“Don’t you know how a revolutionary cell operates? Two or three agents who can trust one another, work together. Each cell is a complete unit with no traceable connection to the organization. Even we don’t know who our commander is. If we’re taken and questioned, even under torture, we won’t give anyone away because we can’t.”
“You can betray your friends. Your fellow members of the cell.”
“And that’s as far as it can go.”
“Did Birgit betray you?”
“Birgit?” The question seemed to take him by surprise. “But she’s not in the cell.” A little color flushed into Giancarlo’s bruised face. “I mean, she wasn’t. Never.”
“I see.” Yashim’s expression hardened. “And her killer would know that, would he? By some sort of secret sign, maybe?”
The knuckles on Giancarlo’s hand whitened against the arm of his chair. “No—I mean—”
“She was with you, of course, but she couldn’t betray you. She didn’t know anything. She wasn’t in the cell.”
“Oh my God.”
There was a silence.
“Has La Piuma communicated since you arrived?”
Giancarlo thrust his hands in his pockets and put on such an obtuse expression that Yashim had an urge to go and find the kadi, and return him to jail.
“I see you can’t betray La Piuma,” Yashim explained patiently. “None of you know who he is. But while you can’t betray him—do you see? He can betray you.”
Giancarlo’s eyes flickered from Yashim to Palewski, but he said nothing.
“My friend here, the ambassador, is an old hand at exile.” Yashim stood up. “He pines for a nation that no longer exists—on the map. He has found an honorable way of fighting for his country, in ways you’d understand—charging the enemy on the battlefield, standing his ground while his comrades fall, believing in the promises of great men.”
He held up his hand. “Forgive me, my friend, and let me speak.
“One word—one sentence—and he could go home. His estates, his horses, his houses, his hounds—he could have them all, if he would only recant. He could shoot duck again on the Podolian Lakes.”
“Oh, Yashim.” Palewski was frowning, waving his glass. Giancarlo looked uncomfortable.
“But he won’t, because he believes in something. You believe in a place for your people? Palewski works for it every day. His dignity is Poland’s, and he does it by the law, holding to the law—because it is justice, in the end, which defines the civilized man. Whatever it costs him, whatever he is forced to endure away from his home, there’s a single belief that drives him on.
“One day, Giancarlo, he will win. I daresay he’ll be dead, we’ll all be dead. But no one will have died to protect Palewski. No one betrayed—or even misled. And no one, Giancarlo, will have been left to face death alone in the night, in a foreign city, for a cause that isn’t theirs. For a man whose name they don’t even know. For a secret message they couldn’t even understand. The Baklava Club.”
Giancarlo was slumped in the arms of his chair.
“What was La Piuma’s message? I think I can guess. He told you to intercept Prince Czartoryski.”
Giancarlo tossed his head aside as if he had been struck.
“Czartoryski is a friend of the ambassador. He is, if you don’t realize this yet, the leader of the Polish cause, and the man the autocrats of Europe most fear. The Habsburgs are afraid of him, as is your friend, the Pope. And even the Russian tsar.”
Giancarlo’s expression was wild: “Then who in the name of Christ is La Piuma?”
“Anyone. Don’t you see—he could be anyone, who writes notes in Latin, and knows that you’re in Istanbul? Someone who’d do anything to destroy you, and Czartoryski, and anyone else who opposes the existing regimes.”
“Who?”
But Yashim shook his head.
“You even killed the man who was following you, didn’t you?”
Giancarlo was on his feet. “We didn’t kill anyone!”
Yashim leveled a finger. “Then tell me in the name of God what you have done with the prince!”
They stood glaring at each other, Giancarlo turning pale and red by turns, Yashim crushing his fingers into a fist.
“Gentlemen—” Palewski began.
And then the door crashed open, and Natasha stood swaying, her hair disheveled, blood trickling from her lip.
She took a step into the room.
“Thank God!” she cried. “Yashim!”
72
YASHIM caught her as she took another step and stumbled into his arms. Her arms slid around his neck and her scent was on his lips and he swept her up and carried her to the armchair.
“Brandy!”
Palewski handed him the bottle.
“Natasha! Natasha.” Yashim stroked the hair from her face. He glanced up. “Marta! Where’s Marta!”
“I’ll call her.” Giancarlo ran out to the landing. “Marta!”
Yashim put the brandy to her lips. She gasped, and her head rolled back, and the corners of her mouth turned down.
“Oh, Yashim.” She buried her face against his neck, her shoulders trembling and shaking. “Hold me! Tighter.”
Yashim squeezed her, feeling her chest flutter. She lifted her face, with bloody lips searching for his and he kissed her, tasting the iron of her blood and the salt of her tears. “Natasha.”
Then Marta was there, bringing hot towels, bathing the cuts on the Russian girl’s face, rubbing her wrists with Palewski’s cologne.
Yashim stood back, to give her room, and noticed Palewski looking at him curiously.
He knelt by the chair.
“What happened? Tell me.”
“Oh! Oh!” Natasha took a deep breath. “I’ve been such a fool.”
She put her fingers to the scratch on her cheek.
“I thought—you didn’t come! I thought I had to try.”
“Try what?”
She clasped her hands and twisted them. “When—you—left—” she began, hiccuping through her tears, “the valide—told me. She cannot write to the tsar.”
Yashim took her hands in his. “I know. I’m so sorry.”
“You—knew?” Her eyes blazed. “You knew? I didn’t believe it when she said—”
She scrambled up in the armchair, snatching her hand away. “You knew—and you—you—” She dashed her knuckles into her eyes. She lifted her chin. “I thought more of you,” she said, very clearly.
“I was waiting,” Yashim began. “And then—”
“Then!” she cried imperiously. “Then! Your murders and your—” Her lips pressed together as she struggled to find words. “Deaths!”
She buried her face in her hands, and Yashim took her in his arms. This time she did not resist.
He murmured something Palewski could not hear, and she drew back her head.
“I thought I could still do something.”
Yashim stroked her hair. “There’s still a lot that can be done.”
“No. I thought of one thing.”
“What?”
“You will think I’m stupid. I was stupid. I thought he could help me. I—I went to him…”
Yashim knew what she was about to say. “The priest?”
“Oh, Yashim! He was about to leave and I—don’t know—anyone! He is a friend of the Pope, I thought. For my father, I’d do anything now—and Doherty is going back to Rome.”
She had calmed down now. She snuggled into Yashim’s arms. “So I went to see him.”
“Doherty—at his house?”
She nodded. “I didn’t say anything to anyone. I thought I had to go, to see him before he left.”
Yashim’s mind was leaping. Doherty!
“Did he do this to you?”
“The Catholic house was empty—”
“How did you get there?”
“In a sedan.” She sounded surprised. “From the palace, why not? There was no one except an old lady, an old
nun. I went up and waited. Everything was packed, I mean, there was stuff packed in boxes, not everything. Old papers, manuscripts.
“I was determined to wait for him. I must have waited an hour before a boy came with a note. I took the note for him—what else could I do? It—it wasn’t sealed and …
“And I think the boys, those Italians, are in some sort of trouble. It was from Rafael, the solemn one. He wanted Doherty to meet them at that old farmhouse where we had our picnic, Yashim, you remember? Where we swam.”
Yashim stared at her. “But—that’s it! Of course!” He sprang up. “Natasha, did Doherty get the note?”
“Yes. Yes, he got the note.”
“I should have acted earlier.” He dashed to the escritoire and began to write. “Palewski, get this to Midhat Pasha immediately, tell him I’m going to the ruined farm. The Baxi boy can take it, can’t he? I’ll need some support, as fast as he can bring it. Giancarlo—where is he?”
Giancarlo was not in the room. Yashim dashed onto the landing, to find Marta running up the stairs.
“Yashim efendi—the Italian boy! He’s gone—”
“All right. Take this note, Marta. Give it to the Baxi boy and tell him to run like the wind. It’s for Midhat Pasha.”
“Yes, efendi. But the kyrie’s gun was in the hall, and he took it, and ran!”
“The gun? Thank you, Marta. Get the note to the boy.”
Palewski swung his legs painfully off the sofa. “Hold on, Yash. I can’t let you go alone.”
“It’s no good, my old friend. We haven’t time.”
Natasha stood up. “I’ll come,” she said.
“Stay.” But something in her expression made him hesitate. “It’ll be dangerous, Natasha. I don’t know what we’ll find.”
She stuck out her chin and gave a faint smile. “I’m Russian, Yashim.”
Yashim nodded. He knew that she was strong. If anything went wrong he would need someone who could carry a report. And she had not finished her story, either.
“Very well, we’ll go together. But you’re under my orders. Palewski: just pray that we’re in time.”
73
THE moon rose as they scudded up the Golden Horn, silvering the water and the trees clustered thickly on the shoreline. Yashim lay back in the caïque, Natasha’s head on his shoulder.
“I gave Doherty the note when he got back,” Natasha was saying. “Once he’d read it, he was only interested in finding out if I had read it, too.”
“And you told him you had?”
“Of course. I wanted to know if the boys were in trouble—I mean, after Birgit, and everything. And why were they at that farm? He went very pale. I’d never noticed his eyes before, but they were like the eyes of a snake, Yashim. I was frightened.
“He said: ‘Why are you here?’
“‘You are going back to Rome, Father. I want to ask your help.’
“‘My help? For what?’
“‘My father is among the last of the Decembrists still in exile. He is an old man, old beyond his years because he has worked in the mines, and he won’t live long. My mother is dead, and I’m his only child. A word from the tsar would bring him home, to Saint Petersburg.’
“‘But you have the valide in your pocket, don’t you? Or has she changed her mind?’
“He said it so abruptly, Yashim. I’d thought of Doherty as a great talker, you know, convivial. Almost like a Russian. But he was different—abrupt, unsmiling. I’d seen the look in his eyes before, but not in him. It was like that man I told you about.”
“Petovski?”
“The other one. Undressing me, even when I was begging for his help.”
The domes of three mosques glittered in the moonlight. To their right, Yashim could see the dark mass of the shipyards. He squeezed her shoulder.
“I tried to tell him how circumstances had changed for the valide, and for me. I said there had been some outrage, something the Russians had done, and Midhat Pasha had told the valide she could no longer write to the tsar with the same familiarity.
“Doherty gave me a cunning look. ‘She sent you here?’
“‘No, no. It was my idea. Mine alone—that I could ask you for your help.’
“He took a step toward me. ‘So nobody knows you are here?’
“‘The woman downstairs,’ I said. ‘The nun, who keeps the house.’
“I suppose he realized then that I was afraid. ‘A young communicant visits a priest. What of it?’ He laughed. ‘What do you offer in return?’
“‘I—I have nothing, but my gratitude. My hope.’
“He was close to me. He put out his hand, as if he meant to take my arm, and I jerked back. I panicked. It—it made him angry.
“‘What are you afraid of?’ He grabbed me, held me. ‘I smell a wantonness in you.’ He sniffed at my hair: he was trembling. ‘We must school it.’”
Natasha turned her head and looked out over the silver water.
“Once, Yashim, I would have believed him. I would have obeyed him, I know. But when I talked to you the other day—and when we, you know, were together … I think I found some courage. He tried to force me—but I got away.”
Yashim searched for her hands.
“Do you think—do you think he—” She gulped. “Did he kill Birgit?”
Yashim hesitated. “Yes. Yes, I am afraid he did. He told us that he found her dead.”
She squeezed his hand. He began to tell her what he had come to understand from piecing together the events of the past few days; the caïque sped up the dark waters and Yashim talked, glad to have her beside him, glad for this chance to explain, in part, the chain of errors and betrayals that had led them to enter this desperate race to the woods.
“I think La Piuma—that was the code name the Italians gave their controller—involved them somehow in the attempt on Palewski. That’s the terrible weakness of their revolutionary system, which they think so impregnable. Machiavelli said that Western nations were easy to defeat, but complex and difficult to govern. He said the Ottoman sultan was harder to remove, but the system would always serve the usurper. Something like that may have happened with La Piuma. The Italians would have no way of knowing that it was Doherty who had started giving them orders.”
“My God,” Natasha whispered.
“Somehow they bungled their job, or took fright. I’m not quite sure. I think Doherty lost contact with them, or just lost patience. I hope to find that out. But that’s why he killed Birgit. For information.”
“But if she was dead she couldn’t tell him anything.”
“She couldn’t anyway. She didn’t know a thing.”
Natasha shivered in the dark. “What will you do—when we get there?”
Yashim looked out over the water.
“Doherty got Rafael’s note, didn’t he? He’ll be headed for the farm, if the boys are there. And Giancarlo, with his gun. He must have heard everything you said before he ran.”
He turned his head and looked at her.
“I don’t know what I’ll do, Natasha. I just hope we are in time.”
74
FROM the Eyüp stage they made their way cautiously to the edge of the woods. The moon was almost full and the shadows were crisp and dark. An owl hooted softly among the trees.
“Are we the first?”
Yashim shook his head. “Not sure. We must be very quiet, and watch. Don’t forget Giancarlo has a gun.”
He found the path without difficulty, but as they pushed deeper into the woods and the darkness gathered around them twigs snapped underfoot and branches snagged at their hair and clothes. Once a badger, disturbed in its rootlings, made off with a crash into the undergrowth.
“I’m afraid, Yashim.”
“Yes.” He regretted bringing Natasha. Close to the farm, the sense of menace had grown. He motioned to Natasha to stop, and held her close as he whispered into her ear:
“I want you to stay here, back off the path. There’s a dip where
you can hide. If anyone comes, just let them pass. Whatever you hear, stay put. Give me thirty minutes or so. If I don’t come, get back to Eyüp and wait there for Midhat Pasha. Got that?”
“I want to come with you,” she breathed, sliding her hand into the small of his back.
He traced the outline of her hip. Their foreheads touched. “Come into my dip,” she said mischievously. “Do it to me again.”
“Later. Now hide.”
He had chosen the spot well. She sank like a hen pheasant, and he saw her white hand come out and stroke some ferns into place; but when she had stopped moving he couldn’t have said if she was there or not.
Without Natasha, Yashim felt lighter and safer. He moved to the edge of the wood and saw the outline of the ruined farmhouse at the bottom of the hill, with the pool glittering just beyond. Everything was still, and only an army of cicadas in the grass kept up a raucous chorus in the moonlight.
The light, and the grassy hill, made it difficult to approach the house without being seen. Yashim descended in flits, darting between the bushes that were beginning to reclaim the abandoned land, until he reached the large cypress at the bottom and pressed up against its black trunk, with a view across tumbledown farm buildings to the house about twenty yards away.
Nothing stirred. The windows of the house were in inky shadow, and where the roof had fallen the moon lit up a cradle of broken rafters and tilted beams. There was not a light to be seen, and not a whisper to be heard over the sound of the cicadas. Yashim turned his back to the tree and scanned the empty hillside.
Perhaps he was too late, and Doherty had been and gone and left the farmhouse lifeless.
But Giancarlo had a gun.
Yashim looked up at the stars, watching a patch of inkiness slide across the sky. When the cloud began to envelop the moon, he dropped to a crouch and made a dash to the wall of the nearest outhouse, pressing himself into the shadows.
His hand closed on a loose stone on top of the collapsing wall. He lobbed it through the air, and heard it clatter on the ground on the far side of the farmhouse door.
Nothing moved.
The cicadas whirred and creaked. A gust of night air wafted through the valley, and silvery shadows raced across the grass. A shutter creaked and banged.
The Baklava Club: A Novel (Investigator Yashim) Page 25