by A. L. Duncan
Their eyes met and they melted into each other, until Ilene turned away. “I have to admit,” she confessed, “I feel like a schoolgirl with you.”
“Is that such a crime?”
“No. But loving you is.”
She stopped and met Janie’s gaze somberly, the two knowing the full impact of that truth.
A coffee salesman distracted them from their thoughts by offering them a cup from the brass cask that was strapped around his neck as if it were a musical instrument.
Janie lit a cigarette before nodding. “Evet.” She turned to Ilene. “Care for a cup?”
“Yes, please,” Ilene replied. “Wonderful idea.”
Janie held up two fingers. “Iki, lutfen.”
“What did you just say to him?”
“I said ‘two, please’.”
“How on earth did you acquire the Turkish language?”
“Oh, only what little I picked up from that brochure you saw me reading on the train.”
Ilene accepted the cup blindly. “That’s extraordinary. You mean to tell me you picked up all those words, just like that?”
Janie handed the man two coins. “A quick study. A seldom used skill in my life, until recently.” She rested a hand on the small of Ilene’s back. “Come on. Let’s go shopping.”
The secondhand bookshop was a space crammed with literary treasures, intrigues, and historical collections on every subject imaginable.
“Why don’t we take a look around,” Janie suggested.
Janie passed prints and rolls of old maps before coming to the monkey cage that Sam had told her to locate. A small, brown tufted monkey chattered and chirped as it watched her. As Sam had instructed, she eased the book out of her coat pocket and set it on the table in front of the cage. The monkey smiled and clapped as she set the book down.
“Shh,” Janie whispered.
The monkey squeaked and put its hands over its mouth.
As soon as she had walked away, the monkey unlatched the door and stepped out of the cage. After peeking around the store, it snatched up the book and carried it off into a little corner nook where a young man with a dark beard and red cloth cap laughed at its antics. Janie was close enough to hear him speak Hebrew to his little friend. He was a jolly man, obviously very tickled to have such an entertaining companion. He mumbled a few words, exchanging the book for a fig and a peanut. While the monkey ate its snack, the man set another book before him. With full mouth, the monkey blew him a kiss, swiped the book into its arms and dashed back to its cage.
By the time Janie and Ilene had walked back to the front of the store, the monkey had placed the book in front of the cage, climbed back inside, and latched the door. It now sat with arms crossed over its little chest and looked around as if nothing happened. Janie eyed the monkey as she reached for the book. It quickly turned its head away. She suppressed a laugh as she slipped the book into her pocket. As the monkey turned an eye back to her, she winked. It responded with a smile full of crooked teeth.
“Oh, how adorable.” Ilene eyed the little monkey. “Such a tiny little creature.”
“Smart, too.”
The monkey squealed, as if in agreement.
Janie, once in a while would look over her shoulder. She couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. “So,” she asked, “what did you find?”
“For years, Oliver has boasted about his knowledge of the Greek language. So I thought I’d buy him an ancient Greek religious text with the writings of Plato’s Republic.”
Janie frowned. “You’re too kind.”
Ilene grinned. “Not really. It’s supposed to be a Greek text. Its introduction is Greek, but the contents are in Armenian.”
“That’s evil,” Janie laughed. “I love it.”
They finished the afternoon with a visit to a Hamam, a Turkish bath. The hot room opened into a large chamber with pillars and arches underneath a blue dome with stars and hexagonal holes to let in the light.
Janie and Ilene lay upon large belly stones, Ilene gazing up to the dome while Janie was on her stomach, a bath attendant massaging her lower back and legs. The faint chant of a muezzin in a nearby mosque could be heard calling all to prayer.
The distant voice seemed to soothe the rising steam with its vague, mysterious song.
“Oh, how absolutely enchanting.” Ilene sighed. “Do you hear that?”
“Hmm.” Janie was more absorbed in her massage than in whatever sounds were to be heard.
“This was a wonderful idea. Did you know the Turkish believe this hot oil massage is a medicine given them by heavenly means?”
“Hmm.”
“Yes.” Ilene breathed in the damp heat and emitted another sigh. “It is a balm that cures the body and soul.”
“We’d have to be here a while for it to do any good for me.”
Ilene laughed. “Oh, you. How are those ribs healing, by the way?”
Janie shrugged. “Slowly.”
“I have to agree with Dr. Collier. You were quite lucky. Don’t ever do that to me again.”
Janie leaned up on her elbows as the bath attendant moved over to Ilene. “You? I’m the one with the broken ribs.”
“I don’t know what I would have done had I lost the both of you. Sheer rock. Treacherous waters that can turn a ship into...” She stopped. “Carolyn?”
“Huh?”
“Why have you never asked me about Richard?”
Janie stared at her for a moment before answering. “I didn’t think you would be comfortable talking about him. Besides, I’ve always been a believer in the past staying in the past. I live for the moment.”
“Funny. It’s the smallest details one tends to recall,” Ilene mused. “Like poetry and puzzles. Pink lemonade and blue hydrangeas. Richard loved blue hydrangeas.”
After a moment, Janie asked, “Did you love Richard?”
Ilene stared blankly. “Now there’s a question.”
SNOW HAD BEGUN to flit now and again from the sky. Janie had allowed Ilene her silent musings as their boat skimmed across the glassy surface of the Bosphorus.
Ilene leaned against the railing with a sigh. “I thought I loved Richard,” Ilene eventually announced. “We married when I was seventeen. Father introduced us. Thought us a great match, I suppose. It seemed Richard’s father had a certain amount of clout in parliamentary affairs, which raised the possibility of him sending all sorts of business Father’s way. Allied prospects, and all that. All very hush-hush. They had a good rapport. Father thought it was a damn good idea, for posterity, for his daughter to marry the son of General Rupert Eldridge.”
“And what did you think of all this?”
“Oh, it wasn’t as though we hadn’t known each other. For years we frequently visited the Eldridge estate. Parties, dinners, outings, and such. And it wasn’t as though Richard was homely, or even common. He was quite handsome, and not at all conceited about it. I just...didn’t love him.”
“Did he love you?”
“Head over heels,” Ilene smiled. “He courted me, of course, with flowers and walks, poetry and literature, mostly the obscure, like Whitman, Dostoevsky , and some fifteenth century Italian woman. A surgeon who specialized in diseases of the eye, of all things.”
“Whitman is not so obscure.”
“He writes of acquaintances that are disorderly. There is something disconnected about him.”
“Abrupt, you mean.”
“Indecent.”
“Ah. You’re envious.”
“I am far from envious.”
Janie smiled. “You should try it yourself sometime. You are good at poetry.”
Ilene drew away and gazed back over the water. “We’re getting off the subject.”
“Oh. Forgive me. So, to you and Richard. He didn’t want children?”
Ilene dropped her eyes to the water rippling against the hull. “I had acquired quite a serious infection in my lower abdomen during that time. After a visit with Dr. Collier and seve
ral tests later, I was told it was impossible for me to have children. That bothered Richard, of course.”
Janie frowned in sympathy. “Has it bothered you, not having any children?”
“To not even have the choice, certainly. At first. Then I realized how foolish it was to brood about something being missing from my life. Well, something was missing, but it wasn’t children.” Ilene smiled at Janie. “Anyway, Richard and I discussed the idea of adopting, but it never happened.”
“Why not?”
“I guess neither of us had the motivation to look into the matter. He seemed quite content with having me all to himself after a full day’s work. Then, he began working farther away and for longer periods of time, until finally I’d see him only every two or three months. I have almost convinced myself he’s not completely gone, that he’s just on one of his very long excursions, with no word to anyone about the matter.”
After a moment she inhaled sharply and met Janie’s eyes. “You can’t dedicate your life to someone for almost eighteen years and not feel loss at his death, as if some part of you has been cut off. For me, it was the details that endeared him to me. Love in a different way, I suppose. When we were together, I was the only thing in his world, and when he was away...I was lost.”
“Is that why you stand at the window so often?”
“Obviously, more times than I realized.” Ilene smiled ruefully. “I feel some comfort in observing that the world still spins and the sea still ebbs, and my life goes on without him.”
“What’s strange about that?”
“I suppose there was a part of me that felt as if it was lost at sea with him.” Ilene turned to Janie. “I’m not the same woman now. You’ve shown me a side of myself I never knew existed. All my life I’ve wanted more. I needed to know if life consisted of anything besides dining at pretty parties, wearing pretty dresses, and meeting pretty people. It was all pretty damn useless. The only time I felt whole was when I played the piano. Music gave me the serenity to cope with everything that was so shallow and dreadful. Through it, I knew there was more life, more spirit, more feeling, more love to be felt.
“Until now, until you, I thought those expectations were nothing but a fantasy. How can anyone go through life without knowing what it is to truly feel love, how it is to actually feel the roll of thunder? I used to be afraid of thunder, now I welcome it. I used to fear the sea, now I respect it. Don’t you see? For the first time in my life, I’ve experienced what it is to be in love.”
Ilene moved closer. “You look at me with those eyes, and I melt. You touch me, and I’m aflame. When you make love to me, you sear my skin. You hold me, it’s never close enough. Our hearts beat in time, and it drives me mad knowing they can’t ever touch. You came to me out of nowhere. And all I ask is that if ever you go back to your nowhere, take me with you. I don’t ever want you to let me go. Not ever.”
Janie embraced Ilene tightly, breathlessly. The two melted into each other’s hearts.
IN VIENNA, THE Hotel Sacher had greeted their arrival with champagne and chocolates. Ilene stood near the expanse of windows with an elegant black dress in hand, holding it up to her body and eyeing its simple flow as she moved.
“A gentleman in the lobby told me Don Giovanni’s playing at the opera house tonight,” she said.
Janie was in the bathroom making a face at her dark roots.
“Did you hear me?”
“Uh huh.”
Janie came out of the bathroom, fumbling with a cufflink on her cream silk shirt. She stopped in mid-stride as she had a flash of the cufflink she’d found on the skeleton in the cave. As if it were her own, she vividly saw a hand grasp hold of a gold cufflink just as the weight of her body tumbled to the cave floor with a thump. In another flash, the vision was gone.
“Carolyn, are you listening to me?” Ilene asked.
Janie blinked, confused by what had just transpired. Composing herself, she said, “Sorry. What did you say?”
“I said, would you care to go to the opera tonight? You do like Mozart, don’t you?”
“Yes. That’s fine.”
Ilene stared at her in puzzlement. “You’re a million miles away. Are you all right?”
Janie sheepishly dropped her eyes to her cuff. “Uh, it’s just...”
Ilene glanced at Janie’s cufflink. “Well, why didn’t you say so? These buggers are quite contemptible little creatures,” she added with a snicker, helping Janie fasten them.
“Guess I’m not too awfully swift myself.”
“I wonder.”
There was a rap on the door and both women turned at the sound. “Now, who could that be?” asked Ilene. “Did you order room service?”
“No. But I’ll see who it is.” Janie reached the door and was about to open it when another knock sounded. “Who is it?” she asked.
“A friend,” a familiar voice replied.
Janie opened the door to Samuel Tisdale.
Ilene clapped her hands in pleasure. “Why, Sam Tisdale. How on earth did you know where to find us? We’ve only just arrived.”
“By following an unsavory gent, I’m afraid,” Sam replied softly, so only Janie could hear.
His somber tone made Janie uneasy. “I don’t follow,” she said.
“Well, he did. Followed you all the way from Istanbul. I wouldn’t unpack your bags just yet.”
“Sam,” Ilene called gaily. “Come in. Don’t stand out there, for goodness sake.”
“Yes,” Janie murmured. “By all means, come in.”
Sam stepped in and politely removed his hat. “Does she know?” he muttered.
“Not yet. But I’ve a feeling she’s about to.”
“Would you care for something?” Ilene asked him. “It seems we’ve plenty of champagne.”
“No. I’m afraid I can’t stay.”
“Neither can we,” Janie added.
Ilene frowned at their stern faces. “Really, you two. You look so melancholy.”
“This man,” Janie asked Sam. “Where is he now?”
“We had him, but he got away. On his way to blow the whistle, no doubt,” he said grimly.
“What man?” asked Ilene. “What on earth are you two talking about?”
“How much time have we got?” Janie asked.
“Twenty minutes. Half an hour at the most.” Sam walked over to the window and peered out into the bustling street. “Arrangements have been made to meet the bookstore owner elsewhere. You haven’t much time. Better get going.”
“Will someone tell me what’s going on?” Ilene finally asked.
When Sam failed to respond, Janie said, “It’s a long story.”
“Then condense it.”
After a hesitant sigh, and with a wary glance at Sam, Janie complied. “You and I didn’t travel to Istanbul solely to get away.”
“The rush to get there and back?”
“It was business.”
Ilene’s eyes squinted at the word. “Business?”
“Teddy was involved in something that was not sanctioned by British authorities, and I agreed to help finish the job.”
Ilene paced the room as she wrestled with the revelation. She abruptly rounded on Janie. “Why did they come to you?”
“They didn’t. Oliver did.”
“Oliver? What does Oliver have to do with this?”
“I’m not entirely sure.”
“And we haven’t any more time,” Sam interrupted.
Janie grabbed for Ilene’s coat. “Come on,” she said with hand outstretched. “I’ll explain on the way.”
“On the way where?”
“To see a nice old Jewish gentleman.”
“What about our luggage?”
“Why are you always so worried about the luggage?”
“Never mind that,” Sam interjected, donning his hat. “I’ve got a man downstairs who’s going to take your baggage to the airport and out on the next flight. It’ll be waiting for you in London.”
Sam disregarded her question as he politely pushed her out the room. “Off we go. Plan B.”
“Carolyn,” Ilene whispered to her. “What’s Plan B?”
Janie took the wide, marble steps with haste tugging Ilene along with her. “I’m still trying to figure out Plan A.”
THE MEETING PLACE was Sam’s apartment. It was such a small place, one would hardly believe there was space for a concealed room. Yet, as Sam rapped on his bookshelf, Ilene and Janie were astonished when the shelving swung away from the wall to allow the old bookseller to come out of the shadows.
“Mr. Kuczaj, it’s all right. You can come out now,” Sam said.
Janie remembered his bristly white beard and the small wire spectacles that clenched tightly about his nose. He peeked into the room like a hermit coming from his cave and then met Janie’s eyes with hesitant acknowledgment.
“You remember Mr. Kuczaj, don’t you, Carolyn?”
“Of course. How could I forget.” She smiled dryly. “The man who wanted too much for his books.”
“Bah,” groaned the old man. “Never too high a price for such a book! The word of God is invaluable.”
Janie reached into her coat pocket and withdrew the Torah she had received from the monkey in Istanbul. The corners of its pages were crinkled with constant use and smudged with the oil of many fingers. Even the cover was worn.
“I respect you and your religion, Mr. Kuczaj, but why should this Torah cost more than any other?”
With a dark grin, the old man snatched up the book and made his way toward a table. “The word of God means many things to many different people. But the simple fact remains that the Torah was given us through Moses entirely from God. All words are from the mouth of God, and all are the Torah of God, perfect, pure, holy and true.” He pulled out a chair from the drop-leaf table and then reached into his breast pocket for a small packet. “Everything is God. All things are revelations of God, and all words are divine words. The question is not what value should apply to the word of God. The question should be, why single out his divine word and deny the divinity of all other things?”
