When I Grow Rich

by Joan Fleming

  When she had gone through the doors into the kitchen, Nuri bey dashed upstairs, two at a time and hurriedly restored order to the chaos in the turret room, remade the bed and slipped downstairs; it took him about four minutes. He went into the study; what would he choose for this treat? Something by Sir Thomas More, perhaps? Or a letter of Saint Augustine? Or a page from this book by Bertrand Russell? St Francis’s Canticle of the Sun? Like a connoisseur walking round his wine cellar in happy anticipation, Nuri bey went from book to book: this? or this? or this? At last he decided: Milton’s Paradise Lost. He smoothed it between his hands, opened it and smelled the inside. Then he sat down in his upright chair, crossed his long legs and dipped into it at random, read a few words and rolled them about in his mind like the same connoisseur tasting the wine. And time passed, as time will, and presently Nuri bey wondered why she did not come. He rose and went into the kitchen. The light was on, the door wide open.

  ‘Jenny,’ he stood on the back doorstep and called: ‘Jenny!’

  The small dirt track that was his back garden or yard could only be approached from the front through a small rickety wooden gate in the fence that divided front from back.

  A black and white kitten, its stomach meeting in the middle so that it looked as though a giant thumb had pressed its sides together and they had stuck, staggered up out of the tortuous shadow of the tree branches which the moon drew on the hard earth. It opened its mouth very wide so that all its face became a great open mouth, like a lion, and from it came the smallest sound, intended for a miaow but the frailest cry imaginable. Nuri bey kicked it aside slightly because in Istanbul no one takes any more notice of a starving kitten than of a fallen leaf.

  He stood in his domain, realizing she was not there. He pushed the gate between the front and the back; it was hanging from a rusty hinge and would only just swing open and it did so with some small effort.

  Not believing what he was being forced to believe, he tore upstairs again to the look-out room. It was as he left it. There was not a trace of her. She had had her handbag with her all evening and he had made her take the white raincoat, carrying it himself over his arm, because the nights became cold. She had worn it walking back, and when she had left him to go out to the kitten in the yard.

  Not a trace. It was as though she had never been.

  Had she, in fact, ever been?

  Leaving the back door yawning open to the chilly night air he returned to the study. The kitten entered the kitchen and walked round, weaving in and out between the table legs, and round and round. And Nuri bey sat stiffly in his upright arm-chair, his legs crossed, Paradise Lost upon his knee, opened where he had left it, his eyes fixed on the page, but reading not a word.

  He was listening for the bang of the back door as she came in.

  Hours later he was still sitting, stiff, cold, taut, upright, mentally feeling himself all over to find out how much he was hurt; and he was hurt very badly indeed.

  CHAPTER 6

  It is not easy to realize, in Istanbul, that one is in Europe (the scrag-end of Europe somebody has called it). Nor is it correct to say that one feels oneself to be in the East or Near East. Neither Eastern nor Western, it has a strange exotic flavour of its own, at times deadly dull and at other times causing such a penetrating wave of emotion that those who feel it never forget it nor do they get quite the same thrill anywhere else. It is as though one suddenly gets on to the beam and feels the vibrations of the atmosphere still oscillating from the terrible and fabulous events which have taken place on those few square miles inside the great Roman walls.

  Jenny, the English girl who liked to think of herself as a beatnik (i.e. one who is non-emotional, non-intellectual, non-social, amoral and likes it …) and who was, in fact, nothing of the sort, went down the few steps from Nuri bey’s back door and stood in the back yard making small sounds to attract the kitten. She was not an imaginative girl but perhaps the raki she had drunk increased her awareness; she was suddenly seized in the grip of a cold fright. No traffic passed in the quiet by-road, no light shone from any of the houses in the immediate vicinity, only the moon shed a particularly brilliant radiance and made more defined the shadows on the ground.

  This was how she later described her experience to Nuri bey.

  There was a sharp hissing sound such as unfortunate people who were not in the know, at one time used to summon waitresses; a sound made frequently in Spain by men when they think they have escaped a woman’s notice. She heard it at once and as it was repeated several times she stood literally shivering with fright.

  ‘S-s-s-s!’ It was as terrifying as a snake hissing from the grass in its implication of danger. One cannot really look into a snake’s eyes because they are often so widely separated that one only looks into one at a time; Jenny found she was looking at the fence through which a pair of close-together eyes were staring at her. Now that it had achieved its aim the hissing stopped and became: ‘Toh … nee, Mademoiselle, Toh … nee!’

  His cloth cap having prevented him pressing face to fence, Hadji now replaced it, pushed open the rickety gate and came into the yard. He indicated by a strange flapping in his own direction of the finger-half of both hands, that he wished her to come with him. ‘Toh … nee, Toh … nee!’ he went on as though that were the particular noise made by the animal that he was.

  Jenny pulled herself together remarkably quickly. ‘Je rentre dans la maison … un moment,’ she tried to excuse herself.

  ‘Mais non, Mademoiselle, viens avec moi!’ and a long thin hand took her not firmly but quite gently by the wrist. ‘Il ne faut pas rentrez …’

  ‘Nuri bey …’

  ‘Non, non, venez vite! Plus tard, plus tard …!’

  Later when trying to explain her actions, Jenny said she thought that Tony was immediately outside, waiting in the road, and dare not approach the house. The whole thing appeared to her then so immediate that there was no moment of decision—shall I or shall I not go? Tony was there and wanted to see her: she went.

  Tony was not immediately parked outside but apparently in a car which was parked in deep shadow some little way up the road, an anonymous car, hired as it turned out later, and driven by a hired chauffeur under the direction of Hadji who knew his Istanbul to the last block of reinforced concrete.

  Once out in the road and hurrying towards the car, she remembered Nuri bey, waiting for her with the chosen book in his study, but knowing that she would return immediately to tell him, at least, that she was going out, she said nothing and, full of curiosity, allowed herself to be guided, still held by the wrist, to the waiting car.

  Only when Madame Miasma leaned from the car and started talking in rapid French did she hesitate, saying that she had left Nuri bey’s door wide open, and she must return to him for a few moments.

  But no, Madame said, Nuri bey must not know, he would insist on coming too and Tony’s life was in danger. They must do nothing that would attract the attention of any more people than was necessary. She must come; Madame would immediately telephone to Nuri bey to explain the sudden absence.

  Afterwards she remembered that Hadji had really put a hand on her behind and literally pushed her into the car; she often had plenty of time to wonder why she had not turned and kicked him where it would hurt most. As it was, she yielded to the excitement and immediacy of the moment and sat in the car beside Madame, Hadji taking a place in the front beside the driver and the car hurtling off down the road, past Nuri bey’s house, out into the main road and away.

  A torrent, a flood, a volcano of Turkish flowed over Jenny.

  The girl and the case, Madame had evidently told Hadji, and now here was the girl and no case. What was the good of the girl without the case? She could go and throw herself into the Golden Horn for all Madame cared about her, but the case! Once, more Hadji had proven himself an inadequate, stupid, impotent, idiotic, unimaginative, careless, lazy, incompetent, verminous, vicious, weak, infidel; a faithless, untrustworthy, disloyal, i
ncompetent mongrel; a contemptible, abject, rascally, inglorious half-wit.

  The chauffeur driving the hired car drew his head into his body, so that he had no neck which would be seared by the bitter wind which blew about him.

  Turning to Jenny, with a widening of her lips which can only be described as a rictus, Madame said:

  ‘Eh, alors, ma petite, où est ta valise?’ and then impatiently, as Jenny appeared not to comprehend, ‘Le sac à main, ma fille, la valise!’

  ‘Oh, that! Madame, please, where are we going?’

  Madame pushed her face so close to Jenny’s that Jenny could no longer focus; she smelt overpoweringly of her expensive scent, the merest whiff of which, Jenny said later, would turn her faint and sick ever afterwards.

  ‘Madame, where is Tony?’

  ‘Mademoiselle, where is the case?’

  ‘What can that possibly have to do with you?’ Jenny asked to gain time.

  ‘It has everything to do with me. Tony was the messenger who was to take the case to my friend in Hong Kong. I gave the case to Nuri bey to take to the airport …’

  ‘Nuri bey!’

  ‘Nuri bey, whom I have known for many years, an old and trusted friend.’

  ‘Nuri bey,’ Jenny repeated, almost ready to burst into tears.

  ‘Ne dites pas, Nuri bey, Nuri bey, comme ça, it has no significance whatever. He went to the airport for me because my maid Valance died and was buried early today. Valance would have gone …’ Madame’s face, illuminated by the weird quality of the street lighting, became suddenly quite hideous, falling into a mould into which it must have fallen many a time when she was alone, a pattern of face such as no one should ever show to anyone else; a face of hate.

  Jenny gasped. The taxi-driver turned round disregarding oncoming traffic: ‘Where to go?’ Madame told him and it seemed they were quite near; he turned off suddenly and pulled up outside the new building with a large waiting hall for the Bosphorus ferries.

  From what was obviously habit, Hadji slipped into place at Madame’s side and helped her up the stairs and into the now empty waiting hall.

  ‘You are taking me to Tony?’

  ‘No, I shall not take you to Tony until I have the case.’

  ‘Then you got me away from Nuri bey on false pretences!’ Jenny said in French. ‘Tony knew you before; he went to your house from the airport and asked you to take him in. That’s it, isn’t it?’

  ‘Where is the case?’

  ‘He’s at your house, isn’t he? And as your house is on the Bosphorus, as Nuri bey told me, you can arrange for him to slip away, perhaps by fishing-boat. So, you are with us, is it not? It must be so. You are taking me to him so that I can slip away with him, because Tony wouldn’t let me be here alone; he wouldn’t go away leaving me here to …’ She hesitated, trying to think of the French for ‘hold the baby’ but giving it up and merely saying in English: ‘I ought to have known Tony wouldn’t let me down.’

  ‘You are partly right; I see you are not without brains, but you have made a mistake if you think I must do anything for you. I do not admire either of you two young people, and you particularly, my girl, mean nothing to me. Tony Grand means something to me because he has … let us say, helped me many, many times. I shall continue to help him but you I can destroy completely if you do not return to me the case.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘By taking you to the police and saying that you are the girl of Tony Grand.’

  Though she winced, Jenny kept her head: ‘You would not dare do that; they might ask you what was in the case.’

  ‘You know, then, what was in the case?’

  ‘Locum, mostly,’ Jenny said smoothly, admiring her own reply. ‘I must say … that there is rather a bit of fuss being made about four boxes of Turkish Delight, isn’t there?’

  Hadji had not sat when they sat but stood before them, looking from one to the other, clearly understanding the French they spoke.

  It was probably the raki, having an enduring effect, which made Jenny think she was successfully playing the part of beautiful female accomplice. ‘Hurry up, Madame,’ she said impatiently, ‘it is becoming late. I need to sleep.’

  ‘Sleep! You shall not sleep until you have told me where the case is and promised that you will return my property to me at once.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Jenny murmured in English, ‘brain-washing!’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Madame, I cannot return the case to you …’

  ‘Why not?’

  She had an idea. ‘Why not send Hadji to Nuri bey’s house for it?’

  Madame took Jenny’s hands in hers and shook them emphatically as though to be sure of getting something into her head. She loathed the touch and tried to release her fingers. ‘Laissez, laissez!’ she cried, unnerved.

  ‘Whilst you were out with Nuri bey this evening, Hadji climbed into the house through an unlocked window. He may believe his house is locked up but he is too unpractical a man to secure it properly; besides, Nuri bey has no enemies, no one would rob him. I sent Hadji into his house to recover my property, mine, understand?’

  ‘And he did not find it?’

  ‘No, because you have hidden it somewhere in that house. Oh, I know, you cannot fool me!’

  ‘I shall tell Nuri bey,’ Jenny returned indignantly, ‘you had no right to break into his house!’

  ‘And you have no right to retain my property. Hadji waited for you outside until you both came home, he intended to enter again when Nuri bey was asleep, to wake you and to ask you to let him have the case. It would have been the better way, my way, but the fool chose his way. So now you must tell me exactly where he can find it; you shall not return to Nuri bey until I have it.’ And, as an afterthought she added, almost absently, ‘Nor shall you see Tony, either.’

  Jenny looked wildly round; this was ridiculous. She could easily push the two old people aside and run for it. But it was quite certain that if she took the contemplated action she would end up in the police station and, as Nuri bey had told her at some length, Turkish police stations are not like English; it is very unpleasant indeed to be locked up in Turkey.

  ‘Madame,’ she said at last, as though preparing to be reasonable, as, indeed, she was. ‘I cannot return your property to you. I did not know it was yours. I only knew that I did not want to have it any longer. I threw it into the water, over the bridge.’

  The old woman shook her head. ‘Do not try,’ she begged, ‘to fool me.’

  ‘It is quite true, I swear it.’

  The old woman went on shaking her head so that Jenny wildly wanted to hit her. ‘You wouldn’t do that with my valise. It was worth too much.’

  ‘Worth too much!’ It was as though Jenny’s heart seemed to contract she said afterwards, for here, in so many words, was the thought that had haunted her. Tony shot and killed not for fun, not because he was trigger-happy, as she had told herself, but because that for which he was shooting was worth too much! And she threw the case over the bridge into the Golden Horn not because it was worth so little but because it was worth so much!

  The lighting in the waiting hall was ghastly at any time but now Jenny’s face was almost pea-green from the shock she had given herself.

  ‘Very well,’ Madame said, ‘if you will not tell me …’

  ‘I have told you,’ Jenny almost shrieked.

  ‘If you will not tell me truthfully I shall be compelled to show you what will happen to your Tony if you do not.’

  ‘Happen to him …’

  ‘Do you love your young Tony?’ Madame leaned forward and leered into her face, Jenny shrinking back as far as she could go and not answering because fear was catching at her throat.

  Madame turned to Hadji and gave a long speech which seemed to be some kind of instructions. Hadji muttered a few assents and presently went, slipping away down the stairs like the inconspicuous shadow that he was.

  Madame leaned back, tucking her hands into the wide mink-ed
ged sleeves of her black satin coat. ‘It is fortunate,’ she observed, ‘that I am not too tired, though I have had a very tiring day. I can go without sleep like a camel can go without water. We shall be here for the few hours that remain of this short night, so make yourself comfortable, Mademoiselle.’ She was fumbling with something which turned out to be a small revolver.

  ‘Regardez, is it not pretty?’ She turned it over so that she could admire the mother-of-pearl handle.

  ‘This,’ Madame said helpfully, ‘is the safety-catch, which is on now. I find it easy to use. If you attempt to run away, my small girl, I will shoot you in the back. I shall not sleep, but you may … there is nothing else you can do.’

  Jenny thrust her hands into the pockets of her white raincoat. All this was frustrating and rather nasty but what was she worried about? It was authentic adventure in that it had the real element of danger in it. When friends returned from holidays abroad and told travellers’ tales of being held up by bandits near the frontier, it all sounded heroic and fine and Britain-keeping-a-stiff-upper-lip; but all along you knew that they knew that they were not in any real danger; that their adventure had not the rancid smell of death. And when she read in the newspapers that a couple of undergraduates with a girlfriend had been imprisoned for suspected espionage in a Communist country, she was filled with envy. So why worry? There were implications that something big was behind all this: she might be involved in an international incident and when she got back home the newspapers would be falling over themselves to get her story, offering vast sums of money.

  She looked down at the bent old woman crushed into the wooden seat beside her, blinking the lashless lids of her eyes like a thoughtful tortoise. It was Madame Miasma who made her sick, who was spoiling this adventure for her; without her the adventure would be fun, with her there was something sickening and terrifying about it. It was the combination of old age with extreme cunning and greed, that she found so repellent. It was the mixture of old age with hate which turned people into witches, and if ever there was a witch to the life it was Miasma.