Chapter 1
Life is a pilgrimage and one has to visit the good people called the fools. The fond fools worse than the animals and then the man of Turkish government came to save us all. He would come on a plane not with comics or chewing gum but a serious plan to save the economy give us money.
He had worked all the ins and outs and that he being a chancellor made him a power to be reckoned with. He had come and holiness everyone Turkish held their breath.
He would have to save me my life when the shots fired. He would look at the child and see things beyond time and place. He would make haste to come into the way of the flying bullets.
"I don't care don't save me."
"Child move it child move."
He put his body within mine and then we began to scream. The flying bullets everywhere. What had happened it was the assassination of Menderes in 1962. It would make me a Turk already I had Turkish blood but by the time the blood flowed all over me I had become a Turk.
I had to help the Turkish community it had to be I had to.
"Help."
The Turkish community were fifth class citizens below the animals, and they did not only not own shops with their name on it, but no banks would lend them anything at all. The rich and the infamous love to visit the fools because they can rob them and mimic them to their hearts content.
"This is the whores daughter laid with her own son."
"So let her be inventing herself again and tell her she is what she is because she is something."
The joke is the joke.
I was drifting into some wild wilfulness and mattered to everyone as a self-important girl. I was spoilt would have become a whore not a wife. Then that day happened that particular moment that moment when all changed where I began to understand and not underestimate what had happened.
People assume that a child does not remember when young what shaped them. But look I do now remember better late than never.
I remember loud and clear and I remember stuff that I should not do. I am now recoiling as I do.
"Is it true?"
"That moment was true, but did it happen to us to me I do not really remember but then my daddy is the Serpent."
"He was a trained assassin and worked for them Russians."
"Your dad is an ass." Dad would say.
"But dad it is not there."
"What is not there."
"Your tail."
"Who has been interfering with her innocence?"
Menderes all forgotten assassination lost because daddy is so funny. He can make murders look like grotesques coffins falling from the sky as if caskets of gold. Humans love a joke. I got in with the joke first. When things began to go badly, I was almost raw with the hurt.
Shooting shots and more of shootings and someone who was doing the shooting not supposed to be there.
"Zeks do not shoot her."
"I want to."
I do not know who else she had been wanting to shoot. I did not know but the gun was pointing towards me. I moved.
"Look I am cute."
"She is just a kid."
"I am no relation." I spoke.
"Will you stop." said auntie Emine and she should say somethings most wisely but she herself was not wise.
"I will baste you from side to side." said Zeks I had slowed her down. I do not know why she had been waiting for me to catch up with her.
Family affair. Serpent was nearby too.
"Well, it is too soon."
"Shoot Menderes."
"I am unable to recharge."
"Divert them."
She undressed and then they did not shoot.
"A pretty woman out there?" They looked at each other.
"Menderes has been shot he is not dead he has been shot."
"You. Greek whore why shot him he would have done us all proud."
A man of genius a genuine talent. people's man a man from the land.
"You shoot Menderes. She shot Menderes she is the devil run and make a lynching."
"Mama."
"Not even her will save you."
"Come to daddy he can."
Such confusion.
"If someone shots her then I will kill them all."
"I did not shoot him I did not it was him."
"I know you."
"Why'"
"You are the one who stole my watch."
"Menderes is dead." Someone went close and finished the job.
"My mother Zeks was a Greek and she did not care for the Turks. Her family came from a Greek village, and she did wonderful smiles when Greeks were around.
"She's a Greek Spy."
We all lived in the same community and war was coming and then we got suspicious and started to kill the leaders. Without a leading role a brain there is nothing.
"So, all the brains were lost and then some of the tired hackneyed sex orientated brains came to the fore. "
"Menderes is now dying leave, its alone Menderes is dead leave it lynch-mob came to lynch them all."
I have to be reasonable I had been in there when Menderes was killed. I would be good I would have to be good and do good all the time. In my life so that I would make it bright and easy for others.
"I know her she was supported by them who said a whore should be wed. Her husband has run away."
"Get him he is responsible for her conduct."
"But he is not here. He only married her to get off being hang."
It all came to me as well as to her with a force that her mistake was to kill and be caught.
"I did it for my country."
"Bitch what country the country of nudes."
The hope of a hearing died in her eyes. But if she did not speak, I would be killed too known as her child.
"She will have to do something good to make up for all this."
"Run before they change."
"She ran as fast as possible then her shoe fell off and she got blisters. I got her high heels I got it."
"She can bring peace to this troubled land."
"We can't lynch a woman."
"Well, no we must hang this woman because she is a diabolical homicidal maniac."
"Then there is the kid with her."
"Well, what is there for us to do?"
"Kill them in our usual manner."
"Money runs out they die."
"The kid is cute."
"Well, she can do something for us."
"Important she is."
"Was she being a killer."
"Give her a burden she can't carry."
"Give her kids."
She carted us kids and the clan tried to kill them as if they were to blame for the past.
"We did not kill Menderes they did."
"Who are they?"
"The grown-ups."
"Let me die." said Zeks many times her family had deserted her and then they reclaimed her replacement.
"That sounds reasonable."
Meanwhile Menderes bled to death.
So, it was all decided.
"The wretched system I can't eat pork and then I can't get lost I am marked woman."
Shooting someone means having to live with that fact forever nagging this nagging doubt that the world does remember does not care does not need one's services and is a dried-up prune.
"Cyprus prospered."
"The world forgot us because we became prosperous and well."
"We moved on but this is the household who never moved out never moved on."
"This is the world worn out this is the world filled with spite this is why I am who I am this is sin city this is the sins of the fathers being visited on the children."
"I am nothing now I am nobody." said Zeks. It rained down on me for years as if the whole point of her was to make me zero.
Her feelings were mutual.
"We can because the fools are poor and unable to afford a lawyer."
"Justice for me justice I was young and shot the man and now I am to die something I was conditioned to by the love of my life. "
"Love was blind the people came to their senses as people were arriving from the mainland. People who had sense and powerful guns. We must do something."
The Brits were neutral. Just like the Sweds.
"Well so be it the fools must be the poor?"
"You have got to keep these kids' ignoramus."
The clan must all be can-can. Dancing partners in nightclubs and then destroyed.
"Kids." said Zeks in sheer resignation.
The poverty was there it was rather touching that nobody cared.
"Mostly they did not have access to Oxford they only got Oxfam."
"My dear hold on because the language is bad."
"I am not using bad language linguistics I have studied and made off with."
"I wanted to be an interpreter."
"They totally lost it when I said I did not want to be a translator because I am alas dyslexic."
Barriers shot up.
The distant memory of that day with the blazing sun makes me sunny tempered.
And no handshakes no hard feelings?
We have feelings of kindness for this worthless woman, and we want to protect the good inside her. She is not a woman with a brain. Just a childlike creature.
I saw the shivering shaken Zeks she had problems everyone agreed. Then she let it be and let herself die.
I survived.
I have solved it why did not I think about all this before?
It is nothing to do but sent them the visiting card and they helpfully accepted. They did say they had to work but we are powerful and can take away their visa.
“Now stop this is not English.”
“What is wrong with that?”
I wanted to read.
I don't know why so many people want me dead.
