Istanbul Passage (28 page)

“Thank you,” she said, so quietly that he thought he might have imagined it.

“No. You,” he said, moving his hand now, calming each other, like animals. “I didn’t mean to be so fast.”

She smiled.

He leaned forward and kissed her, hand at the back of her head. “Next time we’ll go slow.”

She touched him below. “How much time do you need?”

“Keep doing that.” Shifting slightly so that she could take all of him in her hand, hard again, then looking into her eyes. “Where did you come from?” he said, running his hand down her back, wanting to touch her everywhere, as if he could read her skin, know her with his fingers.

She made a little gasp, responding to his hand, a shivering as it crept lower, then fell back, letting him kiss her everywhere, her nipples, then moving below, everything slower this time, unhurried, his mouth moving so slowly that she shuddered when he reached her sex, teasing and kissing it until she was open to his mouth, moving against his tongue, and he went deeper, tasting the inside of her, smearing, until she made a sound, a muffled cry, and reached down with her hands to stop his head. “No, in me,” she said, her voice shaking, and pulled him toward her, then in, and this time even that was slower, a rocking, so that when they came, both panting, it wasn’t an explosion but an overflowing.

Afterward she lay with her head on his chest, both of them drowsy.

“A chance for what?” he said.

“Hm?”

“You said, ask me later.”

She was quiet for a minute. “To have something different, I guess.”

“Why me?”

“I liked you. The way you look. Your chin,” she said, putting a finger on it.

“That’s it?”

“And you’re here,” she said, leaving his chest, sitting up. “Not Ankara. No complications. Running into each other. Things like that.” She got up and went over to the table and picked up a cigarette, the match like a small flashbulb lighting up her naked body. “It’s funny, isn’t it, how people talk after. No clothes. No secrets. I think I know everything about you. And I don’t, really.”

Leon said nothing, reaching for a cigarette of his own.

“Why didn’t you want me to stay with you at the clinic?”

“There was nothing you could do there. He was—he died. Another attack. You didn’t need to be there for that.”

“Died?” she said, dismayed. “I’m sorry. You were fond of him.”

“Yes.”

“I could tell. The way you were with him. So that’s one thing I know about you.” She looked at him. “One layer.” She walked over to the window. “Altan said it was because your wife’s there.” She exhaled some smoke. “What’s wrong with her?” She waited a minute, then turned. “You don’t want to talk about her?”

He looked at her bare skin, nothing covered. The way people talked after. He drew on his cigarette, hearing the silence in the room. “She went mad.” Something he’d never said out loud before, admitted. Mad, not away.

“Oh,” she said. “So what will you do?”

“Do? There’s nothing to do. Wait, see if she gets better.” He leaned over and stubbed out his cigarette. “So that’s her. What else did Altan have to say?”

“He didn’t tell me that—what was wrong. Just that she was there.”

“Well, now you know.”

“So you’ll never leave her,” she said, her voice neutral. “That makes it easier for me.”

“What?”

“I told you, no complications.” She was quiet for a minute. “You don’t have to worry about that. About anything.”

She came over to the bed, sitting next to him.

“So what did Altan talk about?” Leon said.

“Talk about? Frank. He’s very interested in Frank. As if I would know anything. So it must be true, what he does. Secret work. He never says, and now a man like Altan asks, so what else could it be? And you, is that what he does with you? Secret work?”

“I’m just filling in for Tommy. At Commercial Corp.”

“And that’s an answer,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Never mind, I don’t care.” She reached up, brushing the side of his head. “But no secrets here, all right? I mean in this room. I don’t care what you do at the consulate. But not here.”

“Frank never says anything?”

“We don’t talk like this. It’s different.” She stopped her hand, dropping it. “Do you want to know about us?”

“No.”

“I was a secretary. Not his. When I was growing up, we never had any money, anything extra. And I thought, I won’t have to worry about that. I’ll be safe.”

“And?”

“And I am. Safe.” She looked at him. “And I’m here.”

He touched her arm. “I should leave soon.”

“You don’t want to stay?”

“Someone might see.”

“My reputation?” she said, amused. “Well. I never had to think about that before.”

“Now you do.”

“Like a farce? The maid comes in and—oops!” She covered herself with the sheet.

“Not so funny when it happens.” He moved his hand to her shoulder, then ran it down to her breast. “You’re an embassy wife.”

“Not here. Not in Istanbul.” She arched her back to the hand stroking her.

“No,” he said, leaning his face close to hers.

“No complications here.” She lowered her head. “There is, though. One. I didn’t expect.”

“What?” he said, kissing her ear.

“I said, we could just—walk away. But I don’t want to,” she said, her voice naked now too. “I thought I could. But I don’t want to.” She turned to him. “Do you?”

He looked at her, a feeling of pitching forward, dizzy, then righting himself, sure-footed. “No.”

5

ÜSKÜDAR

E
NVER
M
ANYAS NEEDED ANOTHER
day, an unexpected delay, but now Leon did too. He’d been awake half the night at the Pera making a new plan, Kay sleeping next to him, one hand on his chest, the reflected lights on the ceiling like plotting points on a map of Turkey. Edirne, the most likely crossing, would have extra border checks now, too risky even with good papers. A boat from Izmir would go where the Greek police expected it to go. Trains were easy to check, the Orient Express like traveling in a spotlight, the overnight to Ankara the wrong direction. Where she would be, a complication. He felt her breathing next to him, something he’d almost forgotten, the peace afterward. One more day. His eyes moved over the map on the ceiling.

In the morning, they were lazy with each other, sex a hotel luxury, like breakfast in bed. Then the moment of farce he’d predicted, the maid at the door, Leon hiding in the bathroom with his clothes. Later, please.

“When do you go back?” he said, in bed again.

“Tomorrow night.”

“So we have today,” he said, the plan already decided, most of the pieces worked out in his mind.

“Don’t you have to work?”

“Yes.” He kissed her shoulder. “But I have to eat too.”

“Take me to your favorite place.”

He shook his head. “Too far. It’s up the Bosphorus.”

“Second favorite then. Don’t look at me—I mean like that, in the light. It’s different at night.”

“Mm. Harder to see. It’s like milk,” he said, stroking her belly.

“Tell me something about you.”

“I’m a good driver,” he said, his head still filled with cars, how to arrange one on the Asian side.

“No. Something about you.”

He leaned over her. “Ask me later.”

After Manyas, he went through the checklist he’d made during the night. An appearance at Reynolds to tell Turhan he might have to go to Ankara for a few days, the same story to Dorothy, not sure yet but don’t be surprised. Some file requests to look busy, Tommy’s payment reqs. Errands to run.

“Can you keep him another night?” he asked Marina.

“I have my Armenian. It’s his other day.”

“Put him off. I’ll pay you.”

“It’s all right. He paid me.” She nodded toward the bedroom.

Leon looked up at her.

“Maybe it means something to him. Pay his own way.”

“Marina—” he said, suddenly awkward.

“When was the last time he had a woman?”

“I don’t know.” He hesitated, not sure how to ask. “Anything wrong?”

She shrugged. “He’s hungry, that’s all.” A half smile. “The prisoner and his last meal.”

“He’s not a prisoner.”

“Yet.”

“What did he tell you?”

“Nothing. He doesn’t have to say a word. There’s a smell, when you run.”

“What’s going on?” Alexei said, coming out of the bedroom, dressed, neat and shaved, nothing rumpled.

“There’s a hitch. One more day.”

“Some trouble?”

“No. We just need a day.” He turned to Marina. “All right?”

“But tomorrow it’s finished. I don’t care—”

Leon nodded. “How much for the Armenian?”

She made a brushing motion with her hand. “It’ll be all right. There’s a room upstairs. He doesn’t take long. What’s wrong with you?” she said to Alexei, catching his expression.

“Nothing,” he said, turning back to the bedroom.

“Where do you think you are?” Marina said to Alexei’s back, her voice flat, a kind of apology. She watched him go into the bedroom. “They all want to think it’s something else,” she said. “Even with the money in their hands, they think it’s something else.”

Mihai was yelling into the phone in what Leon took to be Hebrew, getting nowhere. An eruption of words, then silence, finally a grunt.

“What?” he said to Leon, hanging up. “I thought you weren’t coming here anymore.”

“I wasn’t followed.”

“The expert.”

“I need something. Two things.”

“Two, why two? Why not seven? Four hundred. See down there,
by the Koç docks? Four hundred waiting. All with passports. End visas. Everything paid for. And the boat sits.”

“What happened?”

“Quarantine. Suspicion of typhus.”

“Is there?”

“My friend, do you think if there was typhus the Turks would keep them here? They would tow them to sea. Let them die out there. Anywhere. But not here.”

“So what—”

“What is it always? Something for the harbormaster, the public health inspectors. Then a miracle recovery. We’re still buying Jews out. Still. But I don’t have so much here, so it has to come from Palestine. We wait. And meanwhile they’re taking turns to go on deck, just to breathe. So how long before dysentery, a real disease? Bastards.” He stopped, looking up. “What do you want?”

“A car. On the Asian side.”

“What’s wrong with yours?”

“I can’t put it on the ferry. They might be watching.”

Mihai grunted. “More games.”

“Doesn’t your cousin have one? In Kuzguncuk?”

“I don’t involve family.”

“He’ll get it back. A few days.”

“A few days? You’re driving to Palestine maybe? Take a few of my Jews. The overland route.”

“I’d pay him.”

“Pay me. Ten thousand dollars, so I can get them out.”

“That’s what they want? Christ—”

“It’s explained to me, a fair price. Twenty-five dollars a head. During the war it was more. Now practically a tip. A little baksheesh, to help speed things up. So much work to examine the ship.” He made a noise in his throat. “When do you need it?”

“Tomorrow. Can you do it?”

“There’s a garage in Üsküdar that maybe has a car. Not family. Nobody, in fact. No registration. If you get stopped, it’s your problem, understood?”

Leon nodded.

“What’s the second thing?”

“A contact in Antalya.”

Mihai took a minute, turning this over. “You’re going to drive all the way to Antalya,” he said calmly. “Over the mountains. On those roads. And stay where on the way? The Ritz, maybe? Might I ask, what’s in Antalya? Dates? This time of year? Oranges?”

“A boat to Cyprus.”

“Cyprus. Where they send the Jews who don’t make it to Palestine. Back to camps.”

“I’m not trying to get to Palestine.”

“With your passenger? No, not advisable. If you want him alive. What’s in Cyprus?”

“The British, not the Greeks. I can pass him on there. You must know a boat in Antalya. You got people out there.”

“From people like him.”

“Any boat. That doesn’t need a passenger list. We were never there. No one will know.”

“And where were you all this time?”

“Ankara. On business. The embassy will say so, if anybody asks. They’ll have to, if this works.”

“If.”

“Nobody’s expecting it. Nobody here. Nobody on Cyprus. Nobody’s looking for him there. Or in Antalya.”

“No. Who makes such a trip? In winter?”

“He’ll die if he stays here.”

“That’s nothing to me.”

“Then don’t do it.”

Mihai looked over at him.

“I’ll get another car.”

“The element of surprise,” Mihai said, dismissive. “An overrated strategy. A car’s a valuable thing in Istanbul.”

“You can have mine if I don’t bring it back.”

“And you’ll be here to give it to me.”

“I’d trust you with my life. You can trust me with a car.”

“Oh, your life. When did I become such a person? That you’d do that?”

“When,” Leon said, not worth answering. He waited. “It’s just a car.”

Mihai looked at him for a minute, then began writing something on a piece of paper. “Don’t play that card too often,” he said, writing. “It loses value, you do that.”

“Not if it’s life or death.”