Arabesk

'Suits aren't really my style.'

This effectively killed the conversation and the two continued walking in silence, the tall son slouching along in front of his much shorter father, Ikmen tried to divert himself from his son's mood by looking into the windows of shops and restaurants as he went but eventually he felt that he had to speak again, he had to try. In spite of the heat and his own lack of fitness, Ikmen speeded up until he drew level with Bulent's bowed shoulders.

'What is your problem, Bulent?' he asked, attempting but failing to catch his son's eye.

'What do you mean?',

'I mean, why is it that you can behave so well with others, like you did in the church just now, and yet when it comes to myself and your mother and indeed anyone who has authority over you-'

'I don't want to talk about it'

'No, you never do.'

'Look,' the boy turned to face his father now, an almost violent expression crossing his eyes. 'You're not at work so don't try to come on to me like a policeman, OK?'

‘I’m not'

'You are.'

Resisting, for once, the urge to fly into a rage and men justify it with his authority over his son, tactics which so far had not worked, Ikmen took a deep, calming breath before he spoke again.

'So is it my job? Does it bother you that I'm a policeman? Is it that I'm an establishment figure?'

The boy just shrugged.

'I mean that could explain your drinking and-' 'No.'

'Then is it your older brothers and sister?' Ikmen asked, now quite desperate for some sort of explanation from his son. 'Are you jealous of their achievements? Do you feel that you have to try and live up to them?'

'What, be a doctor?' Bulent sneered. 'Not likely!' 'Well what than?'

1 don't want to talk about this any more.' Thrusting his hands deep into the pockets of his brother's suit, Bulent walked off rapidly.

'Bulent!’

Once again Ikmen found himself chasing, breathlessly, after this miserable boy – a boy who, if he wasn't too careful, was going to cause his father to have a heart attack.

'Bulent!'

The boy stopped and then rounded on his father with an expression of such naked animosity that for a moment Ikmen was rendered speechless.

'What?'

'Bulent…' And then he saw that a trickle of water was dripping from underneath the sunglasses he had given his son. 'Bulent, are you c-'

'No!' He turned away quickly in order, it was easy for Ikmen to see, to wipe the tears from his eyes.

'Oh yes you are,' Ikmen said and then quickly changing to a far older strategy, he firmly took hold of his son's arm and steered him into a small and shady side street.

'Now, what’s the matter, Bulent?' he said sternly. 'No more games, no more guessing. Just tell me what is going on in your brain and tell me now.'

'I can't.'

'Yes, you can’ his father said, watching all the time to check that the small group of headscarfed women opposite did not take too much notice of them.

'Why do you have a problem with authority? Why can't you keep the simplest job? You're not stupid! Why are you drinking?'

'Well, if I'm going to die in the very near future then why not!'

For a moment the world and everything in it came to a halt as Ikmen attempted to come to terms with what his son had just said.

'Die?'

'Well, I'm going to the army soon, aren't I?' Bulent spat venomously. 'Same thing!' He dropped his voice. 'And if I don't get killed then I'll go mad like Yusuf

Cohen and that terrifies me. As soon as I heard about him I just lost it, you know: It's not that I'm afraid to fight because I'm not But I don't want to kill people: Some of my friends' families came from the east Why should I want to kill them?'

'Bulent, you don't even know where you'll be sent yet And anyway, it's not for a couple of years. You might not-'

'Dad, I'm not going in as an officer. Boys like me are just gun fodder.'

Ikmen put his hand gently on his son's shoulder and led him over to a small table that stood in front of a tiny kebabci. 'Let's have some ayran and cool down a bit,' he said.

After settling Bulent into a seat, Ikmen went up to the window and bought the drinks. When he returned, his son was looking disconsolately at the ground.

'Bulent,' Ikmen said, sitting down opposite the boy, 'service is, I fear, just part of life. I did it, your brother Sinan has served…'

'Sinan went in as an officer.'

'Because he has a university degree, yes.'

Bulent downed his ayran in one gulp. 'Some boys get bought out and I did think of asking Uncle Halil to do that for me but then I thought that was unfair. He's always bankrolling this family. And anyway he would think I was a coward. Others disappear to other countries, but… but I couldn't do that because of your job. How would it look if a senior policeman's son ran away from his duty?'

Ikmen sighed. So this was it, was it? All this trouble was about Bulent wanting to live a little before he died – if he died, Ikmen could not even begin to think about an easy answer to Bulent's conundrum. The boy was right, if he deserted it would look bad for Ikmen himself and with all the mouths he had to feed, that was not a prospect he wanted to face. Not that he would express this to his son. And then Bulent's thoughts about the action that was not really a war, that raged year in and year out in the eastern provinces, accorded with Ikmen's own opinions. Although he would never have voiced his thoughts in public and despite the fact that Ikmen believed that a lot of the PKK fighters were just common murderers, he knew some Kurdish nationals, liked many and was naturally averse to killing anyone or anything. But none of this was any help to his son.

If it's any comfort,' he said as. he placed his half-finished ayran back onto the table, 'I don't think that you're a coward. I think your aversion to killing people is commendable.' He smiled. 'I know I've never been a very good example to you with regard to bad habits, getting you to go and buy alcohol for me and… But your mother and I must have done something right to make you think like this. When you kill, even for the security of your country, you have to live with that knowledge for the rest of your life and that's not easy.'

For the first time that day, Bulent smiled. 'Thanks for understanding, Dad.'

'Not that I can help you at all,' Ikmen said with a shrug. 'I can't'

'If I knew I was going to be drafted to Cyprus, I'd be OK,' Bulent said, frowning down at the ground once again.

'As you know, my son, I am not a religious man,' Ikmen said, placing a warm hand on his son's shoulder, 'but perhaps just this once we should trust to Allah or whoever or whatever controls the universe. There is nothing we can do but wait and see and, as your mother would say, Insallah you will go to Cyprus.'

'Yes.' Bulent took his cigarettes out of his pocket and offered one to his father. 'Sinan says that as Turks we sit uneasily in this world. We live so much like the Europeans now, well in the city we do anyway, and yet we still need our women to be chaste, we still go out to fight in what Sinan calls a tribal war.'

Ikmen, declining on principle his teenage son's cigarettes in favour of his own, lit up and smiled. 'Sinan is right and not so right at the same time. Even in civilised England, they engage in their own tribal war in Northern Ireland. Dr Halman can tell you something about that if you wish. But there are no absolutes anywhere, Bulent, absolutes are impossible.

In this so-called Turkish city of ours we live alongside a lot of anomalies. A so-called enemy can join and care about the forces of law, a Greek can marry a castrated relic of the old Ottoman system.' 'And then kill him.'