Only a thin panel of wood separated Meryem from the asker. She could not see anything but the blackness of the interior of the children’s shack, but she could smell the drink on him as he stood outside. For an instant she considered charging out there like a wild cat, leaping onto his back and scratching out his eyes.
But she did not know who partnered with him. She’d heard other, arguing voices pursuing her along with the asker. Her chances against more than one, in times of desperation, were too uncertain. She shrank back into a dark corner and listened to his slurred words. He spoke as if he knew the exact spot where she hid. And why not? He’d surely seen this shack before on his regular patrols. He’d guess that she would’ve found it by now. He was playing with her. She could play, too.
But not with children present.
Meryem’s skin crawled with her eagerness to escape these foul-smelling quarters. Something lived here besides children. Snakes? Her heart lurched in her chest, and she sprang up, ready to take her chances with the asker and flee. Her head smacked against the ceiling.
“Why is he chasing you?” Priscilla asked.
“Shhh.” The children were about to betray her with their noise.
“Don’t worry,” said Tommy. “He’s deaf and blind. He can’t hurt us here. We’re safe in our spaceship.”
The asker’s footsteps scuffled farther away. “Come out, come out!”
Meryem realized from his fading movements that he didn’t know where she was, not exactly. He was fishing for her. She inched closer to the hole that served as her exit from the shack.
“It doesn’t matter,” Priscilla said. “He doesn’t need a reason to chase anyone. That old asker is mean. He killed my kitten.”
“Oh,” Meryem said. “I’m sorry. You can find another kitten. Take your pick, in this city of stray cats.”
“No. There was only one Muffin.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Meryem shifted on her haunches. Now was her chance to escape while the asker had turned his back. She scrabbled around in the dark for the piece of wood that had sealed them inside the shack.
“You can stay here, if you want,” said Priscilla. “My turtle won’t mind.”
“Your turtle?”
“I hunt turtles, and when I find them, I bring them here. Mama won’t let me keep them more than two days, but she’s not here.”
“Where is she?” The child’s an-ne, the foreign gadje, was surely at the party. She would be looking for her child and discover Meryem in a matter of moments.
“Gone away,” Priscilla said.
The sadness in the girl’s voice tugged at Meryem’s heart. “Well, it’s very nice of you to offer me a place to stay, but I have someplace else where I have to go.”
Then the footsteps crunched outside once again, louder. The asker’s voice floated through the night, nearer. “I’m coming!”
* * * * *
The man rose, and Anna stepped backwards, down to the next lower step of the porch. His white suit gave him a ghostly appearance in the dark, and she took another step backwards.
“Don’t go,” he said, sauntering toward the top step. One hand in his trouser pocket. The other, holding a cocktail. Hayati.
She let out her breath, not realizing she’d been holding it. He must’ve watched her furtive movements just now with Rainer in the bushes. “Oh! I didn’t see you.”
“A pleasant evening,” he said. “Your head is better now?”
She touched her temple where pain still throbbed, freshly exacerbated by Rainer’s rough handling in the bushes. “I’m fine, thank you. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Nor I, you.” He chuckled.
“Isn’t it odd? It seems to be your job to rescue me. First from the police station, and then from Ozturk Bey’s shop.” And now, from Rainer. She fanned herself with her hand and went on. “That is, what I mean to say is that I keep running into you everywhere I turn. Did Henry put you up to this?” Finally, she bit her lip to stop her blathering.
He tipped his head to one side and studied her, as if trying to read her thoughts. “You are not happy,” he finally said as a statement, not a question.
She gripped the railing beside the porch steps to keep from stumbling as her thoughts switched directions again. Regaining her balance, she climbed the steps the rest of the way and stood tall, facing him. “You astonish me with such an observation. I’m quite content, thank you.”
But, happy?
“You are...how do they call it? Homesick?”
“If I were homesick after only one week away from home, then I’d be in serious trouble.” She laughed off his question, and he laughed with her, but her laughter caught in her throat with an uncertain edge.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I often see this sadness in the people at the embassy, especially when things don’t turn out as they expect.”
“I have no expectations, so I can’t be disappointed. Although, I certainly didn’t expect all that’s happened.” Rainer, alive! She wasn’t sure how she felt about that—joy or betrayal?
Hayati watched her silently, as if waiting while she decided. Did he know about Rainer?
She rushed on with her questions. “Why did you say what you said back there? About that man... Viktor. You seemed to think that I’d met him before. In a taxi.”
“But you did. At the police station. The first time I came to help you. Don’t you remember?” He grinned, and his white teeth gleamed in the dark.
“I’m sure I would’ve remembered. No, it’s not so. That man wasn’t there. You lied about that, and I want to know why.”
He chuckled and nodded towards the weeds where she had just tussled with Rainer. “You said it yourself. It is my duty to rescue you, is that not true? Would you prefer to be the subject of Mrs. Wingate’s gossip?”
“So you only thought that man, Viktor, meant something to me. He doesn’t.”
“Okay, I believe you.” His teeth flashed again. “Come sit with me for a while, and allow me to tell you about the places we might choose for our dinner.”
“Really, Mr. Orhon. I don’t see how I could abandon Priscilla.”
“No doubt she has a friend she can stay with.”
“I don’t mean to sound ungracious. It’s just that...”
“Yes?”
“It might...appear frivolous. In these somber times, you see.”
“You do not strike me as the sort of woman who cares much for the games society plays. I wonder who you really are, Miss Anna Riddle?”
“Sometimes I wonder that, too.” She blurted it out before thinking. She knew who she’d been, up until now, but she didn’t care to explain her personal history to strangers, how she’d come to this moment and this uncustomary state of uncertainty.
She turned away from his scrutiny of her. A solitary streetlamp flickered on the corner, where Yeşilyurt intersected Güneş. Where Erkmen had stood watching her house the night before, after Yaziz’s visit. Rainer was out there now, somewhere in the dark between the pools of light from the streetlamps.
She wasn’t going to let Hayati distract her. “I’m sorry,” she said, “will you excuse me?”
“No, actually, I won’t.” Ice rattled in his glass as he set it down and stepped closer, taking her wrist gently in his hands.
“I beg your pardon?” Her voice rose, matching the rising hammer of her heart.
“Shhh,” he said. “Stay with me another moment. Would you like a cigarette?”
“I have to get back.”
“Why? Are you afraid someone will see us together? An American woman alone with a Turkish man?”
“Of course not. Please turn loose of me this instant.” She could step away from him any time she chose, since his light touch on her wrist wasn’t restraining her, not the way Rainer’s grip had squeezed her with force.
He released her, but she did not step away. “Did you really want to learn Turkish?” he said.
“Yes. Of course.”
“Why? They don’t encourage learning our language.”
“You learned English.”
“That’s different. I was in London for a while, in school.”
“And now I’m in your country. Why should it be any different?”
He laughed. “Some people think the Americans don’t actually live in my country but in a little America within my country.”
His soft laughter infected her with his good humor and gentle nature, easing her anxiety, encouraging her to stay. “Paul said that you sometimes work in Henry’s office,” she said. “What do you do there?”
“Translate, mostly.”
“Was that what Paul wanted from you? That report he wanted by this morning. Was it a translation of the police report?”
Hayati shrugged, rummaging into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a small pack of cigarettes. “If you won’t have one, may I?”
“As you wish. They’re your lungs, not mine.” She felt a prickle of annoyance from his indirect way of answering her direct question.
He took his time lighting up and exhaling the bitter smell of tobacco. “Did you find them?” he finally said.
“Find what?” Her pulse sped up. How did he know that she was intent on recovering her letters from Cora?
“The Alekci family. You wanted me to take you there today, remember?”
“Oh!” The heat of a flush crept up to her cheeks. To cover the embarrassment of her misunderstanding, she told him all about it. She described how she’d found the family’s place and how her visit had ended with Mrs. Alekci’s hysterics. How Anna had nearly sustained another bump to her head when the woman had thrown a small, wooden box at her.
“What do you think she kept in the box?” Anna said, thankful that it had been empty.
“The letter, probably.”
“But how did she get my letter in the first place?”
“From your Rainer, I imagine.”
Anna gulped, trying to swallow her rising confusion. Was she supposed to claim that Rainer was dead? “He’s not ‘my Rainer’.”
“As you wish.”
“What I wish is that I could have talked to her myself.”
“You were asking about Turkish lessons, and I will teach you.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t mean—”
“It is no trouble. I sometimes teach English downtown. Why not my own language?”
“I had in mind something more formal.”
“You can pay me if that will make you feel better.”
The more he insisted, the more reluctant she felt. He was being both helpful and evasive, and she wondered why.
“It’s not that I’m not. Comfortable, that is.”
“Then what is it? I assure you that I am qualified.”
“Yes, of course you are,” she said. “All right, when do we start?” The words flowed out before she could think through the arrangement.
Besides, she wanted to know why he’d lied to her about meeting Rainer in a taxi. He’d practically admitted lying. Because, she felt certain, he was covering up something.
Why else had he been here on the front porch, conveniently waiting to intercept her? If he was working with Rainer... He’d been watching Rainer’s back just now.