ARTEMIS
By morning, Artemis remembered little. She awoke alone, her mind replaying
only fragments—the policeman investigating antiquities, her determination to
find clues in the house. Yet her body felt leaden, pinned to the bed. Efil
tapped on the door. Seeing her face, Artemis slowly recalled shards of the
previous night. She braced for Efil’s reaction. Efil approached softly, sitting
beside her on the bed, silent. When Artemis asked if there was any breakfast,
Efil turned grave, explaining they had to clarify what had happened between
them.
“First of all,” Efil began gently, “I want you to know I’m truly happy
about what we shared last night. You mean a lot to me. If I’d known you were
still a virgin, I’d have waited for a more special moment.” Artemis’s mind
started piecing the events together. “So we really did… I’m not ashamed. You’re
amazing,” she said. Efil broke into tears, unable to contain her emotion.
Artemis reached up to wipe them away. Efil looked like a child whose favorite
toy had been stolen. “Artemis,” she stammered, “what happened between us last
night didn’t stay just between the two of us. I don’t know what that drink was,
but from what I recall…” Artemis tried calming her, admitting she too had
blacked out. “Though it was a strange night, I don’t regret it,” she offered,
“it felt different in good and bad ways.”
Efil pressed her lips together. “They recorded us, Artemis—Pertev’s damned
right hand, the blond man, filmed everything.” Artemis’s ears rang. She said
nothing, but immediately rose, dressed, and stormed out. Efil, still crying,
could only mumble, “I’m sorry. It was my idea…”
Artemis had pursued art, only to become the art. She was not ashamed of
their shared intimacy, but she had no idea how to fight these wealthy,
manipulative people. Making for the garden, she started running. Near the exit
gate, she tripped and fell, scraping her forehead. Akuji and the policeman were
there, looking on. Artemis cried out, “Officer! Help!” The policeman signaled
her to hush. They couldn’t whisk her off, as they, too, were working the
property in secret. Efil soon arrived to retrieve Artemis, but no command was
given to force her inside. Meanwhile, the blond man prowled elsewhere in the
estate, loathing their interference. Pertev was nowhere to be seen.
LISSA
The pressure to marry the giant worker reached its climax. The boss had
directed his son to drive Lissa, the fiancé, and himself to a registrar’s
office that very afternoon. Lissa desperately searched for a way out. Akuji was
nowhere. She’d have to save herself. The boss’s son practically shoved her into
the car, the giant fiancé squeezing in beside her, nearly dragging the
vehicle’s chassis on the asphalt. The father sat in the front seat. Lissa felt
as if she were suffocating.
Arriving at the marriage office, her stomach churned. The boss explained
“lightning weddings” to the prospective couple. The fiancé mumbled something,
and Lissa felt ready to spit on them both. Without Akuji, she would never do
this, but she had no choice. Step by step, she climbed the stairs, determined
not to tip them off. If she refused too soon, they might use force. She
couldn’t ask for help—calling the police would only unravel everything,
possibly implicating Akuji. The boss’s son smirked as his father vanished into
a side office, presumably to bribe the official. The clerk signaled them into
another room. Lissa noticed two doors in the bride and groom’s waiting area.
She forced herself to stay calm.
But the father was nowhere, so the boss’s son remained, watching her like a
hawk. Lissa asked to use the restroom, and he followed. She had no room to
maneuver. Her hands shook as she splashed water on her face. “Hurry up!” he
urged from the doorway. Returning to the bridal room, they found the giant
fiancé missing. The boss’s son went off in a panic to search. Alone at last,
Lissa slipped out through the other door. She spotted a large wedding hall
bustling with guests streaming away from a ceremony, seized a black scarf from
her bag, covered her head, and vanished among the crowd. Without glancing back,
she exited through a rear door that led straight to the metro, hopped on a
random train, and breathed freely. There was no going back to her job, her
basement room, anything. She clutched Akuji’s thousand dollars in her bank
account. Her next move would be to find him.
Police at headquarters studied the antiquities-smuggling file. Musa’s death
now seemed suspicious, especially after hearing Artemis moan, “I killed him,”
and discovering his missing computer. Reviewing footage from cameras around his
home, they saw a black car pick him up. The license plate was illegible. Later
that night, Akuji appeared in front of the building. Someone had tampered with
the records. Why was Akuji there? What did he have to do with Musa? The
policeman recalled Artemis telling him, “You should see Pertev’s exhibit,”
which smelled strongly of cooking herbs from her kitchen.
EFIL
Pertev’s new collection caused a stir, and Efil once more basked in the
spotlight. Her hair meticulously styled, dressed in a crisp suit, she spent an
hour giving interviews at the museum. Upon seeing Pertev’s father arrive, she
hurried to greet him, but he kept his distance. He grumbled how meaningless
these pieces were, yet the public adored them. Efil whispered that Pertev had
selected them. The father’s stern gaze suggested he found her explanation
inadequate. “If that’s the case,” he retorted, “why is your name listed?” Efil
tried to explain that art must be bold, only for him to raise a palm and
declare, “I’m closing the museum soon.”
Shaken, Efil retreated to the restroom, leaning against the sink in near
tears. The museum’s closure would mean her ruin, unless she found some way to
prove her worth to Pertev again. All her moves had failed. She recalled a time
when everything she did dazzled him. Family affairs had upended them both,
leaving her to handle the bank’s gallery, scout new artists, and scramble for
any advantage. She could rebuild her life from scratch in America, but who knew
how long that would take?
Pertev had arranged a dinner at the mansion, inviting Artemis, and Efil
thought perhaps she could transform that pointless evening into something truly
memorable. She hopped in her car, collected Artemis, and brought her to the
mansion. However, the night took a far more disastrous turn than she had
imagined.
PERTEV
Sometimes Pertev craved reinvention and knew exactly how to achieve it. He
surrounded himself with wealthy, talented people, draining them of ideas, and
then, with a single move, discarding them. Thanks to Efil, he had become the
undisputed authority on art without much effort. He reveled in how his latest
“work of art,” a bloodstained bedsheet, fluttered at the museum entrance like a
scandalous flag, dominating last-minute news bulletins and social media. As he
boarded his private jet, heading for distant lands, he was unaware of the
showdown unfolding back at the mansion. Not that his presence would have
helped; he believed Efil’s “work” was done, that she should have known her
place and quietly vanished instead of causing ripples. As for Artemis, he might
not even remember her name after three days. He had taken the flash drive from
her, fulfilling his father’s request, so his involvement was finished. He also
knew the policeman disguised as a migrant worker was investigating the
contraband artifacts. Sooner or later, that problem would surface. The blond
man—“the other half” of Pertev’s psyche—was beyond redemption. Pertev knew how
dangerous he could be. He kept quiet for fear of personal repercussions.
He had not anticipated how events would spiral into open conflict. But
Pertev knew how to handle controversy—by staying silent, disappearing from the
scene, and shifting his artistic pursuits abroad for a while. Indeed, it all
went more or less to plan. His father complained when news broke that there had
been gunfire at the mansion. The police found some bones buried in the garden.
Everything was pinned on the blond man who had “rented” part of the family
mansion for a time. The family publicly deplored the tragic situation, claiming
no connection. Ordinary citizens took their side—why on earth would wealthy
folk murder migrants and bury them in the garden? They were the philanthropic
benefactors of the poor, after all. And so, people even prayed it would never
happen again.
Fortunately, no one died that day. Efil was hospitalized with a serious
injury, and Artemis remained at her bedside, waiting for her recovery. Artemis
had turned over all relevant files to the police. In anger, Efil leaked Musa’s
manuscript online, exposing the family’s secrets to the entire nation. Through
his newly minted notoriety, “The God of Art,” Pertev only climbed higher in
public infamy.
Akuji’s cooperation with the policeman—saving his life, no less—earned him
the right to citizenship. He could soon marry Lissa, and they dreamed of
working in a lovely home with a garden. The blond man was imprisoned for
drug-induced murders of undocumented migrants.
In his father’s final days, Pertev sat by his bedside, holding the man’s
hand. The old man was distraught that the entire world now knew he was gay,
cursing his half-brother Musa. Pertev soothed him, perhaps for the first time
truly clasping his father’s hand with tenderness. It was like God’s hand
reaching out to Adam. A tickling sensation roiled in Pertev’s stomach. As his
father breathed his last…
All rights belong to the author Evrim Ozsoy. No quotation allowed.
Seven episode series project. God of Art
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