Tolga placed his can next to the gearshift. His hands were in the woman’s black hair now.
Cavidan Hanım raised her head and peered up at him. Ignoring the pressure gently pushing down on her head, she sat up. She slipped out of her jogging pants with some difficulty, as she wasn’t used to doing this sort of thing. Bodies always seemed to grow larger inside cars, somehow. She kicked off her shoes, letting them drop next to the black plastic bag. She tugged on her panties until she’d peeled herself free. The rebellious notes of John Coltrane mingling with the whistle of the wind and merging with their wetness, Cavidan Hanım climbed onto the young man’s lap. She carefully gripped his manhood and placed it between her legs.
For Cavidan Hanım, the young man ceased to exist. For her, there were only the seagulls, radiant against the blackness of the night, the strokes of blue and gray against the canvas of pitch black waters, the sea in its bubbling turbulence, the hell of the lodos. She didn’t notice how Tolga reached and unzipped her top and removed it. Only when he reached around for the clasp of her bra did she move to help him. She had only her socks and her medallion on now. Her breasts, made soft by time, sagging, defeated by the pull of gravity, lunged forward with yearning and met the young man’s mouth. She was rising and falling; she was taking the whole city in. This wasn’t an ordinary coupling. She imagined the city’s skyline, and went mad with desire. The manhood between her legs was every skyscraper of the city, symbolic bastions of power with blue-tinted windows, and crowns disappearing into heavy, low-lying clouds. That manhood was every intricate street she loved to stroll through, from Beyoğlu to Tünel. As she rose and fell, she whispered Istanbul’s name. The young man held onto her hips tightly, trying to help her keep her rhythm. That manhood was the winter evenings falling early on the city, the smell of roasted chestnuts, smog, happy lights of domestic bliss, dim streetlamps, bright signs, decorated trees, shopping centers, polished, shiny, illuminated a thousand and one different ways. “Istanbul.” She repeated the word faster and faster. That manhood was all the city’s markets with their endless spice displays, delicatessens bulging with pastirma, sucuk, wheels of kaşar cheese, bluefish with bloody gills lying on red trays, the vivacious hues of quinces, pomegranates, and dates; tangerines, grapefruits, oranges sold from flatbed trucks, baskets of strawberries sold by the roadside, just right for making jam; the first plums of the season, still green and crunchy in wheelbarrows; green, unripe almonds, yellow and red cherries, again pomegranates, again quinces... tangerines... oranges... Cavidan Hanım let out a subdued scream and collapsed onto the young man. Perhaps she couldn’t take it anymore when the warm liquid squirted out of the young man and into her. After all, we’re talking about years and years of loneliness, which is easier said than experienced — and not even that easy to say. Supermarkets, convenience stores, butchers, neighborhood markets; bought, sold, cooked. Yarn shops, button shops, haberdasheries; Nişantaşı, şişli, Osmanbey; bought, sold, knit. TV game shows, entertainment programs, bedlam, bacchanals, emotion-commerce, TV series, movies, distant countries filling one with longing, romance, sorrows, lovemaking of others, watched, until one goes numb. Loneliness is a hard business, known only by those who experience it. Has someone said that before? A sentence so trivial, anybody could have said it. But on a New Year’s Eve, an evening in the lodos, in a dark park by the shore, in the cramped heat of a car with leather seats, with the seagulls dipping down and rising above the water, and the wind relentlessly battering the windows, in the extension, so alive, of a body, so fresh, loneliness could very well be killed.
Cavidan Hanım was lying on top of Tolga, motionless. Tolga stirred uneasily. “Cavidan Hanım?” No answer. This whole encounter had taken on a rather unexpected shape, granted, but even so, this dose of romanticism was a bit too much for Tolga. He tried to right himself without disturbing Cavidan Hanım. “Thank you.” It sounded so raw, he thought, once the words were out of his mouth, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. And besides, the weight of the woman’s body was becoming rather annoying. Finally, he became aware of the unsettling quiet. “Cavidan Hanım?” She wasn’t breathing. An ice-cold shiver went down Tolga’s spine. It just couldn’t be, no one could possibly be that unlucky. “Cavidan Hanım?” He stumbled over the words. Just then, his phone, which was lying next to the gearshift, started ringing. He stretched, reaching out as far as the body on top of him allowed: It was Pınar. What if he just didn’t answer? He did.
“Hi, sweetie... I’m fine, I’m okay...” He turned his head, away from the smell of Cavidan Hanım’s hair. “Just wanted to get some... What’s that?... Yes, yes, to get some air... No... I’m upset about some stuff that happened at work, that’s all... No... Okay... Okay... Yes. Will do...” He hung up and took a deep breath. He checked for a pulse. He had to stay calm. He’d tell it exactly the way it happened. They’d believe him. There was nothing not to believe. It could happen. It could have happened. It could happen to anybody. He did his best to control the wave of panic rising in him, but it was growing too quickly, feeding off the whistle of the lodos, pulling the floor from underneath his feet. He tried to push Cavidan Hanım off of him. He grabbed her shoulders and propped her up; her head lolled to one side. In a final effort, he tried to haul her onto the passenger seat, but his foot got caught between the seat and the door. He let go of the body and tried to rescue his foot. At that point, he noticed her woolen socks. Trying not to gag, he yanked his foot free. Then the woman’s foot got caught on one of the CDs in the door pocket and sent the CD flying. He deposited Cavidan Hanım’s naked body onto the passenger seat, pulled on his pants, and zipped up. He was sticky all over. The inside of the car reeked of semen, but he decided against rolling the window down, with the wind blowing so forcefully outside. The woman’s head first hit the glove compartment, and then the door. The gearshift stick bruised her waist. You might think, Well, what does it matter anyway, now that she’s dead? It wouldn’t matter, of course, if every mark on her body wasn’t later considered evidence of battery. But as you probably guessed, Tolga wasn’t the kind of guy to dump a dead body — and one which had expired with uncanny timing — on a pile of wet cold stones and just leave it there, even if it did belong to someone he didn’t know, and even if he would have to pay by having his own life wrenched to pieces. After all, he had faith in the justice system.
And then...
I won’t say what happened next. Not because I don’t know, but because I don’t want to bore you any further. Considering the intimate details I’ve already provided, I must have heard all about it from one of the parties involved, and since that obviously couldn’t be Cavidan Hanım (though who knows, right?), I must have heard it from Tolga. Perhaps I’m Tolga’s best friend, bearer of his secrets, his lawyer, or better yet, perhaps I’m Tolga himself. If I’m not making all this stuff up, that is. But what difference does it make anyway? Who says these were their real names? I probably changed them, right? Especially since the case still remains to be settled in court! Sharing these experiences with you — even if I don’t actually know you — has, it seems to me, forged a bond between us. And that bond forces me to confess: Yes, I changed the names, and I also changed the professions and the addresses. Unfortunately, these are not real people except for their genders and ages. The only real thing is that everything unfolded exactly as I have told you. Oh, and the wind! It was every bit as powerful as I have said. Really, what a lodos it was!