Nightingale (24 page)

Claire knew the drill from her war days but accepted the advice with a gracious smile.

________

It took six days of her routine before Claire was able to place a call to the university and another four days before she received a call back; one of the other nurses found her in her room to say there was a gentleman asking for her on the communal phone. She wondered if it was Professor Leavers but hoped it was Açar's father as she hurried down the two flights of narrow stairs in the stone building at the back of the hospital where her lodgings were. They were sparse and functional but she was grateful for running water and a relatively reliable electricity supply. After the deprivations of war, every normality from soap to sugar felt like a luxury to be grateful for.

‘Hello, this is Claire Nightingale,' she answered.

There was a tense pause and she imagined how confronting it must feel to have a stranger wanting to discuss your dead child.

She heard him clear his throat gently. ‘I am Rifki Shahin,' he finally said and his mellow voice brought her an unexpected sense of relief. She hadn't realised how much this call meant to her.

‘Oh, Mr Shahin, thank you for returning my letter and message.'

‘You said you have something for me that belonged to my son.'

She was surprised at his directness. ‘I do, sir.'

‘Perhaps you could leave it for me to collect from the hospital?'

‘Oh,' she said, regret taking her unawares. ‘I rather thought we might meet.'

Again came the pause. ‘I do not wish to be rude, Miss Nightingale, but I wonder what it is that we might have in common.'

She took a slow breath to cover flashes of disappointment pricking through her like a thousand needles. ‘Well, we do have your son in common.'

‘You knew my son?'

‘No.' She sighed. ‘Forgive me. I don't mean to sound presumptuous but I've travelled a long way to return your son's prayer book, Mr Shahin, and in doing so hope to fulfill a promise I made to someone I care about very much. And he did know your son.'

‘I see. A promise once spoken should never be broken.' She gave a smile at his poetic words that resonated, seemed to sum up her present life that was connected through promises . . . to Açar Shahin, to Jamie, to Eugenie, even to Bernard Jenkins. But she waited, would not press any further. ‘In that case, Miss Nightingale, let us meet in the gardens of Gülhane Park. Do you know the old city?'

‘No, but I desperately want to see it so you are giving me a wonderful excuse to explore. I am holding my breath in anticipation of seeing one of the wonders of the world, your Blue Mosque.'

‘We call it Sultan Ahmet. The area surrounding it is rather calming and it is also an appropriate place for strangers such as us to meet. Are you free tomorrow at all?'

‘In the afternoon I am.'

‘Shall we say three o'clock?'

‘Perfect. Er, how shall I know you?'

‘I shall likely know you, Miss Nightingale, in your nursing uniform and carrying an Arabic prayer book. However, I shall meet you by the Column of the Goths. Would that be suitable? It is quiet and scenic. You will enjoy its aspect and view across the Bosphorus.'

‘That sounds delightful. Thank you. Until tomorrow, then, Mr Shahin.' He said no more and she put the receiver back on the hook, realising she was trembling slightly. She laughed at herself for how uncertain he had made her feel. She was not prone to a show of nerves and put it down to not wanting to be late for her shift. They persisted, though, throughout her shift and on into a restless night and a new day that couldn't come quickly enough.

Claire was woken by the first wail of the muezzin calling his faithful flock to their morning prayers. Hauntingly alien, the sound rode the clear, chilled twilight air from the top of a mosque's minaret into the winter darkness of morning's earliest moments and urged her to rise. While most of her colleagues, especially those not on the early shift, were irritated by morning prayers, breaking into their sleep with a mesmeric howl in a language they didn't understand, Claire found the recitations comforting and a perfectly reliable wake-up alarm. For someone who was used to the Muslim culture from her time in Egypt, she found it an easier adjustment than a couple of her colleagues had, when some of the locals who helped out or provided services to the hospital would disappear frequently for prayers.

She enjoyed waking to the scent of bread baking, which wafted up from the streets reaching high into her room, through the shutters, and the accompanying unfamiliar spicy fragrances that drifted in from the hawkers and eateries nearby.

She pulled back the sheet and dropped her legs to the cool floor, always a slight shock as her mind anticipated carpet. Claire remained seated as she yawned and arched her back to stretch out her spine. She shared this room with another nurse but as they were on opposing shifts they rarely saw one another and hardly knew each other except through their belongings. Claire was aware, for instance, that her roommate had big feet and that she was most likely vain – if the variety of lipsticks and two small mirrors, pots of creams and rouge were any indication. She didn't dare wonder what Nanette Baines made of her.

Claire had quickly got used to the odd way of bathing with a pail and tin mug. She'd found soap in the local souk that was perfumed with attar of roses, yet was nothing like the overpowering ‘old lady' rose fragrance of the soap at home. This thick, hard, low-foaming soap smelled to her of memory. It was heady blooms gently scenting a summer's evening in Cairo or a sherbet in Alexandria; it was the drift of perfume as one walked past a hedge of rose bushes in Wahroonga on Sydney's North Shore; and how she imagined it would be stirring the fragranced air beneath the arbour of blushing tea roses in Radlett.

She'd been careful not to wet her hair, having washed it yesterday. Indulging in some of her roommate's vanity, she stared at her reflection in her colleague's mirror and was pleased to see that her hair had lost its freshly washed frizz and had settled into its shape. Claire had taken Eugenie's advice and finally cut her hair. Now it hung in a neat waved bob-cut, just long enough for her to pin back for her duties but for the first time in her life she could wear her hair without any ties or stays on her time off. She pinched some colour into her cheeks but noted her complexion possessed a glow that had been lacking in London. Eugenie would be pleased, she thought. She should write again and made a promise to do so this afternoon after her meeting with Mr Shahin.

The work hours passed so quickly she had to check her watch twice when the relieving team of nurses came for changeover. It hadn't been particularly busy; the usual raft of odd accidents and stomach upsets. There had been one fellow who'd ended up below an upturned cart that had been carrying heavy goods, so bones had needed to be reset but that was about as dramatic as the day had got. And yet it had ticked by her with the speed of the wartime when days and nights blurred and no one kept track of shifts, and there were always dozens of emergencies presenting at once.

‘Got something planned for today?' Matron asked.

‘I thought I'd stroll through the gardens in the old city,' she replied, deliberately vague.

‘Ah, perfect day for it. Are you going alone?' she frowned.

Claire shook her head. ‘I'm meeting that friend working at the university.' She knew it was fine to leave it at that and yet she added a fabrication. ‘You remember the old gentleman I told you about . . . the lecturer?'
Why the lie?
She didn't know. But Claire had promised herself she would move on instinct between now and April first. She would not analyse her motives, consider her position, second-guess any situation. She was falling free of encumbrances both physical and mental, likening it to how it might feel to jump from a plane into the clouds. This adventure of hers to return the prayer book was like the parachute Leonardo da Vinci and various other dreamers of flight had been developing for centuries. Now it seemed from a recent radio report that the safe jump and landing with a parachute was believed ready for trial later this year. It was exciting and she could only imagine what trusting one's life to something as ethereal as silk must feel like. A lot like trusting one's heart and its lovesick state. Istanbul and the prayer book were her parachute; it would keep her safe through the flight of the next six weeks of not knowing whether Jamie would turn up at the Langham.

‘Have a lovely afternoon,' Matron said.

Claire swallowed her shame. ‘I will, thank you.'

By a quarter past two she was walking beneath the thick Roman portico that allowed access into the royal gardens of the old walled city. She imagined how in its heyday of Constantine, chariot races had screamed around the cobbled hippodrome but now it was a far quieter place, mostly for reflection. A toffee seller expertly twisted melted butter and sugar around sticks from his confectioner trolley, while a man with a large tray on his head, balancing pyramids of his wares, called out his freshly made simit, the delicious chewy, circular bread that she knew was dipped in molasses and covered with toasted sesame seeds, similar to the bread called koulouri that they'd eaten during the early days of the war on Mudros Island.

She wandered on into what looked to be a main avenue for strollers that led her beneath a canopy of tall trees, passing exotic and beautiful multi-faced marble fountains with a bowl and spout on each side, where the dutiful could quickly attend to their ablutions before prayers.

She continued walking steadily before she spotted the Roman victory column on its incline, standing cracked and weather-beaten but still proud after centuries since its erection in front of the walls of the Topkapi Palace. Now it was kept company by a family of crows who eyed her with suspicion but gave no other outward sign that her presence disturbed them. One watched her from on high at the top of the Corinthian capitol that crowned the soaring victory pillar of marble.

She sat down on a wooden bench nearby. Claire checked her watch, thinking she was likely half an hour early for her appointment but she'd obviously taken a slower stroll than she'd imagined. Only ten minutes early. Shahin was right; it was a quiet, exquisitely pretty spot where the breeze of the Bosphorus whispered against her face and she could see its sparkling waters from her position. Shahin had also been right about finding her; she could see now that he would easily pick her out. She was highly conspicuous but it wasn't so much her narrow, barrel-skirted cream and grey outfit as the fact she was a woman. The two local women she had encountered on the way to this place had been garbed head to toe in their dark robes, walking a pace or two behind their men, one leading two dark-eyed children. She regretted not taking Matron's advice to stay in uniform but she'd wanted to appear less intimidating than her uniform allowed. However, Claire was very glad for the silk shawl she'd thought to bring and self-consciously had used it to cover her golden hair since leaving the hospital grounds.

She looked into her lap where her gloved hands rested; it was easier that way to avoid the glances of other people strolling the gardens and she instead focused on the small book she'd brought. She ran a finger over the Arabic script and touched the fragile gold leafing bordering each page that looked like a cartouche. The delicately painted headpieces on the tissue-like leaves depicted flowers. She knew each of its few pages well and yet she never failed to appreciate the beauty, despite the blot in its centre. The minutes passed quickly, it seemed; then a man with a long, fluid stride approached her.

‘Miss Nightingale?'

She recognised the voice and shielded her eyes from the winter sun as she looked up.

‘Yes,' she stood as if scalded and she had to keep looking up for he was tall. ‘Hello.' She held out a gloved hand and realised instantly she should have known better.

He regarded it for a heartbeat before taking it and she felt only the barest pressure as she stared into greyish eyes, filled with curiosity, that appeared to reflect the silvering in his close beard. There was none yet in his hair, which he wore short. She hadn't known what to expect – an old man in robes and a fez, probably. Yet here stood a disarmingly attractive, forty-something, olive-skinned gentleman in a tailored suit and tie with a neatly clipped beard and a question in his pale stare. He cleared his throat to snap her out of the silence surrounding them that was mercifully pierced when Professor Leavers suddenly arrived, hurrying up to them, huffing and puffing. ‘Oh, I'm so sorry, I was stopped by two of my students.'

‘Professor Leavers!' she said and it sounded like an accusation. ‘I thought you were only here for a few days.'

‘I was, my dear, but an opportunity arose to stay on, and . . . oh, suffice to say I'm here for another week or so and damned pleased about it too. So you've met?'

Claire returned her attention to Shahin, who had not, she realised, switched his attention from her and it felt as though that grey stare could see beneath her dove-coloured linen jacket and long-sleeved cream silk shirt right to the place where she harboured her innermost feelings. ‘Forgive me,' she began before he could speak. ‘Have I put you in a difficult position?'

In his eyes she saw amusement register but he didn't let it touch his mouth. ‘I have, as you say, broad shoulders but Professor Leavers was kind enough to accompany me to prevent any awkwardness.'

She smiled polite gratitude at Leavers before she said to Shahin, ‘That's why you preferred to pick up Açar's book.' She felt instantly stupid for being so slow at appreciating the customs of this region. ‘I forgot myself. Is it just easier if I hand you this and walk away?'

Now the amusement did reach his mouth, which curved slow and slight just for a second.

‘Nonsense!' Leavers said. ‘I am your chaperone, Miss Nightingale, and most pleased to take the air with you both.'

Shahin's eyelids shrouded his gaze momentarily before he turned, gesturing carefully ahead. ‘Shall we?'

‘Yes, thank you,' she replied with a self-conscious sigh of relief and fell in step but deliberately left a careful distance between her and her Turkish companion.

‘I don't know if you've already visited but I thought you may enjoy a brief stroll around our famous mosque, Miss Nightingale.'

‘That would be delightful, thank you.'

They made small talk as they strolled until they reached the vast and magnificent forecourt paved with a striped grey marble that matched Rifki Shahin's colouring. She looked up, helplessly awed by the vaulted ceilings of perfect lines of the arcade that encircled the courtyard, decorated with the deep henna-red stones. Everything about this exterior was about size and the visitor achieving an impression of majesty. She must have said this aloud for Shahin answered, his tone eager.

‘Indeed, that was the whole point. You see that chain hanging there?'

She nodded.

‘Only the Sultan could enter through that doorway on the western side and the hanging chain forced him to bow his head to pass beneath.'

‘So that even the Sultan was humble?'

He smiled. ‘Yes, so that he knew he was in the presence of the Divine.'

‘And the fountains are exquisite,' she continued, delighted by such practical use of the beautiful marble.

‘Muslims must come to their prayers clean of body and mind,' he said softly and she cast him a glance but said nothing. He looked away.

‘Why is it called the Blue Mosque?' she asked him.

Leavers nodded. ‘I've always wondered that too. Nothing terribly blue about all this,' he said, waving a hand. ‘Is it to do with the reflection of the sea against its pale walls?'

Claire watched Shahin nod, impressed.

‘On a summery moonlit night it does look very pale, but I suspect it has earned that name because of the many thousands of blue iznik tiles that line its walls.'

‘Iznik?' she repeated.

‘Nicea. South of here. It was famous for its distinctive porcelain favoured by the sultans.'

‘Ah, thank you. The mosque is so very beautiful. I was up on the hospital roof marvelling at the six minarets.'

‘And nine domes,' he continued. ‘It's not dissimilar to the Hagia Sophia,' he said, pointing towards the great Roman Catholic church in the distance, ‘in terms of the Byzantine elements, but it does show off its classical Ottoman influences. Are you interested in history, Miss Nightingale?'

‘Yes, as a matter of fact, classical history of this whole region has intrigued me since school days. It's all so very . . .' He looked back at her quizzically as she searched for the right word and she liked the eagerness in that expression. It struck her that Shahin was genuinely interested in her responses. She wanted to say ‘biblical', but instantly thought perhaps that might offend and finally the right word erupted. ‘Epic,' Claire finished, and this drew a brief gust of laughter from him that she sensed was a rare show of his thoughts.

‘Have you been inside, Miss Nightingale?' Leavers enquired.

‘Not yet.'

‘Another time, perhaps,' Shahin said, glancing at his watch. ‘Forgive me, but I have a lecture at four. You would need to sit in the women's gallery, of course.'

‘Of course,' she said, surprised to feel indignant at the mention of segregation. It was another culture, another custom, but still she felt vaguely affronted.

‘I thought we might take some tea. Would that be agreeable?' he asked. ‘There's time.'