The Debt of Tamar (29 page)

Hannah noticed a lean silhouette pass behind the drawn window dressings. Then the buzzer sounded.

“I’ll be here.” Edward held the door open for her.

Beyond the entry hall a steep flight of stairs rose with no end in sight. She gathered the loose edges of her skirt as she ascended the dark stairwell to the second floor. At the top of the staircase she rounded the corner and noticed an unassuming door slightly ajar. A sliver of light beamed from inside and settled across the green tiled floor like the flash of a whip.

“You can come in,” a woman’s voice, thick and full, beckoned. The door eased open revealing a small boy with big black eyes, no older than three or four years old. His face and fingertips peeked out from behind the door until the voice within whispered something quickly, sending the boy scurrying out of sight.

Inside, a slender woman in an ivory suit sat at the edge of a plush sofa with her hands in her lap and her ankles tucked under one another. “I’m sorry it’s taken so long,” she said. Her dark eyes radiated warmth. “You should understand, he didn’t
want
to be found.” Ayda stood and made her way over.

“I’m Hannah.”

“Of course. Please come in.” Ayda gently closed the door then led her to the sofa. “You must be hungry?” she said as she gestured to a tray of tea sandwiches and snacks.

“That’s all right. I have dinner at eight.”

“That’s two hours from now.”

Hannah smiled.

“Here let me help you…the caviar is good isn’t it? Have just a little more.”

Hannah looked about the coffee table. There was a large flat book on the dancing horses of Vienna, one of the collected works of Gibran, and another still on the history of the Osman Imperial dynasty. She reached for a book by Taguc, the author that had been recently pardoned for his supposed “crimes against Turkishness.”

“Have you heard of Taguc?” Ayda asked as Hannah flipped through the book.

“The name rings a bell.”

“He’s the author who was imprisoned for discussing the Armenian genocide. When Selim came back, he made it his mission to free Taguc.”

“Did he succeed?”

“I believe so,” Ayda said as she withdrew a long cigarette from a carton by the table. “But he never did admit to me exactly what happened. All I know is that one day, the funds in our bank account were drastically lower. That was the same day several ministers publicly came out to oppose prosecutions on the basis of ‘Crimes against Turkishness.’ I always suspected that Selim was involved, but he never admitted as much.”

“But why would he care so much about Taguc?”

“I don’t think it had all that much to do with Taguc actually.”

“Then what
was
it about?”

Ayda shrugged. “Selim was haunted by the past.”

“His own past though.”

“Yes, but it was more than that.” With her unlit cigarette dangling between her fingers, Ayda’s hand moved with wand-like enchantment as she spoke. “It was as though the history of the Ottoman Empire lived inside him. He carried all the glory with him, but also, he carried so much shame. I think he was looking for a way to lay it all to rest.”

“He must have loved you a lot,” Hannah whispered.

“He loved me,” Ayda said quietly. “But no matter how hard he tried, he could never come close enough for me to really reach him.” She frowned, then lifted the cigarette to her lips.

“Are you going to light that?” Hannah asked.

“No.”

“But—”

“I don’t smoke,” Ayda interrupted. “Haven’t in years.” She nodded toward a broken tower of children’s blocks and an assortment of overturned miniature racecars. “I have a son,” Ayda finished the thought.

Hannah examined the cigarette quizzically, but said nothing.

"It's just something I like to hold in my hand."  Ayda’s voice fell to a whisper.  "Something from the past, you see." She turned her attentions back toward her son.

The boy popped his head up and smiled before moving toward the two of them. He was a skinny little thing, all knees and elbows. His thick hair was dark and tousled, his purple lips smooth and narrow. The boy blinked listlessly, then rested his head in his mother’s lap.

“This is Ali,” Ayda said as the boy’s lids drooped wearily.

“I didn’t know—” Hannah shook her head.

“Neither did Selim,” Ayda explained. “When he finally returned to Istanbul, I was still at our old place. It was late when I heard a buzzing at the door. I wasn’t expecting anyone. I checked the security camera, to see who was calling up so late, but I didn’t recognize the old man I saw. He was skinny and pale with hunched shoulders and an oversized baseball cap. I thought the man had pushed the wrong button, so I said into the monitor, ‘Sir, which apartment are you trying to go to?’ He said ‘I’m trying to go home.’ I said ‘You’re confused, old man. You don’t live here!’ Then, he turned to the security camera and just stared up at the lens with his big, dark eyes. That was when I knew…

When I opened the door, I just stood there, barely able to say hello. He took one look at my bloated belly and I could see the look of astonishment on his face. There was no way he could have known. He spread his hands across my stomach as though trying to feel the life inside me. I invited him in and we talked for a while. He asked me to stay with him. To be with him till the end. He said there wasn’t much time. It was not something I needed to think over.

A week later Ali was born and Selim was given a fresh breath of life. He lived another
three
years. Those three years were the most painful, but also the most beautiful of my life.” She played with Ali’s long wavy hair as he slept in her lap.

“He’s beautiful,” Hannah said quietly.

“Like his father.”

Hannah reached for a silver frame and examined the photo of a skinny adolescent holding a soccer ball. “And this boy?”

“That’s Emre. Selim was kind of a big brother to him. Arranged for him to attend a good school. Made sure he and his father were taken care of.”

“I’m surprised, and not surprised at all.”

“He even left one of his properties to them in his will—a small hotel. They still come by often and visit.”

“I knew so little about him,” Hannah wondered aloud.

“I guess that’s why he felt you knew him more than anyone else ever could…”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You knew him,” Ayda explained.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean
really
knew him, without all the noise and clutter and misunderstanding that comes with knowing too many details of a person’s past. It’s one of the reasons he loved you so…” Ayda’s voice trailed off.

Hannah said nothing, just examined the ruby stone as she often did these days.

“You never knew Selim the Osman,” Ayda continued.

“No.”

“But you knew Selim the man. And that’s all he was at the end of the day really. People forget that.”

“It’s all I ever knew of him.”

“He said meeting you was like reuniting with an old friend.”

“That’s how it felt for me too.”

“He said that in meeting you, it was like a curse had been broken.”

“I didn’t break any curses.”

“Selim would have disagreed.”

“But he
died
. If I had the power to break curses…”

“It doesn’t matter that he died. We all die at some point. The only thing that matters is that in the end, he lived.
Really
lived. With joy. With love. Without regret. Don’t you get that?”

“I think I’m starting to understand.”

“Come, I want to show you something.” She motioned for Hannah to follow as she made her way down a dimly lit corridor flanked with rows of framed portraits. They passed a framed portrait of a shriveled man, with a hooked nose in an oversized turban. “Suleiman the Magnificent—our most celebrated sultan,” Ayda explained. They passed another portrait of a young man with a small nose, delicate features, and a tinge of sadness in his expression. Hannah’s eyes settled upon it and she felt a
déjà-vu
, as though she were looking upon an old friend. Ayda turned back to her. “Murat the III. Selim liked this portrait very much.” She continued down the hallway past the watchful guard of dozens of ancient sultans.

As she walked through this corridor, Hannah had the vague sense she was passing through the rolling waves of time, generations, history, and above all, fate. When they’d arrived at the large door at the very end of the hall, she knew she’d reached her very own.

“This, is what I wanted you to see.” Ayda opened the door. Hannah stepped into a small room with deep crimson walls and a large mahogany desk.

She felt her world turn over as her anonymous buyer revealed himself. She looked up at a wall covered with fifteen works belonging to her first exhibition, paintings that’d once hung in Selim’s hospital room in New York. Lined meticulously and set in silver frames, the portraits looked back at her with a deep, soulful sigh. She closed her eyes and let the dim light flicker on the outside of her sealed lids, as she tumbled through a kaleidoscope of daffodil showers and pomegranate shadows, defiant fires that refused to burn, amidst shattered bones, hospital gowns that hung like haunting ghosts, Spanish treasuries overflowing with confiscated wealth, damp dungeons overflowing with confiscated lives. Gardens of refuge, Bosphorus blossoms, blossoming secrets, and alas, confiscated love. In her mind, she realized she was witnessing the colors of destiny.

When she opened her eyes, the air tasted of the sea, fresh, as though it had just been born.

“He said it’s what had kept him going,” Ayda explained, her deep voice settling over Hannah like a long soothing hush.

“He said it was a
labor of love.”

 

Nicole Dweck is a freelance writer living in New York.
The Debt of Tamar
is her debut novel.