Introduction
Salih Yalçınkaya knocked on the door of his own house once again. When no one opened it, he took the key fob from his jacket pocket. He found the one that belonged to the house from the keychain to which a wad of keys were attached. He used one hand to do this because he was carrying a large package in his left armpit.
He put the key in the lock and turned it. He took off his shoes and went inside. It was eight o'clock in the evening and it was already dark, but apparently Şükriye was not at home.
Where did this woman go again... Whatever the hell she went to, I hope she prepared something to eat...
Salih Yalçınkaya and Şükriye Yalçınkaya got married eighteen years ago. The couple had no children. Salih Yalçınkaya was working as a workshop chief at Taha Tekstil in the vicinity of Bayrampaşa. His wife, Şükriye Yalçınkaya, a secondary school graduate, was unemployed. Or, by choice, she was a housewife. Their house was on the ground floor of an old three-storey apartment building in a fictitious corner of Beyoğlu. It wasn't very spacious and smelled musty.
Salih Yalçınkaya went to the hall. He left the package he kept in his armpit on the table, taking it out of its large black bag. He went to the kitchen before opening the package.
On the refrigerator is a sign that says, "There's something to eat in the cupboard, you heat it up and eat it. I'm going to the Ayten, I may be late."
He opened the closet. He ate what was left of the cauliflower that had been cooked three days before, muttering to himself. Then he cooked himself a low-sugar Turkish coffee. He took the coffee and went to the living room.
He was finally able to be alone with his package.
He was confused. He couldn't understand what was happening to him today. He was driving home from work in his shabby metallic grey Fiat Palio when someone whispered in his ear that he had ramped into Çukurcuma, found himself in a narrow and dark stone-lined street, climbed a few hundred meters uphill and parked in front of a historic building with several floors. He distinctly remembered going there, getting out of his car, entering the high-ceilinged antique shop on the ground floor, where a small but conspicuous sign was hanging. But it's not like it's his own thing. Now that I think about it, he remembered all of this as if it were something someone else had done and he was watching from the outside.
When he entered, the cunning-looking old man with a bald head and thick glasses, who said his name was Hassan, had led him to the place where the old black phone was, among all the trinkets. As if he knew in advance that he would be so fascinated by that damn phone. He followed the old man up the narrow wooden stairs to the mezzanine. As soon as he saw the phone, he was mesmerized. According to the old man, this glossy black phone was produced in America in 1962. Its model was the ITT 2500. It had a rotating turning disc on it.
Salih Yalçınkaya took another sip of his coffee. From where he was sitting, he looked timidly at the large old cardboard box that lay on the table opposite him. He seemed to be afraid of the box, with what motivation he bought it and did not know what to do with it. More precisely, from what is in the box.
He stood up. He made his way to the table. He opened the square-shaped gray box from the top. He carefully took the sixty-year-old shiny black phone out of the box. Once again, he was struck by the strange vibe of the phone. This strange device seemed to come to life and talk to him at any moment.
Salih Yalçınkaya had never been an intellectual man with fine tastes at any stage of his life. He was a graduate of vocational high school. He didn't like to read books. He didn't go to concerts or theaters, he didn't watch documentaries or anything. Therefore, he had no idea how to preserve an antique item.
Perhaps there was no point in thinking about this business so deeply. He left the phone on the old wooden coffee table in the living room, which was inherited from his father. He turned on the TV and put his feet up. He had worked all day and had to get up early again tomorrow and go to work.
He fell asleep while watching the summary of the Fenerbahce Besiktas match played at the weekend.
Chapter 1
When Salih Yalçınkaya woke up, he realized that it was seven in the morning. He had slept soundly for nine hours from his seat in the living room. He was still wearing yesterday's work clothes. His neck was stiff. He didn't remember ever falling asleep like this before.
I think I'm getting old now... But... Şükriye? Where is this woman? Why didn't he wake me up?
He stretched and got up from the couch. He called out to his wife.
"Şükriye! Are you home?"
Şükriye's hoarse voice responded from the kitchen.
"I'm here. I've prepared breakfast, you eat it, don't be late. I'm going to the grocery store. There are deficiencies, let me take them."
" But why are you..."
Two seconds later, Salih Yalçınkaya heard the sound of the door closing. He still couldn't see his wife. He rightly thought there was something wrong with it. But now he couldn't think about it. He had to catch up with work.
He went to the kitchen. On the table were two slices of toast, some cheese, and a whole tomato. The tea was not brewed, but there was hot water. He poured himself a instant coffee. He drank his coffee while eating the cheese and bread. He didn't touch the tomato.
After finishing his work in the kitchen, he went to the bathroom. He shaved quickly. He looked at his watch. It had been half an hour since Şükriye had left. The grocery store was fifty yards from the house.
She should have already arrived...
It was nearly eight o'clock. He would take care of this business in the evening. He should have come out immediately. Just as he approached the door, he thought of the phone he had bought yesterday. He didn't know why, but he couldn't leave the house without seeing it once.
He went to the hall. The phone was back where he had left it last night, on the old coffee table. Where else would it be?
As soon as he saw the phone, he shuddered. This device both made him uneasy and affected him. Again, he had the same feeling. The antique tool felt as if it would start talking to him at any moment. He took a deep breath. He calmed himself down. He smiled faintly and left the hall and turned around to get to work.
That's when he felt like he had been shot in the brain. The phone was ringing.
Drrrrrrnnnn! Drrrrnnnnnnn! DDrrrrıııınnnnnnnnn!!
However... This couldn't be true.
Zırrrrnnnn!
Salih Yalçınkaya felt his legs amputated. His eyes darkened. His head turned. It looked like it was going to fall. It was as if his brain had been split in half. He also felt nauseous.
Dııırrrnn!
Yalçınkaya pulled himself together. He was not dreaming. He didn't know how, but there had to be a logical explanation.
Rrıınnnnn!
The damn instrument kept playing, and he didn't seem to want to shut up.
Salih Yalçınkaya, having a hard time believing what he was doing, put his trembling hand to the phone. He picked up the handset.
"Hello?"
There is no sound.
"Who are you?"
This time, the hell fugitive heard a voice from the other side of the line to which the phone was somehow connected. It was a young girl, probably about twenty years old, who spoke.
"You know very well who I am."
"What do you mean? How do I know who you are? What does it all mean?"
Dıt dıt dıt dııııt...
The line was cut. When Salih Yalçınkaya put the handset down, his heart was beating as if it was going to burst out of his chest. With his hand he wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. He waited by the phone for a while. But there was no sound from the device. Yalçınkaya went to the bathroom and washed his face with cold water. He breathed heavily. He tried to pull himself together and rushed out of the house to get to work.
Chapter 2
Salih Yalçınkaya was at work an hour and a half later. He had been working in this textile workshop in Bayrampaşa for many years, the last two years of which were in the position of workshop chief.
In the large and bright area with high ceilings, the necessary machines and workstations were arranged in regular rows, and there were sewing machines, cutting tables, ironing stations and fabric roll storage areas in the environment. In the workshop, the sections where the workers worked were clearly separated from each other in chambers, and a different production stage was carried out in each department.
Salih Yalçınkaya's task was to check whether the production process was carried out as planned, to carry out quality control at some points, to intervene in case of malfunctions from the machines, to check the raw material and stock status, to ensure occupational safety and to step in if there was an unexpected mishap.
But what he did there that day, frankly, didn't fit any of the terms of his job description. As he walked absent-mindedly through the workshop, he was grappling with the ghosts in his head. In doing so, he seemed to see the workers at work through a curtain or television screen. He didn't even notice the few workers who greeted him or maybe asked him something. He was physically there. He wasn't mentally.
How the hell could that phone be ringing? It's not possible... God, how... Am I going crazy? No, no... There must be an explanation. How can I find out? Well... I'll go back to where I bought it. And to that old man... What was his name... Hasan. He must have something to say to me. But even if that hellish fugitive tells how the instrument was stolen, he can't tell who the young woman who is talking is. Speaking of young women, how strange Şükriye's behavior became at such a time. Could it have something to do with it? No more... I'll go out and smoke a cigarette.
Yalçınkaya shrugged and tried to clear his head. He headed for the exit. If he drank a cigarette in front of the door and that disgusting pitch coffee he would get in a cardboard cup from the coffee machine next to him, he would definitely recover.
And so he did. And indeed, he was feeling a little better now. But soon he would have to face the fact that this situation was temporary.
He threw the butt of his cigarette on the concrete floor. He crushed it with his foot and extinguished it. Then he remembered that he was not on the street, but at work. He bent down to himself, picked up the cigarette butt from the ground and threw it into the cylindrical metallic trash can. He took the last sip of his cold coffee with a grimace in his mouth. Squeezing the cardboard cup with his hand, he threw it where he had just thrown his cigarette. After staring dumbly for a few seconds, he went back in. His break was over.
Yalçınkaya entered through the large iron gate. He turned left. He walked past the fabric warehouses. As he continued walking, he noticed that the door to the quality control room was ajar. When he approached the door to go in and take a look, he noticed two people whispering. He listened without hesitation, wondering what they were talking about.
"… A man who cuckolded badly. And what excuse was he making when he left the house?"
"What's the point of fooling that poor fellow. He says I'm going to the neighbor, he's going shopping. My relative says he is sick and I have to take care of him. No excuses..."
"Hahah! You're right. But what a chick she was. I had seen her once or twice, and she had been here."
Salih Yalçınkaya felt his chest tighten. The blood had rushed to his brain. Were the two men inside talking about his wife?
He tried to calm down. As if yesterday's hellish fiend phone wasn't enough, now too...
No, no. That couldn't be possible. Şükriye wasn't the best woman in the world, but she wasn't that kind of woman either.
Or was she? It was a slim possibility, but who knows? He wouldn't rest until he found out about it.
Chapter 3
Salih Yalçınkaya called his wife on the phone before leaving the workshop at the end of his shift. Şükriye Yalçınkaya did not answer this call. Thereupon, Salih Yalçınkaya wrote a message to his wife.
I'm quitting work now. I called you, I couldn't reach you. Where are you? Do you need anything at home?
He waited a minute. The message had been sent but not seen. Salih Yalçınkaya decided not to wait any longer. He put on his coat and left the workshop. He got into his vehicle, which was fifty yards away. He looked at the phone screen again. The message still hadn't been seen.
What the hell are you messing up...
He drove the shabby Fiat Palio. He thought about what to do until the engine warmed up. Which of the two issues on his mind should he have prioritized? In the end, he decided that if he was being cheated on by his wife, he wasn't that eager to find out. As for the other issue...
First, he would go to Beyoğlu Çukurcuma, the gallery where he bought the phone. He would take care of his wife later.
There were about fifteen kilometers of road ahead of him. This fifteen kilometers was a distance that would have been covered in fifteen minutes if he had lived somewhere else, not in Istanbul, but unfortunately he lived in Istanbul. On top of that, it was rush hour and it had started raining. This meant that he would be behind the wheel for an estimated forty-five minutes.
Turned on the wipers. He hit the road. After leaving the campus where the workshop was located, he proceeded towards Taksim on the O-3 highway. After crossing the Golden Horn Bridge, he reached Beyoğlu via Tarlabaşı Boulevard. Then he found the narrow street where 'Gallery Selvin' was located. As far as he remembered, he had continued up this narrow street for a few hundred yards. He did it again.
There was no gallery or anything...
He couldn't have come to the wrong place. The business center was the same. The street where the building is located, the market next to it, the entrance to the passage on the other side... The ground floor, where the antique shop was located, was the same. Same high-ceilinged, dark glass covered shop, same entrance. With one difference. Now it was not an antique shop, but a pet shop. As far as he could see from the outside, a young woman was working inside. I don't know what her name is Hasan, she is a very unlikely woman.
I... I think I'm going crazy. There can be no other explanation for all this.
He did not dare to enter the animal store. It was best to go into the grocery store on the left side of the building and look for someone's mouth on the pretext of buying cigarettes.
Hesitating slightly, he walked in. He asked the tall, thin boy in his twenties to hand him a pack of cigarettes, then brought him to the animal store next door.
"How long has that pet shop at the entrance to the adjacent business center existed?"
The young man was slightly stunned by this unexpected question.
"I'm not sure, but it's probably been six months or something... Maybe it's been a year." Thing... Are you sure of that, lad? I mean, what I'm trying to say is, it can't be opened today, can it?"
The white-faced young man, who was thin and slightly hunched, looked at Salih Yalçınkaya and said "No" with a clear expression. After doing so, he continued to look into the man's eyes. Will you get away with those looks, please? It meant I didn't have time to deal with lunatics.
That's what Salih Yalçınkaya did. He was old enough to know that starting a fight on top of him wouldn't do him any good when he was in such a shitty situation.
He didn't understand anything about what was going on. He boarded his Palio to return home in the rain that was starting to accelerate.
Chapter 4
When Salih Yalçınkaya returned home, it was close to ten o'clock. He parked his vehicle in his usual spot, just down the street from the apartment building. He looked at his phone before getting out of the vehicle. There was no response from Şükriye.
He got out of his car, cursing his wife on one side and the rain on the other. Raising his collar, he ran to the entrance door of the apartment building. He opened the door. As he was about to enter, he noticed something strange. Two burly, middle-aged men dressed head-to-toe in black suits were leaning against a luxury vehicle whose brand he did not know, staring at him, regardless of the pouring rain. The men noticed Salih Yalçınkaya, but they did not care. They kept staring.
Yalçınkaya closed the apartment door from the inside and proceeded towards his house.
He pressed the bell.
There is no one...
He pressed it again. No one opened the door. As it turned out, his wife wasn't home. Şükriye's suspicious movements lately, the gossip of the employees in the quality control in the workshop, the phone, the pet shop... And now those weird guys at the door.
What was going on? Was all this connected?
There was only one thing Salih Yalçınkaya was sure of. He felt too exhausted to even stand.
He took his key out of his pocket. He opened the door. He walked in. He didn't turn on the lights right away, remembering the men in black in front of the door. He went quietly into the living room and looked out the window. Two men in black suits stood leaning against their car, just as he had just left them. Then the one who was on the left side, according to him, turned to his friend and said something. So the two men got into the car. But the vehicle did not move as Salih Yalçınkaya had hoped. Now one of the men in black was behind the wheel and the other was sitting in the front right seat.
At the same time, Salih Yalçınkaya flinched when the door knocked. He wasn't expecting anyone. If it was Şükriye who came, she would not knock on the door, she would use her key. Yalçınkaya froze at first, unable to react. When there was a second knock on the door, he could only say hesitantly, "Who are you?"
"Your neighbor, Çiğdem."
Çiğdem? What is that woman doing in my house?
"Ms. Cigdem? Is that you?" Yes, Mr. Salih. I brought you something to eat. I don't disturb, do I?"
Salih Yalçınkaya did not answer this question. He turned on the light of the hall first, then the hallway. Then he opened the door.
Çiğdem Turan was a short, blonde, slightly chubby, pleasant woman in her late forties. As far as Salih Yalçınkaya knew, she lost her husband at a young age and never remarried. She lived just upstairs. To this day, they have not had any relationship with the woman other than greeting her. And now this woman was standing in front of her, with a small pot in her hand.
"You are welcome, Mrs. Çiğdem. What did you want?"
" I brought you something to eat. I thought you must be hungry."
Did she prepare me something to eat? What does that mean?
"Well... But you, so..."
"I see what you mean. You ask me how I know that Şükriye is not at home. I've heard that she hasn't been very interested in you lately. Stupid woman. I know a lot of women who would love to be in her shoes. Can I enter? Are you going to make me stand like this?"
"I don't know..."
"Mr. Salih, don't do it. Şükriye will not come tonight. We both know that, don't we? Don't be silly."
" All right. I think you're right. But please allow me a minute first. I need to check something."
"Let's see..."
Salih Yalçınkaya rushed to the hall. He looked out the window. There were no men in black. He took a deep breath. Then his eye caught on the hellish antique black phone on the old wooden coffee table. The phone now looked like a harmless ordinary item. He went to the door.
"Come in, Ms. Çiğdem. Sorry. I was just surprised to see you in front of me so suddenly. I wish you hadn't bothered."
The woman walked in and went into the kitchen with a relaxed demeanor as if she were in her father's house. She put the pot in her hand down on the dining table. As he took a plate out of the cupboard, she said,
"Oh dear, what the hell, if I'm alone, don't I feel like I'm cooking?"
With a relaxed and resourceful demeanor, he set the table in two minutes. He said to Salih Yalçınkaya, who was standing stupidly at the kitchen door, "Come on, dear, sit late, don't you like the table?"
'Dear'?
Salih Yalçınkaya, stunned by the overly relaxed attitude of his unexpected visitor, did as he was told. His neighbor was at least prettier than his wife. And he was starting to like it.
They finished their meal. Apparently, the woman's intention was not to eat. They were two lonely adults. And Salih Yalçınkaya was a kind and understanding man who would not refuse his lovely neighbor's request to spend the night together.
When Yalçınkaya woke up, it was half past seven. He smiled to himself. He threw his arm on the right side of the bed. There was no one.
He straightened up and shrugged.
Where is this woman?
"Çiğdeeem?"
No response.
He got up. It was freezing. He quickly put on his clothes. He hurried to the kitchen.
There is no one.
He quickly glanced around the living room, bathroom, kitchen, and back rooms. He faced, albeit with difficulty, the fact that there was no one at home. And that he has to go to work.
He made himself a quick coffee. Toasted bread. When he put his hand in the fridge to grab a piece of feta, he saw something he was surprised he hadn't noticed last night.
A post-it was affixed to the refrigerator door and it read:
"I have to go to Konya urgently. My father was very sick. I'll call you later."
He remembered that his wife was from Konya.
This note had apparently been written the day before. In this case, Şükriye should have already reached Konya. Unless, of course, this is a lie. But last night they sat at the table here and had dinner with Çiğdem. The refrigerator door had been opened and closed several times. How could he not have noticed this note?
There could be only one explanation for this. After the woman entered the kitchen, she noticed the note and removed it without revealing it to her, and then stuck it where she found it when she left early in the morning.
But why did she do that?
Salih Yalçınkaya remembered that he had to catch up with work again. Who knew what women would do when, and for what reason.
He quickly finished his breakfast and left the house.
Chapter 5
Salih Yalçınkaya was at work an hour later. Until the lunch break, his day had been as boring and uneventful as ever.
It was twenty minutes past twelve when Yalçınkaya left for lunch. Most of the time, he would drive his car to a nearby artisan restaurant or order something on the phone. But he didn't that day for some reason. He chose to go to the dining hall inside the workshop complex, fifty meters down the street, which serves table d'hote food.
The dining hall was not crowded. He lined up. Without waiting long, he took his food. He sat down in the first place he found empty. Without appetite, he began to eat his green beans.
Two minutes later, he noticed that Mr Ercan, one of his senior friends, had entered the cafeteria. Mr Ercan had also seen him. They exchanged vague greetings. Five minutes later, Mr Ercan had taken his meal and sat down next to Salih Yalçınkaya without a bid.
"Enjoy your meal."
"To you, Ercan."
"How are you, Salih? Is everything okay?"
" I am fine. As you know, it's work. We are going, we are coming, there is no mischief. How are you?"
"I'm fine, I'm fine. Keep working," Mr Ercan said as he chewed on what he had stuffed into his mouth. After swallowing his bite, Salih continued with an expression that did not come naturally to Yalçınkaya.
"You look a little tired, man. Can't sleep well? Some friends tell you that you came to work late for several days in a row. Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yes, I'm sure," snapped Salih Yalçınkaya. He was beginning to feel uncomfortable with this unnecessary intimacy.
"Okay, okay. I was just worried about you. How's Şükriye, there's nothing wrong with you, is there?"
Was Ercan laughing from under his mustache when he talked about Şükriye? Yalçınkaya tried not to get angry. But when he turned his head to the other side, he saw two workers he didn't know sitting at the back table two feet away staring at him, grinning and making some strange gestures. So he couldn't control himself anymore and what happened happened. Yalçınkaya, who had a bad temper, punched the nose of Mr Ercan, who was sitting next to him. The man's nose began to bleed.
"Damn psychopath..."
Salih Yalçınkaya landed a second punch in the face without allowing the man to finish his speech. Mr Ercan, who did not understand what he was going through, fell to the ground. Salih Yalçınkaya also pounced on the man. He continued to swing his fists in a frenzied state.
He was so ecstatic that he would have killed the poor man if the people in the mess hall had not intervened immediately. All four people intervened at the same time and could only stop Salih Yalçınkaya. A group of workshop workers took Ercan, who was half unconscious with his mouth and nose covered in blood, to the infirmary, while another group took Yalçınkaya to the garden to calm him down.
The incident subsided within an hour. For those who went to the cafeteria, the shift started again, albeit with a little delay.
Salih Yalçınkaya, who came to his senses after a while, could not believe what was happening. He had never been a quarrelsome. He wasn't physically strong either. Throughout his life, he had stayed away from all kinds of friction, turmoil and danger, and for this reason, he was willing to be humiliated and even ridiculed when necessary. But what happened an hour ago...
That sense of fear that he was used to feeling had not even come near him this time. Master Ercan, who was a larger man than himself, did not have the opportunity to move a hair. If the others hadn't caught up, he might have sworn to kill him. And God knows, he enjoyed what happened. And he didn't feel any remorse.
There was only one thing he was worried about. This could have led to him losing his job. The fight would surely go to the ears of the bosses, or it was already gone. And it was certain that they would not pretend that nothing had happened either.
And that's what happened. Towards the evening, after the end of the shift, the general manager summoned Salih Yalçınkaya to his office.
The general manager, Recep Sapmaz, was a conservative man. Salih Yalçınkaya thought he could take advantage of some of the man's sensitivities to get away with it.
He portrayed his wife, Şükriye, as an angel. They were a poor family, and Mr Ercan, a man who was far from appreciating such things, had spoken out against his wife's honour and said things as soon as they happened. Although Salih Yalçınkaya had repeatedly warned the man in an appropriate language, Mr Ercan continued his inappropriate taunts and slanders and said unspeakable things. Salih Yalçınkaya was very sorry for what he had done, but he had no choice.
This tale really worked. With a small reprimand and more caution from now on, Yalçınkaya would be able to continue his work as if nothing had happened.
Chapter 6
It was the tenth of the night when Salih Yalçınkaya returned home. His headache hurt like it was going to crack. On the way back, he stopped by a kiosk for a snack and bought himself a beer to drink at home, although it was not his custom.
Luckily, that day was Friday. Even though his last week had been a nightmare, he would have time to clear his head.
After washing his hands and face, he went to the kitchen and left the bag he brought from outside on the table. The note paper on which his wife had written that she had gone to Konya was still on the refrigerator. When he saw the paper, he muttered to himself. Then the small pot on the counter caught his attention.
This pot was not Salih Yalçınkaya's. Presumably his surprise visitor from last night had forgotten about it when she slipped away in the early hours of the morning.
Yalçınkaya grinned mischievously to himself. Ignoring his tiredness and headache, he grabbed the pot and went upstairs. He knocked on Çiğdem Hanım's door.
The woman opened the door. He had a puzzled look on his face.
"Hi, Mr. Salih, what did you want?"
Yalçınkaya was surprised that she was so formal as he held the small pot in his hand as if he was sticking it into the woman's nose.
"You forgot your pot."
"Pardon?"
"What am I going to talk about, don't you see? The pot in which you brought me food in the evening... You forgot it on my counter. Besides, why did you run away like that without notice? We had a great night together."
" Aaa! What are you talking about, you sick dude! This is the first time I've seen this pot in my life. Get out now or I'll call the police!"
The woman first threw the pot she had taken from Salih Yalçınkaya's hand in the man's face, and then closed the door.
Damn. What does that mean now?
The workshop chief, who was just standing there, looked to his left and right. He was glad that at least the residents of the apartment did not see this disgrace. He went downstairs without bothering to pick up the pot from the floor. He entered his house. His headache had worsened. He took a painkiller and went to bed.
Chapter 7
It was ten o'clock when Salih Yalçınkaya woke up. At first, he panicked because he was late for work. A second later, he was relieved, remembering that there was no work that day. He went back to bed to sleep some more. Five minutes later, he realized that he could not sleep, and got up again.
He went under the shower. His headache had eased, but his head was clouded. He had a week like in a horror movie. It would take time for him to recover. He attributed his experiences to fatigue in his own way. After getting out of the shower, he shaved. He put on clean clothes. He had a snack and a coffee. The note on the refrigerator was still there.
So I didn't have a dream...
He went to the hall. The antique phone was still there. It looked extremely harmless. Then he approached the window. There was no one on the street watching him in his black suits. He smiled.
He returned to the kitchen. He glanced at the fridge and other cupboards. He took note of the shortcomings of the house. Today he was going to go out alone, get some air, and have a quiet and peaceful weekend. On the way back, he would stop by the market and buy the missing items.
He jumped in his car. It continued from Taksim to Beşiktaş. He followed the coastal road from Beşiktaş to Sarıyer. He parked his palio in a convenient spot and took a walk along the seashore. He tried to go to the fish restaurant. Then he gave up. He couldn't afford to spend that much money on lunch. He picked up a bagel. He sat down on one of the benches on the seashore. Looking at the view, he ate his bagel.
It was quite cold. If it were up to him, he could spend the whole day here in the open air. But there was no point in being ill in plain sight.
It was a few minutes past two o'clock when he got back into his car. He recalled that he had not heard from his wife for two days. That was a bit much. He phoned.
No answer...
He texted.
I can't reach you. Please get back to me immediately when you see the message.
He started the tool. After waiting for the engine to warm up for a while, it moved. He proceeded for half an hour, following more or less the same route. Five kilometres before he was due to get home, he stopped near a supermarket on the way. He made his way to the grocery store. He probed his coat pocket before entering. He had the list he made before he left the house. He pushed the hard door open and entered. She didn't start shopping right away to kill time. He wandered the newspaper and book aisles. He glanced at the clothes. He finally got what he was owed. He paid in advance to the thin-voiced fat girl with thick glasses at the cash register and left. He left the large bag in his hand on the underside of the front right seat and looked at his watch.
It hadn't even been four yet.
His day hadn't gone quite as he'd hoped. Still, reflecting on the horrible week he left behind... At least he was having a quiet and uneventful day, and he had no right to complain.
He didn't feel like going home at this hour. The more he thought of that damn phone, the more he felt terrified. Suddenly, he felt an irresistible urge to revisit the place where he had bought the phone. He struggled with himself to counter it, but failed. He was going to go there. But he wasn't even going to get out of his car. He was just going to take a look. There was nothing wrong with that.
Half an hour later, he was there. A complete disappointment... It's the same pet shop again...
What did you expect?
Salih Yalçınkaya kept his promise to himself. He never got out of his vehicle. He was having a peaceful day. He was happy with this and was determined to finish the day without incident. He moved to return home. After driving three hundred yards downhill, he noticed the old man walking on the sidewalk.
I can't believe it. This is him…
To be sure, he slowed down and approached the sidewalk. He followed the man for a short time without showing it. Yes, that was definitely him. I don't know what Hassan is. He followed the old man in his car for about a hundred yards, keeping an ideal distance between them. He parked his Palio, being careful not to lose sight of him at a spot he saw fit. He caught up with the man with brisk steps. Then, unable to help himself, he made a strategic mistake. He called out to the man.
"Hey, you! Hasan!"
The man turned around. He noticed Salih Yalçınkaya. Suddenly, he began to run away. He was running at a speed that would never have been expected for his age. Salih Yalçınkaya, who was fifty-five years old, had no choice but to run. He did not have a custom of playing sports. He couldn't even remember the last time he ran. It wasn't a pleasant experience. He followed the old man for about five hundred yards, bumping into the people around him and being stuffed. The man was an estimated seventy-five years old, and even in this state he should have already caught him. But the man was catching up. When he finally turned the corner in an alley, he completely lost sight of him.
Damn old man...
Salih Yalçınkaya rested both hands on his knees. Bent-over, he waited for his breath to return. His heart felt like it was going to burst. He was drenched in sweat in this cold.
When he regained consciousness, he walked briskly towards his car. Luckily, no one had written a penalty or anything.
Half an hour later, he was home. He was supposedly going to have a quiet day, take in the sea air and rest his head. She left the shopping bag in the kitchen. He changed his clothes. His stomach was ringing, but he didn't know much about cooking. He made himself a sandwich. After eating quickly, he went to the living room. He picked up the remote control tool. He put his feet up on the coffee table he pulled up in front of the couch. He turned on the TV.
Five minutes later, he was already dozing off.
In his dream, his beautiful neighbor, Çiğdem Hanım, was knocking on his door again, apologizing for leaving him in the morning, and begging him to let her in again. Then they started kissing. However, seconds later, it was understood that the woman kissed by Salih Yalçınkaya was actually the old Hasan, whom he chased and kidnapped today. Salih Yalçınkaya pushed the old man away in disgust. The man fell to the ground. Before he could get up, the old man's cell phone started ringing.
Dııırrrnn… Zrrrrrnnn…
However... What a strange cell phone sound it was. It was more reminiscent of old-style pay phones.
Rrrrnnn....
Salih Yalçınkaya jumped up where he was.
What an infamous dream it was...
He was thirsty and craved coffee. He tried to collect himself.
Gyrrnnnn...
He flinched once more. The phone call obviously wasn't part of the terrible dream he had.
Zrrrrn...
The damn tool wouldn't shut up. Yalçınkaya got up from his seat. Breaking out in a cold sweat, the hellish fugitive approached the shiny black dick. He reluctantly stretched out his trembling hand.
Dıııırrrnn!
Finally, he picked up the handset. But instead of saying anything, he waited quietly.
"I can hear you breathing, you cowardly dude. I know you're there. You are a coward. And you always have been..."
"Who the hell are you?! What do you want from me?" You know very well who I am. And what I wanted..."
"No, I don't know!"
"Despicable liar. Poor loser. Leave it at that. You can't even take care of your wife, can you? Did you believe that she was really going to visit her family? If you've swallowed that, you're a complete idiot. She is now in the arms of another man. And she will never return again. Never!"
" You're lying. She wouldn't do that!"
"If you don't believe me, why don't you check it yourself? You have his mother's phone number. You can call and ask..."
"How can you know all of this? Who are you?"
Clique.
The line was cut.
As it turned out, the nightmare wasn't over yet. Maybe it was just getting started. Salih Yalçınkaya took a deep breath. Under these circumstances, he tried to recover as much as he could. Then he picked up his cell phone. From the directory, he found the number of Şükriye's mother. He pressed 'Call'.
After a while, the feeble voice of an old and tired woman was heard on the other end of the phone.
"Hello? Who are you?"
"It is Salih. Is Şükriye there? When I couldn't reach him, I wondered."
" Please don't talk nonsense, Salih. You can't really believe she's here."
" But she told me she was going there. Or rather, she wrote a note. Her father was sick. How is he now..."
Dıt dıt dıt dııııt dıt dıt...
The phone was hung up.
Although Salih Yalçınkaya tried a few more times, no one answered his calls.
Chapter 8
Salih Yalçınkaya had a night full of nightmares and woke up at the crack of dawn. He felt terrible. Was his wife cheating on him? Wasn't he going to come back? What the hell was that phone? Who was the old man who sold the phone? How could a man of that age run so fast? Had her neighbor Çiğdem Hanım never visited him? Who were those strangely black-dressed men he saw on his doorstep? Was he going crazy?
He didn't think he was crazy. Until I bought that damn phone the other week, he had a perfectly normal, even quite routine and boring life. It all started when he bought that shiny black, demonic device. He had the answer to all his questions.
Maybe he should have opened the inside of the phone, dismantled it. Or he should have thrown it into the sea. Thus, he would take back his ordinary, boring and routine life. Yes, that wasn't a bad idea at all. That's what he was going to do.
He got into the shower. Then he went to the kitchen. He didn't feel like eating anything. He poured himself coffee. He sipped his coffee and went into the living room.
He was going to make that damn tool go away... How could he not have thought of such a simple solution before?
He entered the hall. He made his way to the wooden coffee table.
THE PHONE WAS NOT IN PLACE.
Salih Yalçınkaya fainted. He dropped the coffee cup in his hand. Once again, he experienced this feeling of trauma that he had been experiencing for a week and was now getting used to. His chest tightened, his eyes darkened, he felt dizzy and nauseous. He was tired of it.
He decided to do the only sane thing he could. He was going to go to the police and file a missing person's report about his wife.
Chapter 9
Salih Yalçınkaya was at the Taksim Police Station on Cumhuriyet Street in Taksim Square before noon.
After telling the officer concerned about the situation, the young officer gave him some documents to fill out. The documents requested routine information such as his and his wife's identity information, residential address, last seen place of his wife, and health status.
After filling out the documents, he handed them over to the officer. But this young officer looked like a rather inexperienced person. Yalçınkaya's eyes were not on the man.
"Is it okay for me to meet the Commissioner in person?"
"Please try to calm down, Mr. Salih. I understand your concerns. I will now hand over the documents to my supervisor and explain the situation personally. He will deal with the matter. We'll do our best, don't worry."
"But I..."
"Wait here, please. I'll be back in a moment."
The young officer walked away too quickly to allow Yalcinkaya to react. After ten minutes, which seemed like hours long to Salih Yalçınkaya, he returned.
"Mr. Salih, I discussed the situation in detail with my supervisor. Your petition has also been registered. Now please relax. We will pay close attention to the issue. We will get back to you when there is an improvement."
" I wish I could face your commissioner..."
As the young officer pointed out to Salih Yalçınkaya for the exit door, he said, "Mr. Salih, what is necessary will be done," and turned around and disappeared.
As Salih Yalçınkaya left the police station, he was not sure if the police were taking the matter seriously. The manner of the young officer was strange. Yalçınkaya couldn't describe the oddity exactly, but he was sure there was something wrong with the young officer's demeanor. It was as if he knew about the event in advance. Still, there was no choice but to hope that they would take care of the matter.
The phone no longer existed. His wife would be taken care of by the police. The fight in the workshop did not drag on.
He got into his car. He was going to go home and get a nap. He started the tool. He noticed them just before he moved. Two men in black suits were following him.
Damn. Who are they? What do they want from me?
Yalçınkaya couldn't make sense of what was happening. Nothing that had happened in the last ten days was falling into place.
But he was sure of one thing; His pursuers did not have good intentions.
He didn't want to react before he was sure, though. He made a few slow laps around Istiklal Street without taking his eyes off the rearview mirror.
They were after him.
He didn't know what his intentions were. He was dying to learn. Perhaps these two strange-looking men could explain to him all the awkwardness that had happened to him.
But he wasn't sure about that. Even if the answers to his questions were in the hands of the men in black clothes, it would have cost him lot to learn.
It was best to get rid of them.
Suddenly, he increased his speed. On Istiklal Street, where pedestrians are busy and streets are narrow, he reached Taksim Square, where the road widens, eating curses from the people around. From there, he proceeded at full speed towards Sıraselviler Street. He looked in the rearview mirror again. God's punishment was still after him.
After a few kilometers, he reached the narrow and winding streets of Cihangir. He struggled to control the steering wheel and could hear the sounds of the tires when taking sharp corners. Sweat dripped from his forehead, causing him to burn into his eyes, but he couldn't wipe his forehead because he wasn't in a position to let go of the steering wheel. But despite all his efforts, he could not get over his pursuers.
The fast-paced chase continued on Tarlabaşı Boulevard, a wider and straighter street after Cihangir, and from there it reached the Galata Bridge.
While the chase was in full swing, Salih Yalçınkaya broke the steering wheel to avoid hitting the dog that suddenly appeared in front of him. He completely lost control of the steering wheel while trying to maneuver in a narrow space due to the heavy traffic on the bridge. The front wheels of the car hit the barriers on the side of the bridge hard. The metal barriers twisted as if screaming. Unable to support the weight of the vehicle, the metal barriers were thrown into the void at the same time as the Fiat Palio. The vehicle and the metal barriers hovered for a few seconds, as if time was moving in slow motion. Then he fell into the water with a great noise. Expanding waves formed on the surface as the waters swallowed the vehicle.
Salih Yalçınkaya was permanently relieved of all his troubles amid the screams of the crowd looking down the bridge in confusion.
Chapter 10
It took a total of about four hours for the Coast Guard and other interested parties to intervene and remove the vehicle from the water with cranes.
In the morning of the next day, Lieutenant Selim Onat, the official of the Underwater Search and Rescue team dealing with the incident, was the guest of Chief Commissioner Halil Kasap at Taksim Police Station.
"The poor man came here just yesterday thinking that his wife had run away from home," said Halil Kasap, a fat, mustachioed, bald and old man.
Selim Onat asked, "Why did you say 'supposedly'?"
"Because that's not possible. But I think it would be better if I told you about the incident from the beginning, Mr. Selim. Then I will receive from you the details of yesterday's operation verbally and in writing."
"Of course. Something inside me tells me that you're going to tell me an interesting story."
"You stepped on it. It's interesting and a little sad, of course. Salih Yalçınkaya, whose body you pulled out of the water yesterday, is a fifty-three-year-old technician. In his thirties, he married a woman about ten years his junior. The woman is from Konya. Her name is Şükriye. According to his friends, the man loved her very much. Soon after they got married, it became clear that they would not have children. They tried for a few years, went to treatment and so on, but to no avail. No results. After a while, they stopped the treatment and accepted the truth. But a few months after she stopped treatment, which I think was the fifth or sixth year of their marriage, Şükriye miraculously became pregnant. Upon learning this, Salih was first overjoyed. But then the wolf fell into it...
"In those years, Salih Yalçınkaya was working in shifts in the textile workshop. That is, a week of day and a week of night. Or something like that. Since the doctor they went to for treatment at the time clearly stated that Salih Yalçınkaya could not have children, he wondered what his wife, who was alone at home on the days she stayed for the night shift, was doing." Selim Onat interjected, "It looks like this is going to end badly."
"Unfortunately, it happened as you said. One day, Salih Yalçınkaya, who was on the night shift, made up an excuse and got permission from his boss and returned home at midnight. In their bedroom, he caught his pregnant wife with her lover. At that moment, of course, there was a mess. He stabbed his wife and the man. The man stabbed Salih Yalçınkaya while trying to defend himself. Although Yalçınkaya was seriously injured, he survived the life-threatening situation after a while. Şükriye died with the baby in her womb. And of course, the man she was with. They gave Salih Yalçınkaya fifteen years, but at the end of the ninth year, he was released on parole. He's back to work...
"But the story doesn't end there, unfortunately. Due to the conditions of his parole, Salih Yalçınkaya came here once a week to report. He did this without interruption for three years. During this time, he led a clean life in accordance with the rules. But in recent months, he has stopped stopping by the police station for autographs. We learned that he started to behave aggressively at work and started talking to himself when he was at home. I sent two of our boys to follow up on his condition. I think he thought they were spies or something. The last time he was talking to himself on an antique phone. You're obsessed with what you've been through."
" That was a terrible story, Mr. Commissioner."
-THE END-