“You are far from your family,” he suggests gently. “That is always difficult.”
It is too much for Sybil. She blinks angrily.
“Yes, I do miss my sister. I’ve never even met my nephews. I have no other family, except for my aunt and uncle in America and cousin Bernie. My mother, you see, passed away.” She pauses, balancing her head so the tear that has formed in the corner of her eye will not spill and betray her.
“Health to your head,” he says softly in Turkish.
The light from the party behind them reflects on her wet cheek.
“Thank you, teshekkur ederim,” she replies in kind, her tongue tripping over the many consonants.
Not wishing to draw attention to her distress, he waits silently for her to continue.
Frightened by her sudden weakness, Sybil straightens her back and continues in English. “That was five years ago. Father keeps her memory alive by staying on here, where she was by his side.”
“A mother’s memory is precious.”
“I think he simply finds it easier to bear Mother’s absence if he doesn’t break the rhythm of their life together. He keeps up an endless round of functions and formal visits. I think Father finds the routine soothing. It helps him forget. And this is where he was happy,” she explains.
“You are to be commended. Our society values a child that looks after his mother and father.”
“It isn’t difficult to direct the household, and Father doesn’t impose too many other duties on me.”
“Does this make you happy as well?” he ventures.
“Of course!” She turns to him indignantly. She sees mild green eyes, full of concern.
She turns her face from the light. Several moments pass before she speaks again.
Kamil feels an urge to take her hand, to confide his own father’s seemingly inconsolable grief, his unraveling ties first to work, now to his family, and, Kamil fears, eventually to life. He would like her advice on how to help his father. The death of his wife had catapulted Kamil’s father into training for his own oblivion. After her body was taken to the mosque, washed, wrapped in white linen, and consigned to the tomb under a hail of prayer, Alp Pasha never again stepped foot in a mosque or in the house where she had lived. Instead, he devoted more and more time to smoking opium in a darkened room, eventually giving up any pretense of governing.
When the grand vizier reluctantly took the office from him, Alp Pasha moved into his daughter Feride’s home. He refuses to visit Kamil in the villa where his mother had lived, preferring the opium-induced vision to the real thing. When he prepares himself with a pipe, Alp Pasha told Kamil once, he can smell the roses in the garden and feel the breeze in his hair. Kamil worries that he hasn’t done enough, that he is not a dutiful son, leaving the entire burden to his sister. He ponders how to bring up such a personal subject, then wonders if it is appropriate. The opportunity passes.
“I’ve never thought about it, to be honest. I suppose keeping Father happy keeps me happy as well,” Sybil answers finally. She sounds unsure. “I do have other interests,” she continues in a stronger voice, “that keep me amused.” She tells Kamil about the tutor who comes twice a week to teach her Turkish.
“It’s infuriating when someone speaks at length and then the terjuman translates it with only three words, so I determined to learn it myself.”
She admits to Kamil that she occasionally slips out on her own, concealed under a feradje cloak and dark yashmak veil, and walks around the city, wanting to try out her Turkish without a retinue of servants, guards, and official translators.
“They’re probably spies! So how much will anyone really tell me in their presence?”
Animated now, she shares with Kamil her interest in religion. They discuss Islam, not simply as a revealed book, but as a way of life. He finds that she knows a great deal about the present political debates and intrigues. After all, she has hosted many of the participants in her own home.
Sybil suggests that she practice her Turkish, and they end the evening laughing over mistranslated witticisms and slips of the tongue. Nevertheless, Kamil thinks her command of the language remarkable. She has none of the finesse of those raised at court or schooled in the byzantine labyrinths of bureaucratic politesse, but can converse quite freely and understand much of what she hears. He compliments her sincerely and, for the first time in a long while, is sorry to see a social evening end. On his way to the door, Bernie catches up with him, pats him on the back, and winks.
“Fancy a game of billiards sometime?”
As his horse negotiates the steep paths on the way home, Kamil wonders at the sudden flashes of companionship and trust that sometimes kindle between total strangers. Can he trust his new friendship with Bernie or is real friendship something that emerges only over years of shared history and challenges faced together, like the bond that has developed between him and Michel? In his experience, the initial bridge of trust and comradeship too easily splinters under the pressure of personal ambition or rots through as proximity leads to a greater understanding of the other’s flaws. Before long, a promotion or a move to a different province sends the last planks sweeping down the river.
He realizes there had been no opportune moment to ask Sybil about Mary Dixon.
9
This is Kamil’s third visit to the British Embassy and he is still not inured to the paintings on the reception room wall. He has elected not to bother the ambassador with any further questions; it is Sybil who generally answers them in any case. He wishes to ask her about women’s activities, he tells himself. The door opens and he rises, expecting the butler to lead him to another area of the cavernous embassy.
Instead, it is Sybil herself, in a gown embroidered with blue flowers. Emerging from the lace collar, her throat has the same round solidity of the woman in the painting behind him.
“Hello, Kamil Pasha. What a pleasure to see you again so soon.”
“It was a lovely evening, Sybil Hanoum. Thank you.” Kamil tries but fails to stop himself from looking into her eyes. “It’s good of you to see me again.”
Sybil lowers her lashes, although Kamil can still feel the weight of her gaze. She holds out her hand toward a comfortable chair near the fire. “Please sit.”
Kamil realizes with some distaste that they are to remain in this most inappropriate room.
He sits, his back to the painting, but remains distracted by the thought that Sybil, who has settled herself in the chair opposite him, will have to look directly at it while they speak.
She doesn’t seem to notice the painting, but sits smiling, her eyes on his face. Her face is slightly flushed. “Can I offer you some tea?”
“Yes, that would be most agreeable. Thank you.”
Neither looks directly at the other.
She stands and tugs at the bellpull on the wall behind the settee. Above the lace collar, the back of her neck rises white and smooth until it is lost in a widening arrow of brown hair. Her hips swell beneath the gown. Kamil looks at his hands and forces himself to think of Mary Dixon, dead, a body, a cipher. That is what he has come for-an answer.
Sybil settles herself back into her chair.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of your call, Kamil Pasha? I imagine it must be something quite urgent.”
“I wanted to speak with you about my investigation into Mary Dixon’s death. Perhaps you have some insight where I have none.”
Pleased, Sybil leans imperceptibly forward. “Whatever I can do to help.”
The lack of demurral and false modesty pleases Kamil. The maid pushes in a trolley of tea and ginger cakes. She pours the tea and leaves.
It soon emerges that Sybil has little to add to what is already known about Mary Dixon. She had been in Istanbul for just over a year. Her position had been arranged by a member of the board of trustees of Robert College in response to a letter from her minister attesting to her good character. She traveled to Paris and was given instructions and papers by someone attached to the Ottoman Embassy there. A week later, she took a coach to Venice and a steamer from there to Stamboul. She had complained to Sybil about having to share a compartment with three other women for the fourday trip. She was met at the landing by a closed coach that took her directly to the women’s quarters in Dolmabahche Palace.