Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

The town was sleeping.

Someone is always up in a big city but in a small town everyone goes to bed around the same time. That's something I found out after I got here.

I was sitting under a towering eucalyptus tree on the main street, on one of those old-fashioned benches with names and hearts carved into its dark wooden planks.

I'd wanted to sit there ever since I came to town, but that night was the first time.

I leaned back.

I looked up at the sky.

They were all sleeping, dreaming. Dreaming together.

I watched their dreams slip out through windows, doors and chimneys. I watched them rise up into the clouds, flaunting their colours; I could almost see them, talking, laughing, sobbing, making love. There they all were, entwined in deep embraces on velvet-curtained stages, in stables and on dark streets, in sitting rooms and by the sea. A neighing horse, two women kissing, a tearful child racing through the night, a horde of golden coins, a glistening knife. Sometimes I caught sight of a man or a woman vanishing from their own dreams to haunt the dreams of others.

I watched the town dreaming.

I wasn't drunk, or at least not from drink.

I had just taken a life.

I remembered it like a dream.

But I couldn't remember much. I remembered an arm — my arm, though somehow it was severed from my body, wandering far away, beyond my grasp. It was holding a gun. I don't remember pulling the trigger; I only heard the shot. And then I saw a mouth opening, as if to speak, a face contorted, one hand in the air, the other clutching the wound. And then a body falling, but no blood.

What is it people feel when they kill another human being? My body was taut, seized by a fear I had never known before, and then it seemed I had drifted off to sleep.

I left the house and made my way here.

I don't remember thinking about anything in particular.

I sat down. What a careless novelist I was, no different from God.

A good novelist doesn't build on coincidence, or stoop to coincidence to get out of a corner.

But God has a savage sense of humour. And coincidence is his favourite joke. And life is nothing but a string of coincidences.

You see, I was a stranger in town.

I came from a big city, far away.

I stayed there to write a book about murder. And so what if I turned out to be the killer? I'll simply put it down as God's work, another one of his cruel coincidences, taunting his own creation.

The entire town was steeped in dream.

I was the only one awake. Or was I dreaming?

The time has come to tell you what happened.

But the story isn't really mine, and if it is savage beyond belief it is because it comes from the hand of a cruel and indifferent God.

I remember everything about the day I first saw her. We met at a little airport nestled between low hills and the sea.

At first I couldn't really make out her face, blurred by a faint, gauzy light, and I was transfixed.

Later I came to appreciate its beauty, and an almost blinding brightness in her eyes. She knew she was beautiful. When she was a young girl she learned how to use the enchanting powers of her eyes.

I could imagine what happened: she was chased and showered with gifts, which she would accept almost disdainfully, and then, grateful for the attention, she would only receive more — I've met men who gave away their lives.

I never saw her grieve for anything that slipped away; in fact she seemed to collect people and things so that she could throw them away. And I never quite understood how she could collect so much without ever lifting a finger, and when in her heart she really never dreamed of holding on to anything for very long.

She was calm, her serenity drawing people to her. Sometimes it even seemed like she moved objects.

It was raining that day.

Through the window I could see an endless grove of olive trees, turned greyish-green by the rain; their gnarled trunks bursting from the earth, they looked like an ancient army, waiting for the command to march.

Our little plane was late for take-off.

The departures lounge was on the first floor of the building. The control tower was on the second. Four other people sat behind the broad glass windows that looked out over the tarmac: a crop-duster pilot, two wealthy locals with badly knotted ties, and the woman.

She was sitting alone, listening to the pilot a couple of seats away from her. They seemed to know each other well. And I saw her nod to the other two men.

Then she stood up and walked over to an old coffee machine in the corner, slipping past me like a flash of light.

I was reading a newspaper but I could feel her passing behind me.

On her way back she stopped and put her coffee down on the table in front of me. Then she leaned over and picked my raincoat up off the floor and draped it over the chair beside me.

'It was on the floor,' she said.

Her voice was soft, almost a whisper, demanding attention, and I was caught off guard.

She treated people, and men in particular, as if they were children who needed special attention. Sometimes I got the feeling she thought men were disabled in some way. I didn't know that then.

She picked up her coffee, flashed me a smile and then she left.

I watched her go.

These are the moments we can later appraise with hindsight. Reliving the moment now, I feel clairvoyant. But at the time I had no idea what would come to pass.

Sifting through the past on that bench, I could see how my life veered dramatically in the direction it did.

I dashed through the rain and boarded the plane.

There were only three rows of two seats on each side. Big cardboard boxes had been carefully stowed in the back two rows.

I sat down by the window in the front row and watched her walk unhurriedly towards the plane, oblivious to the rain, her head buried in the upturned collar of her coat.

She seemed amused by how we had raced to the plane.

Through the curtain of raindrops that ran down the scratched and pitted window, I thought I could make out a smile on her face.

She was soaking wet by the time she boarded the plane and she really was smiling.

Before she could sit down next to the pilot she had been speaking to earlier, a young man with headphones around his neck emerged from the cockpit and called out, 'Come on, we can talk on the way.' And he saluted the young woman with a nod before the two men disappeared into the cockpit.

She hesitated for a moment then sat down beside me.

She felt like she had to explain herself: 'I'm afraid of flying.'

'But you seem to know all the pilots,' I said.

'I do. They're actually teaching me how to fly. The pilot you saw in the airport is giving me lessons in his crop-duster. His name's Tahir.'

'Aren't you afraid then?'

She shrugged.

'I am.'

The plane lurched forward as she took off her raincoat and placed it on the seat behind her.

As the plane lifted off the runway, I saw her clutching the armrests; her knuckles were white.

'Don't be afraid,' I said.

'I'm getting used to it. I actually like the feeling. It's just that I talk a lot when I'm scared. Is that going to be a problem?'

It was hard to hear her over the roar of the engine.

'No,' I said.

'What do you do?'

'I'm a writer.'

'What do you write?'

'Novels.'

'And your name?'

'You wouldn't know me.'

'Probably not. I don't read much any more. Though I read a lot when I was a kid.'

She paused and then smiled: 'Everyone you meet probably says that they read a lot when they were a kid. Is that true?'

'That's right,' I said. 'I don't meet many who read any more.'

'Is that heartbreaking?'

'What?'

'That people don't read your books?'

'I'm getting used to it. I like feeling disappointed.'

She laughed.

Now I realise it was the way she laughed just then that hooked me. I liked her quick reaction to my joke about her fear.

The plane shook and she grabbed my arm.

In that moment I knew my life would never be the same. It's hard to explain, how that laugh and then the way she held my arm seconds later was the beginning of it all. I could just feel it.

There are those moments in our lives when we feel that nothing will ever be the same again. In retrospect we say that somehow we could feel the surge, the sudden change in direction, though sometimes it is a false alarm and we forget about the moment altogether.

But this was something seismic.

That moment I knew I had succumbed. I could feel myself being swept away, dragged into an abyss. And I wanted to be taken.

For me, exhilaration is the most dangerous emotion, and I felt it then: the expectation that she would teach me things more perilous than love.

I was drawn to excitement, leaping at any opportunity like an animal taking the bait, though fully aware of the impending disaster.

I thought I was the only passenger on the plane on the evening flight back to town. But drifting off to sleep, I saw her reflection in the window. I turned and saw her standing above me, holding all the novels I had ever written. Otherwise I might have forgotten all about her.

They constituted my Achilles' heel, pinched by God when he dipped me in those magical waters. My novels, the weakest and most sinister aspect of my person.

I looked at her hands wrapped round my books and the letters in my name between her fingers. I looked up at her lovely face, like an inlaid Seljuk coin. I could almost feel the warmth of her breasts beneath her blouse and cotton jacket, the warmth of her navel and her thighs.

Seeing my books in her arms made me feel pathetic — a forgotten prophet prepared to worship anyone who will follow, building temples, shrines and altars for the few disciples, and drinking magical elixirs.

'Where did you find those?' I said, like we were old friends.

'In a shop that sold books,' she said, laughing and then sitting down beside me.

'Do they still sell my books there?'

I had assumed they were out of print. I couldn't remember the last time anyone had read one of my books.

'I'll read at least one of them tonight,' she said.

'Do you think you'll like it?'

'Let's see.'

'How about this. You read one and if you like it meet me tomorrow afternoon at the old restaurant near the station.'

'All right,' she said, buckling her seatbelt. 'I'm exhausted. I'm going to sleep a little. Is that all right?'

'Of course.'

Laying her head on my shoulder, she was asleep within minutes.

She trusted me and felt safe on that trip, and I never would have thought that a woman sleeping on my shoulder would have such a profound effect.

Vineyards and olive groves blanketed the mountainside above the town. Pale-green olive leaves, flickering in the wind, blazed like a giant lamp, and a yellowish light from the vineyards fell over the hill. Cypress and plane trees cast long, dark shadows, their wisdom and dignity lending the setting a solemn air.

At the foot of the mountain there was an old, brick-built wine factory with wisteria cascading over the walls. Locals grew contraband cannabis in the fields behind it — everyone around here seemed to smoke weed — and everything in the area bore the faint scent of marijuana.

Below the factory wealthy residents lived in large, two-storey, sand-coloured houses with broad terraces that looked down on the town through flower gardens. The town itself was a cluster of stone houses and walled courtyards veined with narrow streets, built on the plain at the base of the mountains. A row of palm trees ran along the coast where the town met the sea, and between the palms grew oleanders with red flowers that seemed to have been planted by a tasteful gardener. Then there was a golden beach that stretched along the shore.

In the centre of town there was an old train station with a yellow brass roof, but the tracks had been torn up. I always liked that station no longer visited by trains. There were little shops inside, which smelled of tobacco and steel. Next to the station was the Çinili restaurant, with its shaded garden. The tables were covered in white tablecloths — it catered to the grandees in town — and it always smelled of anisette and dried mackerel.

I arrived late one summer afternoon. I'd been on my way to the Taurus Mountains, hoping to find a mountain village where I could live for a while.

Through the heat haze rising from a stretch of highway, I noticed a narrow road, and a piece of wood hammered to a stake. The faded letters on the sign read: 'sea for sale'.

I turned without even thinking.

I like driving down roads I've never seen before. There is almost always an adventure that lies ahead. In the end I usually find my way, but then again, that never really happens, and the adventure lasts a little longer than you expected.

I was hungry and so I stopped in front of a köfte restaurant on the road that ran through the centre of the town. There was no one else there. I sat down under a willow tree in the garden and ordered something to eat.

I was tired and restless.

I had been wrestling with ideas for a new book, a murder mystery, but I hadn't managed to start. I was wondering if I would ever write again. I needed a miracle to jolt me back to life, and back to writing, something that would stir the creative juices that had grown still in the dark cave of my soul. I was dead to the world, and no one knew. Writing would bring me back to life.

I was served a plate of grilled meatballs, a bowl of hot sauce and a tomato salad. The food was actually quite good.

The proprietor came over to my table and asked me if I wanted anything else. He made me feel a guest in his own home.

'Thank you. I'm fine,' I said.

He hovered over the table, a bored look on his face.

'Where to? Your car's filthy, by the way.'

'I'm heading south.'

'It's burning up down there.'

'Burning up right here.'

'Much hotter there.'

I agreed with him in the hope that he would leave me alone.

'A cold beer is what you need,' he said. 'Goes well with the grilled meat.'

'Why not,' I said obligingly, and in a flash he was back with two beers.

'Beer's on me,' he said, sitting down at my table. 'I hate this time of day. Everyone's at home, avoiding the heat, cars hardly ever pass by and if they do people aren't hungry, and I can't just close up and go home, and if I stay I get bored so I wait, hoping someone will stop by ...'

'Ah yes, now that's it,' he said after taking a swig of beer and nodding to an imaginary friend in approval.

A burly young man, neatly dressed and with his hair combed back over his head, lumbered into the garden. 'How's it going, Uncle Remzi,' he called out to the proprietor.

'Slow and steady, Sultan,' he replied.

'Uncle's called me over.'

He greeted me with a nod and left.

'Not a bad kid,' said the proprietor.

'Seems like a polite fellow,' I replied.

'Polite, eh? A real killer.'

'What?' I said. I thought I had misheard him.

'A murderer,' he said, as if telling me the young man was a cobbler.

'Did he shoot someone?' I asked.

'Shoots them all the time,' he said, 'but he never gets caught. He's Oleander Ramiz's nephew.'

I looked him straight in the eye, but the expression on his face was grave, almost sad. 'When he was a kid, his uncle ate the oleanders in their garden and poisoned himself. Imagine that. That's how he got the name.'

'What's his uncle do?'

'Him? He's a killer too.'

I leaned back and looked at him again. Sad and tearful eyes. He seemed troubled by stories he had never shared and mysteries that would never be solved. His shoulders were hunched, like a man resigned to his fate. I felt that he would either become a good friend of mine, or a calculating enemy.

'I saw a sign back there, sea for sale,' I said.

'Oleander wants to sell the beach.'

'It's his?'

'How could the beach be his?' he said, looking at me as if I was a fool.

'Well, how can he sell it then?'

'He can't ... But he wants to.'

'Give me another beer, will you?'

The expression on his face brightened and then I knew that we would become friends. 'And one for you,' I said. 'This round's on me.'

Over the second beer, he told me about the killers in town. Yugoslavian refugees had come 'eons ago'— as he put it — and fought with the locals, even killed each other.

'What's the issue?'

'Land, marijuana sales, women ... This place now has a real reputation. They even go elsewhere to kill people.'

'But it seems like such a peaceful place.'

'It is,' he said.

'I'm looking for a quiet place. Any places for rent around here?'

'We could find something for you. Not many people are looking to rent around here.'

That evening I rented a two-storey house with a large veranda that overlooked the town.

That's how it all started.

---

Excerpted from "Endgame"
by .
Copyright © 2013 Ahmet Altan.
Excerpted by permission of Europa Editions.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---