Topkapi (5 page)

I took a sip of brandy. “Very well. I have had three convictions.”

“What for?”

“The charge in each case was representing myself as an official guide. In fact, all I did was to try to save one or two clients from those boring archaeological set speeches. The official guides have to learn them by heart before they can pass the examination. Tourists like to know what they are looking at, but they do not want to be bored.”

“What happened? Did you go to jail?”

“Of course not. I was fined.”

He nodded approvingly. “That was what Irma thought. Now you just keep on playing it straight like that and maybe we can keep the police out of this. Have you ever been jailed anywhere, to serve time, I mean?”

“I do not see why I should ...”

“Okay, skip it,” he broke in. “What about Turkey?”

“Turkey? Why do you ask?”

“Have you been there?”

“Yes.”

“Any police record there?”

“I was fined in Istanbul for showing some people round a museum.”

“Which museum?”

“The Topkapi.”

“Were you posing as an official guide that time?’

“Guides must be licensed there. I did not have a license.”

“Have you ever driven from here to Istanbul?”

“Is that a criminal offence?”

“Just answer. Have you?”

“Occasionally. Some tourists like to travel by road. Why?”

He did not answer. Instead, he took an envelope from the writing desk and began to scribble something in pencil. I desperately needed a cigarette, but was afraid to light one in case it might look as if I were no longer worried. I was worried, and confused, too; but I wanted to be sure I looked that way. I drank the brandy instead.

He finished his scribbling at last and looked up. “All right, Arthur. There’s a pad of plain paper there and a pen. I’m going to dictate. You start writing. No, don’t give me any arguments. Just do as I tell you.”

I was hopelessly bewildered now. I picked up the pen.

“Ready?”

“Yes.”

“Head it:
To the Chief of Police, Athens.
Got that? Now go on.
I, Arthur A. Simpson, of - put in your address - do hereby confess that on June fifteenth using an illegal pass key, I entered the suite of Mr. Walter K. Harper in the Hotel Grande-Bretagne and stole American Express traveller's cheques to the value of three hundred dollars. The numbers of the cheques were ...”

As he felt in his pocket for the loose cheques, I started to protest.

“Mr. Harper, I can’t possibly write this. It would convict me. I couldn’t defend myself.”

“Would you sooner defend yourself right now? If so, I can call the police, and you can explain about that pass key.” He paused and then went on more patiently. “Look, dad, maybe you and I will be the only ones who will ever read it. Maybe in a week’s time it won’t even exist. I’m just giving you a chance to get off the hook. Why don’t you take it and be thankful?”

“What do I have to do for it?”

“We’ll get to that later. Just you keep writing.
The numbers of the cheques were P89.664.572 through P89.664.577, all in fifty-dollar units. I intended to forge Mr. Harper’s signature on them so that I could cash them illegally. I have stolen, forged, and cashed other cheques in that way.
Shut up and keep writing!
But now I find I cannot go through with it. Because of Mr. Harper’s great kindness to me during his visit to Athens, and his Christian charity, I feel that I cannot rob him. I am, therefore, sending the cheques I stole from him back with this letter. By taking this decision, I feel that I have come out of the darkness into the light of day. I know now that, as a sinner of the worst type, my only chance is to make restitution, to confess everything, and to pay the penalties the law demands. Only in this way can I hope for salvation in the world to come.
Now sign it.”

I signed it.

“Now date it a week from today. No, better make it the twenty-third.”

I dated it.

“Give it to me.”

I gave it to him and he read it through twice. Then he looked at me and grinned.

“Not talking any more, Arthur?”

“I wrote down what you dictated.”

“Sure. And now you’re trying to figure out what would happen if I sent it to the police.”

I shrugged.

“All right, I’ll tell you what would happen. First they’d think you were a nut. They’d probably think that I was some kind of a nut, too, but they wouldn’t be interested in me. I wouldn’t be around anyway. On the other hand, they couldn’t ignore the whole thing, because of the cheques. Three hundred dollars! They’d have to take that seriously. So they’d start by getting on to American Express and finding out about all the cheque forgeries that have been traced back to accounts in Athens banks. Then they’d pull you in and grill you. What would you do, Arthur? Tell them about me and what really happened? You’d be silly to do that, wouldn’t you? They’d throw the book at you. No, you’re too smart for that. You’d go along with the reformation jazz. That way, you’d have a real defence - voluntary confession, restitution, sincere repentance. I’ll bet you’d get away with just a nominal sentence, maybe no more than a year.”

“Thank you.”

He grinned again. “Don’t you worry, Arthur. You’re not going to do any time at all.” He waved the paper I had written and the cheques. “This is just a little insurance.” He picked up the brandy bottle and refilled my glass. “You see, a friend of mine is going to trust you with something valuable.”

“What?”

“A car. You’re going to drive it to Istanbul. You’ll be paid a hundred bucks and expenses. That’s all there is to it.”

I managed to smile. “If that’s all there is to it, I don’t see why you have to blackmail me. I would gladly do the job every week for that money.”

He looked pained. “Who said anything about blackmail? I said insurance. This is a seven-thousand-dollar Lincoln, Arthur. Do you know what it’s worth now in Turkey?”

“Fourteen thousand.”

“Well then, isn’t it obvious? Supposing you drove it into the first garage you came to and sold it”

“It wouldn’t be so easy.”

“Arthur, you took a hell of a risk tonight for just three hundred dollars. For fourteen thousand you’d do pretty well anything, now wouldn’t you? Be your age!

As it is, I don’t have to worry, and my friend doesn’t have to worry. As soon as I know the car’s delivered, this little confession will be torn up and the cheques’ll go back in my pocket.”

I was silent. I didn’t believe a word he was saying and he knew it. He didn’t care. He was watching me, enjoying himself. “All right,” I said finally; “but there are just one or two questions I’d like to ask.”

He nodded. “Sure there are. Only that’s the one condition there is on the job, Arthur - no questions.”

I would have been surprised if he said anything else. “Very well. When do I start?”

“Tomorrow. How long does it take to drive to Salonika?”

“About six or seven hours.”

“Let’s see. Tomorrow’s Tuesday. If you start about noon you can spend the night there. Then Wednesday night in Edirne. You should make Istanbul Thursday afternoon. That’ll be okay.” He thought for a moment. “I’ll tell you what you do. In the morning, you pack an overnight bag and come here by cab or streetcar. Be downstairs at ten.”

“Where do I pick up the car?”

“I’ll show you in the morning.”

“Whatever you say.”

He unbolted the door. “Good deal. Now take your junk and beat it. I have to get some sleep.”

I put my belongings back in my pockets and went to the door.

“Hey!”

As I turned, something hit me in the chest and then fell at my feet.

“You’ve forgotten your pass key,” he said.

I picked it up and left. I didn’t say good night or anything. He didn’t notice. He was finishing his drink.

The worst thing at school was being caned. There was a ritual about it. The master who had lost his temper with you would stop ranting, or, if it was one of the quiet ones, stop clenching his teeth, and say: “
Take a note to the Headmaster
.” That meant you were for it. The note was always the same,
Request permission to punish,
followed by his initials; but he would always fold it twice before he gave it to you. You were not supposed to read it. I don’t know why; perhaps because they didn’t like having to ask for permission.

Well, then you had to go and find
The Bristle
. Sometimes, of course, he would be in his study; but more often he would be taking the sixth form in trigonometry or Latin. That meant you had to go in and stand there until he decided to notice you. You would have to wait five or ten minutes sometimes; it depended on the mood he was in. He was a tall, thick man with a lot of black hair on the backs of his hands, and a purple face. He spoke very fast while he was teaching, and after a while little flecks of white stuff would gather at the corners of his mouth. When he was in a good mood, he would break off almost as soon as you came in and start making jokes. “A
h, the good Simpson, or perhaps we should say the insufficiently good Simpson, what can we do for you
?” Whatever he said, the sixth form always rocked with laughter, because the more they laughed, the longer he would go on wasting time. “
And how have you transgressed, Simpson, how have you transgressed? Please tell us
.”

You always had to say what you’d done or not done - bad homework, lying, flicking ink pellets - and you had to be truthful, in case he asked the master later. When he had made some more jokes, he initialled the note and you went. Before that
Enchantment
business I think he rather liked me, because I pretended not to be able to help laughing at his jokes even though I was going to be caned. When he was in a bad mood he used to call you “sir,” which I always thought a bit stupid. “Well, sir, what is this for? Cribbing under the desk? A pauper spirit, sir, a pauper spirit! Work, for the night cometh! Now get out and stop wasting my time.”

When you returned to the form room you gave the master the initialled note. Then, he took his gown off, so that his arms were free, and got the cane out of his desk. The canes were all the same, about thirty inches long and quite thick. Some masters would take you outside into the coat lobby to do it, but others would do it in front of the form. You had to bend down and touch your toes and then he would hit you as hard as he could, as if he were trying to break the cane. It felt like a hot iron across your backside, and if he happened to hit twice in exactly the same place, like a heavy club with spikes on it. The great thing was not to cry or make a fuss. I remember a boy once who wet himself after it and had to be sent home; and there was another one who came back into the room and threw up, so that the master had to send for the school porter to clean up the mess. (They always sent for the porter when a boy threw up, and he always said the same thing when he came in with his bucket and mop - ”
Is this all?
” - as if he were disappointed it wasn’t blood.)

Most boys, though, when they were caned, just got very red in the face and tried to walk to their places as if nothing had happened. It wasn’t pride; it was the only way to get any sympathy. When a boy cried you didn’t feel sorry for him, merely embarrassed because he was so sorry for himself, and resentful because the master would feel that he had done something effective. One of the most valuable things I learned at Coram’s was how to hate; and it was the cane that taught me. I never forgot and never began to forgive a caning until I had somehow evened the score with the master who had given it to me. If he were married, I would write an anonymous letter to his wife saving that he was a sodomite and that he had been trying to interfere with young boys. If he were a bachelor, I would send it as a warning to one of the other boys’ parents. Mostly I never heard what happened, of course; but on at least two occasions I heard that the parents had questioned their boys and then forwarded my letters to
The Bristle
. I never told anyone, because I did not want the others copying my idea; and as I was very good at disguising my writing, the masters never knew for certain who had done it. Just as long as they had a suspicion they could not prove, I was satisfied. It meant that they knew I could hit back, that I was a good friend but a bad enemy.

My attitude to Harper was the same. He had given me a “caning”; but instead of wallowing in self-pity, as any other man in my position might have done, I began to think of ways in which I could hit back.

Obviously, there was nothing much I could do while he had that “confession”; but I knew one thing - he was a crook. I didn’t know yet what kind of a crook - although I had some ideas - but I would find out for certain sooner or later. Then, when it was safe to do so, I would expose him to the police.

Nicki was in bed when I got back to the flat. I had hoped that she would be asleep, because one side of my face was very red where he had hit me and I didn’t want to have to do any explaining; but she had the light on and was reading some French fashion magazine.

“Hullo, papa,” she said.

I said hullo back and went to the bathroom to get rid of the handkerchief with all the blood on it. Then I went in and began to get undressed.

“You didn’t stay long at the Club,” she said.

“He wanted to go on to Irma’s.”

She did not like that, of course. “Did you find out any more about him?”

“He is a businessman - accounting machines, I think. He has a friend who owns a Lincoln. He wants me to drive it to Istanbul for him. I start tomorrow. He’s paying quite well - a hundred dollars American.”

She sat up at that. “That’s very good, isn’t it?” And then, inevitably, she saw my face. “What have you done to yourself?”

“I had a bit of an accident. Some fool in a Simca. I had to stop suddenly.”

“Did the police come?”

She had a tiresome habit of assuming that, just because I was once accused falsely of causing an accident through driving while drunk, every little traffic accident in which I am involved is going to result in my being prosecuted by the police.