The Love of Stones

by Tobias Hill

  There are a lot of bills. The briefcase is full of demands, black and red arranged in thick ringbinders. The coat contains another, crumpled into the hip pocket. In the case’s main cavity are the President’s treasures. An obscenely plump, ribbed silver pen. A cobra-top Motorola phone with the signal switched off. A tin box of Sobranie cigars with a butt stubbed out inside. Used envelopes.

  ‘Nothing.’ I feel my muscles tightening at the sound of my own solitary mutter. ‘Fuck. Fuck. Nothing.’ I try and think what I expected. A diary at least, perhaps an address book. Some detail of a woman who collects pearls. I remember the document file, never out of Araf’s sight.

  I flick at the briefcase’s broken locks, thinking. The external leather is marked with the tracks of old capillaries. I go through the papers again. Under the envelopes is a Playboy Playmate of the Month pull-out and a polaroid of five children, four girls and a boy. A woman smiling with bruised dark eyes. I look back at her absently. The sun is getting hotter. A vacuum cleaner starts churning around the room upstairs. Already it is past check-out time. I take my top off, lean a pillow against the wall, pick out the envelopes.

  Not all of them are empty. Two contain shipping orders, though they are incomplete, torn off, downloaded printouts in English, French, Turkish. I make out something about a shipment of DDT production waste in one document and a receipt for five items in the other. A cargo transported for a fee of five thousand Swiss francs. Someone has initialled the payment, ‘EvG’. The tea cools on the bedside table as I read the fragments.

  Nothing else is comprehensible. I upturn the briefcase and shake it out. Something falls across me. It is a fax, folded twice. The print is already fading and I turn it to the light. It is an invitation to a private jewellery sale in Basel, addressed to President Araf.

  The company name is familiar. I read it again. Graf Schmucke, 3 Museumstrasse. I have been there. Not recently, not for over a year, but more than once. It is a private auction house and sale room, dedicated to jewellery and jewels. The world of stones is small, after all – claustrophobic, even. I try and remember the auctioneer’s name and face. Felix Graf. A young man, ambitious to lead the family firm. A voice polished as a Swiss watch. I would never have guessed he dealt with a man like Araf.

  I close the case. It is past noon. I dress for the heat: gym shirt and chinos, Gohil sandals, cotton jacket. In the corner of the room there is a small basin and mirror, stained by rust. I roll up my sleeves, run cold water and press it against my face. Look at myself.

  I have blue irises. Here in Turkey they are bad luck. Evil eyes. My hair is turning blonde in the sun. My top lip is swollen on the left side. When I was five I had stitches there. My mother, Edith, woke me up to photograph an eclipse of the moon. She lifted me to the Leica’s eye and whispered in my ear. Her arms held me, then let me go. I was still half asleep when I stepped backwards off the garden steps, falling eight feet. Afterwards I blamed her and she tried to make a game of it, an exciting story: Katharine, you’ve been touched by the moon! Come here. Come. My little moon face.

  I remember the stitches. I liked them. The photos Edith took of me show me grinning, gap-toothed. I forgave her because of the stitches. They hung down, huge against my tongue, like the roots of plants.

  There is a white hair. I turn my head to the right and it is clear, above my left temple. I comb it out with my fingers, feeling its coarseness. My first white hair. I don’t pull it out.

  ‘Hallo? Pardon.’ Someone knocks twice at the bedroom door. I dry my face on the bedsheet, bundle up the briefcase and coat, and open the door while the cleaner is still struggling with her keys. She glares at me as if I have stolen her job. I go past her, down to the street.

  It is a beautiful day. A breeze moves across the awnings, and the air smells of the sea, not clean, but real. A rush hour of tourists fills the pavements. Over them the Blue Mosque looms. Its domes grow one out of the next, like bulbs of malachite. Two small boys run past, the first jumping up to tear a leaf off a street tree, the second tearing off the branch. They twist through the crowd to the next junction, between telephone kiosks and away.

  I push against the crowd, down to the telephones. There are tokens in my wallet and I pile them on top of the machine. It takes a while to dial and longer for the line to click open.

  ‘Guten tag.’

  ‘Tag.’ I slip into German. After Turkish it comes with a sense of relief. ‘I would like to speak with Felix Graf.’

  ‘May I say who is calling?’

  ‘Katharine Sterne. He might remember I bought some documents from him, eighteen months ago. Photographs of the Burgunderbeute.’

  ‘One moment.’

  There is a snatch of music. A string quartet, Mozart, the anthemic sound of Germanic Europe. Then the line opens again and Felix is there. ‘Miss Sterne! Such a surprise. How long has it been, eighteen months?’

  ‘Eighteen months.’

  ‘Ah.’ There is a pause. Our capacities for small talk are both limited. ‘And you are well? Perhaps you have found your great jewel, your Trois Frères. I would be happy to hear that.’

  ‘Thank you, Felix. I’m still looking.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  ‘Thank you. I have a question for you.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘I am ringing from Istanbul.’ The token runs out. I feed in a handful. ‘There is a freight company here. Golden Horn Shipping and Air. Do you know it?’

  ‘I think – no.’ He answers too quickly. Too smooth. I push harder.

  They deal with black-market antiquities.’

  Without losing its polish, his voice cools. ‘Miss Sterne, I’m not sure what you are asking. You know we run a reputable business–’

  ‘I didn’t keep your telephone number. I have it in front of me, on an invitation. It is for one of your private sales. It’s addressed to Mister Araf, President of the Golden Horn Corporation. I haven’t asked you the question yet. Would you like to hear it?’

  There is a longer, uncomfortable pause. When Graf speaks again his voice is short, clipped down to the edge of rudeness.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Araf has a customer who buys jewels. Maybe you know her also.’ A police car goes past behind me and I lean into the kiosk, shielding the briefcase with my legs. ‘She is an old woman, a north European–’

  Laughter. ‘Curiously enough, northern Europe is full of old women with jewels.’

  ‘This one lives in Turkey. And she loves pearls.’

  ‘Pearls?’

  ‘You know her?’

  He hesitates. ‘Maybe. There is someone, a Dutch or German name, I don’t remember. She has only bought here a few times. But always pearls. An obsessive taste, and very expensive. From us she has bought only old pieces.’

  ‘What kind of old?’

  He sighs. ‘There was an early Carl Fabergé, I think. A set of ornamental dice, black coral inlaid with gold pearls. And the Mycenean brooch, I believe that was also bought by her. Two gold hornets encircling a fourteen-carat pearl. An unusual piece, not really to my taste–’

  The tokens are running out. I cut in. ‘I didn’t know you dealt in Mycenean antiquities. When was this brooch exported from Greece?’

  ‘It was perfectly legal. And it was a private sale, on private property.’ Graf’s voice is pained, quiet. ‘Miss Sterne, Katharine. I’d rather not talk about this at work, if you don’t mind. Perhaps, if I found you a name and address, I could telephone you tonight…?’

  I give him the callbox number. He says he will ring back at six-fifteen, seven-fifteen Turkish time. I put the phone down and pick up the briefcase. The coat I leave, pushed up between the kiosks.

  I climb up the cobbled roads, under the avenue of chestnut trees. Past the Aya Sofya, with its ziggurat of domes and launchpad of muezzin towers. A young man sits on the pavement with a pair of bathroom scales. I weigh myself to see him smile, the information itself I could do without. Next to him is an older man selling pistachios.
He waves. For you, little sister!’

  I thank him in Turkish and he nods and nods. In his ear is the greyish-pink button of an antiquated hearing-aid, like a pearl in an oyster. I buy two hundred grams of nuts and eat them as I walk. If I can, I will eat nothing else today but pistachios.

  It buoys me up, the sense of momentum. I am not used to it. I put my hand in my pocket and feel the cache of rubies there. My three little brethren. It is time I spent a little.

  Another block and I come to the streets around the Covered Market. Outside, costermongers yell at one another between the tourists. The streets smell of carpets and fish. Split kavun melons. Fresh cardamum, the pods still on their long stalks, the flowers white with thin blue veins. I spend hours, looking for lapidaries. Jeweller’s Street is no use to me, with its boutiques full of imitation Tiffany bracelets and Ottoman earrings. It is on Fur Merchant’s Street, in the shadow of the Pigeon Mosque, that I find what I am looking for. There is a row of workshops, jewellery makers inside, mücevherci in gold-lined rooms.

  For the best of the rubies I get a good price, eighteen hundred dollars in crisp high-denomination American notes. The poorest of my stones I trade for a conch pearl. It weighs little more than a carat, but the shape is good. Smooth, with the deep pink of raw salmon. It is the best thing I can find. After all, the woman I am looking for is not interested in rubies.

  At six o’clock I am back at the telephone kiosk, waiting in the warm evening. The coat is gone. A parturient man in a leather jacket comes up and points at the phone. In bad Turkish, I explain that I am waiting for a call, and he bows his head, gently, and wanders away.

  It is another half-hour before Graf rings. He is nervous and out of breath and I am glad of the advantage. ‘I must apologise. We had a late customer, a Japanese lady. In fact she reminded me of you. She is looking for her father’s sword. He surrendered it to the Americans in the war. His daughter has been looking for it for almost thirty years. Imagine.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Ah. I am sorry. Well, I have researched your pearl woman. There is good news and bad news. Which will you start with?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Her surname is von Glött.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Unfortunately, that is the bad news. We have a lawyer’s address in Amsterdam, although I would say the name is German. And apart from that and the name, I can find nothing else.’ His voice purrs with pleasure. ‘All our transactions were via the lawyer. I am so sorry, Katharine. It doesn’t seem to me as if I am being much help. Would you like the lawyer’s address in Holland?’

  ‘No.’ I turn around in the kiosk. Now I am looking back up the street. Neon blinks along the shopfronts, over the Sindbad Tourist Hotel. ‘I don’t need it. Thank you.’

  ‘My pleasure. Now I will be grateful if you could leave me alone.’

  ‘I’ll see you in Basel, Felix.’

  I hang up and walk back to the hotel. At reception Cansen has been replaced by a man with a flat cap and a wide whiskered face. He is sullenly licking envelopes, a Cheshire Cat without the smile. He puts down the envelopes to give me the room key and I go upstairs. The windows have been shuttered at both ends of the room, and I open them all wide.

  Turkish pop echoes up from the hotel’s courtyard. There is a boy down there, cleaning the fountain. He looks twelve or thirteen, slender as a dolphin. A beautiful child. As I watch him he looks up and I wave. He glances away shyly. I go to the bed and sit down. From the case I take out the used envelopes. The receipt for five items, paid in Swiss francs. The initials, ‘EvG’.

  It is on unheaded paper. The writing is damaged where someone has laid a cup on the cheap paper. The script is delicate, spidery, written in nibbed ink. The stamps on the envelope are Turkish. The postmark is 21000 followed by another two characters, HH or 88. The postal ink is very faint where the paper has bent away from the stamp.

  I put the envelope in my jacket pocket and pack quickly. The briefcase I leave behind. Downstairs Cansen is back with a friend or sister, younger and prettily plump. The wide-faced man is chatting them up charmlessly. The television flickers overhead. Cansen waves to me. ‘Hey, Katharine. How are you doing?’

  ‘Good.’ I put down my bag and take out the envelope. ‘I need a favour. Do you know this postcode?’

  They crowd around. The new girl says something, a name, and the man agrees. He nods at me. ‘Diyarbak’r.’

  ‘It’s way out in the east,’ says Cansen. ‘You can fly there. I’ve got some nice jewellery from Diyarbak’r. Really fine gold wire.’

  The other girl leans forward. Her English is thick and guttural. ‘My brother went there. It was for him to–’ She looks over to Cansen for help.

  ‘National service,’ says Cansen. ‘You know, it’s a long way. It’s like a different country, in the east. Are you thinking of going there?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘But there are much nicer places in Turkey. Western places. You can go to Bodrum.’ She smiles. ‘I love Bodrum in the summer. Why do you want to go to Diyarbak’r?’

  ‘Maybe I have friends there.’

  The wide-faced man cocks his head towards Cansen. She translates for him. He shrugs and mutters in Turkish. I fold the envelope away.

  ‘What did he say?’

  Cansen smiles again. Eyes wide. ‘It’s just Ersan’s joke. He says you’ll need friends out there, because in Diyarbak’r your enemies will cut out your tongue and throw it in the Tigris.’ They laugh together at Ersan’s joke. I laugh with them until they stop.

  ‘Cansen, do any of you have a car? I need a lift to the airport.’

  ‘You’re leaving now? Oh. Well, Ersan does.’

  ‘How much will he charge?’

  ‘Twenty dollars.’ His voice is heavy, like the girl’s. I kiss Cansen on both cheeks. The man heaves himself out of his chair. ‘Now?’ he says.

  ‘Right now.’ I nod back at the bag. ‘And for twenty you can carry that too.’

  * * *

  In the first year of the seventeenth century a new venture was founded in England. It called itself the Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies. Other people called it other things. The East India Company, or the Johnny Company, or just the Company, as if there was no other. England’s Army of Acquisition. For centuries it would steal jewels or countries, the eyes out of Peacock Thrones, taking them by force, trading them for gunpowder or empty promises. Once, it even transported the balas rubies of the Brethren…

  But now I am losing track. I’m getting ahead of myself. The lives of stones are so long that the characters of their owners become progressively more insignificant. It is so easy to move back, to try to see the whole picture of the jewel, and then to find that humanity has become blurred against the passage of time.

  Three years into the new century, Elizabeth the Virgin Queen died. She had brought England from bankruptcy to being the most powerful state in Europe. Her dynasty died with her all the same. The throne went to her cousins and enemies, the Stuarts, and in 1605, the accountants made a list of valuables received by their new king, James the First. I find the records in London, quarter-bound in goatskin. The hundred and ninth item is all that I’m looking for:

  A Fayre Flower Wth three greate ballaces in the myddest a greate pointed dyamonde, and three greate perles fixed, Wth a fayre grate ple pendente, called the Brethren.

  In one portrait James wears it as a hat-ornament. The cords of the shoulder-knot have been lost, but the basic structure is unchanged. A triangle of stones illuminated by its single diamond eye. James had the stones reset in the same form for his son Charles to woo the Infanta in Spain – although the alliance of sea powers never came about, and Charles eventually married Henrietta of France. Their jeweller declared the Brethren’s diamond to be The most compleate stone that ever he sawe’.

  It was seen, then, as one of the greatest of the English Crown Jewels. It is almost the only piece of that hoard which surviv
es. Four decades later, the great jewelled artefacts of England were destroyed. The Crown Jewels – the Regalia most of all – were broken with care, stone by stone. Only a handful of items survive. The Tudor Clock Salt, with its panels of rock crystal. The royal gold cup of the Kings of England and France. The Spoon of the Regalia. The Three Brethren.

  In their portraits, the early Stuart kings are as similar as siblings. Their generations are cool, poised, smooth as jewels in oil. The paintings are propaganda images; the charisma is there, the incompetence almost hidden. There is always a veneer of smarm. By 1625, Charles the First’s secretary of state was already recording that he had ‘sent towards Harwich all the jewels within his range’, including the Three Brethren. The King had ordered his supporters the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Holland to the Netherlands with ten major jewels for pawn, and the message: The saide Jewells and Plate are of greate value, and many of them have longe contynued as itt were in a continuall Discent for many Years together with the Crowne of England.

  The money raised lasted Charles twenty years. The Brethren was redeemed. In 1640 it was even reset with a range of new pearls and an additional table-cut diamond. But in 1645, with revolution looming and without finances to meet it, Queen Henrietta Maria fled to Holland with the great Tudor jewels. In her baggage were the diamonds known as the Sancy and the Mirror of Portugal, the ‘second best ruby collar’ of Henry the Eighth with its chain-of-office links, and the Brethren.

  Selling the great jewels was as difficult for the Stuarts as it had been for the Magistrates of Basel and Berne. No one was rich enough to buy them. The less fabulous gems were eventually pledged to the Duke of Eperon, and when the pledges were not redeemed he sold them to Cardinal Mazarin, who was said to have loved jewels even more than his God. The Brethren was not among the works sold. Henrietta sent back to her husband huge quantities of gunpowder and carbines and coin. None of it was enough to win him the war.