The Baklava Club: A Novel (Investigator Yashim) (31 page)

Two hands on the bar, he hauled again. Something like air entered his lungs: he no longer cared if it was fetid and dank. He sucked at it greedily. His eyesight cleared. The crowd surged against his legs, pinning them to the bars, but he was climbing, slithering out of that mass of suffocating men. His chest free, he breathed again, kicked with his legs like a swimmer surfacing in the water, and burst out, clinging to the top of the bars. Two shifts of his hold brought him to the ledge.

Now he could reach down and take Giancarlo’s arm, wrist to wrist. The angle was wrong—Giancarlo had been squeezed into a sideways position, his back to Yashim, his other arm pinioned to the bars—and Yashim could feel the tendons in his neck about to burst as he hauled against the press of the crowd. But Giancarlo had his free hand on the bars and with another lunge he inched out of the scrum.

Fingers snaked around Yashim’s ankles, grabbing at the folds of his cloak; he hooked an arm through the bars and resisted their pull, but somebody yanked at his leg and he almost toppled, losing his grip on Giancarlo, who swayed and crashed backward onto the heads of the crowd. Yashim reached out, but it was too late. Giancarlo squirmed for a moment on the shoulders of the men, and then began to sink, headfirst, a slow drowning in a sea of people.

Yet even as Giancarlo slithered beneath the frantic, howling heads, the crowd had begun to relax. It expanded, like a new breath. Perhaps, seeing Yashim rise by the bars, the people shoving from the back had begun to fall away: the surge weakened, the third line reeled back, the second staggered, and what was left of the first, crushed up against the bars, began to breathe.

Giancarlo was crawling on the floor, hacking for breath; bodies lay in two heaps, trampled and suffocated in that terrible small space, and men sprawled by the gate who, Yashim saw, would be meeting a different judge.

Yashim lowered himself slowly from the ledge. His legs shook and he could barely stand. At the far end of the corridor the turnkey was at the door, shouting for help; after a moment he went out, slamming the door behind him.

The light went with him, and with it new sounds arose in the dark: the wail of abandoned men, groans of pain, the rasp of breath. The walls absorbed them. Yashim could imagine, along the vaults, through the corridors, around and around the twisting stairs, the sounds being gradually, blandly, inexorably retuned to the soughing and sighing of this thousand-year-old prison.

For a long time he held the bars between his hands. Someone bumped into him: he shrank like a cat. At last he heard the tramp of feet, the key grated in the lock, and half a dozen men surged into the corridor.

A horrid fear arose in Yashim’s mind—that the turnkey who had let him in would not come back, that his pleas would be dismissed and he would stay down here for days, months, never called out, never recognized, forgotten forever and lost to all his friends.

His hand raced to the pocket where he had tucked the
kadi
’s note, and when he felt its outline and the crack of the paper, he almost sobbed with relief. A light was thrust at him, and he blinked.

“There are five injured men, maybe more,” he said slowly. “Open this gate.”

For a moment he was afraid that the man had not heard him. He saw the key and heard it rattle in the lock. The jailers stood in a line, protecting the door and tapping their staves in their palms.

“Like a pack of rats.” One of them chuckled.

Yashim swept through the gate and stabbed a finger toward the cell. “That man, there. Bring him out.”

The jailer went inside. He took Giancarlo by the arm, and looked around at the bodies on the floor.

“I’m taking this man into my custody, at the
kadi
’s direction.” Yashim waved the paper. “You will see that the cells are cleaned. The men need fresh water.” It was too much to ask for air.

The turnkeys were too astonished to protest when Yashim pushed Giancarlo ahead of him and out the door. One of them followed with the keys, to lock them through.

The two men stood breathing heavily. The sun was sinking over the Prince’s Islands, the first inklings of darkness creeping eastward across the Black Sea. Though it was not yet cold, Yashim shivered in the light evening breeze. Summer was over.

70

T
HE
café owner swept the damp coffee grounds into a bucket, shook out his rag, and glanced again at the man huddled in the corner. It was the second time he’d been in that day, but compared with his first visit, he was almost another man. He might not have recognized him, even, except for his Frankish clothes. The café didn’t see many Franks. If all Franks were like this one, an army of them wouldn’t make him rich.

He dropped the coffee into the copper pot and set it on the coals. He always did that, letting the grounds warm up before he poured the kettle. He poured it now and stood stirring the pot with a long spoon.

After a while he took down a small china cup and spooned in the sugar the way the Frank wanted it, very sweet. The pot began to prickle. He raised it from the coals by its long handle and settled it back. Back and forth, back and forth. A lot of trouble for a stranger, but the café owner was a kindhearted man.

Kindhearted enough to stand patiently by while the man mimed his desire for paper and pen. The café owner even found a boy to act as messenger. The Catholic house? In Bebek; he could ask for directions when he got there.

The sad Frank opened his purse, and the café owner picked out the coins himself, so much for the refreshment, so much for the boy. The café owner supposed it was a matter of the heart, but perhaps it was family, when you needed a priest.

71

“G
IANCARLO?
What the devil’s happened to you? Yashim?”

Palewski peered at them both.

“Marta!”

But she was already there. “I have put warm water in the room upstairs. You, follow me.”

The young Italian! Always wasting her master’s time, bringing him drink when he should work, with that pale voluptuous woman who drank like a man and had white hair, like death. And now he’d been in a fight. She gave him a salve for his bloody lip, and helped to sponge his swollen eye, though he yelped.

“Tsk, tsk. Perhaps next time you’ll think twice, before you tangle with Istanbullu!”

Yashim was down first. He’d used Palewski’s cologne, but it would take a trip to the baths to eradicate the underlying smell of jail.

“You smell like a Neapolitan tart, Yashim.”

“Please, don’t reminisce.”

“As you know, it’s not my style. Drink?”

But Yashim only wanted tea.

“I’ll have one for you, then. Cupboard on the left.”

Yashim passed him a brandy. “You were reminiscing just the other day, telling Natasha about Moscow.”

“That was different.”

“But what was it you said? About dispatches?”

“You won’t catch me that easily, Yashim.”

“No, no.” Yashim shook his head wearily. “Something about betrayal.”

“The end of the Russian campaign, when I rode with dispatches to Moscow. Staff job. Whole city in flames, you’ve heard about it. Spent half the night looking for the right man to give the letters to—until the seal broke. Wax pretty much slid off in that heat. Couldn’t help seeing that they contained details of our strengths and the amiable suggestion that the bearer be shot. One scar I don’t carry on the outside.”

Yashim was silent, thinking.

“I can tell it again if you like, with more brio.”

“No. That’s all. I wonder if we’re dealing with the same thing—running someone’s head into a noose. Betrayal by letter. Well, here’s our man.”

Giancarlo came in slowly. His fair hair was clean and both eyes were open, but he looked haggard.

Palewski handed the young man a glass.

Giancarlo tipped back the brandy, and closed his eyes. “Birgit,” he murmured. “I just can’t understand it. She had no enemies. Only friends. Everyone liked her.”

“Maybe it was her friends that got her killed?” Yashim paused. “Tell me about La Piuma.”

“La Piuma?” Giancarlo took a deep breath. “It means—the feather. It’s a code name.”

“Code for what?”

“La Piuma is our commander. He gives us our orders and takes care of our needs. He sent us a warning in Italy, before we could be arrested. We received a note at the apartment we used in Rome, and it was raided moments after we’d left. Later he suggested we come here, to Istanbul.”

“You know him well?”

“No.” Giancarlo looked surprised. “I’ve never seen him. I don’t know his real name, either. Of course not.”

“Of course not?”

“Don’t you know how a revolutionary cell operates? Two or three agents who can trust one another, work together. Each cell is a complete unit with no traceable connection to the organization. Even we don’t know who our commander is. If we’re taken and questioned, even under torture, we won’t give anyone away because we can’t.”

“You can betray your friends. Your fellow members of the cell.”

“And that’s as far as it can go.”

“Did Birgit betray you?”

“Birgit?” The question seemed to take him by surprise. “But she’s not in the cell.” A little color flushed into Giancarlo’s bruised face. “I mean, she wasn’t. Never.”

“I see.” Yashim’s expression hardened. “And her killer would know that, would he? By some sort of secret sign, maybe?”

The knuckles on Giancarlo’s hand whitened against the arm of his chair. “No—I mean—”

“She was with you, of course, but she couldn’t betray you. She didn’t know anything. She wasn’t in the
cell
.”

“Oh my God.”

There was a silence.

“Has La Piuma communicated since you arrived?”

Giancarlo thrust his hands in his pockets and put on such an obtuse expression that Yashim had an urge to go and find the
kadi
, and return him to jail.

“I see you can’t betray La Piuma,” Yashim explained patiently. “None of you know who he is. But while
you
can’t betray
him
—do you see? He can betray
you
.”

Giancarlo’s eyes flickered from Yashim to Palewski, but he said nothing.

“My friend here, the ambassador, is an old hand at exile.” Yashim stood up. “He pines for a nation that no longer exists—on the map. He has found an honorable way of fighting for his country, in ways you’d understand—charging the enemy on the battlefield, standing his ground while his comrades fall, believing in the promises of great men.”

He held up his hand. “Forgive me, my friend, and let me speak.

“One word—one sentence—and he could go home. His estates, his horses, his houses, his hounds—he could have them all, if he would only recant. He could shoot duck again on the Podolian Lakes.”

“Oh, Yashim.” Palewski was frowning, waving his glass. Giancarlo looked uncomfortable.

“But he won’t, because he believes in something. You believe in a place for your people? Palewski works for it every day. His dignity is Poland’s, and he does it by the law, holding to the law—because it is justice, in the end, which defines the civilized man. Whatever it costs him, whatever he is forced to endure away from his home, there’s a single belief that drives him on.

“One day, Giancarlo, he will win. I daresay he’ll be dead, we’ll all be dead. But no one will have died to protect Palewski. No one betrayed—or even misled. And no one, Giancarlo, will have been left to face death alone in the night, in a foreign city, for a cause that isn’t theirs. For a man whose name they don’t even know. For a secret message they couldn’t even understand. The Baklava Club.”

Giancarlo was slumped in the arms of his chair.

“What was La Piuma’s message? I think I can guess. He told you to intercept Prince Czartoryski.”

Giancarlo tossed his head aside as if he had been struck.

“Czartoryski is a friend of the ambassador. He is, if you don’t realize this yet, the leader of the Polish cause, and the man the autocrats of Europe most fear. The Habsburgs are afraid of him, as is your friend, the Pope. And even the Russian tsar.”

Giancarlo’s expression was wild: “Then who in the name of Christ is La Piuma?”

“Anyone. Don’t you see—he could be anyone, who writes notes in Latin, and knows that you’re in Istanbul? Someone who’d do anything to destroy you, and Czartoryski, and anyone else who opposes the existing regimes.”

“Who?”

But Yashim shook his head.

“You even killed the man who was following you, didn’t you?”

Giancarlo was on his feet. “We didn’t kill anyone!”

Yashim leveled a finger. “Then tell me in the name of God what you have done with the prince!”

They stood glaring at each other, Giancarlo turning pale and red by turns, Yashim crushing his fingers into a fist.

“Gentlemen—” Palewski began.

And then the door crashed open, and Natasha stood swaying, her hair disheveled, blood trickling from her lip.

She took a step into the room.

“Thank God!” she cried. “Yashim!”

72

Y
ASHIM
caught her as she took another step and stumbled into his arms. Her arms slid around his neck and her scent was on his lips and he swept her up and carried her to the armchair.

“Brandy!”

Palewski handed him the bottle.

“Natasha! Natasha.” Yashim stroked the hair from her face. He glanced up. “Marta! Where’s Marta!”

“I’ll call her.” Giancarlo ran out to the landing. “Marta!”

Yashim put the brandy to her lips. She gasped, and her head rolled back, and the corners of her mouth turned down.

“Oh, Yashim.” She buried her face against his neck, her shoulders trembling and shaking. “Hold me! Tighter.”

Yashim squeezed her, feeling her chest flutter. She lifted her face, with bloody lips searching for his and he kissed her, tasting the iron of her blood and the salt of her tears. “Natasha.”

Then Marta was there, bringing hot towels, bathing the cuts on the Russian girl’s face, rubbing her wrists with Palewski’s cologne.

Yashim stood back, to give her room, and noticed Palewski looking at him curiously.