by Joan Fleming
Gibbon called eunuchs ‘pernicious vermin of the East’, but Nuri bey graded Hadji the chauffeur even lower, as a complete nonentity, and did not waste a moment’s thought on him.
But Miasma fascinated him. It was said, as has often been said about the favourites of Sultans, that she had been a hamam attendant whose beauty had attracted one of the Sultan’s agents and that she had been acquired by the harem. The hamam attendant’s main duty is to rub the bodies of women who come for their bath and, as this rubbing is neither therapeutic nor skilled, the purpose of it is ambiguous. For a long time after being introduced to the household, Nuri bey had believed that the relationship between Miasma and her French companion Valance had been lesbian. But as he got to know them better, he realized it was not so; Valance had not, in fact, been as devoted to Miasma as it had appeared, but had been addicted to the money that was paid her and to the uncertain glamour that was attached to the job.
Nuri bey treasured every manifestation of Miasma’s absolute conformity with the attributes of the women in the Sultan’s harem, which, notwithstanding the weight of years which had passed, was untouched since she had ceased to be an ikbal (the name given to those members of the harem who actually slept with the Shadow of God upon Earth).
There, he could say to such friends as were interested, is the typical ikbal. Though she had a tiny mind, she was clever, quick in the uptake and shrewd. No longer able to attract men with her body, she kept up with world affairs in order that she could attract them with her talk and there was nothing she liked better than to have long conversations with visiting statesmen of any nationality. Though she appeared to be a thoroughly emancipated woman, she was, in fact, not; there was not a trace of dispassionate masculine outlook in her. Though he might dislike her very much at times, he was proud to know her and to have her for his collection.
That there was going to be a row about the errand to the airport was certain, and he was undecided whether to go and see her or to telephone the news.
Miasma found nothing important that was of the spirit; everything that concerned her was trivial, in Nuri bey’s opinion. If she suddenly wanted something, she must have it, be it a visit to a western film, a piece of jewellery, a portable radio set, a lottery ticket, ‘I want it’ was the criterion.
Knowing this, Nuri bey had asked no questions about the case he was to take to the airport. There had been many similar trips to the airport, the seaport and the railway stations over the years, undertaken by Hadji or Valance. Once, he remembered, there had been an immense fuss about a Pekingese sent to her from Hong Kong which, shortly after its arrival had fallen into the Bosphorus and been drowned. Another time it had been a French cook who, within a few days, had left to go to a friend of Miasma’s who had offered him twice the money she was paying. There had been the China tea episode when Miasma had sworn she could drink nothing but tea from China and the customs had got very restive about the large quantities of tea, which appeared too frequently for their liking.
The import restrictions into the new Turkey were extremely strict and she was forever sending one or other of her servants to redeem from the customs parcels of various cosmetics she ordered abroad on which she had to pay large duty.
Thus Nuri bey’s light-hearted undertaking of her commission now gave place to some grave misgivings. So far, the mere fact that the young man who met him had been armed with a revolver and had actually fired it at someone within two or three minutes of having spoken to Nuri bey, made him shiver with apprehension. You couldn’t light-heartedly do that sort of thing in modern Turkey. A gun-shot could easily tip off the start of a revolution. There were spies everywhere, the army was on its toes, ex-prime-ministers were about to be hanged for apparently ridiculous reasons and all Nuri bey wanted, apart from Oxford, was to be left in peace to pursue his speculative excursions into mysticism.
When the telephone rang in his bedroom above, he jumped so violently that he broke a tea-glass. Unwillingly, he went upstairs to answer it but, when he got there, he decided to let it go on ringing; he did not wish to have his early morning disarranged by the bullying tones he knew would scald his ear when he lifted the receiver. He let the ringing sound chip at his nerves till it stopped.
He tiptoed across the landing to the foot of the stairs up to the turret room. He could hear no sound.
He hated doing housework but, as he had not enough money to pay for a servant and to buy books as well, he chose to spend the money on books, and unwillingly and inefficiently undertook the housework himself. He now found a broom with a few bristles left in it and sprinkled green tea leaves on the salon carpet from the sink drainer in the kitchen. Next he flipped away in a small mist of dust at the worn old rugs. Then he got an equally dilapidated mop and neatly flicked the dust and tea leaves into a mother-of-pearl dust pan. Finally, he took out a feather duster that looked like the remains of a Red Indian’s war hat, and touched it here and there about the room. He realigned his furniture exactly and lovingly, tidying the white raincoat by hanging it by the shoulders from a chair back.
Locking the front door carefully behind him, he left an old saucepan on the doorstep for the sütcü to fill with milk and went quickly to a shop not far away to buy food and, farther along, a newspaper. Walking back with the bread tucked under his arm, he read the headlines which amounted to the not-unfamiliar lines in an English newspaper: SEARCH FOR ARMED GUNMAN.
It was all there, everything except mention that the armed gunman had been an employee of Zenobia Airways. The identity of the gunman was unknown, it said, but the dead man had been identified as a detective on a brief visit to Turkey, who was one of the chief security officers of the airline. Under cover of darkness, the assassin had escaped from the airport and was believed to be hiding in the city. A short description of his appearance followed and an appeal was made to anyone who saw him to get in touch with the police at once. It was understood that Interpol was assisting the police in their search and that a sharp watch was being kept on all outgoing traffic, in the air, on land and by sea to ensure that the miscreant did not leave the country. An arrest was expected at any moment.
An Englishman or an American in the streets of Istanbul is as distinctive as an ostrich would be in a herd of goats. He wouldn’t last twenty-four hours, in Nuri bey’s opinion.
Arriving home, he spread the newspaper on the hall table and read it through carefully, making sure that there was no mention of a case or of an English girl. An eyewitness had told the reporters that the murdered man had been having drinks at the bar before the jet arrived. That he had been there from half an hour to an hour was confirmed by the bar attendants. After the arrival of the jet, the transit lounge had filled up with people, the bar had also been more crowded. A portable barrier had been erected between the people in transit and others who wanted to move to and fro in the lounge at will. Nothing more seemed to have been observed by anybody until the shot was fired and after that nobody seemed in a fit condition to take in with any sort of clarity what had happened. A man was lying on the ground and another man, short, thin, dark, young, in black trousers and a sports jacket, had been seen to jump the barrier, run through the crowd and out through the swing doors. Many of the men had started off in pursuit but once he was out on the tarmac he had vanished. A thorough search had been made with all the vehicles with headlights that were available, but it was fruitless. The victim had died in an ambulance on the way to hospital without regaining consciousness.
He ran his hand across his forehead; though no sweater, Nuri bey was certainly sweating now. He was a man of peace and his life was contemplative; he was simply not up to a quickened tempo, to dissembling, to the making of snap decisions, to the low cunning essential to the successful handling of a situation such as the one he had had forced upon him. He was no Knight Errant, nor Scarlet Pimpernel nor Sherlock Holmes; nor had he any wish to be any of these persons. He did not wish for events, for excitement, for novelty, for danger. His excursions into contemplati
on provided all the excitement he would ever need; his quest was for wisdom, not for ingenuity.
He had a sudden horrifying glimpse of himself driving about all over Istanbul with a tearful Jenny at his side, in a packed dolmus (or shared taxi) because he would not be able to afford any other kind of transport, searching, searching for an ostrich amongst a lot of goats. And when they found him, what then? Was Nuri bey to conceal him in his house until such time as they could both be smuggled out of the country, heavily disguised as hemals, or human mules.
Weak as a rag, he supported himself against his hall table. It wouldn’t do. He must persuade Jenny to go to the police with him and tell them all she knew. And if she failed to do so, as he could well expect, then he would have to go himself and report that he was sheltering under his roof a young English girl who was closely connected with the missing assassin.
He prepared breakfast, laying the low table in the salon, muttering to himself the English phrases with which he would persuade, indeed insist.
As he went to and fro in his preparations, he sounded, and looked, like a man demented but not yet dangerous, and was startled and mortified to discover that she had been observing him for a few seconds before he noticed her standing in the shadow at the bottom of the stairs.
‘I say, old dear, what’s wrong? Do you always talk to yourself?’
Then there was a search for a looking-glass which Nuri bey knew he had somewhere; it turned up in a box in the woodshed outside and was more red-velvet frame stuck all over with shells than a mirror. He polished it lovingly. ‘It was with some books I bought. You should be able to get a good reflection; it has reflected many beautiful faces, it came from the old seraglio. Many things were stolen in the looting which took place.’
They sat formally together in the salon and ate yoghourt and goat’s cheese and bread and, as a special treat, drank Nescafe of which Nuri bey had been given a tin by his English friend at the British Council.
And when they had finished, he read extracts from the newspaper, then fired off some of the rolling phrases which he had been practising. Turkish women do not look directly at men, even now; their eyes slide away and Nuri bey, though he had met many European and American women, had never become used to the direct gaze they would give him. There was something particularly unnerving about Jenny’s direct look; clear and unflinching and full of question.
‘You don’t really mean you’re suggesting that we go to the police?’
‘I do. If we do not, much worse may happen.’
‘You can’t make me go!’
‘I can telephone to them now.’
‘What would they do to me?’
Nuri bey faltered slightly. ‘They would question you. You would help them.’
‘And if I wouldn’t answer?’
‘They would keep you there till you did.’
‘Brainwash me?’
He shrugged.
‘How could you be such a damn’ beast? I thought you were a pet, now I see you’re a terrible Turk.’
‘That is not kind.’
‘You don’t mean it, do you? I can see you don’t. I—’ she took a great deep breath—‘I would rather kill myself, and I mean it. I dare say you’ve often heard people threaten to do that, but I mean it. My life simply wouldn’t be worth going on with if you did that … can’t you understand?’ she pleaded.
‘I understand nothing,’ Nuri bey said firmly. ‘Nothing at all.’
Suddenly she changed mood completely. ‘Oh, I know I need a good whipping, everyone thinks so and has said so thousands of times. All right, whip me, somebody, I don’t want to be the way I am.’ She began to cry and Nuri bey tactfully kept silent whilst she cried.
‘If you are innocent,’ he said sedately, as she was recovering, ‘you should willingly go to the police and tell them all you know.’
‘Innocent!’ she cried, ‘what a goddam awful whiskery, mildewed, beastly, Victorian word.’ She blew her nose violently. ‘Innocent!’ And if he wanted to know, she was not innocent, neither was she a virgin, she had been sleeping with Tony. She was not a nice young girl. What she did regret was that Tony had not trusted her, had not confided in her. That was what gave her such a shock. She had given herself to Tony and trusted him; why had he not done the same? For Tony’s sake, she had left her family, her home, the job she had with a friend of her father’s in an antique shop. She had given Tony everything a girl could possibly give a man, including all her post office savings. And she would have given him all her savings certificates, too, if it hadn’t needed an assent from her father.
And what was left? As far as she could see … nothing. Her family had finished with her for good and ever. She had no money. No job. And, alas, not even her virginity was left to bargain with.
She could not use the rest of her ticket to go to Hong Kong because she did not know anybody in Hong Kong, nor did she want to go. She had simply agreed to go because Tony had said suddenly that it would be fun if they had a honeymoon-kind of trip to the Far East ‘for a few days’.
She had thought, in fact he had told her so, that Tony was a high-powered sales representative who travelled all over the world. He had suggested sending her to the airport in the bus, telling her he would meet her ‘on the plane’ because he had some last-minute business to do. Excited at the fun of this sudden treat, she had taken her ticket from him, packed a few clothes in a canvas grip and joyfully gone to the London air terminal.
She’d met him on the plane all right … wearing the striped cotton jacket of the Zenobia Airways stewards. It wasn’t that she’d minded a bit that he was a steward, far from it. It was deceiving her she’d hated.
If that had been all!
And there wasn’t even a return ticket from Hong Kong to London! She hadn’t got the money to return home if she wanted to. She had just this seven pounds which was part of her earnings from temporary typing jobs from an agency in Bond Street. If Nuri Bey wanted to send her back home, he would have to do so by train, ‘Goods,’ she added with a wisp of a smile, ‘or it might run to passengers’ luggage in advance.’
Nuri bey’s eyes were brilliant. ‘What courage!’ he breathed.
‘There you go again! If there’s any label to be stuck on me, it’s baggage. It’s no good, you can’t make anything of me, Nuri bey, and you’ll never make me go to the police, never. You see, I don’t know anything. And my going to the police wouldn’t help Tony, not as far as I can see.’ She toyed thoughtfully with her hair: ‘I’ve got myself in an awful mess, haven’t I? Just the sort of mess that girls who go wrong are expected to get into. It’s bad enough having pulled all this down on myself; I’m not going to get my family mixed up in it,’ she added sulkily, ‘much as I hate them.’
Nuri bey, finger and thumb meeting in a precise point, tapped his pursed lips thoughtfully. He believed something of what she had told him, in fact, most of it, but he could not bring himself to believe that she was found with Miasma’s case in her hand at the airport, knowing nothing whatever about it except that her lover had handed it to her. That … he could not accept.
‘And if anybody in Istanbul, a reporter or a member of the British colony got hold of my name connected with this affair, it would be all over the English papers. As it is, I’m going to be reported missing.’
‘But not till the jet has arrived in Hong Kong, perhaps.’
‘Let’s think.’ She put her hand into her skirt pocket and brought out a yellow ticket with TRANSIT printed on it. ‘They gave me this and told me to leave my things on the plane. When everyone got back into their places they would notice I wasn’t there. Would they think I had anything to do with the gun episode … or not? Do they carefully count the passengers to see everybody is there? Or would they have been so upset by the whole thing that they simply didn’t? Tony was one of them, one of the air crew! Oh, isn’t it agony?’
Nuri bey at least looked extremely wise and profoundly knowledgeable but as he stared at her enchanting chubby
face he was completely bewildered: woman or child? He was unable to decide. Her candour, her completely natural manner, her brash way of talking, her schoolgirl giggles, her intense femininity … She was in a very serious position indeed and he thought that she fully understood; but if, in fact, she did, her manner certainly did not match the situation. She was not his idea, nor surely anybody else’s, of a ‘young girl in distress’; she ought to be taken by the shoulders and shaken into her senses; he should tell her to stop making light of it because she could quite easily not get out of this ‘scrape’, as she called it, alive.
The mere fact that she could groan: ‘Oh, isn’t it agony?’ showed him that she had not the slightest idea of the meaning of the word ‘agony’.
Nuri bey remained thoughtful for a long time; it was not that he was deciding how to play it because he never played anything, he was always completely himself; but he was deciding, or trying to decide, what was the best thing to do.
What he wanted to say and what he ought to say worried him a lot. First, he very much wanted to say that they should rid themselves of the idea that she loved this young man or owed him any loyalty. He wanted to tell her that in his opinion she was in love with love, with the idea of herself in love; if, in fact, she loved the young man, she would now be in real agony, not simply exclaiming that it was agony.
Secondly, he wanted to say that having disposed of the love side of it, they must do what would be best for her.
And thirdly, they must somehow get in touch with her family and assure them she was safe and on her way back to them.
