Last Letter from Istanbul. Lucy Foley
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The older women will be sitting in the women’s quarters, the haremlik, after a lunch of several courses. Perhaps they have friends visiting them from the city, in Parisian gowns that sit oddly with their veils. Or perhaps they have come from further afield, from Anatolia, traditional in loose silks, their fingernails stained with red dye. By now they will be deep in gossip. Or perhaps they have summoned a female miradju to entertain them all with tall tales. Most of these professional storytellers rely upon a carefully honed set of stories, most known fairly well to their listeners, yet still pleasing because of the unique style and flourishes of the teller. But the very best of them can invent narrative upon the spot, conjuring people and places straight from the imagination.
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.’
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