The Aviary Gate (8 page)

Then, just as suddenly as he had awoken, Hassan Aga was slipping away again. How long he lay in this strange limbo of darkness he did not know. Did he dream or not dream, sleep or not sleep? Then suddenly, at the end of aeons, which might also only have been a few hours … a light.

At first he saw two thin lines, one horizontonal and the other vertical. They were very pale when he first became aware of them, as pale as the earliest dirty-grey light of dawn. As he watched them, they converged suddenly, vertiginously, into a single point of light. And
behind the point of light were the unmistakable shadows of two people, two women, coming towards him.

A voice spoke: ‘Little Nightingale …'

From a long, long way away he heard his own voice reply.

‘Lily,' his voice said, ‘… is that you?'

Elizabeth called Eve from the telephone in her room.

‘Where did you say you are?' Eve's voice sounded unusually faint.

‘Istanbul.' Elizabeth said again carefully, and then held the telephone receiver away from her ear.

‘Istan
bul
?' There was a pause. ‘What in God's name are you doing there?'

‘I caught a flight. Last night.'

‘But we had lunch together. You never said anything.'

‘It was a stand-by flight. I was lucky, that's all.'

Elizabeth wanted to tell her about the American, about what had happened in Alfie's, but somehow she found that she could not, not even to Eve.

‘I need to …' she began, struggling against the ache in her throat, ‘… stop all this.' There was a silence on the other end of the phone, and she knew that Eve was listening. ‘You know … all this,' she managed eventually.

Cut it off. Tear it out. Bleed it from me. I'd rip out the still-beating heart of this terrible thing with my own fingernails if only I knew how … A feeling of hysteria gripped her.

‘Just make it … stop. Please.'

‘It's all right, it's all right.' She could hear Eve's voice catch. ‘Don't say anything, just breathe! OK, sweetie? Just breathe—'

Through her tears Elizabeth could not help but laugh. ‘Dear Eve, you're crying too.'

‘I can't help it.' She heard Eve blowing her nose loudly. ‘It's catching.' And then, crossly, ‘You know, this would be
so
much easier in Oxford.'

‘I know.' Elizabeth pressed the palm of one hand over her hot eyes. ‘That's just the point. I need … to get a grip. I can't bear being like this.' Self-pity welled up inside her. ‘Burdening you.'

‘Darling Liz. You're not a burden, never …'

‘I've decided to finish with Marius. No going back this time.' There, she'd said it. She'd said it, so it must be true. ‘At least,' she added, knowing it was more truthful, ‘I've told him I can't see him again.'

She could sense Eve trying to gauge the temperature from the other end of the telephone. But when she spoke, the relief in her voice was palpable.

‘You've dumped him? Oh, well done. Well
done
, Lizzie.' And then: ‘For good this time?'

‘Oh yes, this time for good.'

‘So, where are you anyway? Your hotel, I mean. I presume you are staying in a hotel?'

‘Well actually …' Elizabeth looked round her. The truth was that she had no idea what the hotel was called. A taxi had brought her here late last night. There was a bed; it was clean. She had been beyond asking questions. ‘I'm in room 312.' The number was on the base of an old-fashioned Bakelite telephone by her bed. ‘And here's the number.' She read it out.

Eve seemed satisfied. ‘How long are you going to stay?'

‘Not sure.' Elizabeth shrugged. ‘As long as it takes.'

‘To delete Marius?'

‘Yes.' Elizabeth laughed. ‘But I'm going to do some work too. When I told my supervisor about the fragment she suggested I apply to look in the archives here, so I thought I might as well get on with it.' Anything not to be in Oxford, not to be tempted into forgiveness. ‘Dr Alis agrees with me that the other half of Celia Lamprey's narrative must be somewhere, and I've a hunch it might be here. Do you remember Berin Metin?'

‘From the exchange programme?'

‘Yes. Well, I called her after … yesterday afternoon, and she's said she can fix me with a reader's ticket at the Bosphorous University here. They have an English library, so I can get on
with my research while I wait for permission to come through to look in the archives.'

After she had put down the phone to Eve, Elizabeth lay back down on the bed. It was still early: seven o'clock in the morning Istanbul time, only five o'clock English time, she realised. Poor Eve.

Her room was large, but very plain. Twin beds with wrought iron bedsteads. An old-fashioned wardrobe. In the window there was a recessed area, like a little alcove, in which stood a plain deal table and chair. The floorboards, which listed slightly towards the front of the room, had been stained dark brown and were unadorned by rugs or kelims, even of the cheapest cotton kind. There was nothing whatever in the room to suggest that she was in Istanbul, or anywhere else for that matter.

Cautiously Elizabeth put her hand up to the wall. She shut her eyes and ran her fingers lightly along the plasterwork. But nothing. The place had the chaste, unadorned air of a convent dormitory. Or a ship.

Tomorrow I'll move, she thought to herself.

Elizabeth lay down on the bed again. From her shoulder bag she took out the notes she had made in the Oriental Reading Room:

… his daughter, for all that the nuns entreated her nay, swiftly unbarred the Cabbin doore and ran out from her hiding place and cried out stop stop take me but spare my poor father I beseech you, and seeing that her father had six or seven bleeding wounds upon him she fell down on her knees, her face white as death, and did entreate the Turkes again that they would take her but save his life. Whereupon the Captayn of the Turkes did straight away pinyon her, and in the heat of bloud in front of her verie eyes did runne her father in the side with a Culaxee, and bore him up against the Steerage doore, cutting him cleane through his body—

Celia. Poor Celia.

Still holding the paper to her breast, Elizabeth fell into a dreamless sleep.

Ayshe, the Valide's handmaid, found Kaya beside the fountain in the Courtyard of the Favourites.

‘She wants to see you.'

In the House of Felicity, no one, not even the newest recruits, needed to be told who ‘she' was.

‘Now?'

‘Yes, come with me. Quickly – but don't run.' Ayshe put a warning hand on the girl's arm. ‘They don't like it if you run.'

‘Don't fuss – there's no one to see us here.'

The general annual exodus to the Valide's summer palace on the Bosphorous, where everyone except a handful of the very youngest
kislar
, and the oldest servants, were still lodged, had given the outer reaches of the Sultan's harem an echoing, holiday feel.

‘Haven't you learnt anything?' Ayshe said crossly. ‘
Someone
will see you. They always do.'

Ayshe led Kaya from the paved terrace with its fountain down a series of stone steps and through the palace garden: two small figures, scarlet and gold, flitting like dragonflies through the silent morning garden.

‘Are you staying here? Or will you go back with her, do you think?' Trying to match her pace to Ayshe's quick footsteps, Kaya stumbled behind her, and once nearly fell. ‘Don't walk so fast!'

‘Keep up, can't you. And patience – I'll tell you when we are inside.'

‘Patience! If you only knew … I swear to you, I'm sick to my stomach of being patient.'

At the garden walls they turned sharply to the left, making their way past the harem hospital and then through a second courtyard. Turning to the left once more they followed a steep flight of wooden steps which led into the rectangular paved courtyard at the heart of the women's quarters. There, in a small tiled vestibule at the end of the stone corridor which marked the entrance to the eunuchs' quarters, Ayshe came to a halt at last.

‘What now?'

‘We have to wait here.' Ayshe shrugged. ‘When she is ready she will send Gulbahar to get you.'

‘How long will that be?'

‘How should I know, goose,' Ayshe frowned. ‘An hour. Two hours.'

‘Two hours!'

‘Hush, will you!'

The two took up waiting positions, standing side by side with their backs against the wall. Kaya waited for the pounding in her heart to subside, clenched her now clammy hands, willing her jagged breath to return to normal.

There were few women around that morning. Two ancient black slaves, too decrepit and sleepy with age now to be included in any of the Valide's excursions, were sweeping the courtyard with bunches of old palm fronds.

‘On your way now – go.' Impatiently, Ayshe waved her hand at the two women. ‘The Valide is coming this way soon, and she does not want her eyes defiled by the sight of you hideous old crones.'

‘Yes,
kadin
…' The two slaves were already backing away, bowing respectfully. ‘Yes, my lady.'

Kaya glanced at her friend. ‘What harm were they doing?'

‘I just don't want us to be overheard, that's all. Not by anyone. And keep your voice down.' Ayshe spoke very softly. ‘I swear, she can hear everything.'

‘What does she want me for, do you know?' Kaya felt her stomach muscles tighten in apprehension.

‘As if you didn't know! Probably wants to know if you've … you know…' Ayshe put her hand to her mouth to conceal her sudden smile. ‘If you are still
gözde
. “In the Sultan's eye.”' She glanced slyly at her friend. ‘Are you?'

‘Oh, she'd know all right.'

‘Indeed she would,' Ayshe agreed tartly, ‘She probably watches it all herself …'

Kaya made an inarticulate sound.

‘Really. I mean it. There is nothing she doesn't make it her business to know.'

‘Yes, but no one actually
watches
,' Kaya glanced at her friend again. ‘They … they write it down in a book. I know,' she added, ‘Hassan Aga showed me.' There was a small silence. ‘And no, they haven't written me in there yet.'

For a moment the two stood together, not speaking, suddenly shy of one another. In the courtyard where the old women had been sweeping sunlight shifted slowly. Servants' voices, and the sound of water flushing across stone, carried from the women's hammam which gave on to one side of the courtyard. The same half-empty holiday feel affected even this, the very heart of the harem. Kaya, unused to these long watches, swayed uncomfortably, lifting her little feet slightly one after another in their soft kid boots.

‘How much longer? My back hurts.'

‘Patience, goose …'

‘You've said that before …'

‘And don't sway, for pity's sake, she hates that. Stand still, can't you?'

Another silence.

‘I miss you Annetta.'

‘And I you, Celia.'

In the courtyard a trickle of water flowed slowly from the doorway of the hammam on to the hot stone.

‘Don't cry, goose.'

‘Me? I never cry.'

‘You'll make your nose red.'

‘He said that, do you remember? The day we were sold.'

‘Yes. I remember.'

How could she not? Celia thought back to that day when they had first arrived at the House of Felicity. After the shipwreck – how long had it been? two summers now, by her reckoning – there had been a long journey, an even longer sojourn with the slave mistress in Constantinople, and then one day, just a few months ago, with no
warning at all a litter borne by eunuchs had arrived, and the two of them had been put in it, and brought here to the palace. A great lady had bought them as a gift for the Sultan's mother, they had been told. They were no longer Celia and Annetta, but Kaya and Ayshe; but beyond that no one thought to tell them anything of what lay ahead.

Celia remembered the sickening sway of the litter as they made their way through the city, and how at last they had passed through a brass-studded door, bigger and more doleful than any she had seen in her life. It was so dark inside that at first they could hardly see. She remembered instead her sense of dread as the eunuchs brought them down from the litter, and then her own voice crying out –
Paul, oh Paul
! – as the door ground shut behind them.

A sudden flurry and a clapping of wings as two pigeons came to roost on the sloping roof above them made both girls start.

‘Annetta?'

‘What?'

‘Do you think we'll ever forget? Forget our real names, I mean. I asked Gulbahar once, and she said she couldn't remember hers.'

‘But she was only six when she came here. Of course we'll remember. We'll remember everything.' Annetta's eyes narrowed. ‘How could we forget?'

‘And you do want to, don't you?'

‘Of course I do, goose!' There was a short silence. ‘But we're here now, and we must make what we can of it. You know, Celia, perhaps it would be better if …' Annetta stiffened suddenly, ‘shh!'

‘I can't hear anything.'

‘Gulbahar's coming.'

‘But how … ?'

‘I watch her, it's how she does it,' Annetta's voice was barely a breath in Celia's ear. ‘But never mind that now: just listen. Whatever you do, try not to say too much. She'll use everything you tell her,
capito
? And I mean everything. But she doesn't want a milksop either. And whatever you do, don't try to play the fool.' Her dark eyes darted to the door and back. Celia stood beside her, deathly still now, a pulse, like the small quick beating of a frightened bird, in the skin behind her ear. ‘Mark this, Celia: something has happened—'