“And that’s the origin of Russia?”
“Broadly speaking, yes. The origins of Russian Orthodoxy. Once they’d got them friendly and half civilized, the Byzantines used them as an imperial guard, the Varangian guard. All six foot ten and Viking to their hairy toes. Just about the only thing that kept the Greeks safe in Constantinople.”
Yashim started. “The Varangian guard protected the Greeks? And used this barbaric style of execution?”
Palewski pulled a dubious face. “Well, I don’t know that they still used it then. Perhaps they’d dropped it, along with all their pagan gods. I don’t know. But here’s a curiosity for you, if you like. The spread eagle was the symbol of the Byzantine emperors. And after their fall, the Russians began to use it themselves. To demonstrate their kinship. You know, claims to the throne of Byzantium, Protectors of the Orthodox, all that.”
He paused and rubbed his hands.
“History lesson over. I don’t know that it’s been any good. Sun’s gone. Let’s have a drink.”
He picked his way past the table and opened the door.
“Marta!” he bellowed. “Vodka, glasses, and ice!”
Yashim smiled.
“I always shout these days,” Palewski remarked affably, from the door. “Saves me having to say please. Marta’s become rather a stickler for the niceties, I can’t think why. Anyway, the bell’s broken.”
46
It was already dark when Yashim reached the landing stage at Karakoy. Istanbul across the Golden Horn looked strangely unfamiliar, the outline of its hills concealed in the darkness, false heights picked out by the lamps that burned on minarets and domes. For a moment it was possible to believe that the city had been replaced by mountains, their peaks and slopes dotted here and there by charcoal burners’ huts.
He closed his eyes, swaying slightly, and when he opened them again he had the impression of looking across a vast expanse of black water, toward the lamps of distant ships riding an invisible horizon that seemed high up and far away.
He took the first boat that offered itself, aware that a caique was not a craft for a man who had drunk too much. Its thin, light hull was at best a flimsy wrapper to protect two men from the water, which lapped up almost to the vessel’s rim. He reclined automatically on the red cushion, shifting his weight to his left elbow to help trim the elegant dark hull. Now he could see the bulk of the city as he usually did, and the warm, low lamplight of the landing stage, where the caiques were moored.
The rower fixed a weak lantern to the prow and took up the sculls, pushing the caique away from the landing stage with a practiced sweep of his arm. Like an arrow, the lacquered vessel hissed through the water. Yashim let his eyelids sink shut.
The air was warm. Across the water, murmurs and snatches of conversation drifted lazily from the landing stage. The dogs barking on Galata Point sounded close by. Yashim felt the rhythmic tug of the sculls; the water trickled on the hull beneath his head. The rower spoke, but not to him, and there was a faint lurch, a stillness, an absence of the familiar sound. A ripple caught the caique and rolled it minutely. Yashim opened his eyes.
The caique had stopped moving. Very dimly against the lantern light the rower could be seen, his shoulders stilclass="underline" he seemed to be resting on his sculls. The lights of the city traveled slowly around behind his head, like the lights of a fairy carousel. Yashim liked that explanation. For the moment, he could not think of another.
He blinked a few times. The silent boatman, he reasoned, was waiting for him to speak.
A light on the shore snuffed out. When it reappeared on the other side of the boatman’s black silhouette, it dawned on Yashim that Istanbul was not spinning; rather the caique itself was turning gradually with the current.
“What’s the matter?” he finally said.
The rower didn’t move. Instead another voice close by replied: “Nothing is the matter, efendi. In a moment, if you likes, you continues with your journey. You are good man, I am sure.”
Yashim felt the hairs on his neck prickle. “What do you want?”
“Yes, yes. A good man.” The caique trembled slightly. In the dark, Yashim realized, another caique had pulled alongside. “You do not like to have some things what belongs to other mans, no?”
The voice was coming from somewhere behind his head. Yashim was awake now, his mind working fast to construct a picture of his situation. He saw it, as it were, from above: if his rower was leaning on the oars, still spread above the water, the other caique must have come in beside him, unless its oars were shipped. He had a feeling that the anonymous voice in the dark was too close for that. Which made it likely that the two boats were stern-to-stern: he had only to reach out and he would encounter-what? The speaker’s hand on the rim of his caique. The knuckles bent over the gunwale.
“Whassat? What’ya talking about?” He hoped he sounded drunk.
“I talks about a book, mister. Is little. Black. Is not belong to you, you understand? But we make it all right. Give me the book, and go your ways.”
Yashim’s hand went to his chest. Lefevre’s book was not there.
“Who are you?” he said thickly.
“Please. The book, only.”
The caique gave a little lurch, and there was a metallic click. Something winked momentarily in the darkness.
“What worth your life, efendi?”
It would be very soon. There was little time.
Yashim sat up. He put his hand out for support and brushed against the man’s fingers where they clutched the rim of his caique.
When one is getting into a caique held firmly against a fixed landing stage or piling by the oarsman, it is possible to stand up for a few seconds.
In open water, when there is nothing to steady the boat and the oarsman is unprepared, you do not have seconds. You have maybe one.
Yashim stood up.
He stepped forward and stamped down, hard.
There was a crack, and the caiques dipped together. As the hull of his caique flipped upward, Yashim took a step back and kicked himself off into the water.
He flicked the water out of his eyes and released his cloak, letting it float. He brushed the white turban from his head: it could catch the faint light, and he let it go. With his head above the water, he concentrated on staying afloat as silently as possible while three men floundered, cursing, close at hand. Yashim took the hem of his cloak in his teeth and paddled gently backward; the cloak would protect him and give him warning if someone tried to grab him in the dark.
He could hear the men more clearly now. One of them was cursing: perhaps the man whose hand he had trodden on. Another was lamenting the loss of his oars. Someone eventually told him to shut up.
With their caiques gone, the men would have to strike out for the shore. The Pera side was slightly closer; they would probably swim that way. Yashim went on quietly paddling until he heard them splashing, and then he released the cloak and turned onto his front. He swam breast stroke, not trying to fight the current that was bearing him slowly down toward the Bosphorus.
About twenty minutes later, a pair of barefooted chairmen enjoying a quiet smoke outside the New Mosque were surprised to be hailed by a man who squelched toward them out of the darkness. It was a shame the man was so wet, but he doubled their usual fare to the Fener baths. Business had been pretty quiet all evening.