The Laughter of Carthage: Pyat Quartet Read online

  As the Baroness and I turned up towards the little cemetery, a couple of pistol shots sounded close behind us. I heard a police whistle. They were the normal sounds of the Pera night and neither of us ever paid them much attention, but I had responded rather more nervously than usual. I found I was glancing into doorways. In one, Major Hakir’s fierce little face peered down the sights of a revolver. Elsewhere I saw bazhi-bazouks jumping from alleys. There was potential danger on all sides. The night was humid, but the sweat on the back of my neck was cold. I was unusually glad to get up to the apartment. Here Leda virtually threw me onto the couch with the violence of her sudden, greedy passion, ‘I love you,’ she declared. ‘I could not bear to see you hurt, Simka.’

  As we undressed, I decided this was a reasonable price to pay for my twenty-four hours of grace. What if, I wondered, I acted out the role she had prepared, would she again have changed her tune? The problems of living in this city had overtaxed her mind. It was fortunate for me that I had found this out before offering her the opportunity of travelling with Esmé and myself. She might have threatened far worse harm had she decided to denounce me in a Western country. With rather less enthusiasm than usual I gave her my body, explaining away my obvious uninterest with the claim that I had become fearful of Esmé and her Nationalist friends. Tokatlian’s was evidently a hotbed of revolutionaries, ruthless adventurers and desperate men and women of all kinds. I could not stay there any longer. I would move, I said, to this apartment. Then I would inform the authorities of our suspicions about Esmé.

  ‘But how will you stop her realising?’

  For my own amusement, I let the Baroness discuss a variety of notions involving the betrayal of my darling. If I had been a cynical man, I might have thought the whole female race treacherous and without conscience. So many women spoke of morality only to maintain their own position when it suited them, to gain power, or, as in this case, to threaten. In Constantinople everyone scrambled to get tiny pinches of power for themselves, and consequently everything was for sale. The women, the slaves, the subject races, all schemed and squabbled in the shadow of the Sultan’s palace. A few years earlier, Abdul Hamid, last true Emperor of the Osmanlis, possessed unlimited power, yet carried a pistol with him at all times. If someone disturbed, displeased or frightened him, he frequently shot them with impunity. Millions of souls had been at his disposal. Such absolute tyranny makes its subjects greedy for mastery over some small aspect of the world, whether it be animal or child. Thus Constantinople was a city famous for its dogs. People with the least power keep the most dogs.

  That night when I returned to Esmé, I had been shocked by the levels of duplicity a woman was capable of reaching in her jealous desire to hold a man. Equally I was somewhat admiring of her, even though she began to cut a ludicrous figure of a person whose deceits and subterfuges are transparent and therefore harmless. I found Esmé almost catatonic. There were clothes tumbled everywhere and nothing packed. She sat in the middle of a pile of frocks looking pale and frightened. Her pretty hair was tangled, her eyes red. ‘I do not know what to do,’ she said. She was paralysed by the prospect of leaving. Patiently I began to fold the cloaks and dresses and put them down in the trunks. She watched me helplessly as if I were abandoning her.

  ‘I’m not sure it’s wise to go,’ she said.

  I explained the Baroness intended to expose her as a spy. I laughed about it. ‘We’ll be gone before she can do anything.’

  At this Esmé began silently to weep again. I almost lost my temper. She was behaving like a whimsical child. ‘After tomorrow,’ I promised, ‘you’ll be Esmé Cornelius. They’ll be searching for a Roumanian girl called Bolascu. Even your parents won’t know where to find you.’

  ‘But they must! We have to send them money.’

  ‘I have already made the arrangements. They’ll get even more from now on.’ I was prepared to say or do anything to reassure her.

  ‘Can I see them before we go?’

  I hesitated. I could not risk being again separated from Esmé. ‘Very well. We’ll visit them tomorrow morning.’

  ‘I would rather go alone.’

  ‘It’s too dangerous.’

  She appeared to accept this and raised enough energy to help me do a little of the packing. By the small hours we were ready to leave at a moment’s notice. We slept until eight, then prepared to visit her parents’ tenement. It was a clear, misty morning. Constantinople shone with those wonderful, faded pastels for which she is famous. There was a cheerful mood to the streets. We carried two suitcases of clothes Esmé had discarded. She wished to take them to her mother. Though fearing we should run out of money before we ever reached Venice, I had agreed to give her parents another two sovereigns. The decrepit couple received us with their usual lack of emotion. Monsieur Bolascu had already bought himself a new suit which he had promptly ruined in some local gutter. Madame Bolascu was filleting a large fish at the table. Esmé kissed her. ‘We are going on holiday,’ she said in Turkish. ‘I wanted you to have these clothes.’ The woman nodded and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. Suddenly she looked at me and grinned. It was shocking to see that stony face break into such unlikely mobility. The fangs were revealed, yellow and black, and a kind of birdlike gargle issued from the throat. ‘Bon voyage, m’sieu,’ she said. Esmé wanted to stay. She pretended to talk to her father, who now dozed in a corner and could not hear a word. She hugged her mother. Madame Bolascu patted her on the back while continuing to grin at me. ‘She is a good girl.’

  ‘She’s a very good girl. She’ll get an education in Paris.’

  This the grotesque creature found even more amusing. I was evidently a wag. In French she told Esmé to enjoy herself. Life was short. She must not waste it. We made a very pretty couple. She must be sure to be obedient for she would find few gentlemen as kind as Monsieur. She added an afterthought in Turkish. Esmé nodded and bowed, sucked in her upper lip and became sentimentally animated for a moment. Then, passively, she put her arm into mine, just as if we were about to have our photograph taken, and we stood there stock still while the woman, without pausing in her skilful gutting of the fish, looked us up and down. The sun streamed into the room, onto the dusty, unpainted boards, the bloody, stinking table. The eyes of the fish winked like jewels.

  On the way back we stopped to buy Esmé pistachio nuts and almond cakes. She was behaving as if I were taking her to prison. The vendor shrugged his shoulders, pretending to search for change, banging on his bin for his boy to come over, and I looked across at a little shaded square where plantains grew like huge fungus around a green copper fountain. There on a wooden bench sat a swarthy Turk. He wore a formal European suit and a fez. He was staring at me intently. I reached towards my hip. I had brought a revolver with me today. I should have been a fool to go unarmed with Count Siniutkin’s friends everywhere in the area. Since I had never fired one in my life, I doubt if I could have aimed the weapon accurately. I let the sweet-vendor keep his few pennies and hurried Esmé on. She looked up at me in alarm, I told her we were being followed.

  Once back at Tokatlian’s she began to tremble alarmingly. She pleaded to be allowed to take the train. Every time she got on the ferryboat she felt sick. Was there no other way to leave Constantinople?

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I replied savagely, ‘there are several other ways. But one must be dead before they become available! Do you want to join the Brides of the Bosphorus?’ Only a few days earlier divers had been sent down by the British, searching for the wreck of a ship. They had reported finding a forest of bodies waving on the bottom, each of them tied in a sack and weighted with chains. These were chiefly girls who had ceased to please Abdul Hamid, but a few more bodies, similarly weighted, would scarcely have been noticed in that crowd.

  Begging me not to raise my voice, she said I was scaring her all the more. I relented. I took her on my knee. I told her of the glories of Italy, the pleasures of France, the monumental certainties of Great Britain. ‘And these count
ries are all Christian,’ I said. ‘They are all Catholic. You will never have to risk persecution again. There is no one to threaten you or sell you into a harem or force you to work at Mrs Unal’s.’

  She dried her tears, looking up with a half amused sniff. ‘It sounds boring.’

  ‘You are a bad, bad girl!’ I kissed her. ‘Your mother told you the truth. You’ll find few as kind as me. You must be obedient!’

  This seemed to have an effect. She grew apparently much more cheerful and began to pack up her cosmetics (of which she had hundreds) putting the different little pots and jars carefully into their places in a vast wicker hamper I had bought her from Simsamian’s in the Grande Rue.

  By the evening we were completely ready. I ran across to the Byzance where the Baroness was at her reception desk, ‘It’s all arranged,’ I said. ‘I’ll meet a British Intelligence Officer tonight.’

  She was full of triumph. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’

  ‘I’m to go alone.’

  ‘When shall I see you?’

  ‘In your room, late tonight or tomorrow morning.’

  As I left she blew me an excited, conspiratorial kiss, that inexpert Lady Macbeth. I winked back.

  Not knowing if there was to be a curfew I had ordered the car for immediately after twilight. Two hired Albanians carried our trunks down to the waiting Mercedes while Esmé, pale and hesitant, dressed inappropriately in a short silk teagown and fur-trimmed winter overcoat, stood with her hands in her ermine muff. She also wore one of her largest and gaudiest hats. At least, I thought with relief, she looked twice her age. I carried my own plan-case. In it lay my future and my fortune. The car was hardly able to squeeze through the little cobbled alley, yet had already been surrounded by a score of street Arabs, some of whom were evidently not native to the city, but spoke fluent, trilling Russian. I was becoming used to the sight of this new breed of blond-haired mendicants. Even as Esmé bowed her over-weighted head to get into the car I looked across the alley, thinking I saw the movement of a potential assassin. But it was only a little Turkish girl of about six. She had been relieving herself in the doorway and was concentrating on straightening her clothing. She looked up with a smile of recognition, as if hearing a familiar voice, then she saw me and her expression changed to one of alarm. She began silently to weep.

  I joined Esmé in the car. It could be a few hours before we left for Venice, but I thought it prudent to be on our way. The chauffeur started the car, scattering the children in all directions. As we turned into the Grande Rue I looked back. We were not being followed. Pulling down the blinds of the car I noticed that beside me on the big leather seat Esmé had begun to shiver. I worried in case she was actually ill. She seemed to have a slight temperature. As soon as we arrived in Venice, I promised myself, I would get her a good doctor, even if it took our last penny.

  By the time we reached the Little Quay and made the car stop as close to the barrier as was sensible, my girl had turned decidedly pale. I patted her hand while the driver at my request fetched her some sherbert from a nearby café. Behind the barrier the Customs people were still at their posts, but were beginning to pack up for the evening. They stood in relaxed groups, chatting and smoking, sharing jokes. Bored British and French military police wandered here and there, the reason for their presence mysterious even to them. The dark water was smeared with oil reflecting the light of naphtha lamps and gas-flares, and from a nearby bar came the flat slap of Turkish drums. A number of sailors approached, showing a passing interest in the limousine. I replaced the blinds. Esmé continued to shiver beside me, sipping her sherbert, her eyes on the neck of the impassive chauffeur in front. One of the sailors casually tested a door, but I had locked it. When I next looked out the bulk of several large ships blocked most of my view beyond the harbour. Esmé and I would have to pass between two large iron gates to get to the wharf. There was one guard on duty, an Italian, and he had been primed by Captain Kazakian not to look too closely at our papers. A while later I saw the lights of a launch flicker on a few yards out from the wharf. The Italian army guard put his rifle against the gate post and turned a key in a padlock. Within a few minutes a large horse-drawn charabanc appeared at the other end of the street. It moved like a hearse over the cobbled pavement, drawing up directly in front of the gates. These were Kazakian’s other passengers. Ostensibly in order to compete with larger shipping concerns, he was running a night service to Venice. It was time for us to leave the car. I told the driver to wait where he was until the luggage could be brought aboard and crossed the street with Esmé clinging to my arm. She virtually fainted as the Italian made a charade of inspecting our documents, stamping them and finally letting us through. When he spoke a few words of English to Esmé she did not understand him and looked utterly panic stricken. I hurried her towards the launch. By now my own stomach was churning. I had never known quite that sort of fear. I still half expected a motor car to roar out of the darkness at any moment and a tommy-gun to spray us with bullets. Such assassinations were then commonplace in Constantinople. Al Capone was by no means an innovator. I relaxed a little once we joined the line of passengers walking towards the launch. Her engines turning slowly, she had pulled in beside the wharf and lowered her gangplank. She was a nineteenth-century sidewheel paddlesteamer equipped with wooden benches under a rather tattered awning on her upper deck. Her lower deck had a few slightly more elaborate sleeping berths. She was capable of little more than three or four knots and scarcely seemed seaworthy. But she was a better boat than she looked. This, at least, I knew from my own work on her. Captain Kazakian was nowhere in evidence. As soon as we had boarded and taken our places on the upper deck I sought him out. Sitting against the wheel post on his bridge, he was eating sausage and drinking wine. He winked at me as I handed over the hundred sovereigns and became almost languorous at the feel of gold in his hands. Yawning, he looked up at the sky. ‘It should be a good trip, Mr Papandakis. This is the best time of year.’ I asked him to make sure our baggage was brought on board and cleared through Customs, ‘It is being done,’ he said. ‘I saw you arrive. Your trunks have been portioned out between fifteen of the other passengers!’ He laughed heartily. ‘Are you a gun-runner, using my poor boat as transport? Or do you own a dress-shop? Don’t worry, they won’t be checked. This is all a ritual. The Customs people don’t care who leaves. They only worry about who comes in. And everyone makes a decent profit this way.’

  I heard a motor revving in the street, then whistles and revolver shots. Electric torches flashed in the alley. Someone shouted in Turkish. There was a shriek and the sound of running. ‘What was that?’

  Kazakian dismissed it. ‘Someone who couldn’t find his fare to Venice, maybe. There.’ He straightened himself and pointed. ‘Your trunks are coming.’ To my relief I saw half a dozen Greek and Albanian sailors crossing the gangplank with our trunks on their backs. ‘Is there a chance we could take one of the cabins?’ I asked him. ‘My sister is unwell. Nothing catching.’ He was regretful. They had all been sold long since. But it was a warm time of year, a calm sea. I should enjoy the journey. It was easy to sleep on the benches.

  I was more cheerful when I returned to Esmé. But she had sunk into her clothes and stared desperately back at the wharf. ‘I don’t think we should go,’ she whispered, ‘I have a premonition.’

  I scoffed at her. ‘You’re upset at leaving, that’s all. You’ll feel better when we reach Venice.’

  ‘The ship makes me so sick.’ She got up. ‘Really, Maxim, I must get off!’

  I restrained her, conscious of the curiosity of the other passengers, frightened lest we draw the attention of the police still on the quay. In panic, I hissed at her. ‘Sit down, you little fool!’

  ‘You’re bruising my arm.’ Her eyes came to angry life.

  ‘Then sit down!’

  The launch was rocking. Very loudly the engines exploded to full throttle. Wind caught at the canopy. It flapped like an applauding seal. Th
e paddles churned and spray hit us suddenly from the starboard side. I heard rods connecting, pistons turning. Almost losing her footing, Esmé cried out, half falling heavily onto the bench. The other passengers, muffled in coats, were noisy and cheerful, pointing out exotic aspects of Stamboul’s rich skyline. Her palaces and mosques had turned to pale grey against the blue-black night. I forced Esmé to sit where she was. She began to struggle, to moan. She was hysterical. While the other people on deck turned to admire the massive outline of the Suleiman Mosque coming up on our port, I gathered my strength and dealt my child a controlled but powerful blow to the jaw. Instantly she collapsed in my arms and started to breathe deeply like a tired dog. We pulled clear of the wharves. By the time we entered the Sea of Marmara the steam launch was vibrating dramatically. A few night gulls squawked curiously overhead, a variety of inhuman voices called from the harbours and the dark, surrounding water. Hidden ships hooted and shrilled. The air grew thick with the heavy, heated perfumes of Byzantium; with brine, with a hint of sweet fruits, palm trees and exotic gardens; the stink of the stirring beast that was Asia.

  More shots and explosions sounded from the Pera side of the Galata Bridge: a rising cacophony of police whistles and sirens. Motor horns hooted. There was a confusion of shouts that rose and fell only once. The launch rattled like a cheap mechanical toy as she adjusted her course for the Hellespont. I believe I probably saved Esmé’s life, as well as mine, by silencing her. If she had begun to scream we could well have been arrested.