The Mule on the Minaret (39 page)

‘Writing letters. I'll make myself a sandwich.'

‘What a hectic life you lead.'

Eve had told Kitty that she had acquired a friend in Beirut, but she had supplied no details. She was tempted now to say, ‘As a matter of fact, I do. My Beirut boy-friend is coming here at nine.' Sooner or later she would have to take Kitty into her confidence. But tonight—Suppose he had only come here as Fadhil's representative, to bring her a list of the information that he needed, to arrange a meeting when he could receive her answers. Until she was absolutely certain that Aziz was coming to see
her,
she could not expose herself to Kitty. If she had to be humiliated, let it be in the private hell of her own heart.

‘I must play it quietly,' she thought. ‘Seven weeks is a long time. I must humour him. He will probably be on edge. It is up to me. Everything is up to me. As it always has been. As it always will be.' So she argued with herself; rehearsing her part, studying her lines. ‘Thus and thus, it should be, and then . . .'

A bell rang in the hallway. She hurried to the door; she opened
it. He stood in shadow; she could not see his features. ‘Aziz,' she started. But that was the last thing that she was to try to say for quite a while. She was in his arms; or at least she was at the mercy of his arms, his hands, his lips, his fingers. She had been half flung, half carried across the room. He had flung off his coat, his jacket. He could not wait. She was on the couch, and he was on his knees beside her. He was ruthless yet he was tender, improvident yet prudent, avid and yet restrained, and suddenly, unbelievably, she was drowned, drenched, in the ecstasy that she had read about; she was groaning, sobbing, writhing, sighing; and every bone in her body seemed to have been turned to water.

It was the same, but it was completely other.

Rested upon her elbow, she looked down at him, adrowse among the pillows; just as she had in Beirut seven weeks before. ‘He's mine, altogether mine,' she had thought then. She still thought that; but now she thought it in a different way. Whereas before she had thought of him as someone to be spoiled, to be denied nothing, to be overwhelmed, so that nowhere, never, from any other woman, would he approximate to the raptures that he had reached through her. Now though she still thought of him as ‘mine', he had become the instrument of her own delight. His body was the violin out of which she struck chord after piercing chord. To him the change of temper may not have been apparent, but to her it was a complete reversal of roles. She was still dominant, still the initiator, the provoker; but whereas before she had schemed how she could create for him the maximum of pleasure, now she devised fantasy after fantasy for her own enjoyment, experimenting to discover what pleased her most, elaborating every ritual of approach. They never talked while they were making love, they never discussed afterwards the details of their love-making. They just made love, following her mood and whim. Did he realize, she wondered, that she no longer had to feign the frenzies that in Beirut had so enchanted him? She even wondered whether those frenzies were as convincing now that they were spontaneous. She had once read that an actress's words rang true no longer when she was expressing an emotion that she was feeling at the actual moment; an actress had to be outside her part. Could that be true in love? She could not think it was.

Back in the office, she would relive the hours that she had spent with Aziz. ‘He's mine, mine, completely mine.' And there in the
files was the proof of how much more completely he was hers than ever he suspected, than ever he could suspect. He had brought over from Fadhil a short list of questions, all of them concerned with Turkish exports to and imports from the Axis countries. He appeared to attach considerable importance to these questions. He did not convey in any way the suspicion that the records he received from Fadhil were relatively trivial in terms of the larger rewards that he was receiving from the Germans. He was astute all right.

She reported their meeting to Sedgwick. ‘How does he seem?' Sedgwick asked. ‘Is he disturbed about his assignment with the Germans?'

‘He does not seem to be.'

‘I should if I were in his position. Perhaps he doesn't realize what a dangerous game he's playing. When do you see him next?'

‘I promised that I would have the answer before he leaves.'

‘That's early in October.'

‘The last week in September.'

‘That gives you plenty of time. And until then . . .'

He paused; there was a quizzical expression on his face. ‘How much does he guess?' she wondered. It was a questioning pause. Better lay her cards upon the table.

‘I saw quite a lot of him in Beirut,' she said.

‘You told me that you had.'

‘We became quite friends. He has asked me to go to a concert with him. There is no reason why I shouldn't, is there?'

‘On the contrary; it would look strange if you didn't go. It's useful to us, too. You may be able to give us some clues as to what's going on. I'm curious to see how he reacts to the treatment he's going to get here from the Germans.'

According to Chessman, the Germans were very far from satisfied with the information that Aziz had been supplying. The actual information that he had sent had been of use, but there had been little of it. The German captain was proposing to get tough.

The interview took place during Aziz's third week in Istanbul. Chessman's report on it was added to Aziz's file.

At the start, the German had been cordial and encouraging. ‘I am very pleased with you,' he said. ‘You have sent up the right kind of information. You have not wasted our time with trivialities. As far as we can check, what you have told us is correct.'

‘I am glad to hear that.'

‘But, and there is a but, a large but—you have sent us up very little.'

‘I have sent up all I had.'

‘But you should have found more.'

‘Where should I have found more?'

‘In the ordinary course of your social life. You have these friends in the Spears Mission; through them you could meet other members of the Mission. Do you know the Military Attaché?'

‘I do not.'

‘Then you should get to know him.'

‘We do not move in the same social circles.'

‘Then introduce yourself into the circles in which he moves.'

‘That is impossible.'

At that point the German began to lose his temper, or to appear to lose his temper. He raised his voice. He shouted and blustered. He stood up. He pounded the table. ‘Do not use the word impossible to me. This is wartime. I am a captain on the General Staff of the German Army. You are a student, a civilian, a boy. I issue orders. I expect them to be carried out. Impossible! Who are you to say impossible to me?'

Aziz remained calm. ‘I have very little spare time. I have my classes. I have my family. I have my friends. I can only give a limited amount of time to you.'

‘Then what use do you think you are to us?'

‘It was your idea, not mine, that I could be of service to you.'

Once again the German lost his temper. ‘Let me remind you,' he thundered, ‘that you are in a very dangerous position. We hold a document that, if handed over to the Turkish authorities, would send you to prison for the duration of the war. Your education would be stopped: your career would be ruined. When victory finally rewards our arms, you would find yourself without a friend and with no prospects. Your parents would disown you. Impossible! Do not dare to use a word like that to me. You are not in a position to use a word like that. You are in my power.'

Aziz did not interrupt. He listened without showing any signs of being cowed by this Niagara of words. When at last the German paused, he said, ‘Will it do you any good if I am handed over to
the authorities? I can do nothing for you in prison. I should have thought that even the meagre information I obtain for you is of more use to you than that.'

His quietness left the German without any fuel for his fury. His collar was tight and his neck bulged above it. His eyes glistened. His fists clenched and unclenched. ‘There is another point, too,' Aziz added. ‘You want me to enlarge my acquaintance. I can only do that by inviting friends to have a meal or drinks with me. I shall need money for that.' In the end he secured a monthly allowance of a hundred American dollars to be paid into a numbered account in Switzerland.

‘That is a very smooth customer indeed,' was Chessman's final verdict.

Eve chuckled as she read the report. It made her feel proud of Aziz. She wondered if he really was in danger. She did not see how he could be. And anyhow, everyone today was in danger in some way or another. The knowledge that he might be in danger pleased her. He was so much hers.

Aziz's time was not completely free. His family made demands on him, and except for her weekly day off duty Eve's mornings and late afternoons had to be spent in her office. But most days they were able to spend an hour or so in a café listening to the music, over a cup of coffee and a plate of sticky cakes, and three or four nights they dined together at Rejans. It would have been pleasanter in the summer heat to have enjoyed the cool of the Bosphorus or the Golden Horn. But neither of them had a car. It was convenient to dine near her flat, and she enjoyed the atmosphere of Rejans—the narrow passage off the Rue de Pera, leading to the short dark stairway. There was nothing romantic about the place. A wide rectangular room with a balcony and no shaded corner, but the menu was in French and the food was French. She loved the fat Russian who played Balalaika music. And the people who went there were sympathetic.

One night Aziz nudged her elbow. ‘Don't look, but over your left shoulder there's a man staring at us.'

‘Do you know who he is?'

‘I've an idea I've seen him, but I can't think where.'

Aziz was short-sighted. He wore powerful glasses for reading and found it difficult to recognize across a room anyone whom he did not know well. She let her handkerchief slip on to the floor; she let it stay there for a couple of minutes, then stooped to recover it.
As she straightened up she looked across the room. But of course, it was Alexis Belorian.

She caught his eye and waved. ‘You met him at his cousin Annabelle's and had an argument.'

‘Why, yes, so I did.'

She watched him closely as she spoke. He had probably been speaking the truth when he said that he had not recognized Alexis. But he had not started when she pronounced the name. A very smooth customer indeed. Across the room, Alexis rose from his chair. She half closed her eyes, rehearsing the details of her role. She did not know yet whether the Germans in Istanbul had made contact with Alexis, since Alexis had not been instructed to report to the Istanbul office. If he had been contacted by the Germans, he would know that someone in Beirut had reported him, but he would not know who. Aziz, on the other hand, would remember having reported Alexis, but he apparently did not know whether the Germans had acted upon his recommendation. The point had not been raised in the interview with the Germans, according to Chessman's account; and Aziz had not produced his recruitment of Alexis as evidence in his own defence. Everyone was in the dark, to some extent; Aziz most of all. So she reflected quickly as Alexis crossed the room.

He stood looking down, with his mocking, self-confident, appraising look. ‘I thought it was you. But I couldn't be certain. In this dim room, and almost with your back to me; you do remember who I am, I hope?'

‘I remember perfectly. Annabelle Koumayan's cousin. We met there at a cocktail party.'

‘And you told me that you were stationed in Istanbul and I told you that I was shortly coming here and I made a vow to myself to see you. The first thing I do, I said, will be to ring up that extremely attractive girl who works in the British Council. But, very stupidly, I forgot to make a note of your name. How dumb can one get? When I learnt that I was coming here I rang up Annabelle; she told me that you had left Beirut. She, too, had forgotten your name. She could not remember who had brought you. There was an English officer who she thought might know, but he was in Cairo for the moment. What was I to do? When I arrived here I rang up the British Council. I tried to describe you. No avail. Had you been a redhead or a Swedish blonde, identification would no doubt have followed; but your charms, my dear young lady, are elusive. It
is even possible that you are not photogenic, though, to those who can appreciate feminine charm, you have the femalest approach to a man's heart. Now let me repair my folly. Let me have, I beseech you, your address and name. Ah, thank you, thank you. Tomorrow, it is deplorable to have to state, I return to Lebanon. But I shall return; assuredly I shall return. My first act will be to telephone you.'

He had talked with the confidence of a man who has enjoyed many easy conquests; and there was indeed a masculine magnetism about his self-assurance. She disliked him; she had indeed a definite repugnance for him, but she recognized that he was not negligible. There was a certain relief about a man who knew his own mind, who knew exactly what he wanted and did not depend on a woman to make up his mind for him.

During his rambling speech, he had completely ignored Aziz's presence; now he looked down at him with an air of contemptuous indifference. ‘It seems to me that I have met you somewhere?'

‘We met at your cousin's house.'

‘Indeed, Annabelle knows so many people. Do you live in Beirut?'

‘I am a student at the A.U.B.'

‘Indeed, indeed. I hope you are taking advantage of its facilities. Yes, I am sure you are. You appear to me the kind of young man who would. Well, I must be on my way. Beirut is a delightful city, but already I am counting the hours to my return here.'

Aziz's eyes followed Alexis as he returned to his own table. ‘I don't like that man,' he said.