Istanbul Passage

by Joseph Kanon

  “But was I interested in them? Never. Of course he knew that. Maybe he thought it flattered me. To be jealous.”

  “You were in love with him?” Kay said.

  “What a question,” Lily said, suddenly tentative, surprised at this. “Certainly. But love—it’s not always so reliable, you know? It changes. But with us there was also a debt. I owed him everything, my life. How could there be anyone else? He rescued me.”

  “Literally?”

  “Oh, a long story. Not for a party. Leon, you must know this, how Refik found me. After the harem.”

  “Only that he did.”

  “Tell me,” Kay said. “Do you mind?”

  Leon glanced at her, eager, wanting to know. A kiss he hadn’t expected. He looked over her shoulder, unsettled. In the same garden. But not the same, just a few pines. The other trees pollarded, cut back for the winter, the laburnum and chestnuts only in his head, in the past.

  “Mind?” Lily was saying, delighted to have an audience. “Well, everybody wants to know about the harem. What was it like? Something romantic. But it wasn’t like that. The house in Yildiz, nothing to do. Games, with the other girls. What did we learn? How to act. How to dress. And what good was that when it was over? People don’t ask that, what happened after. Nobody thought. After they sent Abdul Hamid to Salonica, there we were and no one knew what to do with us. Hundreds of girls, some children. So they took us to Topkapi. It was the first time I’d ever been there. So damp. At least Yildiz had been warm. And then they sent messengers to all the villages where we’d been born—come and get your daughters, take them home. And some did. Farmers, and their daughters are dressed like—well, you can imagine the kind of clothes you wore for the sultan, beautiful, and now they’re going back to the farm. Useless for work. Some didn’t want to go. What would happen? Make yogurt, be married off to some ox. So they’d cry, but of course they had to go. The fathers would sell their jewelry, and that’s the last they’d see of Istanbul. Now the fields. If they were still virgin, maybe a marriage in the town, somebody who liked good manners. If not, not. Any marriage that could be arranged. The jewelry would make a bride price. And that was the end of the harem for them.”

  She stopped, catching herself. “I don’t know, maybe some of the girls were happy to see their families again. There must have been some, yes? But I didn’t see it. Just the crying. In carts sometimes, they drove away in carts. In Istanbul. Behind veils, of course, but you could tell they were crying.

  “And these, you know, were the lucky ones. Someone came for them. The rest of us, we’d think, why doesn’t my family come? Maybe they moved from the village. Maybe they never heard the messengers. Maybe this, maybe that. But what you thought was, they don’t want me. And now what? We couldn’t stay at Topkapi forever. The government didn’t want to keep us, the expense. What happens to a girl in Istanbul who knows—what? how to make herself attractive? Galata, one of those houses, what else? If you were a virgin, they could sell your first night. Money to them. After that, you were just in the house, one of the—well, you know what that was. That’s what I thought would happen to me. They’d lock me up in one of those houses until they could sell my first night. And then the rest. Who knows what it’s really like? Just things you hear. Maybe it’s worse. And then I was rescued.”

  She looked up at Kay. “Not Refik, not yet. The first rescue was Nevber, one of the girls. Her parents had died but they had friends who came for her, to adopt her, and she said, please, would they take me too. I don’t think they wanted to, one daughter was all they could afford, but Nevber said they should take me as a servant. I could do housework, whatever they liked. A servant, but I wouldn’t be put out in the streets, and you know they were all right. A lot of work, but a place to live. This was in Izmir. Jews, so I always felt a debt to that,” she said to Leon. “That’s why I helped Anna, when she needed money for the boats. And when Nevber married and left the house, they kept me. Not a daughter, not a servant, something in between. But there wasn’t money to arrange a marriage. So what future? And then, Refik. Some business and he comes to the house and he sees me. A Cypriot. What happens between people? Do we know? I don’t.”

  “No,” Kay said. “It just happens.”

  Leon looked at her, mouth slightly open, deep in the story. Do something for me. Reaching up to him.

  “So it happens for him,” Lily said. “Why, I don’t know. And a few days later, he’s back, and then back again and they tell me he wants to marry me. No bride price, no family, never mind. Not some arrangement, a girl in a room—they would never have agreed to that. Marriage. So my first night was with my husband, not some house in Galata.” She moved her hand toward Kay. “Love? Not then. But the debt began. And everything that happened after.” She extended her arm to the yali. “The life we had. You know in the harem, you want to be gözde, one who’s noticed. Abdul Hamid never did, I was too young. But Refik did. I was gözde to him. I sometimes think what would have happened if they’d kept the harem. Become a kadive to Abdul Hamid? An old, crazy man. Maybe now I’d even be valide.” She shook her head. “But never have this life. Never see Paris, anywhere. So it was lucky for me, Refik. Better than the sultan.”

  “Gözde,” Kay said, trying to pronounce it, still in the story.

  “Yes. ‘In the eye.’ And it was true, I was. So later, when there were other women, I’d think, well, they’re—women. But I’m the one in his eye.”

  “You didn’t mind if—” Kay began.

  “Yes, at first it’s terrible. You think it’s the end of the world. But you know, the world doesn’t end. It just becomes something else. I remember when the Ottomans finally left—the last ones, the household, children, grandchildren—I went to Sirkeci to see it. I knew some of them from the old days, so I was curious. They put them on the Orient Express—one way—and this woman at the station, maybe a servant, tears and wailing. It’s the end of the world. And this is ’twenty-four when Kemal Pasha is making a new Turkey. So, whose end? Well, listen to me. Who talks like this? Old women.” She put her hand on Leon’s upper arm, patting it. “Don’t make trouble with my Russian. You know everyone comes to my house.”

  “When did he die? Your husband,” Kay said.

  “Before the war. A few months after Kemal. People said it broke his heart. They were so close.”

  “Kemal—”

  “Atatürk,” Leon said.

  “Another lion,” Lily said, without irony. “Now come. Have something to eat. Hacer has been cooking all day. Ah, there’s Ivan.”

  Leon followed her glance through the doors to Melnikov, head bent in conversation with Colonel Altan.

  “He’s found a friend,” Leon said. “Maybe he’s a better mixer than we think.”

  “Oush,” Lily said, a behave-yourself sound. “And now Georg. Always when he’s not wanted.”

  She moved toward the doors, intercepting him before he could reach Melnikov, and led him to the dining room, gliding, a sequence of perfect dance steps. Why? So Melnikov and Altan could talk? The meeting she’d arranged? Melnikov seemed to be doing most of the talking, Altan simply taking him in, barely nodding, his eye now over Melnikov’s shoulder, catching Leon’s, just a flicker, then back, everyone noted.

  “What a story,” Kay said. “Did you ever meet him, the husband?”

  “Yes,” Leon said, still trying to watch Melnikov.

  “And was she? His gözde?”

  “Mm. What she didn’t say is that she was fourteen when she caught his eye. So you wonder what he was seeing.”

  “Fourteen?”

  Leon nodded. “It takes some of the romance out of it, doesn’t it? But Lily made it last. And now look. The rumor was that she caught Atatürk’s eye too.”

  “And?” Kay said, intrigued.

  “I doubt it. Refik lent the treasury a lot of money in the early days, and they really were friends.”

  “And he had his Russian dancers.”

  Leon smiled. “And then som
e. Of course, Lily loves to keep the rumor going. Part of her myth.”

  “It’s all made up?”

  “No, no, it’s true. Refik was crazy about her.”

  “And a few others.”

  “No, only her. The others didn’t matter.”

  “Do you think that’s possible? An affair that doesn’t matter?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She looked up, ready to joke, then met his eye. “I think it would have to, somehow,” she said, her voice steady. “Unless both of them agreed that it wouldn’t. Just be something that—happened. Something you could walk away from after. No harm to anybody.”

  He waited a minute. “You don’t mean that.”

  “Why not? The good wife?” she said wryly.

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said, looking away. “So what am I doing? Why you? I don’t even know that. How do people do this? Give a room number?” She shook her head. “I am a good wife. So say good-night, Kay, and thank you for the party.” She stopped. “But I thought that. What would it be like?”

  “With me.”

  She lowered her head. “God, look at your face. I know. I’m embarrassing you. Bored wife. Away from home. Lily’s right, in the garden, like a play. No moon, though, at least give me that. I haven’t gone completely corny.”

  He took her elbow, leaning closer. “Stop.” Aware of her again, even a simple touch.

  “Just pretend I had too much to drink, all right? And tomorrow I’ll be myself again. Not say things like that.” She looked up. “I never did before, for what that’s worth. To anyone.”

  A silence, both of them just looking, night sounds behind, glasses tinkling.

  “So,” she said, moving her arm. “We’d better go inside. Before you say anything. Make it worse. There’s that man who was talking to Frank yesterday,” she said, spotting Altan. “He’s always around.” Talking, just to fill up space, then stopping, turning back to Leon. A small smile. “It wasn’t all me, though, was it? Maybe we both wondered, a little.”

  “Mrs. Bishop,” Altan said, leaving the terrace step. “Murat Altan. We met at the funeral.”

  Again the thin moustache until he stepped into the light.

  “Yes, I remember,” Kay said.

  “Mr. Bauer,” Altan said, nodding.

  “I was just taking Mrs. Bishop in. It got chilly all of a sudden.”

  “The Bosphorus is like that,” Altan said.

  Which meant what? Did anything show in his face? Kay a little breathless, but that could be the cold.

  “You’ll excuse me?” Altan was saying to her. “A quick word with Mr. Bauer?”

  “I was just getting a wrap,” she said, sounding relieved to get away.

  “Mr. Bishop has gone back to Ankara?” Altan said to Leon, watching her go inside. “A courtesy, to escort her.”

  “Frank asked me to.”

  “Ah,” Altan said, his eyes moving with some private amusement but his face blank. “Part of your new job?”

  “No job. Just helping out until they send a replacement.”

  “It makes one wonder,” Altan said, “what assignments they thought had prepared you for this.”

  “I think the biggest qualification was not having any. Frank wanted someone new. Outside the consulate.”

  “Put the cat with the pigeons. Well, an idea. Assuming he can rely on you.” He glanced again toward Kay’s back.

  “Frank tells me we’re working together. Emniyet, I mean.”

  “We cooperate with everybody. But yes, a special case this one. The elusive Mr. Jianu. So, my new colleague, what do you think?”

  “Officially or personally?”

  “They’re not the same?”

  “Personally, I think he’s dead.”

  “You do? I doubt that.”

  “That he’s dead?”

  Altan nodded. “And that you think so.”

  “Why not dead?”

  “By whose hand? His own? Jianu? Not, I think, the suicide type. The Russians? They would be the first to tell the world, a great feather in their caps. A spit in your eye—is that exact? And they are looking for him.”

  “Is that what Melnikov said? Is that why you wanted to talk to him?”

  “Well, he talked. I listened. Not a subtle man. Would he pretend to look, if they had him?” He shook his head. “He would gloat. And the Americans? Making demands in Ankara. Extra men at the ports, at the border. Such expense. But of course we have to do it. So, not dead.”

  “Extra men?” he said, trying to keep his voice steady.

  “You insist,” Altan said, a waiter’s nod.

  “But you can’t cover the whole coast.”

  “You think he would leave in a rowboat? It’s possible, I suppose. Depending on who is helping him.”

  “Helping.”

  “He can’t speak Turkish. Even Jianu would need help here.”

  “Any idea who?” Leon said carefully, feeling the familiar twitching at the back of his neck.

  Altan gave a listless shrug. “He came to Turkey during the war. Perhaps someone he met then.”

  “He came here? Istanbul?”

  “Not here. Ankara once. Edirne twice,” Altan said, familiar with the records. “Government business. Or so his papers said. Only a day each time. A courier, perhaps,” he said, glancing up at Leon. “So maybe a friend from the old days. We are checking the Romanians here. A long job, more men.”

  “But he can’t go back to Romania.”

  “No. So where then? If he went east, it would have to be by train, easy to check. The drive is too long to risk. He would be seen. And Baghdad for Jianu? Not so attractive, I think. I would say Greece. He made trips to Edirne. The first stop coming from Romania, but also from Greece, so maybe some Greek business those trips, old colleagues. And in Greece he might be useful. The Greeks are fighting their own communists. He might have information he could sell to them—now that he’s not selling it to you. It’s true as you say, we can’t control the whole coast, so many places. But where would the boat be going? One of the islands, then Piraeus most likely. Then it’s my old friend Spiro’s problem.” He shook his head, pretending to be amused. “A man who works for the Germans and now for the Greeks—he must have something on everybody. Who better to find him?”

  “Works for the Greeks how?”

  “State security. I thought it best to alert them. If Jianu tries to cross the border—by road, train—we have him. But if he somehow manages it, the little boat, then Spiro. Personally, I hope he does. Let the Greeks have him.”

  As Altan spoke, Leon saw the border guards checking cars at Edirne. There’d be photographs now, the Emniyet forced to supply them, pressured by the embassy. Conductors, ticket offices, a net flung over Turkey. Greeks waiting on the other side. Watching the docks at Piraeus. Passenger lists from Rhodes, Chios. Even assuming that could be arranged. He hadn’t imagined anything beyond a few hours’ drive, sleepy Edirne guards glancing at Enver Manyas’s new papers and waving them through. His chest tightened.

  “There’s something wrong?” Altan was saying, peering at him.

  “Just thinking. But the Greeks would hand him back.”

  Altan sighed. “No doubt. The police here want him for murder. Why would the Greeks protect him? So, back. But then neither of you get him. We do.”

  “Melnikov wouldn’t like that.”

  “Neither would your Mr. Bishop. And who’s in the middle?” He looked at Leon. “Much better, you know, if one of you do find him. The police? They’d put him on trial and that is a trial no one will want to have. Consider the testimony. What it might be.”

  “But if we found him, we couldn’t get him out now. Past your blocks.”

  Altan nodded. “You would have to consider an alternative solution,” he said smoothly, polite conversation, only his eyes hard, making the point.

  Leon stared back. “We don’t do things that way.”

  Altan raised an eyebrow but s
aid nothing.

  “Melnikov would, though,” Leon said. “If he finds him, your problems are over.”

  “But he won’t find him.”

  “Why not?”

  “He has no idea what to do. A simple man. It makes no sense to him. So he looks to Emniyet to do it.”

  “That’s why the chat?”

  “He’s disappointed. Impossible for a man to disappear. We must be working for the Americans. And so on,” he said, idly waving his hand. “It’s always a question of blame with them. It’s the way they think. No human factor.”

  Leon looked at him, waiting.

  “You don’t find it’s usually the case?” Altan said. “There’s a logic and then someone upsets it. Why? A personal motive. Why did Jianu run? Why does someone help? To sell him? Old comrades, a loyalty? Something else. So you look for that. Melnikov doesn’t. Things are this way. If not? A correction is needed, someone at fault. You talk to him, you see his character. A great believer in the rational.” He shrugged. “But look how they live. They kill their own people—that makes sense to them. Better to bend a little.” His lips turned up. “The Ottoman way. So we’ve promised to do our best.”

  “This what you wanted to tell me?”

  “Not tell. Just to talk. Get to know your character. Not so easy as Melnikov.” He took a card from his breast pocket. “And to give you this. You can reach me at this number if you need to meet. Not at the consulate. Melnikov would hear—so quick to take offense. Somewhere neutral. A hotel. A social gathering. Like this.”

  “Why would we need to meet like that?”

  “Mr. Bauer, we are working together. If you do find him, you will need our help.”

  “To kill him?”

  “To get him out. I thought that was the alternative you preferred. So, a cooperation. Of course, if Melnikov gets him, or Spiro, then my hands are tied. You will keep me informed? Your progress?”

  “I thought you already knew everything that happens at the consulate.”

  “Not everything.” Altan smiled. “You have a suspicious nature. Maybe Mr. Bishop was right in his choice.” He nodded. “Use your home telephone, please. We may not be the only ones with ears at your consulate.”