City of the Lost

I

Iain turned on the TV while Karin was in the bathroom. He only meant to watch for a minute or two, to get the latest on the bombing, but it proved strangely compelling. The picture, unsurprisingly, was still blurred, but between the various channels it was beginning to come in to some sort of focus. An unidentified white van or truck had been seen parked outside the hotel, though he couldn’t recall it himself. A phone call claiming credit had been made to a local newspaper within a minute or two of the explosion. Thirty people were confirmed dead, with at least as many more unaccounted for.

He was still watching when Karin came out of the bathroom, tucking his olive T-shirt into the waistband of her trousers. ‘What are they saying?’ she asked.

‘They’re saying it was Cypriots.’

‘Cypriots?’ She frowned in puzzlement. ‘Why?’

‘Apparently they rang in a warning.’

‘No. I mean why would Cypriots want to bomb here?’

Iain muted the TV. Cyprus was one of the world’s more intractable problems; explaining it was hard. ‘You know it’s partitioned, right?’

‘Turks on the top,’ she nodded. ‘Greeks on the bottom.’

‘Right. Except that the Greek bit is actually independent.’ The island had been a tug-of-war between Turkey and Greece for three thousand years. Then the British had taken over for a while, until forced out by insurgency in 1960. An uneasy independence had lasted until 1974, when a botched coup backed by Athens had provoked the Turks into invasion, seizing the northern third of the island before stopping. As Greek Cypriots in the north had fled south, so Turkish Cypriots in the south had fled north, creating a de facto partition. At first glance, the Turks got the better of the deal; their nationals accounted for one in five of the population, but they now controlled a third of the island, including the main resorts, the ports, the water resources and the fertile central plain. But sanctions had since devastated tourism and trade, forcing Ankara to pump in billions of lira every year to keep the place running. Worse, Cyprus had blighted Turkey’s international reputation and hobbled its application for EU membership. ‘The UN’s been trying to negotiate a settlement from the start,’ he told Karin. ‘But without much success. You can understand it: well over a thousand people vanished without trace during the fighting, and have never been found. Tens of thousands of others lost their homes and businesses and belongings, so there’s still a lot of bad blood. But then this new guy Deniz Baştürk became Turkish Prime Minister. He made it clear that Cyprus would be his number one foreign policy priority. There’s this place called Varosha. It’s a district of Famagusta, a city on the east coast of Cyprus. It used to be one of the top resorts in the whole Med until the Turks seized it, but it’s been completely abandoned ever since and now they call it the Lost City. Anyway, it’s been one of the major sticking points, because the Greek Cypriots have always insisted it be handed back before negotiations can begin in earnest, which the Turks have refused to do, because giving Greeks something for free is unthinkable. But then Baştürk came in and made noises about handing it over, which caused such an uproar among Turkish nationalists that Baştürk had to back down. That, in turn, provoked hard-line Cypriot reunificationists into setting off bombs, in the hope of persuading Turks to change their mind and let Varosha go.’

‘And so they murdered thirty people?’ asked Karin. ‘But that’s crazy.’

‘Since when has crazy ever stopped bombers?’ He touched his left ear. ‘Suds,’ he said.

‘Thanks.’ She checked a mirror, wiped them away, then ran fingers through her hair, spiking it a little, but with evident dissatisfaction. ‘You don’t have a comb, do you?’

Iain ran a hand over his buzz-cut. ‘Do I need one?’

‘I guess not.’ She held up the banknotes he’d given her. ‘Then maybe I should go do some shopping,’ she said.

II

‘Hush, girl,’ said Zehra Inzanoğlu, as her granddaughter stood on the road and continued to bawl. ‘Enough.’ But Katerina didn’t stop, except to take in more breath so that she could howl all the louder.

Indignation roiled Zehra’s heart. How could her son do this to her? She was too old. Her parenting was done. Yet what could she do? She looked around. She couldn’t see any of her neighbours watching but she knew they would be, if only because she’d be watching them were their situations reversed.

And still Katerina howled.

Village life was a delicate affair. Everyone knew each other’s business, yet they also soon learned where they could and couldn’t tread. But then something new came along and suddenly all those tacit boundaries broke down, and people would ask their intrusive questions again. They’d make judgements. Zehra couldn’t face that again. She just couldn’t. Besides, a girl of Katerina’s age should be at school. Yes. The thought was clarifying to her. She needed to return her to her home, find someone there to look after her. The Professor, perhaps. They wouldn’t have arrested him. And it would serve him right for introducing her son to that Greek whore in the first place. Her chin jutted with the rightness of it.

The bus wouldn’t run again that day, she couldn’t afford a taxi and asking a neighbour for a lift would mean having to explain and thus justify herself. She’d rather die. She went instead to her son’s car. His keys were still in the ignition; his wallet and mobile phone were on the dash. The car was a manual, however, and Zehra had only ever driven automatics. On the other hand, she knew the basic principle: you started them in second gear and then drove them as though they were very, very bad automatics.

She went inside to pack a bag, in case the Professor wasn’t home. When she came back out, Katerina was still bawling. Her persistence was astonishing. ‘Hush,’ she said crossly, belting her in to the passenger seat. ‘I’m taking you home. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’ But Katerina just carried on. Bitter thoughts filled her mind as she climbed behind the wheel, turned on the ignition and tried various combinations of pedals while heaving at the gear-stick, until finally it slotted into place. Then she took her foot off the brake and began bunny-hopping on her way.

III

A police horse whinnied in the street outside the Prime Ministerial offices, then did a little leftwards dance before lifting its tail and venting its bowels in a massive, noisy movement exactly as Deniz Baştürk was getting out of his car, providing the pack of press photographers across the street with the perfect visual metaphor for his premiership. And no one to blame but himself, for the horses were his idea, a way to increase security without making it look like they were turning into a police state.

A car pulled up behind. Iskender Aslan, his Minister of the Interior. ‘Prime Minister,’ he called out, hurrying to catch up. ‘May I ask what this—’

‘Inside, Iskender.’

‘But I—’

‘Inside,’ said Baştürk.

They found the Chief of the General Staff waiting in the antechamber. General Kemal Yilmaz typically wore suits in Ankara, as befitted a civilian city, but he’d been supervising exercises when the call had come, and so was in uniform today. ‘All those ribbons,’ mocked Aslan. ‘You must be very brave.’

‘They award most of them to anyone who serves,’ replied Yilmaz. ‘I’m sure you have plenty of your own.’

‘Gentlemen, please,’ said the Prime Minister. He motioned them through into his private office, made their aides wait outside. This wasn’t the kind of talk that wanted witnesses. ‘Nine mass-casualty bombings in three months,’ he began, walking to his desk. ‘Twenty in the past year.’

‘The terrorists are to blame for that, Prime Minister,’ said Aslan. ‘Not my ministry or the police. We’re doing all we can. And we’re making real progress. We have already made a number of highly significant arrests in Cyprus this afternoon.’

‘Ah, yes, all these highly significant arrests of yours. You tell me about them after every bomb. Then you quietly release them a week later for lack of evidence. So what good are these arrests when the bombings don’t merely continue, but get worse? They’re saying thirty people. Thirty people!’ He sat down, as much to calm himself as anything, then looked back and forth between them. ‘You may have seen me on television earlier. I assured the nation that we operate a joined-up government, that you two were already working together on this. Is that even faintly true? Are you working together?’

The two men glanced coolly at each other. Their mutual loathing was an open secret. ‘I saw your briefing, Prime Minister,’ said General Yilmaz. ‘As you made clear, counterterrorism is rightly a job for the police, not the army.’

‘And we don’t need the army’s help,’ added Aslan. ‘All things considered, we’re making commendable progress in—’

Baştürk slapped the table. ‘Commendable progress!’ he mocked. He let silence fall again, then said: ‘I don’t care what history you two have. I don’t care about turf wars or saving face. This is a crisis.’ He dropped his eyes a little, for all three of them knew that this was merely his own exercise in arse-covering, so that his earlier statement wouldn’t be proven a lie. ‘General Yilmaz helped defeat the terrorists last time it got this bad. He knows the Syrians and he fought in the Cyprus campaign. So I want you to take advantage of his experience, Iskender. Is that clear?’

‘But we—’

‘Is that clear?’

‘Yes, Prime Minister.’

‘Several of my old team are still in the service,’ Yilmaz told Aslan. ‘Perhaps I could have them seconded to you? To observe and advise only. That way we wouldn’t overstep any constitutional boundaries. And, who knows, your team may even find their new perspective helpful.’

‘Minister?’

Iskender Aslan flushed. If he said yes and things improved, people would credit the army. If things continued or got worse, it would be because he hadn’t accepted enough help. But he had no choice. ‘Of course, Prime Minister.’

‘Excellent,’ said Baştürk, hurrying to his feet and walking Aslan to the door before he could think up some objection. ‘Thank you so much for coming by. Now I need a quick word with General Yilmaz on that other matter.’

‘That other matter?’ frowned the Minister. ‘But I thought we’d agreed to leave it until—’

‘Did you?’ asked Baştürk politely. He closed the door on him then turned back to the General. ‘Now, then,’ he said. ‘Let’s talk riots.’