Sudden Traveler

by Sarah Hall

  He stood abruptly. I have to go. He put some coins down on the table. What? I just arrived. I’ve got the figures. But already he was walking away. He heard Eymen swearing. Are you coming back? He held up his hand: maybe. Ah, so secretive! Is your new boss a woman?

  They were at the edge of the square. He tucked his shirt in as he walked. The feeling was incredibly strong, physical almost. Wanting to see her. No, it was that other feeling, her leaving, pain like a seizure in the chest muscle. He could have said something—Eymen knew about her, of course. But he didn’t want any questions, the difficult ones that would surely come, and the uncomfortable silence. They were walking quickly, obviously keen to have their swim before evening. Was it the first? Had they arrived only today? He remembered so well that moment of anticipation, of revelation, when he had been a visitor too. Meeting the sea, having journeyed the length of the country, or further.

  The sun was moving behind the peninsula, firing the trees. Shadows were already pitching over the surface of the water. He remembered her excitement when she’d first seen the water’s color here, borrowing light and the sky’s blues, so different from the dull zinc of the North Sea. Like a kingfisher, she’d said, and later, back in England, she’d found a picture to show him in a book. It looked right, a creature of extraordinary blue flame. Ten years, and he never saw one, though he looked for them by the rivers.

  He followed them past Ruhi Bey, Mavi, the military station. He nodded to Eren in the kiosk but didn’t stop to chat, and Eren held up his hands in mock offense. The women talked as they walked, brushing shoulders occasionally—they seemed like fine travelling companions. He followed at a distance that didn’t seem intentional or disrespectful, but still he felt ashamed at the stealth. He could easily have caught up, said her name, presented himself. It’s you, my goodness, hello! Enough time had passed, everything forgiven, surely. But he held back, padding after her.

  That same sensation, of wanting to hold her. She’d been a restless soul, would often shrug him off. Küçük kuş. He’d loved teaching her words, little phrases. Sentences were harder, she didn’t understand the order of syntax, but then neither had he at first, in reverse. Spiced carrot juice, yogurt dishes; he’d been irrationally pleased every time she tried them, as if they were connecting. Most of all she’d loved sunflower seeds, the ordinary brand, setting aside the ones with shells too difficult to open. That year with her, he’d gone so many times to the little trade shop, made a show of pulling the packets from his bag.

  The women paused, took their bearings, and turned toward Derya. Down the long steps, past the citrus trees, heavy with old fruit. He saw her glance up at the branches. When they’d come together—the three of them, almost a family—it had been late spring and the lemon flowers were blossoming, their zest climbing high, white and sweet. Only half the restaurants had been open, and the sound of hammering had echoed around the town as hotels and boats were repaired. Paradise, half my happiness, he had described it.

  He’d been coming since university and wanted to show the place off. Every year, hitchhiking the length of the country, camping, cheap hostels, then hotels; he’d come even when flights from England were expensive and it was hard to get away from work. Wondering who owned the big shuttered houses behind the harbor, with regal-looking pomegranates and vines in their gardens. He’d said even then he would retire here. After the accident, after Ara had left, everything had felt lesser, or greater. The rain. The politics. Regret. Abandonment seemed like a doorway that became a corridor of doorways, easy to pass through. It hadn’t taken long to make the decision to sell the business and return.

  The women stopped at the parrot’s cage, talked to the bird, tried to get it to speak. It was Aslan Bey’s pet, the same one they’d seen so many years before. An African gray. It would outlive them all, probably. Their shoes clopped softly on the white stone path as they continued down. In Derya the lounge chairs were mostly empty, umbrellas either retracted or flapping gently in the breeze. The music had moved to a mellower set. One or two last bathers were going into the cubicles to get dressed, people were sipping beer at the bar and smoking. They chose a section on the lowest wooden platform, overlooking the breaking waves, laid their towels out on the loungers. He stood one level up, near a pillar, where he could watch discreetly. The women spoke to the attendant, who did not charge them this late in the day. The attendant lingered, moved one of the parasols a fraction, fussed over the position of their loungers, was flirting, perhaps, then took their order, glancing at him on the way to the bar. He would order a beer if asked.

  He leaned on the wooden support and watched them. They were sitting, looking out to sea. She’d taken a book from her tote. It was large, a hardback. She slipped the fastening from her hair and shook it out. For a moment it spilled everywhere, a shining mess. Then she retied it. He remembered one of the many fights he’d heard about. Her father had wanted it cut off, for some stupid reason. He’d tried not to dislike the man; he’d shaken his hand the few times they’d met, and they hardly ever saw him—he worked in a hospital in another town. He had dismissed Catherine when Ara was a baby, and only occasionally made demands. Ara’s hair was beautiful. He wondered if her father had prevailed, if she had ever worn it short. Ever dyed it. He wondered how she’d lived, what levels of happiness had been possible. The guilt began to rise.

  She took off her sunglasses, set them down on the low table. She turned to the side so he could see her profile. Could he be sure? She was looking toward the island, the vanishing wake of the ferry. He still had a photograph of her, holding the mooring rope of the boat they’d taken out to the sunken city, pretending to pull it ashore. Her big hat shadowing the sweet curve of her nose. He’d transferred it from phone to phone, between laptops. The attendant came back with an order of coffee, elaborate silver cups, dusty sweets on a wooden plate, the full works, not how it was usually served here. It seemed to be the friend he was interested in most, though he was being polite to both, refusing the payment offered. Good, he thought, leave her alone. He could feel his phone vibrating in his trouser pocket. It stopped, then after a moment vibrated again. Eymen. He ignored it. Truly, he did feel doglike, stalking, as if hungry for scraps. Just go to her, he thought.

  He stepped forward, put his hand on the railing. She took a sip of coffee, another, admired the cup and set it down. She stood. She pulled a bathing suit from her bag and said something to the friend, who nodded, collecting hers. They skirted the rows of loung chairs and went into a cubicle together. A minute later they emerged, laughing. She had on a dark-red suit, a color that was unexpected. Her skin looked paler against it, lunar. They stowed their dresses and shoes under the loungers. Her limbs were long, her body compact, the hemlines of the bathing suit sat demurely, while her friend wore a green bikini that revealed more, and was full-figured, what he’d always thought of as his type. The friend clapped her hands together. They laughed again and went down to the diving platform and the sea ladders, dropping out of view.

  He moved forward, took the steps down to the next level. He caught the look of the attendant, who was removing the coffee cups. He shook his head, cut the air with his hand, and the young man retreated. Her book was lying on its cover, the pages flicking in the wind. When he looked over, she was facing his way and his stomach lurched. Her eyes slid away almost immediately. She turned to face the water. The waves were moderate. The roped buoys of the swimming lane lifted and lowered. They were trying to decide whether to climb down the ladders, jump or dive, he imagined. Six feet of air in between was not insignificant; Derya always divided the cautious from the brave. How had she done it before?

  The friend pointed. The head of a turtle had breached, just beyond the cordon. There was a green-gray shadow where its shell sat under the surface. A few biters had been around recently. Eymen had been got on the calf, quite an impressive welt, a red half-moon and a round of precautionary antibiotics. This could give him reason; he might warn her. But still he did not move.
The beaky head popped up and down a few times and then the turtle disappeared. The women turned to each other. They kissed briefly on the lips. Then they kissed again, longer. Ara brought her hand gently to the other woman’s face. It was an unmistakable gesture. Intimate, sexual.

  Maybe he wasn’t surprised. In the years of life that really mattered, men had failed her. Kindness was one thing; he knew he’d always been kind. Love flooding the right chambers: that was undeniable. But those questions, of definition, roles, commitment—those questions demanded everything. What had he given? This was ego, of course; he was indulging himself. You were born with attractions. Her mother had said something once, hinted. It had been here, fooling with coffee grounds and fortunes on the Lycian tour, while Ara was talking to an older girl on the boat. His reading, he remembered, had been indistinct, roads. In the bottom of Catherine’s cup—a small black storm, grains shaping a car.

  He was beginning to feel cold, though the sun still had strength. It would not really be cold until November. The two women were about to dive and he was thinking of the North Sea, the time he’d swum in it, the almost electrical shock as a wave broke over his back, shingle pouring up his shins as the sea retreated, then stumbling over, flailing rigidly in the water. Even the salt had tasted different, denser, caustic in the eyes and nose. Here, he could swim for hours. The heat reached to the bone. But he was cold, as if this was the season of another country, as if he was opening the door on that autumn night, to the hard wind and rain, the news. If he’d had longer, maybe, or if he and Catherine had married, he could have made a decision that would have mattered in the end. Maybe he could have run with Ara. But everything had happened out of order, too fast, and the lines, no, the law, had been made clear to him.

  He found himself half-kneeling, half-sitting on a lounger, an awkward position he did not understand, couldn’t adjust. The friend, the lover, jumped. She tucked her legs in and neatened her splash. After a moment under water she reappeared, face to the sky, her hair slicked back. It’s warm, come in! Ara waited a moment, then she dived, cutting the water vertically, like a dropped knife. It was an incredibly graceful movement; so adult. She was gone, deeply, barely any foam. Ten seconds, fifteen—long enough that he felt a flurry of panic. She surfaced. Her girlfriend said something, seemed impressed, perhaps it was the first time she’d seen that. They swam round each other, floated on their backs, then swam out to the cordon, resting their arms along the rope.

  Fearless. Adept. Is this who she had become? He wanted to know everything, every detail. What she liked to eat, what she had studied, if she had studied—she must have, she’d been clever—the music she listened to, whether sadly or dancing. Which moment had she realized what death meant, and who had comforted her, brought her water when she was sick. Whether she had taken her driving test, whether she hated cars. Could she sing, paint, did she believe in a god? Did she remember him? He wanted to open her bag and rifle through it for clues. Or just sit and wait for her to come back, try to embrace her, say he was sorry. And tell her, though perhaps it was unspeakable, and she must already know, that she looked like Catherine.

  It was impossible. He couldn’t go to her. He didn’t exist any more. She could easily have found him, if she’d wanted to, if she’d come to this town as anything other than a tourist. Reunion was easy these days, even after so much time. And she didn’t exist either, not this grown version. What existed was the first perpetual story—a girl, four years old, who had, sometimes, to his discomfort and pleasure, called him Baba. The smell of apples in her shampooed hair as she kissed him goodnight. Her little plimsoles on the station platform, walking away from him and toward her father, not understanding this wasn’t just a visit with a man she hardly knew, a stranger, who now had every right to keep her. As she’d mounted the train she had suddenly begun to cry and struggle, realizing something was wrong, and she’d been lifted aboard quickly and disappeared. Before going to the station, he had tried to explain about the accident, the weather, how people sometimes ended, but she hadn’t understood. I can still see Mummy tomorrow? He had tucked things into her bag, snacks, her favourite soft toy, and written an address, though she couldn’t read yet. Her father he’d taken by the collar, pushing him hard up against the train. He’d said nothing, nothing meaningful. Just a few words in his first language the man couldn’t understand. And then he’d walked away.

  What surprised him most was how quickly Catherine had become the past. Like posting a key back through a letterbox. Like turning out the bedroom light. Shock, and hurt, yes. But the wound of lovers lost was seldom fatal—he understood. Ara, though, was alive, and gone, and his love remained unspent. Work—God, how he had worked after. Almost to the point of empire, almost to the point of collapse. He was single, successful, still had occasional girlfriends, a house on the road near the ancient theater, an orchard with wild splitting fruit; he was a man who’d conquered England, they said, even if they teased him about his habits. He’d never married, never settled. But his life had not felt childless.

  The currents must be warm out there—the women showed no signs of swimming back, even though the light was fading. The attendant was by the bar, having a cigarette. The evening prayer would start soon over the loudspeaker. Eymen would be fuming. Most likely, he had left the cafe and gone into the han, to play backgammon with Kenan. He stood stiffly and jogged back up the beach steps. Aslan Bey, the owner of Derya, was feeding the parrot. He greeted him but did not stop. One exceptional, rude day after twenty years of courtesy; surely that was allowed?

  At the top of the steps he turned toward town and ran along the street until he got to the kiosk. Eren’s youngest son had taken over for the night, a low-lidded boy who spent too long making the right change. He scanned the stock, bought a cheap packet. He ran back down the road to Derya, passed Aslan again and the attendant; they must have thought him mad, and perhaps he was. He moved through the loungers, to the edge of the lower platform. The sea was sapphiric, empty. They were coming dripping up the steps from the shower. There was no time to hide. He moved to the side to let them pass. Pardon, he said. He looked at her. She glanced at him, thanked him, and smiled. Her eyes were exactly Ara’s. Küçük kuş: he almost said it. He stood still, waiting, feeling as hard and exposed as the tombs along the hillside.

  The women passed by, collected their towels and dresses, and went to the cubicle, leaving dark wet footprints on the walkways. He made sure the door was shut and moved to their loungers. Someone—the attendant, probably—had turned her book over to stop it from spoiling, marking a page that the wind had chosen with a paper napkin. The title was complicated. There was a diagram of a man on the cover, and the organs inside the chest were visible. A medical journal of some kind. Perhaps she was a doctor, like her father. The thought did not make him unhappy. He lifted the book and placed the sunflower seeds underneath, then turned and walked quickly back up the steps and away from Derya. They were the ordinary brand, unshelled, so her fingers wouldn’t struggle.

  The Grotesques

  If she’d been someone else, the prank might have seemed funny. The vagrant Charlie-bo, who was quite famous around town, a kind of filthy savant, was lying on his back in his usual spot under the shop awning. He was asleep or passed out. Perhaps he was even dead, Dilly couldn’t tell. A mask of fruit and vegetables had been arranged over his face to create another awful face. Lemons for eyes—the pupils drawn in black marker. A leering banana smile. Corncobs were stacked round his head as a spray of wild hair. The nose—how had they done it?—was an upright slice of melon, carved, balanced, its orange flesh drying and dulling. It was all horribly artistic. Dilly stood close by, staring. The face was monstrous and absurd, like one of the paintings in the Fitzwilliam. There was a makeshift palette of newspaper under Charlie-bo, and his feet and hands were upturned and huge. He wore as many layers as a cabbage, and over the holey, furling garments, that enormous gray gown, a cross between a greatcoat and a prophet’s robe, tied with a ple
ated cord.

  Dilly hadn’t meant to stop; she was late getting home with Mummy’s shopping. But the scene was too terrible. People were walking past, bustling around her. Some were making unkind comments. Good God, look at the state. There had even been a few laughs, and some clapping, as if this were a street performance. It might have been art, but Charlie-bo hadn’t done this to himself; Dilly knew that. He was so far gone, a wreck of a man, a joke already. He lumbered around town and could barely speak. Often he was prostrate in a doorway, drunk. The prank must have been carried out in daylight—brazenly. She could hear an internal voice, Mummy’s voice: disgraceful, who are these wretches?

  Students, that was who. They were back after the summer break, spoiled from Mediterranean sailing and expensive penthouses, or loafing on their estates, whatever they did. There had been several esoteric japes in the city since their return. A Halloween mask and nipple-peep bra had been placed over one of the stone saints outside St. Giles. The Corpus Clock had been defaced, its glass shield painted with an obscene image, so the rocking brass insect looked like it was performing a sexual act—having a sexual act performed on it, actually. Edward had seen and reported back to Mummy, who was outraged and still talking about it, even though she had no association with the college, or any of the colleges. Edward had seemed rather amused, but quickly sobered in solidarity. First-term antics. Once the Gowns arrived back, they imperiously reclaimed the town, before settling in and getting on with their studies.

  Poor Charlie-bo. It was really too much. He wasn’t a statue on a church. Dilly wanted to kneel down and remove the ridiculous fruit, shake him awake, help him to his feet. Perhaps if she did, Charlie-bo would revert to his old self, smile and speak articulately, as he hadn’t for years. He would thank her. Those reddened, free-roaming eyes would hold her gaze, kindly, shyly. Something spiritual would pass, perhaps—a blessing story, like those Father Muturi had preached about last Sunday. Dilly lifted her hand, paused. The lemon pupils were looking right at her. Charlie-bo’s coat was grimy, lined by the dirty tides of the street, and there was a strong, crotchy smell. Silly girl, she heard Mummy say. Don’t be so squeamish.