must understand both the danger of going there and the rationale behind the prohibition. You see, people here like to gossip now and then and such a speech would serve to cut the rumours … And so we are kindly asking for your help. Of course you are in no way obliged, but we imagine it would be quite simple for you to do. And if you did we would be eternally grateful.’
To agree meant becoming their partner in crime. But I also knew that after my sudden outburst they would be more careful and respectful towards me.
I took a long sip of coffee.
They watched me intently.
Then, with a smile, I said, ‘Fine. I’ll do it.’
I had agreed so that I could stay in town.
The judge and the governor rose and respectfully shook my hand and Mustafa saw me out of the building.
I was breaking the law and, what was worse, it amused me. I was also excited about infiltrating the power struggles in town. I would be able to learn so much more. I might also be killed.
I was dropped off at the coffeehouse.
The people there greeted me with curiosity but also with respect. I was now a powerful and respectable figure in their eyes.
And all this because of a single page I had agreed to write.
As my closest friend there, Remzi had the courage to ask me what had happened.
‘Why did they send for you?’ he said.
‘They are officially prohibiting people from going up the church hill. And they want me to write the announcement.’
Silence.
‘Oh God help us,’ said Remzi. ‘Mustafa Bey is going to dig up the church himself. There’s going to be a war in this town.’
XIII
I feel a strange trembling sensation.
It’s a hot night but I can’t stop shivering.
I’m hungry.
The hunger came over me with such sudden ferocity; how strange to feel hungry under these circumstances.
This adventure began with Remzi’s köfte but could I really eat a plate of them now? I probably could.
Remzi made the most delicious meatballs in the world.
Branded with dark strips from the grill, they were carefully laid out on bread that soaked up the sizzling juices. This was served with sliced onions in sumac and a little cup of hot sauce on the side. I always told Remzi to hold the onions and the hot sauce. Just the meatballs, lightly flavoured with cumin, and bread.
I sat and ate meatballs in Remzi’s garden almost every afternoon. I always praised him for making better meatballs than anyone else. He enjoyed the attention. Maybe that’s the main reason we became friends.
Then I’d drink cold beer he brought me in a thick honeycomb glass mug and listen to the town’s secrets before heading home and going online.
It was a pleasant life and I was happy.
I feasted on mouthwatering meatballs and sin.
Thinking about it now, I was a strange kind of freak in a strange town; but like everyone else I seemed completely calm and ordinary on the surface. Sometimes I used to wonder if I would ever find a town to match my personality. So did I really end up here by chance?
A coincidence.
But there’s form, an internal coherence, unseen connections in God’s divine order, and perhaps that is why his work is so compelling. The way he tightropes between accident and control.
Anyone else but me would have left. He would have shrugged off these strange twists of fate and left. But I chose to stay. A chain of coincidences. God creates them, but lets you decide how to live through them.
Sitting on this bench this hot summer night, shivering with fear, I feel that I’ve made my life with God as my accomplice.
He created coincidences as if they were empty houses for me to furnish. We choose a home and make it ours. But he provides the inspiration.
Maybe God isn’t the only one to blame for everything that has happened.
God is my accomplice.
We have committed the crime together.
We have sinned together.
He opened the door to chance and I walked right through.
Did he know in advance that I would? He did. He knows me. I don’t know him but he knows me.
I didn’t speak to him but he spoke to me.
I perceived him as a silent, untouchable accomplice. But I would be punished and my accomplice would go free.
What a wonderful talent. To create all those sins and remain innocent.
Is that why you’re great, God?
Because you remain innocent amidst all your sins?
I understand God.
I know his secret.
Who can condemn me for a murder in a novel that I have written? Who can blame me for bringing suffering to the characters in my books? Who would think me evil?
The more evil I create, the more I’ll be praised.
And I am one of God’s novels.
We are all the same.
He is praised for everything he does to us and everything he makes us do. Buildings are overflowing with his books. They are read far more than anyone else’s.
He’s a talented colleague.
I write better than you. Your language is inconsistent. Your narrative structure is in disarray. But you’re more believable than I am.
And your inventions are truly wonderful. This magnificent idea of sin. We can’t overcome it; we are forever entangled in it. At the end of the day it is always there, lodged in everything we write.
So you are peerless.
Only you can draw the limits of this novel.
Only you could have discovered sin, and then made sinners of all your heroes.
There’s no escape for me now.
I suppose I’ll wait until morning and then turn myself in.
I don’t seem to have any strength left, or I’ll pull myself together a little later, I don’t know.
Speak to me, why don’t you.
You know they say that people who talk to you are mad?
So are you driving me insane?
Look, I say this as a friend, you’re going too far. You’ll lose all your credibility. ‘He was already mad,’ you’ll say, and the truth is they’ll believe that too.