The Water Diviner (9 page)

‘Welcome, I am Mister Omer. Can I have your travel document, please? I will register you immediately, while the room is still available.’ He smiles, pen poised over the book.

As Connor hands over his passport Ayshe spits her protest at Omer in Turkish. The man scribbles quickly and responds in Turkish through a frozen smile. He hands Connor his passport and a key. ‘You are most welcome, Mr Connor.’ Connor has no idea what has been said, but feels less than welcome.

‘Your room is upstairs and on the left. The break of fast is at eight o’clock in the morning. Would you like for her to bring you coffee or tea now?’ He nods to Ayshe.

‘Thank you, no,’ replies Connor. He picks up his case and heads for the stairs, one hand on the balustrade as he turns, recalling Orhan’s sales pitch on the docks. ‘Your son mentioned hot water and a bath.’

Orhan’s jaw drops and his olive complexion blanches. As the father of three sons who were known to be liberal with the truth at times, Connor recognises the shamefaced look immediately. Not for the first time today Connor concedes that the kid has had the better of him, but he’s too exhausted to make a fuss. ‘No worries, it’ll be just like home, then.’

Omer is not so forgiving. He cuffs the boy over the back of the head and snaps at the boy in English, apparently for Connor’s benefit, ‘It is shameful to lie. You are a spoilt mother’s boy!’ Orhan cringes in the corner of the lobby, tears welling in his eyes.

Connor intervenes, almost a reflex. ‘No, it doesn’t matter. Really. I probably misunderstood.’ Orhan may have led him a merry chase this morning, but he feels a strange camaraderie with the bright-eyed and persistent child.

The Turkish man bows his head and holds his right hand to his chest. ‘Sincere apologies, Mr Connor. It is not our way. You are our guest here, and it is our duty to make you welcome.’ He points to Connor’s suitcase and cuffs Orhan once more, lest he missed the point. ‘Orhan will help you with your bag. It is his duty.’

With his head bowed in shame, eyes fixed on his shuffling shoes, Orhan leads Connor up the stairs to the room. His chatter has dried up and the case the boy sprinted with through the streets as if it were as light as a feather now suddenly seems laden with bricks. They approach Room 6 and Orhan slides the key into the lock.

‘This your room.’

Connor takes his suitcase from the boy and pushes his way into a sparsely furnished room. He fishes a coin out of his pocket and presses it into Orhan’s hand. The remorseful boy tries to hand it back but Connor nods and smiles.

‘You seem to know where everything is around here,’ says Connor. ‘Tomorrow, can you take me to the War Office? I will pay you.’

Orhan’s face breaks into a broad grin and his hooded eyes reclaim their spark. ‘Yes you will.’

Connor watches Orhan race back along the hall and disappear down the stairs, three at a time. He wonders if you are still a father when you have no sons left.

Ayshe swings a wicker carpet beater in a fury. Decades of accumulated dirt explode in smoky clouds from the weathered Baluch carpet, which is suspended over a clothesline in the hotel courtyard. She whacks at it with impotent rage, tears of frustration cutting runnels through the dust that has settled on her cheeks. Finally she steps back from the rug, her anger beginning to abate.

She stands in what remains of a magnificent garden surrounded by an ageless stone wall. When this building was her childhood home Ayshe would help the gardener, Ali the Bent, weed the beds and plant seeds and bulbs that erupted in a riot of colour long after she had forgotten them. Tulips, hyacinths, narcissus, irises. It was in this garden that she first learned that miracles seldom happen without someone getting their hands dirty.

The courtyard has gone to seed, in every way. Small, tenacious tufts of grass appear between the flagstones, and tree roots growing beneath the paving lift the stones erratically. A build-up in its pipes means that the fountain that once spurted and gurgled merrily during hot, dusty summers has slowed to a trickle and does little more than stain its marble basin with streaks of rust. Wicker chairs, stacked in a far corner, quietly unravel.

Ayshe has fond memories of the garden in its prime, small tables set neatly with lace-edged napkins and delicate china cups as guests reclined in the dappled shade of the stately trees. But beauty has made way for necessity. Tethered to a tree is a nanny goat, named Şafak for a new dawn. Orhan helps milk her each morning. Tomato seedlings are staked along the back wall and cucumbers wind their way amongst the endive and Greek lettuces.

In the time of Sultan Abdulhamid II, Ayshe’s father would often drink coffee and read the newspaper out here in the mornings before heading off to work. This morning he sits on a stool throwing seed to chickens that scratch around his ankles. He is dressed in a faded three-piece suit, a fez and leather slippers. From under his thick eyebrows he eyes his daughter suspiciously. As Ayshe takes a deep breath and prepares to launch one last violent assault on the carpet, he pipes up.

‘I know this carpet from somewhere. Pasha . . . Pasha . . .’ He struggles to recall the name. ‘A pasha gave it to me. His son. I cured his son.’

Ayshe pauses. ‘Noblemen are in short supply nowadays, Father.’

‘I haven’t seen it for years. Where did you find it?’ Ibrahim asks as he nurses a hen and absent-mindedly begins to pull feathers from its tail. The bird squawks and flaps its wings in alarm but Ibrahim holds its claws and continues to pluck.

Ayshe smiles sadly to herself and gently takes the bird from him. ‘We haven’t killed it yet, Father.’

C
onnor sits on the edge of his double bed in trousers and a singlet. There is a reassuring familiarity about the room, which, like the foyer, is unexpectedly European. It is decorated with care and restraint: a hardwood bedhead; a tallboy with turned legs topped with a delicately embroidered runner and a small silver salver bearing a heavy, cut-crystal tumbler and a decanter of fine Scotch whisky; bedside tables with marble tops and teardrop handles. The drapes are made of lace and the mattress is draped in an embroidered woollen bedspread. He could be in any Continental capital were it not for the lilting song that at this moment ripples across the city and through his open window. It is not one voice but a multitude, a breath between each call as they echo one another. For him it is strange-sounding and arcane; the only thing he can liken it to is the distant pealing of a bell.

Spread out on the bed is a hand-drawn map of the Dardanelles, copied by Connor from a newspaper back in Rainbow. In black ink are the foreign places that became household names in Australia during the war, for the very worst reasons: Suvla Bay, Gallipoli, Hell Spit, Krithia, the Nek, Lone Pine. The letters ‘A’, ‘H’ and ‘E’, one for each son, appear in various locations with dates scribbled next to them as Connor has tried to trace his boys’ movements over the four months they were at Gallipoli. Art’s diary lies open and Connor reads, checking and crosschecking against the map.

There is a light knock on the door. Connor slips his arms into a shirt, pulls it up his back and hastily begins working on the buttons. He opens the door half-expecting to see the boy grinning at him on the other side. Instead it is Ayshe, struggling to hold a copper basin of hot water in a towel. The steam has made her face flush and a tiny rivulet of sweat trickles down her forehead and soaks into her eyebrow.

‘Please, allow me,’ says Connor, reaching for the basin instinctively.

Ayshe breathes heavily with the effort but refuses his help. ‘It is very hot. Be careful, please.’ She sidles carefully past him and deposits the basin on top of the chest of drawers.

Connor immediately regrets the fuss he made downstairs. ‘Really, there was no need.’

‘My son is no liar,’ Ayshe states firmly. ‘He promised you.’

Connor smiles, a little bemused by her prickly demeanour.

‘He seems like a very resourceful lad.’

‘Yes, he is,’ she replies, softening slightly. ‘You have sons too?’

Connor’s answer is unexpectedly abrupt, even for him. ‘Yes. Three.’ He retreats to the window, suddenly uncomfortable with Ayshe, for being Turkish, a woman, a mother, beautiful, prying, defiant – and for being in his room.

‘What’s that noise?’ he asks as the call to prayer trails off.

‘This is your first time in Constantinople, Mr Connor?’ she asks, rhetorically.

‘What are they selling?’ he asks, to remove any doubt.

‘God,’ she quips. ‘It’s a call to prayer.’

‘The bathroom is down the hall when you want to bathe.’ She casts an eye over the books and papers on the bed and spots the ornately bound blue volume of
The Arabian Nights
.

‘Your guide book is out of date, I’m afraid,’ she says dryly.

‘I’m not here to sightsee.’

An awkward silence descends, which Ayshe breaks by beating a hasty retreat from the room. As she leaves, she speaks without glancing up at him. ‘You should make time for the Blue Mosque at least. Even in my “wretched city” it is a beautiful place to find God.’

He may well be in desperate need of divine intervention, but Connor has neither the time nor the inclination to seek God on these shores.

‘I didn’t come for Him either,’ Connor grunts. ‘I am on my way to Gallipoli.’

Ayshe stops in the doorway, her almond-shaped eyes narrowing. Just the sound of the word seems to harden her.

‘You mean Çanakkale, Mr Connor. We call it Çanakkale. There is nothing there but ghosts.’ She composes herself and leaves, calling over her shoulder, ‘My son cannot help you tomorrow. I need him here.’

Connor watches Ayshe stride towards the stairwell, holding her head aloft and arms swinging. As he closes the door, he is uncomfortable, confused by the Turkish woman’s coolness and undisguised disdain. If he needs to stay in Constantinople for any length of time he might have to look for another hotel.

Connor removes his shirt and singlet and dips his cupped palms into the water basin. The steam rises up and wets his cheeks. He realises it has been weeks since he has had hot water to wash in, and relishes the moment. He brings his hands up slowly and feels the wave of heat on his eyelids and lips. He rubs his forehead all the way to the hairline, the sides of his nose, the inside of his ears and the back of his neck. To his surprise he finds red grit from home still lodged in places that he would swear were clean.
I’ll always wear the mark of where I come from, ingrained, no escaping it
.

Long after the water in the basin has turned cold, a paste of olive oil soapsuds and dirt clinging to the sides, Connor awakes with a start. He has fallen asleep face down on his map, allowing every contour to project itself on his mind. The evening prayer call, shriller and more urgent this time, exhumes him from a deep slumber and discombobulates him. Where is he? What is the time? Where are they, where are his sons?

The farmer gathers himself on the side of his bed as his mind slowly finds its way through the fog of lost sleep, along an outback rail line, a turbulent sea and through the labyrinth of Constantinople. A glance out the window tells him the city is lurching towards the end of the day, like a runner chesting the tape. The afternoon has sprinted by.

Connor sniffs and confirms he needs a bath. He needs to be at his best tomorrow. He gathers his towel and his flat leather toiletries bag, and steps into the hall, careful to lock his door behind him.
You never know with these Arabs
.

He makes his way along the low-lit corridor, looking for a bathroom sign. He rounds a corner and sees a distinguished Turkish gentleman sitting on a bench beside a closed door, several bathroom towels stacked beside him. The older man nods and smiles at Connor, politely letting the Australian know he must wait his turn. Connor returns the nod and sits, ramrod rigid with his towel on his lap. He doesn’t have to wait long before the door handle rattles from inside the room and a sheepish-looking Turk appears. The man hurries off, pushing his fez down on his head and buttoning his coat as he goes. Right behind him is a woman.

Connor’s jaw drops. He has never seen a woman dressed, or undressed, like this; not on his wedding night, and certainly never since. He wants to fix his gaze on the floor but his eyes betray him and dart upwards. The woman is dressed in a red silk robe over lace underwear, and wears a long black wig that drops over her shoulders in the shape of a heart. In spite of his searing discomfort, Connor steals a glimpse at her shiny red lips, the line of her full bosom and the curve of her hip.

The enthusiastic suitor sitting next to Connor springs from the bench and greets the woman with a formal bow. He says something to her in Turkish and Connor catches her name: Natalia.

She smiles, opens the door wider and guides the man into her room. Over his shoulder Connor sees not a bathroom but a bedroom. On the dresser sits a mute audience of wig stands, each modelling a different colour of styled baroque wig. Elegant brass candlesticks and a samovar stand on a small dresser in front of a silver icon of Saint George lancing a dragon.