The Mule on the Minaret (64 page)

Slowly, she fought her way back down the train. At last she reached her carriage. She looked at her watch. Thirty-seven minutes since she had started out. And it was only a third of the way. Seventy-four minutes to get to the other end and back. Suppose he wasn't on the train at all. And all this were to prove a waste. She need never have told Martin. She need never have lost Martin. But that again was not a factual estimate. She would not have come to Ankara but for Aziz. And if she had not come to Ankara, she would have gone back to England without seeing Martin. By the time they had met again, they both would have gone separate ways. It was only because she had happened to see Martin at that particular moment when he was vulnerable that he had got the idea that he would like to marry her. A week before, no such idea might have been in his mind. It was the sudden sight of her after a six months' break. Everything in life was timing.

Door after door, carriage after carriage. She reached the
restaurant car. It was crowded. It was half past eleven. The regular lunch would not be served till noon and the polyglot group of passengers were taking advantage of the empty period to eat the kind of meal they most enjoyed—coffee and tea and honey cakes and pastries. A waiter tried to stop her. There was no seat. She must wait in the queue.

‘I'm going through,' she said. He remonstrated, but she got her way. She looked to the left and right as she elbowed past. He was not there.

Door after door, carriage after carriage.

At last she found him. Very near the end of the train; in a third-class carriage, four-a-side. He jumped to his feet. The delight in his face was touching.

‘Eve, you here?'

He was as surprised as he was delighted. He pushed past a couple of bulky peasants and joined her in the corridor. The corridor was filled with packages and suitcases. She looked about her, suddenly aware of a difficulty she had not foreseen. Where were they to talk? There was no room in his compartment; hers was twelve carriages away and they could not talk there. Her fellow passengers as likely as not spoke English. There was the same disadvantage to the dining-car. If they could ever get a seat there. How could they talk with another couple, either across the way or at each other's side, a couple who as likely as not spoke English. There was no alternative to the corridor. She beckoned him to the brass bar that ran across the window. There was a narrow gap, and they leant side by side.

‘What are you doing on this train?' he asked.

‘I came on it to meet you.'

‘Why on this train? I sent you a card saying when I'd be in Istanbul.'

‘That's why I'm here.'

‘But I don't understand. I came up to Istanbul specially to see you. I wanted to say “au revoir”. I'm going to Alexandria.'

‘I know you are.'

‘How do you know I am?'

‘The fact that I do know will prove to you that I am not talking through my hat. You are in serious trouble and I've come to warn you.'

‘How can I be in trouble?'

‘You've been doing some very funny things you know.'

‘What funny things? That information you gave me about imports and exports? Surely that can't have got me into trouble?'

‘Not only that, though the Turks might not have been too happy about that. It's the stuff that you've been doing with the Germans that's done the damage.'

‘With the Germans?' He stared; his mouth half open. His eyes wore a bemused expression. ‘What do you know about all that?'

‘All that there is to know.'

‘How could you; it was between me and them.'

‘That's what you thought. That's what they thought for a time. It was what you were meant to think.'

‘By whom? Who meant me to think that?'

‘The British in Beirut.'

‘You mean it was a plant?'

‘Exactly. The British found out through you what the Germans wanted to know. And they learnt through you how much a man like yourself could learn without special facilities. It was a pretty set-up for a while.'

‘And who were the British who arranged all this? That Captain Farrar?'

‘Yes.'

‘And his friend, the Prof?'

There was a note of almost indignant incredulity in his voice as he said ‘the Prof.' She had a flash of intuition; he had trusted the Prof. He had been fond of the Prof. He had thought of the Prof. as a friend. There was a sacred quality about the very real devotion that a young man could feel for an older man whom he looked on as his advisor, his guardian, his tutor. If Aziz were now to feel that the Professor's friendship for him had been a fraud, a trick, his faith in the decency of human personal relations might be ruined. It might poison his entire life. He must be spared that. She shook her head. ‘No, the Prof. knew nothing about all this. It was Farrar's idea completely.'

‘But they were always about together. How could the Prof, not know?'

‘Because that's the very way in which the Intelligence services work. You are only told what you need to know. The right hand does not know what the left hand's doing.'

‘And how do you fit into all of this?'

‘In a minor way: as a secretary. I filed the various reports.'

‘And you knew about this all along?'

‘Yes, in a sense, but...'

She paused. She wanted to defend herself. She did not want him to feel she had betrayed him. But she was very tired. There was only so much that she could take: and suddenly in her exhaustion she felt that in the long run it did not matter how he felt about her. To a man, belief in a man's friendship was of more account than in a woman's truthfulness. The whole literary tradition endorsed this double standard. On the one hand, Samson and Pythias, Brutus and Cassius, Jonathan and David; on the other, Delilah, Cressida and Cleopatra. In retrospect, Aziz would recall the happiness that he had had with her. That was enough. She could not argue her case with him. But she had to make some protest.

‘There's so much here, Aziz, that I can't explain, on security grounds, and on other ones. I knew what was going on, but I had no part in it, if you can follow me. I didn't instigate anything. You and I weren't a part of Nigel Farrar's scheme; I don't even know if he knew about us. He may have suspected that time I was in Beirut, but it wasn't part of his strategy. It was ourselves—simply ourselves. Please, please believe that.'

He nodded. They stood, side by side, pressed very close; with all the electricity that there had been, subsided. Children were squalling, parents were shouting. Every other minute, someone or other on the way past, pushed them tight against the windows; and in front of them stretched the bare, bleak Anatolian countryside across which were wailing the first winds of autumn.

‘What's the position now?' he said. ‘You came on this train to warn me. What against? How has the situation changed?'

She told him, as far as she knew herself. The Germans had ceased to trust him; they were planning their revenge. It was essential that he should not come to Istanbul. ‘Get off the train at the next station. Go back to Ankara. You may have to wait a little there, but it won't matter. Lie low. Have you any money?'

‘I've enough money.'

‘You've probably a return ticket on the Taurus, haven't you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then use it on the next train south. Once over the frontier you are safe. But don't come back to Turkey, till the war is over, or till the Germans have cleared out. You've nothing to fear. Everything works on a short-term basis. You haven't been reported to the Turks, as far as I know. And all that matters is your status with your compatriots. The war can't last long. The Germans are on the run;
or are about to be. They could make trouble for you now. In two years it'll be all forgotten. As long as your name isn't on the Turkish records, and I'm pretty certain that it isn't, you're all right. I know about this record business. You're sure you've money?'

He nodded. ‘Fadhil gave me quite a lot.'

‘Fadhil?'

‘Surely you remember Fadhil; the man I got information from for you.'

‘Fadhil. Why yes, of course.'

‘I told him that I was going to Alexandria and so wouldn't be able to help him any more. He seemed rather worried. He said that there were one or two things that he really needed to know. He told me what they were. I didn't see how I could get back, but I wanted to because I wanted to say “good-bye” to you. I half explained that to him. By “half” I mean not telling him about you. So this time he offered me some money. As I think you know, until now he's paid me in gramophone records. I didn't need those any more; or not so much since I was going to Alexandria where I could get them. So this time he gave me money.'

‘I see,' she said. So that was how Nigel Farrar had played his hand. But she could not explain that to Aziz now. It was enough that he had the money to get back safely.

‘Dearest,' she said, ‘I wish it all hadn't had to finish up this way. But you see, don't you, that I had to warn you.'

‘I know. I see, but... I had been so looking forward to saying “good-bye” to you.'

He pouted; he looked like a small boy on the verge of tears. His boyishness touched her. His concern flattered her. Only an hour ago he had been thinking ‘In nine hours' time I shall be with her, in her flat, looking out over the Bosporus.' He was a small child in a nursery, robbed of its promised sweetmeat. It pleased her that he should be that. It restored her sense of power. She raised her hand. She laid it against his cheek. ‘Don't worry, precious. There are better times ahead.'

But were there? Not for a long time: till he had become a different person. She had had the flower of his youth. He could not give that again.

‘Darling,' she said, ‘I'm desperately tired; all this has been a strain on me. I've a lot on my mind. I didn't tell you, but I am going away too; back to England, the week after next. So this
really is good-bye. I'll go back to my compartment right away. Let's not drag things out. And you will get out at the next station, won't you? Promise?'

‘I promise you.'

‘I'll wave to you from my compartment. Look out for me. I'm at the head of the train. Good luck, my precious. I'll always think of you.'

Slowly she fought her way back to her compartment. Door by door. Carriage by carriage. That's that. She had a corner seat. She lolled back, her head against the cushions. Her eyes closed. Drowsiness supervened.

She almost missed him. She would not have woken if the woman opposite had not been getting out and had not knocked against her as she was lifting her suitcase from the rack. The train was already at a standstill. She pushed past the disembarking passengers, found an open window, craned her neck. Yes, there he was. He seemed, standing on the platform, to be only a few yards away. His features were quite distinct. It was incredible that it should have taken her so long to reach his compartment. She waved and he waved back. It was an unimportant little station. Only a dozen or so passengers got off, and as few got on. There was barely a two minute stop. He did not join the passengers hurrying or shuffling to the exit. He looked a very forlorn figure standing on the platform beside his canvas bag. As the train drew out, she lifted her finger tips to her mouth. She wondered how long he would have to wait for a train back. What a drab return for him. His heart had been beating so gaily three hours back. Well, there was Alexandria waiting.

In three weeks, she would be back in London, with winter coming on; the blackout, the restrictions, the queueing up; with everyone looking shabby, everyone short tempered. Trains late and crowded and the houses cold. Another world, another universe. And which would seem unreal, that one or this? She went back to her compartment. She was very tired.

Reid received in the following week the news that he had been granted a decree nisi. ‘It went through perfectly smoothly,' Jenkins told him, ‘as, of course, we knew it should. There was no special reason for hastening the decree absolute, so they did not press for it. That means that you will make your application in the spring. The case got no publicity. That is one of the advantages of these small newspapers.'

Reid wondered whether Rachel had told the boys. He had not mentioned it in his letters, nor had he mentioned it to his father. He still could not believe that it was really happening. He was so completely cut off here from his former life. He could not believe in its continuity for others. In the winter of 1917, when he was in the trenches, he had read an advertisement of Rolls-Royce cars, ‘One day,' it ran, ‘the war will end as suddenly as it began. Then you will wonder why you had not placed your order for your new Rolls-Royce months before. Be prepared. Order now.' The advertisement had seemed quite unreal. He had known that that was what would happen; that the war would end as suddenly as it had begun. But there in the trenches, it was impossible to believe in anything but the permanence of trench routine, the reliefs, the takings over, the leaves, the casualty lists. In the same way, now he knew that in a few years' time he would be once again Professor Reid giving lectures and tutorials and every four years publishing a scholarly tome that would receive considerable attention in the serious papers and sell a few hundred copies; he knew that as Professor Reid he would take up his personal routine. He knew all
that, but he could not quite believe it. Was someone on the Winch-borough faculty remarking at this moment: ‘I heard a rumour that the Reids had got divorced; have you heard anything about it?' It all seemed very far away.

On that same day, he received the latest summary from Farrar's office. The appendix with the limited distribution list closed with the paragraph:

‘Our attempt to make a final use of Aziz misfired. Something went wrong; we do not know what or why. Aziz has now gone to the University of Alexandria. He will presumably be visiting his aunt in Beirut for holidays, but he may not be returning to Turkey for a long time. As far as our purposes are concerned, we can, therefore, write him off. We had high hopes of this project when it started and the results have been frankly disappointing, but we must not forget that without Aziz we should have found difficult the recruiting of Belorian, and Belorian has been and is being of the greatest use to us. The project in which we had hoped to make a final use of Aziz had as its objective the strengthening of Belorian's position with the enemy. It was not a necessary operation. It was no more than the gilding of a lily. Belorian's stock stands very high. On the other hand, the deception operation to which reference was made in our last summary is progressing satisfactorily. We hope to be able to report on its successful conclusion in our next summary.'