The Snake Stone (37 page)

M
ILLINGEN
placed the coin on the desk with a loud click.

Their eyes met.

“Lefèvre is dead,” Millingen said. He was watching Yashim now, trying to gauge the effect of his words.

Yashim nodded slowly. “It wouldn’t be the first time, would it? Lefèvre, dead.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Come on, Dr. Millingen.” Yashim frowned impatiently. “It’s a question of identity, that’s all. He told me that himself.”

“He told you—what?” Millingen’s tone was scornful.

“Byzantium. Constantinople. Istanbul. They’re all real names. All real places. Lefèvre was fascinated by them, too: three identities, woven into one—just like the snakes in the column, on the Hippodrome. They are all the same place, of course. Just as Meyer and Lefèvre are the same man.”

Millingen made a gesture of impatience. “I don’t go in for metaphysics, efendi. I’m a doctor—and I know a dead man when I see one, too.”

“That body, in the embassy,” Yashim said mildly, “was certainly dead. It just wasn’t who we thought. It wasn’t Lefèvre at all.” He cocked his head. “Who was it, Dr. Millingen? I’m very curious. Was it a corpse you procured for the occasion? Or just a hapless bag-carrier, in the wrong place, at the wrong time?”

Millingen began to tap his finger on the coin.

“Well, it’s not the most important thing now,” Yashim said peaceably. “You were happy to let the world believe that Lefèvre was dead.” He looked up and smiled. “You thought the Mavrogordatos would be satisfied, I suppose. Is that what he hoped, too?”

Millingen bent his head and frowned at a corner of his desk, but he did not open his mouth.

“But he couldn’t count on your help, could he? Not after Missilonghi. So he did the trade: his life for the relics. The last, lost treasure of Byzantium, spirited away by a priest at the altar as the Ottomans invaded the Great Church. A chalice and plate—if they still existed. And the collector in you couldn’t turn him down.”

Dr. Millingen leaned his elbow on the desk and shaded his eyes.

“Some people think,” he said slowly, and there was a tremble in his voice, “that it was the Holy Grail.”

Yashim looked at him in silence. “You’ve kept him hidden,” he said at last. “In the port, perhaps.”

Millingen heaved his shoulders, shrugging.

Yashim frowned. “He hid the book at my apartment. There’s not much trust between you, is there?”

Millingen gave a scornful bark. “Only a fool would trust a man like Meyer,” he said.

“Amélie did.” Even as he spoke, Yashim remembered the three snakes. The three cities. Meyer. Lefèvre. And a dead man.

But Lefèvre was not dead. He was still alive. He had one identity that was not fulfilled. One skin he hadn’t cast.

“You both needed someone to carry out the plan.”

“That was his idea,” Millingen said, dragging his palms down the side of his face. “He wouldn’t trust me. And I couldn’t let him go. He left the book with you, and sent for his wife.”

Yashim bent forward and leaned his palms on the edge of Millingen’s desk.

“What was your deal, Dr. Millingen? Why is Amélie going home alone?” His legs felt weak. “Because she failed?”

Millingen nodded gently. “I’m afraid, Yashim efendi, that Dr. Lefèvre has died, after all.” His voice sounded ragged and old.

Yashim flushed with sudden anger. “I don’t think so, Dr. Millingen. This time he can’t run away from who he is. Madame Lefèvre has something else to sell.”

He knelt on the ground and unlaced the bag.

Millingen leaned forward. Yashim brought up something wrapped in a cloth and laid it on the far side of the desk. It was about two feet long, and it sounded heavy.

Yashim put a hand on top of the object. “I hope you understand me, Dr. Millingen. Madame Lefèvre risked her life. I don’t think she should have to go away alone.”

Millingen’s eyes were like gimlets.

Yashim flicked the cloth open.

Millingen started back, as if he’d been stung. He glanced up into Yashim’s face, then back into the deep-set eyes and the cold frown.

“The Serpent of Delphi,” he said. “I don’t—where did you get this?”

“I can’t say where,” Yashim said. “But I’ll tell you why. Madame Mavrogordato never tried to kill Lefèvre.”

“But that’s not true! Her people simply got the wrong man, as you say, and—”

“No, Dr. Millingen,” Yashim said softly. “That’s your mistake. Madame Mavrogordato never quite found out who, exactly, Lefèvre was. She suspected, but she wasn’t sure.”

Millingen frowned. “Then who was trying to kill him?”

“Let’s just say he trod on a serpent’s tail,” Yashim said, “and it bit back.”

Millingen threw up his hands.

Yashim looked at the snake’s head.

“I am giving you this for two passages on the
Ulysse
, to France.” He blinked. “Dr. Lefèvre goes home, with his wife.”

I
T
took Yashim less than ten minutes to reach the theater, but he was aware as he arrived that he had traveled farther than he knew. A crowd had gathered on the street outside—the same crowd, he noticed with amusement, that turned out for street brawls, house fires, or public executions: the usual Greeks craning their necks for a better view, and the customary Turks in fezzes standing gravely with their hands by their sides; foreign loafers in tall black hats, who ran their fingers hopefully through their pockets, exchanged glances with busy-looking madrassa students in turbans, who had come to protest and had been intimidated by the nature and variety of the crowd. Much of the movement in the crowd was supplied by foreign ships’ crews, who seemed to haul themselves in toward the main gate by invisible warps. One knot of sailors Yashim recognized by their curious brimless caps, embroidered in gold with the word
Ulysse
.

Yashim worked his way slowly and unobtrusively forward in their wake until he reached the gate itself, where tickets were being sold in an atmosphere of ribald misunderstanding. A small, preternaturally wizened old man in a small turban was carefully examining the money people thrust toward him, with the help of Mina, whom Yashim recognized, leaning over the old man, volubly judging the quality of the coin by her interest in the faces of the men who tendered it. It looked like a full house.

Yashim found Preen backstage with beads of sweat on her forehead, pounding the air and talking very fast to a small, fat man wearing the biggest turban Yashim had ever seen. She caught sight of Yashim and stayed him with a gesture, still talking anxiously to the fat man, whose eyes appeared to be closed.

At last the fat man nodded solemnly, his whole turban tilting to and fro like a shipwreck, and withdrew.

“Chaos!” Preen muttered. “Pandemonium!” She smiled suddenly. “Always a good sign, Yashim. Where have you been?”

Yashim murmured a reply, then stepped back to allow a woman in European dress with a monkey on her shoulder to address Preen in a low, urgent voice. Preen gave her some brisk assurance, then wheeled to face a deputation of musicians, who were complaining that they didn’t have space to perform. Mina came in, looking flushed and triumphant, and whispered something in Preen’s ear. Preen nodded absently. Mina waved at Yashim.

Yashim took a seat at a café table to watch the performance. It was vulgar, loud, and a great success. The lady ventriloquist and her monkey; a snake charmer; an extravagantly pretty girl dressed as an odalisque, who sang and danced and, later, reappeared to be sawn in half by a Russian magician; interspersed with several interesting tableaux vivants—a Frankish home, a wolf hunt in the Carpathians, and an assignation in a Persian garden, in which scene the lady seemed to be represented by a small jeweled slipper. In the meantime the audience was served with coffee, tea, sherbet, and chibouques by slim, pantalooned dancers, and everyone talked nonstop, between applause.

Halfway through the second act, Preen slid gracefully into the seat beside Yashim. She put an elbow on the café table and spoke into her hand.

“Small world,” she said. “Your friend Alexander Mavrogordato just arrived.”

Yashim suppressed the urge to turn around. “Alone?”

“He’s with a man. A Frank. Older, short. Smoking a little cigar.”

Yashim exhaled slowly through his teeth. Onstage, a drowsy cobra was rising slowly from a basket while an Indian blew at it through a little pipe. The snake turned its head to follow the music. The Indian danced gravely around the basket. Yashim turned in his chair and saw Alexander Mavrogordato and Maximilien Lefèvre, né Meyer, watching the performance without speaking.

Lefèvre’s eyes slid toward him.

The cobra’s head was now lifted high out of the basket, swaying on its thick, undulating body. Behind its head, the hood flattened and widened.

Lefèvre and Yashim looked at one another. Without smiling, the Frenchman nodded and made a slight gesture of salute with his cigar.

Yashim shook his head. Then he blinked and turned his attention to the stage.

The charmer and the snake were now moving together; as the Indian swayed backward, the cobra leaned out toward him, its little tongue flicking in and out. The Indian slowly put out his hand, palm down, until the tips of his fingers were just below the cobra’s throat. Very gradually, to the soft notes of the pipe, the cobra laid his head on the man’s fingers.

Yashim watched in disgust as the man’s hand turned slowly black: the cobra was rippling forward onto the man’s wrist, its hood over his hand, slowly advancing out of its basket and up the extended arm, oozing upward from the basket to the charmer’s shoulder. The Indian continued to play his pipe with one hand, keeping his arm very still until the entire snake had ranged itself along the thickness of his arm. He turned and faced the crowd. There was a gasp as the snake’s head appeared over the charmer’s head and reared up, spreading its hood like a pagan crown.

The man and his snake did a little tour of the stage, bowing together; then the man reached up and took hold of the cobra by its head and slipped it back into the basket, clapping on the lid. The audience broke into applause.

“Come on, Yashim,” Preen said, nudging him with her elbow. “It’s only a snake. You look as though you’d seen a ghost.”

T
HE
ship’s bell clanked, and a squad of smartly dressed sailors stood to attention on the foredeck, apparently none the worse for their foray into Pera the night before. A belch of black soot drifted from the single stack; it drifted up through the furled shrouds and spars of the main-mast, and slowly vanished into the blue sky.

A fat coachman brought an elegant black-lacquered barouche to a stop on the cobbles. He held the reins firmly in his hand and turned his head to look at the
Ulysse
. No one got out.

At the foot of the gangplank a uniformed sailor exchanged glances with two other men, in singlets, waiting on deck.

Amélie Lefèvre put out her hand. “Goodbye, ambassador.”

Palewski took her hand and stooped over it. “Goodbye, madame.” He nodded to Lefèvre. “Doctor.”

Now she was looking at Yashim. There was a strange, almost dull, look in her eyes. The sun was in her hair, turning her ringlets to fire. She did not offer him her hand; instead, she placed it on her heart.

“The sultan, Yashim,” she said. “And the poet. I shan’t forget.”

Yashim smiled sadly. “Perhaps.”

Lefèvre, he noticed, was glancing nervously around the quay. The gangplank screeched as the
Ulysse
rolled lightly in the current.

“I will remember your courage,” Yashim added.

“My courage,” Amélie repeated tonelessly. “But I believed in the relics, you see. I thought the myth was real.”

Dr. Lefèvre took her elbow. He leaned slightly forward to catch Yashim’s eye; then he raised his cheroot and pointed it at him. “Pah!” He made a soft explosive sound with his lips and smiled crookedly. It seemed like a private joke.

Yashim stepped back and frowned.

Palewski raised his eyebrows and glanced at Yashim.

The uniformed sailor put out a protective arm to usher the couple onto the gangplank.

“Faites attention, monsieur ’dame,”
he murmured.

Halfway up the gangplank, Amélie had not looked back. Lefèvre was slightly ahead of her, his hand beneath her elbow, turning a little, when it all happened.

Perhaps it was the movement of the ship, perhaps the slippers—the slippers that Millingen had bought for her, with their pointed ends. Amélie stumbled. She pitched sideways, stretching out her arms, clutching at her husband for support.

By then it was already too late. With a sudden cry of alarm, Dr. Lefèvre flailed his arms through the air, and then he was gone.

Yashim sprang forward. For a second he saw it all frozen, like a tableau at the theater: Amélie on her knees on the gangplank, staring down; the officer on the quay turning, almost crouched, with horror; the two sailors on the deck leaning over the rail, their heads together.

Then he heard Amélie’s sob, and the officer was at her side; one of the sailors was shouting something over his shoulder and the other was dropping a rope into the narrow gap between the ship and the quay.

Yashim glanced down. Palewski was at his shoulder, and Yashim heard him murmur: “I just don’t believe it.”

He raised his head. The officer was helping Amélie to her feet, urging her gently up the gangplank. A band of sailors with crowbars in their hands were at the top, waiting to come down.

“Please, madame! Please, just come this way!”

The sailors streamed down the gangplank. They set their muscled arms against the wooden walls of the ship, planted their feet on the quay, and began to heave.

“Loose the stern warps! Give us room!” There were shouts, more orders; other sailors appeared. A man began to slide down a rope with bare feet.

Amélie, sagging on the officer’s arm, passed the ship’s rail and turned her head. Yashim felt her glance sweep over him to fix on something farther away, and he was about to glance around when Amélie gave a curious little jerk of her head. She was standing against the sun; he blinked, dazzled: for a moment it had looked as though she had smiled. When he next saw clearly, the officer was coaxing her onto the ship and in a few seconds she had disappeared from sight.

Yashim heard a sharp crack behind him, and turned to see the barouche start off. He thought he recognized a face at the window, the face of a woman with strong, dark brows; but it was only a fleeting glimpse, and he could not be sure.

Palewski took him by the elbow. “How did it happen?” he said, aghast.

Yashim began walking slowly in the carriage’s wake. After a few moments he raised his head and spoke to the air.

“Madame Lefèvre thought the myth was real,” he said. Then he nodded sadly and turned to his friend. “Until she discovered that the reality was a myth.”

Palewski looked searchingly into Yashim’s face. “It wasn’t an accident, was it? She pushed him in.”

Yashim bit his lip. “Let’s just say that Madame Lefèvre was a very determined woman.”

And he began to walk again, uphill through the dusty streets of Pera.