Black Amber

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  Out of the past a sudden memory of her father’s outraged face flashed into Tracy’s mind and she suppressed a desire toward incongruous laughter.

  “You’re behaving just like my father!” she cried. “He wouldn’t let anybody touch a thing in his study. But he couldn’t really find what he wanted, the way he claimed. I was the only one who could straighten out his papers and keep them in any sort of order. So maybe I do have some experience that would be useful to you.”

  His sneezing spell subsiding, Mr. Radburn flourished his handkerchief. “Perhaps you can begin,” he said coldly, “by picking up everything you’ve sent off onto the floor.”

  Tracy looked down at scattered pages of manuscript and drawings. “Where would I put it if I picked it up?” she asked reasonably. “Surely not back on the summit of the mountain?”

  A dark flush had engulfed Mr. Radburn’s somber features and there were beads of perspiration on his forehead. Unexpectedly, Tracy felt sorry for him. After all, she thought, with that perversity of humor that so often seized her at inopportune moments, how did one deal with an intruder who behaved as she had?

  “I’m sorry,” she said contritely. “But you were way off somewhere with your made-up mind and I had to get you to listen to me, to pay attention. I think I can be of some help without disturbing you as much as you think. I enjoy setting things in order and I don’t chatter or make loud noises. You can pretend I’m not here. Besides, I do have a stake in this, you know.”

  “Why should I interest myself in your stake?” he demanded. “I have not asked you to come here.”

  Tracy went on as though she had not heard him. “I’ve been working for a couple of years at Views. It’s a wonderful, exciting place where things are happening. Someday, if I’m useful enough, and enough of a burr under someone’s collar, they’ll let me into editorial work. I begged Mr. Hornwright to send me on this assignment. I thought I could do a sort of housekeeping job before Miss Baker came. If I go home empty-handed, it’s likely that I’ll be fired. Especially if I go home within a day or so of when I got here.”

  Everything she was saying was true. If it was not the whole truth, it must nevertheless sound convincing.

  “This is a responsibility I refuse to accept,” Radburn said. “It’s not my affair.”

  Tracy regarded him almost pityingly. He looked like a man in whom all light and warmth had been wiped out. She turned from him and knelt on the floor before the scattered papers. There was an empty space beneath the table and she began depositing the sheets one by one in orderly heaps in that single clear space. Typed pages in this pile, carbon sheets in that. Penciled notes over there and sketches here. A special place for what appeared to be finished drawings of tile and mosaic detail. When the man behind her left his desk and moved restlessly about the room, she did not look at him.

  “I am a short-tempered man,” he said at length, and she knew that his voice came from near the veranda doors, where he must have paused before his drawing table. “I lack patience and I have no particular fondness for catering to women. I do not swear at the servants, but I am likely to swear at you if you annoy me.”

  Tracy looked up from a lovely mosaic pattern done in varying shades of blue. “If you swear at me I’ll talk back,” she said. “I don’t like being sworn at. It will be more peaceful if you just ignore me and let me work.” She turned the drawing over and saw the lettering on the back: Sultan Ahmed.

  “This is from Sultan Ahmed’s Blue Mosque, isn’t it?” she said eagerly. “I must see that before I leave Turkey. And I want to visit St. Sophia—Ayasofia.” She looked up at him and intensity was once more in her voice. “Mr. Radburn, will you let me stay for a week at least?”

  He did not swear, though for a moment he looked as though he might. Then, to her astonishment, since she had not thought it possible, a fleeting smile lifted the grim corners of his mouth.

  “One week,” he said. “I will bribe you with a week. Otherwise you are likely to tumble the books from my shelves and engulf me in wreckage. Didn’t your father ever swear at you?”

  “My father is a gentleman,” she told him with dignity. “And I was very young in those days. He only spanked me.”

  “An excellent solution,” said Miles Radburn, and went grimly back to his painstaking calligraphy work on the drawing board.

  Silence fell upon the room. Somewhat shakily Tracy settled herself cross-legged on the carpet, careful not to let her weight creak the old, old boards of the floor. She lifted her papers without a rustle. The occupation of her hands gradually calmed her, and she thrust back the small surge of elation that sought to possess her. A week would never be enough. Not only for this task—but for the other more important one that had brought her here. The questions she must have an answer to, for her own peace of mind. At least she had made a beginning. Mr. Hornwright might be astonished if he saw her now, but he would not be wholly displeased.

  The work was unexpectedly absorbing. At least Miles Radburn had identified each sketch on its back. Before long she had a pile of Blue Mosque drawings alone, and others were beginning to emerge. The Mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent, of course, as well as numerous unpronounceable mosque and palace names she had never heard of—each with a pattern of its own. The variety of tile designs was amazing and endless. She made no attempt to read manuscript pages, but simply piled them up. They would have to be arranged by subject matter later. More than once she pressed a finger hard beneath her nose to avoid a sneeze. A dust cloth would be needed before any of this material could be put into a file, but for now she would be still as a mouse and continue her sorting.

  While she worked she tried not to think of that portrait on the wall of Miles Radburn’s bedroom. The enigma loomed larger than ever, and there was pain as well in any thought of her sister. Now she must deal only with the task at hand.

  The morning passed quietly. Radburn worked at his drawing board and paid her no attention. No one came to disturb them, and when Tracy finally stole a look at her watch she found that it was nearly twelve o’clock.

  “I’m going out for a while,” Radburn said abruptly. “I presume someone will tell you what to do about lunch when the time comes.”

  He did not glance at the neat piles emerging beneath the shelter of the table, but went out of the room and closed the door firmly behind him. Tracy seized the moment to jump up and stretch widely. She would have to find some more comfortable way to work. Another table certainly, and a chair would have to be provided. Perhaps Nursel would help her. She would ask nothing of Mrs. Erim, who thought Anabel wicked and depraved, and who wanted to see Tracy Hubbard go home as soon as possible.

  It was Nursel who at length came tapping on the door to summon her to lunch. The Turkish girl had changed from Capri pants to a full print skirt that gave her a flower-patterned grace of movement. She stood for a moment looking in astonishment at the heaps of sketches and papers beneath the table.

  “He allowed you to do this? But it is a miracle!”

  “He didn’t allow me,” Tracy admitted sheepishly. “I just started doing it and he didn’t know how to stop me.”

  “Then you are not to go straight home as Mrs. Erim expects?”

  Tracy shook her head. “I have a week. Then we’ll see.”

  “Mrs. Erim will be surprised,” said Nursel guardedly.

  “And not pleased, I think,” Tracy said.

  Nursel made no comment. “Luncheon is ready. My brother and I would like you to dine with us, please. You have yet to meet Murat. Mrs. Erim dines in her own rooms in the kiosk. Come downstairs when you are ready.”

  Back in her room—Anabel’s room—Tracy peered into the dressing table mirrors and found cobwebs in her hair and smudges on her nose. Her hands were grimy, and she set Miles Radburn down another notch in her estimation for being a careless and untidy man. Yet the bedroom had been as neat as a military barracks. There had been no disorder to distract from the effect of that stunning portrait on the wall.r />
  If he had despised Anabel, why had he hung her picture there? The question persisted in Tracy’s mind—one of the questions to which she must find the answer. But there was no time to puzzle now, with Nursel waiting for her. There was still the fourth member of this household to meet, and she must be careful during this meal. Careful to make no slips, careful to appear nothing more than they believed her to be. At least she was relieved to know that she need not face Sylvana Erim again immediately. There was a shrewdness about the woman that would seize upon any slip Tracy might make.

  When she had washed in cold water and rid herself of smudges, she went down to the second floor. Nursel took her into a room which was apparently used as both living and dining quarters and which, she explained, she shared with her brother. Again there was a large Turkish stove to help against the chill. While Sylvana, the foreigner, had turned to old-fashioned, becushioned Turkish luxury in her rooms, the younger two had furnished their salon as though they could not decide between European and Turkish furnishings, and thus did justice to neither. As Turks, they had excellent taste, while their adaptations of much that was European left something to be desired. There were Middle Eastern touches of tile-work and mother-of-pearl, fine carpets on the floor, and, in contrast, rather heavy graceless furniture of walnut or mahogany set stiffly at attention. Along one wall shelves displayed a collection of small art objects behind closed glass doors.

  “My brother is busy in his laboratory so we will not wait for him,” Nursel said. “There are times when he does not come to meals at all. He has made a study of diseases of the Middle East and at present he is working on a new drug for the treatment of a certain virulent eye disease.”

  “Will Mr. Radburn join you at lunch?” Tracy asked.

  “Who is to know?” Nursel spoke lightly. “Our guest does as he pleases.”

  They sat at a table set for four, and a servant brought hot clear soup with crescents of vegetables in the broth.

  “I must warn you that there is a crisis,” Nursel said as they began to eat. “My brother does not ordinarily lose his temper. Perhaps he is not always a reasonable man, but he has a good disposition and is very kind when he is not angry. Today he is very angry with Mr. Radburn.”

  She would have left the matter there, but Tracy, eager to learn whatever she could of Miles Radburn, questioned her openly.

  “What has he done to make your brother angry?”

  Again Nursel’s dislike of the artist was evident. “Yesterday Murat wished to use our caique to cross the Bosporus for an important appointment, but Mr. Radburn had taken it himself. My brother was most inconvenienced. There is a small motorboat also, but Ahmet Effendi had gone on an errand across the Bosporus in that. Murat is still much disturbed.” Nursel’s dark eyes danced with sudden sly mischief. “I must warn you that it is better for a woman to cast down her eyes and take no sides when my brother is angry. While he is a modern Turk and a great admirer of Mustapha Kemal, I can tell you he is given to the old beliefs when it comes to women. I am supposed to be emancipated. But you will see.”

  Her words and manner suggested that Murat’s sister had a mind of her own that was not altogether acquiescent, for all that she seemed to move in obedient meekness about this twin establishment.

  As they were finishing their soup, Dr. Erim appeared. He was a man of medium height, darkly handsome. Though he was a number of years older, the stamp of family resemblance marked him as Nursel’s brother and his eyes were as large and lustrous as hers—true Turkish eyes. Thick black hair was brushed back from a fine forehead and his nose had an aquiline look that gave his face a faintly sinister cast.

  He bowed over Tracy’s hand gallantly, clearly a man who appreciated the company of women. He was more friendly toward her than anyone else in this house had been, with none of Nursel’s suggestion of holding herself off even as she went through the gestures of hospitality. He asked Tracy pertinent questions about herself and why she was here, yet with no suspicious probing. Though he did not seem to take her work with Views seriously, he at least treated her as a woman. A fact that was somewhat reassuring after Miles Radburn’s cool dismissal of her. At the same time she found Dr. Erim’s attentive manner a little disquieting. This was a game she’d had little practice in playing. For Anabel it had come naturally, but Tracy had always recognized that she could not be another Anabel.

  “It is pleasant that you have come to visit us in Istanbul, Miss Hubbard,” Dr. Erim said. “Even though I fear this trip will prove a waste of your time.”

  “I’ve already begun work for Mr. Radburn,” Tracy told him. “Why is it a waste of time if I help in the preparation of material for his book?”

  Murat Erim shrugged. “This is work which should be done by a Turk. Mr. Radburn is an outsider. It is not possible that he will understand our ancient mosaics as a Turk would understand them.”

  Tracy found herself speaking up in defense of Miles’s project. “Mr. Radburn seems to have done a great deal of research. The editors of Views feel that the book will be an important one.”

  “No doubt, no doubt,” said Dr. Erim blandly and let the matter go.

  During the meal he did most of the talking. He explained how the dolmas were made with vine leaves stuffed with savory rice, nuts, and currants, and extolled the Turkish predilection for flavoring everything with lemon juice. Tracy helped herself from the plate of freshly cut lemons on the table and found that a few drops improved the flavor of lamb.

  While they ate, Dr. Erim spoke of his sister too, mentioning her almost in the same breath with the food, and as though she could no more hear him than could one of the vegetables on his plate.

  “Nursel is an example of what Turkey is doing for women,” he said proudly. “Today is not like the old times. Everything is possible for women now. You know that my sister received training to be a physician?”

  Tracy looked at the Turkish girl in surprise, but Nursel shook her head, deprecating her brother’s words.

  “Please—Murat knows I did not continue with my studies. My father and my two brothers overestimated my ability. They were too enthusiastic about arranging my life in the new pattern. I did not complete my training.”

  “Nevertheless, she is now most useful in my laboratory,” Dr. Erim said. “That is, when I can persuade her to help me there. She is often busy with social events, or with doing her hair in the latest fashion, or in helping Mrs. Erim with her perfume-making.” He sniffed the air and made a slight grimace. “Even my laboratory has taken to smelling of attar of roses!”

  “Which may improve it,” Nursel said, faintly mocking. “Guinea pigs and mice do not of themselves furnish a pleasant atmosphere. If you wish, I will help you this afternoon.”

  They were halfway through the meal when Miles Radburn appeared, and at once silence fell upon the table. The artist took his place without apology for being late, but he did launch at once into an explanation about the boat.

  “Sylvana has told me you were inconvenienced,” he said to Dr. Erim. “I’m sorry. I’d supposed the boat was free for the afternoon, and there was a matter I wanted to check as soon as possible.”

  There could be a burning quality concentrated in Murat Erim’s dark eyes. He was restraining himself with difficulty, it appeared, though the reason for his annoyance seemed out of proportion to the cause.

  “It would be better, perhaps, if you asked permission to use the boat first,” he said, breathing a bit heavily.

  “Of course I asked permission.” Miles gave his attention to the soup. “Sylvana said it would be quite all right to use it for my errand. As I’ve said, I’m sorry if I inconvenienced you.”

  Dr. Erim stared at him, and Tracy thought uncomfortably that this was how hatred would look. She did not believe she had ever seen it exhibited so strongly in a man’s eyes.

  “There are times,” Dr. Erim said, “when I forget that I am not master in my father’s house.”

  Nursel flashed a sidelong glance at he
r brother and then looked at the food on her plate. Miles said nothing. It was as though, having made his apology, he had shut himself away from them, and Tracy remembered what Mr. Hornwright had said about a wall. Miles Radburn had gone behind one now and was indifferent to the others at the table.

  Dr. Erim too fell into a silence that was heavy with resentment. Sitting next to him, Tracy noticed that he drew from his pocket a short string of yellowed ivory beads and began to play them through his fingers. Bead by bead, each one slipped along a cord until he reached the large finial bead that joined two ends of the strand in a sort of tassel. He toyed with the large bead briefly and then went on around the string again until the absent movement of his fingers seemed to calm him.

  Nursel saw Tracy’s interest and spoke to her brother. “Perhaps Miss Hubbard has never seen a tespih before. You must show her this one.”

  Dr. Erim started as though he had not noted the occupation of his hands, and held up the ivory beads with a faint smile. “We find that busy fingers often calm the mind and quiet the nerves,” he said and handed the beads to Tracy.

  The ivory was warm from his fingers as she ran the beads through her own. “Are they prayer beads?” Tracy asked.

  Dr. Erim shook his head. “Not these. A proper strand of prayer beads must have exactly thirty-three beads in its length. These are shorter. I’ve heard the English call them ‘fidgit strings.’ They are only for the therapeutic purpose of busying the hands. You will see them in the hands of men all through the Middle East.”

  “How strange that women do not need the same outlet.” Nursel raised her own pretty, well-manicured hands, wriggling her fingers. “I suppose we are expected to be so thoroughly occupied with household tasks that our hands are busy enough. Murat has many tespihler in his collection. You must show Miss Hubbard sometime.”

  “Why not?” Dr. Erim said. “Let me show her some of them now, while we wait for dessert.”