by Joan Fleming
‘And Mademoiselle?’
‘There also.’ Hadji was so absorbed he showed no surprise at the Efendi’s question. ‘But who would send an empty box, Efendim?’
‘It is a box,’ Nuri bey announced, ‘for the dead.’
Hadji raised a face of a thousand wrinkles. ‘For the dead?’
‘In the West they put their dead into boxes before they bury them or before they burn them.’
‘Ah, so …!’
A low strange sound came from the bundle of rags which was now rocking itself slightly.
Nuri bey, arms still folded, looked up at the bright sky as though some tremendous thing had been proved, the sun shone down into the courtyard with early morning vitality, the stiff leaves rustled, sometimes a noisy car passed.
And then a taxi stopped and from it stepped a small, slight woman entirely encased in black and wearing an important hat, who paid the taxi-driver and, opening the iron gate, came briskly down into the courtyard with dignity and purpose.
‘Ah, bon, il est arrivé!’ she said, with a glance at the coffin. ‘Madame Miasma?’
‘She is out,’ Nuri bey faltered into rather less than fluent French. ‘I am an acquaintance of hers; I have called also, to find her out. This,’ he indicated Hadji, ‘is her servant.’
‘Ah! I have no particular wish to meet Madame Miasma. I have come for the body of my sister. All arrangements have been made, there is nothing for me to do other than remove what rests of her. Later the arrangements for the sending of her personal possessions will be made. In the meantime, Monsieur …’
‘If you would kindly repeat …’ Nuri bey begged.
She did so. Valance’s sister Martine!
‘Hadji, open the door and let us inside. We cannot discuss this matter here.’
Hadji was still musing over the coffin but now he brought out the key and opened the door. Nuri bey led the Frenchwoman into the cold hall.
‘I do not wish to trouble you, Monsieur. Perhaps the servant can help me.’
‘He understands French but he cannot speak it well. I am afraid he will not be of much assistance to you, Madame. But I will try to help you as well as I can. If you will kindly explain once more, and more slowly, if you please.’
‘Bassompierre,’ she said, and for a few moments Nuri bey completely failed to understand that she was not swearing but simply giving her surname.
Madame Bassompierre could see no difficulty whatever with regard to her visit. She had received a telegram on Monday morning informing her of the death of her sister Valance. She had wired back immediately that she would come by the earliest possible aeroplane and bring with her a coffin. Having arranged for the body of her dear sister to follow by freight, she was returning to Paris this evening; Valance’s relatives would meet the plane at Orly when it arrived early tomorrow morning and the funeral would take place on Saturday as arranged at Père Lachaise cemetery.
She had arrived by jet late last night and had gone straight to a hotel where, for the present, she had left her hand luggage, which she would pick up on the way back to the airport.
Her son-in-law being, fortunately, the friend of a customs official, she had been able to make arrangements very quickly; the whole matter had been rushed through with the utmost smoothness.
‘And now, Monsieur, if I could be taken to the body of my dead sister … or perhaps she has been removed to some temporary place of rest for the dead?’
She was clearly in for a very great shock indeed. To give himself time, Nuri bey repeated everything to Hadji.
It was impossible for the eunuch to pale or to show any signs of physical anguish other than those which were his standard pattern; but he did start to tremble.
Remembering how his Western friends flew automatically to the bottle in moments of uncertainty, or indeed any moment whatever, Nuri bey ordered raki to be brought to the salon into which he ceremoniously showed Madame Bassompierre, offering her, when she was comfortably seated on a divan, a cigarette from the case which he kept for his Western friends. She refused and seemed impatient. ‘You understand, Monsieur, it is a task which I wish to have done. If I had had a husband he would have performed this for me, but alas! we are a troupe of widows in my family; such men as we have are of younger generation and their work prevents their coming. Yes, thank you, a little of your national drink, if you please.’ She sipped delicately at the raki whilst Hadji cowered in the shadows.
‘Did you have the good fortune to meet my sister, the companion of Madame Miasma?’
Nuri bey postponed the moment when he must tell her. Yes, he had met Valance. He came every week to the yali to read to Madame and he had often had a word or two with Valance on his way out. She had been a wonderful servant … that is … companion to Madame, who was going to miss her very much. So much, indeed, that he doubted whether she would continue to live here alone. She was old and it might be more expedient for her to live in a hotel.
Yes, Madame Bassompierre agreed, she was indeed old, and so was Valance, her elder sister by fifteen years. Valance herself should be too old for the work, if it had not been for her deep devotion to Madame Miasma she would have retired and returned to her own country long ago. ‘But Valance has never ailed a thing in her life, as strong as a little goat, and energetic … for her age she was a marvel. She has been sure she would not die before Madame and for the last few years, when we have begged her to stay at home with me, she always said she must return and stay with Miasma to the end. Those were her words, stay with her to the end. Alas, my poor Valance, she did not ever think it was she who would go first!’
Evidently finding the raki to her liking, Madame sipped more frequently until the glass was empty and Nuri bey, watchful, refilled it.
‘Ah, the poor soul! It was not her wish that she should die in a foreign country. Long ago, and every time she has been home, I promised that if she were ill I would come at once and take her home. Perhaps we should all be thankful that her end was so quick. I suppose you can’t give me any details, Monsieur? The telegram simply said “died suddenly”.’
‘I know that Madame Miasma has written a letter to you with the details, but as it was written only yesterday you would not have had time to receive it.’
‘I have received no letter, only the telegram.’
‘Your sister was standing beside Madame. It was a warm evening and after supper Madame Miasma went out on to the steps beside the Bosphorus. Your sister complained of violent pain in her head and Madame went in to get her some remedy. She did not see your sister alive again; it is understood that she fell forward into the water.’
‘Alas, my poor sister.’
‘Her body was discovered within a few hours, washed into the shallows a mile or so downstream. They say she died before she entered the water.’
A few small cries, a few sighs, another sip of raki and she had accepted the news but explained that to die unshriven, without the benefits of the Holy Church was about the worst thing that could happen to a Catholic. It was for this reason, perhaps particularly, that Madame Bassompierre had made this prodigious effort to bring her body home for a Christian funeral and burial in consecrated ground.
Miasma’s visit to the hamam was an elaborate affair which took the whole day; she would not be back till evening. As Nuri bey saw it, there was nothing to do but tell Madame Bassompierre the worst and help the poor woman on her way back home in the kindest and most courteous way he could manage. Women in Turkey did as they were told and he had no experience of any other way of life. He formed sentences in his mind, trying to decide what form was the most suitable way of breaking the news.
But by now the raki was having an effect. Madame Bassompierre loosened the sable tippet she wore round her neck and undid the buttons of her smart black jacket.
‘Not that my poor sister was a good Catholic as we understand it,’ she went on. ‘In fact there were many, many ways in which I could not understand Valance. But a sister is a sister, Monsieur, and what passes for a
ffection towards a sister is of no value whatever if there is not also loyalty. Family loyalty, Monsieur, you understand?’
Nuri bey, too, had a sister and he fully understood. Why had he not told her immediately? he thought irritably; the postponement of the news of her burial had simply made things more poignant; he was beginning to like the Frenchwoman and to care a little about having to distress her.
‘Madame Bassompierre,’ he began.
‘And moreover …’ she went on robustly, ‘once a Catholic always a Catholic. Our poor dear Valance, though she sinned very much, was good at heart, Monsieur, good at heart!’
‘Madame Bassompierre,’ he persisted, ‘your sister is already buried.’
The tiny raki glass, half-way to Madame Bassompierre’s mouth, was replaced on the tray. ‘I do not understand, Monsieur.’
‘She received a Moslem burial; prayers were said for her. The followers of Mohammed believe that the dead suffer agony before they lie safely in the grave; the burial always takes place as soon as possible. Owing to the nature of Valance’s death she could not be buried before sunset on the day of her death but she was taken to her grave shortly after sunrise the next day. On Tuesday, that is. The imam recited prayers and Madame Miasma and Hadji followed her to her grave. There were hired weepers round the house all night.’ Nuri bey hesitated. He considered it bad taste to mention money but thought it expedient. ‘Madame Miasma spent much money in giving her old companion a funeral worthy of her devoted service for so many years.’
‘Oh, mon Dieu, mon Dieu, mon Dieu!’
‘The name of the dead was called over her body three times when it lay at rest, and also the name of her mother.’
‘Her mother! How could anyone know the name of our mother?’
Nuri bey turned to Hadji who, though looking utterly cowed, had seemed to follow the conversation. ‘Fatima …’ he croaked. ‘The imam called Fatima …’
At which Madame gave a fairly piercing scream.
‘We have no boxes for the dead,’ Nuri bey went on smoothly, ‘they are wrapped from head to foot with material which winds them tightly round and covered with a green cloth.’
‘Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, mon Dieu!’ Madame Bassompierre moaned.
Hadji plucked at Nuri bey’s sleeve and poured a torrent of mumbling Turkish into his ear. He was asking him if he should go at once and fetch Madame home from the hamam to attend to this crisis. No, Nuri bey told him, he was to wait: it might be that Nuri bey himself could deal with the situation and there would be no need to bother Madame.
‘Ayez pitié de moi!’ Madame Bassompierre was begging her God, ‘mon Dieu, mon Dieu, mon Dieu!’
Nuri bey, using the Turkish equivalent of ‘pull yourself together’, gave orders to Hadji. These orders caused the eunuch’s eyes almost to capsize in his skull. He was to go out now, at once, to take the path up from the village past the hovels, up and up through the burial ground until he came to the new grave which Madame had bought for herself, into which Valance had been placed; he was to observe what the condition of this grave was at the moment; was it still covered with the planks which were put over the body immediately it was lowered into the grave, or had the earth already been replaced?
‘At once, immediately and now!’ Nuri bey commanded and Hadji shuffled away, but very slowly.
Madame Bassompierre’s hand came out and clawed up the tiny raki glass, then replaced it swiftly but not too swiftly for Nuri bey to observe the movement. Blandly he refilled the glass.
‘Fatima, as though our mother would be called Fatima!’ she moaned as though this were the ultimate insult.
‘Pauvre Madame,’ he murmured soothingly, ‘my poor, poor lady. Calm yourself, my dear lady, calm yourself.’
Presently Madame Bassompierre began to recover from her temporary defeat. Her resources were reforming themselves in newly discovered strength.
‘I shall not return home without the body of my sister,’ she declared. ‘This body is my property. She has been dead only three days; there is nothing to prevent my taking her home …’
‘Except perhaps a weight of earth on top of her,’ Nuri bey reminded her, ‘and permission.’
‘Permission to regain my own property! Nonsense!’ But it was not nonsense, as she seemed to realize during a long pause. ‘Then I must see the parish priest.’
‘We have no such person.’
‘Naturally I do not mean the Catholic priest, I know you have none here, but surely even Mohammedans have a shepherd of a kind?’
‘If you mean the imam; he is the nearest we have to a parish priest.’
‘Imam, that’s it. It was the imam who attended the funeral, wasn’t it? Where can I find him?’
‘The imam is usually to be found in the mosque. Between the times of prayer he can often be found instructing.’
‘Take me to him!’
Nuri bey was profoundly shocked. Though the imam, he pointed out, was a married man he was not particularly interested in women as parishioners. The mosque was, in the main, for the men, the women followed the men’s example and went to the mosque but they sat apart from the men, at the back, in small pens round the back wall, and were of no account. Though Madame Miasma attended the mosque regularly and often Valance went with her, it was doubtful if the imam would know Valance even by sight.
‘Shocking, shocking!’ Madame Bassompierre declared, ‘like sheep, in pens round the wall! Alas, that our poor Valance should choose to end her life in such a barbaric country!’
But she was not to be deflected; she had come for the remains of Valance and she would not return without them. Permission would have to be given for Valance’s body to be taken from the grave and put into the coffin she had brought. The quicker it was done the better, evidently. If necessary she would go at once to the French Consulate. There was no need to tell her that it could not be done; she knew there was nothing that money could not do. Valance had been a great saver and most of the money she had earned, over all these years in Turkey, had, against all regulations, been banked in France. She had left everything to her relatives and, as soon as the law permitted, the bills incurred for the whole operation would be paid in full. In the meantime Madame Bassompierre had supplied herself with enough cash to pay any immediate expenses.
‘I have an idea,’ Nuri bey said and as he unfolded it Madame Bassompierre stared at him with incredulous scorn so that towards the end of his dissertation he faltered into silence.
‘I understand, Monsieur, that you are suggesting I should return to my country with a coffin in which we have placed a few stones … have pity on me,’ she pleaded to a Deity who could allow her to be insulted by such an imbecile idea.
He had only half-believed in the idea himself and he had put it forward only to delay certain actions which he had known from the first he was going to take.
Swiftly he left the room whilst Madame Bassompierre took the opportunity of refilling her tiny glass.
He was back in a few moments and, like a conjurer with his ace trick, put down on the small table beside the tray, facing Madame, the photograph of Tony Grand.
Madame Bassompierre nodded, unastonished. ‘Mais oui! Un beau garçon!’
‘Who is it?’
‘Tony Grand. My great-nephew. Valance’s grandson.’
‘French or English? Tell me about him, please.’
‘His father was an English soldier; he married my niece when the Allies were occupying the Maginot Line. He met her on leave in Paris and took her back to England. Later he was killed in the retreat to Dunkirk. His son was brought up by his French mother in England. Alas, she had to work hard to keep him and he had to be evacuated away from her. Monsieur, that boy had a hard childhood. My niece lost her head. She had far too gay a time with the American soldiers. In the end she married again and went to America; the new husband turned out to be a brute. Oh, things were terrible for my poor niece. However, she lives there permanently now and has found a job for herself. She is a natural
ized American. Yes, poor Tony! He was fond of his grandmother. We will have to let him know about her death. She has left him well off.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘Monsieur, he is an air steward at the present time, working for Zenobia Airways. We shall have no difficulty in finding him.’
‘Valance’s grandson? She was married, then?’
‘Alas no, Monsieur, she was not married. Valance had an illegitimate child, my niece.’
‘Ah, I see, I see. That explains a great deal.’
‘If by a great deal you mean her devotion to Madame Miasma, yes. Before the First World War, in our small bourgeois society, you understand, it was a disgrace for a woman to “get into trouble”. Valance could not stay; she heard that she could get work in Turkey, and she left. Madame Miasma met her working as a masseuse in the Turkish bath, desperate, within a month of her delivery. She was kind to her and brought her to her house, here, I take it.’ She looked round in surprise. ‘Yes, to this same house. And here my sister had her child, and kept her beside her for years. Later she brought it home to France for a Catholic upbringing and would see her only once a year when she came home on holiday.’
Nuri bey in desperation played his final trump. ‘Are you not aware, Madame, that the police of Turkey and of England are searching for your great-nephew? He is wanted for murder.’ If he intended it to be a super-dramatic thunderbolt, it was a mere damp squib.
‘That doesn’t astonish me,’ Madame Bassompierre answered. ‘Since he grew out of being a beautiful little angel he has been a fearful devil, Monsieur.’
Nuri bey could not resist a smile at her emphatic manner, the way she said ‘un beau petit ange’ with pursed lips and appropriate gestures and flung her whole self into ‘un diable affreux’. ‘And furthermore, I don’t think his mother cares. She is hard-hearted, that one, she loves only herself. But his grandmother cared. My poor Valance, she loved him dearly, she was proud of his looks, his success with women, his panache! I am so sad for my poor sister to hear this news. Maybe the shock brought on her stroke.’
‘Valance died before it took place. She did not know.’