifixion of Christ, and the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child, her head tilted to one side. It was as if that deluge of blood, which had turned my days and my nights into one long, monotonous, unbearable chain of hours, was seeping out the window that looked upon the Golden Horn, flowing into its waters.
“So why don’t you tell me now,” the old man said. “This gentleman, whose son is he?”
He was waiting for an answer, his desperation palpable. Cevat Bey gave the old man, who was now sitting on the couch, a solemn glance; then with a bitter smile he alternated, looking at the man, then at the darkness outside, then back at the man, etc. His demeanor was cold and professional.
“The son of a friend of yours, a friend of the past, and of the future,” he said.
Without a doubt, the truth could be summarized only in this way. Clearly, we were there to kill my father’s murderer. Kenan Bey no longer seemed anxious. He seemed to sense that this summary of the truth was not meant to be ironic or mere insinuation.
“Whose?” he said, smiling.
Instinctively I looked at the man’s long, slender old fingers. He could see that I was nervous.
“You tell me, young man,” he said. “Cevat’s always been like this, he’s so fond of suspense.”
There, facing my parents’ murderer, it wasn’t only anger that I felt; I felt sorry for him too. It was a strange feeling.
“Yorgo,” I said. “I’m Yorgo’s son.”
He had heard that voice, my voice, in which he saw his own death, in all its nakedness. The look in his eyes changed. His face transformed, and on it I could see the faint remains of the others’ now invisible, lost faces. I will never forget those eyes, the expression on his pale face. We were all, I imagine, thinking of death at that point. The most impatient of us was Cevat Bey. He was staring at me, silently. There was an odd respectfulness in his gaze, tinged with fear and sadness; you could almost inhale it.
I felt the rope in my pocket. At first, I was encouraged by the sense that my sadness was shared by Cevat Bey. But then this feeling dissipated and Cevat excused himself to the bathroom.
My parents’ murderer and I were listening to the sound of barking from the street. It was neither close nor aggressive.
“I like this barking sound,” he said. “It has a generous, tolerant ring to it.”