by Marc Levy
“You have to understand, Anouche. It was such a difficult decision to make, but I did it to protect you . . .
“The pharmacist’s wife had always had a soft spot for you, and you liked her very much too. You always spoke around her, even when you wouldn’t speak anywhere else. Sometimes she would come and see me in the Taksim gardens, where I would take you to play. She had you smell the leaves, the plants, and the flowers, and she taught you their names. You came back to life around her. One evening, when I had gone to get the herbal remedies for your sleep, the pharmacist told me that they would soon be returning to their home country. He offered to take you with them. He promised that in England you would be safe and out of harm’s way. He and his wife would give you the life they had always dreamed of giving a child, the child they were never able to have. They promised that with them you would no longer be an orphan, that you would want for nothing, that you would have a home filled with love and kindness.
“Letting you go broke my heart, but I was just your nanny. My sister couldn’t keep you, and I didn’t have the means to raise both of you. You were the fragile one. It was you, my darling, that I saved by sending you away.”
When she reached the end of her story, I thought I had cried all the tears I had left to cry. But there were more. I asked her what she meant when she said I was ‘the fragile one.’
She took my face between her hands and asked me to forgive her for having separated me from my brother.
Five years after I arrived in London with my new parents, the British Army occupied Izmit, as a part of the defeated Ottoman Empire. During the Turkish Revolution in 1923, Mrs. Yilmaz’s brother-in-law lost his privileges, his wealth, and his life. Her sister, like many others, fled the Ottoman Empire when it was reborn in the form of the Republic of Turkey. She immigrated to England and sold off her few remaining jewels to settle down in the Brighton area.
The fortune-teller was right about everything. I was born in Istanbul, not Holborn. One by one I met the people who led me to the man who would count the most in my life. Now I can find him, because I know for certain he exists. Somewhere I have a brother, and his name is Rafael.
Yours truly,
Alice
Alice spent the rest of the day with Mrs. Yilmaz.
She helped her come downstairs, and after eating lunch under the pergola with Can and Mrs. Yilmaz’s nephew, the two women went and sat beneath the linden tree.
Over the course of the afternoon, Alice’s former nanny told her stories about the past, when Anouche’s father was a cobbler in Istanbul and her mother was a happy woman with two beautiful children.
When they parted at the end of the day, Alice promised to come back and see her often.
She asked Can if they could go back to Istanbul by boat. When they arrived, she watched the luxurious houses that lined the waterfront slip past and felt overcome with emotion.
She went down the hill in the middle of the night to post her letter to Daldry. He received it a week later. Even years later, he would never tell Alice that he had cried when he read it.
14
Alice could think only about trying to find her brother. Mrs. Yilmaz said that Rafael had left on the day of his seventeenth birthday to try to make it on his own in Istanbul. He came to see her once a year and wrote her a postcard from time to time. He was a fisherman and spent most of his life at sea working on large tuna boats.
Alice spent every Sunday that summer walking up and down the port on the Bosporus.
Whenever a fishing boat docked, she would run over and ask the crew if any of them knew Rafael Kachadorian. The months of July, August, and September went by without her meeting anyone who had heard of him.
One Sunday, taking advantage of a particularly warm autumn evening, Can invited Alice to have dinner with him in the little restaurant that Daldry had so enjoyed. Tables had been set up along the wharf so that the customers could eat outside.
In the middle of their conversation, Can suddenly paused and took Alice’s hand with great tenderness.
“There was something I was wrong about, and something I’ve always been right about,” he said.
“Go on,” said Alice, amused.
“I was wrong. Friendship between a man and a woman really can exist. And I consider you my friend, Alice Anouche Pendelbury.”
“And what were you right about?”
“I really am the best guide in Istanbul.” He chuckled.
“But I never doubted it,” she said, laughing in turn. “Why are you telling me all this now?”
“Because the man two tables away from us has to be your brother.”
Alice stopped laughing and turned, holding her breath. Just behind them, a man a bit younger than her was having dinner with a woman. She pushed back her chair and got up. The few steps she took seemed like they would never end, and when she came to his table, she excused herself for interrupting their conversation and asked if he was named Rafael.
The man froze when he saw the face of the woman with the foreign accent, lit by the pale light of the lanterns that swung in the evening breeze.
“I think I’m your sister,” she said, her voice fragile. “I’m Anouche. I’ve been looking for you.”
15
“I like your house,” said Alice as she walked over to the window.
“It’s small, but I can see the water from my bed. Besides, I’m not often here.”
“I never believed that I had a particular destiny, or that little signs in my life were guiding me towards a path I ought to take. I didn’t believe in fortune-tellers or in good luck . . . Even less that I might have a long-lost brother.”
Rafael came to Alice’s side. A cargo ship was slowly gliding through the strait.
“Do you think that the fortune-teller in Brighton might have been Yaya’s sister?”
“Yaya?”
“That’s what you called Mrs. Yilmaz when you were little and couldn’t say her name. It stuck, and she has always been Yaya to me. She said that her sister never wrote or gave any sign that she was still alive after she went to England. She had run away, and I suppose Yaya was always a bit ashamed of that. It would be incredible if it really was her.”
“It must have been her. How else could she have . . . ? And I did finally find you.”
Alice gazed in wonder at her brother. She was still getting used to the idea that he actually existed.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because I thought I was all alone in the world, and now I find out that I have you.”
Rafael nodded his head in understanding. It was clear he felt the same way. “And what are you going to do now?”
“I want to live here for good. I make perfumes, and if things go well, I might be able to leave Mama Can’s restaurant one day and find a place to live that’s a little bigger. And I want to find out more about my roots, make up for lost time, get to know you.”
“I’m often out at sea, but I’d be happy if you stayed in Turkey.”
“Have you ever felt like leaving? Living somewhere else?”
“To go where? Turkey is the most beautiful country in the world, and it’s my home.”
“And you can forgive it for what happened to our parents?”
“One has to forgive. Not everybody was at fault. Think of Yaya and her family, who saved us. They taught me tolerance. I think one person’s courage can defeat the complacency of a thousand others. Look out the window. Look how beautiful Istanbul is.”
Alice did so, as another question sprang to mind.
“You never felt like trying to find me?”
“When I was a child, I didn’t know you existed. Yaya only told me about you when I was sixteen, and even then, it was only because her nephew had said something he wasn’t supposed to, and I started asking questions. She told me I had once had an older sister, but that she didn’t know if you were still alive. She talked about the choice she made because she couldn’t raise both of us. Ple
ase don’t be mad at her for keeping me and sending you away. The future of a young girl was very uncertain in those times, but a boy still stood for the promise of the old days that might return. She didn’t send you away because she loved you less, but because it was all she could think to do.”
“I know that,” said Alice, looking at her brother. “Although she did tell me that she had a little preference for you and couldn’t imagine letting you go too far away from her. But it doesn’t make me angry. I understand.”
“Yaya really told you that?”
“She did.”
“That’s not very nice for you, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t touched to hear it.”
Alice considered this for a while.
“At the end of the month, I’ll have enough money to go back to London. I’ll only stay a few days, the time it takes to pack up my things, say goodbye to my friends, and turn my flat over to my neighbor. He’ll be delighted. He’s a funny man, you know. He never imagined that the man I’d find at the end of my journey would be my brother, but he was convinced that there was a man waiting for me in Turkey.”
“He had more faith in fortune-tellers than you.”
“Honestly, I think he just wanted to take my flat and use it as his studio. But I have to admit that I owe him a great deal. I’ll write to him to let him know I’ll be coming back to London.”
Dear Alice-Anouche,
Your last few letters have been incredibly overwhelming, but the one I received from you this evening was the most touching of all.
So you’ve decided to stay on and make your life in Istanbul. God knows, I’ll miss you, but the knowledge that you’re happy gives me reason to be happy as well.
I wish I could have seen you again on your trip to London, but fate seems to have decided otherwise. I promised to go on holiday with a friend, and I’m afraid the plans are already set. She has already asked for the days off, and you know how difficult it is to change these things once they’ve been set up.
It’s hard to believe that we’re not going to manage to cross paths. You should have tried to stay longer! On the other hand, I understand that you have responsibilities of your own. Mama Can is already being generous enough to let you have the time off that you’ll need even for a short visit.
I’ve taken all my things from your flat so that you’ll feel at home. Everything is in perfect order. I took the liberty of repairing the window frame so that the cold wouldn’t come in, because it would have never happened if we had waited for our pinchpenny landlord to get around to taking care of it himself. I suppose it matters little now, because when winter returns you’ll be in a warmer place.
You keep thanking me for everything I’ve done for you, but it’s important for you to understand that you allowed me to go on a beautiful trip that most men would only dream of taking. Our time in Istanbul will remain among my fondest memories, and no matter the distance that separates us, you will always stay in my heart as a faithful friend. I hope to come and visit you one day, and I hope that when I do, you’ll have time to show me around and share your new life.
Dear Alice, my faithful travel companion, I hope that we’ll keep writing to each other, even though I’m sure that we’ll probably do so less regularly as time passes. I miss you, but I think I already wrote that. I send my warm regards.
Your ever-devoted,
Daldry.
P.S. I forgot to mention, it’s a funny thing—just as the postman (we made up over a pint at the pub) brought me your last letter, I was putting the very last finishing touch on my painting. I thought about sending it to you, but I realized how silly it would be. You just have to look out the window to see an even better version of what I painted during your long absence.
Alice walked down the street with a large suitcase in one hand and a smaller suitcase in the other. When she entered the restaurant, Mama Can, her husband, and the best guide in Istanbul all rose to their feet and led her to a table set for five.
Mama Can was particularly emotional. “Today the house is waiting on you,” she said. “I hired a replacement for the time that you’ll be gone, and for that time only! Sit, sit. You have to eat before your long trip. Your brother isn’t coming?”
“His boat was supposed to come ashore this morning. I hope he’ll get here in time. He promised to come to the airport.”
“But I’m the one to drive,” said Can, worried his place might be taken.
“Now that he has a car, you can’t refuse him the pleasure of driving,” said Mama Can, gazing proudly at her nephew.
“It’s practically new. It only had two owners before me, and one of them was a very meticulous American. Since I have stopping working for you and Mr. Daldry, I have found new clients who pay me well. And as the best guide in Istanbul, I must drive people around. Last week, I even took a couple to the Rumeli Fort on the Black Sea. It took only two hours to get there.”
Alice kept her eye on the window, hoping to see Rafael arrive, but when the meal was over he still hadn’t shown up.
“You know,” said Mama Can, trying to comfort her, “the sea is in charge. If the fishing is better than they expected, or worse, they may return tomorrow.”
“I know.” Alice sighed. “Besides, I’ll see him again soon.”
“We have to go or you’ll miss your plane,” said Can.
Mama Can kissed and hugged Alice goodbye and accompanied her to Can’s new car. Her husband put Alice’s suitcases in the trunk, and Can opened the passenger-side door.
“Can I drive?” she asked.
“Are you kidding?”
“I know how to drive. Daldry taught me.”
“Not this car,” said Can, pushing Alice in and closing the door behind her.
He got in, started the engine, and listened to the motor purr, beaming with pride.
Alice heard somebody calling “Anouche!” and she turned to see Rafael running over to them.
“I know, I know,” he said, jumping in the back seat. “I’m late, but it’s not my fault, one of our nets got tangled. I came as quickly as I could.”
Can took his foot off the brake and the Ford started down the hill through the narrow streets of Üsküdar. An hour later, they arrived at Atatürk Airport. In front of the terminal, Can bid Alice farewell and then left her to be alone with her brother.
Alice went to the counter and checked in her larger suitcase, holding on to the smaller one. The ticketing agent said she should go through customs immediately. She was the last passenger to arrive and they were waiting for her.
Rafael walked with her to the door. “While I was at sea,” he said, “I thought a lot about your story of the fortune-teller. I don’t know if she was Yaya’s sister or not, but if you have time, you should try to go back and see her, because she was wrong about one important thing.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Alice.
“When you first saw her, she told you that the most important man in your life had just been walking behind you, didn’t she?”
“Yes, that’s what she said.”
“Well, I’m sorry to tell you that she couldn’t have been talking about me. I’ve never left Turkey, and I certainly wasn’t in Brighton at Christmastime last year.”
Alice thought about what her brother was telling her.
“Can you think of somebody else who could have been there behind you that evening?” asked Rafael.
“Perhaps,” said Alice, clutching the tiny suitcase to her chest.
“You know you have to go through customs, right? What are you hiding in there?”
“A trumpet.”
“A trumpet?”
“Yes, a trumpet. It might just be the answer to the question you just asked,” she said with a smile. She kissed her brother goodbye and whispered in his ear, “Don’t worry if it takes me longer to come back than I thought it would. I’ll come back, I promise I will.”
16
Wednesday, October 31, 1951
The ta
xi pulled up in front of the old house on Primrose Hill. Alice took her bags and climbed the stairs. The landing on the top floor was silent. She looked at Daldry’s door and then went into her flat.
It smelled like the floor had been waxed. Everything was just as she had left it, except cleaner.
There was a vase of white tulips on the stool next to the bed.
She took off her coat and went to sit at the worktable. She ran her hand over the wood and peered up through the skylight at the clouds hanging over London.
She went back over to the bed and opened the case that held the trumpet and a carefully wrapped bottle of perfume, which she took out and set aside.
She hadn’t eaten since earlier that morning, and there was still time to go to the grocer’s at the end of the street.