Three thousand pounds vanished in thirty-two days. They stayed at Mitch’s place and they turned the money into heroin like alchemists. For thirty-two days they stayed locked up at home listening to the same album over and over again. Off the Bone by The Cramps. They especially liked their song, “The Crusher.” One morning Derdâ took out the CD and tried to break it in two. She couldn’t break it so she opened the window and threw it out onto the street and waited for a car to drive over it. Finally, it was crushed by a Volvo and she sat back, relieved. There was a knock on the door. She went to open it.
It was Black T. Though these two kids had been wrenched out of Turkey and catapulted to London, they still spoke to each other in English. They didn’t even know the other spoke Turkish. They never got that far. They only talked about heroin. Quality, price, distribution, life on heroin, the fashion of heroin, death by heroin, and Black T’s school life, on his heroin sales in the nearby schools. But it seemed like Black T wanted to talk about more this time.
“Why do you shave your head?”
“I have to. Why do you always wear sweatpants?”
“So I can run if I have to.”
Black T was breaking marijuana he took out of his pocket into pieces and sprinkling it over the tobacco in the cigarette paper like it was some kind of spice. He stopped and laughed.
“Actually, you know what? One day I’m going to open a restaurant—a cool place. They’ll be white tablecloths and everything. It’ll be one of those places where the waiters are all old. My customers will be from the royal family. But it’ll only be a front, because there’ll be heroin in the salt and pepper shakers, or heroin in the salt shaker and cocaine in the pepper shaker, something like that. Some of the customers will know and they’ll ask the waiter, “Do you have any salt?” even though there’s already a shaker on the table. And the waiter will bring the real salt shaker. And when they ask for the bill, it’ll be something like this. Duck a l’orange—forty pounds, wine—a hundred pounds, salt shaker—a thousand pounds. Everything will be out in the open, you know, nobody will be tricking anybody, you get me? I’ll expand my business and cook at the same time. You know, I’ll go to a culinary school. I think it’s a great idea. I love to cook.”
He lit his joint and took a deep drag.
“Want to work for me?”
Derdâ took the joint from Black T.
“I hate cooking,” she said, inhaling.
Black T laughed.
“I’m not talking about that, idiot! You’ll sell stuff for me. I mean, you’ll carry it. I mean, if you go on like this, you will either end up a whore or you’ll just die here. This’ll be a real job and you’ll get your share as payment. What do you say?”
“Stanley …”
“Fuck that goth fag. The guy came into this world to kill himself. He doesn’t care about anything. Anyway, where are you from?”
“I don’t know,” said Derdâ.
“What do you mean ‘I don’t know’? How do you not know? Where were you born?”
“In an apartment building.”
“Where?”
“In Finsbury Park. Twelfth floor.”
“You know where I’m from. I’m Turkish. Do you know what that means? It means that no matter who gets in my way, I’ll fuck him!”
“Great,” said Derdâ. “I’m sure of that.”
“You don’t believe me?”
He took a flashy mobile phone out of his pocket and dangled it in front of Derdâ’s nose.
“I’ll dial a number with this and in half an hour this place will be burned to the ground! You understand? No one messes with the Turks! We’ll fuck them all up! Anyway, what do you say? Will you work for me?”
“Any payment up front?”
“I don’t want you to go all zombie on me before the job’s done. Today’s a trial day for you. Let’s see if you can make ‘employee of the month.’ You’ll get your pay in the evening.”
“I know a little bit about Turkey,” Derdâ said. “Which part are you from?”
Black T laughed.
“How in the world would you know? We’re not talking about a holiday resort. I’m from Yatırca! Ring any bells? Yeah, right!”
Derdâ couldn’t even laugh.
“When did you come here?”
“I had a sister. She died. I was nine years old. That’s when we moved here. Actually, almost all Yatırca’s here. I have lots of relatives here. Have you heard about the Fighting Wolves? They were on the news last week. For beating up a Kurdish kid in a tube station. But he was one who started it! They hate us, you know? You say that you’re from Yatırca, so you’re a Turk, and they go after you right away. You’re a Kurd, they say. Anyway, that whole gang’s related to me. You know, my mother’s a Kurd—I think, or something like that. What the hell do I know? It’s complicated. If you ask me, I’d rather be Jamaican. But don’t say that to anyone. Don’t you think they’re cool? Right now they have a festival on in Notting Hill. I think they’re great guys, always chilled out, but they fight good when they have to. Yeah, that’s it, I should’ve been born Jamaican. Fuck! I wish Yatırca was in Jamaica. If only.”
Derdâ was only interested in some of what Black T was going on about.
“Was your sister sick?”
“No, there was this fucking accident. She fell off a bed the day she started school. Off the top bunk. At least that’s what they told me. I don’t remember very much, though. All I know is that she fell down and cracked her head open in that fucked up school! Sons of bitches! They couldn’t even keep a little girl safe! Do you know how old she was?”
Derdâ answered through numb lips: “Six …”
“How did you know?”
“Just a guess …”
“Sons of bitches!”
Derdâ still held herself
