Istanbul Passage

by Joseph Kanon

  “Finally a drink,” Alexei said when his raki arrived. He took a sip. “So what was that place.”

  “Where my wife is.”

  Alexei peered at him, but said nothing.

  “A clinic.”

  Another look, oddly sympathetic. “So, the good-byes.” He poured more water into the glass, watching the liquid cloud.

  Leon shook his head. “She’s in a coma.” Not quite the truth, but just as good.

  Alexei looked closely at him again. “And police there. It’s no good, you doing something like that. Save the good-byes for later. When we’re gone.” He sipped more raki. “So now it’s the Russian desk?”

  Leon looked away, not answering. The Russian desk. The pale light of the window behind her. Something to think about. Another chance—maybe the only one he’d have. But what kind of life, once they left the hotel room?

  He glanced toward the wall, looking for the clock, the ticking, but it seemed to be in his head. There was no time in a café, hours to dawdle. The ferry to the islands from Eminönü used to take an hour and a half, two to reach Büyükada. The fisherman wouldn’t be any faster. At least an hour to get to Eminönü, another hour as a cushion for any delays. They should be all right. But they had to be—the Victorei wouldn’t wait, a promise. How fast was the fisherman’s boat?

  If they were early, idling off Büyükada wouldn’t be a problem this time of year, the crowded port nearly empty, hotels shuttered. In the summer it was different, carriages and donkey rides and hikes to sandy coves in the south. They’d rented the house for August, on a spur off the road up to the monastery, looking down through the woods to the sea. At night the pines and wild roses and jasmine carried on the breeze. Before the war.

  “You’re very quiet,” Alexei said.

  “I’m thinking.”

  Alexei grunted.

  “I don’t think you were right about Manyas,” Leon said, to say something.

  “Who?”

  “The forger.”

  “Take that chance with your life, not mine,” Alexei said. He signaled for another raki. “Anyway, what does it matter? A man in that work, something always happens.”

  Leon looked at him, not saying anything. But it must have mattered to him once, before life had become this cheap, before the stacks of corpses. He’d had a wife, parents. Now dreaming of Florida. The ticking was louder, intolerable. Maybe the boat had come early. He pushed back his chair.

  “It’s time?” Alexei said, then tossed back the rest of the raki, wincing.

  They crossed the road onto the quay, the empty space outlined in police chalk marks in his mind—Rumeli Hisari looming up ahead, Alexei’s duffel being lifted out, Tommy’s car squealing in, Mihai and Leon pinned flat on the pavement. Now they stood waiting quietly near the edge, the water slapping, looking at a single light coming toward them out of the dark. Almost there.

  They were on board before the fisherman could even tie up.

  “It’s the same man?” Alexei said to Leon. “He works for—?”

  “Me. A private deal.”

  Immediately discussed. The Princes’ Islands were too far.

  “It’s longer than you said.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Leon said, his mouth thin, frustrated, all of them still at the quay.

  “Efendi.” Beginning to haggle.

  “How much?”

  Alexei stepped between them. “Derhal!” he said, almost growling.

  The fisherman stepped back, cowering, then retreated to the motor. Leon glanced over. Alexei’s eyes steady, capable of anything.

  They stayed close to the shore, away from the cargo ships in the channel, retracing the walk from Ortaköy. The Bosphorus was calm except for the wakes of the freighters, and they made good time, passing the charred ruins of the Çirağan where Abdul Aziz had committed suicide, if he had, and Murat V had been locked away, the sort of things Georg used to tell them.

  When there was a break in the cargo traffic, they crossed over to the Asian side, heading past Leander’s Tower, the lights of the city around them now on all sides. Only the usual water traffic, ferries and fishermen, no police boats. Haydarpaşa’s Teutonic facade, where the trains left for Ankara. Nobody else came with him? Just the wife.

  Kadiköy, Fenerbahçe, then the open sea to the islands, shore lights fewer now, the water dark. Alexei kept hold of the side, looking front and back, his knit hat over his ears against the chill. When they pulled farther away from the shore, he went over to the steering cabin and grabbed the signal light. The fisherman yelled at him in Turkish.

  “What are you doing?” Leon said. “He needs that to signal the ship.”

  “Not yet.” He put it between his feet. “When he does, it’s here.”

  Another wail from the fisherman, Leon mollifying him.

  “For Christ’s sake,” he said to Alexei.

  “How well do you know him?”

  “He’s working for us.”

  “He cheats at cards.” A long rainy night in some Black Sea hut, hurricane lamps.

  “So now what? Do we break his neck?”

  Alexei ignored this, focusing on the narrow funnel of light in front. Finally some window lights in the distance.

  “Is that it?”

  “Not yet.”

  The boat chugged past Kinaliada, then headed south between Heybeliada and Büyükada, finally idling near the lower tip of the island where the Victorei would pass.

  “Tell him to kill the light,” Alexei said, still alert, looking in both directions. No houses behind them, the empty stretch of the Marmara in front, city lights far in the distance, the boat hidden now in its own patch of watery darkness, rocking slightly with the waves.

  “How much longer?” Alexei said.

  “The bridge opens around three. Depends where they are in line.” A convoy pouring out of the Golden Horn, most of them hugging the European shore, then sailing straight for the Dardanelles, only the Victorei veering off toward the islands.

  “Another fishing boat?”

  Leon shook his head. “A freighter. Was, anyway. Romanian.”

  “And now?”

  “Now it’s taking Jews to Palestine.”

  Alexei looked at him for a long minute, his face moving from one thought to another. “We’re going to Palestine?”

  “Cyprus. They’re dropping us.”

  “Jews to Palestine,” Alexei said, turning it over. “No one will think of that.” Raising his eyes, a compliment.

  “No,” Leon said, feeling pleased, then embarrassed to have felt it.

  Alexei snorted, a kind of laugh with himself. “Jews to Palestine.”

  The boat dipped, then rocked harder, the wind picking up. Alexei clutched the gunwale.

  “What’s wrong?” Leon said.

  “Nothing. I don’t like boats, I told you.” Almost a child pouting, vulnerable, something Leon hadn’t seen before.

  And then they waited. The fisherman had cut the motor, so there were only sounds of buoys now, soft tinkles, and the wind blowing things on deck. The Byzantines had exiled people here, where they couldn’t be heard. He thought of the whistles and screams when Anna’s boat had gone down, sirens on the shore, his own rescue boat blowing horns, the air shaking with noise. Closer to the city, just past Yaniköy, which should have made it easier and in the end didn’t matter. Children without life jackets, panicking, taking water every time they shouted, clutching. An endless night. A few even saved, the others slipping under, so close they could see the shore. And then the awful questions after—had the harbor boats come fast enough, had they wanted to come at all?

  “There,” the fisherman said.

  Leon looked out. A bright beam slicing across the water, then the glow of the bridge, followed by a thin string of mast lights, hung like flags. The portholes dark, the boat moving like a shadow, no faster than a ferry. Leon imagined the engine below, creaking and hissing, but turning, getting them there. A miracle, bought with Tommy’s money.
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  The fisherman waited a few more minutes then started up the boat, signaling the ship. The waves were rougher now, Alexei pale. From the water, the Victorei’s deck seemed stories high.

  “Efendi,” the fisherman said to Leon, rubbing his fingers.

  Leon gave him the envelope with the money, watching him tuck it into his shirt.

  “You’re not going to count it?”

  “I trust you,” the fisherman said, smiling. “And now it’s quick. Here.” He handed Leon a grappling hook.

  They pulled alongside. A rope ladder was dropped, and Leon tried to hook it, bringing the fishing boat up against the Victorei and holding it steady in the rocking waves.

  “Leon?” Mihai’s voice through a primitive megaphone, shining down a light.

  Leon waved.

  “Can you reach?” he said to Alexei. “I’ve got it hooked. Jump for it.”

  Alexei looked at him, whiter.

  “I’ll be right behind.”

  “Some trouble?” the fisherman said, a sneer he couldn’t resist.

  “How do you say, go to hell?” Alexei asked Leon.

  “Cehennèm ol,” Leon said.

  Alexei cocked his head to it, not repeating it, and lunged for the bottom rung, grunting as he pulled himself up, grabbing on to the next, another, then finally a foothold.

  “Let’s go,” Mihai shouted from on deck. The engines had idled, but the ship was still moving, drifting, pulling the fishing boat with it.

  “Hold this,” Leon said, handing the fisherman the hook. “Go back tonight. Not a word, right? And thanks.”

  The fisherman looked away, embarrassed.

  Leon lifted his arms. Not quite high enough. “Steady,” he said to the fisherman, then bounced, grabbing the step, slick with cold water, his arms straining as he pulled himself up to the next, and again, until his feet could take his weight. “You okay?” he shouted up at Alexei, who didn’t answer, clinging to the ladder.

  The fishing boat slid out from the hull, then sputtered and roared away while they were still on the ladder, nothing below now but water.

  Mihai and another man hauled them over the top, Alexei landing like a flapping fish, winded, trying to pick himself up.

  “Tell David to start,” Mihai said, then turned to Leon. “You made it.” Not looking at Alexei, someone not there.

  “Any trouble?” Leon said.

  “After the dollars? No. A leap into health. Now it’s just the engine to worry about. But at least we’re moving.”

  Büyükada, however, seemed just where it had been, any change of speed unnoticeable. A long night.

  “Over here,” Mihai said. “It’s out of the wind.” Looking at Alexei now, his face deliberately blank, indicating a short bench near the bridge.

  “Where is everybody?” Leon said, expecting to see people lining the rails, jubilant.

  “Sleeping. If they can.”

  Or hunkering in blankets on benches, the way they’d been before, indifferent to Istanbul, saving their strength, heads drooping on shoulders next to them, the few still awake staring at Alexei and Leon, wondering, but more interested in the uneven throb of the engines below.

  “Thank you,” Alexei said.

  “Thank him,” Mihai said, brusque.

  “There’s a boat,” David said, coming out of the bridge.

  “Signaling?”

  “No. Maybe putting into Büyükada. But we’re just sitting here. Go see what’s happening down below, will you? We’d make better time rowing.”

  A sudden wave rolled the boat, pitching Mihai forward, onto Alexei’s chest. He pulled away.

  “Right back,” he said to Leon. “Stay over there.”

  “Your Romanian friend,” Alexei said.

  “You never saw him.”

  “I never see anybody.” He grabbed on to a rail, the boat rocking again with a wave. “It’s getting rough.”

  They sat in the niche by the bridge.

  “He’s the one told you about Străuleşti.”

  Leon nodded.

  “So why does he take me?”

  “I paid him.”

  “That one? No. Something else. Maybe it’s a trap.”

  “He’s not doing it for you. Get some sleep.”

  “In this?” He opened his hand to the wind. The boat had begun to creak.

  One of the blanketed figures shuffled over, a man with a shaved head, and said something in what Leon took to be Polish, answered with an I-don’t-understand hands up. Another language, probably Yiddish. Finally, German.

  “Who are you, that they stop the ship for you?”

  “Nobody,” Leon said. “We were late.”

  “No. People are late on the dock, not out here. Haganah? You’re Haganah, yes? What else? An honor,” he said, extending his hand. Alexei shook it, Leon watching, his eyes fixed on the numbers inked on the man’s forearm.

  The man made a lips-sealed gesture and started back to his bench.

  A sudden thud below, then a grinding, the whole frame of the boat shuddering, but moving again, the few lights on Büyükada beginning to recede.

  “Maybe your friend’s pushing,” Alexei said, sitting back, enjoying himself, the movement of the boat like a promise. In a few hours, the Aegean.

  “You never saw him before. You understand?”

  “I heard you the first time.” He opened his eyes. “Why?”

  “He’s not part of this.”

  Alexei looked at him, then around the deck, the glance its own comment. The boat lurched again. Faint noises came from below, groans. There would be crammed bunks, slop buckets spilling over.

  A woman staggered out of the door to the hold, hand over her mouth, and ran to the railing, stretching as far as she could, hoping her vomit would clear the side, disappear in the water. A painful heaving, loud, the people on the bench unconsciously moving away from her. Sputtering, then more retching, only thin streams of bile now. The first of many, if the water stayed rough. She wiped her mouth with the end of her shawl, eyes toward the benches, too sick to apologize, her breath taken now by a hacking cough. Another woman got up and held her by the shoulders, steadying her until the coughing stopped. Some words, probably a thank-you, carried off by the wind. She nodded, gulping air, then started back, looking over toward Leon and Alexei. A frozen moment, silent, too stunned to speak.

  “Voi,” she said finally, to herself, trying to make sense of what she was seeing, walking now in a kind of determined stagger, through water, a waking dream.

  “Voi.” Closer now, making sure, then trembling. “Măcelar!” A sudden scream, heads lifting on the benches. “Călău! Călău!” People getting up, her finger pointing to Alexei now, then a scream, piercing, people coming up behind her.

  Alexei said something in Romanian, the tone of a denial.

  Another scream, her whole body vibrating, about to explode. “Măcelar!” The language now part of the nightmare, the people on the benches not sure what was being said, responding to pure sound.

  “Butcher,” someone yelled, explaining.

  Another stream of Romanian, the force of hysteria, someone murmuring “her sister” in the background, the finger again. “Călău! Călău!” And then she lunged for him, her fingernails on his face, reaching for his eyes, feral. Alexei grabbed her arms, trying to hold her away, but she had the strength of the mad, scratching and pulling at him, hands turned to claws. Alexei gasped with pain, pushing himself off the bench, so that she now had to reach up to rake his face, still screaming, the people behind her excited, their shouts swirling around Leon’s head in a frenzied Babel, everything happening in a second.

  “Stop!” He grabbed her arms from behind, amazed at her strength as she yanked away, everyone around them shouting, the whole ship seeming to have come awake, the feel of people moving below. Ruining everything.

  Alexei shielded his face with his arms, still trying to quiet her in Romanian, duck away, but they were surrounded now, the crowd surging like a mob.<
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  “Stop!” Leon tried holding her again.

  She’d break down soon, the rage turning to uncontrollable sobbing, draining her strength away. But not before she could lunge at him one more time, tearing at his skin, hate spilling out of her.

  “Călău!”

  “Executioner,” someone echoed, translating.

  People coming closer, a wave of them, then something slicing through.

  “What’s going on?” Mihai shouted, breathless, grabbing the hands that had broken away from Leon.

  A gush of Romanian from the woman, Mihai looking pained, a quick glance at Leon, people around them still shouting. “What is it?” “He’s a Nazi.” “How could he be a Nazi?” “A Romanian Nazi.” People coming up from below, the air crackling like radio static. More Romanian. “He put them on a hook.” Mumbling, then yells, the woman finally breaking down the way Leon had imagined, wailing that scraped on the nerves, not stopping. “Mihai! What’s going on here? We have a right—”

  “Yes, yes. Calm, please. You want to have a riot before we’re safe?”

  “He’s a Nazi? On this ship? Are you crazy?”

  “Get him to the bridge,” Mihai hissed at Leon, his eyes sharp knives of reproach.

  “Not so fast!” The man with the shaved head. “What’s going on? He’s not Haganah?”

  More Romanian. “They hung them like meat,” someone translated.

  A second of quiet, taking this in. Alexei said something in Romanian, another denial, “It wasn’t me,” Leon guessed, then the woman shrieked back. The crowd now got louder, splashes of words, unsettled. Leon moved in front of Alexei.

  “Enough!” Mihai said, barking it.

  “So who is he? What’s going on?”

  “He’s cargo on this boat. For Cyprus. Not Palestine.”

  “Cargo? What do you mean, cargo?”

  “Everybody go back. Sit down. I’ll explain later.”

  The Romanian woman crumpled into a heap, crying, pulling at the air, as if she were rending it, a grief too large to contain.

  “No. Now!” someone shouted. “It’s a trick! Maybe he warns the British. Not until the last Jew—”

  Mihai raised his hands. “Please. This is crazy talk. He’s a help to us.”