The Mule on the Minaret Read online

  As Sedgwick had predicted, she experienced no difficulty in getting into the Ministry of Commerce. She filled in two forms and was then conducted by a uniformed attendant into a long bare room, in which a number of youngish men were seated at high desks, writing.

  ‘Which is Ahmed Bahjat?’ she asked the guide.

  He pointed to a small, youthful man with a puckish look. He did not seem as surprised as she had expected him to be at her arrival. ‘Do you speak English?’ she inquired.

  ‘Of course.’

  She explained her purpose. ‘I come from the friend of Aziz, Ismail Hilli, who was going to have brought you messages from Aziz. Unfortunately he could not stay in Istanbul as long as he had hoped. But he wanted you to know that Aziz is happy and in good health. Aziz has also sent you a present. He thinks that you will like it. It is something that you would not be able to get easily in Istanbul. Ismail Hilli was most anxious that you should send Aziz a note to tell him that you had received his present, but he did not want you to mention in your letter what the present was. He got it, you see, through a friend from the officers’ shop in Beirut. Civilians are not supposed to be able to make purchases in the officer’s shop. If the Lebanese censor were to read the letter it might get Aziz’s friend into trouble. So will you be careful to say no more than present?’

  ‘I will be very careful to say no more than present.’ He spoke with a correct accent. This, she supposed, was one of the results of the Atatürk régime. Thirty years ago a young civil servant would not have spoken English.

  Ahmed showed no curiosity as to how the package had been delivered to her. Francis had been right. If you were brazen enough suspicion was not roused. And, after all, was there anything so very remarkable in an English girl employed in a government organization delivering by hand a package acquired across a frontier in a British shop to a member of a neutral and friendly power? Ahmed had not even asked her name.

  The British Embassy was five minutes away. The Ambassador had transferred the chancery to Ankara, but a section of his staff still functioned in what was now officially the consulate general. Eve always enjoyed her visits to the ample dignified building with its yellow ochre entrance and its V.R. above the gateway, with its spacious garden, its high ceilings, its marble staircase, its glassed-in courtyard. It had a perdurable quality. She always made her visits last as long as possible.

  As she was walking down the corridor, her errand finished, a voice called after her. ‘Hullo there, Eve; I heard you were in the building. I thought you were on your way to me. It looks as though you weren’t.’

  It was a light-toned, half-mocking voice. Its possessor was a tall slim young man, wearing a well-worn but well-cut dark blue pinstripe suit and an old Etonian tie. His name was Martin Ransom; he was a career diplomat and a second secretary at the Embassy. He looked down with a friendly smile. ‘Turkey suits you. You look prettier every time I see you.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s because you don’t see very many other European women.’

  ‘That may be so, and do you know what is the most maddening thing about it all? Nine times out of ten when I do see an attractive woman she’s an Austrian, a German, or an Italian, which means that I mayn’t speak to her. Every new country that joins the Axis cuts down my acquaintance automatically.’

  ‘The war won’t last forever.’

  ‘That’s what I tell myself. But in the meantime it’s highly inconvenient. Why do we meet so seldom?’

  ‘We move in different worlds.’

  ‘That’s my complaint. Why do we? It must be at least a month since we’ve met.’

  ‘It’s two weeks.’

  ‘It seems a month. It’s too long, anyhow. Let’s dine tonight.’

  ‘I’m sorry, no, I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because . ..’ She hesitated. She had not an excuse ready. She could not say ‘another party.’ He would ask what party, and there wasn’t one. In a small world like theirs everyone knew what everyone was doing.

  ‘You are not doing anything, now are you?’ he insisted.

  ‘Well, no.’

  ‘But you’d planned a quiet evening for yourself. You were going to wash stockings, answer letters, cut out a pattern, iron a dress and be asleep by ten. Can’t you do all that as easily tomorrow?’

  There was in his voice a note of mocking tenderness. He likes me, she thought, he really wants me to go out with him. I do attract him. And, after all, why shouldn’t I? I can cut out that pattern another day. It isn’t as though I go out so often. This isn’t London. And it was a relief to find an attractive man who was neither married nor a pansy. It was only that... It was only what? That she didn’t like to be asked out on the spur of the moment? Ten minutes ago she was the last person on his mind. If he wanted to see her why couldn’t he call her up, ask her to fix a night, as other men did? But then he wasn’t like other men in that way. His pocket diary was necessarily black with entries yet he always had spare time. He had his answer ready. ‘Three-quarters of my social life is concerned with duty. The quarter that is free I keep unmortgaged.’ And that was logical.

  ‘No,’ he was saying, ‘there’s no good reason why you shouldn’t dine with me. I’ll call for you at eight o’clock.’

  There was a sudden masterfulness in his voice that contrasted with its casual elegance and which she rather liked. He was a man all right.

  Eve shared a flat with an English girl, Kitty Lang, who worked for the British Council. Kitty was twenty-two years old. She was large and plump and bouncy. She had auburn hair and was always laughing, at nothing in particular, out of sheer exuberance. Everyone liked her, she liked everyone. ‘I’m having the time of my life,’ she always said.

  The British Council had been showing a film of historic beauty spots that afternoon and Kitty did not return to the flat till Eve had finished changing. She raised her eyebrows at the sight of Eve’s grey-green marocain. She knew her friend’s wardrobe well. This was for special dates. ‘For whom this glory?’ she inquired.

  ‘Martin Ransom.’

  ‘Then I’d say not wasted. He’ll appreciate it. I’ll envy you as I sit here with my knitting.’

  ‘I wish I could envy myself.’

  ‘Why can’t you? He’s fun. He’ll do you well.’

  ‘I know; but it always ends in the same argument.’

  ‘Why not let him win the argument for once?’

  ‘Oh, you know me.’

  ‘If I were in your shoes there wouldn’t be much argument.’ Kitty made no bones about her conduct. ‘The war came at just the right time for me,’ she would say. ‘I’m going to settle down one day; be a fine wife and mother, the crown, the altar, and the the hearth. But I mean to have a good time first. And that might not have been too easy for me in peacetime. One gets talked about. One disqualifies oneself for what one really wants. One has to be discreet. Nobody cares a damn what you do in wartime. When it’s all over you can wipe the slate clean and start afresh. Besides, in wartime, no one looks ahead. You’re here today and gone tomorrow.’ There was a quizzical but at the same time affectionate expression on her face.

  ‘Do you know how I feel towards you sometimes? Maternal. Isn’t that odd for me? Ah, the bell: your beau. Good hunting.’

  Martin had changed and shaved. He exuded an atmosphere of lavender water and clean linen; and he had exchanged his pinstripe suit for grey flannel trousers and a cashmere sports coat, he was no longer wearing an Old Etonian tie. He had shed his uniform, in fact.

  ‘You look so elegant, and I so casual. But I spend so much time on parade. It’s a relief to me to be myself.’

  But was this really himself, she asked herself? Wasn’t the real self the pin-stripe suit and the black tie with the thin blue stripe, the young man of good family, with a career, who at the right time would marry the girl who would be appropriate to that family and that career? And why in heaven’s name should he be any different? He was not trying to fool anyone. Take me on my ter
ms, or do without me. Well, and why shouldn’t he say that? All the same, it was pleasant to see him in that soft warm coat that one would like to snuggle up against and that foreign jig-jag tie, the kind of tie of which a woman would think, ‘Dare I buy him that?’ I’ll buy him a tie like that next Christmas, she decided.

  ‘I thought we’d dine at Abdullah’s,’ he was saying.

  Abdullah’s was the smartest winter restaurant in Istanbul. It was quiet, and good, and exceedingly expensive, there was no music and no dancing. It was patronized by rich Turkish merchants and members of the diplomatic corps with substantial private incomes. Germans went there, but very few Italians.

  ‘Let’s do ourselves well. Let’s do ourselves very well,’ he said, ‘and instead of cocktails let’s start off with a half bottle of Turkish white wine. It isn’t bad and I like its name: “Aphrodite”’

  * * *

  ‘I’ve a feeling,’ he was saying two hours later, ‘that the waiters are getting restive.’ He scrutinized the bill that lay beside him. ‘It’s supposed to be bad manners to think about money when you’re with a woman,’ he had said to her. ‘Waiters bank on that. They slip in little extras.’ And indeed every three or four times he found something wrong. This was one of them. He beckoned the waiter over.

  ‘My guest had only one glass of brandy.’

  ‘I apologize, Mr. Ransom.’

  ‘That’s quite all right.’

  He never got cross on such occasions. He was too delighted at having his point proved. Yes, he had everything worked out, she thought. She was impressed, yet at the same time nettled, by his assurance. It contained a challenge.

  ‘Well, are we on our way?’ he said.

  As they sauntered down the crowded street he slid his hand under her arm, pressing it against his side. ‘I always have a good time with you,’ he said. He lowered his voice half a tone, as he always did when he had something personal to say. It was one of his greatest attractions for her.

  His car was a two-seater, low and red. She settled herself luxuriantly into the bucket-seat. It would be very pleasant to go for a long drive into the country in this smooth, swift car. It was something they had not done. They had first met in November. Perhaps in June . . . But would he be still dating her in June?

  His flat was a little way out and to the north; but he turned his car to the right not to the left. So that’s that, she thought. She had started the evening resolved not to go back to his flat. She did not want a repetition of that last time. But she had expected to be asked. She was piqued that she had not been asked; and a little saddened, too. Had he given her up as a bad job? Was tonight’s dinner the start of the slow tapering off? By the time June came, there might not be a question of picnics in the country.

  He did not talk; she was grateful to him for that. She did not want to make casual conversation. But when he drew up outside her flat he did not jump out to open the door. He leant forward across the wheel, both elbows on it, his hands falling loose on the far side. He turned his head towards her.

  ‘There are times in life when one feels one’s living in a vacuum,’ he said. ‘An old self’s dead, a new self hasn’t come to life, or rather hasn’t started to emerge. One has to wait until it does; then you can find out what that new self is, what that new self wants; but till it does you can’t get on with that new life.’ He paused. He was speaking very slowly and his voice had again dropped half a tone. ‘I was in that position myself two years ago. It’s a curious time; you feel that nothing really matters; there are so many months to be lived through: that and no more than that. I’m wondering whether that isn’t the position that you’re in now.’

  She turned to look at him. His expression in the half-light was fond, was almost brotherly. What can he know about me, she thought; but even as she thought it, she recognized that it was a silly thing to think. Of course, he’d have made inquiries about her. He was that kind of man. He didn’t take things on chance. He’d want to know what he was taking on. And she supposed that more people than she guessed, knew about Raymond.

  ‘It’s a curious time,’ he was continuing, ‘but it can be quite amusing in its special way. There’s an interval to be filled in; there’s no reason why one shouldn’t decorate that interval.’ He paused again. ‘If I’m right in what I guess, I could help you to decorate yours, quite amusingly.’

  There was a twinkle in his eye. The brotherly look had gone, but the fondness stayed.

  He looked at her steadily for a moment, then turned away; opened the door, swung his legs into the roadway, handed her out on to the pavement. He walked beside her to the entrance of her block.

  ‘You’re very sweet, and very dear,’ he said.

  Kitty was still up when Eve returned. She raised her eyebrows. ‘So I gather he lost the argument?’

  ‘There wasn’t an argument.’

  ‘That’s dangerous; you must be on your guard.’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  She slumped back in an armchair, letting her arms fall limply over the sides. ‘I sometimes wish I weren’t myself,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t all of us?’

  ‘I doubt if you do.’

  ‘Perhaps not too often.’

  ‘When did you start this game?’

  ‘Eighteen.’

  ‘Was it with somebody important?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘Not a grande passion?’

  ‘Heavens, no. A kind of dare.’

  ‘You weren’t in love with him?’

  ‘I liked him well enough. It was a hurdle I had to carry. It seemed as good a time as any.’

  ‘How long did it last?’

  ‘How long did what last?’

  ‘The affair.’

  ‘It wasn’t an affair. I saw him once or twice, but it was rather awkward. He lived a long way out, and with his parents. It became more trouble than it was worth. Besides, there was someone else.’

  ‘How soon was it before you really fell in love?’

  ‘I never have.’

  ‘Oh, come now, surely—’

  ‘No, honest, no. It’s been exciting, romantic, sometimes there’s been a risk. But that feeling you read about in books—that I haven’t known.’

  Eve sighed. ‘If I could have started off your way I’d find life a great deal easier than I do right now.’

  Kitty laughed. ‘There have to be some recompenses for my kind of life.’

  ‘I wish there were more for mine.’

  ‘There are times when I envy you.’

  ‘I doubt if I do myself . . . but, all the same, since that’s the way it is .. .’

  Since that was the way it was, she had to make the best of it. There hadn’t been for her, as there had been for Kitty, a first and easy hurdle.

  Across two winters she recalled another February evening, a night of fog in London during the phoney war. They had dined, she and Raymond, at the Café Royal, in the Grill Room, with its panelled mirrors that had reflected Wilde and Whistler. It was a Saturday. The room had been half full. They had lingered over their coffee. They had planned to go to a French film at the Curzon, but when they came out into the street they found that the fog had thickened. The chances of getting a cab were slight. ‘Let’s go back and play records,’ he suggested.

  He had chambers in Albany. He had a key to the door on Vigo Street. He lived on the second floor. His rooms were warm. There was no central heating but he had left on the electric heaters. She appreciated his extravagance. She liked him for having thought: ‘We might come back; I couldn’t bring her into a cold room.’ The fireplace was high piled with logs and coal. He lit the papers under it and the flames leapt high. He turned down the high centre light and switched on two small lamps. Their soft light mingling with the firelight glowed in the glass of a tall Queen Anne bookcase and glinted on the silver thread of the blue damask curtains that screened the high broad window. He put on a long-playing record; he turned the volume down. She made a pile of cushi
ons on the floor, and leant her head against the sofa. He poured her a liqueur and sat behind her, his hand on her shoulder, stroking sometimes her arm, sometimes her cheek, sometimes her hair. It was a peace, a happiness deeper and wider than anything that she had known: outside, the fog, the black-out, the chill, the slimy pavements, the shouts of ‘Taxi’, the ill-tempered, ill-mannered homegoers stumbling against each other; and here this calm, this beauty, this soothing of every nerve.

  ‘Darling,’ she said, ‘when we are married it’ll be in London, won’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so, yes.’

  ‘Then let’s come back here afterwards. Let’s honeymoon here.’

  ‘Why not?’ She sighed. May. What a long time to wait, until his divorce came through. If only this were May, with this their wedding night. Could they ever be closer than they were this minute, until they were really one. His fingers were stroking her cheek, gently, tenderly, but with a vibrant pressure; the music ebbed and swelled, plangent, evocative through the warm firelit dusk. Why wait?

  ‘Darling. Do you know what I wish?’ she said. ‘That this were the start of our honeymoon, that we’d been married this morning in that grim little unromantic room. Darling, do you know what I’d like?’

  She paused. The suggestion would have to come from her; his sense of chivalry, based on his greater age, would hold him back.

  ‘I’d like us to pretend we had,’ she said. ‘I’d like us to start our marriage now.’

  His fingers on her cheek deepened their pressures. He drew a long, slow breath, and then stood up.

  ‘I want to read you a poem,’ he said, ‘by a Victorian, who wrote one good poem and little else.’

  He crossed to the high bookcase and took out the Oxford Book of Victorian Verse.

  ‘Come, let us make love deathless, thou and I

  Seeing that our footing on the earth is brief,’

  he read in a full cadenced voice. He had not turned down the radiogram. Its rich tones were a harmonious background to the poetry.