“What are you saying, boy?”
“I chopped her up so they wouldn’t send me to the orphanage, and then I buried her. So no one would even know she was dead.”
“Man, what are you saying?”
“You’re not at all what I thought you’d be, you know that?”
“Son, tell me straight. Where’s your mama?”
“That girl’s only thirteen.”
“Look, Derda, I’ll give you what’s coming to you … Speak like a man, where’s your mom? Man, what did you do to that woman?”
“Well, did she at least give you a good fuck?”
And when his father replied with a “motherfucker!” Derda buried his fist into his father’s still open mouth. Derda felt his fingers bust his father’s teeth. He pulled his fist away and leveled another blow with the same speed. This time, his fist landed square on his father’s nose. He must have broken it in several different places. The old man’s face was streaming with warm blood. The man tried to step back but he tripped over the floor mattress and fell down. Derda dropped to one knee and with one hand he pulled his father up by his hair, and with the other he landed one last punch clear in his face. And then everything went silent. The man hadn’t once put his hand up in defense, nor had he cursed his son when his teeth were smashed out of his blackening bloody mouth. There was complete silence.
Derda loosened his fingers’ grip on his father’s hair and asked, “What, did you die? Eh? You dead?”
He stopped and listened. He couldn’t tell if his father was breathing through his barely opened lips or not, nor whether he understood what he said to him. He started to curse the man. He grabbed his father under the armpits and dragged him onto the mattress and stuck a pillow under his head. Not so long ago the white-haired man had been rising and falling on that bed, feeling a thousand pleasures. Now he lay there like a corpse. A corpse who could breathe, short and jagged breaths though they were. Father and son were face to face, eye to eye. They had to have felt something, but neither could really see into the other’s eyes.
The white-haired man’s name was Celal. He had a nickname leftover from his days as a mugger: The Tick. But nothing was enough to save him from the assault of his son’s marble-hard fist. Not his name, not his nickname, not his years in prison. Eleven years on the inside. Eleven years his hand hadn’t felt the flesh of a woman. And so, as he took the key out of his pocket where it had waited for eleven years and entered his house, out of the corner of his eye he had caught a glimpse of Süreyya. Süreyya, sitting out in front of her door, two houses down. “Get over here,” he had said. And Süreyya had come. The girl named her price before he even asked. Just like her mother had taught her, and just like she’d been doing for the last year. When they put an end to their work at the cemetery, Süreyya had simply switched sectors. And anyway, there was more to be earned in her new job. Her father didn’t care. Because he wasn’t awake enough at any hour of any day to even be able to care. Anyway, if he had been awake, would it have made a difference? In the end, this much money for just lowering your şalvar and pulling them back up again, who’d go and sell packs of tissues on the street? And, just to sweeten the whole thing, weren’t all the men in the neighborhood in love with Süreyya? Weren’t they all lining up at her door with boxes of chocolates in hand?
Süreyya had also asked Celal, “Do you love me?”
“Of course,” Celal had answered. “How could anyone not love a girl like you?”
Süreyya loved men, too. It was only Derda she hated. Because Derda looked away when he walked by. He was the only one that didn’t see Süreyya. The most he ever said to her was a cold hello as he walked past. “Is he a fag?” she said behind his back to whoever was around. To two colleagues her same age. They laughed as she glared at Derda’s back, her eyes burning with hate. Because she was in love with Derda and he was the only man on the street left who hadn’t seen her naked. In fact, that was why she’d been so pleased when he caught her with his father. She relished it even more later, when she heard curses coming out of their house. He’s jealous, she thought. She walked over to their house and knocked at the door. Derda opened the door.
“What?”
Süreyya at eight years old and Süreyya on her back under his father, it all flashed before his eyes in a series of images.
“I heard some noise. Thought I’d find out what’s going on.”
“How long have you been doing this?”
“Doing what?” Süreyya laughed. She wanted to hear Derda say it, say what her job was. She wanted it to sting him. Maybe she wanted it to hurt her, too. Maybe she wanted it to hurt the whole world. But Derda didn’t say it. He asked again without saying a word, just by his look. The question’s beams pierced into the girl’s eyes.
“What’s it to you anyway?” said Süreyya, finally. “Why do you care? What are you, my boyfriend or something?”
“Does your mother know?”
Süreyya laughed.
“You’re so stupid, you know that?”
Derda didn’t know what to say. None of the words he knew would suffice. He felt so small in front of this thirteen-year-old girl; he couldn’t do anything but be silent. Nothing but silently watch her laugh. He thought that every single person, everyone, even babies born that very instant, were bad. Everyone, he said to himself. Everyone! They were all so miserably bad. So bad and so revolting. Kids, old people, cripples, sick people, everyone.
“Where’s
