Tucked beneath the shadows of Konstinbul's neon skyline was the entrance to the famous Himkok frequented by socialites and important names.
Guiliana Cafaro got up from the velvet-upholstered booth.
"Excuse me, ladies, but I need to make a call," she said to the wives whose husbands she might avail herself of in the future, and whose trust she earned by affecting a life they coveted.
"Now?" Lady Katarine Cengiz bleated, spilling her drink as she raised the glass, her golden curls bouncing about a face stiff and expensive. "But the cabaret just got started!"
"I won't take long, my dear," Guiliana beamed. Snatching a napkin from a waiter passing by, she helped dry Katarine's hand. "And don't drink too much while I'm gone!" She blew her a kiss before spinning on her heel.
Down the stairs dim-lit by the antique sconces mounted along the mahogany paneled walls, the leather soles of her stilettos clacked the hardwood floor. Next to a pool table, she found the TV remote and looked for the recording of the press conference finished five minutes ago.
Preceding to the bar where bottles of single-malt whiskey and aged bourbon stand like trophies on glass shelves, she deposited herself on one of the stools and tapped her earring. "Call Erdem Aktas."
The line went through after two short beeps.
"Hey," the boy slurred, "Thanks for calling."
"Are you drunk?" Guiliana chuckled while she raised a hand halfway to the bartender approaching to inquire what she would like to order. "You didn't accompany your boss to the press conference? Is that why you want to talk?"
"No!", the boy drawled. "Yes."
"Where're you now?"
"I'm at his place." He paused for an arch giggle. "I saw his bedroom today."
Guiliana cocked a brow. "What's the tea?"
"I'm babysitting! Can you believe it?" The boy sounded miffed.
"Shocking," she teased, her tone amused, but there was no amusement in the reflection of her eyes caught on the polished redwood counter. "I thought you'd be immune to his women by now. Who's the babe this time? And why do you need to babysit her?"
"It's different," the boy groused. "That's why."
"Care to elaborate?"
"It's complicated."
"Complicated or you can't tell me?"
Another long sigh which Guiliana understood. While she didn't have a high roller for a dad or a mounting family debt like Erdem, her mother practically sold her off to Serhat and milked her like a cash cow after her father's passing. For the five years they spent together at the talent agency, the boy was her only family, and their camaraderie they had promised a lifetime. But like all promises easier to make than keep, so was theirs. Their different paths had them swear a new allegiance, so to speak. All the inconvenience notwithstanding, they remained close. When Erdem confided in her his impossible crush, she felt grateful, beyond anything, that she still had one left in this steel-hearted world, one she could talk to with somewhat ease.
"You know I trust you, Guili," said Erdem at length.
"Of course."
"I"m just, I don't know. It's not like I don't want to tell you. I don't even know how to describe it to myself." His voice stumbled over his words.
Guiliana trailed her fingers along the polished redwood, overhead spotlights glancing off her blood-red nails. She glimpsed at the tea light flickering on the far side of the bar counter. "Erdem, sweetie, you know you have no chance with him one way or another, right?"
"I know!" he brayed.
"So what difference does it make even if he's serious about this girl?"
"I just…"
"Let him go," she said, her voice measured and uninflected. "So you can be free."
"Yeah, yeah, but I also don't want to be free!" Erdem howled like a husky pup. "I want to have someone to ground me, to lend meaning to what I do, to give me a purpose! Warshon Qusbecq made me a chemist! A doctor! He's the whole package!"
"He's not the one for you."
"But he…"
"I was there, Erdem, that New Year's Eve party when he paid off your contract," Guiliana went forth, cuddling herself as she glanced up at the glaring spotlights. "You were grateful to him, and who could blame you? But have you considered why? If you didn't have your photographic memories, if you weren't as coordinated as you are, do you think he'd do what he did?"
Silence dreaded. Guiliana permitted an audible sigh. "Most people exhaust their entire life to be seen as a man, a woman, an individual, an anatomy of free wills. They all fail. At the end of their last breath, they have never been seen as anything more than a sperm, a womb, a bank account, a means to an end, the grist to a mill. That's why we long for romance, which is a longing for validation as an individual brimming with free wills, however short-lived that validation may be, and the longing is timeless. Warshon Qusbecq has never seen you with the validation you seek from him, and he never will."
"Shit, sis," the boy said and paused for quite a moment. "That's awfully deep. I always thought you're more pragmatic than philosophical."
"I didn't come up with it." She tilted her head, her hands rubbing her bare arms. "One of my favorite authors did. Asked on a podcast three years ago, about the protagonist from her revenge epic, and why she wouldn't write romance, she confessed she deliberately steered clear of it because she feared the gender stereotype associated with the genre, and she regretted it because, and I quote, 'Romance has bore a stigma it doesn't deserve, and romantic interest reflects the kernel of humanity's will and conquest.' I'd love to tell you more, but unfortunately, it was the only podcast she did."
"Holy shit," Erdem clucked his tongue. "Why the only one though? What happened? She didn't like interviews?"
"The Reds happened," Guiliana tucked away a lock of hair, her brows raising. "The Commonwealth has gone mad, destroying anyone with a station, scholars and artists alike. And as for your second question, I guess we'll never know. The news said she and her mentor died in a fire over a week ago."
"No way!" Erdem gasped. "Hold on, I think I saw it too! Was it Mira de Armas, you're talking about? Prodigy of Reynold Barca, the former Secretary of the Commonwealth?"
"Uh-huh."
"And wasn't her dad Alec de Armas, the famous archeologist?"
"Yep."
"No way!" A short pause treaded on the heel of a gulp. "Professor de Armas was a bonafide genius!" Erdem went on, barely keeping the awe out of his voice, "He discovered the prehistoric world, one that was pretty much like ours but in order to last forever, it destroyed itself in the process!"
Guiliana held a hand to her cheek, remembering what she read in Gods' Gaze, about how everything must always come to an end. Though Mira de Armas never talked about it, she probably wrote the revenge epic in honor of her deceased father.
"But I'm not sure about his daughter, though." Over her earrings, Erdem made a puffing noise. "Didn't they also say she didn't write it herself? That it was Barca who pulled the string to have it published?"
"Do you believe it?"
"Well, she's really young though, only eighteen when the book first came out, wasn't she? What does an eighteen-year-old know anyway? She probably hasn't even had a lover before, which's why she steered clear of romance, duh?"
"That's true," Guiliana shrugged. "She did factor that."
"I gravitate to believe she had more help than she admitted. No offense."
A chuckle fled her lips. "Why would I be offended?" massaging her brow, she rested her eyes for a brief moment. "Anyway, I'm glad I get your mind off the you-know-whom."
"Are you? Then why did you bring him up again?"
His grumbling made her laugh. "Well, you can read the book –"
"Oh c'mon, Guili, you know I don't read," the boy yawned. "I don't have the time."
She smiled, her brows raising. People like Erdem chose carefully what they read. When all the information they couldn't forget overwhelmed them, it became gibberish. His photographic memory was as much of a gift as a curse. That said, the selfish part of her did wish he'd read and remember what she found important, as if through his remembering, part of her got to live on in the idea. "But you have the time blathering to me?"
"Send me the link to the podcast," he relented. "All the hypes about this Mira de Armas, there is not a single picture of her available anywhere. I wanna see what she looks like."
"You won't. It's a phone interview."
"But why? Didn't she want to be famous?"
"Depends on what you want to be famous for. Ugly, plain, or beautiful, each carries its distinctive vice. Better that no one knows how she looks. Barca did an excellent job protecting her."
Erdem huffed another long sigh. "Fine," he groused, and judging from the sound of it, he poured himself another glass. "Send me the link. I got time to kill tonight."
So Warshon isn't coming home yet. She narrowed her eyes. Who is he having at home that Erdem needs to stay and watch for the whole time he's away? "Will do," she chirped. "Anything else I can do you for my little bro?"
"Nah," He smacked his lips, blowing her a kiss. "You're the best, Guili."
"Anytime." Guiliana tapped her earring twice. The boyish voice was cut out, replaced by the muffled raucous from upstairs. Between each blast of the trumpets, women gasped in high-pitched cries, and men whistled. On the polished redwood, a smile passed through her eyes and looked like it was going to linger. But she tilted back her head, peering at the dark corner in the ceiling, as if she needed a reminder of the snares that awaited to shake her out of her ease. The path she had taken was a trek up a snow-mandled spire, with centuries-old ravines and crevasses hidden beneath. Every step must be planned. Every step could be her last. Yet even with all the caution, she could never know when the trade for a favor she thought it was would turn her into a sacrifice, the dead grist to someone's mill. And politics always required sacrifice. That's why they allowed women to hold lowly jobs in politics but not in science – as real knowledge would lend leverage, enabling a pawn to cross the board and become a queen.
A scoff escaped from her lips. She got to her feet and blew out the tea light.
When she returned to her booth, she found the wives inebriated, by both cocktails and the masculine charm of dancers displayed in their flexed muscles and veiny manhoods peering behind the gauze-like material draped from their loins.
"What did I miss?" she asked, lighting a cigarette she drew from her purse as she sat down next to Katarine Cengiz.
"Oh my fucking god, Guiliana! What took you so long?" Katarine let out a laughing scream that grated the ears, every pearl on her neck seemed to shake with her. "Vittorio Lori was here! He made a guest appearance, and you missed it!"
"Oh no," she feigned disappointment.
"Well, I'm sure he's still somewhere," Katarine waggled a hand. "Maybe we'll catch him later and get an autograph this time. He won't turn me down if he learns who my husband is!"
Guiliana raised a glass in reply. The cocktail was too sweet for her taste and made her wince.
"What happened to Mrs. Abid?" She eyed Sommer Abid, who was lying with half of her pudgy face down on the table. Wife to the DEA commander Zahid Abid, Somer was well known in her society for her indulgence, which she had developed over the years while her husband was away for work. The Child Protection almost took their son from them for negligence had it not for the strings Zahid Abid pulled. It was no secret that she had been in rehab many times. But few knew she had a serious liver failure. Guiliana wouldn't have become the few had Taylan Dinc not spilled the tea. "Is she ok?"
Katarine darted a glance in the other's direction, her hand waggling again. "Oh, she's fine, probably just recovering from the excitement!"
"Hey, Sommer!" Guiliana stooped over the table and shook the woman a nudge on the arm. "You alright, dear?" And when the other didn't respond, she turned to the women at large, "She didn't drink, did she?"
"She only had a glass of juice," one replied. "Oh relax, Guiliana, she's just tired. Vittorio Lori must have tapped her out!"
While the women giggled, Guiliana put her hand under Mrs. Abid's nose. "She's hardly breathing." Mumbling to herself at first, she straightened and shouted, "Call the emergency staff and her husband! Now!"
Katarine Cengiz jumped to her feet. "Dear, you didn't have to yell!"
"She's hardly breathing! She's hardly breathing!" Guiliana repeated herself, her voice louder.
Taken aback, Katarine hesitated. "Even so, shouldn't we call First Aids?"
"Get the emergency staff here first, and call her husband. The DEA has their medical team on call 24/7. If we call First Aids, the media will know. We don't wanna make a scene, do we?" Guiliana stubbed out her cigarette. "And put her down!" Commanding the wives who probably had never moved a chair, she pushed away the table to make space on the floor. Kneeling next to Sommer Abid, she closed her eyes.
"Cross your hands like this, and feel the xiphoid process. Glide down."
Her eyes popped open.
Pressing on the buxom woman's chest, she called her name while his instructions played in her head.
"Not too strong, or you risk breaking the sternum. Unlikely in most cases, but better watch out. Imagine your hands as your heart," he paused and grabbed her own hand, laying it upon her chest. "Can you feel the pulse? That's about the force you need to apply."
A tear rolled down her cheek as she remembered how her heart had raced to a cliche gallop. She licked it and savored. Bittersweet, it tasted like a lost time.
The emergency staff at Himkok came and gave Sommer a shot of adrenaline. Fifteen minutes later, Zahid Abid arrived with an ambulance.
Guiliana scurried out with the stretcher that carried Sommer.
"A word, Commander Abid?" she said and tugged at the big man's sleeve. "It won't take long."
"I thank you, Guiliana, but now isn't a good time," he shook off her hand; dread filled his pewter-colored eyes.
"About your wife's condition, you should go see Warshon Qusbecq. He's very good at treating organ failures, though some may find his treatment peculiar."
Zahid whirled himself around the second her words registered, his eyes glaring. "Where did you –"
"Minister Dinc didn't breathe a word. I saw it in your wife's face. A friend taught me a few things about diagnosis, and your reaction has just confirmed my suspicion." she lied and didn't, her voice clipped. "But don't worry, your secret is safe with me." Then, swinging to open the back door to the ambulance, she added, "Do consider my suggestion."
Zipping past the boulevard, the ambulance disappeared into the night tailed by the skirling siren.
Guiliana leaned to the railing that fenced Himkok and glanced up at the dark sky but found not a star. She closed her eyes, summoning what she had locked away, and the world glittered. All the many billowing dusts of light gathered into the image of the rainy night Warshon found her crying. She was crying about her father, about how she might have saved him if she had known how to perform CPR. So he taught her.
She raised an arm. Her lips trembled.
But as she groped for the glittering threads of the past, the image shattered, pulverizing into the wind. Darkness reclaimed her world. Nothing but her own eyes looking back at her from the tenebrous pit. It was she who crushed the reverie. It was she and she alone who turned the exquisite joys fate had once in store for her into haunting sorrows. She wiped away the tears and laughed. "Grow up," she muttered, taking out another cigarette. "It's been almost ten years." Her hand shook, cupping over her mouth as she struck the lighter that refused to work.
"Here," said a man's voice. A flutter of light threw his chiseled face into a chiaroscuro, his hazel eyes flecked with amber and green.
Angling her head, Guiliana tucked the hair away from her face and leaned toward the light. "Thank you." She puffed. Indigo smoke wreathed about her face.
"You were amazing back there," the man continued with a shy chuckle. "I'm Vittorio Lori."
Guiliana cocked a brow as she glanced at the demi sidelong. "I know."
"Have we met before?" Vittorio went on. "You look familiar."
A shrug rolled her shoulders. She whirled toward the entrance and went back inside. "All pretty women look familiar."
He laughed, "What's your name?"
As her heels clacked against the pebbles, she threw a wink over her shoulder. "I'm not into younger men, my dear."