Minutes later, a furious Sinan was piling her into a taxi. ‘I’ve had enough of that girl. She’s my friend but she never knows where to stop.’ He’d seethed, silent, straight-backed, all the way back to Rumeli Hisar. This leg of the journey had proved as strange as the others: they’d had to go through several army checkpoints. Jeannie now knew that these were in place in anticipation of the great trade union march that would begin only a few hours later. But from Sinan’s impassive response to the soldiers who peered in at each checkpoint, waving their submachine guns, you’d have thought it was something that happened every day.
When they got to Hisar Meydan, Jeannie invited him inside, but Sinan refused. They ended up in Chloe’s house, for which he mysteriously had a key.
They’d been sitting silently in the swinging chair on the porch, sharing a joint that seemed to bring him no pleasure, when he’d uttered – not to her so much as to the night sky – the words she’d so fatally understood.
‘How much has your father explained to you?’ was his opening sally. When she’d asked the obvious, ‘About what?’ he’d seemed both exasperated and perplexed. ‘Has he at least not warned you?’
To which she’d again had to ask, ‘About what?’
‘About the rumours people circulate. About anyone who happens to live here, if they happen to have a US passport. Which, by the way, includes me.’ He paused expectantly, as if Jeannie had no choice but to make the connections now he’d laid it all out for her. When she failed to do so, he sighed tragically and took her hand. ‘These rumours about spies.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she’d said. ‘I don’t take them seriously.’
‘That’s right! You shouldn’t! But at the same time, don’t underestimate the damage these rumours can do to you. To all of us! There are people who wish you ill. Wish me ill, too. If you don’t know this – if you don’t take their ill intentions seriously – you’re leaving yourself exposed. Dangerously exposed. But don’t worry. I’m making you a promise now. I’m promising to look after you. It’s the least I can do.’
‘Are you sure?’ Jeannie said stupidly. He looked into her eyes, in disbelief. Then burst out laughing. ‘Yes, I promise. Despite everything you’ve seen so far.’
Pressing her hands between his, he said, ‘So you have to promise me. Promise me you’ll let me know whenever someone gives you a hard time.’
He’d gone on to apologise for ‘all the stupid games’ they’d played with her, promising never to play them again. For he knew now that she was that rare thing, a true innocent. Hearing that, she had let her head take its fatal fall against Sinan’s warm shoulder.
But how quickly, how efficiently he had lifted it up and restored it to its former pillow! His words still rang in her head: ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I really mean it. I was teasing you before, making up so many lies, just to see how you’d react. It was cruel of me. Immature. But that’s over now. Now I want to be friends. True friends. Am I making myself clear? But nothing more. You see, my heart is taken. You don’t mind, do you? It’s better like this, anyway. For all sorts of reasons. What you need from me is protection. What you need is a true friend. If we let something else happen…’
‘Like what?’ she’d asked.
‘If we let something else happen, sooner or later, I would betray you.’
Oh the horror of it! To assume love – only to be repulsed with pitying kindness! She would never be able to look him in the eye again.
Why she had not mustered what was left of her dignity and left then and there she cannot say. What a fool of herself she had made instead. Oh, how she had cried. How she had lied! The things she had said! She had told him how scared she was, how unnerving it was not to understand anything that people said to her, to walk into trap after trap, how she didn’t know how she was going to face any of them, ever again. How coming here had been a big mistake, how it was too late now to start having a father, how the time had come to accept herself as she really was, a girl who couldn’t cope with anything larger than Northampton. And he had stayed to console her, like the good, cold friend he’d become. She must have fallen asleep on his shoulder – had she been hoping against hope, even then? But no, when she awoke, it was to the gruesome sight of Chloe’s pimply younger brother. And it was morning. And her head was pounding. The next time she’d looked up, it was Amy, Chloe’s mother. She was fully made up, and the only word for her bright blonde hair was ‘coiffed’. Her lips were pursed and her brow was furrowed. But her voice was matter-of-fact. ‘Your father’s downstairs. And I have to say, he’s a little concerned.’
Oh, the shame, when she went downstairs to Amy’s kitchen and met her father’s wounded, worried eyes.
‘Nice time?’ he’d asked.
She’d nodded, carefully.
‘Well, I’m glad to hear it. Or not, as the case may be.’
But after they had returned to the Pasha’s Library, after he told her about the nature of the crisis that had called him away (that workers’ march on the city) and what would happen next (tanks, raised bridges, rubber bullets and mass arrests), and why it meant that he was going to have to go back to work flat out and just hope that maybe, by the end of the summer, enough of ‘these rats’ would have gone to the beach so that they could, too, he turned to her and said, ‘I don’t want you to misunderstand me, though. I’m not upset. In fact, this is beyond my wildest dreams.’
When she’d asked him what he meant, he’d shrugged his shoulders ‘Well – all of it. You being here. Wanting to spend a year with me. Knowing we’ll be doing all these things together, but also not having to worry when I have to be somewhere else, because you have friends. Knowing that you like it over there –’ he gestured in the direction of Amy’s house. ‘It’s all too good to be true. I suppose the fly in the ointment is Talat’s boy, what’s his name, Haluk. He’s trouble. I hope you didn’t let him take advantage of you.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’
He looked relieved. ‘So it’s Sinan, is it?’
‘Not really,’ she squeaked, and the horror sank in. They all thought she’d spent the night with Sinan. They all thought she was involved with a boy who in actual shaming fact was interested in her only as a friend.
‘You know him, too, I take it?’ she eventually managed.
‘Yes, of course, I do. I even know his father. We used to be golfing buddies. Starting in Caracas of all places. But mostly in Washington. Way back when. You know, before you were born. Did he tell you his mother was a singer?’
‘All he said was she was trying to be.’
That made him laugh. ‘He would, wouldn’t he? I don’t know about now, but she was pretty damned good. There was even a time when…’ His voice died away. ‘So I couldn’t be happier, Jeannie. Give or take a fly or two in that ointment. I don’t think much of that cousin of his, and the two of them together have a nose for trouble but…’ He paused as his eyes travelled northwards. ‘I’m just happy you’ll be spending time with someone I trust.’
And what was that supposed to mean? But there it was. She’d been paired up by her own father. Paired up and humiliated. If she were a serious person, she would have told him so. Asked him a few other questions while she was at it. Like, what exactly are you doing here, anyway? And if you are, why am I here, too? By the time she fell asleep, she had drafted the conversation she would have with her father at breakfast. A new understanding, she’d call it, based on truthful sharing. She would tell her father that Sinan was just a friend, and that she was happy with it that way. Very happy indeed! She would ask him, very casually, if he happened to know who this mysterious girl was with the prior claim to Sinan’s heart. She would leave it at that. They would then move on to discuss his work. She’d approach this subject in neutral and pragmatic tones, assuring her father first that whatever he did, she was sure it was serious and socially responsible and essentially patriotic, and probably no more than simple desk work, a simple and straightforward compiling of the sort of facts every government must have at its fingertips if it is to make wise decisions.
She would then outline her plans for the year. No romance. No attachment. Just serious scholarship. Learning about a new world would be joy enough. There was no need to muddy the water with love, or longing, or the cold comforts of friendship.
Until the next morning, when, halfway through breakfast, the phone rang.