He can’t find anything.
May 29, 2013
Kristin had taken a white sedan from the consulate’s motor pool, a Chevrolet, American-made per U.S. government regulations administering vehicular acquisitions. The small fleet of cars she used to meet with the locals who peddled her information were less conspicuous. They didn’t have diplomatic plates, or seat belts for that matter, and were manufactured by companies based everywhere from France to South Korea, but none of those were right for this job, in which she wanted the full weight of the U.S. government behind her. For this job, she needed the white Chevy.
When she had received the phone call from the detective at the Twenty-second Precinct, inquiring about an American photographer who claimed an affiliation with the consulate, she knew that her visit would be in her titular capacity as the cultural attaché, as opposed to her nontitular capacity, the one which centered on her collateral duties, those duties for which she used the other, non-American cars.
The sun was rising. She jostled the transmission into drive, tugging down a curious doglegged gearshift affixed to the base of the steering wheel. The streets were empty. The garbage trucks had already made their rounds and the water trucks had passed by, tamping down the dust. The morning commute had yet to begin. The traffic lights shifted onto the wet, empty roads, their glare like a palette of spilled watercolors which cast reflections of red, yellow, green. Taksim’s Gezi Park was a few miles off. As she drew closer to the city center, checkpoints appeared. The white Chevy’s official plates would ensure that the police let her pass. The citywide demonstrations had lasted for nearly a week, and the officers manning the checkpoints had a famished, hollow look, as if they’d been on duty for the entirety. Few had shaved. Their uniforms were wrinkled, as if they’d slept in their patrol cars. Their breath stank from tea and cigarettes as they queried Kristin, wanting to know where she was off to so early in the morning. To a man they were irritable. Their eyes made a cursory search of her vehicle, but they couldn’t do anything more, even though they seemed to want to out of sheer spite. Rumors had already begun that a western conspiracy had fueled the demonstrations. The same old three-lettered foreign agencies came under suspicion, their almost unspeakable acronyms articulated in cautious whispers with each of the letters evoked like an individual head of a hydra that would need to be slain. Kristin knew better than to credit any of these agencies, even though she wished the theories were true, even though she wished her organization, or the others like it, possessed such powers, or even such competencies.
At each checkpoint she recited the badge number of the detective she had spoken to at the Twenty-second Precinct. He hadn’t offered his name, which had seemed odd to her, although not too surprising given the mistrust of foreigners Kristin had become accustomed to. The detective had called from Peter’s phone to explain to her the situation, which was that Peter had been detained when despite prior warning he had wandered into a restricted area.
“What restricted area?” Kristin had asked.
“The protest zone.”
“So what’s the charge?”
The line went silent for a moment. “Trespassing,” the detective had said.
“Trespassing?” Kristin had asked incredulously.
She had heard what sounded like a metal door slamming in the background, followed by curses in the guttural Anatolian accent common to the country’s remote interior. She had then heard the detective’s stifled voice added to the chorus, as though he had muffled the receiver with his palm. Then he had returned to the line. “If you come and pick him up, all charges will likely be dropped. But for now, the charge is trespassing.”
Since the demonstrations had begun a week earlier, the phone call on Peter’s behalf was far from the first cry for help that Kristin had received from her network of assets strung throughout the city. In a moment of crisis, when the network she had developed was obligated to stay in place and report, she had found herself receiving hardly any information from them at all, rather only their requests for rescue, evacuation, asylum—these were some of the terms they used when pleading with her. She had chosen to help no one. If at the first sign of trouble an asset wanted to flee the country, then in her estimation that person wasn’t worth helping. This did, of course, establish a contradictory paradox. When Kristin’s help was needed the most, it wasn’t on offer.
Peter was her exception.
From the instant she had received the call on his behalf, Kristin had known as an embassy official that she was obligated to come to his aid because he was, to her great annoyance, a U.S. citizen. While she navigated the checkpoints toward the precinct, inching along with traffic and passing through a warren of one-lane streets flanked by rickety gecekondus, she knew that she had no choice in the matter.
Of all her assets, the one she felt most concerned about was Murat. She had heard nothing from him. Although she felt certain that he was physically safe, she had begun to speculate about how the demonstrations might affect his financial interests, which, as he often complained, existed in a state of perpetual volatility. She imagined his government partnership on the football stadium would likely dissolve. After his failed project at Zeytinburnu 4, Kristin’s superiors would balk at bailing him out of another deal gone crosswise. She stood to lose him if his business collapsed. And if her conscious mind was focused on getting Peter released from prison, her subconscious was calculating the various options that would ensure Murat weathered the current upheaval, if not for his benefit then for hers.
Kristin pulled up in front of the Twenty-second Precinct. It took her two tries to align the wide Chevy into one of the diagonal parking spaces arrayed along the curb. She levered the gearshift into park. On the seat beside her, she gathered up her diplomatic credentials as well as the project proposal Peter had submitted the year before, which was still, as of yet, untitled. She had by her own admission neglected Peter and his work for too long. This seemed like the appropriate time to direct his efforts more clearly, even if she wasn’t certain how.
She tugged the Chevy’s door handle. It had a tendency to stick, so she put her shoulder into it. The latch sprang open and the edge of the door smacked into the car next to hers. A few of the officers who lingered by the precinct’s front steps took notice. She wondered if they’d get involved, but they didn’t. With complete indifference, they resumed smoking their cigarettes and reading headlines from their cellphones.
Kristin crouched next to the glossy black door opposite hers, checking for a dent. She thought she felt some unevenness beneath her fingers but wasn’t certain. A little of the white paint from the Chevy had flecked onto the black, but she was able to scrape it away with a dab of spit and her thumbnail. When she stood, she caught a glimpse into the backseat. Hanging in a dry cleaner’s bag by the window was a familiar charcoal gray suit. Her eyes ran toward the hood ornament, a Mercedes’s silver tripartite circle. It was Murat’s car.