Istanbul Passage (14 page)

He blinked, coming back.

“Smoking,” she prompted.

He took out a pack and turned to introduce Ed, but Ed had gone. How long had he been standing here, watching the room?

“I think you can risk it,” he said, putting on a party smile. “This crowd.”

She had taken off her dark glasses and now he saw her eyes for the first time, shiny and alert, so bright they seemed to have drained the light from her pale skin, leaving a sprinkling of tiny freckles. They looked directly into his, steady, without fluttering movements to the side, and the effect was an easy familiarity, as if they already knew each other and were simply picking up the thread of an ongoing conversation. Then the eyebrows went up slightly, a question, and he realized he’d been staring.

“They’re green,” he said. “Your eyes. Like the song.”

“Just flecks. They’re really brown. It’s a trick of the light.”

“Some trick.”

“Is that a pass?”

“Sorry,” he said, surprised, “did it sound like one?”

“How would I know anymore?” she said. “I’m in Ankara.”

“They don’t make passes in Ankara?”

“If they do, I missed it.”

“What do they do?”

“The wives play cards. The men, I don’t know. Try to stay awake, mostly. Anyway, no passes.”

“Government town. It’s always like that. Saves trouble later.”

“And the Turks—”

“Ah.”

“No, worse. They just look. Like you’re something in a candy store.”

“It’s new for them, men and women mixing. They’re not used to it.”

“But they’re married. Don’t they talk to their wives?”

He smiled. “Maybe that’s why they don’t talk to you.”

She raised her glass in a touché gesture.

He smiled again, feeling suddenly buoyant, the first time since Bebek that he felt himself, his mind clear, not twisting around anything. Then she tilted her head, “what?” and he shook his in reply, “nothing”, embarrassed now. Flirting. Here, of all places. With Frank’s wife. Not even especially pretty. Except for the eyes. Aware of her perfume.

“There’s one, for instance. He’s been staring at me for five minutes.”

Leon followed her gaze, then froze. Not staring at her, staring at him. The man in Marina’s building, on the tram, only one coincidence allowed. A thin moustache, something Leon hadn’t noticed before.

“How do you know he’s a Turk?” he said, quickly turning back.
“He could be anybody.” Making conversation. The buoyancy gone, weighted down again with uneasiness. A flicker toward the man. Still there.

“The way he looks. Like you’re a specimen. But he’ll just look. So I guess that leaves you. Let’s see. Eyes. Anything else you like?”

“Everything,” Leon said, looking at her for a second. “But Frank probably does too.”

She stopped, a ball suspended in midair, then looked down. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I was just—passing the time. You get to learn how to do that.”

“In Ankara,” he finished for her.

She took a sip from her glass. “People don’t talk like this there.”

“Like what?”

“Back and forth.”

“Tell Frank to take a furlough. Stay for a while.”

“He has to go back. But I’m here for a few days. Right here, in fact.” She looked up, as if they could see through the ceiling into her room.

“Your first trip?”

“One day when we got here. Right off the train. We saw Topkapi. The big church.”

“Haghia Sophia.”

“Then another train. Then Ankara. So what should I see?”

“Süleyman’s Mosque. Start with that.”

“What else? Not in the guidebooks. What do you like?”

“Me? Everything. The water. All the boats. The food.”

“The food?”

“Not this stuff. Their food.”

“Eggplant,” she said.

“But look what they do with it. The sultans had a chef just for eggplant.”

“You like it here,” she said, her eyes appraising him.

The man was moving away from the wall, heading toward the buffet table, but still keeping them in sight. Why not just come over? But he wouldn’t, not while they were talking. He’d wait for an opening.

“It’s the layers,” Leon said. “Take here, where we’re standing. The Orient Express built it. So their passengers would have somewhere to stay. Somewhere grand. With all the latest.”

“Here?” she said, taking in the faded room.

“The height of elegance then. Like the train. The dining room at Sirkeci has the same look. This was Pera in those days, the European quarter. All the embassies, until they moved to Ankara. Just across the bridge from the Ottoman city. Except all of it was Ottoman, really. For five hundred years. Before that, the hill was Genoese, a trading concession from the Byzantines. They built the tower. The Byzantines lasted a thousand years. You can probably see their shipyards from your room. All along the Horn. Istanbul is like that. You’re always standing on layers.”

“What about this layer? Now,” she said, interested.

“Now? The war was a hard time for Turkey.”

“But they were neutral.”

“They kept a standing army. Just in case. A lot of money for a poor country. Now they’re broke. The house needs a paint job, but they have to put it off to next year. So everything looks a little shabby. But I guess that’s true everywhere, since the war.”

“Except home.”

He stopped, then dipped his head, ceding the point. “Except there.”

“But you want to stay here,” she said, almost to herself, trying to read his face. “You don’t give much away, do you? Before, when you were standing here, just looking, I had no idea what you were thinking. The others, yes, but you, no idea.”

“I didn’t know I was so mysterious,” he said lightly. “Most people don’t think so.”

“Well, most people aren’t, are they? Themselves. So they don’t see it. They don’t see the layers, either.” She looked away, over his shoulder. “My god, who’s that?”

He turned. “That’s Lily. Nadir.”

“But who is she?”

“Her husband took over Vassilakos Shipping. When the Greeks were thrown out. Widow. In Washington she’s what they’d call a hostess. She gives parties.”

“She’s not shabby.”

She was dressed for a funeral, a high-necked, black silk dress with padded shoulders and only a few jewels, day diamonds, a thin bracelet, and one giant pin that glittered, starlike, on the dark fabric. Her hair, wheat blond streaked with gray, was covered by a black cloth with silver thread, something between a snood and a head scarf, a soft Ottoman wrap that made all the hats in the room look dowdy.

“You don’t see jewels like that in Ankara.”

“You don’t see them here much, either. Lily’s a special case.”

She had been standing at the doorway, scanning the room, and now saw Barbara and headed toward her, people stepping aside as she moved across, a kind of social choreography. She took Barbara’s hands in hers, a regal moment, and said something, then as Barbara teared up, gripped the hands harder for emphasis, a gesture more dramatic than hugging. Everyone in the room had turned to watch.

“Another Istanbul layer,” Leon said. “She was in Abdul Hamid’s harem.”

“His harem? How old is she?”

“It’s not that long since they abolished it. Forty years, less. She was a child.”

“A child?”

“They were often sent early. For training,” he said, then saw her expression. “Not that kind of training. Household things. Manners.
Not everybody got to sleep with the sultan. Certainly not children. It was supposed to be a privilege, to be a
gözde
. One of the noticed.”

“And was she? Noticed?”

“No, she was too young. After, she was lucky. She found a protector.”

“I’ll say,” Kay said, still looking at the pin.

Lily was moving away from Barbara now, respects paid, and passing the man with the moustache. A glance, almost too quick to be noticed, not stopping, but aware of him.

“Would you like to meet her?”

“You know her?”

“Everybody knows Lily. She has one of the great
yalis
. On the Bosphorus. You come in on the train and see the houses, the ones that look like they’re falling down, and you think that’s Istanbul. But you don’t see the
yalis
. The old gardens. The khedive used to stay in hers, when he came to Istanbul. Then her husband bought it. So now it’s hers. A great friend of Atatürk’s, by the way. From the early days. So don’t say anything anti-Turk.”

“First Frank, now you. I have been let out from time to time.”

“I just meant—”

“I know what you meant. I’m an embassy wife. It’s funny, though, she doesn’t look Turkish. The light hair, I mean. You don’t usually see—”

“Circassian. Originally.”

She cocked her head. “And now you’re not going to tell me where that is and I’m not going to ask because I don’t want you to know I don’t know, so I’ll never know.”

He smiled. “Part of Russia now. East of the Black Sea. Very popular with the sultans. For slaves.”

“Gentlemen prefer blondes,” she said.

“Even then.”

Lily was surrounded by people but turned, a social instinct, as if she had actually felt Leon approach. “Leon,” she said, the French
pronunciation. “How nice. I was hoping.” She extended her hand to be kissed, playful.

“I didn’t know you knew Barbara.”

Her eyes lit up, a naughty child caught out. “Hardly at all. But, darling, I couldn’t resist. No one’s talking about anything else. Imagine. Like a
roman policier
. In Istanbul. I had to come.”

“But a robbery—”

“
Ouf
. With no money. A Turkish thief would take money, no? The Bosphorus at night? An
assignation
, it has to be. The fatal meeting. But who?” She looked around the room. “So maybe the jealous wife. She could do it. Very strong hands, that one, you should feel them. A gun would be nothing for her.”

Leon smiled. “Behave yourself. Meet Kay Bishop. She’s here from Ankara.”

“With the embassy?” she said warmly, taking her hand.

Kay nodded. “My husband. Does it show?”

“Everybody in Ankara is with an embassy. Why else would they go? The dust. My god, such a lot of dust. Of course, Kemal wanted a Turkish city, and that’s right, but you lose something too, I think. Poor Istanbul, too decadent for him he said, he’s just a soldier, barracks are fine, but you know he meant there were too many foreigners. In those days all the shop signs—Armenian, Greek, Hebrew. Now just Turkish. Even here. A Turkish city now.”

“It’s Kay’s first visit.”

“Yes? Then you have the perfect guide. No one knows the city like Leon. It’s always the foreigners—we’re the true Istanbullus.”

“You? You haven’t been a foreigner since—”

She raised a finger. “No ages.
Ça n’est pas gentil
.” She turned to Kay. “But then you must come to my party. It’s so difficult to find women. It’s new to them still, leaving the house. The husbands say they’ll bring them and then they don’t. Leon, you’ll bring her?” She paused. “And your husband, of course.”

“He can’t stay. It’d just be me, I’m afraid.”

“Ah,” Lily said, glancing at Leon. “So much the better. An extra woman in Istanbul. More precious than rubies. Oh dear, hysterics.” On the other side of the room, Barbara had begun to weep loudly. “Perhaps not enough attention.”

“Lily—”

“No, it’s true. It’s a day for the widow. And all these distractions—”

“You’re the distraction,” Leon said.

“I hope that’s not true,” she said, enjoying herself. “At such a time. Maybe I should leave.”

“
That
would be a distraction. You just got here.”

She arched an eyebrow at him, but said to Kay, “And what do you think? About the murder. You have an idea?”

“I didn’t know it was. They said—”

“Oh, the thief in the night,” Lily said, waving this off. “But so much more interesting, don’t you think? It’s selfish to say this, I know, but it’ll be good for the party, a little
frisson
. During the war it was easy, invite a German, invite a Russian, and then watch. Same room? Will they look at each other? And of course serious questions—will Turkey stay out? But always something. And since a little boring, I think.”

“Just what you needed then,” Leon said.

“You’re making fun of me, but it’s true, so why not say it? And of course so implausible. A man like that. A great love? How can you imagine it? So maybe a local woman and he’s leaving her? Or an American friend. Just a
cinq à sept
, but now jealous. But someone.”

“You’re a romantic, Lily,” Leon said.

“And you’re not? Everyone, I think, if they’re lucky. But this time, unlucky. I admit, to think of Tommy King as a lover—”

“Maybe it wasn’t about him. Maybe he just got in the way,” Kay said.

Leon looked at her, surprised, his mind’s eye suddenly back on the landing, tracking bullets, positions, playing it out again. If you see
a chessboard from the other side, Alexei said. But nothing changed. It had only happened one way.

“You’re always reading things like that in books,” Kay said. “People see something they shouldn’t. Or they just happen to be—”

“But it’s terrible, no? A murder by accident. Not even interesting enough to be a victim. Just someone—in the way. Better, I think, the widow. Those hands.”

“He was shot, Lily.”

“The trigger, then. No problem,
je t’assure
. Listen. Again.”

A new arrival, Barbara in tears.

“Only the guilty cry like that.”

“Don’t have too much fun with this,” Leon said.

Lily lowered her head, reprimanded. “It’s true. Still a death.” She looked up at Kay. “But you’ll come to my party?”

“Of course. Thank you.”

“Maybe he’ll be there. Whoever it is.”

“What an idea,” Leon said.

“Why not? Maybe here too. Someone he knew. Not a stranger. It has to be.”

“Why?”

“Who goes to a place like that to meet a stranger? Someone he knew. And the shot was close.”

“How do you know that?” Leon said, alert.

Lily shrugged. “People talk.”

“People in the police?”

“People. I told you, nobody talks of anything else. Except here, maybe. Where you all want to think it’s a thief.”