Meryem perched on the balcony, swallowed by night. Tipsy from the sound of laughter that floated through treetops, she did not wait for the general and the old asker to discuss her whereabouts any further. Without a moment’s hesitation, she reached for one of the limbs that sprawled over the balcony’s railing, and she used it to balance herself as she swung across to the tree. Its trunk was sturdy enough to support her as she climbed slowly down, pausing on each branch to pull her garment loose from its twiggy snags. By the time she dropped to the ground, a commotion stirred behind her. Doors of the general’s palace slammed, lights blazed, feet ran, voices raised in questions.
Meryem landed on a garden path of gravel, bathed in a ring of light that now surrounded the mansion. The old man must have switched on every light in the place as a show of his employer’s power and wealth. Bah! With a few brisk steps, she moved out of its blazing circle, into the shadows that enveloped most of the garden.
The men’s words that she’d overheard played through her mind. They’d used her, like a nargile, as their cover, while they met illicitly, at risk to their lives, so they’d said, to plan the overthrow of the government.
They would not allow her to escape with that information.
Her slow, careful steps—careful, to minimize the crunch of gravel—made her want to scream her impatience. There was no choice but to stay on the gravel paths, since they boxed in little plots of shrubs and flowers that someone cultivated. Asker. She’d seen his garden tools. None of his plots would provide enough cover for her escape now.
It was only a matter of minutes before the general’s men would realize she’d overheard their plans. They would join the old soldier in his inspection of the grounds now that every light in the house had been turned on, doing its best to illuminate the entire hill of Kavaklidere.
But the old asker was not fast enough in his drunken stupor, nor as smart as she. Shadows skirted the perimeter of the blazing mansion, and she moved deeper into them. Both cautiously and swiftly, she fled to the gate at the back of the garden. Only a few more feet away.
All she had to do was escape to the street, then run the short distance to the bottom of the hill where the vacant lot with the hollow stump awaited her. That’s also where the fields began, where she could disappear into the peasant fold. Her tsharchaf concealed the dancer’s costume, which would have given her away, even among peasants.
By the time she made it to the gate, she was breathing deeply. Her hand stopped in mid-air, reaching for the latch. A footstep scuffed the pavement of the street. She ducked against the wall to one side of the gate and craned her neck to see through the wrought-iron grillwork. Something moved out there, on the street.
Someone stood just beyond the puddle of light coming from the lamppost on the corner. A man. Now she saw him, leaning against a low wall. The end of a cigarette glowed in her direction, as if he watched her. No, not her, but the gate. Her very means of escape. As if he waited for her to leave the general’s palace.
That was impossible! He couldn’t be her enemy. The gunman didn’t know where she was.
Even so, she jerked back against the rough surface of the stucco wall, sucked in her breath, and studied the dark for an alternate escape.
If she couldn’t use the street, she’d have to slip through backyards. Over fences.
She turned away from the gate and crept on, groping her way along the wall. The Americans’ yellow house, which she could not see, lay ahead. She paused long enough to release her tsharchaf from thorny snags and branches. From somewhere off to her right came the sounds of muted laughter. Here, the dark that engulfed her was so dark that she had to hold her arms in front of her, feeling her way past branches and stems and dried flower pods.
Her fingers brushed the thin wire of the fence before she saw it. This, her first fence on her way down the hill, strung from the end of the general’s pink wall at the street and ran along the side of the Americans’ yellow stucco house. Only wire separated the general’s garden from the Americans’ side yard.
She paused, breathing hard, frowning over her planned escape. The thinly woven wire, not as sturdy as the tree, would never support her weight if she attempted to climb over it. It would snare her flowing skirts and slash her flesh. Anyway, whether she climbed the wire fence or the pink wall in this corner where the two of them met, she’d end up on the street where the man with the cigarette could see her.
The back door of the mansion opened, and the hulking shape of a man stepped out into the ring of light. “I know you’re out there, gypsy!” The old soldier bellowed. “There is no way out.”
Meryem clutched her robe tighter around her, pulling the fabric over her face in case the moon attempted to betray her. Using the wire fence to guide her, she ran along its length, away from the street and toward the interior of the city block. But this direction wasn’t promising, for now she closed in on the sounds of laughter, American voices and their clinking glassware. The backyard party where she should’ve danced.
If the Americans caught her, she thought her chances of escape would be greater. So she kept going. The wire fence that she followed suddenly disappeared into the side of a small hill. A cement wall as high as Meryem’s waist skirted the base of the hill, retaining dirt the way a belt held in a fat belly. She scrambled up onto the wall, now that she saw it was conveniently placed here for her. No way out, was there?
From her position on the rim of the wall, she spied a shack in the neighboring yard. Its roof butted up against the general’s hill. It would be an easy matter to lift up her skirts and step across the top of the fence, onto the roof of that shack. But she hesitated, running through her mind a few stories to explain her presence, in case the Americans caught her. It was dark enough that probably none of the party guests would notice her, anyway. They huddled under paper lanterns dangling from trees that formed a natural barrier between them and the shack. If they noticed anything at all, it would be the blazing lights at the general’s house and the commotion of the asker.
Not her.
Men’s anxious voices stirred from the dark behind her, rousing a scent of anger onto a current of hot air. Apparently the asker had recruited help in his search for her. Meryem hesitated only a moment before leaping across to the roof.
* * * * *
The party dragged on, but Anna couldn’t leave yet. She had to wait for her call to go through to Nairobi, but the longer she waited, the more suffocating and close the air felt. It was almost too thick to breathe. Blades of cool grass poked through her open-toed sandals and sent tickling shivers up the seams of her nylons.
Cora, her nosy hostess, had her letters to Rainer! It was bad enough that the Turkish police had one of them. And subsequently lost it. Far worse that Cora had more.
Anna bit her tongue to stifle her simmering rage and nodded politely at the conversation around her. She laughed when prompted. She smiled until her face ached. She sampled whatever the servers passed around on trays: kebobs of grilled lamb, eggplant, and succulent bits of unidentifiable delicacies that she couldn’t identify.
How was it possible that Rainer was alive? Any minute now, she would surely wake up from this impossible nightmare.
A burst of light flashed in their faces just then, blinding Anna. The dark outline of a man aimed his bulky camera with its cone-shaped flash for another photo.
“No, please,” said Hayati. He stepped in to grab the photographer by his arm and push him away.
Paul charged at the photographer in a reawakening of yesterday’s high energy. “Blast it, man! Haven’t you learned to ask before you shoot that thing off?”
Fran, always the assistant, stepped between Paul, the boss, and the photographer. “I’ll take care of this.”
Paul took a deep breath, then turned back to Anna’s group. “Sorry about that. Those flashes are a bit of a nuisance, is all.”
“Everyone has a photographer,” one of the guests said. “That way, we can always have a souvenir to remind us of these special get-togethers.”
“The man’s a clumsy idiot.” Paul’s voice rumbled with a growl. “He’s not one of ours, otherwise he would’ve asked permission before using that damned flash.”
Cora waved off his question. “Fran found him somewhere. It was all last-minute. Ask her.”
In a quiet corner of the yard, Fran planted her hands firmly on her hips and spoke under her breath to the photographer, who looked vaguely familiar to Anna. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, lowered his head, and mopped his brow.
Anna marched to a bar set up on a sidewalk beside the house. “Ice water, please,” she said to an attendant in a crisp, white jacket.
While he prepared the drink, she set down her martini glass and conveniently forgot it. Then she carried the tumbler of water back across the lawn, straight up to Fran and the photographer. A peal of laughter sounded from Cora’s circle as they watched.
“Oh!” Anna said. “I remember you now. You’re the man from the copper shop today.”
“Emin Kirpat,” he said with a friendly smile.
The part-time student photographer, Anna remembered. “You’re the one who told me about the Hittites.”
Fran harrumphed. “All our regular photographers were booked for tonight. I was pretty sure Ozturk Bey had someone else we could try. That’s why Paul sent me down there today. I can see it was a mistake.”
“Have some water,” Anna said, handing the glass to Emin. “Go on. There’s no point passing out from the heat. You look like you could use a drink.”
Emin gaped first at the glass, then at Fran.
“You’d better do as she says.” Fran folded her arms across her chest and smirked.
He took the glass, murmured his thanks, and downed the water.
“For once, he listens,” Fran said with a huff. “But it’s not going to help him now.”
Anna’s eyebrows rose. “What’s the problem?”
Fran shrugged. “It’s not the flash. It’s the pictures he chose to take that are wrong. Why don’t you run along, honey? This really doesn’t concern you.”
Anna sucked in her breath with surprise. Fran had been kind taking her to lunch today, but here, tonight, she was behaving downright rude. “In that case, I’ll leave you alone. I need to check on the children, anyway, before my call comes through. Someone will let me know, I presume?”
“Of course. The servants have been alerted.” Fran glared again at the photographer as Anna turned away.
Beyond the light of the lanterns, Anna felt the night air slide over her. Once darkness fell here on the Anatolian plateau, it fell fast.
Unease rippled the edge of her mind as she replayed the day’s events in the old city. Fran had gone to Ozturk Bey’s shop specifically to book Emin for tonight. It had nothing to do with tracking Anna. The coincidence of their connections sent a shiver through her. Emin... Umit... The killer...
Anna hurried her step to the playhouse. Muffled voices murmured from within the tumbledown heap of plywood. She bent down to an opening and called inside, “How are you children doing?”
“Another alien!” Priscilla squealed. “Gimme that ray gun! I’ll get him!”
Anna sighed, satisfied that all seemed well with the children. She didn’t want to alert them to her concerns. Glancing back at the thick gathering of partiers under the lanterns, she saw the flash of a camera spark the night. She thought about slipping away from the party, but it would be difficult to persuade Priscilla to abandon her friend.
Besides, leaving was out of the question until after the call to Nairobi came through.
Still, she’d had enough of the party. She would sit out the rest of it inside, waiting by the phone. There must be another way inside the house, other than using the back door where busy servers whisked in and out. Skirting the area of the lanterns, she slipped around to the side of house that faced the pink mansion. Their neighbor the general lived there, on the corner of Yeşilyurt and Guneş. The Burkhardts, to his west on Yeşilyurt; and the Wingates, to his north on Guneş.
Tonight, lights blazed again at the general’s house, and through the windows she could see men moving about. The general certainly entertained often, Anna thought, but then he was an important man. Henry had told her that this general, their neighbor, had served under Atatürk during the wars of independence from the Ottomans. Not that long ago, as far as history went. It was only thirty-five years ago that they fought for their independence, giving this part of the world a complete reversal of their way of life.
Or had it been so thoroughly complete? She remembered all the veils she’d seen, especially in Ulus, yet Atatürk had banned the veil.
On her way through the shadows at the side of the house, she passed through a small garden, pungent with petunias. A bench offered respite beneath an open window. She could sit there quietly a few moments. Unnoticed.
The bubbling noise of the lawn party made the bump on her head throb. Cora’s outrageous behavior hadn’t helped. The very idea! That she could purchase someone else’s private letters...
Thank goodness Anna had had the good sense not to include her name on the return address. And even if Cora opened up the envelopes and read the letters, heaven forbid, it wouldn’t be obvious right away that it was Anna who’d written them. She’d signed herself “Annie.”
All the same, Anna intended to get those letters back. Before Cora had the opportunity to read them and figure out by context just who Annie really was.
Anna inhaled the fragrant air. The soothing dark offered a sense of peace that bit by bit absorbed the pain pulsing through her body. The solitude gave her breathing room to form her plans for what she would tell Mitzi once the call came through.
Gradually, her eyes adjusted to the dark, and the garden hardly seemed dark at all. She could make out the shadowy shapes of a birdbath to her right, a flowerbed to her left. Rose bushes straight ahead.
A tall and gangly objet d’art stood just beyond the rose bushes. It seemed an odd place to arrange statuary. Perhaps it belonged to the general’s house.
She rose and moved across the garden for a closer look. There were no stepping stones through the rose bed. If it was meant to be garden art, it wasn’t easily accessible.
Carefully pushing aside one of the branches, she stepped across the mulched bed into a patch of weeds on the far side of the roses. The gangly thing rising up from tall weeds was a tripod. With a camera and a long, high-powered lens fixed to the top. Perhaps it belonged to Emin.
Except...
The lens aimed at the general’s house, not at the Wingates’ party.
A twig snapped, and Anna’s attention jerked away from the tripod to follow the sound. A shadow split away from a nearby tree trunk, and a man moved slowly toward her. Every muscle inside her tensed in the split second before she would dart away. And then he stepped close enough for her to recognize him. Rainer!
“It’s not what you think,” he whispered, reaching out with the swiftness of a rattler to grab her arm.
Anna stiffened, appalled by the image her mind had conjured. “How would you know what I think?”
“Shhhhh.”
How dare he attempt to quiet her when twelve years worth of questions festered in her heart and soul? She would not be silenced, but she hardly knew where to begin. Just then, a light flicked on behind them.