Dancing for the General

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Dancing for the General Page 21

by Sue Star


  If the Americans caught her, she thought her chances of escape would be greater. So she kept going. The wire fence that she followed suddenly disappeared into the side of a small hill. A cement wall as high as Meryem’s waist skirted the base of the hill, retaining dirt the way a belt held in a fat belly. She scrambled up onto the wall, now that she saw it was conveniently placed here for her. No way out, was there?

  From her position on the rim of the wall, she spied a shack in the neighboring yard. Its roof butted up against the general’s hill. It would be an easy matter to lift up her skirts and step across the top of the fence, onto the roof of that shack. But she hesitated, running through her mind a few stories to explain her presence, in case the Americans caught her. It was dark enough that probably none of the party guests would notice her, anyway. They huddled under paper lanterns dangling from trees that formed a natural barrier between them and the shack. If they noticed anything at all, it would be the blazing lights at the general’s house and the commotion of the asker.

  Not her.

  Men’s anxious voices stirred from the dark behind her, rousing a scent of anger onto a current of hot air. Apparently the asker had recruited help in his search for her. Meryem hesitated only a moment before leaping across to the roof.

  * * * * *

  The party dragged on, but Anna couldn’t leave yet. She had to wait for her call to go through to Nairobi, but the longer she waited, the more suffocating and close the air felt. It was almost too thick to breathe. Blades of cool grass poked through her open-toed sandals and sent tickling shivers up the seams of her nylons.

  Cora, her nosy hostess, had her letters to Rainer! It was bad enough that the Turkish police had one of them. And subsequently lost it. Far worse that Cora had more.

  Anna bit her tongue to stifle her simmering rage and nodded politely at the conversation around her. She laughed when prompted. She smiled until her face ached. She sampled whatever the servers passed around on trays: kebobs of grilled lamb, eggplant, and succulent bits of unidentifiable delicacies that she couldn’t identify.

  How was it possible that Rainer was alive? Any minute now, she would surely wake up from this impossible nightmare.

  A burst of light flashed in their faces just then, blinding Anna. The dark outline of a man aimed his bulky camera with its cone-shaped flash for another photo.

  “No, please,” said Hayati. He stepped in to grab the photographer by his arm and push him away.

  Paul charged at the photographer in a reawakening of yesterday’s high energy. “Blast it, man! Haven’t you learned to ask before you shoot that thing off?”

  Fran, always the assistant, stepped between Paul, the boss, and the photographer. “I’ll take care of this.”

  Paul took a deep breath, then turned back to Anna’s group. “Sorry about that. Those flashes are a bit of a nuisance, is all.”

  “Everyone has a photographer,” one of the guests said. “That way, we can always have a souvenir to remind us of these special get-togethers.”

  “The man’s a clumsy idiot.” Paul’s voice rumbled with a growl. “He’s not one of ours, otherwise he would’ve asked permission before using that damned flash.”

  Cora waved off his question. “Fran found him somewhere. It was all last-minute. Ask her.”

  In a quiet corner of the yard, Fran planted her hands firmly on her hips and spoke under her breath to the photographer, who looked vaguely familiar to Anna. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, lowered his head, and mopped his brow.

  Anna marched to a bar set up on a sidewalk beside the house. “Ice water, please,” she said to an attendant in a crisp, white jacket.

  While he prepared the drink, she set down her martini glass and conveniently forgot it. Then she carried the tumbler of water back across the lawn, straight up to Fran and the photographer. A peal of laughter sounded from Cora’s circle as they watched.

  “Oh!” Anna said. “I remember you now. You’re the man from the copper shop today.”

  “Emin Kirpat,” he said with a friendly smile.

  The part-time student photographer, Anna remembered. “You’re the one who told me about the Hittites.”

  Fran harrumphed. “All our regular photographers were booked for tonight. I was pretty sure Ozturk Bey had someone else we could try. That’s why Paul sent me down there today. I can see it was a mistake.”

  “Have some water,” Anna said, handing the glass to Emin. “Go on. There’s no point passing out from the heat. You look like you could use a drink.”

  Emin gaped first at the glass, then at Fran.

  “You’d better do as she says.” Fran folded her arms across her chest and smirked.

  He took the glass, murmured his thanks, and downed the water.

  “For once, he listens,” Fran said with a huff. “But it’s not going to help him now.”

  Anna’s eyebrows rose. “What’s the problem?”

  Fran shrugged. “It’s not the flash. It’s the pictures he chose to take that are wrong. Why don’t you run along, honey? This really doesn’t concern you.”

  Anna sucked in her breath with surprise. Fran had been kind taking her to lunch today, but here, tonight, she was behaving downright rude. “In that case, I’ll leave you alone. I need to check on the children, anyway, before my call comes through. Someone will let me know, I presume?”

  “Of course. The servants have been alerted.” Fran glared again at the photographer as Anna turned away.

  Beyond the light of the lanterns, Anna felt the night air slide over her. Once darkness fell here on the Anatolian plateau, it fell fast.

  Unease rippled the edge of her mind as she replayed the day’s events in the old city. Fran had gone to Ozturk Bey’s shop specifically to book Emin for tonight. It had nothing to do with tracking Anna. The coincidence of their connections sent a shiver through her. Emin... Umit... The killer...

  Anna hurried her step to the playhouse. Muffled voices murmured from within the tumbledown heap of plywood. She bent down to an opening and called inside, “How are you children doing?”

  “Another alien!” Priscilla squealed. “Gimme that ray gun! I’ll get him!”

  Anna sighed, satisfied that all seemed well with the children. She didn’t want to alert them to her concerns. Glancing back at the thick gathering of partiers under the lanterns, she saw the flash of a camera spark the night. She thought about slipping away from the party, but it would be difficult to persuade Priscilla to abandon her friend.

  Besides, leaving was out of the question until after the call to Nairobi came through.

  Still, she’d had enough of the party. She would sit out the rest of it inside, waiting by the phone. There must be another way inside the house, other than using the back door where busy servers whisked in and out. Skirting the area of the lanterns, she slipped around to the side of house that faced the pink mansion. Their neighbor the general lived there, on the corner of Yeşilyurt and Guneş. The Burkhardts, to his west on Yeşilyurt; and the Wingates, to his north on Guneş.

  Tonight, lights blazed again at the general’s house, and through the windows she could see men moving about. The general certainly entertained often, Anna thought, but then he was an important man. Henry had told her that this general, their neighbor, had served under Atatürk during the wars of independence from the Ottomans. Not that long ago, as far as history went. It was only thirty-five years ago that they fought for their independence, giving this part of the world a complete reversal of their way of life.

  Or had it been so thoroughly complete? She remembered all the veils she’d seen, especially in Ulus, yet Atatürk had banned the veil.

  On her way through the shadows at the side of the house, she passed through a small garden, pungent with petunias. A bench offered respite beneath an open window. She could sit there quietly a few moments. Unnoticed.

  The bubbling noise of the lawn party made the bump on her head throb. Cora’s outrageous behavior hadn’t helped. T
he very idea! That she could purchase someone else’s private letters...

  Thank goodness Anna had had the good sense not to include her name on the return address. And even if Cora opened up the envelopes and read the letters, heaven forbid, it wouldn’t be obvious right away that it was Anna who’d written them. She’d signed herself “Annie.”

  All the same, Anna intended to get those letters back. Before Cora had the opportunity to read them and figure out by context just who Annie really was.

  Anna inhaled the fragrant air. The soothing dark offered a sense of peace that bit by bit absorbed the pain pulsing through her body. The solitude gave her breathing room to form her plans for what she would tell Mitzi once the call came through.

  Gradually, her eyes adjusted to the dark, and the garden hardly seemed dark at all. She could make out the shadowy shapes of a birdbath to her right, a flowerbed to her left. Rose bushes straight ahead.

  A tall and gangly objet d’art stood just beyond the rose bushes. It seemed an odd place to arrange statuary. Perhaps it belonged to the general’s house.

  She rose and moved across the garden for a closer look. There were no stepping stones through the rose bed. If it was meant to be garden art, it wasn’t easily accessible.

  Carefully pushing aside one of the branches, she stepped across the mulched bed into a patch of weeds on the far side of the roses. The gangly thing rising up from tall weeds was a tripod. With a camera and a long, high-powered lens fixed to the top. Perhaps it belonged to Emin.

  Except...

  The lens aimed at the general’s house, not at the Wingates’ party.

  A twig snapped, and Anna’s attention jerked away from the tripod to follow the sound. A shadow split away from a nearby tree trunk, and a man moved slowly toward her. Every muscle inside her tensed in the split second before she would dart away. And then he stepped close enough for her to recognize him. Rainer!

  “It’s not what you think,” he whispered, reaching out with the swiftness of a rattler to grab her arm.

  Anna stiffened, appalled by the image her mind had conjured. “How would you know what I think?”

  “Shhhhh.”

  How dare he attempt to quiet her when twelve years worth of questions festered in her heart and soul? She would not be silenced, but she hardly knew where to begin. Just then, a light flicked on behind them.

  Chapter Thirty

  Meryem landed with a thunk onto the roof of the shack and held her breath. The wood beneath her creaked, resisting her weight. The shack was a sloppy building of loose walls, and it would surely collapse in the next earthquake.

  Hissing sounds came from the darkness, no more than an arm’s length away. She crouched, melting into the shadows, assessing her escape. From here, she would have to jump down into the Americans’ yard. It was a farther jump than the one she’d just made from the lowest branch of the tree by the general’s balcony.

  If she twisted her ankle, she had no hope of income for a while. The pain might even delay her return to the appointment with the gunman who’d killed her brother.

  “Over here,” a child’s voice whispered in Turkish that was worse than Meryem’s. “It’s lower over here.”

  Meryem hesitated. This was a trick, but what was to gain? And for whom?

  “Hurry!” said another child, a dark shadow against the faint glow of light from the Americans’ party a stone’s throw away.

  Relief swept through her. It was only children, not the asker. Why they had come to her aid, she did not know. She did not question her good fortune but jumped where they showed her, and then followed them into the shack, through a hole. Once inside, one of the children slid a board across the opening, sealing them into darkness.

  Meryem wrinkled her nose from the dry stench of soiled sand. “Who are you?” she whispered. “Why should you help me?”

  The little girl clicked on a small light no bigger than a coin and held it up to her cheek. The dim light gave her freckled face a red, transparent glow. Red curly hair framed her distorted face. “I’m Priscilla, and that’s Tommy.” She pointed the light at the boy, who had yellow hair and missing teeth. They were small enough to be about seven or eight years old, Meryem decided, judging them against the size of seven-year-old Mustafa, who was Umit’s oldest.

  Rattling sounds indicated lumbering steps on loose gravel in the general’s garden. Closer now. Then the sounds settled.

  “I was only teasing you,” the old soldier called from the other side of the fence. He stood close enough that Meryem could easily make out his words as he spoke. “I have your money. You can come out now.”

  Meryem grabbed the little coin of light from the girl and buried it in her skirts, not knowing another way to douse the light.

  “It’s okay, he can’t—”

  “Shhhh.” Meryem’s heartbeat quickened, and she pressed into the deeper shadows of one corner.

  * * * * *

  Anna felt a shove that sent her sprawling into darkness. She landed face-down in dirt and scratchy weeds, just beyond the pool of new light that spilled from the Wingates’ house and seeped into the garden. Rainer fell on top of her, pinning her down. His warm gasps tickled the back of her neck, and a woody branch dug into her breast, into the part of her flesh that the low cut of the black chiffon had exposed.

  She spit dirt from her mouth and struggled for breath. “Let. Me. Up. You’re hurting me.” A sharp pain throbbed in her chest.

  “Shhhh.” His breath blew in her ear as the pressure of his hold on her eased. “We can’t let them see us.” His words scarcely rose louder than a whisper of air.

  “Is that why you stayed away all these years? Or was it because of your wife?” As a concession, she kept her voice low.

  “She’s not my wife. Is that why you’re fighting me?”

  “You’re the one who tackled me.”

  He rolled off her and slithered away farther into the dark, away from the light that leaked out of the room. From her position on the ground, she could see bookcases through the lit window. The room was a den of some sort. Voices murmured from inside. She lifted herself into a low crouch, despite a tweak of pain in her knee, and darted after Rainer. Weeds scratched her legs, but she didn’t care. Relief surged through her. His words reverberated in her mind. Not my wife.

  He caught her by the wrist and pulled her out of the weeds, across a soft strip of grass and into a bed of overgrown lilacs standing tall beside the stucco exterior of the house. “We have to talk,” he whispered, squeezing tightly. “But not here. Not now. Go back to the party and pretend you never saw me.” He released her, put his fingers to his lips, and then crept through the lilacs, closer to the circle of light spilling out the open window of the den.

  She followed him.

  When he stopped long enough to glance over his shoulder, she nearly bumped into him. “Go on,” he whispered. “Do as I say.”

  “Who is she, then,” Anna said, “if she’s not your wife?”

  “No one. Never mind about her.”

  “No one? So you’re telling me the Balikos aren’t real, either? And she’s not pregnant?”

  “Hush. We’ll talk later. I promise.”

  “Because now,” she said, “you intend to spy on those people inside, don’t you?”

  “Of course not. Why should they matter?”

  An interesting response, she thought. He hadn’t denied spying, only the target. They. She didn’t know if they mattered or not. In fact, she didn’t even know to whom the voices belonged. All she knew was that she didn’t care for the hard edge behind Rainer’s voice. Had the war done this to him? Or had it been the intervening years?

  Rainer gripped both her shoulders and gave her a little shake. “You’ve got to trust me.”

  “Why should I? You didn’t come home.”

  “I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”

  “How is that possible? After all these years?”

  “I will, you’ll see. But first, there’s som
ething I have to finish.” He patted her, the way he used to do, lovingly, but now it only felt like a pat he would reserve for a faithful dog.

  “I don’t even know who you really are anymore,” she said. “The war’s been over twelve years.”

  “It’s not over for everyone.”

  “You don’t have to spy anymore.”

  “Go on. Back to the party. Wait for me just a little longer, like a good girl.”

  “Forget it. I’m done waiting. I’ll find out now what this is all about.” She charged ahead of him, stepping away from the lilacs, and she didn’t stop until she came even to the window’s ledge.

  “Shit,” said a man from within the room. “I can’t believe he actually used us for his set-up.” The deep voice sounded like Paul Wingate’s, but Anna couldn’t be sure without risking peeking inside, and she wasn’t that daring. Rainer crept up beside her. Enough light shone through the window for her to see the frown on his face.

  “He denies knowing anything about it,” said a woman’s voice from inside. Fran Lafferty.

  “Of course he would,” Paul snapped. “We can’t be any part to this. You’ve got to get rid of it.”

  Anna furrowed her brow and glanced at Rainer, but his attention focused on the conversation inside. Get rid of what? The tripod?

  “Me?” Fran said. “What do you want me to do with it?”

  “Get him to get it out of here. I don’t want it on the property or your prints on anything.”

  “I don’t think he’s in deep—”

  “I don’t want to know about it. The less we know, the better it’ll look for us, if there’s a coup.”

  Anna sucked in her breath. A coup? She looked again at Rainer, whose lower lip twitched, as if he struggled to remain silent. Was that why Rainer was involved? As a spy?

  “It may be too late for that,” said Fran, “now that she’s stumbled into the middle.”

  “You’ll think of something. Just get rid of him, understand? And don’t let her get in the way.”

  Paul’s slow, heavy footsteps and Fran’s rapid clicks crossed the room. Then their footsteps faded away, but the light stayed on in the den. Now Rainer studied Anna, his gaze burning into her. His frown deepened from an unhappy discomfort to undisguised worry.

 

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