The old lady sitting at the bench at the bus stop even said, “What’s got into you, son? Sit down like a man!” gesturing to the empty spot next to her.
But Derda didn’t hear her and he fidgeted relentlessly until the bus came.
He got off the third bus he’d gotten on to. The name of the stop he’d gotten off at was the same as the name on the sign on the huge building. He walked up to the gate. People just called the stop “Prison.” “Drop me off at prison.”
He walked up to the private at the gate.
“I have something to give to my father, my mother sent it.”
The private banged at the big iron door behind him and a few seconds later a prison guard stuck his head out from behind it.
“What?”
“It’s for my dad,” said Derda. “I wanted to give him something, my mother sent it.”
“What is it?”
He showed him the five banknotes he’d taken out of his pocket. He kept the others in his pocket. The guard glanced at the money in the kid’s hand and quickly added it up.
“Who’s your dad?” he asked.
Derda said the first and last names of the man he hadn’t seen since he was five years old and whose face he couldn’t remember.
“Ok,” said the guard. Only his head was visible through the crack in the door. Then a hand stuck out. He took the money and while he was closing the door he heard the kid and stopped.
“How is my dad? Is he Ok?”
“This is a prison, son. You think anybody’s “Ok” here?” he said, disappearing behind the door.
It went in through the kid’s ears then welled behind in his eyes.
At the sight of the spring of tears about to be punctured, the soldier said, “Don’t listen to him, your dad is fine, don’t worry.”
Derda swallowed, raised his head, and looked at the private.
“He’s good, right? And would you tell him, my mom died,” he said, and walked away.
He believed that his father in prison loved him enough not to send him to the orphanage. He couldn’t tell anyone his secret. Derda’s biggest secret would isolate him for the rest of his livelong days. Because his secret was that he had chopped up his mother and buried her in pieces. But you could tell even from the way he walked. From the way his hands were jammed into his pockets. From the way his head was bowed. From the way his feet shuffled against the ground at his every step. From the way he walked slow, like he had no place to go. Or the way he walked fast, like he was late for everything. And then from his smell. Sweat and loneliness. Maybe people across the street or in passing cars couldn’t understand why, but once they looked in his face, it wasn’t long before they noticed. The gendarme who watched him walk away noticed. Maybe that’s why he shook his head and muttered, “Life’s a bitch. Fuck it!”
And so the news received into the soldier’s ear and the money received into the guard’s pocket were gone and forgotten. Neither reached their destination. But Derda, on his way back home, said with silent lips, “Wait and see, Dad, wait and see how much more money I’m going to bring you!” For three days, he didn’t leave his post near the tomb that people seemed to be using as some sort of mailbox. But no one came, and no one left an envelope.
But on the fourth day it happened. Just what he was waiting for. He saw the man with the long robe. But this time the man passed the tomb he’d used before. He was in front of the tomb to its right. From behind the trees, Derda, if he didn’t remember incorrectly, was thinking that at the base of that tomb was another piece of his mother. The piece of her right leg, knee to ankle.
The man in the robe buried a white envelope and, staring straight ahead, walked away. Derda didn’t lose a second. He ran to the tomb. He opened the big white envelope trying to imagine what could be more valuable than money. Inside was a stack of papers. Papers and photographs with writing on them. Photographs of groups of men with beards and robes. Some of their turbaned heads were circled with red pen. There was something written close to them. With the same red pen. But Derda still couldn’t read. If he could, he could have read names like “Sheik Gazi” and “Hıdır Arif.” But even if he could read he still wouldn’t have understood anything. Because he’d never heard of MI6, the British intelligence service, or of the members of the Hikmet Tariqat in England. In fact, even if he could have read every single one of those papers, he still wouldn’t have understood a damn thing.
The stack of paper he held in his hand, in exchange for money, became the information property of the intelligence service. Even if he had known what post at the consulate the man with the glasses who came through the cemetery gates to this row of tombs held, he still wouldn’t have been able to get what was going on. Because, of course, Steven’s business card didn’t say he was MI6’s man in Istanbul, but
