Istanbul Passage (39 page)

Sharp and clear, with enough moon to see the road after they left the town. A stretch now without a quay, just a shoulder, no other pedestrians, but cars seemed to stream past without noticing them. Then they were in Arnavutköy, a line of waterside
yalis
with elaborate fretwork, and streets behind to wind through, a maze for anyone following.

“Do you have a sense for it now?” Leon said, curious. “When anybody’s tailing you?”

“No. I use my eyes. We’re all right. How much longer?”

Leon checked his watch. “We’re still early.” He looked up. “One quick stop.”

They kept to village streets, then circled back to the shore promenade, empty except for a few night fishermen, too late now for couples. In Bebek, they turned off just before the khedive’s palace, familiar streets, the back way to the clinic. No one behind. They went in through the garden gate.

“What is this place?”

Leon raised his hand, a signal to be quiet. They went off the path, stopping at the tree outside Anna’s room. Just the usual night-light, like a hovering ghost. Leon started for the French windows, then stopped. No need to go in, risk being seen. He could say good-bye from here. No one would hear him anyway. The room utterly still, a tomb’s quiet. And suddenly, disconcerted, he realized that this visit, all his visits, were really trips to a cemetery, paying respects at the grave, the way they had visited his father’s, flowers in hand, his mother solemn, Leon bored and uncomfortable, not knowing, as he did now, that she wasn’t visiting his father but some younger part of herself, what she used to be. He stood for a second, looking through the window, expecting the
faint light to grow dimmer until the room was finally dark. Instead there was a quick shaft of light as the door opened, a nurse coming to check, behind her a man sitting on a chair in the hall reading a newspaper, another Manyas. Leon ducked behind the tree. Keeping watch. Anywhere he might go, even here, Gülün taking no chances. Kay’s hotel. Cihangir. Hunting for him. But not in the garden or he wouldn’t still be standing here. A car out front? The nurse smoothed out the blanket and left, taking the light with her.

He motioned Alexei toward the gate. “Police,” he whispered. “Careful.” A follow-me gesture.

Down the backstreets to the shore road. Still too early for the boat, the quay wide open, anybody waiting visible in the moonlight. They passed the steep road up to Robert College, and he thought of Tommy, barreling down, sure how things would go. They went into the café where he’d called Tommy the first rainy night, the same old men smoking. Come to the Park, Mehmet’s martinis.

“Finally a drink,” Alexei said when his raki arrived. He took a sip. “So what was that place.”

“Where my wife is.”

Alexei peered at him, but said nothing.

“A clinic.”

Another look, oddly sympathetic. “So, the good-byes.” He poured more water into the glass, watching the liquid cloud.

Leon shook his head. “She’s in a coma.” Not quite the truth, but just as good.

Alexei looked closely at him again. “And police there. It’s no good, you doing something like that. Save the good-byes for later. When we’re gone.” He sipped more raki. “So now it’s the Russian desk?”

Leon looked away, not answering. The Russian desk. The pale light of the window behind her. Something to think about. Another chance—maybe the only one he’d have. But what kind of life, once they left the hotel room?

He glanced toward the wall, looking for the clock, the ticking, but it seemed to be in his head. There was no time in a café, hours to dawdle. The ferry to the islands from Eminönü used to take an hour and a half, two to reach Büyükada. The fisherman wouldn’t be any faster. At least an hour to get to Eminönü, another hour as a cushion for any delays. They should be all right. But they had to be—the
Victorei
wouldn’t wait, a promise. How fast was the fisherman’s boat?

If they were early, idling off Büyükada wouldn’t be a problem this time of year, the crowded port nearly empty, hotels shuttered. In the summer it was different, carriages and donkey rides and hikes to sandy coves in the south. They’d rented the house for August, on a spur off the road up to the monastery, looking down through the woods to the sea. At night the pines and wild roses and jasmine carried on the breeze. Before the war.

“You’re very quiet,” Alexei said.

“I’m thinking.”

Alexei grunted.

“I don’t think you were right about Manyas,” Leon said, to say something.

“Who?”

“The forger.”

“Take that chance with your life, not mine,” Alexei said. He signaled for another raki. “Anyway, what does it matter? A man in that work, something always happens.”

Leon looked at him, not saying anything. But it must have mattered to him once, before life had become this cheap, before the stacks of corpses. He’d had a wife, parents. Now dreaming of Florida. The ticking was louder, intolerable. Maybe the boat had come early. He pushed back his chair.

“It’s time?” Alexei said, then tossed back the rest of the raki, wincing.

They crossed the road onto the quay, the empty space outlined
in police chalk marks in his mind—Rumeli Hisari looming up ahead, Alexei’s duffel being lifted out, Tommy’s car squealing in, Mihai and Leon pinned flat on the pavement. Now they stood waiting quietly near the edge, the water slapping, looking at a single light coming toward them out of the dark. Almost there.

They were on board before the fisherman could even tie up.

“It’s the same man?” Alexei said to Leon. “He works for—?”

“Me. A private deal.”

Immediately discussed. The Princes’ Islands were too far.

“It’s longer than you said.”

“No, it isn’t,” Leon said, his mouth thin, frustrated, all of them still at the quay.

“Efendi.”
Beginning to haggle.

“How much?”

Alexei stepped between them.
“Derhal!”
he said, almost growling.

The fisherman stepped back, cowering, then retreated to the motor. Leon glanced over. Alexei’s eyes steady, capable of anything.

They stayed close to the shore, away from the cargo ships in the channel, retracing the walk from Ortaköy. The Bosphorus was calm except for the wakes of the freighters, and they made good time, passing the charred ruins of the Çirağan where Abdul Aziz had committed suicide, if he had, and Murat V had been locked away, the sort of things Georg used to tell them.

When there was a break in the cargo traffic, they crossed over to the Asian side, heading past Leander’s Tower, the lights of the city around them now on all sides. Only the usual water traffic, ferries and fishermen, no police boats. Haydarpaşa’s Teutonic facade, where the trains left for Ankara. Nobody else came with him? Just the wife.

Kadiköy, Fenerbahçe, then the open sea to the islands, shore lights fewer now, the water dark. Alexei kept hold of the side, looking front and back, his knit hat over his ears against the chill. When
they pulled farther away from the shore, he went over to the steering cabin and grabbed the signal light. The fisherman yelled at him in Turkish.

“What are you doing?” Leon said. “He needs that to signal the ship.”

“Not yet.” He put it between his feet. “When he does, it’s here.”

Another wail from the fisherman, Leon mollifying him.

“For Christ’s sake,” he said to Alexei.

“How well do you know him?”

“He’s working for us.”

“He cheats at cards.” A long rainy night in some Black Sea hut, hurricane lamps.

“So now what? Do we break his neck?”

Alexei ignored this, focusing on the narrow funnel of light in front. Finally some window lights in the distance.

“Is that it?”

“Not yet.”

The boat chugged past Kinaliada, then headed south between Heybeliada and Büyükada, finally idling near the lower tip of the island where the
Victorei
would pass.

“Tell him to kill the light,” Alexei said, still alert, looking in both directions. No houses behind them, the empty stretch of the Marmara in front, city lights far in the distance, the boat hidden now in its own patch of watery darkness, rocking slightly with the waves.

“How much longer?” Alexei said.

“The bridge opens around three. Depends where they are in line.” A convoy pouring out of the Golden Horn, most of them hugging the European shore, then sailing straight for the Dardanelles, only the
Victorei
veering off toward the islands.

“Another fishing boat?”

Leon shook his head. “A freighter. Was, anyway. Romanian.”

“And now?”

“Now it’s taking Jews to Palestine.”

Alexei looked at him for a long minute, his face moving from one thought to another. “We’re going to Palestine?”

“Cyprus. They’re dropping us.”

“Jews to Palestine,” Alexei said, turning it over. “No one will think of that.” Raising his eyes, a compliment.

“No,” Leon said, feeling pleased, then embarrassed to have felt it.

Alexei snorted, a kind of laugh with himself. “Jews to Palestine.”

The boat dipped, then rocked harder, the wind picking up. Alexei clutched the gunwale.

“What’s wrong?” Leon said.

“Nothing. I don’t like boats, I told you.” Almost a child pouting, vulnerable, something Leon hadn’t seen before.

And then they waited. The fisherman had cut the motor, so there were only sounds of buoys now, soft tinkles, and the wind blowing things on deck. The Byzantines had exiled people here, where they couldn’t be heard. He thought of the whistles and screams when Anna’s boat had gone down, sirens on the shore, his own rescue boat blowing horns, the air shaking with noise. Closer to the city, just past Yaniköy, which should have made it easier and in the end didn’t matter. Children without life jackets, panicking, taking water every time they shouted, clutching. An endless night. A few even saved, the others slipping under, so close they could see the shore. And then the awful questions after—had the harbor boats come fast enough, had they wanted to come at all?

“There,” the fisherman said.

Leon looked out. A bright beam slicing across the water, then the glow of the bridge, followed by a thin string of mast lights, hung like flags. The portholes dark, the boat moving like a shadow, no faster than a ferry. Leon imagined the engine below, creaking and hissing, but turning, getting them there. A miracle, bought with Tommy’s money.

The fisherman waited a few more minutes then started up the boat, signaling the ship. The waves were rougher now, Alexei pale. From the water, the
Victorei’
s deck seemed stories high.

“Efendi,”
the fisherman said to Leon, rubbing his fingers.

Leon gave him the envelope with the money, watching him tuck it into his shirt.

“You’re not going to count it?”

“I trust you,” the fisherman said, smiling. “And now it’s quick. Here.” He handed Leon a grappling hook.

They pulled alongside. A rope ladder was dropped, and Leon tried to hook it, bringing the fishing boat up against the
Victorei
and holding it steady in the rocking waves.

“Leon?” Mihai’s voice through a primitive megaphone, shining down a light.

Leon waved.

“Can you reach?” he said to Alexei. “I’ve got it hooked. Jump for it.”

Alexei looked at him, whiter.

“I’ll be right behind.”

“Some trouble?” the fisherman said, a sneer he couldn’t resist.

“How do you say, go to hell?” Alexei asked Leon.

“Cehennèm ol,”
Leon said.

Alexei cocked his head to it, not repeating it, and lunged for the bottom rung, grunting as he pulled himself up, grabbing on to the next, another, then finally a foothold.

“Let’s go,” Mihai shouted from on deck. The engines had idled, but the ship was still moving, drifting, pulling the fishing boat with it.

“Hold this,” Leon said, handing the fisherman the hook. “Go back tonight. Not a word, right? And thanks.”

The fisherman looked away, embarrassed.

Leon lifted his arms. Not quite high enough. “Steady,” he said to the fisherman, then bounced, grabbing the step, slick with cold water, his arms straining as he pulled himself up to the next, and again, until
his feet could take his weight. “You okay?” he shouted up at Alexei, who didn’t answer, clinging to the ladder.

The fishing boat slid out from the hull, then sputtered and roared away while they were still on the ladder, nothing below now but water.

Mihai and another man hauled them over the top, Alexei landing like a flapping fish, winded, trying to pick himself up.

“Tell David to start,” Mihai said, then turned to Leon. “You made it.” Not looking at Alexei, someone not there.

“Any trouble?” Leon said.

“After the dollars? No. A leap into health. Now it’s just the engine to worry about. But at least we’re moving.”

Büyükada, however, seemed just where it had been, any change of speed unnoticeable. A long night.

“Over here,” Mihai said. “It’s out of the wind.” Looking at Alexei now, his face deliberately blank, indicating a short bench near the bridge.

“Where is everybody?” Leon said, expecting to see people lining the rails, jubilant.

“Sleeping. If they can.”

Or hunkering in blankets on benches, the way they’d been before, indifferent to Istanbul, saving their strength, heads drooping on shoulders next to them, the few still awake staring at Alexei and Leon, wondering, but more interested in the uneven throb of the engines below.

“Thank you,” Alexei said.

“Thank him,” Mihai said, brusque.

“There’s a boat,” David said, coming out of the bridge.

“Signaling?”

“No. Maybe putting into Büyükada. But we’re just sitting here. Go see what’s happening down below, will you? We’d make better time rowing.”

A sudden wave rolled the boat, pitching Mihai forward, onto Alexei’s chest. He pulled away.

“Right back,” he said to Leon. “Stay over there.”

“Your Romanian friend,” Alexei said.

“You never saw him.”

“I never see anybody.” He grabbed on to a rail, the boat rocking again with a wave. “It’s getting rough.”