The Laughter of Carthage (4 page)

‘And you still did not suspect her?’

‘At the time, it did not even occur to me.’

Leda now wore an expression which was new to me, a mixture of moral urgency and depravity suggesting I was right to believe her mad. Thus, I became willing, more than ever, to humour her. ‘Then that was how they knew where to find me,’ I said wonderingly.

‘Exactly! She’s a second-rate juvenile Mata Hari. She’s probably been working as an agent for years. She pretends to innocent vulnerability. It’s her best disguise. I’ll admit she hoodwinked me at first. But when I saw last night how shocked you were, I put two and two together.’

I was not convinced the Baroness completely believed this rationale herself. But a Russian who finds a rationale is, as we say, already well on the way to action. She could now explain everything within the context of my having been deceived. She had named an appropriate villain. Since Leda did not want to part from me, Esmé must become the monster which, only yesterday, I had been.

‘I shall have to be careful,’ I murmured, ‘if I am to escape from her.’

‘You must go immediately to the British. They will want to know about the rebels. I doubt they trust the Sultan for accurate information. And half the present government are Young Turks already favouring the Nationalists. Still others are in French and Italian pay. I have all this on good authority. You should get down to the harbour tomorrow, see if the
Rio Cruz
has left, or when she is due back. Captain Monier-Williams will put you in touch with the right people.’

Leda had forgotten our ship had been on her last voyage in these waters. The
Rio Cruz
was gone for good. But again I said nothing. The poor creature was half crazy, largely I suspect from lack of sleep and cocaine withdrawal, since I had not been supplying her. The Baroness frowned to herself. She had eaten hardly any of her food. ‘Did Mrs Cornelius know what was going on with that girl?’ She seemed to have a list of questions already prepared in her head.

‘A little. She, too, tried to warn me.’

The Baroness uttered a superior sigh. ‘Oh, Simka. You’re only a boy. You’ve been led astray so terribly. How could you allow her to do it?’

‘She reminds me of Esmé Loukianoff, the girl I was due to marry.’

From her beaded handbag Leda took a scented handkerchief and placed the tip of it against her eyes. ‘You are too romantic for your own good, my dear. But look where it has led you. She asked for your “protection” I suppose, wanted to be introduced to influential people?’

‘She had nothing, you see.’

‘Nothing!’ The Baroness laughed. ‘She probably earns more than the Sultan himself, selling our secrets to her masters in Ankara. That was why she tried to trick me, when she thought you trapped and gone for good. She needed to get to Count Siniutkin. She might even have succeeded. The poor man has disappeared completely.’

‘So I gather.’ Mention of the Count’s name made me turn suddenly, as if he might be standing behind me. Instead, near the bar, deep in conversation with a French officer, I observed the slight, dapper figure of Bimbashi Hakir. The Turk stared distantly back at me for a moment, then resumed talking. I became genuinely anxious, realising that not all the gang had been rounded up. They would know who had accused them and were bound to be vengeful, ‘It doesn’t feel safe here,’ I told Leda. ‘Let’s go to my little apartment for a while. We can say more where there’s less chance of being overheard.’

Without hesitation, she agreed. I paid our bill and we inched our way clear of the restaurant into the relatively cool air of the Grande Rue. A procession of closed horsedrawn carriages was going by. It filled the street. On both sides of it were Turkish soldiers in ceremonial dress. This mysterious caravan disappeared down near the Galata Tower and, as if they had been held by an invisible dam, the ordinary trams, donkey carts, motor cars and horses suddenly flooded back. The glare of gas and electricity, the wailing, horrible music, the lurid signs and the constant whining of beggars made me feel suddenly nostalgic. I could understand Esmé’s reluctance to leave this city of her upbringing. I should have been glad to stay here at my own convenience and was determined to return one day, when the Turks were gone and Greeks or Russians ruled. A restored Orthodox Church would bring pilgrims from all over the world. But would the new order diminish Constantinople’s oriental excitement?

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 countries 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.’