by Joseph Kanon
“But you were busy.”
Alexei lifted an eyelid. “That’s right. Busy.”
He wiped sweat off his upper arms then got up and went over to the basin, pouring water over his head and chest. The man getting the massage moaned. Everything hidden in the steam, the street outside miles away.
“How did you get that?” Leon said, nodding to the scar on Alexei’s side.
He sat down again. “Stalingrad. I was lucky. If it had been deeper—sepsis. No field hospital. You died right away or you died later.”
“You were at the front? I thought intelligence—”
“Antonescu liked to put us in the forward units. To make sure. No deserters, no defeatist talk. The Russians did it too.”
“He’d risk intelligence officers that way?”
“Think how many he killed himself. Why not let the Russians do it.” He wiped his forehead. “You’re surprised? It’s what they are, these men. Look at Stalin. Never safe. Sooner or later, everybody goes. So the trick is to go later.”
“If you’re lucky,” Leon said, imagining the field littered with bodies. “You were hit twice?”
“This?” Alexei said, pointing to the smaller scar. “No, this was a woman. In Bucharest. You don’t expect it from a woman.”
“She shot you?”
Alexei shrugged. “She was a little bit—” He touched his temple. “Again, lucky. Not a good shot.”
“And the others?” Leon said, pointing, curious now.
“Shrapnel. Also Stalingrad.” He ran his hand down his side. “Like a war map, no? Except for Ilena. A crazy temper. But a good fuck. Like that one back there,” he said, jerking his head toward Marina’s flat. “Well, you know. She said you’re a regular. A good fuck.” Something between them, easy, locker-room friends.
Leon said nothing.
“But these days,” Alexei said. “You never know if it’s your last. So they’re all good. The Russian desk? How’s that?”
Leon stood up and went over to the basin, sluicing himself. Why couldn’t everything wash off like sweat? Selling Jews for Antonescu. Sending them back. Străuleşti. Fucking Marina. They’re all good now. He rubbed a soapy mitt over his chest, scouring it, as if he were wiping away Alexei’s hands, touching him. The same woman. More water.
When he turned back, the whole room seemed to be behind gauze, not quite clear. Bodies shiny with fat, hairy, leaning over with their heads down or sitting back, faces raised to the star-shaped pinpricks of light coming through the dome, the fleshy democracy of the baths, everyone just a body. Who were they all? Shopkeepers and rug salesmen, maybe a policeman off duty, a dockworker, not real in the steam, bodies to hide behind. He looked at Alexei, smaller somehow in his towel, paler, the war map of scars just little bruises from this distance, skin beginning to sag, the inevitable gravity. Before Leon had seen a fighter in military trim, but now the body was older, as slack as all the others, the same tired face Leon had seen when they walked out of Laleli. You never know if it’s your last. Not a monster, a man in a towel. Both.
“You weren’t in the war?” Alexei said when Leon came back, his voice drowsy.
“No. My eyes.”
“In Romania they take you even if you’re blind.”
“I tried. I was too old for the draft but I went anyway and I couldn’t get past the eye test. All they’d have let me do was hold down a desk somewhere. I was already doing that here.” Explaining himself, some point of honor.
“And that’s why you started doing this work?”
“I guess. It came up, that’s all.”
“No eye tests for this. And now it’s over, the war? You want to fight the next one?” He snorted. “A soldier. You think you know what it’s like. What you have to do.” He went quiet for a minute, private. “The first time, it’s difficult. But then it’s easier.”
“What? To kill somebody?”
“No, betray them. You think you can’t do it. It closes up.” He put his hand to his throat, a choking gesture. “That’s how it was for me anyway. I couldn’t breathe. But you have to do it, so you do. And after that it’s easier. You’ll see,” he said, facing Leon.
Alexei turned back, closing his eyes again, drifting with the steam.
“Do you know what I remember about the war? The cold. No mountains there, just wind. I thought I would never be warm again. And now look. Sweating. Maybe they’ll send me somewhere where it’s warm, when they’re finished with me. We never discussed that. What should I ask for? Where is it warm in America?”
“I don’t know. Florida.”
“Florida,” Alexei said, pronouncing it in syllables.
“Just go wherever they can hide you.”
“You think it’s like Trotsky? I’m so valuable the Russians send out assassins?” He shook his head. “Once I say what I have to say, they don’t care.” He paused. “Neither will you.” He stretched a little, enjoying the heat. “They have nice women in Florida?”
“Jews.”
Alexei opened his eyes, looking over at him. “Always that with you.” He leaned back again. “Ilena was a Jew.”
Leon was quiet, trying to imagine what the story had been, what she’d known. Or maybe it had been before Străuleşti, a lovers’ quarrel. Angry enough to shoot. And then miss. His sixth life, or seventh.
“You’ve paid for a massage?” Alexei said, looking toward the masseur. “It’s okay?”
Leon nodded.
“What’s the word?”
“Uğma. But just lie down. He’ll know.”
Leon watched Alexei flop on the warm marble, the tellak kneeling over him, hands already working his shoulders. A full-body massage, lying out there in plain view. He squinted at the other men in the room, none of whom were watching, lost in their own worlds. Moustaches and stomach folds. Bodies. The women’s baths would be the same, not Corot’s pink nymphs, but drooping breasts and doughy thighs, little boys pretending not to look as towels came unwrapped. Kay naked in the hotel window, self-conscious, an alabaster light. Then he saw her again in bed with Frank, just talking, murmuring, in bed with the Russian desk. Think how perfect. Well, not the wife.
But what if Frank had called the hotel? You don’t expect it from a woman. Standing behind him at his desk, an easy shot. Facing down Gülün. He was with me. Each other’s alibi. But Leon hadn’t been, not all the time. Not while he’d been in Tommy’s office, the unreliable Saydam gone somewhere else. Somebody in Ankara. It was Frank who thought there was a plant in the consulate. Who had killed Tommy. Except he hadn’t. Leon had.
His mind, idling in what-ifs, began racing now. Everything she had ever said to him. Hating secrets, his. Tell me. Or maybe something simpler, like Ilena picking up a gun in a Bucharest hotel, doing it for love, not missing this time. Coming up to him at Lily’s. Do something for me. What did he know about her really? Everything. His mind stopped, so still now that he felt the trickle of sweat on his chest and then he felt it on hers, brushing it with the back of his hand. How do you know? Because you do, the rest all steam and circles, fever dreams. Not like Alexei, suspecting everybody, the only life he knew. How long did it take for that to happen? You think you know what it’s like. In bed now, his skin still slick, but not with Kay, Marina, Alexei on her other side, leaning over, winking at him, sharing.
He opened his eyes, panting, not sure where he was. Smoke. No, steam, hot in his throat as he gulped it down. The bath, awake again, but the room still insubstantial, wispy. How long had he been out? Crazy dreams, with Alexei in them now, in his head. But not here. He looked again at the marble slab, empty, a Turk being pummeled near the edge. He stood up. Don’t panic. He wouldn’t have been taken without a fight, some noisy struggle. Unless he had walked out by himself, waiting for his babysitter to nod off, a plan of his own.
Leon went over to the basin and poured water over his head, as if he still hadn’t completely awakened. Don’t draw attention. He looked around the room. The same interchangeable bodies, no Alex
ei. Not on the benches, in the alcoves. Gone. Check the cubicles. See if his clothes are still here.
He hurried through the temperate room, back to the big rotunda, and stopped short. Alexei was drinking tea by the fountain, a new towel wrapped around his waist. Leon breathed out, a relief that was almost a physical shudder.
“What’s wrong?” Alexei said.
“I didn’t know where you were,” Leon said, hearing himself, a parent who’d lost a child in a store.
“You should drink some tea. Replace the sweat.” Unconcerned, only Leon rattled, aware suddenly that Alexei had become his lifeline, that without him everything would go wrong.
He picked up a towel and started to dry himself, catching a flicker of movement over Alexei’s shoulder, a newspaper page being turned. Hürriyet. Where Özmen had his column, picking things up at parties, then passing them on to the Emniyet, they said. Altan’s ears everywhere. Lily more than a friend. Like Topkapi with its peepholes and listeners, still the same Istanbul. Another impatient turning, the man probably looking for the sports section. Then the paper dropped a little and Leon saw his face. Enver Manyas. Not looking back at Leon, eyes fixed on the page, maybe willing them there. The paper went up again.
“Now what?” Alexei said.
Leon sat down, keeping his voice low. “The man behind, with the newspaper. He knows us.”
“Us?”
“He made your passport. He had your picture. His place isn’t far from here. Maybe a coincidence. Just a bath.”
Alexei took this in, then nodded. “Change your clothes. Now. The big street below? There was a café on the corner. Wait there fifteen, twenty minutes. If I don’t come, then go the rest of the way down the hill. There was a mosque. I’ll find you there.” In control, as if he were reading from some map in his head.
“He may not be—”
“Go change. Now.”
Alexei got up, heading for the toilet, not looking behind.
Leon sat for a second more, glancing at the row of men in towels. What if there were others? Or none? Why not just walk back to Enver and say hello, get a reaction. But the only way to really know would be to see if he followed. Either of them. Go change. Orders.
Outside the air felt cold after the warm bathhouse. He started down. A café he’d never even noticed, but already on Alexei’s escape route, like the stairs to the roof in Laleli. He ordered tea and sat with his back to the wall looking out the window. Not as many people out now, just a few heading down to the trams, and never the same one twice. He ran his fingers nervously over the tulip glass. What if Alexei didn’t come, snatched at the door? A few days ago Leon had wanted him to disappear, the easy solution. Now there was no end to it without him, nothing anyone would believe. The room was quiet, just the click of dominoes, a smoker’s cough. He should be here by now. Leon imagined a gang of men leaping out of the shadows at Enver’s nod.
And then there he was, stopping for a second at the window to make sure Leon had seen, then heading down toward the Bosphorus. Leon threw some change on the saucer.
“It’s all right,” Alexei said on the street, but still moving quickly, Leon catching up. “If they’re out here, they have to wait for him. They won’t know which one I am.”
“But if he’s right behind you—”
“No. He slipped in the toilet. You have to be careful there. The wet floor.”
A second before this registered.
“Slipped—”
“If he’s still inside, then so am I. They’ll wait. We’re all right.”
“You killed him?” Leon said, a tightening in his chest. “You don’t know if—”
“I don’t believe in concidences.”
“And if he was? And they find him?”
“We have a head start. It’s all you can ask for sometimes. A little time,” he said, his voice cool, discussing logistics.
Leon stopped, taking a breath. “You killed him?” An echo.
“You can get another forger. Anyway, I knew. When he followed me to the toilet.”
“You knew,” Leon said, almost spitting. “How could you know? You didn’t know.”
“But I’m safe. So are you, by the way.” He took a minute. “He knew my face.”
Leon glared at him, still not moving.
“Don’t worry,” Alexei said. “They’ll think it’s a fall. It’s easy to twist your neck. If you fall that way. No marks.” The only thing that concerned him.
“It’s murder,” Leon said.
“Well, self-defense.” He looked at Leon. “Like your Mr. King.”
A cold streak, like real ice, ran down Leon’s back.
“And meanwhile we’re standing here in the street. By this time, someone else uses the toilet and everyone’s shouting. And you want to talk about it? This is what we do. Where now?”
“The tram,” Leon said, a vacant sound.
“Again public?”
“A taxi might remember. A tram won’t. Keep your head down.”
They got a seat in the back. Leon expected a rush of police cars and sirens heading toward the hamam but the street was quiet, the water twinkling with boat lights in the distance. At Findikli the tram bell announced the stop, and he was back in Manyas’s shop, the ping of the bell over the door, the dusty pictures of boys in white circumcision cloaks. Careful eyes, hooded. A life could turn in a second, just the drop of a newspaper, a glimpse of a face. Leon stared out the window, seeing Alexei’s head in the reflection. No marks. After a while they passed the swirls and arches of Dolmabahçe Palace. Not even time’s going to help it. Anna’s voice. Laughing as she said it. Life turned in a second—the drop of a newspaper, a hand slipping from yours in the water. Neither one coming back.
“I’ve been thinking,” Alexei said. “What if you had been alone back there.”
Leon turned to him.
“You know Washington?”
“To visit,” Leon said, not sure what was being asked.
“I’ve been thinking,” Alexei said again. “After it’s over, the talks. I could be useful. Somebody has to train people. It’s dangerous, amateurs. Before, it was something new to you. And Donovan was a crazy man—dropping people in, no one comes back, and then the civilians pay too. But now—”
“They’re closing it down. A few people to State, that’s it. War’s over.”
Alexei shook his head. “The turtle goes back in the shell? No. Not now. Why do they want to talk to me? And somebody will have to train you.”
“To be like you? Twist heads?”
Alexei caught the edge in his voice and looked at him, slightly puzzled.
“What do you think this is?”
Past Yildiz, then the cluster of lighted streets in Ortaköy.
“Get off here,” Leon said. “We have to eat something.”
“There’s no food later?”
“No,” Leon said, seeing the hollow faces on the Victorei waiting for rations.
They bought kebabs from one of the outdoor stalls and ate them in the square on the water, pulling up their collars against the breeze.
“A drink would be nice,” Alexei said.
“Better keep moving. We still have a while. Anyway, a walk would do us good. It’ll be cramped on the boat.”
“We’re going by boat?” Alexei said, jerking his head up. “Why a boat?”
Leon looked at him, surprised.
“I don’t like boats.”
“This one’ll get you out.”
Alexei looked away, toward the water. “Another boat. At least a better night this time.”
Sharp and clear, with enough moon to see the road after they left the town. A stretch now without a quay, just a shoulder, no other pedestrians, but cars seemed to stream past without noticing them. Then they were in Arnavutköy, a line of waterside yalis with elaborate fretwork, and streets behind to wind through, a maze for anyone following.
“Do you have a sense for it now?” Leon said, curious. “When anybody’s tailing you
?”
“No. I use my eyes. We’re all right. How much longer?”
Leon checked his watch. “We’re still early.” He looked up. “One quick stop.”
They kept to village streets, then circled back to the shore promenade, empty except for a few night fishermen, too late now for couples. In Bebek, they turned off just before the khedive’s palace, familiar streets, the back way to the clinic. No one behind. They went in through the garden gate.
“What is this place?”
Leon raised his hand, a signal to be quiet. They went off the path, stopping at the tree outside Anna’s room. Just the usual night-light, like a hovering ghost. Leon started for the French windows, then stopped. No need to go in, risk being seen. He could say good-bye from here. No one would hear him anyway. The room utterly still, a tomb’s quiet. And suddenly, disconcerted, he realized that this visit, all his visits, were really trips to a cemetery, paying respects at the grave, the way they had visited his father’s, flowers in hand, his mother solemn, Leon bored and uncomfortable, not knowing, as he did now, that she wasn’t visiting his father but some younger part of herself, what she used to be. He stood for a second, looking through the window, expecting the faint light to grow dimmer until the room was finally dark. Instead there was a quick shaft of light as the door opened, a nurse coming to check, behind her a man sitting on a chair in the hall reading a newspaper, another Manyas. Leon ducked behind the tree. Keeping watch. Anywhere he might go, even here, Gülün taking no chances. Kay’s hotel. Cihangir. Hunting for him. But not in the garden or he wouldn’t still be standing here. A car out front? The nurse smoothed out the blanket and left, taking the light with her.
He motioned Alexei toward the gate. “Police,” he whispered. “Careful.” A follow-me gesture.
Down the backstreets to the shore road. Still too early for the boat, the quay wide open, anybody waiting visible in the moonlight. They passed the steep road up to Robert College, and he thought of Tommy, barreling down, sure how things would go. They went into the café where he’d called Tommy the first rainy night, the same old men smoking. Come to the Park, Mehmet’s martinis.