The Emerald Tablet

by Meaghan Wilson Anastasios

  He bit into the sandwich as he walked back to the line of vehicles. Christ, I needed that, he thought as he savoured the salty tang of the crunchy fish and the soft white bread.

  She was resting against the bonnet of the van, gazing out at the chaotic traffic negotiating the crowded waterway. ‘I’ve never been able to understand why there aren’t more collisions,’ she said as he joined her.

  ‘It’s like couples on a crowded dance floor. Or a flock of starlings in flight. Looks anarchic to spectators, but there’s an underlying order to it all.’ He wiped the crumbs from his chin with the back of his hand. ‘Like life.’

  Essie nodded.

  ‘So,’ he continued. ‘What’re you planning to do next?’

  ‘Uncharacteristically, I haven’t given it much thought. There are some urgent things I need to take care of in London before news gets back to Josef about what I’ve done. Then I’ll disappear again. Even in jail, his reach is formidable. I doubt I’ll ever be able to consider myself safe. What about you?’

  ‘Back to work for me. I’ve got the excavation at Mt Ida occupying most of my time these days.’

  ‘And the tablet? Are you going to sell it?’

  ‘Haven’t decided yet,’ he said. One thing I do know, though – you’re one of the last people on the planet I’d tell.

  She gazed towards the hills of Sultanahmet and the ethereal domes of Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. ‘Just do me a favour – whatever you decide, please don’t give it to the Israelis.’

  ‘Why would you care?’

  She paused a moment, then drew a deep breath. ‘You’ve asked me about my past. My real past. My mother and father . . . they were Arabs from Palestine. That was where I was born. When the Jewish settlers began to arrive, my father resisted their moves to occupy our homeland. The al-nakbah – the catastrophe . . . it’s why the story I told you about the life I’d imagined for myself in Smyrna came so close to the truth. In Palestine we had our own “catastrophe”, as did the Greeks in Smyrna. My mother and sisters were murdered . . .’ Her voice began to waver.

  Ben glanced up at her face. Fat tears were forming along her lower eyelids and her bottom lip was quivering. Despite his determination to limit physical contact with her, he reached out and took one of the hands she had knotted together in her lap.

  Essie turned her face towards him. ‘My father – he saved me. We moved to Cairo. He married again – my stepmother and half-sister are still there. He could never accept Israel, and so he kept fighting – until the British captured him and executed him. After that, I became someone else. And that’s why my past shouldn’t matter to you. But it’s also why I don’t want to give Israel anything that might help them crush people like my family.’

  ‘You know what the Jews suffered during the war – you can’t blame them for wanting to find a place they could be safe.’

  ‘No. But it didn’t have to be the way it is. We could have lived peacefully together.’

  ‘You said your father was fighting them –’

  ‘Stop!’ she spat. ‘You don’t . . . you couldn’t . . . understand!’ Essie took a deep breath. ‘I think it’s best that we don’t talk about it.’

  ‘Fine with me.’

  From across the turgid, black waters of the Bosphorus, the Kadiköy ferry sounded a mournful cry as it approached the docks. The white light of day was dimming as the sun prepared to plunge below Istanbul’s proud minaret and dome-dotted horizon.

  ‘It’s getting late,’ he said, releasing her hand. ‘Whatever you’re intending to do next, it will have to wait until tomorrow. Do you have somewhere to stay?’

  She wiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. ‘I could probably get a room at the Pera Palace.’

  ‘Yes. I’m sure you could.’ There’s that damned pounding heart and surging blood again. ‘Or, you could stay with me.’

  She looked up at him through thick, black lashes. ‘Are you sure?’

  Not really, he thought as every cell in his body said the opposite.

  ‘Yes.’

  51

  Istanbul

  Essie and Ben fell into each other’s arms the moment they were through the unlocked front door of his darkened home. Moonlight painted a blue tapestry on the scuffed floorboards as it shone in beams through the window panes and the front door they’d left open.

  They shed their clothes in a scatter along the hall, stumbling naked towards the long flight of stairs that led to the first floor. They kissed each other deeply, tongues probing between lips wet and swollen with hunger. Ben pressed up against Essie’s soft olive skin, the hair on his chest brushing against her nipples and making them harden and ache. His belly was flat and firm against hers as she dug her nails into the muscles that rose like a column from the dip of his back at the base of his spine to the span of his broad shoulders.

  He groaned as she leant against him, feeling his hardness pulsing and hot between them. With one hand Ben reached up to cup her full breast while entwining his other in her hair – now blonde, but still as strong and silken as he remembered it. He responded to the pressure of her body on his, sliding against her and slipping his hand down between her legs.

  Essie’s legs buckled as he began to stroke her with a feather- light touch. Her heels hit the bottom step and she lost her balance. Ben caught her by her waist as she stumbled and guided her down to lie on the flight of wooden stairs. She dropped her knees apart and Ben lowered himself between them, supporting his weight on his hands and entering her in a single stroke. Essie cried out as he slipped inside her. She hooked her feet between the bannisters and pushed back against Ben’s grinding hips as she opened her legs as far as she could, wanting to feel every inch of him.

  Ben grabbed the handrail to brace himself as he plunged inside her. His knees were trembling as he struggled to contain himself. The sensation of being in her – on her – and the feeling of her satiny skin and yielding wetness was utterly overwhelming. As she began to reach climax, Essie arched her back, wrapping her arms around his neck and clamping him between her thighs as she found a rhythm. Ben’s body responded, driving him over the abyss, his mind awash with pure white light.

  Ben and Essie did eventually find their way to his featherbed, which was perched unceremoniously in the centre of his bedroom at the rear of the house, where it overlooked the slow-moving waters of the Bosphorus and the constant stream of cargo ships and freighters that plied its waters. They made love again without any of the urgency and desperation of their past couplings.

  When they finally fell back onto the pillows, Essie surrendered to a dreamless sleep, her breath coming in deep and measured waves. Ben lay at her side, relishing the euphoric catharsis that overwhelmed him. His body ached and he was paralysed by a weariness he felt down to his bones. The dust of the desert still clung to his skin and his legs stung from the day’s exertion. The warm bloom of sated desire made Ben’s limbs heavy and he turned on his side to gaze at the face of the woman he seemed unable to resist. She slept with her eyes slightly open, giving the uncanny impression that she was watching him. Her full lips were parted as she breathed in and out, and Ben reached over to stroke her cheek. She smiled gently in her sleep and rolled across the white sheets, turning her back to him and resting her head on his bicep, nestling against him so their two bodies felt locked together. He bent and kissed her head.

  Outside his bedroom’s French windows, the glittering lights of the sea traffic merged with the blinding stars shimmering in the velvety black night sky. From the mosque on the opposite shore, the muezzin called the faithful to prayer. Ben thought of the last time he’d fallen into a deep slumber at the side of this woman as the same song had echoed around their bed chamber. It had only been four years, but it felt like a lifetime ago and in many ways, it was. So much had changed since. She now claimed to be telling him the truth about who she was and what she wanted. But the tangle of lies she’d caught him up in meant he’d never be able to trust her a
gain.

  As sleep took hold, a kernel of doubt wedged itself between his ribs and gifted him troubled dreams where dreadful things long forgotten clawed at his heels.

  52

  Istanbul

  Ben awoke to the screams of gulls and terns in determined pursuit of the fishing fleet returning to the markets of Istanbul, their nets brimming with the shimmering marine plunder they’d scooped from the depths of the Black Sea.

  He turned, reaching across the bed with a sickly feeling rising in his gut. He knew before he even looked. She was gone.

  With an ominous sense of déjà vu, Ben untangled himself from the sheets and pulled on his undershorts.

  You idiot, he berated himself. She’s bloody gone and done it to you again.

  Fury began to boil inside him as he walked down the corridor towards the stairs. It’s İzmir all over again. Stupefy me with a night of lovemaking. Then take off while I’m asleep.

  Then he remembered. The tablet! In his rush to get inside, he’d left the keys in the ignition of the van.

  Fucking fool! He punched the wall then picked up pace, taking the stairs two at a time.

  He skidded around the corner into the sunroom that doubled as his kitchen, which also happened to have the best view of the driveway.

  Still there. Thank Christ!

  The rusty white van was still parked beside the house, exactly where he’d left it. He let out a sigh of relief.

  There was a crash from the pantry.

  ‘Do you have any eggs? I was going to make us omelettes.’

  He heard her voice, but couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it.

  Essie stepped through the doorway wearing one of Ben’s shirts, its tails dangling almost to her knees. ‘Ben? What’s wrong? Are you all right?’

  ‘I thought you’d left.’

  ‘Why?’ She looked puzzled. ‘Why would I do that?’

  He just looked at her.

  ‘Ah, yes. I see.’ Her eyes were downcast. ‘It’s different this time.’

  ‘How?’ Ben’s anxiety boiled over. ‘How on earth is anything different? Christ! Nothing’s changed! I don’t even know your real name!’

  ‘It’s so long since anyone used my birth name, it doesn’t feel like it belongs to me anymore. Names are just labels we give things.’

  ‘Labels? Yeah, I guess you’re right. But, let’s be honest – they’re fairly important ones.’

  ‘Hardly anyone knows my name . . . my stepmother. My sister . . .’

  ‘Garvé?’

  She said nothing.

  ‘Yeah. That’s what I figured. Of course he does. So it’s fine for him to know it, but not me. I get it.’

  A wave of nostalgia smashed into him and he drew in a shuddering breath. Outside, the sun was rising above the hills on the European side of the city, casting the overgrown garden in a golden light. A path snaked from the back door down to the ramshackle jetty where Ben’s boat bobbed about in the relentless currents flowing through the Bosphorus.

  ‘Anyway . . . none of that changes the fact that the rising sun out there means our time’s up,’ he said. ‘The omelettes will have to wait till next time,’ he said. ‘Some olives and bread on the run will do us for breakfast. Hasan warned me he’d be coming in the morning. No idea what time he meant. But if we’re going to get out of here safely, we need to leave quickly. Do you have any plans?’ He laughed wryly. ‘Why do I even ask? You always have one of those, don’t you? Just tell me where you need me to take you.’

  Essie looked crestfallen. ‘I thought the train would be the best way to get out of the city. They’ll be watching the airports here so that’s where I think I’ll stand a better chance. From Sofia or Bucharest, I should be able to arrange a flight to London. The best place for me to leave would be Sirkeci Station. If it looks like the police are there, I can take a ferry to the Dardanelles and island-hop to Athens.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll take you across to Eminönü. Sirkeci’s nearby. And the ferries for Çanakkale leave from there, too.’

  ‘I know.’ She reached out and took Ben’s hand. ‘Ben – I’m sorry for everything that’s happened. I really am.’

  ‘Seriously . . . don’t worry about it,’ he said, not meaning a word of it. He shook his hand free. ‘Water under the bridge.’

  Ben’s tiny boat dipped and lurched in the waves and wake of larger vessels as it crossed from the Asian side of the city to Seraglio Point on the European shore and the turrets and towers of the palace from which the Ottoman sultans had ruled over one of the world’s greatest and most enduring empires. For once, his seasickness didn’t bother him.

  They’d barely spoken a word to each other since they’d taken the weed-strewn path from Ben’s house to the jetty, where he’d pulled the boat alongside and offered her a hand to steady herself as she stepped down onto its deck. She refused his assistance, leaping nimbly onto the bucking boards and taking a seat on the half-rotten bench at the boat’s bow, eyes looking into the distance across the white-painted prow as Ben kicked the motor into action.

  As Ben had hoped and expected, there’d been no last- minute intrusion from the Turkish police, and they’d pulled away from the dock with relative ease, the only soundtrack to their passage the wheezing chug of an engine Ben knew was long overdue for an oil change.

  The chaotic docks at Eminönü loomed ahead. Ben’s heart was pounding. A voice buried deep within screamed at him to reach out to her, to take her in his arms, and beg her to stay with him forever. But the wounds she’d carved into his most tender parts still ached, and another side of him begged for a circumspect outcome that would save his sanity. That kept him silent, even as Ben came to the burning realisation that this would most likely be the last time he’d ever see her.

  He threw the boat’s rope up to a dock worker who tied the mooring line to a bollard and lowered a ladder so they could clamber up to shore. Ben watched her scale the rungs as if she’d been born on board a ship and tried to convince himself it would all be for the best.

  He stood on the dock’s worn timbers and looked down into her eyes as men and women jostled past them, scurrying to make it to one ferry or another as the captains tugged their steam whistles impatiently.

  ‘Sirkeci Station,’ he said, attempting to maintain a matter-of-fact tone. ‘It’s over there.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you. I know,’ Essie said. ‘Oh! I almost forgot.’ Reaching into the small bag hanging from her shoulder, she took out a parcel wrapped in brown paper and handed it to Ben. ‘Here. It’s the book from Topkapı. Garvé gave it to me after that animal stole it.’

  Ben was dumbfounded. ‘You’re not planning to sell it? Even with the page I tore out of it missing, it’d still be tremendously valuable on the black market.’

  ‘No. Not this time. I’ve caused enough damage already. I’d rather it goes back to where it came from. Might as well do one thing right. Will you be able to put the missing page back into it and give it to Hasan, please?’

  ‘Sure. Yes. If that’s what you want.’

  ‘It is.’ She looked up at him. ‘You know, all the time we’ve been apart, you’ve always been with me. Your eyes . . . it’s always been your eyes. I’ve never been allowed to forget them. Green. Like the sea when a storm’s approaching.’ She placed one hand on his shoulder and the other at his waist as she stood on her toes and kissed his lips, lingering and pressing her body against his.

  He didn’t know what to say, and even if he had, he wasn’t sure he would have said it anyway. Ben drew a deep breath and held it in, struggling to maintain his balance.

  ‘Goodbye, Benedict Hitchens.’ For the briefest of moments, she held him tightly in her arms, then stepped back, smiling sadly before she turned to join the surging crowd moving towards the station. Mid-stride, she stopped and turned back to face him.

  ‘. . . Noor,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The name my parents gave me when I was born. It’s Noor.’

  Without ano
ther word she disappeared into the crowd of commuters.

  THE TIMES

  9 November 1956

  CEASEFIRE IN EGYPT: ALLIED TROOPS OCCUPY SUEZ CANAL ZONE

  LONDON, Friday (Reuters)

  The month’s events in the Sinai have led to what is described by former allies as ‘an irrevocable loss of prestige on the part of the British and the French governments’.

  Just before midnight yesterday, Egyptian radio announced that President Nasser had accepted a ceasefire on condition that all foreign troops were withdrawn from Egypt.

  British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, has been under increasing pressure at home and abroad over a conflict that has been condemned by many of his countrymen and allies. He remains unrepentant, declaring there will be no apology for British action in Egypt.

  The Prime Minister has maintained that the invasion was necessary to secure freedom of passage through the Suez Canal after Egypt’s nationalisation of the waterway in July of this year. Those in Britain who opposed the military action claim that the effective operation of the canal since Egypt took over the shipping channel negates Eden’s claim.

  Meanwhile, President Nasser’s standing in the Moslem world has never been higher. It is perceived that through military defeat he has managed to secure a political victory. The popularity of his staunch resistance to the British, French and Israeli attack on sovereign Egyptian soil has assured his position among his countrymen. The other members of the Arab League have also pledged to support him in any further conflict in the region.