Divorce Turkish Style (26 page)

“With immovable property and automobiles,” said Remzi, “each person took anything that had been registered in their name. When it came to movables, what belonged to whom was negotiated on an ad hoc basis.”

“Do you mean things like diamond rings and tie pins?” I asked.

“Yes, jewellery is a good example,” said Remzi. “However, since the law was changed, the person in whose name the property is registered is now recognized as the legal owner. In other words, anyone who married after 2001 is subject to this law, unless they've made a prenuptial agreement stating otherwise.”

“But Sani and Cem did make a prenuptial agreement stating otherwise,” I said.

“Yes. However, it was up to the court whether or not to allow such an agreement,” said Remzi.

“But,” I said, “I still don't understand. Can't people make up their own agreements?”

“You understand the law a little, I believe.”

“My father was a lawyer. A criminal lawyer, actually.”

“I might know him. Did he practise in Istanbul?”

“His name was Abraham Hirschel,” I said, feeling pretty sure that Remzi would know of him. My father had been one of the Jewish scholars who fled German fascism and was given refuge in Turkey.

“Ah!” cried Remzi, jumping to his feet. “It never even occurred to me. Of course – your surname is Hirschel too. So you're Abraham Hirschel's daughter. Your father was a great lawyer. He established the Institute of Criminology at Istanbul University.”

“I don't suppose you studied under him,” I said, thinking that Remzi was far too young for that.

“No, I didn't,” he said. “But anyone who passes through
Istanbul University knows about him because its largest lecture hall carries his name. Your father's students were our tutors. Of course I know about your father. To be honest, I didn't realize that his daughter was in Turkey. Didn't he return to Germany?”

“Yes. In 1965,” I said.

“Lots of people came to Turkey at the same time as your father,” said Remzi, “but they didn't all have such an impact. Just think, all those thousands of students, not to mention their students… He was one of the last to leave Turkey, I believe.”

“That's right,” I said, recalling that had my mother not insisted my father would never have gone back.

“Did he teach at a university in Germany?” asked Remzi.

“Yes,” I said, realizing that it was coming up to eight o'clock and we needed to stop discussing my father and get back to the reason for my being there. “But time's getting on and you have to leave soon, I believe.”

“We'll leave together,” said Remzi. “We'll collect Aylin and have dinner together. How about that? Or did you have other plans for this evening?”

“No, but I don't want to mess up your evening,” I said.

“How can you say that? It would be an honour to have dinner with the daughter of Abraham Hirschel,” said Remzi eagerly.

This was something I loved about Turks. Remzi Aköz was born in the year that my parents and I left Istanbul for Berlin, yet he showed such respect and gratitude for my father's memory. It was as if he personally had benefited from my father's role as the founder of the faculty that had educated so many lawyers in the years before Remzi's time. Throughout the meal, he delighted me with anecdotes about those days, and also told me some of the things I'd come to find out.

At the end of the evening, I felt very happy – and a little tipsy – as I said goodbye to Aylin and Remzi outside my front door.

10

Remzi explained to me that the text of a law meant little in itself. What really mattered was the way it was interpreted by judges and lawyers. In other words, no one yet knew how the new civil law would be applied, and the validity of Cem and Sani's agreement hadn't been tested in the courts. Remzi said he would have been creating a precedent as the first lawyer to contest such an agreement, which was why he'd agreed to take on the case despite never having practised family law before.

The law might have been new in Turkey, but similar laws had been in place in Germany and Switzerland for years. Remzi had observed how the laws were applied in these countries, and was pleased with his findings. For instance, the German Supreme Court considered an agreement to be invalid and contrary to the spirit of the law if a woman had no opportunity to apply for some kind of financial support or recompense during divorce proceedings. In this context, the term “spirit of the law” quite simply meant that it was intended for the protection of women; the legal system didn't accept a woman being denied the protective shield of the law if she was forced to sign a prenuptial agreement in order to marry the man she loved. Remzi was convinced that he would have won the case and that the agreement would have been judged invalid. He certainly managed to persuade me that Cem would have ended up losing the case and having to pay out to Sani. Nevertheless, I'd become uneasy that everything seemed to be pointing at Cem.

“What more is there to think about?” asked Fofo.

“I don't like the idea of Cem being the number one suspect,” I said.

“You're the one who's always saying that spouses are the most likely people to have a motive for murder. So what's the problem?” said Fofo.

“Cem has a very strong alibi. Anyway, if the case were that easy to solve, we wouldn't have been running about to Lüleburgaz and Paşabahçe, would we?”

“Are you suggesting that we should have just stayed at home and assumed that Sani's killer was her husband? I don't understand you,” said Fofo.

“I don't understand myself, either. But something is making me uneasy about this,” I said.

“Your sixth sense, perhaps?” said Fofo, teasingly.

It was no secret that my sixth sense was not particularly strong, as you, dear reader, will be all too aware.

“And there's no tangible evidence against Cem,” I said.

“That's for the police to find,” said Fofo. “We know that Cem hired someone to watch Sani's house, and we know that he was going to have to pay out a lot of money to Sani. That's reason enough for him to watch Sani die without offering help, isn't it? We've done our bit now.”

“Okay,” I said, “so tell me, what do you have to say about Sinan taking an interest in me?”

“I'd say you're a very beautiful woman and, if I were straight, I'd chase after you too.”

I was flattered by his words, but my mind was too preoccupied to dwell on them.

“I must be old enough to be his mother,” I said.

“Oh Kati, what are you trying to say?” said Fofo. “I could list twenty guys with girlfriends young enough to be their daughters. Don't worry about it.”

“Yes, but they all have wealth, class or fame. As for me? I'm just a bookseller who lives in a dilapidated apartment. What do I have to make a young, handsome man run after me? Nothing.”

“A great deal. Beauty isn't something that disappears with age. You're an extremely attractive and entertaining woman. And there's plenty of evidence to suggest that you're good in bed.”

“You're shameless, Fofo! What kind of evidence are you talking about? And how would you know?”

“I know about these things,” said Fofo, nodding mysteriously. “You're not yet ready to analyse why men find you attractive. We'll talk about this again in ten years' time.”

“You're sounding very upbeat today. Why's that, I wonder?” I asked.

“Possibly because I sense a holiday in the offing,” said Fofo, tossing the phone to me. “Why don't you ring this Jasmin Gil? If she agrees to see us, we can go to Bodrum and have a bit of a holiday while we're there. I hear it's wonderful at this time of year. The tourists have gone home, the sun is shining—”

“We're not going all the way to Bodrum, so don't raise your hopes for nothing, Fofo,” I said grumpily, thinking that I wouldn't be able to take advantage of the winter sales after spending so much on fuel and taxi fares recently. “I'll try and get Jasmin Gil on the phone.”

“Kati, do you realize how much phone charges have gone up? It would be cheaper just to go there,” persisted Fofo.

“Stop being silly,” I said. “We're going nowhere.”

We didn't go. Whether it was a twist of fate or merely luck, Jasmin Gil came to us. Or rather, when I called her she said that she was returning to Bodrum the following day, but that she would make time to see us that day if we went straight round. She felt certain
there was something strange about Sani's death, but nobody had thought to contact her despite the fact that she was one of the family, and so on and so forth. Words rattled out of her like rounds from a machine gun.

“Did you say your name is Kati Hirschel?” asked Jasmin towards the end of our conversation, pronouncing my name with a perfect German accent.

“Yes,” I said.

“Hirschel isn't a very common name,” she commented. “
Sind Sie zufällig Deutsche
?”

“I was born and spent a lot of my childhood in Istanbul. I feel I belong here.”

“But your family's German,” said Jasmin.

“Yes,” I said.

“
Ich wusste es
,” she said, happily.

Why was she so pleased with herself? It wasn't as if we were talking about little Liechtenstein with a population of thirty thousand. Anyone from Germany, the most populous country in Europe with its eighty million citizens, was bound to encounter a compatriot sooner or later – it was hardly something to get excited about.

“
Aber Hirschel ist trotzdem kein gewöhnlicher Name
,” said Jasmin.

Why did she insist on speaking to me in German? Perhaps she missed being able to speak in her mother tongue?

“My father's surname was Hirschel. He was a German Jew,” I replied in Turkish.

I'd never felt obliged to show patriotism by speaking in my mother tongue to Germans living in Turkey. I spoke in whichever language felt most comfortable at the time. On the rare occasions that I missed conversing in the German language, I'd phone my mother rather than impose it on others. Over the last twenty-four
hours, I'd had to explain my family history to everyone I met, and it was becoming tedious.

“I'm half German,” said Jasmin, before putting the phone down.

She sounded happy to have found a topic that we had in common, other than her sister-in-law's murder.

Jasmin Gil had given me an address in Kurtuluş, but after everything Fofo had told me, I didn't even think about going there alone.

Kurtuluş had been an Armenian neighbourhood at one time. About sixty thousand of the previously large Armenian population now remained, and they were mostly elderly. It was a typical lower-middle-class neighbourhood, with rows of terraced buildings and small shops selling groceries, fruit and vegetables, pickles and meze. Despite its proximity to Taksim Square, the rents were quite low and Kurtuluş had become popular with singles, transvestites and gays.

Ergenekon Street was one-way, so we got out at Pangaltı and walked from there.

“Here we are,” said Fofo, stopping in front of a handsome Fifties-style building.

We made our way up to the first floor, where we came face to face with a woman who looked very German in a way that I liked. She was slim and of medium height, with light brown shoulder-length straight hair that framed a face that had a sagging chin, bags beneath the eyes and a network of fine wrinkles. She wore flat shoes, which I estimated to be size forty, black trousers and a black V-necked sweater. Although probably in her fifties, her body looked younger than her face. Whenever I see women like her, I always wonder how they would have looked in their youth. But Jasmin Gil didn't look as if she'd ever been young. I
don't know what I'd expected after hearing all the stories about her, but it certainly wasn't this woman.

The apartment was a big disappointment. The building had looked lovely from the outside, and even the stairway had a stylish air of the Fifties about it. However, the apartment had been subjected to atrocious modifications and was a real dump. The sight of its bumpy walls, lifting floor tiles and dreadful chipboard doors made me want to weep.

Jasmin showed us to a sofa and perched herself on a chair, looking as if she was about to get up and run away at any moment.

“
Es freut mich, dass Sie da sind
,” she said.

“Could we speak in Turkish? My friend doesn't speak German,” I said.

“Are you Turkish?” asked Jasmin, turning to Fofo.

“I'm Spanish,” he said.

“I lived in Barcelona for a few years,” said Jasmin, “but that was a long time ago, just after Franco died. It was at a time when Spain was going through a big transformation.”

“I'm from Granada,” said Fofo.

Jasmin nodded as if she had nothing to say about Granada.

“Would you like some tea? Or coffee?” she asked.