The Love of Stones

by Tobias Hill

  ‘Stones.’

  Her stare remains blank, the whites of the eyes discoloured yellow.

  I try again. ‘Precious stones. Ismet Atsür recommended you. The jeweller. I’d like to talk to someone–’

  She points to a row of chairs. ‘Wait, please.’

  I go over to the seats. The leather creaks under my weight. There are papers on a low glass table, yesterday’s Herald Tribune and some Turkish gossip magazines. The front page of the Tribune covers an air crash. A Swissair flight, Washington to Geneva. Two hundred and eighty deaths. Two top UN officials. The article also reports that there was a historical diamond on board, en route home from an exhibition at the Smithsonian Institute. I try and think which stone it could be, that would be returned to Geneva.

  I stop myself. The tragedy is the loss of human life, of course. Two hundred and eighty people. Not the stone.

  Even so.

  A small man comes in and starts to talk with the receptionist, leaning forward across the counter. She answers wearily, shaking her head. I look at the portrait above them. Not interested, now. Killing time until the receptionist tells me I can go, that I can’t be seen today. As if I am invisible.

  Under the painting a title plaque reads: Mr Araf, President of Golden Horn, in three languages. President Araf is wearing a brown suit that makes me think of military men. His hands are folded low across his chest, fingers clasped above the elbows. His hair is black and remarkably thick and it has the flat uniformity of a toupee.

  I look closer. On the owner’s right hand are two rings, expensive and vulgar. One is set with a red gem, cut cabochon. The other is blistered with rows of jewels in the style of Constantine Bulgari: rubies set together invisibly, like tiles in a bathroom.

  The third ring is on Araf’s left hand, the little finger, also called the toucher. It is thick gold, granulated in whorls, with a flat blue signet. Something is carved into the stone, a suggestion of humanoid figures. I push myself out of the low chair and go nearer.

  The man doesn’t interest me. It is the jewellery. The third ring looks medieval, fifth century, perhaps English. The signet looks like blue jasper or jade and it is older, late Roman. The man looks like a collector of jewels, a buyer with more money than taste; and the third ring looks like a black-market antiquity. It is something a collector could buy at a major auction, but only if he wanted to compete with national museums. It is the kind of work, perhaps, that one could purchase from Ismet the marketeer.

  Lucky Katharine, I think, although it is the smallest of connections, nothing to be proud of. It is evidence of desire, of a shared field of experience and emotion. The man in the painting knows about more than just shipping. I stand under his image and feel a sensation of motion, unexpected and vertiginous. It leaves me dizzy and I look away.

  The small man has gone. The receptionist is examining me. I walk back over to the desk. ‘I’d like to talk to Mister Araf.’

  ‘You have no appointment.’

  ‘I was hoping to make one.’

  She purses her lips. The movement takes the place of a smile, an expression of satisfaction. ‘I’m sorry. To make an appointment you will have to talk to President Araf.’

  As far as I can tell, I keep the frustration out of my voice. ‘You said I need an appointment to talk to him.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I look out through the entrance doors. Across the road are other cargo firms, the wooden slats of a work site. A café bar with plastic tables outside, a window opaque with net curtains and condensation.

  ‘Miss? You will need to speak with President Araf.’

  I look back into her yellow eyes. ‘Thanks for your time.’ She nods very slightly. The guards are looking our way now. I walk out into the last heat of the day. There is more traffic now than at four-thirty. A row of scooters and a taxi-cab are parked by the café bar. Two old men are sitting at one of the tables, playing backgammon. They snap at one another and drink raki alcohol, milky with iced water. Between drinks they slap the backgammon pieces down hard and swear in whispers.

  I go past them into the café. The air smells of cooking oil. There are plenty of customers, drinking apple tea or Efes beer. A woman with hennaed hair and thinned lips is wiping down the chrome counter with a rag. I order a tea from her and take it over to a seat by the window.

  I raise the net curtain and look out towards Golden Horn Shipping and Air Corporation. The entrance is clear from here. I can watch but not be watched. It is not an unpleasant sensation. The tea is good. I sip it steadily, feeling its hot fog on the Duralex glass. At the next table a man is eating a doughnut in syrup, wiping up the residue. His face is set in a permanent frown. On the table beside him are a Galatasaray football club programme and two Renault car keys on a Ferrari keyring. They match the taxicab outside. I lean over. Not too close.

  ‘Excuse me. Excuse me, please.’

  He looks round. His eyes are hard, dark, like bruises. I point through the net curtains at the car parked outside. ‘Is that your taxi?’

  He lowers his head in a half-nod. I try to put together the Turkish for what I want. The man watches me, effortlessly chewing, until I fall back on English. ‘I need a taxi. From now until about seven o’clock. I can pay.’

  There is a soft sheen of syrup on his lips. I get a pen out of my jacket and lean across the table for his football programme. He stops chewing. I write: Taxi 17.30-19.30?, and smile. As if it might help, and perhaps it does.

  ‘Thirty dollars.’ His voice is guttural with syrup and dough. I get out the money and he folds it away into hop-sack trousers. ‘Where do we go?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  He nods again, swallows the last of the pastry and goes to the counter. When he comes back he has coffee and baclava for both of us. I try and thank him and he grunts dismissively, going back to the football programme. Turning over the page I have defaced.

  I go back to watching the window. No one at Golden Shipping clocks off early. At six-fifteen the driver gets up for more food. When I look back again, two men in blue nylon suits are coming out of the shipping building. Neither of them looks like President Araf. They drive away in their company cars, blaring their horns at the gate.

  At five past seven the old men outside finish their backgammon. There is still no sign of Araf. My driver is beginning to pity me, I think. He talks to the woman with the hennaed hair and she brings me over coffee laced with rosewater. It’s dark outside now, and there is only one car left in the lot. From here it looks executive. I can only see two lights on in the building. At least one of them marks the security guards.

  President Araf comes out abruptly, walking fast. There is a briefcase and a leather document file under his arm and he is searching in his suitcoat. He doesn’t look up as he goes towards the car.

  ‘There he is–’ I turn to the taxi driver. ‘There. Now.’

  Already he is folding the newspaper away and heaving himself out of his chair. He moves with the short bursts of a fat man, all muscle and effort. At the door he raises a hand to the owner and the last customers, then we are outside. The only car in sight is a pair of red tail-lights, heading inland.

  We get into the taxi. The meter comes on and the driver turns it off and starts the engine. The car smells of Turkish flatbread pizza and imitation leather. The driver is breathing hard, short outward puffs, boh, boh.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ He turns the car north in a single movement, without needing to repoint. He drives beautifully. By the time we reach Karaköy Road the Mercedes is clear ahead of us, street lights rippling across its back. The Galata Tower looms up, its observation platform lit against the deep rose of the urban sky.

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Katharine.’ My voice comes out harder than I mean it to. The driver nods.

  ‘Everyone asks you, of course. It is the Turkish way. To be friendly.’

  He is still breathing fast. I take my eyes off the Mercedes for a second to look a
t him. There is sweat on his upper lip. ‘I’m sorry. What’s your name?’

  ‘Asian.’ He takes one hand off the wheel to shake mine. His eyes don’t leave the road. ‘Your friend. Do you want to meet him sooner or later?’

  ‘Wherever he stops. Thanks.’

  He goes quiet. I look out. Around us is Istanbul at night, hills of light dissected by the dark lines of water. Seas, straits, estuaries. The car dips down. Under a flyover are dozens of bicycle shops. Their racers hung overhead in torchlit rows, like sides of meat.

  We turn up Independence Avenue. Ahead of us, the Mercedes is all polished speed, pedestrians parting around it. It isn’t far to Taksim Square. Ahead are the high-rise hotels, a glitter of lights and glass.

  A block before the square the Mercedes turns right, and by the time we round the corner into the side street it has already parked. The taxi driver passes it without a pause, pulling in at the far end of the street.

  As I look back Araf is turning away from the car. The file and case are under one arm, the suitcoat and jacket over his shoulder. Without their fine cuts his physique is clearer, the broad chest matching his belly. There is a red neon sign on the building nearest him. He descends down basement steps.

  ‘Restaurant,’ says Asian the driver. He reaches up behind the mirror and takes out another football programme and a miniature packet of Oreos. ‘Expensive. Good fish.’

  ‘Thanks. I owe you some extra.’

  He shakes his head, starts to read.

  ‘Thanks, really. How long will you stay here?’

  He looks around the street. ‘I already made some money. If you like, Katharine, I will be here for maybe an hour.’ For the first time he smiles at me. It softens his face, sweetens it.

  I walk back to the restaurant. The basement steps lead down to an open door, a cloakroom attendant playing a mobile phone computer game, a curtain of red velveteen half-open to a long dining hall. The attendant doesn’t look up at me as I go through. The tables are set back into individual booths, upholstered in burgundy plastic leather. It looks expensive and vulgar, like Araf’s rings.

  There are waiters serving at two of the tables and I walk up the aisle behind them. In the fourth booth on the left is the President of Golden Horn Shipping and Air. A menu is still closed on the table, as if he has just ordered. He is leant forwards, lighting a cigar. Opposite him sits a girl in a white summer dress. She has dark eyes, the skin of a sixteen-year-old, dark hair with a large white bow. She has a fixed, absent smile, as if someone has just told her a joke she doesn’t understand.

  ‘Mister Araf?’

  He glances up. The girl turns her head on its Audrey Hepburn neck. In person, Araf has a jerky energy which his portrait painter didn’t capture. The document file is on the seat beside him, but not the briefcase or suitcoat. I wonder what kind of work it is, that a man like this takes home at night and keeps so close.

  He is wearing cufflinks made of gold krugerrands. If he was twenty years younger he would look like a drugs dealer. He clicks his lighter shut and pulls the cigar out of his mouth. ‘I don’t know you.’

  ‘I don’t mean to interrupt your evening–’

  He shouts past me. I look round and two waiters are coming. One has eight plates balanced in his arms. The other is larger and his hands are free. I take the rubies out and put them down on the white table.

  Everyone slows down. There is a space of seconds while they all look at the jewels. The foodless waiter says something and Araf waves him away with the cigar. They unload the plates and go. The girl in the white dress tries to pick up one of the stones. Araf slaps her hand back and she tuts at him. The jewels glitter between the plates of doner kebap and oil-baked aubergine. The President looks at me sideways. ‘What are these supposed to be?’

  ‘Rubies.’

  ‘And what am I supposed to do about them?’

  ‘Talk to me.’

  The girl turns her heart-shaped face up to me. ‘I can speak English too. Very good. What is your name?’

  ‘Leyla, go to the bathroom.’

  She whines. ‘I don’t want to.’

  Araf leans across the table. ‘Five minutes, my love. Why don’t you go and brush your teeth?’

  ‘I don’t want to. I want candy.’

  He hisses with impatience. From his jacket he takes a leather billfold, extracts an excess of notes and waves them at Leyla. A scrap of paper falls out, landing delicately on the crowded table.

  There is a sulky sneer on the girl’s face. Now it develops into a smile. She takes the money, gets up and walks past me, not looking back. Araf motions me into the booth. The plastic is hot where Leyla was sitting. He watches her go. ‘Lovely, isn’t she? You know what the Italians say?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She still smells of milk.’ He grins. Wrinkles his nose. ‘I hope I don’t disgust you.’

  ‘I’m not interested in you.’

  For a moment he looks surprised. It isn’t the kind of thing men like him hear. It knocks the wind out of him and I’m glad of the space. He looks down at his food. ‘So you want to talk. I’m listening.’

  ‘You own a freight company. What do you transport?’

  ‘Golden Horn Shipping?’ He starts to eat, hacking into the kebap. ‘Whatever we are paid for. Fish, cash, old rope.’

  ‘Black-market jewels.’

  He stops eating and watches me. His eyes are rapid, with the same energy as his body. ‘You don’t look like police,’ he says. ‘Are you tax?’

  I shake my head. He shrugs. It’s no great secret anyway. I would be lying if I said we have never freighted jewellery.’ He picks up the scrap of paper. It is a ticket, black numerals on chemical blue. He turns it in his fingers, absently, as he talks; 68. 89. 68. ‘It is good business. Clean business. There are worse things. Do you have a special cargo in mind?’

  ‘I’m looking for an old jewel. Something called the Three Brethren.’

  ‘Three what?’ 68. 89.

  ‘Brethren. Brothers.’

  Three Brothers.’ Araf furrows his brow, but his eyes are wandering, down the aisle after the girl. ‘I know the name. Remind me.’

  ‘It’s a kind of clasp. Medieval. From Burgundy.’

  Interest sparks in his face. He puts down the ticket and points at me, at his carafe of wine. ‘Sure. You want a glass?’

  ‘No. listen.’ I take a breath. Keeping my calm. ‘I want this jewel. Very much.’

  ‘How much very much?’

  This is seventeen hundred dollars.’ I touch the largest ruby. ‘If you can stand me for a few more minutes, it’s yours.’

  He considers it. There is a line of sweat along the President’s lip where he shaved this morning. I catch a whiff of it, a smell like mustard, sweet and acrid. Given the heat he sweats very little. For a second I think he is going to call the waiters back. The money is just enough to stop him. He relights the cigar. ‘Four minutes.’

  The Three Brethren. The name comes from its three rubies, but it was also set with a diamond and several pearls. Two hundred and ninety carats between eight jewels. It became a crown jewel of England. Tavernier had the three rubies from it when he died.’

  Araf’s face clears and he eats again. I watch him spoon aubergine over his prominent lips. ‘Okay. I’ve heard of it.’ Eventually he cleans his mouth. ‘Let me tell you a secret,’ he says. ‘I like jewels.’ He winks. Eats. Now he is all friendliness and complicity. ‘I follow the market. What gets bought and sold. All the markets, open, not so open, very not open. I’ve been doing this for thirty years. And I have never seen a jewel like this, bought or sold. A medieval piece this big, no. Nothing like it. You should listen to your Uncle Araf, because I know what I’m talking about. You’re on a wild ghost chase.’

  He starts on a plate of minced lamb flatbreads. I watch him roll them up and drown them in lemon and stuff them into his mouth. ‘The Middleham Jewel,’ I say, and he almost chokes up. He grunts and swallows.

  ‘Ng?’

>   ‘The Middleham Jewel was found in England fifteen years ago. It was late fifteenth century and in good condition. Sockets suggesting missing pearls. A central sapphire engraved on the front and back. Sotheby’s auctioned it a year or two after it was found.’

  ‘For how much?’

  ‘One point three million.’

  ‘Pounds? Sterling?’

  I nod.

  ‘Sure, but that was the eighties, you know? Heh.’ I wait again while he pretends not to be interested. ‘This Brothers. Tell me about its stones.’

  ‘There are three balas rubies, each seventy carats. A thirty-carat diamond. Four large pearls.’

  ‘How large?’

  ‘Large. Ten to eighteen carats. Good baroque forms.’

  ‘What date exactly?’

  ‘Early fifteenth century, first decade.’

  ‘Mm.’ Al Araf puts down his fork. ‘You think it still exists? Why?’

  I don’t answer. He chews thoughtfully. ‘Pearls. Well, now that you mention it, I have one customer. In Turkey, but not Turkish – a bit cold for my liking – a north European, you know? You are American, yes? English? My apologies. My condolences. This customer, she loves pearls. The older the better. I’ve seen her buy only antiquities, always the best. Her family have been rich for centuries. If anyone knows, I think she would be the one. You know, I used to take lessons from an English girl like you.’

  ‘Really.’ The seat is becoming damp with sweat.

  ‘Really.’ He nods. ‘Apple and pears stairs. Trouble and strife. You see? Now I wonder if you are causing me trouble and strife.’

  ‘All I want is information.’

  ‘And information takes time. I have a company to run and many bills to pay and more children than I like to remember. Now, Turkey is a big place – great as three, maybe four of your Great Britains. But I’ll tell you where she is, for a cut. One per cent. One per cent of that in advance.’

  ‘I have no interest in selling the jewel.’

  ‘No interest?’ The President laughs. It makes him ugly. ‘All this shit you are giving me. I listen to you, I get shit from every angle. You want the jewel, you want money. What’s the difference? You want to wear it? Either way, I want my cut. How much would a thing like that be worth?’