by Joan Fleming
She paused whilst a few involuntary indrawn gasps, the aftermath of weeping, shook her. ‘I did what anyone in their right mind would do; I threw it away! As I told you. Filthy stuff! And in the taxi on the way back Madame gave me a shot of it.’ She showed Nuri bey the small purple bruise on her forearm. ‘So I’m well on the way to being a heroin addict, old dear. It was marvellous, and according to all the books, I shan’t be happy now until I get another shot. I could do with one now.’
In the years to come Nuri bey would have much to say arising from all the information he had received but for the moment he had nothing to say other than that she must come back home with him at once.
And that was the one thing Jenny would not consent to do. Her argument was reasonable enough, she must get into contact with Tony; once she had seen him she would be satisfied and would then do anything Nuri bey wished. Until then she must stay near Miasma—if she failed to do so, she would never forgive herself. She would have all the rest of her life, during which probably nothing exciting would happen, to regret not having done all she could for Tony.
If she left with Nuri bey she might never hear of Tony again. An affair like this simply could not be left suspended, as it were, in mid-air. A decision must be arrived at, if only in her own mind.
Nuri bey, seeing the reason of what she had to say, made her promise that she would not allow Madame to give her another injection, and to this, seeing reason also on his side, she agreed. Neither, he said, was she to have anything to eat or drink that had been prepared by anyone but herself, in this house.
He pointed out graphically that throwing people into the Bosphorus was an old Turkish custom, and one, he regretted to say, still frequently employed. She could be doped into unconsciousness and put into a sack, weighed down with stones, and flung into the almost bottomless deeps within a few feet of the yali windows. And Jenny, having seen what she had already seen, could readily believe it. Furthermore, he went on relentlessly, to perform such duties with young girls of the Sultan’s harem who had been unfaithful to the Shadow of God upon Earth, the Grand Signior (i.e. the Sultan), would fall to Hadji as one of those in charge of the harem in the first decade of the century. To undertake such a task would commend itself instinctively to Hadji.
‘Doing what comes naturally,’ she murmured inexplicably with a frail smile.
‘You’re a brave girl,’ he said, ‘and, as I have always heard of the English, you do not take real danger seriously. You laugh in the face of death.’
‘Oh, no, I don’t,’ she returned crossly.
He stared at her whilst the thought went through his mind of the diver who went over the side of a ship that was anchored in some shallows off the Seraglio Point, to do repairs, and was horrified to see half a dozen corpses of young girls, not long dead, standing upright, balanced by heavy stones at the bottom of sacks from which their heads emerged, nodding and bowing with the movement of the current, with eyes wide open and hair waving slowly to and fro … The sight drove the diver out of his mind so that for ever afterwards he bowed and swayed in imitation of the corpses.
‘Why are you looking at me like that, Nuri? You’re giving me the shivers!’
Before leaving, he went himself to the kitchen and made tea, which he brought to the bedside with instructions that she must drink as much fluid as she could to clean out of her bloodstream the remains of the drug. After that the best thing would be for her to go to sleep again. He would return tomorrow, when he would see Miasma and ask her for an explanation. They could not go on any longer in this manner, he observed: Madame was behaving in an unwomanly way. As an old woman, within a few steps of Paradise, it was unseemly and he would insist that a proper explanation for her behaviour be given him. And as for Tony, Nuri bey said, he had certain ideas as to what could be done about him. Unwilling though he was to have anything more to do with the affair, for Jenny’s sake, and for that reason only, it might be that he could arrange for Tony to leave the environment secretly and go into hiding in a more secure place.
Nuri bey’s sister in Trebizond was by no means well-off. If he telephoned to her, he thought she might agree to take a young foreigner as paying guest for a few weeks, and, in the meantime, something else could be arranged. He told Jenny all this but carefully avoided mentioning the shoes, without which Tony could not either have gone—or go—far.
It was obvious that the effect of the drug had not worn off, her eyelids were heavy with sleep, and patting her shoulder he told her to settle down and to remember: he would come back to take her away from this place.
Ordering the cleaning woman to stay until Madame and Hadji returned, he stalked stiffly from the room. The great empty hall was almost dark, the bird-room silent. He stood at the foot of the stairs, absolutely still, and emptied his mind of every thought so that he became a kind of receiving set for any oscillations that might be in the atmosphere. He had had an aunt who was clairvoyant and by emptying her mind of thought she was often able to see things which had happened or things which were going to happen in the place where she was at the time. But, as so often in the past, when he had tried, no pictures were shown on the screen of his mind. He took the suède shoes into the salon and hid them behind a divan. And whilst he waited for the bus he had a few words with the proles of the market square.
Back again in Europe, he swung on to a tram on Galata Bridge. He stood head and shoulders above the people in the tram who clung to it like flies in the autumn in the corner of an attic window. So much of his life was spent on a bus, or a ferry or a tram, hurrying fron Continent to Continent yet going nowhere. He never ceased to travel and yet he had never left his country. It was a saddening thought which was with him till he reached his own front door, by which time he was assailed by an even sadder one. Someone had been in his house.
He went slowly round from room to room. Everywhere there were small signs that someone other than himself had been: opening and shutting, turning upside down and reinstating, pulling out, looking behind and replacing, standing up on chairs or looking on top of, kneeling down on the floor and looking underneath of … Hadji and Miasma … Hadji or Miasma … what did it matter which?
Lately he had been too preoccupied to take his carpet-bag of valuable books up to his bedroom: it was still behind the Shirvan carpet which acted as a curtain across his front door in winter-time. He pulled it out and opened it. They had been through it all right. Everyone who knew Nuri bey knew also about his carpet-bag of treasures. People whom he liked would be shown the entire fabulous contents which he would display somewhat in the manner of a conjurer, giving time between tricks for assimilation of the last before starting on the next.
Any other man would go to his sideboard for the whisky bottle to calm his nerves; Nuri bey’s long slender fingers picked out from amongst his other treasures an early illuminated manuscript of the synoptic gospels. He took it into his study where he sat for a long time in his upright chair, turning the pages and looking at the strange representations of the first Evangelists.
When, finally, he went upstairs to bed he took with him from the carpet-bag the cream of his possessions. But as he lay staring sleepless up into the dark there came over him an active dislike of his bedfellows.
CHAPTER 11
Early in the morning Jenny got up and washed as well as she could in the tiny basin in about half a pint of water, which the cleaner had brought the evening before, dressed, brushed her hair, camouflaged her pretty mouth and eyes with an abstract design of lipstick and eyeblack and went purposefully downstairs to make herself tea. The kitchen appalled her; a dingy cave with blackened ceiling and creeper-covered window, it was impregnated and reeking with the strange smell of the oil which is used for the cooking stoves in Turkey, a distinctive smell which often finds its way into the food. There was nothing that looked remotely like a kettle so after a small struggle to light the stove with the aid of her lighter, she half-filled an earthenware crock with water which she put on to boil.
Apart from what Nuri bey had said about the Bosphorus it frightened her. The thought of all that water pouring through that narrow channel from one great inland sea to another for thousands, perhaps millions of years, was impressive enough but the whole stretch of hurrying fluid somehow lacked the peace which a large expanse of water can engender. People sit placidly watching huge rollers restlessly moving up and down the sands, others find rest for the soul by the great still lakes of Sweden, but on the shores of the most historic waterway in the world there is no peace to be had, nor comfort. Stepping carefully down the few stone stairs to the extreme edge Jenny peered into the water to see if she could see the bottom. The bank sloped down almost vertically, disappearing from sight at a distance of two feet from the edge. How deep is bottomless? she wondered. As though at a cry of alarm she whipped round suddenly. She could see no one and there had been no sound but her knees were shaking.
I need some food, she thought, and going back to the kitchen she made tea, found some bread and oranges and stood by the table trying to steady herself by assuring herself that the situation was normal, or nearly so. She jumped violently, however, when the door of Hadji’s room opened and he came out, fully dressed, a dust-ball with a small monkey’s face.
Jenny stopped chewing, opened her eyes widely and stared at him as rudely as she could manage, which was quite rude. Not understanding that she was trying to insult him he peered anxiously up into her face. What he saw he evidently found satisfactory, for he nodded approvingly and murmured something which she did not get.
He then started a kind of muddled slow bustle, clearing a space on the table, bringing out a large basket; he told her something with regard to his preparations that she did not get either. Finally he left with the basket on his arm and his cloth cap on his head. Remembering Nuri bey’s instructions to drink tea she refilled her small cup a number of times; she was still drinking tea when he returned with the basket full of what he had bought: bread, butter, fruit, vegetables, and several small dishes of yoghourt.
‘Hamam,’ he said once or twice and she realized suddenly that he was making preparations for Madame’s visit to the Turkish bath.
In the bird-room Jenny found Madame fully dressed, feeding and twittering at her birds. She gave Jenny a nodding, satisfied look. ‘You have had a good night, I see. You have slept very well, n’est ce pas? You are better.’
Fortified by her breakfast Jenny swung into the heart of the matter; she had told Madame about the case and it was now Madame’s turn to tell her about Tony. Tony was the only reason for her presence in the yali, if it were not for him she would not be here, an unwanted guest.
‘I do not know … I do not know … I do not know …’ Madame answered, reiterating in an ascending scale so that her final denial came out a shriek. ‘And it is equal to me where he is, I occupy myself only with the case.’
‘But it is too absolutely absurd,’ Jenny reasoned. ‘I do not know where the case is, you do not know where Tony is, we can both go on telling each other lies for ever at this rate!’
‘Lies … lies … lies …!’ Miasma held her head in the orthodox manner of a woman purporting to be driven to the edge of insanity by the imbecilities of the young. ‘Today is Thursday. On Sunday evening my Valance died, on Monday evening your Tony ran away from you … hush, let me speak … on Tuesday morning early my Valance was buried … that event alone is enough to cut my life in half. But because of your miserable Tony my case of great value to me is missing. Perhaps it was wrong of me to take you to the hanging but I do not know how to treat the young, I do not understand you, and it was my method of shocking you into doing as I require!’
She put her box of bird seed down on the love-seat and stood in front of Jenny, pointing and gesticulating with one raised finger. ‘Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday … three days of a kind I have never spent in my life. Three days during which the police are looking for your Tony. Any minute now they may find him. When they find him he will confess that he left the case with you. So you must understand that for all of us it is better that you stay beside me for the moment. You must also realize this is not an exciting adventure; it is a matter of life and death. You soft Westerners do not know how serious life in the East of Europe has become; pleasure-seeking and decadent, you laugh your way into terrible dangers and even to witness a horrible sight of a public hanging does not seem to bring you to your senses.’
Hadji came in bearing an armful of soft-looking white Turkish towels and a short outbreak of Turkish talk followed. She turned back to Jenny who was now walking forlornly round the room, looking unseeing into the birdcages.
‘Today is Thursday,’ Miasma hissed. ‘The day before Friday; on Friday Valance and I go to the mosque. On Thursday Valance and I go to the hamam. Eleven months of the year for many years Valance has gone to the hamam with me on Thursdays and today I shall have to take you with me for I cannot go alone.’
‘Why not?’
‘Why not?’ she repeated indignantly, ‘because I cannot go alone, of course! So get on your coat, Hadji drives us to the ferry and then a taxi to the best hamam in Istanbul. Come, my child!’
‘Nuri bey is coming.’
‘Pfui!’ She clicked her fingers with a gesture of dismissal.
Jenny shouted: ‘Take your hands off me, I hate you, I hate you! Oh, my lord! you’re a horrible old woman!’ she added in English.
Miasma could perfectly tolerate hysterical shouting. ‘You had better come,’ she murmured soothingly, ‘in that quiet, relaxed place you will perhaps see the futility of your stubbornness. You will perhaps tell me everything!’
‘Oh, damn you, you old witch!’ Jenny yelled futilely but feeling a lot better.
‘Because,’ Miasma went on smoothly, ‘you know what the next thing will be? It will be to burn down the house where the evidence lies …’
Enchanted with her own burst of rage Jenny hardly heard and she was sitting in the ancient De Dion Bouton before she started to figure out what had been meant.
So the yali was left empty and the front door locked with a large key which Hadji slipped into his sagging jacket pocket. A few minutes after they had gone one of the proles, a mere bundle of rags, arrived from the post office with a telegram. He or she, whichever it might have been was not evident, banged the knocker and waited, banged again and sat down on the step with crossed legs, resigned to a long wait with the tolerance of a human being who has never in a lifetime done anything other than wait.
Then a number of events took place which were of such unusual proportions that the bundle of rags with the telegram completely forgot about the telegram in its hand and simply sat where it was eating up the scene with its great eyes.
First a tumble-down truck arrived, stopping at the gate; two men climbed down from the cabin and rolled back the tarpaulin from an object at the back. It was a large, long, narrow wooden box with four elaborate metal handles. It was not exactly rectangular; being quite narrow at one end it grew gradually larger at the other. One of the men approached the front door with a del
ivery note to be signed.
‘No one in,’ the bundle of rags volunteered.
‘Urgent goods from the airport: came over on the first ferry,’ the delivery man announced.
‘Leave it, the manservant will soon return.’
The men drove away in the van and the bundle of rags stared and stared at the long narrow box lying on the flags of the courtyard with the rhododendrons nodding over it in the frisky morning breeze.
Next, the bus noisily passed the gate and half a minute later Nuri bey appeared at the gate.
‘No one in,’ the bundle of rags offered.
Nuri bey walked round the oblong box. He thought he knew what it was, having seen illustrations of such things in some of the strange books he read, as, for instance, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.
‘A box for the dead,’ he murmured to himself and tried to remember the English word for it.
The garage was built backwards from the main road, taking off a corner of the courtyard and now, between the leaves of the rhododendrons, he could see glimpses of the De Dion being backed into it; he heard the doors being closed and Hadji appeared at the gate, having delivered Miasma and Jenny at the ferry. He saw the oblong case at once and shuffled across to it.
‘Urgent goods from the airport,’ the bundle of rags announced, ‘came over on the first ferry.’
A strange feeling which he could not define was enveloping Nuri bey. He went up to the front door and leaned against it with his arms folded, his lips firmly closed in a tight line, his eyes shining with an almost unearthly light. Hadji went round and round the box like a dog examining an unfamiliar object. He took one of the handles and lifted the box slightly to feel the weight. ‘Empty? Who sent it, Efendim?’
Nuri bey shrugged elaborately. ‘Where is Madame?’
‘It is Thursday, Efendim, she is at the hamam as usual.’
