Topkapi (3 page)

Now, of course, I can look back on the whole thing and smile about it. The point I am making is that persons in authority - headmasters, police officials - can do a great deal of damage simply by failing to understand the other fellow’s point of view.

How could I have possibly known what kind of man this Harper was?

As I explained, I had simply driven out to the Athens airport looking for business. I spotted this man going through customs and saw that he was carrying his ticket in an American Express folder. I gave one of the porters two drachmas to get me the man’s name from his customs declaration. Then I had one of the uniformed airline girls give him my card and the message: “Car waiting outside for Mr. Harper.”

It is a trick I have used lots of times and it has almost always worked. Not many Americans or British speak demotic Greek; and by the time they have been through the airport customs, especially in the hot weather, and been jostled by the porters and elbowed right and left, they are only too ready to go with someone who can understand what they’re talking about and take care of the tipping. That day it was really very hot and humid.

As he came through the exit from the customs I went up to him.

“This way, Mr. Harper.”

He stopped and looked me over. I gave him a helpful smile, which he did not return.

“Wait a minute,” he said curtly. “I didn’t order any car".

I looked puzzled. “The American Express sent me, sir. They said you wanted an English speaking driver.”

He stared at me again, then shrugged. “Well, okay. I’m going to the Hotel Grande-Bretagne.”

“Certainly, sir. Is this all your luggage?”

Soon after we turned off the coast road by Glyphada he began to ask questions. Was I British? I sidestepped that one as usual. Was the car my own? They always want to know that. It is my own car, as it happens, and I have two speeches about it. The car itself is a 1954 Plymouth. With an American I brag about how many thousands of miles it has done without any trouble. For the Britishers I have a stiff-upper-lip line about part-exchanging it, as soon as I can save enough extra cash, for an Austin Princess, or an old Rolls-Royce, or some other real quality car. Why shouldn’t people be told what they want to hear?

This Harper man seemed much like the rest. He listened and grunted occasionally as I told him the tale. When you know that you are beginning to bore them, you usually know that everything is going to be all right. Then, you stop. He did not ask how I happened to live and work in Greece, as they usually do. I thought that would probably come later; that is, if there were going to be a later with him. I had to find out.

“Are you in Athens on business, sir?”

“Could be.”

His tone as good as told me to mind my own business, but I pretended not to notice. “I ask, sir,” I went on, “because if you should need a car and driver while you are here I could arrange to place myself at your disposal.”

“Yes?”

It wasn’t exactly encouraging, but I told him the daily rate and the various trips we could take if he wanted to do some sightseeing - Delphi and the rest.

“I’ll think about it,” he said. “What’s your name?”

I handed him one of my cards over my shoulder and watched him in the driving mirror while he read it. Then he slipped it into his pocket.

“Are you married, Arthur?”

The question took me by surprise. They don’t usually want to know about your private life. I told him about my first wife and how she had been killed by a bomb in the Suez troubles in 1956. I did not mention Nicki. I don’t know why; perhaps because I did not want to think about her just then.

“You did say you were British, didn’t you?” he asked.

“My father was British, sir, and I was educated in England.” I said it a little distantly. I dislike being cross-examined in that sort of way. But he persisted just the same.

“Well, what nationality
are
you?”

“I have an Egyptian passport.” That was perfectly true, although it was none of his business.

“Was your wife Egyptian?”

“No, French.”

“Did you have any children?”

“Unfortunately no, sir.” I was definitely cold now.

“I see.”

He sat back staring out of the window, and I had the feeling that he had suddenly put me out of his mind altogether. I thought about Annette and how used I had become to saying that she had been killed by a bomb. I was almost beginning to believe it myself. As I stopped for the traffic lights in Omonias Square, I wondered what had happened to her, and if the gallant gentlemen she had preferred to me had ever managed to give her the children she had said she wanted. I am not one to bear a grudge, but I could not help hoping that she believed now that the sterility had been hers not mine.

I pulled up at the Grande-Bretagne. While the porters were getting the bags out of the car Harper turned to me.

“Okay, Arthur, it’s a deal. I expect to be here three or four days.”

I was surprised and relieved. “Thank you, sir. Would you like to go to Delphi tomorrow? On the weekends it gets very crowded with tourists.”

“We’ll talk about that later.” He stared at me for a moment and smiled slightly. “Tonight I think I feel like going out on the town. You know some good places?”

As he said it there was just the suggestion of a wink. I am sure of that.

I smiled discreetly. “I certainly do, sir.”

“I thought you might. Pick me up at nine o’clock. All right?”

“Nine o’clock, sir. I will have the concierge telephone to your room that I am here.”

It was four thirty then. I drove to my flat, parked the car in the courtyard, and went up.

Nicki was out, of course. She usually spent the afternoon with friends - or said she did. I did not know who the friends were and I never asked too many questions. I did not want her to lie to me, and, if she had picked up a lover at the Club, I did not want to know about it. When a middle-aged man marries an attractive girl half his age, he has to accept certain possibilities philosophically. The clothes she had changed out of were lying all over the bed and she had spilled some scent, so that the place smelled more strongly of her than usual.

There was a letter for me from a British travel magazine I had written to. They wanted me to submit samples of my work for their consideration. I tore the letter up. Practically thirty years in the magazine game and they treat you like an amateur! Send samples of your work, and the next thing you know is that they’ve stolen all your ideas without paying you a penny-piece. It has happened to me again and again, and I am not being caught that way any more. If they want me to write for them, let them say so with a firm offer of cash on delivery, plus expenses in advance.

I made a few telephone calls to make sure that Harper’s evening out would go smoothly, and then went down to the cafe for a drink or two. When I got back Nicki was there, changing again to go to work at the Club.

It was no wish of mine that she should go on working after our marriage. She chose to do so herself. I suppose some men would be jealous at the idea of their wives belly dancing with practically no clothes on in front of other men; but I am not narrow-minded in that way. If she chooses to earn a little extra pocket money for herself, that is her affair.

While she dressed, I told her about Harper and made a joke about all his questions. She did not smile.

“He does not sound easy, papa,” she said. When she calls me “papa” like that it means that she is in a friendly mood with me.

“He has money to spend.”

“How do you know?”

“I telephoned the hotel and asked for him in Room 230. The operator corrected me and so I got his real room number. I know it. It is a big air-conditioned suite.”

She looked at me with a slight smile and sighed. “You do so much enjoy it, don’t you?”

“Enjoy what?”

“Finding out about people.”

“That is my newspaper training,
chérie
, my nose for news.”

She looked at me doubtfully, and I wished I had given a different answer. It has always been difficult for me to explain to her why certain doors are now closed to me. Re-opening old wounds is senseless as well as painful.

She shrugged and went on with her dressing. “Will you bring him to the Club?”

“I think so.”

I poured her a glass of wine and one for myself. She drank hers while she finished dressing and then went out. She patted my cheek as she went, but did not kiss me. The “papa” mood was over. “One day,” I thought, “she will go out and not come back.”

But I am never one to mope. If that happened, I decided, then good riddance to bad rubbish. I poured myself another glass of wine, smoked a cigarette, and worked out a tactful way of finding out what sort of business Harper was in. I think I must have sensed that there was something not quite right about him.

At five to nine I found a parking place on Venizelos Avenue just round the corner from the Grande-Bretagne, and went to let Harper know that I was waiting.

He came down after ten minutes and I took him round the corner to the car. I explained that it was difficult for private cars to park in front of the hotel.

He said, rather disagreeably I thought: “Who cares?”

I wondered if he had been drinking. Quite a lot of tourists who, in their own countries, are used to dining early in the evening, start drinking ouzo to pass the time. By ten o’clock, when most Athenians begin to think about dinner, the tourists are sometimes too tight to care what they say or do. Harper, however, was all too sober. I soon found that out.

When we reached the car I opened the rear door for him to get in. Ignoring me, he opened the other door and got into the front passenger seat. Very democratic. Only I happen to prefer my passengers in the back seat where I can keep my eye on them through the mirror.

I went round and got into the driver’s seat.

“Well, Arthur,” he asked, “where are you taking me?”

“Dinner first, sir?”

“How about some sea food?”

“I’ll take you to the best, sir.”

I drove him out to the yacht harbour at Tourcolimano. One of the restaurants there gives me a good commission. The waterfront is really very picturesque, and he nodded approvingly as he looked around. Then, I took him into the restaurant and introduced him to the cook. When he had chosen his food and a bottle of dry Patras wine he looked at me.

“You eaten yet, Arthur?”

“Oh, I will have something in the kitchen, sir.” That way my dinner would go on his bill without his knowing it, as well as my commission.

“You come and eat with me.”

“It is not necessary, sir.”

“Who said it was? I asked you to eat with me.”

“Thank you, sir. I would like to.”

More democracy. We sat at a table on the terrace by the water’s edge and he began to ask me about the yachts anchored in the harbour. Which were privately owned, which were for charter? What were charter rates like?

I happened to know about one of the charter yachts, an eighteen-metre ketch with twin diesels, and told him the rate - one hundred and forty dollars U.S. per day, including a crew of two, fuel for eight hours’ steaming a day, and everything except charterer’s and passengers’ food. The real rate was a hundred and thirty, but I thought that, if by any chance he was serious, I could get the difference as commission from the broker. I also wanted to see how he felt about that kind of money; whether he would laugh as an ordinary salaried man would, or begin asking about the number of persons it would sleep. He just nodded, and then asked about fast, sea-going motorboats without crew.

In the light of what happened I think that point is specially significant.

I said that I would find out. He asked me about the yacht brokers. I gave him the name of the one I knew personally, and told him the rest were no good. I also said that I did not think that the owners of the bigger boats liked chartering them without their own crewmen on board. He did not comment on that. Later, he asked me if I knew whether yacht charter parties out of Tourcolimano or the Piraeus covered Greek waters only, or whether you could “go foreign,” say across the Adriatic to Italy. Significant again. I told him I did not know, which was true.

When the bill came, he asked if he could change an American Express traveller's cheque for fifty dollars. That was more to the point. I told him that he could, and be tore the fifty-dollar cheque out of a book of ten. It was the best thing I had seen that day.

Just before eleven o’clock we left, and I drove him to the Club.

The Club is practically a copy of the Lido night club in Paris, only smaller. I introduced him to John, who owns the place, and tried to leave him there for a while. He was still absolutely sober, and I thought that if he were by himself he would drink more; but it was no good. I had to go in and sit and drink with him. He was as possessive as a woman. I was puzzled. If I had been a fresh-looking young man instead of, well, frankly, a potbellied journalist, I would have understood it - not approved, of course, but understood. But he was at least ten or fifteen years younger than me.

They have candles on the tables at the Club and you can see faces. When the floor show came on, I watched him watch it. He looked at the girls, Nicki among them, as if they were flies on the other side of a window. I asked him how he liked the third from the left - that was Nicki.

“Legs too short,” he said. “I like them with longer legs. Is that the one you had in mind?”

“In mind? I don’t understand, sir.” I was beginning to dislike him intensely.

He eyed me. “Shove it,” he said unpleasantly.

We were drinking Greek brandy. He reached for the bottle and poured himself another. I could see the muscles in his jaw twitching as if with anger. Evidently something I had said, or which he thought I had said, had annoyed him. It was on the tip of my tongue to mention that Nicki was my wife, but I didn’t. I remembered, just in time, that I had only told him about Annette, and about her being killed by a bomb.

He drank the brandy down quickly and told me to get the bill.