Dearly Departed

by Hy Conrad

  The only one looking stressed was Peter Borg. His lanky frame had just loped down the stairs to the lobby, and despite his broad smile and warm greetings to everyone, he seemed eager to take Amy aside and share a few urgent words. Barbara would have been more curious, except that she was so tired from the walk and ravenously hungry.

  Sandwiches and snacks, they discovered, were still being served at the terrace bar, and yes, they could charge them to their room. Evan and Barbara settled in with their strong, sweet mint tea and waited at a mosaic table in the shade, listening to the gurgle of a marble fountain. A hundred years ago, Barbara mused, this pleasant oasis might have been a cozy little exercise yard for rapists and killers.

  The sandwiches arrived in short order—some kind of meat and eggplant. It was always eggplant. Why was that? Like a constant national sale on eggplant. They had just finished inspecting the sandwich contents when the Pepper-Sands, Herb and David, limped by on the far side of the exercise yard.

  “Hey there. How was the massage?” Evan called out with a friendly wave.

  Herb had been talking about a Turkish bath ever since New York. According to him, there was this straight, unbroken line between the baths of ancient Greece and the present-day hamams—from the Greeks to the Romans, who copied the Greek baths, then migrated to the eastern part of their empire in Constantinople. The Romans’ descendants, the Byzantines, handed off the tradition to the Turks, who conquered this city and changed its name and built these amazing bathhouses in the fourteen hundreds that were still operating in exactly the same way today. According to Herb’s theory, each generation of workers trained the next in the noble art of massage, so that a modern tourist could have approximately the same experience that Plato or Alexander the Great might have had on one of their days off. Herb found the prospect fascinating.

  “Don’t ask,” said David in a voice laden with pain. His golden-red hair looked unusually flat and thin, almost plastered against his head. “It was like wrestling.”

  Herb nodded and kept on limping. “They rub you—more like squeeze you—up and down your arms and legs, then stretch you and throw soap and almost drown you. And blind you with the soap. And all the while they’re talking incessantly about how big a tip you should give them.”

  “Not a sensual experience at all,” David said, loud enough for anyone to hear. “Not that we were looking for one. But we were expecting something pleasant. Or historical, at least.” He glared at Herb. “So much for your theory.”

  “The Greeks would never have put up with this,” said Herb. “And no one was even remotely cute,” which was his final, damning critique.

  Evan couldn’t repress a smirk. “Well, at least you’re clean.”

  “Right,” Herb said. “I’m going up to the room and taking a shower.”

  When the Corns finally got up to their own room, Evan had to pee again. Then they continued from where they’d left off at the bazaar.

  “You can’t change the plan,” Evan insisted. “Everything’s in place.”

  “What if we don’t disappear?”

  “Then our lives are ruined, and we go to jail.”

  Barbara hated when he said “we” instead of “I,” but she let it pass. “Peter said something the other night. He said MacGregor didn’t unwrap most of the things people gave her, that they all just sat in some closet forever. Unopened.”

  “Unopened?” Evan immediately knew. He knew the exact package she meant. “You’re kidding me. You’re saying she never opened it? It’s just sitting there in her damn closet? Right now?”

  “We can get it back. It’s worth a shot at least.”

  “So you’re saying she never opened it.”

  “I’m thinking no one’s going to open it. No one will ever know. It’ll just get thrown out. But if we can somehow get it back . . .”

  They stood there, side by side, looking out at their partial view of the Blue Mosque through their adequately sized window and doing some mental calculations.

  “This could solve our problem,” Evan whispered. “Are you sure it’s in there?”

  “Where else would it be? If you can somehow get it back— maybe volunteer to help clear out her apartment—it’ll give you some breathing room at least.”

  Evan hated it when she said “you” instead of “we.” “You’re the one who gave it to her in the first place,” he replied. “If you hadn’t given it to her in the first place . . .”

  “I know, dear. We’ve been through this a million times. I’m sorry.”

  “This means going back home and giving up our plan,” he said, half relieved, half regretful. “Our one chance to escape.”

  “You can always bomb a boat in the Long Island Sound.” She said it, not knowing if she was being serious or not.

  Evan took her seriously. “It’s easier done in Turkey, both the bombing and the disappearing.” He turned away. The sandwich was not settling well, and he suppressed a fragrant little burp. “I’m not going to prison. It doesn’t matter what. I can’t get caught.”

  “Honey, if this works out, we’ll have everything. Our old lives back. And no one will ever find out.”

  “What if it’s not there? We’ll be taking a risk.”

  “A risk? Bombing a boat and disappearing forever? That’s not a risk? Evan . . .” She took his large head between her hands, looked him in the eyes, and ignored the smell of eggplant on his ruddy face. “I don’t want to be on the run for the rest of my life. Let’s give it a shot. Please.”

  CHAPTER 11

  “What can we get that resembles human ashes? I never looked that close at them. If we buy some charcoal . . .”

  “No.” Amy had never examined Paisley MacGregor, either, not recently, but she felt sure the woman did not resemble lumps of charcoal. “Just ashes. Maybe a few bone chunks? I don’t know. Not charcoal.”

  “And where do you suggest we get ashes?” Peter Borg was trying to keep the panic out of his voice. “Other than buying a charcoal shop and burning it to the ground.”

  “Let’s make that Plan B.”

  Replacing Paisley’s urn, they’d thought, would be the tough part. But the original urn, purchased off the shelf at Frank E. Campbell’s, had been silver and fairly generic. Among the hundreds of silver shops in old Istanbul, it had been relatively easy—twenty minutes, no more—to find a passable substitute. Paisley herself was turning out to be more problematic.

  The disaster had started yesterday at the Istanbul airport. Peter had been stopped randomly and been asked to open his luggage. The silver urn, wrapped in a few protective layers of dirty underwear, drew the customs agent’s immediate attention. As Peter tried to explain and grew more nervous each second, the heavyset, scowling agent with the stained uniform grew more curious. Peter was then taken into a small back room. It was only by turning over his passport, Paisley MacGregor, and nine hundred dollars cash U.S., which he suspected he might never see again, that he managed to get away.

  Amy wondered how she might have handled such an emergency. Someone like Marcus might have been able to charm his way through. Someone like Fanny might have avoided blurting out that this powder was the remains of a maid who had financed a trip around the world for a troupe of rich New Yorkers. Someone like Marcus or Fanny wouldn’t have started sweating and mumbling like a drug addict in desperate need of a fix.

  Even someone like Amy, after being forced to leave the ash-filled urn at the airport for testing, might have figured out some solution on her own. Not Peter. He had gone catatonic for nearly a day, not sending as much as a heads-up text, for fear that she might misunderstand or accidentally spill the beans. So now the situation was even worse, with only a few hours to try to make things right.

  “We should just tell them,” Peter moaned. Suddenly Amy missed Marcus and her mother so much.

  “Really? Tell them the wake is on hold, that MacGregor is in Turkish custody, may never be released, and there’s nothing left of her to scatter, so they might as well
go home?”

  “When you use that tone, sure, anything sounds bad. It’s your fault.”

  “My fault?”

  “If you hadn’t stayed behind to babysit the Steinbergs, I wouldn’t have had to pack her myself. I told you I was no good with customs. Especially Turkey.” Peter held the new, empty urn, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, and pressed it to his chest.

  They were in the old city, a dozen blocks from the Four Seasons, on the outer edge of the tourist district, where the jewelry shops were gently giving way to copper shops, the rare bookshops giving way to secondhand bookshops. Only about once a minute did Amy have to wave away a peddler offering her a rug or an armful of watches, which was a vast improvement over the tourist district.

  “Can I be of some help?”

  He was a middle-aged man, large featured, with thin limbs and the hint of a potbelly. He could have been a local—a well-fed, Western-dressed, well-groomed local, the kind who came up and offered their services as a guide, only to wind up leading you to their cousin’s rug shop. She might, in fact, have already waved him off a dozen times without knowing it. Amy was halfway into the gesture: no eye contact, a polite but firm lift of the hand. But then the voice . . . He was American, tristate area, maybe Brooklyn. Not a tourist, she thought. The man exuded a confidence in his surroundings that said “ex-pat” or “businessman,” someone who might actually be able to deliver on the help he was offering.

  All of this went through her mind in those first seconds of hesitation, and the man took it as an invitation. “I noticed your confusion. Istanbul can be a rough town.”

  “You’re not a guide,” Amy said, with the hint of a smile that asked him not to take offense.

  “My name is Bill. Bill Strunk. Call me Billy.” He might have shaken hands, but his right hand was curled around a Turkish cigarette. His left was busy with a plastic shopping bag, full to the brim and probably heavy. “My wife’s birthday is tomorrow, and I had to pick up a few things. She loves this market.”

  “So you’re a local?” The smell of strong tobacco said yes; the accent said no.

  “For a few years now. Half retired. Dabbling in things here and there. Are you guys looking for—”

  “Where can we get some ashes?” The words shot out of Peter’s mouth, like the arm of a drowning man reaching for a lifeboat. “They don’t have to be human ashes, but the closer, the better. And if you can get some tiny bone fragments . . .”

  Billy might not have physically taken a step back, but it certainly felt that way.

  “No. Let me explain,” Peter stammered. “Sorry.” Then he started right in, trying to tell it all, the words cascading over each other, reaching even harder for that lifeboat.

  To Billy’s credit, he didn’t run. Instead, he put down his bag and listened. Amy noticed that his hands were shaking. Then she realized this was a medical condition, some sort of palsy, perhaps Parkinson’s.

  An amused twinkle spread lightly across Billy’s eyes, and she could see he believed them. It wasn’t the kind of story that anyone, even a suspected drug smuggler like Peter, would make up.

  “The customs officer was being a prick.”

  “Thank you,” said Peter.

  “If he suspected drugs, he wouldn’t have let you go. He just wanted the urn and your money.”

  “You see?” Peter nudged Amy. “It wasn’t my fault. Wait! What about my passport?”

  “You’ll get that back. But your maid is already down a toilet.”

  “A toilet?” Amy was shocked. “You think he just dumped her. No!” It seemed so sacrilegious.

  “I think so, yes.”

  “And he’s never going to return her?”

  “Why should he?”

  “Oh.”

  It sounded reasonable. But it had never occurred to her. Amy allowed herself a moment to grieve. Poor MacGregor. The woman had meticulously planned and taken comfort in this deathbed dream. She’d spent many thousands on making it happen, only to wind up floating in a Turkish sewer. Ah, well, at least she’d had Paris.

  “Sorry,” Billy said, taking another puff. “You know, I like meeting Americans. Reminds me of home. Sometimes I take them out for a mint tea, and we chat. Talk about the States. About life in Turkey. But you guys . . . I gotta say . . .”

  “You weren’t prepared for something this crazy. I understand.” Amy shrugged and pointed to his plastic bag. “You should get home for your wife’s birthday.”

  “No.” Billy stubbed out his cigarette, then raked a hand through his thinning black crew cut. “This is much more fun. Do you think chicken bone fragments will do?”

  Amy and Peter exchanged a look. “Maybe,” said Peter. “No one looks up close. It’s so solemn.”

  “Besides, what are they going to say? ‘Wrong ashes’? We just need something not too obviously fake. And it shouldn’t smell of chicken,” Amy added.

  Billy’s chuckle was throaty and warm. “My wife says Americans are dull and unimaginative.”

  “I wish,” Amy said with feeling.

  “My wife’s cousin has a kebab shop.” Billy pointed down the narrow and endless line of wooden storefronts, with their obstacle course of stalls pushed out into the street. “It’s not far from the Four Seasons. I’ll have you back in plenty of time.”

  “That’s very nice,” Amy said. “Thank you.”

  “No problem,” said Billy. And without wasting another second, he led the way, the two travel agents falling in line behind him. “You’ll like Theo. He grills the chicken and beef over a charcoal pit.”

  “Charcoal?” Peter asked.

  “It turns to ash. You’ll have all the ash you want. What shade of gray was your friend?”

  Peter thought as he dodged through the stalls and the tide of customers. “Actually, I think she’s kind of charcoal colored.”

  “Good,” Billy called back over his shoulder. “You’re in luck.”

  The Basketmakers’ Kiosk was technically part of the sprawling Topkapi Palace, home to sultans and their wives and concubines and eunuchs for over four hundred years. The building, Amy discovered that evening, was in no way a kiosk and had never had anything to do with basket makers. In fact, the only thing romantic about the four-story, monolithic structure was its quaint name—and the fact that it had been used historically as a pleasure palace, as if the sultan had needed another excuse for pleasure seeking, given all his wives and concubines and eunuchs waiting just up the hill.

  For this second leg of MacGregor’s wake, they had rented a restaurant/disco that had been carved out of one section of the kiosk’s ground floor, although they wound up not using the indoor space at all, except for the bar. Amy and Peter had arranged the linen-covered table and the silver spoons and MacGregor’s photo by the seawall, in a conveniently shadowy nook. The new urn and new ashes became little more than outlines in the growing sunset, which was exactly their plan.

  One by one, the mourners did their duty, stepping up to the far edge of Europe, saying a few somber words this time, and tossing spoonfuls of chicken charcoal out toward the Bosphorus and the soft, twinkling lights of Asia.

  Amy had been concerned that the ashes might still be warm, a difficult thing to explain, or that the smell of chicken might be in the air, an easier thing to explain here on the grounds of a restaurant. But the only hiccup occurred when Laila Steinberg mentioned offhandedly how, after two wakes, so much of Paisley MacGregor seemed to be left in the urn.

  “We’ll have to start doing two scoops from now on,” she said. Peter pretended to find this amusing.

  In the end, they seemed to have gotten away with it. Amy felt euphoric at having so deftly dodged a bullet, and more than a little sad. “Don’t you feel sad?” she asked Peter, seeking some confirmation of her muddled emotions. The two of them were sipping the mandatory champagne by the boat slip, far enough away from the best view and from the others to speak freely.

  “Not really,” said Peter. “When you break it all
down, it’s just symbolic. Even with real ashes, the funeral home gives you only a fraction of them. And a lot of that is the casket she was burned in. Memorials are for the living.”

  “You’re right,” Amy had to agree. “It’s the thought and the memories.”

  “And you were right not to tell them the truth.” Peter looked back at the figures silhouetted in the sunset’s last red glow. Their voices echoed off the waves, telling stories they’d already told a dozen times. He sipped again and smiled. “But a couple of chickens are getting one hell of a send-off.”

  When Amy laughed, the chilled champagne almost flew out of her nose.

  “And on that high note . . .” Peter checked his watch. “I gotta go. You’ll take care of getting the mourners back home?”

  “Sure. Where are you going?”

  “Billy wanted to get together for a drink. I think he’s homesick.”

  “And probably curious about our little group.”

  “It’s a curious group. Anyway, I certainly owe him a drink. Is that okay?”

  “Buy him one for me.”

  Amy walked Peter to the bottom of the stairs leading up to the street, then circled around the cobbled plaza, taking the long way back to the waterfront site. Evan and Barbara Corns were leaning on the railing, gazing out at a lone motorboat, little more than a pair of red and green lights making their way across to a new continent. And that, of course, reminded her. Amy caught their eye and joined them.

  “I hear you’re renting a boat tomorrow morning, which is totally doable,” she said. “Our flight isn’t until six fifteen in the evening, so—”

  “We canceled,” Barbara said quickly. “The water’s supposed to be choppy.”

  “Are you sure?” Amy had checked the forecast a few hours ago. Tomorrow was predicted to be another perfect, calm day.

  “We thought it over.” There was a note of true reluctance in Evan’s voice. “It seems a little risky.” He turned to his wife. “Don’t you think?”