by Lucy Foley
Once Nur told her mother that her greatest ambition was to become one of these women – and received a lecture on the importance of knowing one’s class. These women were still salespeople – no better than the simit sellers or the rag women – even if their currency was words.
Footsteps, behind her. Her father, come to join her in her fishing. Or perhaps he has brought with him the backgammon set, inlaid with ebony, ivory and mother-of-pearl. She turns.
Behind her, at the top of the steps, stands a man in a white robe, a pipe dangling precariously from his open mouth. A lit match burns unattended in his hand, forgotten in his surprise.
‘By Jove,’ he says, stepping quickly backward. And then, as the flame from the match climbs high enough to lick his fingers, ‘Ouch!’
An Englishman, half-dressed, here on the Asian side of the water. None of this makes any sense to Nur: she thought, hoped, that they were confined to Pera. He stares, she stares back. They are like two street cats, she thinks, watching one another warily.
‘By Jove,’ he says again, under his breath, as though the important thing is to say something – that by doing so he will wrest some control over the situation. Nur is standing, attempting to retrieve her slippers with furtive movements of her feet. She risks another quick glance. She has never seen an Englishman – indeed any man – dressed in such an outfit. It is a longish, very loose, very thin white shirt; if she were to allow herself to look properly she would realise that it does not quite preserve his modesty.
‘Well,’ he says fiercely, ‘what the devil are you doing here?’ He has made his pitch for the upper hand, she realises. ‘You don’t understand me, do you?’ His pride has marshalled itself. ‘This is private land. Private. Be gone with you …’ He raises an arm, imperious, points in the direction of the path. ‘Shoo!’
‘I suppose I might ask you the same question.’
He takes a step back.
She has learned this, especially in that time since the occupation began: to wield language, her command of it, as an instrument of power.
He shifts onto his other foot – and for a moment he seems to teeter. The surprise seems to have taken all the force out of him. He looks rather pale, she thinks, even for a pallid Englishman – there is a frailty that she had failed to see before, distracted by his odd attire and her surprise.
Now another figure is approaching, from the house. He is properly dressed, in British army khaki. Her stomach clenches. It is now that she becomes aware that she is effectively trapped on the jetty: these men on one side of her, the water on the other. She will stand her ground; she has done nothing wrong, after all.
There is something familiar about him, this other man. He, too, seems to be experiencing some struggle of recognition. He frowns. His eyes travel from her face to her bare feet, and back again. ‘It’s you. The woman with the books.’
Yes, she does recognise him. Not the face so much as the voice. But she will not give him the satisfaction of admitting it; in refusing she will retain the upper hand. ‘I do not know what you refer to.’
He frowns. ‘You don’t remember? Just two weeks ago … past the Galata bridge. I’m sure it was you. You dropped …’ a pause, then, in triumph, ‘a red notebook!’
A week ago. She was late, on her way to the school. There were painful negotiations with the linen buyer, who tried to convince her that the trade had reached saturation, and he could only offer a third of the usual price. She had to go through the whole charade; to turn on her heel and march away from him before he called her back. This had wasted a good quarter of an hour that she did not have spare.
She could imagine chaos in the classroom already – it seems to unfold even when her back has been turned for a minute, even now there are so few of them. Nur rather loves them for it. But now dread visions appeared before her: desks overturned, ink spilled.
She could not go fast enough. The cobblestones in that part of town are lethal, especially if one is in a hurry. Every third step seemed to be an awkward one, sending her pitching forward as though she might fall. She had felt a building irritation. There was nothing to direct it at other than the men who had laid these uneven stones at some unknown time in the past. But it grew, to a low-level anger at this city in general. Where everything and everyone seemed suddenly world-weary, broken. There was too much history here, too many lives and ages layered one over the top of another. How could one ever hope to grow, to move forward, with this ever-present, melancholy, hot-breathed closeness of the past?
She heard footsteps behind her.
‘Excuse me?’ In English.
Nur kept her gaze down, hurried her pace. Another misstep; her ankle turned on itself, an arrow of pain lancing up.
‘Bakar mısınız?’
She hesitated, surprised by the Turkish, clumsy though it was. In her moment of hesitation, he had caught up with her.
‘You dropped this.’
She turned. She saw, on looking up, a khaki form, the vague oval of a face. This was all her glance allowed time for; she could not have said with absolute certainty that there had also been eyes, a nose, a mouth. Because the thing about the foreign soldiers is that one does everything one can to avoid looking at them. Not to pretend that they don’t exist; that would be impossible. After three years of occupation they have come to seem as much a part of the city as the thousands of stray dogs that roam its streets. Just like those dogs they have made it their own; taken possession, taken liberties. But one avoids looking at them to avoid trouble. From a man a too-long glance might seem a threat; many have been thrown into Allied prisons on smaller pretexts. From a woman, it might seem an invitation.
She took the thing he was holding out to her, though to do so seemed in itself like a weakness. His fingers brushed hers, an accident, and she snatched her hand. It was her red notebook, the one in which she plans out her lessons. She pushed it beneath her arm with the others, turned, walked away.
She realised after ten more steps that she had not thanked him. Well, she thought. One small act of defiance for the vanquished.
‘It was you, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It was me.’ If he is expecting her to thank him, he will have a long wait.
He smiles. She thinks how much she would like to hit him, or spit at his feet. ‘How is your ankle?’ he asks.
‘There is nothing wrong with my ankle.’ She hears the edge in her voice. Careful, must not push it too far. He is smiling, but these invaders can turn in an instant. And yet she refuses to show that she is afraid of him, especially here, in this place. ‘Why are you here?’ she asks.
‘This is a hospital,’ he says. ‘I am the doctor here. This man, Lieutenant Rawlings, is one of my patients.’ Then, almost to himself, ‘Who should not be out here, in fact.’ He turns to the robed figure. ‘Why are you out, Rawlings?’
‘I came here to smoke my pipe. Can’t have the damn thing inside – Sister Agnes complains about it.’
‘Well, I would return post haste if I were you, or you will have to answer to her. I think she will find this a worse crime.’
The man seems about to retort, then thinks better of it. Flushing, he extinguishes the pipe and begins an unsteady retreat toward the property. But she sees that he does not enter – he remains on the edge of vision as a silent audience.
‘I’m sorry for the lack of courtesy.’ The doctor’s voice is gentler. ‘We don’t have many visitors here, as you see.’
She knows that this is British dissemble. Some sort of explanation is still required, he is waiting for her to make it. She would not know how to do it even if she felt he deserved one. Instead, she asks, ‘This is a hospital?’
‘Yes. It was a house, originally, the owners have since left.’ Something occurs to him. ‘Perhaps you knew them?’
‘No.’ He is still waiting, she knows, for her explanation. There is nothing threatening in his voice or manner, but then the threat is sewn into the very uniform he wears.
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nbsp; ‘I have family,’ she says, ‘a little further down this shore. I knew of the path, I thought I would come this way, along the water.’
He frowns. She is fairly sure he is not convinced. And yet she suspects that his courtesy will not allow him to call her out in the lie.
‘Do you know why this house was abandoned? What happened to the owners? I only ask because it feels as though they did not leave long ago.’
‘I never knew them.’ She draws herself together. ‘If you will excuse me …’ She steps toward him. It is the closest she has ever been to one of them, and she feels the clench of fear again in her stomach.
For the first time he seems to realise that he is blocking her path back to dry land. He steps aside.
She walks slowly back the way she came, not caring that he will think it odd; that if her tale were true she should be walking in the other direction, past the house, not back in the direction of the ferry terminal. Her hands are trembling; she clenches them into fists.
Behind her she hears: ‘Well, that was all rather confounding—’
‘What I’m more confounded by, Rawlings, is why you are still outside.’
It could be worse, she supposes. It could have been turned into a barracks, or a nightclub like those that have sprung up in Pera, the European district. A hospital is at least less shameful than that. But her home has been colonised. All of their memories, the intimate, private life of the family. She feels the loss of it a second time. And that smiling Englishman, with his quizzical politeness. Somehow it would have been better, almost less insulting, if he had spoken to her with the abrupt rudeness of the other man.
Her mind fills with fantasies. She sees herself lunging toward him as he moved aside for her on the jetty. Pushing out with both hands … him toppling backward into the Bosphorus. His imagined surprise is a delicious thing; the indignity of his fall.
She could have run back toward the ferry … before he or that invalid had time to act.
She catches herself. She knows that she could never have done it. Her mother and grandmother, the boy, the school: there is simply too much at stake. Still, it cannot hurt to imagine. The realm of fantasy, at least, is one that cannot be occupied.
George
Medical Officer George Monroe watches the woman leave, picking her way along the path – surprisingly sure-footed in her long skirts. She seems a melancholy figure, but this may be nothing more than the effect of the dark clothing, and the way she holds herself against the breeze from the water.
‘Touched in the head,’ Rawlings says, authoritatively, ‘if you ask me. Found her looking as though she were about to throw herself into the Bosphorus.’
This seems a little rich coming from the man who, in the grip of a fever, asked George to bring him ‘a glass of the tawny ’05. Generously poured. And tell Smythson I’d like my usual spot by the fire.’
George feels that, actually, she had seemed as sane as any of them. With the Allied officers all gone a little wild from the heat and new freedoms and too long spent away from home, the locals sometimes seem the only ones with some connection to reality; getting on with the business of their lives.
But what on earth was she doing here?
He was not convinced by her explanation; he suspects that she is not someone used to lying. He entertains briefly, and dismisses, the idea of sabotage or espionage. A less threatening figure – a woman bathing her feet, for goodness’ sake – he cannot imagine.
A week ago. He had just been to the barber, making his way back through the streets toward the bridge. One of the figures coming toward him had been moving faster than the rest; his eye had followed it instinctively. And then, as he saw her clearly, with curiosity. There are far fewer women than men on the streets, for one thing, and this one was running. Attempting to, at least – hampered by long skirts, the cobblestones, a teetering pile of books. He watched, half-amused, half-intrigued and also with a wincing certainty that calamity was about to follow.
He had seen something fall.
When he had handed her the book she had looked at him with something close to hatred. Despite himself, he had rather respected her for it.
How odd to see the same woman twice in the space of a week … in this vast city. Yet he is beginning to understand that there are recurring motifs within this place, encounters that, at times, can make it feel more like a village. Some of the faces within it are already familiar to him: the sellers of mackerel sandwiches along the quay, the men who man the ferries, a certain French officer who seems to have the same taste for Turkish coffee as he.
He is not a superstitious man – his only belief is in the essential chaos of things. And yet he feels oddly certain that he will see her again.
The new site for the British military hospital in Constantinople is not the most convenient, but it is a peaceful spot, and will prove useful if there is a need for quarantine. It is not really part of the city at all – the wild sprawl of trees and bush behind the grounds seem desperate to swallow it and reacquaint themselves with the water. It was a case of needs must, however. A large, well-ventilated space was required, and this house was what was available: requisitioned from the Turkish authorities. Besides, it is a vast improvement upon a tent in the desert: those months during the Mesapotamian campaign. Where new flies clustered in wounds even as you swept the old ones away. Where temperatures rose to unholy, unbearable levels, even beneath the canvas, and where with no warning a gust of sand might blow in to cover everything, riming the nostrils and open mouths of men too ill to be sensible of the indignity of the invasion.
All his initial reservations about the position of the house – not built for the purpose, too far from the centre to be practical – faded at the sight of it. It is the loveliest building he thinks he has seen on the Bosphorus. It is not the largest, nor is it the most ornate. But there is a matchless elegance in the situation, in the graceful white poise of it, the dark, melancholy cypresses rising about it as though shielding it.
He has wondered how it came to be vacant. On first setting foot inside he had the uneasy impression that the former occupant had only just left – that he might return at any instant for something forgotten. There was a fine dust over everything, a pall of it hanging in the air. Evidently, it had not been occupied for some time. But much seemed to have been left, in the careless manner of one who did not know he was departing for good. Here, everywhere, were tokens of a life lived in all its chaos and elegance. In lanterns sat the half-burned stumps of candles; a heavy painted vase contained the brown exoskeletons of hyacinth blossoms. An encircling garden in which the work of a human hand is still evident: jasmine trained along a painted trellis, just beginning to run wild, shrub roses in crescent-shaped borders, a vegetable garden where huge yellow squashes rot uselessly and monstrous asparagus ferns dance in the breeze. From the bough of one of the fig trees hangs a swing seat. And centre of it all, the monarch to the court, is a grand old pomegranate tree. Most of the fruits have been split open by the birds or by the sheer force of their open unplucked ripeness. A few remaining seeds glisten within, promising a late treasure.
On the first day, when he was overseeing the placement of the hospital beds, he was certain that he could detect the sound of an infant crying outside: a thin wail, rising and falling. Unnerved by the sound, he followed it into the garden and discovered the seat creaking mournfully back and forth on its hinges in the wind. Almost as though – an uncanny thought – someone had only just vacated it.
George is a pragmatist, an atheist. Yet he found himself unable to quash the idea of spirits left behind.
The ward has been set up in the largest room: painted pistachio-green and hung with still life scenes: dusky grapes spilling from a platter; fat peaches with the delicate fur gorgeously rendered. They make the mouth water. There were times in the Mesapotamian desert when he would dream of fresh things like these – though his dreams were perhaps more humble. A head of lettuce. Taking the whole thing in his hands, b
iting into it as one might an apple and feeling it cold and wet on his tongue: the antithesis of all the desert was. If he could have this one experience, he felt, he could put up with any number of deprivations.
This room has a feminine feel to it: the colours, maybe. He knows little about Ottoman life, but has learned this one thing: that in many houses, grand or meagre, there is often an area reserved exclusively for the use of the women. A sense of trespass. He knows that if he were able to vocalise this sensation he would be laughed at. This is the way of things, how it has been since the dawn of man. There is no such thing as trespass for the victorious. All before them, conquered, has become their own. To say otherwise would be almost a form of treason.
In the streets his attire makes him indistinguishable from the rest, for better or worse. He has seen how the people here react to the different uniforms, that they respond worst of all to British khaki. There are liberties taken. But some soldiers, many, regard this as only their right.
Is it not the worst sort of shame, to be ashamed of one’s own people?
A knock on the door of the study. It is a young sub-lieutenant, Hatton. Even after four years of war and nearly three of occupation, he still looks like a boy. The fair smudge of moustache is perhaps intended to bely this; it does not. He is rather red in the face. Fleetingly George wonders if this is the problem; sunburn. He saw terrible cases on the desert marches, shade several hours away, the skin blistering and peeling away in layers.
‘Good day, Hatton. How may I help?’
There is no answer at first. But as the sub-lieutenant stands before George the colour seems to intensify. He shifts his weight between his feet. Ah. George has a sudden premonition of the complaint.
Hatton fastens his trousers.
‘We cannot cure it, I’m afraid,’ George explains, ‘but we can manage it.’