Chapter 7
The first consignment of furniture for the residence has arrived: twenty-two metal and glass coffee tables and ten pieces of off-cut dark green carpet with an inset white band. The Countess shrieked.
'My guests will walk round that white line like hypnotised hens. Denis, do you not feel like a mesmerised hen when you look at these monstrosities from a bargain basement? In Turkey one looks at carpets. Walter, do something.'
The second consignment arrived today. An assortment of sofas and settees in contrasting styles covered in different shades of red, cherry, brick and pink. The Countess wants to send them back. The glassware and china are unsatisfactory. The plates all have a gold harp but no two are exactly alike. Most of them have seen hard service. Stacked, they wobble in the cupboard every time someone walks past. Walter made the mistake of being insufficiently indignant. I was embarrassed by the Countess's vehemence. He took it in his stride. He was, however, prevailed upon to write a letter to Personnel Section. I saw a copy:
... The beds are uniform in quality and in type. They
are single beds. Each one consists of a base on
wheels and an economy mattress. The wheels are
excellent. It is impossible to get into a bed without
causing it to glide across the floor. If one sits up and
leans back against the wall, the bed will slide to the
opposite end of the room.
It is an error of judgment to tangle with Dublin on this issue. There is nothing to be gained unless one has the ace of a projected Presidential visit in one's sleeve. The OPW has a budget, a few pet projects, lots of old furniture and no particular responsibility for Ireland's image abroad.
Some days later I saw the telexed reply: 'The furniture is deemed to be adequate.'
The sentry box outside the residence is now manned by the police. We have a tall hungry-looking young man, named Ali, who kicks a football with the local children, and a stout, older man who sits on a box with his back to the rails, conversing with the kapici of the house belonging to the Oil Company. They are to be supplied with an electric ring and get a monthly ration of black Turkish tea, sugar and biscuits. I stopped to smoke a cigarette with Ali today and try out my Turkish.
'Ciao!' sang out a high feminine voice, seemingly from the poplars between the Barbellinis and ourselves.
'Orhan must be coming out,' said the tall guard to his companion, with a grin.
'The maid,' explained Ali, making a sign with his hands that showed an appreciation of plump females. Orhan came around the corner of the house. I hope that there will be no complications of a romantic nature.
I miss many Turkish lessons because of meetings. I'm glad you find the cassette useful, Millicent. One feels so very foreign without a few words. The safe for the office arrived. I was relieved to put official documents into it and turn the key. I have been thinking over our telephone conversation. You are right, my love, when you say that I should not be too free and easy with local staff, that relations can be perfectly cordial yet retain a degree of formality. I went out on my own for coffee today.
The Countess has stopped worrying about the furniture and has set about 'rectifying' it.
'Denis,' she said this morning, 'I was wrong. At the Battle of Marengo a new dish was born, of necessity and scarce ingredients, for Napoleon's déjeuner. I forgive the Department. I forgive Walter for being complaisant. After all, that is why I adore him. What I must do is create artistic order out of bits and pieces of discount store category. A collage of genius is genuine art.'
I had an appointment with the electrician at the residence. I arrived ahead of him and heard sawing on the first balcony. The saw was moving in time to Sous le Pont d'Avignon sung at high volume by the Countess. She said 'Voilà!' and broke a leg from the new dining room table. It wasn't even a clean break, a splinter stuck down from the stump.
'I had an inspiration, Denis. It took most of the morning, but it came. I listened to the house and it said, ''Traditional house, traditional furniture!'' So you see...all these chairs go out...n'importe ou.... We will have sofas and cushions and kilms ... and the table must come down low, so! Do you think I am taking off enough? '
Oh my dear Millicent, I held the amputated leg in my hand and counted myself blessed that my wife will be a reasonable, rational creature without 'vagaries'.
I eventually persuaded Colette to sacrifice her designer skills to the petty-minded bureaucrats at home, reminding her that Walter's colleagues are too stiff to squat on cushions. She agreed to allow me replace the table leg. I left her to open the door to the electrician and went in search of a hardware shop. By some trick of the light, as I turned to go, I had a fleeting vision of the place, as the Countess imagined it, a harem interior, in muted filtered light.
'Tell me again how many electrical points Walter wants in his study?' she called after me, shattering the illusion. On Nenehatun Street I found a shop that makes antiques. They provided three small metal spikes and glue. The Countess was sitting on the doorstep, subdued and white-faced, when I returned.
'Denis, I saw a ghost. I leaned over the balcony, thinking. There was a blast of cold air. I felt sick to my stomach, sick to death. Then I saw ...no ... saw is not the right word for it, I could not see through the floor could I? I had a vision of a woman in black floating in the pool, her arms out, like this.'
I have been so busy, Millicent, over the last few days that the shock of my own experience in the residence has receded. The Countess's story took me by surprise and I sat down on the step beside her.
'Denis, you are not sceptical? You are not saying to yourself ''Crazy Colette Brown.''
I should never have admitted to her that I saw something myself, yet that is what I did. It was a moment of fellow feeling that I should not have allowed myself. She is incapable of discretion.
'Everything that happens leaves some kind of imprint on a place that becomes visible under particular conditions,' I said, in an attempt to console her.'That woman in black drowned here,' she said with a shiver. 'We must find out who she was, how she died, what she wants. Then she will find peace.'
'Nobody drowned here,' I said. 'I checked the history of the house. You met the owner, Mr. Muftu, a sensible businessman whose father built the house. The Portuguese Ambassador was the only other occupant.'
'Denis, I must see the owner again before I come to live here. I want to ask him about the woman in black.'
We upended the table, and fixed the leg.
'We need not tell Walter about the table, Denis. Your Office of Public Works said that we were sent ''reconditioned and refurbished furniture''. We have just reconditioned it a little more.'
'He does not need to know,' I agreed.
She gave me a smacking kiss on the cheek. 'I really don't like to upset Walter.'
She looked so very sincere that you would swear – if you did not know of her propensity for creating mischief – that she was the most docile wife in creation. The hall door screamed as we left. Colette shivered. I must ask the landlord to fix it. It needs to be taken off its hinges and planed.
There was a thunderstorm today. Rain poured in through the roof of the new residence and down the walls. Mr. Muftu has promised to fix the roof as soon as it stops raining. Walter is about to find out the effect a rental deposit has on the sense of urgency of landlords. Orhan collected the diplomatic bag today for the first time. Walter, on principle, would never let me pay the unofficial 'tax', so fetching the bag each week has been a nightmare for me, relieved only by the hope that there may be a letter from you inside it. Orhan reports to me and I believe in working with, rather than against, established custom, in this case. Since the car is not yet registered, Orhan has been working in the garden. The older of our two policemen fancies himself as a horticulturist and is pleased to advise Orhan, who thinks up all kinds of abstruse questions, to which he receives unlikely but dogmatic answers.
Our local secretary has lef
t, poached by the Americans. The word-of-mouth system worked again; several candidates turned up before I advertised. Our new secretary is Ayse Kiraç. She is a metallurgist but, jobs in her field being scarce, she took a secretarial course after college. Her English is excellent. She is beautiful, but only as long as she keeps her mouth closed. She has extremely ugly buckteeth. They must materially reduce her chances of matrimony. Any man thinking of kissing her must remember the teeth.
I took out a double membership in Friends of ARIT, an American archaeological society and said, 'My wife will be coming to Ankara soon', for the pleasure of saying it. I'll go on their day trip to Aizanoi next weekend. I called on Mr. Muftu to ask what has been done about the roof, to ask how arrangements for fencing the back of the house have progressed and to get him to fix the hall door The Countess came with me.
'I want to know everything about your marvellous house,' she said to the landlord, gazing at him as if he were marvellous also.
'It is a modern reincarnation of an old Turkish design. My father built it for his mother. There is poetry in the way light comes from within, from the beautiful courtyard. You observed the courtyard? You saw the mosaic of marbles from all over Turkey, the sundial....'
'Mr. Muftu,' said the Countess, putting her elbows on his desk, excluding me from the conversation, 'I need to know everything about the ghost before I go to live with it. Please do not equivocate. I saw the ghost of a woman in black with my own two eyes. Denis saw it also.'
'Granny!' exclaimed the landlord, horrified.
'A revenant! I knew it,' exclaimed the Countess.
The landlord recovered quickly. 'There is no ghost. When you spoke of a woman in black, I thought of Granny. She died when I was a small boy. I was afraid of her. But there was never any manifestation. I lived there. I know.''Mr. Muftu,' said the Countess, in a caressing voice, I am sure that there is a story behind this. Please tell me. It will not, whatever it is, affect our tenancy. That is settled. Yet, I need to know all you can tell me about the house and its occupants. Tell me about your grandmother. We will honour her memory.'
'I was a small boy when she died. I was upset by the trouble...'
'What kind of trouble, Mr. Muftu?' I interposed.
'We couldn't find the gold. Father did a lot of excavating. I associated the holes he dug with graves for Granny. I should explain that Granny came from Albania. Her people were landowners. They converted their wealth to gold to bring it to Turkey. She was an only child. She told my father, her only child, tales of Albanian gold.
'Was the gold found?'
'We found out what she did with it. It was all donated to a healer named Merita.'
'Merita, the living saint?'
'She was young in Granny's time. Our gold paid for her centre of healing near Gordion.'
'It is like a cathedral.'
'It is.' said Mr. Muftu, gloomily. 'Merita restored Grandmother to health. She prayed over her, read her health in the shapes molten lead took when poured into water. Grandmother, in her eighties, decided that Merita, the djinji hoja, was a living saint. Merita, though she would take nothing for herself, accepted donations towards a special building where her clients could gather to be blessed and cured. Father designed it.'
'When did your grandmother die?'
'Forty years ago. She must have been surprised. Death was not in her plans.'
'What did she die of?'
'What the doctors expected her to die of. Cancer.'
'At home?'
'In hospital. She agreed to go in for examination – to prove the efficacy of the Saint's cure – and never came out.'
'Is that her photograph on your desk?'
'No. That is my mother.'
'She is alive?'
'Yes. She was much younger than my father.'
So, my dear Millicent, Granny died of cancer in hospital. Mother is alive. Neither drowned in the pool. I remember that I was suffering from gastroenteritis when I viewed the house. The vision was induced by dehydration. Could I ask you to send me some sachets of Dioralyte next time you write? As a specific against ghosts. The Countess continued her interrogation of Mr. Muftu.
'Are you sure that your grandmother gave all her gold to the healer?'
'My last search was with a metal detector.'
'That would seem to be pretty conclusive, Countess,' I suggested.
'I would love to have your mother to lunch some day soon, Mr. Muftu,' said the Countess, as we left.
'Thank you. Unfortunately, she never goes out.'
The Countess seized my sleeve as we left the building.
'Denis, do you get the point?'
'What point?'
'Ghosts walk when there is something they need to tell the living. Were you not brought up beside a the turf fire, listening to ghost stories?'
'We had central heating.'
The Countess is a little out of touch with modern Ireland.
'I don't believe she gave away all the family gold, Denis. Faith is all very well, but one has one's priorities. French peasants have their secret hoards. Even I have a little gold in reserve. The landlord's granny hid hers too well and didn't tell anyone about it, because she didn't expect to die. She will haunt the house until it is found. Tomorrow I will consult a sourcier. A good sorcier can find anything, water, oil, gold, even the dead. Perhaps there will be an Albanian head-dress, hundreds of years old, passed down from bride to bride. Something like the one that Schlieman dug up at Troy.'
'There is no gold. The landlord made a thorough search.'
'Nonsense. Don't you remember that odd clause in the lease? Everything in the property before our tenancy begins, whether known to be there or not, is the property of the landlord. That is proof that the landlord thinks there is gold there still. If his granny buried her head dress more than a few inches deep a detector wouldn't find it.'
I had no ready answer. I find it difficult to argue about the findability of an Albanian bridal ornament that exists only in the Countess' imagination. She looked smug.
'I must talk to his mother, Denis. Women are more rational about the supernatural.'
'She never goes out.'
'Her friend, the woman who keeps the goats in our back garden, will find her for me.'
'We must forget the ghost. Since you mentioned it at a coffee morning, the residence is referred to as the 'The Haunted Shamrock'. '
I had gone too far and expected a bombshell. Instead, the Countess grimaced, mused awhile and said that, indeed, she was not very good for Walter's career.
Dear Millicent, That contrite mood didn't last. The Countess has contacted a diviner and hired Orhan, in his spare time, to help her in her search. She should be restrained. Walter is far too tolerant.
The one good thing is that - possibly as a result of her new interest - she has abandoned interior design. The rest of the furniture has been installed. Crockery and linen have been catalogued and stored by Gül who was cook under the Portuguese regime and is now housekeeper in the residence. I was afraid that Pierre and she would quarrel but they are swapping ideas about soup. They fell out briefly about the origin of the croissant but have agreed to differ. He says that her fermented yoghurt soup is an inspiration. This means that he will steal it for France.
The Department decrees that 'white goods' be bought locally and that I must supply three estimates. The problem is that nothing here has a fixed price and to bargain, without being serious, is bad form. Prices go up automatically at the end of every month to compensate for inflation. Shopping for the appliances with Orhan, as translator/mediator, and Pierre, as adviser, is unnerving. We parade around shop after shop, escorted by manager and attendant. In spite of difficulties, with more than a little manipulation of departmental regulations, the kitchen has been equipped. Ambassador and Mrs. Brown have taken up residence. Telephones have been connected. I reminded the Countess that lines are thought to be tapped by security and that no references to matters of a sensitive nature should b
e made on the telephone. She nodded sagely. I had no sooner returned to the office than I had a call from her.
'Hello to you, Denis, and hello to whoever is listening in.'
She has made friends with the goats behind the house and feeds them carrots. The puck, chained to a tree, gets double rations and oatmeal which, she says, is good for his hormones. She said this at table with a sidelong glance at Walter. She has adopted a cat. I think it is the cat that tripped me on the stairs though I can't see any white blaze on its head. It was twining round her shins, purring when I called today.
'Isn't he a sweetie? I'm going to call him Diabolo.'
'How does he get in and out?' I asked, remembering that the cat that caused my stumble had disappeared without obvious means of exit.
'I let him in and out, of course, silly Denis.'
Walter said that Colette now has a goat and a cat, a toad and a cockatrice as familiars. I dismissed the cockatrice as exaggeration and tried to remember if there are toads in Turkey.
'The cousin and the colonel,' Walter prompted.
The Countess laughed heartily. I don't think she can be romantically attached to either of them. This is a relief to me. She has made offhand comments about her cousin's virility and the Colonel 's Roman nose that caused me a little unease. I hope that you, my dear Millicent, won't be upset by what is - despite her title and background - vulgar behaviour.
A reception at the opera. I recognise the importance of these gatherings for making informal contact with colleagues, settling things that would otherwise take an eternity at meetings, yet I cannot enjoy them. Walter was not eating and sipped a glass of mineral water.'A touch of indigestion, Ambassador?'
'Pierre is an excellent cook, but he intends to kill me.'
I dropped my vol au vent.
'Not with strychnine, unless I prove recalcitrant,' continued Walter with a smile. 'Just with butter, cream and foie gras. He admits it you know. He pits my stomach against my sense of self-preservation and gambles on my stomach.'
'Why should he want to kill you?'
'He is homesick. If I die in mysterious circumstances, Walter, blame the Château Fontenoy mafia.'
Our flagpole has been erected and our crest is in place. The Minister for Industry and Commerce is to come to Istanbul on a trade promotion in early May and he will detour to Ankara to open the office, officially. I won't be able to take leave until after that. You were wise, Millicent, not to finalise our wedding plans. I am deeply disappointed, but the disappointment has given rise to an idea. Why not join me here for Easter? I know that you planned to give grinds over Easter and put the proceeds in the building society, but I would like to have you with me and show you our new city. Let me know what you think.
Yesterday I went on the trip to ancient Aizanoi organised by ARIT. The Countess, Alfredo Barbellini and his wife Angelina were in the party. Turkey is wonderful. We crossed what was the Rhyndacus (now the Orhaneli Cayi) on the original Roman bridge. There was a goose fight going on. The geese from the upper side honked and hissed at the geese from the lower side. I forgot everything and hung back to watch. I'm glad I did Latin for the Leaving Certificate, Millicent. I felt like a returned Roman. There were old women from the Turkish village that now occupies the site, washing clothes in the stream. Either they didn't spot me or they choose to ignore me. They kneaded the clothes on large marble tombstones turned into silky white troughs by generations of washerwomen. I had to hurry after the others and found them climbing down into an enormous barrel vault under the Temple of Zeus. Cybele was worshipped here as a Romanised version of the local goddess. I took out my bottle of water, ostensibly to have a swig, but I poured her a libation. Since falling in love, I have a right to pay tribute to the Great Mother in all her forms.
We were given lunch boxes on a lawn of wild flowers that was once the racetrack of the stadium. I climbed up the wide ledges, around and into the theatre, which in Aizanoi backs on to the stadium. It was enormous, empty. An earthquake had toppled all the seating down towards the stage. I sat on the upper circle, which remains intact and ate my stuffed capsicum, drank my aqua and said bravo to the shade of the last actor to strut upon this particular stage. I heard voices. Barbellini and Colette Brown were following in my footsteps. I fled over the brink of the upper circle. From here the whole of the Anatolian plateau stretched out, magnificently green. It will be burnt to gold in no time. It was wonderful to be out on a sea of green under a blue sky after months in dusty Ankara. There was a solitary thorn tree on a path a few hundred yards away. I reached it and sat alone in a vast expanse of sunlit space. Being in love, I find myself at one with all creation in a special way. I am sure you share this feeling, my dear Millicent. On my way back, I caught up with the Countess and Barbellini. He was gallantly stepping her down the broken stones. They were too deep in conversation to notice me. He is from an Italian family with connections in France. She was tracing aristocratic bloodlines with the ease of a horse breeder who knows the studbook by heart. I have a premonition that he, also, will turn out to be a cousin of hers.
We walked along the bank of the river and crossed on stepping-stones to the remains of what was, in Roman times, a quay. There must have been a lot more water in the Rhyndacus in those days. I tried to engage Angelina Barbellini in conversation but she kept scowling over my shoulder at her husband and the Countess who were trailing after the main group. A Turkish village encircles the old Roman market-place. The price lists on the stone tablets that ring the central area are legible still. They were erected at the order of the Emperor Diocletian in an attempt to combat inflation ... the price of a yard of cotton ... the price of a hen. Cocks and hens scratched around us and the sun shone warmly. The houses in the village still have lovely skeletons of wood and stone. Only a few of them are occupied. The villagers who remain look like elderly beetles, crawling out into the sunshine. The young people have moved to a nearby town of dingy apartment blocks.
The Countess and Colonel Barbellini strayed off to take photographs. Angelina growled. She is highly strung, beautiful but haggard-looking. I wish I could have told her that the Countess has no designs on her husband, that she referred to him in my hearing recently as a 'pompous, fascist, stuffed-shirt, with halitosis'. Do you think, Millicent, that this may have been a blind?
Lucy Steele from the British Council, a stout spiritualist who has heard about the phenomenon at the residence, sat beside the Countess on the bus home, to give advice on dealing with ghosts. People tuned in to their conversation and in spite of my efforts to turn the conversation, all the passengers must have heard Steele's offer to act as exorcist. I hope that Henry will not hear of it. He might be tempted to say unkind things.
I understand, dear Millicent, how you feel about Easter. It is true that you would spend most of the time travelling. I'm sorry that I didn't consider the amount of dirt that a couple of white fan-tailed doves would make on the balcony or the fact that we might have a nest within a few weeks. I'll forget the pigeons. The lady spiritualist from the British Council is to visit the Countess. They are to recite Anglo-Saxon spells and burn 'organic' cottage garden herbs.
When I heard that the Countess was bringing her own family cook to Ankara, I foresaw all kinds of trouble from a French chef with an artistic temperament. I imagined a young man with an experimental approach to cuisine who would gain for us the reputation of being an embassy you should dine in only after supping at home. He is a wiry little man in his forties and wears a magnificent moustache, modelled, I think on Asterix's. He is young Pierre because his father Pierre, old Pierre, is cook in the château. Pierre has not yet submitted to matrimony - so he phrased it - though long affianced to Liliane, also of Château Fontenoy. Pierre is in Ankara since the Countess has to be looked after while abroad, even though she committed the error of marrying a foreigner.
'A temporary arrangement,' said Pierre. 'She never stayed married this long before.'
That sounds as if she may have married more
than once before becoming Mrs. Brown.
'The Ambassador and Mrs. Brown complement each other beautifully,' I said, to encourage opposition. Pierre shrugged.
'She knows that she must come home, sooner or later. She belongs to the château. She should have married her cousin. Do you want cream?'
Pierre interrogated me about my eating patterns when we first met and decided that I need feeding. He seated me at the kitchen table and gave me a slice of tarte aux abricots with a café au lait. The pastry was sweet and crumbly, the apricots soft and sugar-burnt on top. I don't think I ever before tasted such a wonderful tart. It made me homesick for France, though I have no French connections.
'Do you miss your fiancée, Pierre?'
'Liliane is saving for her dot. There is an excellent market for foie gras. She stuffs forty geese several times a day.'
The French are not as romantic as they are reputed to be.
Our staffing arrangements are a source of satisfaction to me. Pierre and Gül work well together. Sharon Pyx, who rang me about something else entirely, mentioned that Erdem Kizilçan from the Ministry had raved about the meze he had at our first official lunch. Gül is invaluable when it comes to hiring extra local staff at short notice and she has first-class connections in the meat, fish, fruit and vegetable lines. She learned French at school and is improving at a great rate. I don't think she remembers that she is working for the Irish Embassy, not the French. I spotted Orhan in action, after a lunch in the Japanese residence, yesterday. Colette came out without looking right or left. As she moved from the door to the top step, our car pulled out from among the assembled vehicles. By the time she reached the bottom step, Orhan had the door open for her. Away they went. Other ladies have to hobble on high heels over the gravel in search of chauffeurs, so deep in conversation that only heavy gravel-scrunching attracts their attention. If there is a ghost in the house it is quiescent. Pierre says that it is good for Madame to have an interest and that as long as the supernatural does not curdle his sauces, he can live with it. Gül says that when the Portuguese Ambassador lived here, the internal door from the basement was sealed. When she had laundry, she went in through the door at the driver's side of the house, but only when the driver was on duty.
Now, every evening, she locks the basement door and seals it with an evil eye bead. Pierre unlocks it for Walter's morning swim. 'Inconveniences', Gül says, have occasionally been heard downstairs at night, but nothing has asserted itself upstairs, apart from one night when a 'manifestation' forced her to waken Pierre. I don't want to encourage superstition. I told her to continue the locking-up regime for security reasons. Orhan keeps the side door locked unless he is in his room, his loge, beside it.
I asked Walter if he had noticed anything, since taking possession, that might have given rise to the rumours about the house.
'Just the usual, classic ghost stuff: clanking of chains, wailing, creaking, slamming, the occasional breakage.'
I conclude he was joking. He was particularly irritating today. You know that he has a bent for mathematics and spends lots of time doodling figures on bits of paper. I was trying to get him to look at the accounts and he left it until the last minute because he had some little mathematical teaser in hand. He put it aside with a sigh only when I looked into his room for the third time. This morning I went to the residence early to deliver some notes to Walter who was to go to Istanbul with Orhan. I expected to find Orhan tinkering with the car in preparation for the run. He is forever polishing it, and the interior is so impregnated with car deodoriser that Walter goes to meetings smelling of pot pourri. I went around to Orhan's room, hoping that he had arrived. No Orhan. Car still in the garage. There is a path of black marble tiling around the house. As I turned the corner I stepped in something tacky. Congealed blood. The paving was streaked and blobbed with it. The side door was locked but there was blood on the door at shoulder level. I ran around to the front entry imagining horrors within. Pierre lifted a sardonic eyebrow.
'The Ambassador is breakfasting. Gül has brought Madame her early morning thé au lait. Orhan has gone to the office, on his way here, to collect documents for the Ambassador. Perhaps you should have coffee and calm down.'
He was unperturbed about my report of blood by the side door. 'A bitch in heat left a trail. Orhan will throw a bucket of water over it when he returns. You are trop sensible, Denis.'
'Was there noise in the night, Pierre? Police cars? Shooting?'
'No.'
I drank the coffee, dissatisfied. Ankara is so built up that there are very few places where one is not overlooked by an apartment building full of windows. That side of the residence is unusually private, no windows on our side, the poplars shielding us from the Italians.
'I'll see if the Barbellinis heard anything unusual.'
Gül followed me to the door.
'Denis Bey,' she whispered. 'Last night there was moaning in the air and a cold wind blew through the house.''That is not quite what I meant by disturbance, Gül. I meant an ordinary disturbance, police chasing a robber, the guards challenging a suspect?'
'Nothing of that kind, Denis, Bey. Only the other kind....'
She looked frightened. I promised to give her Auntie Ita's collection of medals and scapulars before nightfall. When I last wrote to Auntie, my dear Millicent, I told her, tongue in cheek, about the strange manifestations in the residence. By return I got a fistful of spiritual artifacts. I'll hand them over to Gül in exchange for a promise that there won't be any more difficulty about supplying the guards with their rations. I found out that we were stinting them in tea, sugar and biscuits because Gül has reservations about the police force.
Orhan was standing with his back to the garage door when I went out. I asked him to come and look at the pavement by the far door. He followed me silently. There was no blood. If the pavement had not been wet, I would have suspected that I was the victim of another ghastly manifestation.
'This path was covered in blood only a few minutes ago.'
'I hosed it down. Someone killed a kid goat.'
I have seen a sheep being killed, with loving care, on the street outside a butcher's shop, nursed into death in kindly fashion. Our side door may have seemed a convenient place. I'll ask Gül to enquire of the goat-woman if a kid had been killed there last night. I opened the side door and a clot, stuck to the bottom of it, drew a brown arc on the floor.
' I'll see if the Italians heard anything.'
'I have already asked Maria. She was hanging rugs on the balcony next door, as I cleaned the path. The Barbellinis didn't speak of any disturbance, when she served breakfast.'
I went around to the back of the residence. The Countess's window was open. She might have heard something.
Ali, the younger of our two regular policemen, sat reading his paper in the sunshine. In reply to my questions, he said that there are never events in this area, many diplomats live here, all well guarded and there is no danger. Someone had served him a mug of coffee and – judging from the flakes on the plate – croissants. I had scarcely noted this and had only begun to wonder at Gül's largesse to the polis when there was a commotion behind the residence. Commands were shouted. A dog barked. Ali caught up his gun. We ran around the side of the house. Walter and Orhan left the car and joined us. I was not sure what to expect.
'Les flics!' announced the Countess from her window, with something like a cheer.
Down the slope, towards us, came a bulldog on a leash tugging his handler. Policemen mashed their way through the undergrowth behind him. Walter, to give him his due, is not tolerant of high-handed actions that impinge on our diplomatic rights and our country's status. Immaculately dressed for the day's meetings, wielding his briefcase and umbrella, he led a counter-charge. We met the intruders at the point where our garden melds into the bushes of Mr. Muftu's vacant lot.
The bulldog was not to be distracted. Nose to the trail, it didn't even see Walter until it had run its head between his le
gs. Then it paused, puzzled. Walter stood his ground. He even narrowed the arch so that the dog's head was pinched between his knees. At that moment, Millicent, I gave him top marks for personal courage. He seemed careless of being bitten. A sharp word from the handler made the dog sit. It obeyed under protest. Nose, tongue, eyes strained ahead. Saliva drooled.
'You are on Irish territory,' proclaimed Walter , flourishing his briefcase. Orhan translated.
'Your Excellency, we are on the trail of a criminal who was wounded last night while resisting arrest. The dog has followed his trail here.'
'Nonsense. Your dog came in here because it smelt goat.'
On cue, a nanny goat in need of milking approached the dog and made feinting motions with her horns. The dog stood its ground.
'Nobody passed me during the night,' Ali said.' I was in the sentry box.'
'Please, give us permission to go through your garden, Ambassador.' said the officer in charge.
Honour was satisfied. Walter graciously waved them on. There was drool, dog hair and dust on his trousers and shoes. We joined the rearguard. The Countess, in a flowing red dressing gown, appeared. She had come out to wave goodbye to Walter, she said.
'Police looking for a felon, my dear,' Walter explained.
'What? In our garden?'
The dog whiffled its way to the side door. I was about to tell of the bloodstains, but some instinct of fair play made me hold my tongue and see what would happen. The dog sneezed.
'Allergic to detergent,' Orhan whispered to me with a grin that, even at this critical moment, struck me as being excessively familiar. The dog cast about, picked up the trail again. It led us to the front gate.
'The criminal used your grounds as a short-cut, your Excellency.'
'He cannot have passed me, I was in the hut.' said Ali, but his voice was less confident.
Fifteen people followed the bulldog. She (I learned at this point that the bulldog was a bitch, named Bebek) led us through the gate, into the guard's hut. The vanguard charged in. The dog charged back out through the tangle of legs. Trailing her lead, she led us back into the garden. She scrabbled between bushes and pulled out something white and gooey, the remains of a fromage de chèvre.
'I knew she was hunting goats,' said Walter.
'Nobody went past me,' said Ali, confidant once more.
I opened my mouth to tell about the blood that had been by the door. The Countess glared at me. Her eyes telegraphed 'Don't!'
My heart turned a somersault, Millicent. I just knew that she had meddled in some way.
'What crime has the fugitive committed?' I asked the officer in charge.
'He is a Communist, accused of crimes against the people of Turkey and the Turkish Government.'
'Is he armed?'
'He wasn't when he escaped.'
The police left by the way they had come, after compliments had been exchanged. The dog's bob of a tail pointed down. It hung its head. I felt guilty. I could have vindicated its nose.
Orhan swept Walter off to the airport. Orhan's salute to me, as they drove away, upset me, Millicent. It ended in a thumbs up sign. I couldn't guess why.
'Could I have a word with you, Countess?' I asked as she moved towards the house.
'Not just now, Denis. I really must get dressed.'
I was left alone with our sentry.
'Who brought you coffee, this morning, Ali?'
'Madame.'
'When?'
'At dawn.'
'Does she do that often?'
'Never before.'
'Why did she bring it this morning?'
'She rose to listen to birdsong. Since nobody in the world was awake, except me, she brought me coffee and a croissant.'
'She came in here?'
'She put the tray on the table where it is.'
'And returned to the house?'
'Yes.'
God knows what mess the Countess has got us into if she has, as I suspect, aided and abetted a criminal. She must have set out to confuse the dog with her fromage de chèvre. She never gets up at dawn. If it occurred to her that Ali needed early morning sustenance, she would tell Pierre to send Gül out with a tray. Should I confront her with my interpretation of her early morning activities? Should I ask her why she set a trail of goat's cheese to the sentry box, planning the humiliation of tracker dog and police? Should I ask her how she knew that dog and police might be expected? Should I telephone Walter and tell him. I am persuaded that you would counsel me to do so. You have a natural inclination towards the truth. All that is open and above board is dear to you.
I went to the bacaal and asked Feroz if he had heard of any disturbances during the night. He shrugged. Whether it was a negative, positive or plain 'dunno' shrug, I'm not sure. He said that it is not good to be curious and asked if I had found a home for the kitten.
The kitten, Millicent, is one that turned up on the mat outside my apartment. It is a charming little thing, female, an Ankara cat. Since neither of us like cats, I'm trying to find a home for it. Ayse will take it if I fail. Ayse, you will remember is our local secretary. She is efficient and self effacing. I am sorry that I made some derogatory remarks about her teeth earlier on.
The kitten has stretched out on my feet. I'll disturb it now and go to bed. I have decided to call on Mrs. Brown early tomorrow, before Walter returns. It may be possible to bring her to a proper appreciation of the dignity of her position. She must not boast of blood on the tiles and cheese in the bushes.