Siro

by David Ignatius

  “Shocking,” said Taylor softly. He closed his eyes and took a breath. He was imagining what Anna would look like naked in bed, covered with rose petals.

  “But that wasn’t the oddest thing.”

  “Oh yeah? What was the oddest?” Taylor wasn’t sure whether she was expressing indignation, or being flirtatious, or perhaps some weird combination of the two.

  “The worst thing was how they made the woman get into bed.”

  “And how was that, pray tell?”

  “They made her crawl. The Ottomans thought it would be disrespectful if a woman just got into bed next to a man. She might get ideas! So the rule was that she would start at the foot of the bed, kissing the blanket, and then creep slowly up past the feet and legs toward the man’s head. Isn’t that bizarre?”

  “Bizarre,” repeated Taylor.

  “But you’re not like that, are you?”

  “No. I’m not. I like women. I don’t want them to be slave girls. I like women the way they are.”

  “Do you?”

  “Try me.” Taylor put his arm gently around Anna and pulled her toward him. Her body offered no resistance. He bent down and kissed her on the lips; not with his tongue, but tenderly. He could feel her body trembling as he held her. Then she caught hold of herself again and sat up straight.

  “You want to screw me, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Taylor. “Is that all right?”

  “I don’t know. We’re supposed to work together.”

  “So?”

  “So women have to be tough. They can’t just give in to every attractive man who comes along. Otherwise they end up like those used-up women in the harem. You know where the old concubines were sent when a new sultan took over? It was called the House of Tears.”

  “Why? You’d have thought they’d be glad to get out of the racket.”

  “Not at all. These women weren’t prostitutes, they were artists. They studied seduction and dreamed of bearing the sultan’s child. But only the most beautiful and clever really captured his attention. The ones who did had power and status, and money. Some of them invested in real estate, or the silk trade, or the jewel business. But they were careful, these women. They knew how to wait.”

  “So they hated to leave the harem?”

  “They hated to be powerless. And seduction was power. There was one famous harem girl named Roxelana who actually convinced the sultan she could read his mind. She could even make him laugh! He fell so completely in love with her that he gave up the rest of his harem and married her.”

  “Who was this sultan?”

  “Suleyman the Magnificent. The greatest and wisest of all.”

  “What about the bad sultans? What were they like?”

  “They were disgusting, some of them. You don’t want to know.”

  “Sure I do. Maybe I’ll pick up a few pointers.”

  “Don’t joke,” she said. “If you really want to know how crazy men can be, then I’ll tell you a story. But it’s not funny.”

  “Okay,” said Taylor.

  “Back in the seventeenth century, one of the sultans was said to have a favorite game. He would take his concubines to the gardens of the seraglio. The eunuchs would lay carpets over the nearby trees and bushes so that people couldn’t see in, and the sultan would make the women undress and stand naked in front of him. And what do you suppose he would do next? He would take his musket and shoot pellets at the women, which aroused him. Then he would take the women and fuck them.”

  Taylor turned away. She was right. It wasn’t funny.

  “This same sultan had another game. Want to hear it?”

  Taylor didn’t answer.

  “He would take his harem girls and make them stand naked in an empty pool in the gardens. Then he would have a eunuch open the water pipes and a torrent of water would rush in on top of the women. Most of them couldn’t swim, so they would bob up and down screaming. The ones that didn’t drown, he would fuck.”

  Taylor reached for her gently. At first she resisted, but her body gradually relaxed and she let Taylor hold her, and comfort her, and eventually kiss her sweetly on the cheek. As he held her, he sang a bedtime song in a thin, inebriated voice. She lay there in his arms for a long while, until they heard the bartender say: “Last call.” Anna sat up like a fluffy cat and looked at Taylor with her big blue-green eyes.

  “I’m not ready yet,” she said. “But I’m getting ready.”

  “What are you doing tomorrow?” asked Taylor a half hour later at the door of her motel room.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Got a suggestion?”

  “I have a surprise.”

  “What’s that?”

  “How do you feel about making love on the grass?”

  “Good night,” said Anna, closing the door.

  “I’ll pick you up at ten,” called out Taylor. She didn’t answer, and Taylor couldn’t see the smile on her face.

  Taylor arrived at ten-thirty in the white Karpetland van. He had been shopping. A new cassette deck was playing the sound of a Bach cantata; in the back of the truck was a hamper containing a loaf of French bread, some ham and salami, several varieties of cheese, a jar of mustard and a bottle of white Burgundy. And a blanket.

  Anna was waiting outside the motel, wearing a sundress—looking as ripe and ready as a bud that has been waiting all year to bloom. She greeted Taylor with a kiss.

  “Hop up,” he said. “Let’s go for a ride.”

  “Where are we going, rug man?”

  “To a secret hideaway, where even serious career women can do exactly what they want.”

  They drove to the Beltway, crossed the Potomac, and then headed west along Route 66, toward Winchester. The landscape was pure Virginia: low scrub brush along the side of the road, giving way to lush green fields and tall trees and, in the distance, the rolling hills of the Blue Ridge. They passed grand horse farms and dark hollows dotted with rickety shacks. Taylor seemed to know where he was going, and Anna no longer cared to ask. She put her feet up on the dashboard, let the wind blow through her hair, and hummed along with the Bach tape.

  Just past a little town called Marshall, Taylor turned off the main highway and headed up a two-lane road. That became a one-lane road, and then, heading up much more steeply, a dirt road overgrown on the sides with wild shrubs and vines. The panel truck pushed through the brush like a stalker in an unmarked jungle. At the crest of the hill, Taylor stopped the truck. The place was so dense with overhanging trees and brush that it was almost dark.

  “Where are we?” asked Anna.

  “You’ll see.”

  Taylor took the picnic basket and the blanket in one hand and Anna in the other. He led her into the brush, pushing it back as he went. After a few dozen yards they came to a chain-link fence topped with angry-looking barbed wire.

  “Now what do we do?” she asked.

  “You can climb a fence, can’t you?”

  “Sure. But not one with barbed wire.”

  “No problem,” said Taylor. He reached into the picnic basket and removed a pair of wire cutters. Holding them in one hand, he climbed to the top of the chain-link and began clipping.

  “You can’t do that!”

  “Watch me,” he said, and he snipped away until a large hole was opened in the wire. Then he slid back down, picked up the picnic basket in one hand and climbed back up and over the fence. “Your turn,” he said.

  Anna was lithe and agile, and once she realized that the fence was to be climbed, she was over the top almost as fast as Taylor. The skirt of her dress got caught on a protruding wire as she was descending, and Taylor climbed up a few feet and unhooked her. Then he held her by the waist and gently lowered her. As her feet touched the ground, he felt her breasts against his chest and the beat of her heart. They were both breathing heavily from climbing, and when Taylor held her close, he became aroused.

  “Where are you taking me?” Anna whispered.

  “Forbidden territory,
” answered Taylor. He took her hand again and led her up a low hill. The brush was still thick, so she couldn’t see what was ahead until they came over the crest, and then, suddenly, she saw why Taylor had brought her there. Stretching out below was a small green valley, hidden away from the surrounding countryside. And on the downward slope stood a farmhouse whose windows and doors were boarded up.

  “Who lives there?” asked Anna.

  “Nobody, except us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s a safe house. The agency owns it. They keep dozens of these places on ice for defectors, but nobody ever uses them. I thought we’d just appropriate it for a little while.”

  “It’s beautiful,” said Anna. She moved quickly through the tall grass, breaking into a run when the downward pull of the slope took hold. Taylor followed her, blanket and picnic basket in hand. When they reached the farmhouse they were both out of breath. On the other side of the house was a small creek that flowed over a waterfall. Taylor laid the blanket down on the lush grass just above the waterfall, so that the sound of rushing water was in their ears.

  “Come to bed,” said Taylor. He had already taken off his shoes and socks.

  Anna looked at him, sitting atop his blanket amid the expanse of green grass, the look of desire on his face mirroring the lush wildness of the place. “Should we really do this?” she asked.

  “Yes. Of course we should.”

  “What comes next?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”

  “But we have to work with each other.”

  “So what. I work with people I hate. Why can’t I work with someone I love?”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Why not? Stop fighting so hard. Let go, for once.” He stood up and walked a few steps toward her, feeling the moist earth and the blades of grass between his toes. “Come to me,” he said.

  “I haven’t made love in so long.”

  “Come to me,” he said again.

  Anna slowly walked toward him, kicking off her shoes as she went. By the time she reached Taylor, he was hard again. He unzipped her sundress and lifted the straps off her shoulders. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and her breasts fell free against him.

  “I want you,” she whispered.

  Taylor slid his hands beneath the elastic of her pants and slowly pulled them down over her thighs, his tongue tracing the path down to her heels. Anna was trembling now. As Taylor passed his gaze slowly up the entire length of her body, she said softly, “Now.”

  Taylor stripped quickly and pushed up her skirt.

  “Gently,” she said. “It’s been so long.”

  She needn’t have worried. She was so aroused that when he lifted her up and held her astride him, he slid into her easily the first few inches. She was breathing so hard now that Taylor thought she might faint if she stayed on her feet, so he laid her down on the blanket and slowly entered her all the way. With the ground firm underneath her, Anna moved in rhythm with him, enfolding him, trembling and crying out when he went too far; then gradually tightening around him like a membrane that was about to burst, so that he could barely slide in and out; and finally pulling him with her over the edge.

  24

  “Go away!” said Munzer Ahmedov when Taylor approached him on the street corner in Brooklyn the next Friday. The noon prayer service had just concluded a block away at a two-story brick building marked “Uzbek-Kazakh Fraternal Association, Inc.,” and Munzer was walking to his car, threading his way among the Orthodox Jewish men in long black coats who filled the streets. Taylor had been sitting in a coffee shop across the street from the mosque for nearly an hour waiting for Munzer to emerge. He recognized him instantly from the old ID photo Stone had provided: He was a short, round-faced man in his late fifties, with the high cheekbones and narrow eyes that marked him as a son of Central Asia. It was a face halfway between Turkey and China, one that hid its secrets like a hooded trader along the Silk Road.

  Taylor handed Munzer his card. “My name is Goode,” he said. “I’m in the rug business.” As Taylor spoke, the D train rumbled by on the elevated tracks overhead, on its way to Coney Island.

  “Go away!” said Munzer again. “I not interested in any rugs.” He spoke from deep in the throat, with a guttural accent that was at once Russian and Uzbek, just as Stone had described.

  “I’d like to talk to you,” said Taylor.

  “This America. Nobody got to talk to nobody. Goodbye.” Munzer opened his car door.

  “I have a letter for you,” said Taylor as the Uzbek man was closing the door. “From Sheikh Hassan.”

  Munzer rolled down the car window. “Sheikh who?”

  “Sheikh Hassan.”

  “Turkish Sheikh Hassan from Rahway, New Jersey? That one you mean?”

  Taylor nodded. He handed Munzer the two-sentence letter of introduction, passing it through the open window. Munzer read it and handed it back, looking very apologetic.

  “Ah! I am sorry, my friend,” he said, getting out of his car and shaking Taylor’s hand. “I did not know you was friend of Sheikh Hassan from Rahway, New Jersey. So now, what I can do for you?”

  “I’d like to talk to you,” repeated Taylor.

  “About rugs?”

  “No.”

  “What about then, Mr.…” He looked at the card. “Goode.”

  “Is there someplace quiet around here where we could talk?”

  “Yeah, sure. Turkish restaurant. Very nice.”

  “Where is it?”

  “On Ocean Parkway. Just before Avenue J. You know where that is?”

  “I’ll find it,” said Taylor. “What time?”

  “Now, why not?”

  Taylor walked back to the white Karpetland van. As he passed the façade of the Uzbek-Kazakh Fraternal Association, it struck him that it looked like one of those old-fashioned bowling alleys where they set up the pins by hand. The brick building was sandwiched between a furniture store called Rubinstein & Cohen and a storefront with a hand-lettered sign in the window that read: “Eretz Realty.” It was certainly an unlikely neighborhood for a mosque.

  Taylor found the Turkish restaurant on Ocean Parkway, next to a car lot with a big sign that proclaimed: “Masada Used Cars, Inc.” The restaurant’s decor was spare and simple: a white linoleum floor; a glass case just inside the door displaying the day’s collection of kebabs and appetizers; on the walls, posters of Izmir, Konya and other Turkish haunts. Indeed, the café looked virtually identical to one you might find in Izmir itself. Munzer was sitting at a table all the way in the back, smoking a nargileh. He waved to Taylor and motioned for him to sit down.

  “You like to smoke hubbly-bubbly, my friend?”

  “Sure,” Taylor answered. In situations like this, he was always willing to do whatever the object of his attention suggested. Eat lamb’s testicles in Mogadishu. Chew qat in Aden. Drink a bottle of arak in Erzurum. Whatever it took. Taylor pulled the mouthpiece of the pipe to his lips and breathed in deeply. The crackling in the bowl and the sweet aroma suggested that someone had put a few crumbs of hashish in with the tobacco. He took another long drag and put the mouthpiece aside.

  “Good,” said Taylor. “Where’s it from? Afghanistan?”

  Munzer just smiled. “So what you like to eat?” he asked.

  “It’s your restaurant. You pick.”

  Munzer called over the waiter and rattled off a string of dishes. As he did so, Taylor tried to think about how to make his pitch. He didn’t want to be impolite and talk business before eating. But then, he hadn’t come all this way to eat kebabs. So he said nothing for a while.

  The trick in recruiting anybody to do anything, Taylor had learned long ago, was to go a step at a time. The first priority was to get your target to cross some sort of threshold. It almost didn’t matter what it was at the start of a relationship, so long as you got him to cross a line. If he was a foreign military officer who wasn’t officially allowed to entertain Americans at
home, then you pushed him to invite you home; if he lived in a country where he wasn’t permitted to accept money from a foreigner, then you gave him a very expensive present that amounted to the same thing. If he was a Central Asian emigrant who didn’t want to talk about a particular subject, then you found a way to make him talk about it. The barrier was psychological. Once it had been passed, the rest was largely a question of time and persistence.

  “You’re from Uzbekistan, is that right?” Taylor said after a while.

  “Yeah,” said Munzer, taking the pipe out of his mouth. “From Tashkent.”

  “But you left a long time ago.”

  “Yeah. Long time ago.”

  “When was that?”

  “Oh, you know, wartime, 1939.”

  “Ever been back?”

  “Where?”

  “To Uzbekistan.”

  “Not possible. Too dangerous.”

  Taylor took the mouthpiece of the water pipe in hand again and smoked a few more puffs, not wanting to seem in any rush.

  “Why is that?” he asked eventually. “What’s so dangerous?”

  “Many years ago I am doing some things that Russians not like. Freedom things. So if I go back, zzzkkk.” He moved his index finger across his throat like a knife.

  “What did you do to make the Russians so angry?”

  Munzer didn’t answer. He just kept puffing away on the pipe contentedly, as if he hadn’t heard the question. With the stem of the nargileh stuck in one side of his mouth, his round face had the look of a lopsided grapefruit.

  Taylor tried another tack. “Tell me, Mr. Ahmedov, do you think the Russians will always rule Tashkent?”

  Munzer looked at him curiously and put down the pipe. “Maybe. Maybe not. How do I know?”