Petrified by Barbara Nadel

Author:Barbara Nadel [Nadel, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2010-05-06T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

Estelle Cohen watched with sad eyes as Zelfa Halman Suleyman left the apartment holding her baby, Yusuf, in her arms. The psychiatrist wasn’t a happy woman. Everything seemed to irritate her these days. Estelle took the baby round to Fatma’s for the morning and she didn’t like that – this time she’d stayed at home in Karaköy with him and that was, seemingly, unacceptable too. Perhaps it was because Fatma was with her? Estelle had always thought that Zelfa liked Fatma. Maybe it had to do with what her friend was doing? Not that she was engaged in anything Estelle felt was unusual.

‘Thank you for these,’ Fatma said as she took another leech out of the jar and laid it against one of the swollen veins on her leg. ‘These have been agony lately.’

‘The leeches should get them down.’

‘İnşallah. Not that she approved,’ she said as she tipped her head in the direction of the front door.

‘Zelfa?’ Estelle sat down opposite her friend and leaned back in her chair. It had been, as usual for this time of year, a hot and tiring day. ‘She’s a doctor, probably finds it a bit old-fashioned.’

‘And foreign,’ Fatma added darkly. ‘I don’t think that Dr Halman has ever adapted to living here, not properly. But now that she’s married Mehmet she’s made her choice.’

‘Yes.’

Estelle knew that Fatma had never really approved of Mehmet Suleyman’s marriage to Zelfa Halman. She was older than he, a foreigner at least in part and, more importantly, she wasn’t a Muslim. Fatma, as Estelle also knew, disapproved of marriages that crossed religious boundaries. Although they’d never discussed it, Estelle knew that her friend was even more opposed to the liaison between her Berekiah and young Hulya than Estelle’s husband, Balthazar.

‘Well, at least little Yusuf is being raised in your faith,’ Estelle said airily.

‘Yes, but only because Zelfa doesn’t practise hers,’ Fatma responded sharply. ‘If that child had been born in her country with all those relatives she has in the Church, things would be different.’

Estelle shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

Religion had never been a large part of Estelle Cohen’s life. Her parents, Yuda and Hanna Şaul, had been more interested in politics than religion – except, of course, when it came to their daughter’s marriage. On one level the middle-class Şauls hadn’t been particularly pleased when it became apparent that the scruffy policeman son of the alcoholic Haim Cohen was interested in Estelle. But on the other hand Balthazar was a Jew and so the match, for better or worse, was approved. And in truth, it hadn’t been all bad. They’d never had much money, but the children, Yusuf and Berekiah, had been a consolation. It wasn’t Balthazar’s fault that Yusuf’s mind had broken during the course of his military service. Estelle could, however, have done without her husband’s incessant infidelity. Had he been at home instead of at the apartment of one of his many mistresses when the earthquake hit İstanbul in 1999 he wouldn’t be crippled and useless now.

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