‘I’m not sure it’s wise to go,’ she said.
I explained the Baroness intended to expose her as a spy. I laughed about it. ‘We’ll be gone before she can do anything.’
At this Esmé began silently to weep again. I almost lost my temper. She was behaving like a whimsical child. ‘After tomorrow,’ I promised, ‘you’ll be Esmé Cornelius. They’ll be searching for a Roumanian girl called Bolascu. Even your parents won’t know where to find you.’
‘But they must! We have to send them money.’
‘I have already made the arrangements. They’ll get even more from now on.’ I was prepared to say or do anything to reassure her.
‘Can I see them before we go?’
I hesitated. I could not risk being again separated from Esmé. ‘Very well. We’ll visit them tomorrow morning.’
‘I would rather go alone.’
‘It’s too dangerous.’
She appeared to accept this and raised enough energy to help me do a little of the packing. By the small hours we were ready to leave at a moment’s notice. We slept until eight, then prepared to visit her parents’ tenement. It was a clear, misty morning. Constantinople shone with those wonderful, faded pastels for which she is famous. There was a cheerful mood to the streets. We carried two suitcases of clothes Esmé had discarded. She wished to take them to her mother. Though fearing we should run out of money before we ever reached Venice, I had agreed to give her parents another two sovereigns. The decrepit couple received us with their usual lack of emotion. Monsieur Bolascu had already bought himself a new suit which he had promptly ruined in some local gutter. Madame Bolascu was filleting a large fish at the table. Esmé kissed her. ‘We are going on holiday,’ she said in Turkish. ‘I wanted you to have these clothes.’ The woman nodded and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. Suddenly she looked at me and grinned. It was shocking to see that stony face break into such unlikely mobility. The fangs were revealed, yellow and black, and a kind of birdlike gargle issued from the throat. ‘Bon voyage, m’sieu,’ she said. Esmé wanted to stay. She pretended to talk to her father, who now dozed in a corner and could not hear a word. She hugged her mother. Madame Bolascu patted her on the back while continuing to grin at me. ‘She is a good girl.’
‘She’s a very good girl. She’ll get an education in Paris.’
This the grotesque creature found even more amusing. I was evidently a wag. In French she told Esmé to enjoy herself. Life was short. She must not waste it. We made a very pretty couple. She must be sure to be obedient for she would find few gentlemen as kind as Monsieur. She added an afterthought in Turkish. Esmé nodded and bowed, sucked in her upper lip and became sentimentally animated for a moment. Then, passively, she put her arm into mine, just as if we were about to have our photograph taken, and we stood there stock still while the woman, without pausing in her skilful gutting of the fish, looked us up and down. The sun streamed into the room, onto the dusty, unpainted boards, the bloody, stinking table. The eyes of the fish winked like jewels.
On the way back we stopped to buy Esmé pistachio nuts and almond cakes. She was behaving as if I were taking her to prison. The vendor shrugged his shoulders, pretending to search for change, banging on his bin for his boy to come over, and I looked across at a little shaded square where plantains grew like huge fungus around a green copper fountain. There on a wooden bench sat a swarthy Turk. He wore a formal European suit and a fez. He was staring at me intently. I reached towards my hip. I had brought a revolver with me today. I should have been a fool to go unarmed with Count Siniutkin’s friends everywhere in the area. Since I had never fired one in my life, I doubt if I could have aimed the weapon accurately. I let the sweet-vendor keep his few pennies and hurried Esmé on. She looked up at me in alarm, I told her we were being followed.
Once back at Tokatlian’s she began to tremble alarmingly. She pleaded to be allowed to take the train. Every time she got on the ferryboat she felt sick. Was there no other way to leave Constantinople?
‘Oh, yes,’ I replied savagely, ‘there are several other ways. But one must be dead before they become available! Do you want to join the Brides of the Bosphorus?’ Only a few days earlier divers had been sent down by the British, searching for the wreck of a ship. They had reported finding a forest of bodies waving on the bottom, each of them tied in a sack and weighted with chains. These were chiefly girls who had ceased to please Abdul Hamid, but a few more bodies, similarly weighted, would scarcely have been noticed in that crowd.
Begging me not to raise my voice, she said I was scaring her all the more. I relented. I took her on my knee. I told her of the glories of Italy, the pleasures of France, the monumental certainties of Great Britain. ‘And these countries are all Christian,’ I said. ‘They are all Catholic. You will never have to risk persecution again. There is no one to threaten you or sell you into a harem or force you to work at Mrs Unal’s.’
She dried her tears, looking up with a half amused sniff. ‘It sounds boring.’
‘You are a bad, bad girl!’ I kissed her. ‘Your mother told you the truth. You’ll find few as kind as me. You must be obedient!’
This seemed to have an effect. She grew apparently much more cheerful and began to pack up her cosmetics (of which she had hundreds) putting the different little pots and jars carefully into their places in a vast wicker hamper I had bought her from Simsamian’s in the Grande Rue.
By the evening we were completely ready. I ran across to the Byzance where the Baroness was at her reception desk, ‘It’s all arranged,’ I said. ‘I’ll meet a British Intelligence Officer tonight.’
She was full of triumph. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’
‘I’m to go alone.’
‘When shall I see you?’
‘In your room, late tonight or tomorrow morning.’
As I left she blew me an excited, conspiratorial kiss, that inexpert Lady Macbeth. I winked back.
Not knowing if there was to be a curfew I had ordered the car for immediately after twilight. Two hired Albanians carried our trunks down to the waiting Mercedes while Esmé, pale and hesitant, dressed inappropriately in a short silk teagown and fur-trimmed winter overcoat, stood with her hands in her ermine muff. She also wore one of her largest and gaudiest hats. At least, I thought with relief, she looked twice her age. I carried my own plan-case. In it lay my future and my fortune. The car was hardly able to squeeze through the little cobbled alley, yet had already been surrounded by a score of street Arabs, some of whom were evidently not native to the city, but spoke fluent, trilling Russian. I was becoming used to the sight of this new breed of blond-haired mendicants. Even as Esmé bowed her over-weighted head to get into the car I looked across the alley, thinking I saw the movement of a potential assassin. But it was only a little Turkish girl of about six. She had been relieving herself in the doorway and was concentrating on straightening her clothing. She looked up with a smile of recognition, as if hearing a familiar voice, then she saw me and her expression changed to one of alarm. She began silently to weep.
I joined Esmé in the car. It could be a few hours before we left for Venice, but I thought it prudent to be on our way. The chauffeur started the car, scattering the children in all directions. As we turned into the Grande Rue I looked back. We were not being followed. Pulling down the blinds of the car I noticed that beside me on the big leather seat Esmé had begun to shiver. I worried in case she was actually ill. She seemed to have a slight temperature. As soon as we arrived in Venice, I promised myself, I would get her a good doctor, even if it took our last penny.