And then it suddenly disappeared. Had it exhausted its reserves, perhaps? Run out of tricks? Whatever the reason, it had escaped its shadow. Or somehow, without anyone seeing, gone back out through the window. By some strange stroke of luck, the room was cleared of smoke. The maid took a few steps forward, her arms still upraised. Then she stopped, to mutter furiously. The pigeon’s departure had left a pigeon-shaped gap, which seemed in turn to upset the balance of the room and sap the maid’s strength. She staggered on for a while in the silence, and then she began to apply herself, most diligently, to sweeping up the glass.
Binnaz Hanım turned back to Ziya. ‘Why are you leaving so soon?’
‘I just have to,’ said Ziya. ‘I have to go.’
‘Oh, but you cannot,’ replied Binnaz Hanım. She lifted her hand until it was level with his shoulder. ‘You cannot, absolutely cannot, leave. Because you still haven’t given me the key. On top of that there is a year’s worth of obligations to see to. Were you honestly planning to leave without saying two words? Saunter off, leaving everything hanging? You could never do such a thing to me. Of that I am sure. Please, sit down.’
And so Ziya sat back down. He waited in hopeless silence, his eyes fixed on the coffee table, his hands clasped. It seemed to him just then that this was the first time he’d sat in this chair. Or, at least, he wondered if what he had just witnessed was real, or if his mind was playing tricks on him again. In search of an answer, he turned his head very slowly until he could see the maid. The girl was still on her knees clearing up the glass. She made a warm and delicate silhouette, as she crept steadily towards the foot of the window.
‘First let me explain this business of the key,’ Binnaz Hanım said. She paused to slip her tongue across her lower lip. ‘The last thing we want is for you to go off thinking we’re round the bend. In all honesty, I’m not entirely sure if something this personal can even be put into words. Can mere words have the power to bare a soul? That’s something else I can’t tell you. Enough hemming and hawing. Let’s start with the apartment block. You wouldn’t know this, Ziya Bey. But this apartment block did not come to me as a family bequest, and neither did it fall from the sky in a basket. It came to me by dint of my own hard work. Year after year of fighting tooth and nail. Imagine every dream I have ever held dear. Stack them all up like a pile of red handkerchiefs. From the earliest buddings of adolescence, I harnessed my every day, my every dream, to this project. I would gaze out at the city, at these streets alive with the music of playing children, and let myself dream. And each dream was bigger and better than the one before. Whichever way you look at it, this pile of metal and concrete we call an apartment block is nothing less than my youth. It’s all here, from start to finish. The time I wasted at drunken meals when I was still a pimply teenager; my voluptuous body, ripening and ripening, showing no shame, until, many years later, it was forced to retire to the corner of a draughty ruin of a home, wheezing and growing the first hints of a moustache — this is my dignity. I can’t explain any of this to tenants who come here to return the key. It’s not my way. But for some reason, when I saw you, I knew I had to tell you. After all, you’re my longest ever tenant, Ziya Bey. Did you know that?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ Ziya said.
‘Well, you are,’ said Binnaz Hanım. ‘And maybe that is why I felt like telling you these things. The truth is, I’ve always known you were a class apart. I have such a clear memory of leaning out of this very window and seeing you next to that removal van, and thinking, this tenant is something special. I’m not saying this to flatter you — it’s actually what I said. The moment I set eyes on you, I had what I can only call a strange foreboding, the likes of which I’d never felt. Please believe me when I say that, even now, I couldn’t tell you where it came from. Of course, I could see at once that you were not a humble soul, which, sadly, many of my tenants are. And tall you may be, but on that day you gave the impression of being level with the earth. I could also see you had a diplomatic side to you, and a merciful side, too, but none of this particularly affected me. It was something else. Something altogether different. How can I put it? The sun was shining, not a cloud in the sky, but it seemed to me that you were standing in a shadow, and this shadow kept fluttering, the way a threadbare vest on a clothes line might flutter in a breeze, and the longer I watched you, the more I felt this same shadow weighing down on me. I feel it even now, you know. Sitting here across from you right now, I can see that same shadow. Of course — this goes without saying — I do not have the faintest idea what might be casting it. I could not even say if that shadow has a meaning in this mortal world of ours. What I do know is this: as I’ve already said, you are a class apart. And please believe me when I say that not once over these past seventeen years — not even once — have I wavered in this belief. Though I’ll confess that, from time to time, I’ve wondered if the other tenants were sent here for no other reason than to make you look like you hadn’t sprung from nowhere. Or at least to make sure you didn’t attract too much attention. I know that sounds ridiculous, but what can I do, Ziya Bey? All I can say is I’ve given all this a great deal of thought. I certainly have. When I put it into words, it sounds utterly absurd. But, I mean, where exactly were the other tenants sent from? What I mean to ask, dear sir, is: who sent them? Am I to believe that there’s a depot out there somewhere, filled to the rafters with tenants, waiting for the clerk to dispatch them? Don’t even say it. I know. Absurd! But now listen to this: maybe what’s bothering me is that this could be the last time we see each other. Maybe that’s why I opened my big mouth. When the end is nigh, we let our nerves get the better of us. I’ve seen people yawn wide enough for someone to shove a fist down their throats. Or they swallow their lips, like a nightingale that has swallowed a mulberry. Or their jaws get going. Which is what happens to me. Once your jaws get going, of course, it’s like a volcano exploding. It all comes out. You try to explain the whole world in one sentence. But when have you known anyone to talk in a straight line? The idea that anyone could broach a subject and stick to it is as crazy an idea as I have ever heard. God created a world that was boundless and endless and that’s how I still see it. There are things I can never know and never will know. Things I’ve never seen and am destined never to see. If we insist on saying everything there is to say about every individual subject before moving on, we’re simply overlooking the endless, boundless chaos inside our heads. That said, I have no idea how we got here. Such things are best left unsaid. I’m out of my depth. It’s none of my business, anyway. At the end of the day, I’m just the landlady. You may well ask why I even brought this up. As if I had a clue, Ziya Bey! Honestly, I don’t have the faintest. You say one word and before you know it, you’ve fallen in love with your own voice. You become a child again. A spoiled little child. On the subject of which, shall we get her to bring in another two coffees?’
‘No,’ said Ziya, as a new wave of anxiety passed across his face. ‘Thanks, but I really need to go.’