by Joan Fleming
During his absence from the bird-room, Nuri bey found that Madame had piled a great heap of papers into a suitcase, the lid of which would not come down over them. Other suitcases lay about with a trail of finery tumbling from them. Hadji trailed in and out with a succession of baskets and carpet-bags containing bulky and clanking objects from the kitchen and, once again, Nuri bey had to get angry. Finally, though even in extremis Madame did not divulge that she could not read, she asked Nuri bey to pick out the relevant papers and stow the rest away ‘in safety, where I shall find them on my return’.
Nuri bey had no watch, he told the time instinctively, helped by the sun, moon and stars, to within a few minutes. He knew that, though the chaos in the yali had increased a hundred-fold since his return, the time left them had shrunk and was shrinking rapidly.
In order to get Madame to make the final preparation of wearing suitable clothes for a week’s sea voyage, Nuri bey had to pretend to compromise about the amount of luggage they might take and, helping them to close them, banked up a heap of miscellaneous carriers and cases beside the door to the water steps. It was a real achievement to get them both assembled in the bird-room at what Nuri bey judged to be a quarter of an hour before time. He looked them over. Madame had changed into her smart black coat, over which she clung to her mink wrap. A huge crocodile handbag hung from her arm and she wore her best handmade crocodile shoes and a silk scarf round her head and tied under her chin.
‘Nothing can be done without money,’ Nuri bey said. ‘Let me have the money for the boatman, it must be given to him before you climb on board.’ With a quick comprehensive look at Hadji, Madame fumbled in her handbag and brought out Turkish notes of the amount Nuri bey required. He told them that, as they climbed on board the schooner, a sum of money five times the amount of what he now held, was to be given to the captain, otherwise they would have to return to the yali. That, too, was understood. And finally, Nuri bey said, his sister must be well paid for her room; he would telephone to her as soon as he knew they were well on the way, and would arrange the payment with her for Madame’s keep.
‘Furthermore,’ Nuri bey went on, ‘there is a time to keep silent and a time to speak, and now is the time to speak. If I have helped you, you must help me by telling me what happened.’
Madame was sitting on the love-seat, looking worn out. She said nothing. Hadji, who was wearing a leather satchel with a strap round his shoulder and a torn plastic mackintosh, allowed his eyes to slip away from Nuri bey’s.
Nuri felt tired, exhausted with the awful frustration of it all. He wanted to shake the information out of them and yet, if he were to do so, he had no guarantee that what they would tell him would be true. He went across to the window, looking out at the black, rushing water a few feet away. When the time came they were going to be frightened; it would not be easy to get them to clamber and scramble into a madly rocking boat, tugged from before by the boatman and pushed from behind by Nuri bey. It was a terrifying rush of water on a summer’s day; at night it was so frightening that it might well petrify them into refusing to leave. If that happened, Nuri bey decided, he would walk out and leave them to it. If Madame Bassompierre were true to herself she would also be true to him.
As he stared out across the water, Nuri bey realized that it was not totally dark; he could make out against the paler north-west sky, the dark form of the schooner, rigged fore and aft, drawn wonderfully near, riding the current with prow high, northward pointing. He smiled with pure delight at the success of his scheme. The skipper had been well paid; even if, at the last moment, the old people refused to leave, as well they might, nothing would be lost. He would signal to the ship and it would sail away without them. Later they would sail away in the other direction, down to the prison on an island in the Sea of Marmora; a pleasanter journey but a more final one.
As he stood thinking these things and watching for the little boat to come chugging along the water’s edge, he was aware of a disturbance in the room behind him. He had nagged, chivvied, scolded, ordered, organized and manipulated long enough, he was tired of it. Whatever it was they were doing, it didn’t matter. They would go without anything but what Nuri bey threw into the boat after them, or they would certainly capsize the ill-balanced craft which was to take them to the ship.
He heard the blessed sound of the engine before he saw the boat and within a minute it was slipping past, to circle round and try again.
‘Come,’ he said, and turning round to the room lighted only by the two tiny oil flames, he saw the full enormity of what they were doing. From cage after cage Hadji was catching the birds and thrusting them into a smaller cage, but even the small cage was by no means tiny. ‘You can’t take that!’ he cried sharply.
Far from not taking it, Miasma said, they could not go without it. How could she possibly leave her birds? Who would look after them? With Hadji holding one end and she the other, they staggered past him bearing the wire-fronted cage which now contained some fifty frantic birds, disturbed from their sleep and in a major panic.
A time for reason and a time for nonsense, Nuri bey thought, opening the french windows and letting them totter out to the top of the water steps. After they had gone, he would push the whole cage into the Bosphorus and let it bubble to destruction; he had never believed with his countrymen that birds were sacred.
Now the engine of the boat had been stopped and the boatman was bringing it closer by the use of his oars. Closer, closer and, finally, he threw the rope which Nuri bey missed because he could not see it, but what he could see was the green light, from the deck of the schooner, slowly being waved to left and to right.
They would have to have some light, and now that they were nearly gone, Nuri bey realized he must take the risk of turning on the lights of the bird-room and of Madame’s bedroom above, which would help the whole operation immeasurably. He sped upstairs and the light from the windows sprang out across the stretch of water in front of the yali, almost as far as the dark shadow of the schooner, waiting off shore. The bird-room light, too, added to the splendidly illuminating beam but, as he hurried back to the water steps, Nuri bey saw that Madame and Hadji had, with incredible speed, thrown into the boat at least half the pile of baggage and now, at the water’s edge, he heard a furious argument taking place with the boatman and much hissing reference to the money he would be given if he were to allow the bird cage to top the rest of the baggage in the already laden bows. The boatman was lying face downwards as he clung to the old mooring-ring to which the caiques had always tied, the prow was swinging away and round in a great circle. Nuri bey, crouching, used immense strength to force the boat back parallel with the steps.
‘Get in,’ he cried, and taking Madame by the waist he lifted her and almost threw her into the seat which the boatman had prepared. Hadji cowered against the steps but Nuri bey picked him up and cast him less gently aboard after Madame. Both of them shrieked and moaned and lamented loudly and the boatman swore that he could not manage the bird-cage.
‘Throw it in,’ Nuri bey told him, ‘the old woman is half mad. Here is your money, I have got you double what you asked.’
It was clear that the boat was considerably overloaded but, persuaded by the ghoulish threats of what would happen to him if he did not leave the bird-cage where it was, the boatman conceded; the boat immediately swung away downstream briskly and there was no time even to start up the engine. The boatman snatched the oars and got the unwieldy little craft under control but, though he was working with superhuman effort and using immense strength, they were making no visible progress towards the waiting ship.
‘Throw the luggage away,’ Nuri bey shouted. ‘Lighten your load! Quickly, you will sink! Throw it away!’ The boatman was now at least holding his own against the stream but it was impossible for him to cease his effort even for a moment. A wave, backwash from the schooner, caused the boat to rock and Miasma, with a more piercing shriek than any that had gone before, lurched forward to steady h
er swaying bird-cage.
Unsuccessfully, as it happened. What had been normal swaying of a small overladen boat ceased to be a sway. A pendulum always swings back, unless it is held. And, as a pendulum is held, so was the boat held so that it did not rock back but stayed in mid-rock, held by the ill-balance of Miasma, the bird-cage and the rest of the luggage which had lurched to one side. It had to go one way or the other; for a terribly long second it was undecided whether to resume its rock or go over altogether and over it went and, as it went, Nuri bey, eyes fixed upon the scene, took off his jacket, and threw it behind him. He slipped off his braces and stepped out of his trousers, removed his shirt, vest and pants, and not once did his eyes move from what he saw.
Whilst limbering up he could not see what the exact position was and he would not dive in until he could see who was where. He felt, rippling through him in splendid waves, that immense physical power (from the Circassian youth who had grown immensely tall through being breastfed by a series of wet nurses till he was ten) and an almost pleasurable anticipation of bottomless water and a life and death struggle with vicious currents.
There was a deathly silence. The boatman was the first to come out from under. He had no thought for his passengers but struck out at once, downstream, and that was the last Nuri bey saw of him. The boat stayed keel upwards for a few moments, also drifting downstream and then, with a gulp, vanished as first one, then two heads appeared. Nuri bey could barely make out which was which, but he was in no doubt when the screaming started.
‘Nuri, Nuri, save me!’ and then a ghastly bubbling, water-choked noise. And from Hadji … nothing … no sound.
‘My lion—my lion …’ And still no sound from Hadji, who might have been making some attempt to swim. Then silence again. She had disappeared.
‘Hold on, Hadji, I am coming,’ Nuri bey shouted and at once clove the water in a beautiful scimitar-shaped dive.
But suddenly, there was Miasma again, like a bobbed-up cork. ‘Nuri … Nuri … save me … I want to live … help! …’
If one can truly be said to think whole thoughts in such a position, Nuri bey thought: ‘Which shall I save? I clearly cannot manage both. Which shall it be?’
As he got nearer to them, with great strong overarm strokes, she went down once more but incredibly soon was up again and shouting: ‘My lion … save me … save me … my lion!’
Afterwards he told himself that he had thought coherent thoughts. He thought he thought: I will not save her; she had no mercy on others, I will have no mercy on her. But in fact it was not thought but instinct which turned him from her to Hadji. He caught hold of the strong strap which Hadji had round his shoulder and pulled.
‘Lie on your back and keep still, old man!’ He set off for the shore.
The Bosphorus did not want to leave go, it caught at his legs and pulled, it tore at his shoulders, it pushed him bodily away from the shore. It was hungry and it fed on human beings. It pulled and tugged; it beat and kicked and even when, exhausted, Nuri bey grabbed for the rusty ring and pulled himself on to the bottom step, it snatched at Hadji and tried to get away at least one tough mortal.
‘I want to live … save me … to live … save …’ And between each cry the hideous, soft, bubbling, gasping sound of someone drowning.
If there had been time he might have gone back for her then, half dead though she was, with lungs already water-logged and only the will to live left. But Hadji had to be pulled from the water; and once out he was not like a drowned rat but as heavy as a sackful of drowned beavers. By the time he was dragged up the steps far enough not to slip back and vomiting water on to the marble, it was too late.
She had gone down for the last time, and there was nothing more to be seen and nothing to be heard but the gentle sound of the dark water as it hissed past.
CHAPTER 23
He dragged the miserable, sodden bundle of human being into the bird-room and left him lying face downwards on the floor whilst he went upstairs to put out the bedroom light. Back in the bird-room, he switched the light on and off five times but there was no time to stand on the water steps watching the schooner sail away; it was the creature on the floor to whom attention must be paid. If anyone could ever be said to be in a frenzy of grief, it was Hadji; he beat the floor with his fists and banged his head repeatedly against the marble tiles; froth poured from his mouth and he howled like a dog. He was beside himself. Nuri bey handled him as he would a sick child, stripping the wet clothes from him and wrapping him in a blanket from Miasma’s bed. He left him on the love-seat and, taking one of the Aladdin-lamps, he went in search of alcohol, returning with a bottle of raki, some of the contents of which he poured down Hadji’s madly resisting throat and some down his own.
Thoughtfully he put on his clothes and it was as though he could still hear and would continue to hear all the rest of his life, that dreadful choking cry: I want to live! He was stunned with awe at the fitness of her end: that she should die as she had caused Valance to die! It was as though the hand of Allah had been seen actually to move and Nuri bey was struck with reverential fear at what he had witnessed.
There was an eerie silence in the bird-room which he always associated with sound from the birds. The fronts of the cages hung open, the room seemed vast and empty in the light of the two small lamps. Shuddering with sudden chill, he closed the french windows and went back to Hadji, who was calmer but still whimpering.
Exhausted by the immense physical feat he had accomplished, Nuri bey, slumped uncomfortably beside Hadji on the love-seat, fell suddenly into a deep sleep. He woke as dawn was breaking and he could hear, faintly, the muezzin’s cry to prayer. He expected Hadji to fall to his knees and looked at the old man, sitting with his chin sunk into the blanket in which he was wrapped, making no movement. Had he died of shock from immersion? Nuri bey shook his arm. ‘Are you all right, old man?’
‘It is I who should be dead, Efendim, drowned. Not she. You saved the wrong one, it is I who should have drowned.’
‘Say not so,’ Nuri bey returned sharply. Five hours earlier had been the time to speak. Now was the time to keep silence. What had happened had been a fit and tidy ending to what had begun exactly a week ago to the hour. It was meet and right and proper; the wheel had turned full circle and the circle was rounded off as only Allah could make a circle.
In the grey dawn-light, as the lamps flickered and went out, the yellow, monkey-faced neuter, neither male nor female, was not keeping a fit and proper silence but was talking.
Said Hadji: when men were castrated they did not, of necessity, lose their desires as men; in fact, it could happen that they fall in love and, because they were without effective pistils and stamens, that love had no natural outlet but could burn them up, scorch and damage them to such an extent that they could become tiny spiritual monsters. Such a one had he become because he had loved the girl attendant in the hamam, called Miasma, daughter of a gipsy and later a member of the harem of the last Grand Turk, not an ikbal, but one whom the Sultan never even saw!
Nuri bey shook his arm. ‘Sh … sh! This is the time to keep silence, you will be sorry if you tell me any more!’
Said Hadji: all these years he had loved only her, not any other person, nor idea, nor possession, nor object, but only Miasma. All these years he had taken from her all the money he could get her to give him and for what? To keep them both in their old age because Miasma was the most spendthrift, extravagant and wasteful girl ever to toss her black hair at prudence.
‘Sh … sh!’ Nuri bey hissed, ‘these are the secrets of your heart. It is the time for silence, old man!’
Said Hadji: she loved all things of no real value, clothes, jewels, furs, scent, rich food. She spent and spent. And so it was necessary for her to make money and the only way she could make a lot of money easily was to join the drug traffickers. He knew it would lead her to disaster but, so long as only she and he knew, he could protect her. It was only when Valance’s grandson got himself i
nto trouble and Valance told her what he had been doing that she said Tony Grand must work for her. Hadji knew no good would come of it but Valance was weak, she was also greedy and loved money. She was afraid Miasma might one day no longer be able to afford to keep her. She allowed it. And that is what has led us to disaster. Hadji had been warned that the police were tightening up their investigations into drug traffic. Last Monday Valance had to go to the airport with the drug. The day before she told Miasma that it would be the last time, that she would warn her grandson that he must not do it again, either for them or for anyone else, and that, if he did not obey her, she would send his name in to the security police as one of those who carried drugs in the course of duty as steward in Zenobia Airways. There was a terrible row; Miasma and Valance would often quarrel and last Sunday evening was the worst Hadji had ever known. Afterwards when Valance was standing out alone at the top of the water steps, sulking, he went up behind her and pushed her in. It was all for the best.
Nuri bey gasped: ‘And did Miasma know?’
Hadji shook his head emphatically.
Nuri bey still thought it was the time for silence but now he had to hear the rest: ‘Go on,’ he urged.
Said Hadji: on the Monday evening, Valance’s body, wrapped in the winding cloth, was left on the bier beside the front door covered with the pale green cloth of death.
The bey Efendi had obliged Miasma by going to the airport. Around midnight Tony Grand had come, no longer the loving grandson but a desperate hunted gangster. Miasma had been in bed. Hadji also, but he had got up to open the front door and the young man had rushed in, demanding to be hidden. Hadji had told him that his grandmother was dead, and pointed to her body, ready for burial after sunrise, but young Grand had said he must stay and be given shelter and, when Hadji had strongly objected, he had threatened him with his revolver.
