Istanbul (16 page)

He stared at her. She stared right back.

‘You would spy for us instead?’

She nodded.

‘How?’

‘He leaves papers lying around. I’ve seen them. Official papers.’

‘Do you read German?’

‘Of course. But I could copy them for you.’

‘No. We’d have to get you a camera.’

‘I will leave that to you. You must tell me how it can be done. Remember, it must seem to him that I am really spying on you, so you must give me something I can take back to him.’ She finished her drink. ‘I have to go now. We’ll talk soon.’

And she leaned forward and kissed him, left him with the taste of her lips and the rich scent of her perfume, aching for more.

The barman looked over at him; lucky Britisher bastard, he was thinking.

If only you knew, Nick thought. A dangerous game we are playing here. And I’m not sure I know all the rules.

CHAPTER 34

D
ear Nick

How are you? Bucharest seems like such as long time ago now.

England is very grim. There is still talk of an invasion and all the men not fit enough for the army are in the Home Guard and parade up and down the high street with ancient World War One rifles. Even Uncle Ernest has joined and he was too old for the last lot. I don’t think the Germans would have a chance if they landed here – they’d die laughing.

You would not recognise the boys, they have grown so much. James is already taller than I and doing very well at school. Richard has become quite a studious boy, if a little shy. I’m sure he’ll grow out of it.

The air raid sirens sound every night. Everywhere you go you see the rubble where houses have been bombed. We have our own shelter in the back garden and when the sirens go off, we rush out and climb in. There is a gas lamp in there so we can read and play games and it is quite cosy. The boys think it is all a huge lark. James wants the war to go on long enough so that he can be a fighter pilot one day.

Keep safe.

Jennifer.

They met again two nights later at Askatliyan’s. Once again she was late. He waited anxiously in the bar, and she finally appeared in a scarf and long overcoat, which she did not take off.

Nick guided her to a corner alcove, and handed her a gift-wrapped box. He took off the lid and showed her the
lokum
and other confectionery inside. ‘The camera’s under the top layer of the box,’ he said. ‘If he’s suspicious when you bring this home, you can show him there’s real sweets in there.’

‘Why would he be suspicious?’

‘You know how to use a camera?’ he said.

‘I can learn.’

‘You have to get the distance just right. Because of the focus.’

He sensed she was not listening to him. She looked at him over the rim of her glass of vermouth and the look on her face was almost savage in its intensity.

‘You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,’ he heard himself say. ‘When I’m with you, I can’t think of anything else.’

‘I’m not who you think I am.’

‘I don’t care.’

She leaned close to him and he could feel her breath on his cheek. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. He took her hand and led her out of the bar.

She stared out of the window at the mulberry sky, silhouetted against the dark grandeur of the Sülemaniye mosque on the other side of the Horn. The muezzin called the faithful to evening prayers.

He touched her shoulder. As she turned around and he saw the track of a single tear on her cheek.

‘I don’t know if we should do this,’ she said.

He took her face in his hands and kissed her on the lips.

Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.
God is great, God is great. Come to prayer.

He stroked her cheek. She took his hand in both her hands and kissed his fingers.

‘Don’t cry,’ he whispered.

He unfastened the buttons on her dress. He slipped it from her shoulders, felt the press of her delicate breasts against his hands. She was trembling.

His lips brushed her throat, breathed in the fragrance of her. He could feel her blood pulsing. ‘Daniela.’

She started to cry. Soon she was sobbing so hard her legs would not hold her and she slipped to the floor. He carried her to the bed and let her curl into him as she wept. He let her cry herself out, wondering at this beautiful and enigmatic creature who now threatened to turn his life upside-down.

Her eyes blinked open. ‘I’m sorry.’

How could she tell him? How tired she was of men using her, how disgusted she was at herself for all those nights she had given herself to faceless men in order to survive. Now here was a man she really liked and she couldn’t do with him what she did with all the others.

‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘Stay here for a while.’

‘I’ve disappointed you.’

He brushed a stray lock of hair from her face. ‘We don’t have to if you don’t want to.’

She kissed him, her face sticky with her dried tears, cupping his face in her hands. It was this intimacy that shocked her. so easy to let a man have your body and never once look in his eyes like this.

He whispered to her again how beautiful she was, and she ran her fingers through his hair and when he finally entered her, she did not take her eyes from his. They stayed that way for what seemed an eternity, not moving.

He had such sad eyes.

It was his gentleness that disarmed her. She murmured to him in her own language, words she knew he did not understand. It would make no difference anyway. They stayed still for a long time; he watched her and she watched him, their bodies hardly moving, until the waiting became unbearable. One almost imperceptible movement of her hips took him over the edge.

A guilty moment stolen from the gods. She was another man’s mistress; he was another woman’s husband.

She got out of bed and searched on the floor for her clothes. As he watched her prepare to leave, he reminded himself that this was just a moment’s madness, nothing more. But even as a part of him retreated from her, another wondered how he could persuade her to stay a little longer.

‘So what now?’ he said. He felt as if he had swallowed a stone.

‘Don’t expect anything straight away. I will have to wait for the right opportunity.’

‘I didn’t mean about the camera. I mean about us.’

She turned and gave him a bittersweet smile. ‘We’ll see each other again soon.’

‘How can I contact you?’

She rolled up her stockings. ‘You can’t. I will call you.’

She stood up and smoothed out her dress, then leaned over the bed and kissed him. ‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘Did I do that?’ He looked over his shoulder at the dresser mirror. Her fingernails had left deep scratches on his back. Not all their lovemaking had been tender.

She went out without another word. He picked up his shirt from the floor. It had her scent on it. He was missing her already.

CHAPTER 35

He had moved to an Ottoman rowhouse near the fruit market, among a warren of crumbling courtyards and narrow, cobbled streets. Wooden houses overhung the lanes, timbers blackened with age.

His own house was newer and better maintained, and its balcony overlooked the Horn and the Sülemaniye mosque. It was full of dark mahogany furniture and smelled of the strong Turkish tobacco the previous owner had favoured. There were crimson Bokhara rugs on the wooden floors, and the walls were hung with silk
kilims
.

It was a house of hidden alcoves and ledges, where his servant’s cats took up residence, always finding the sun at the right time of the day. There was a tiny rose garden at the back of the house with a single Judas tree. They said it was from a tree like this that Judas had hung himself after he received his thirty pieces of silver for betraying Christ.

A man with a conscience. He would have made a very bad spy.

It was a week after his assignation with Daniela at Askatliyan’s. The garden was surrounded by a high brick wall and he waited in the shadows by the back gate, He checked the luminous dial of his wristwatch; it was past ten o’clock.

There were no stars, a light rain was falling, murmuring on the leaves of the Judas tree. He heard the click of her heels in the alleyway outside. He unlocked the door in the wall and she slipped through.

They went through the French windows into his study. He had left a desk lamp on. He took her coat and hung it up by the door.

She held out a roll of film. He took it.

‘Wait here,’ he said. ‘Do you want a drink?’

She shook her head. She sat down, crossed her long legs; he heard the rustle of silk stockings. Maier was doing well by her.

He went down to the basement, where he had arranged a temporary dark room for one of the code clerks from the consulate. The man immediately went to work under the safe lights.

He felt a grim satisfaction at the double play; Daniela said that Maier was paying her well for the information Nick gave her.

The code clerk was a pale, bony young man called Sanderson; he opened the first tank, put the spool in the running basin and then into the fixing bath. He held one end of film against the viewing box. Nick could make out the typescript on the negatives, felt his heart race.

Sanderson put the strips in the washing tank and then pegged the wet films on the line, backlit by a hundred-watt bulb. Nick held the magnifying glass to the wet strip. He read, in German:

TOP SECRET. ABWEHR HQ BERLIN TO VON PAPEN, ANKARA.

‘Finish these,’ he said to Sanderson and went back upstairs to the study.

She was sitting in the winged armchair by the window across from the desk, her eyes closed. He thought she was asleep but as he walked in she looked up and smiled.

‘How did you do it?’ he said.

‘He left his trousers out for his valet to take to the laundry. His keys were in the pocket.’

‘You stole his keys? What if he finds out?’

‘He won’t. He trusts me. Besides, he thinks I’m spying on you.’

‘How did you do it?’

‘As soon as he went to the Embassy I opened the safe and took photographs of any papers I could find. Then I put the papers back in the safe the way I found them and then I put the keys back in his trousers for his valet to find. It was very simple.’

She sounded so confident; but then everyone was confident until things went wrong.

‘It makes me nervous.’

‘Really? It’s what you asked me to do. Was there anything in the film that might be important?’

‘Perhaps.’

She stood up and her eyes were liquid. ‘He’s not expecting me back until after midnight.’

‘You can stay?’ he whispered.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course.’

It was just before midnight that he walked her back through the garden. A sliver of moon appeared between a rent in the overcast, a cool wind rustled the leaves of the Judas tree.

‘Be careful,’ he whispered but she had already slipped away. Her perfume lingered for a moment. He locked the door and went back to work.

Maier was sitting up in bed waiting for her when she got back. The reading lamp was on. He looked up from the papers he was reading but he said nothing and she found his silence unnerving.

He watched her undress. She laid her dress neatly on a chair. ‘I thought you would be asleep.’

‘I decided to wait up for you.’

She could see the lights of the old city through the bedroom window. She wondered which light was his, for he would surely still be awake, studying the film. Don’t fall for him, she reminded herself. You are just a convenient affair, he would go back to his wife in England as soon as the war was over.

This was the problem with being a great actress: you might dazzle everyone with your charm and cleverness but in the end that’s what they fell in love with, not you. She did not even know what was real herself any more.

She turned away from the window, took off her underwear and got into bed.

He put down his papers and turned off the light. She tried to relax as she felt the hardness of his penis against her thigh. His hand moved to her breast.