The Water Diviner (27 page)

‘Yes, you and your sons and your armies – all doing the right thing. Was it right to push us to war? Was it right to invade us? All you did was rob Orhan of a father and leave me with impossible choices like this.’ She is deflated; grief-stricken and lost.

‘Then please let me help.’ Connor is taken aback by his own offer. He has been doing his best to suppress the growing attraction he has for this woman, the intoxicating rush of adrenaline that sparks in his blood when he catches sight of her. He isn’t too sure what he means by his offer of assistance. But there is one thing he knows – at this moment there is nothing he wouldn’t do to help Ayshe and her son.

She looks at him, aghast. ‘So now you will rescue us?’

Connor stammers, ‘I didn’t mean it like that. I raised three boys . . .’

‘And where are they now? This is not your world. Go home, Mr Connor.’

Lost for words, he leaves.

With a tear-stained face and puffy red eyes, Orhan keeps vigil at the door of the hotel, watching Connor as he treads carefully down the narrow staircase and into the foyer, carrying his small brown suitcase, broad-brimmed hat on his head.

Connor sees the boy, but keeps silent. There is nothing to say.

Ayshe is nowhere to be seen. Connor takes his room key and places it carefully on the front desk. Without glancing back, he steps out into the cobbled street and the warm, spring sunshine.

The sudden impact of a wooden club against his spine sends Connor flying forwards. Another swing takes his legs out from under him. His knees crunch into the stone paving and he falls onto his hands, the pain shooting from his wrists and exploding in his shoulder sockets. An unseen assailant wrests his suitcase from beneath him, tossing it back onto the hotel’s stoop where it pops open, its contents spilling in a cascade down the steps. Out of the corner of his eye, Connor sees Orhan rush down to gather his possessions – he is relieved to see the boy tuck Art’s diary safely under his arm.

Hands hoist Connor to his feet – two men, one at each shoulder. Omer stands before him, wielding a club. He holds it by the end, drawing it back behind his shoulder before swinging it with full force into Connor’s guts. The air driven from his lungs, Connor doubles over. A clenched fist swings up and catches him on the cheek, splitting the skin. He feels the warm flow of blood and tastes the iron tang on his lips. Another solid thwack hits the back of his head and he finds himself splayed on the street, face down, sharp-edged gravel digging into his cheek. Bruising blows from multiple sets of boots pummel his ribs; he curls into a ball to protect his midriff.

Inexplicably, the assault ends as suddenly as it began. Connor opens his eyes to find himself inches away from a pair of highly polished black riding boots.

Connor looks up, temporarily blinded by the late afternoon sunlight. He squints, confused. An imposing figure turned out in an impeccable uniform stands beside him, hands on hips. Connor focuses, shading his eyes from the harsh light with an upraised hand. There’s no mistaking Jemal’s hawkish nose and heavy brow.

The Turk shoots him a half smile. ‘You missed a step, Connor Bey.’

H
e is outnumbered. But Jemal has never been one to be intimidated by a superior force. He stands with his arms akimbo, coolly calculating the odds of success should he be compelled to take on Connor’s assailants.

Omer is flanked on either side by two burly men eager for a fight. Jemal decides it could go either way. There’s no doubt the well-dressed Turkish man is livid. His eyes are murderous pitch-black obsidian blades that flick between Connor and Jemal. The Turk can see that Omer is infuriated by his arrival and eager to resume his assault on the Australian. But the authority vested in Jemal’s Ottoman army uniform and its impressive array of medals makes him hesitate.

‘You know him?’ Omer spits. ‘This man has dishonoured my family.’

Jemal raises an eyebrow, unperturbed. ‘My orders are to take him to Major Hasan.’

Stepping forwards aggressively, Omer prods Connor in the midriff with his club. ‘First we will teach him about honour.’

Connor smacks the stick aside with the back of his hand.

‘All three of you will teach him – together?’ Jemal scoffs. ‘Why don’t you leave questions of honour to those who fought for this country?’ He bends and offers Connor his hand, helping the bruised and bleeding Australian to his feet. The two men turn to leave, and Jemal serves up one last parting shot for Connor’s assailants. ‘If you’re looking for a fight, do something useful for your country. Join the Nationalists.’

Connor hesitates. ‘My suitcase.’

Looking back over his shoulder, Jemal sees Omer pacing at the entrance to the Otel Troya. He puts a hand at Connor’s back, urging him forwards. ‘Connor Bey, I think it is better we leave now. You get your things later.’

Glancing back at Omer, Connor nods in agreement. Then, walking gingerly, Connor allows Jemal to lead him down the cobbled street.

‘Maybe you should have been a diplomat, Connor Bey,’ the Turk observes with a wry smile. ‘Come. I take you to Major Hasan.’

Steam billows heavenwards, roiling languidly around the small, enclosed dome. Sunlight shines through coloured glass discs set in the ceiling, forming hazy columns of light. In each of the four alcoves branching off the central room, elaborately carved marble fonts are set into the wall. Steaming water gushes from ornate brass taps into the basins and cascades in sheets across the grey and white marble floor.

Hasan, lounging along the low step that runs round the marble-tiled walls, wears nothing but a fine silk
peshtamel
secured around his waist. He dips his hand languidly into the basin to test the temperature. He retrieves a copper dish that floats in the basin and scoops up some of the warm water, pouring it over his head and rubbing his face and short-cropped hair with his other hand as it courses over his skin. Hasan offers the dish to Connor, who shakes his head with a tight smile.

The Australian sits self-consciously, ramrod straight, beside the Turkish officer. When he arrived at the bathhouse with Jemal, he was ushered into a small, timber-lined changing room and given what he assumed to be a flimsy towel. When he stepped out of the booth clad only in his long johns, the hefty attendant clicked his tongue disapprovingly and took the towel from Connor’s hands, manhandling him like a doll and wrapping it around his waist. And so Connor finds himself in the bathhouse clad in sagging, dripping wet long johns, with a checked red and white cloth wound awkwardly about his midriff.

On the enormous heated marble platform at the centre of the room, Jemal lies prostrate, his modesty barely preserved by a patently inadequate
peshtamel
, his limbs extended and his skin as pink as a pomegranate where a wiry masseur has pummelled and pounded his weary muscles. He groans. ‘I need a woman.’

Hasan laughs. ‘Your wife is in Erzurum!’

‘Do not talk of my wife when I am thinking of sex.’ Jemal rolls onto his side and sighs. ‘My poor manhood. I used to have balls like a bull. Now they are dried chickpeas.’

A waft of cold air blasts clear through the vapour. The three men fall silent and look towards the opposite side of the room where the timber door has swung open to admit two figures who inch slowly towards an adjacent alcove. An elderly man with silvery hair and shoulders like chicken bones has one arm encircling another, much younger man, who leans heavily against him. Connor watches as the two men settle themselves beside the font; the greying man guides his youthful companion so tenderly he can only be the boy’s father. He picks up the copper dish and sluices hot water across the young man’s chest. The youth’s vacant eyes are black pools. Connor gazes at them absently, averting his eyes suddenly when he registers the angry red stump at the boy’s shoulder socket where his right arm should be.

Jemal’s expression is now sombre. He turns to Connor. ‘I found your son’s name on a list of wounded. They sent him from Çanakkale to a camp at Afion Kara Hissar.’

The purpose of Connor’s audience with Hasan has, until now, been unclear. The longer Connor spends in this country, the more accustomed he is becoming to the protracted Ottoman way of conducting business, traversing a route as circuitous as a goatherd’s track. Issues are rarely addressed directly, and resolution is never immediate. Any discussion is preceded by a frustrating and extended round of social niceties and the drinking of hot beverages. For Connor, who has never had any time, far less talent, for small talk, it’s a cruel and unusual punishment.

This visit to the
hamam
is the worst example yet. But it seems that the expected protocols have been observed, and he will now find out why he has been dragged halfway across the city to sit here in wet undergarments.

‘Afion . . . what?’

Hasan elaborates. ‘Afion Kara Hissar. A town in Anatolia. It means “Opium Black Castle”.’

‘After Afion, we don’t know. Winters there are hard.’ Jemal groans as he rolls to the edge of the platform and swings his legs out to sit up on the edge of the heated marble slab.

‘So he died there?’ Despite the cloyingly humid air in the
hamam
, which sends sweat running in rivulets down his back and beading across his brow, Connor feels a frigid explosion of dread in his gullet.

Jemal wiggles the fingers of both hands and blows a puff of air from distended cheeks. ‘From there, he vanished. I cannot tell. No more records. We are Ottoman, not German.’

Connor persists. ‘Could he still be in Afion?’

Since learning of Art’s capture at Lone Pine, Connor has held on to a gossamer-thin shred of hope that his son has emerged from the abyss and survived, but found himself lost, adrift. Connor has run through all the possibilities in his mind – there are so many reasons why Art may not have been able to return. Most of them are utterly implausible, yes. But in Connor’s dreams, Art is well. He is alive.

‘No.’ Hasan speaks softly. ‘There is much fighting in central Anatolia. No one would choose to be there right now. If he could leave, he would have gone already.’

Connor’s shoulders melt, his strong spine sags. The sound of rushing water fills his ears; everything else dulls to a faint buzz. His heart stops for a moment, and then jolts in his chest. Steam fills his lungs. He is drowning. The evanescent hope that has been sustaining him since his trip to Gallipoli dissipates in the plumes of mist that fill the room.

Feeling his desolation, Hasan reaches out to rest a hand on Connor’s shoulder.

‘In the morning you are returning to Australia. But tomorrow we travel east to Ankara. Mustafa Kemal is gathering an army there . . .’

Jemal shoots his commanding officer a wary look. It is clear to Connor that he still thinks the Australian poses a grave danger to the two Turks.

Hasan ignores his friend and continues. ‘We pass through Afion. If it has not been burned to the ground, I will ask if anyone remembers your son.’ Hasan looks down at his feet, watching the streams of water that pool behind his heels and run between his toes. He watches it funnel into channels carved into the marble and disappear into the pipes running beneath the
hamam
’s floor, flowing as it has for centuries. ‘But as a soldier and a father, I tell you – it is past praying. He is lost.’