The Star of Istanbul

by Robert Olen Butler

  I could have speculated about all this. But I preferred to ask.

  I hustled even more quickly off the hotel elevator and along the passageway.

  I stood before her door.

  I knocked.

  There was no sound inside. I did not volunteer that it was me. She had no reason to think I knew more than I’d known when I left her earlier this morning. But neither did she have any further wish to speak to me. I wanted her to open the door without expecting me. No sound was coming from within.

  I knocked again.

  Nothing.

  I put my ear to the door. I still heard no sound.

  I knocked again.

  As the silence persisted, I began to think she’d gone out. She had her own agenda, of course.

  I moved away to my own room. I went in and pulled my packet of lock-picking tools from my bag. In the passageway again I made sure I was alone, even looking over the iron balustrade into the atrium. The elevator was out of sight and the chains and gears were silent.

  I returned to Selene’s door and bent to the lock and did my work. The tumblers fell into place and I turned the knob and pushed.

  The door opened a few inches and abruptly resisted. A slide-chain lock was securely in its groove. Selene was inside the room.

  She was not visible and so neither was I. I took a quiet half step farther to the side just in case.

  Even as I did, her voice floated out to me. “Please,” she said. “No service.”

  She took me for the maid with a pass key.

  I pulled the door to.

  I figured I would let this be, for now. She would either stonewall me further or lie some more. It would be better for the time being for me simply to be watchful of her. The problem of who would knock on my door and what might then need to be done could make this Armenian question moot anyway.

  Moments later I slid my own chain lock into its metal groove. I took off my jacket and tie. The jacket smelled strongly of tunbeki. I thought to work on a news story. The Zeppelins already having yielded some actual hard news, I hadn’t yet figured out what other printable stories I might glean from my secret life of the past week. I could curbstone a good feature with the best of them, and it was in my mind to do so. But then I abruptly recognized this as an old reflex that was dangerously wrongheaded under the circumstances. The typewriter and the story coming out of it would be hard to explain to my Enver contact.

  So instead I pulled Lagarde’s Deutsche Schriften from my bag, opened the drapes to the morning light from my balcony, went to the bed, removed my holster, and unsheathed my Mauser. I put the holster out of sight and I lay down, propping myself up with both pillows. I placed the Mauser on the bed beside me at precisely the place where my shooting hand would land at the first sound from outside my door.

  In the meantime, I would read in German. Lunatic German, but it was all I could do at this point to anticipate my becoming Walter Brauer. The book would be for the man who didn’t know Walter. The pistol would be for the man who did.

  I laid the book in my lap. I put my palm on its cover and I did give Selene and the Armenians one thought: If she was already doing a double—working for the Germans but actually passing on Enver’s plans to the Armenians—then of course she would still be lying to me, at least by omission. In this business you told as little as you strictly had to.

  It was time to open Lagarde. He was known as an Orientalist and religious scholar. These “German writings” were his first plunge into political thought. Perhaps Walter saw some of himself in Lagarde.

  I opened the book.

  On the title page someone had written an inscription with a ­flexible-nibbed pen. The words were mostly English and the hand had an ornate, über-Spencerian style: Mein Schnüffel, this is a first of a seminal—yes, a seminal—work. Read it closely.

  So Walter—the Orientalist, the Islam scholar—received this book as a gift. If his work for the Germans was a political act, then this would have been a logical book for one of his German handlers to have given him.

  The German word at the beginning puzzled me. I didn’t know it, though it sounded vaguely familiar. It was a nickname perhaps. Probably so. The Mein suggested a nickname. And the pure sound of Schnüffel suggested a nickname as well, in an almost childish way. I could hear a German parent call a child a Schnüffel; I could hear a young man use the word with his girlfriend.

  This last thought made me think of Walter Brauer and what I knew him to be. And the little joke in the inscription suddenly came clear. Yes. A seminal work.

  This was a gift from a male admirer.

  I passed my hand over the words.

  A man like Walter, in that covert culture: perhaps he’d had many lovers. Did such men treat each other the way normal men often treated women? No doubt. They were still men. And if they could not be openly legitimate in the world, then perhaps they accepted as their lot the fugitive physical connection that other men aspired to with easy girls before finding a virgin to settle down.

  And yet. Passing my hand over these words, I saw Walter returning to his bachelor flat at number 70 Jermyn Street having just barely saved his own life from the sinking of a great steamship, a calamity that had taken the life of his lover. Perhaps a significant, enduring lover, the breakup on board trivial and deeply regretted now. And perhaps that lover had once given him a book and Walter felt driven to carry that book with him to Istanbul.

  Yes. Cable the book dealer from Boston. I saw now the words “a first of a seminal . . . work.” It sounded a bit awkward except if you heard it as professional shorthand: “a first” meant “a first edition.” A first edition of a seminal work.

  I’d wondered if that assignation with the late Cable had been prearranged. It had. Walter and this bookseller had known each other for a long time, had been connected for a long time. Walter was grieving more than I’d realized.

  I could portray this man.

  I understood him.

  And I also felt stricken that I’d had to unceremoniously dump his body over the side of a ship into the North Sea in the middle of the night. There’d been no alternative. But I was sorry for Walter. Sorry for his friend Edward. I thought: Too bad they could not have come to rest in the same sea.

  And a heavy knock came at my door.

  45

  My hand was on the Mauser. I rose and quickly put on my suit coat and placed the pistol in the right-hand flap pocket, tucking the flap inside. As I crossed to the door, I thought to touch the bandage on my left cheek. It was secure. I could never show my Schmiss as Brauer.

  I slid the chain lock from its track and let it fall. I opened the door.

  He was not Turkish.

  That was good.

  What struck me was this: he could have been Hansen’s colleague at the embassy. He could have been Hansen’s cousin from Topeka. He had the same sack suit and the same dirty gold hair and, from the first moment on, he had the same steady look of a professional in a trade that he didn’t want to talk about.

  But he spoke to me in German. “Good morning,” he said.

  “Good morning,” I said in my best German.

  He nodded.

  And he waited.

  But it took me only a brief moment to realize what for. “Gutenberg,” I said. The password from the coded Nuttall instructions.

  He smiled. “Mr. Brauer,” he said.

  I brought an empty hand from my Mauser pocket, with the option of a quick return.

  He took my hand and pumped it as if the last time he’d been to this well it was dry. “Colonel Martin Ströder,” he said.

  He didn’t look old enough to be a colonel, though I didn’t doubt him. He started young, was well connected, had some special, dirty talent.

  He knew Brauer’s name—my name—and I replied on
ly with a nod.

  He said, “Your room would be good for speaking. Perhaps the balcony.”

  I stepped to the side.

  He came in and closed the door himself and slipped the security chain into place.

  With seeming casualness I put my hand back in my pocket.

  In the process of his turning around from the door, he gave the room a quick, efficient once-over.

  This was either a precautionary reflex or a preparation for a bad intention. I slipped my hand around the grip and put my thumb on the safety.

  He smiled at me. “They have put you in a nice place,” he said.

  “I am sure it is for the sake of the woman,” I said.

  He nodded an ain’t-it-the-truth little nod.

  “So,” he said. “Let’s talk briefly.”

  He led the way to the balcony.

  Either that suggestion had to do with privacy or he planned to throw me over the railing.

  I kept my hand in my pocket as we stepped outside.

  There were two metal sidewalk café chairs. He sat in one and crossed his leg.

  I pulled my hand out of my pocket and I sat on the other chair.

  Ströder said, “I am an aide-de-camp of War Minister Enver Pasha.”

  Enver had spent time as the Ottoman Empire’s military attaché in Berlin, and he spoke the language fluently. He was keeping his friends close even here. Ströder no doubt got a carefully stage-managed view of things. I understood the Germans’ impulse: they could well use Selene’s pillow talk.

  “The plan has changed,” he said. “Enver Pasha is preoccupied. The Italians are negotiating with our enemies to enter the war. This is an imminent thing, if in fact it has not been agreed to already.”

  He paused.

  I said, “What does this mean for the woman?”

  “The Pasha is very ardent about her.”

  I knew that when the Turk’s feelings for Selene came up, I’d need to keep my face blank. I struggled now to do that.

  The colonel went on, “But we must wait. Perhaps day after tomorrow.”

  “I see.”

  Though I did see that this was plausible, what I also saw was the more likely possibility that they were waiting for Der Wolf. The good Herr Gutenberg would perhaps hold off any suspicions about Brauer for the time being, but I didn’t know for how long. If things were unsettled in this whole affair, Der Wolf might want to consult with their agent closest to the woman before going ahead.

  “Why are you bandaged?” Ströder asked. Abruptly. As if he were trying to make me reveal something. But he had no reason to be suspicious of what might be beneath my bandage. And if he doubted me at all, this would certainly not be his opening shot.

  “Didn’t you know?” I said. “I was on the Lusitania.”

  He straightened in unfeigned surprise.

  I said, “Our U-boat captains were too efficient in this case.”

  Ströder shook his head. “You saved the woman?”

  I made a short, sharp laugh. “Have they told you about the man interfering with us?”

  “Cobb?”

  “Yes.”

  “They say he is an American agent.”

  “He saved her,” I said.

  “Cobb?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was she compromised?”

  “She left him at the first opportunity in Queenstown,” I said. “To my knowledge they had little or no contact on board. He must have sought her out when it was clear the ship would sink. To try to take advantage.”

  Ströder, who had been sitting upright since his surprise, relaxed back into the chair. “This man,” he said. “I have respect for him as a foe. For him to have the presence of mind to think of his mission in such a circumstance.”

  This was interesting to me, of course: the respect among the officer class of civilized fighting forces for their enemy counterparts. It was certain that Colonel Ströder himself had a spying mission. Cobb was his personal, respected foe.

  I was.

  “He’s a killer,” I said.

  Ströder puffed faintly and nodded once. More respect. Of course he was a killer.

  I said, “Is Cobb in Istanbul?”

  “I do not know.”

  I was about to say, Look, he could come after me. These words shaped themselves in my mouth instantly. The Walter Brauer I was portraying would have this worry. But I stopped myself. I did not want Ströder to get it in his head to give me a guard.

  But I wanted to know more about Der Wolf.

  I said, “I understand we have someone on the way to take care of Mr. Cobb.”

  At this Ströder focused his eyes a bit more closely upon mine. He wasn’t sure I was supposed to know this.

  “Herr Horst gave me the alert in Berlin,” I said.

  Ströder let his eyes go casual as he nodded.

  I said, “Have you met The Wolf?”

  Ströder shrugged. “No one has,” he said. And he laughed.

  It was a joke he expected me to get. I had to be careful what I asked. I didn’t know what exactly to make of the comment. Did it mean that Der Wolf was unlikely to have met Brauer or that he could have met him and Brauer didn’t realize who he was?

  I said, “I wonder if he and Cobb have tangled before.”

  Ströder shrugged. He didn’t know. “It would be very interesting,” he said.

  “Very interesting,” I said.

  And now Ströder rose from his chair.

  I did likewise, even as he turned and stepped through the French windows.

  He was halfway across the room when he stopped and began abruptly to turn to me.

  My right hand went instantly into my pocket, clutched the grip, thumbed the safety, put my forefinger onto the trigger, and Ströder was facing me, taking a step toward me. My right arm started to flex.

  But he opened his palms to me.

  “I almost forgot,” Ströder said. “Enver Pasha said he was looking forward to seeing you again.”

  46

  The door was shut and I leaned back against it.

  Of course, in becoming Walter, I’d wondered what his role would be in all of this. Why him? I’d figured somehow he was a man both the Germans could trust and a bigwig Turk could feel comfortable with. I figured the role of go-between was a cultural nicety that didn’t get widely broadcast. If the leader of the Turkish government wanted to take an American film-star lover by way of her German-director ex-lover, the protocol would be to have such a man as Walter bring her along to him and make the introduction. A formality for a Westerner to enter a Turkish goddamn harem. And maybe it was indeed something of the sort. But Walter had a history with Enver.

  I had some planning to do.

  And I had to get Selene to talk with me.

  I went out of my room and stood before her door.

  I put my ear to it.

  There was only silence inside.

  I knocked. There was no answer. I knocked again and I said, “Selene. It’s Kit. Are you there?”

  “What is it?” Her voice startled me. It came from inside but very near the door.

  “I have some news,” I said.

  “I don’t feel well,” she said.

  “About the meeting.”

  A few moments of silence. And then the doorknob turned.

  I expected to enter, but she merely opened the door to the length of the chain lock. Her face appeared in the narrow gap.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “Are you all right?”

  She looked pale. But perhaps no more than usual.

  “I already told you I’m not feeling well.”

  “Can I help?”

  “You can help
by telling me what you have to say and letting me rest.”

  “Enver Pasha is preoccupied with matters of the war. We have to wait.”

  “Not tonight?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Good,” she said. “Thank you.”

  She closed the door before I could reply.

  I stood there for a while thinking what to do.

  I had a hunch about her. The things still withheld from me might send her from this room.

  I moved away.

  I installed myself at a table in a corner of the Kubbeli Salon, my back to the wall, able to watch anyone emerge from the doors that led from the elevator and staircase. She would have to pass by me to leave the hotel, and unless she looked sharply over her right shoulder as soon as she entered the salon, she would never notice me.

  I drank raki, a clear, fine Turkish brandy that reminded me in its clarity and burn of the aguardiente I’d come to like very much last year in Vera Cruz. I nursed a moderate sequence of raki all afternoon and into the early evening with an equally slow graze through a few orders of meze, small-portion plates, kashar cheese and mixed pickles and ripe melon and a paste of hot peppers with walnuts.

  It was good to eat the local food, by turns hot and sharp and sour and sweet. The raki smoothed my mind and let me work at the challenges before me without an edge; though, to be honest, without the edge I could make no progress.

  But I’d finished drinking before the evening and then I had a little more food and I was feeling good and collected and energized again and I’d been paying as I was served so as to be ready to leap up and follow Selene at once, but now I was beginning to think she wouldn’t appear.

  And then a figure in black floated before me, across the parquet floor, and I was the only one in Istanbul who could recognize her, because nothing of her showed. I’d seen the dress before and it fit her pretty close, but not an inch of flesh was visible, her hands in black gloves, her face shrouded in a black veil. This was the movie star burqa. But I knew who was inside.

  I rose and I followed.

  47