“Friends— You’re neither sociable nor unsociable. Affable, but never intimate. Effective enough at your desk, promoted according to seniority, but unambitious; you do everything by the book. Unmarried. That’s uncommon in Turkey, but not unheard of, and nobody is interested enough in you to wonder seriously.”
“Your judgment is less than flattering.” Saygun didn’t sound offended. “Reasonably accurate, though. I have told you, I am content to be what I am.”
“An immortal?” McCready flung at him.
Saygun lifted a palm, cigar between fingers. “My dear sir, you leap to conclusions.”
“It fits, it fits. Listen, you can be honest with me! Or at least bear with me. I can show you evidence that’s convinced men more intelligent than either of us, if you’ll cooperate. And— How can you just sit there like that?”
Saygun shrugged.
“If nothing else, even if I’m wrong about you and you suppose I’m crazy, you ought to show some excitement,” McCready snapped. “A desire to escape, if nothing else. Or— But I think you are ageless yourself, you can join us and together we can— How old are you, anyway?”
Into the stillness that followed, Saygun said, a new steel in his tone: “Credit me with some brains, if you please. I have told you I read books. And I have had a year to consider what might lie behind that curious, evasive procedure of yours; and conceivably before then I have speculated about these matters. Would you mind taking your seat again? I prefer to talk in civilized wise.”
“My ... apologies.” First McCready went to the sideboard. He mixed a stiff Scotch and soda. “Would you like this?”
“No, thank you. Another Drambuie, if I may. Do you know, it never came to my attention before tonight. But then, only recently has Turkey become a modern, secular state. Marvelous stuff. I must lay some in before the next war makes it unobtainable.”
McCready overcame interior tumult and returned to the table. “What do you want to say?” he asked.
Saygun barely smiled. “Well,” he replied, “things were growing hectic, weren’t they? To be expected, no doubt, when you made such extraordinary claims. Not that I deny them, kyrie. I am no scientist, to decide what is and is not possible. Nor am I so rude as to call my host deluded, let alone a liar. But we should calm down. May I tell you a story?”
“By all means,” McCready rasped, and drank deep.
“Perhaps I can better label it a speculation,” Saygun said. “A flight of fancy, like some works of Mr. H. G. Wells. What if such-and-such were true? What consequences?”
“Go on.”
Saygun relaxed, smoked, sipped, let his voice amble. “Weft, now, shall we imagine a man bora rather long ago? For example, in Italy toward the end of the Roman Republic. Family of the equestrian class, undistinguished, its men seldom much interested in war or politics, seldom succeeding or failing greatly in commerce, often making careers in the civil service. The state and its conquered provinces had grown swiftly, enormously. There was need for clerks, registrars, annalists, archivists, every class of those workers who provide a government with its memory. Once Augustus had taken control, procedures were soon regularized, organization made firm, order and predictability instilled. For a peaceful man, the lower and median ranks of the civil service were a good place to be.”
McCready inhaled sharply. Saygun ignored it: “Next I would like to borrow your imaginative concept of the occasional person who never grows old. Since you have obviously considered every ramification, I need not spell out the difficulties that the years must bring to such a man. Perforce, when he reaches the normal retirement age, he gives up his position and moves away, telling his acquaintances that it will be to someplace with a mild climate and a low cost of living. Yet if he is entitled to a pension, he dares not draw it forever; and if pensions are not customary, he cannot live forever on savings, or even on investments. He must go back to work.
“Well, he seems youthful and he has experience. He re-enters the bureaucracy in a different city, under a different name, but quickly proves his worth and earns promotion from junior grade to about the middle of the hierarchy among the record-keepers. In due course he retires again. By then sufficient time has gone by that he can return to, say, Rome and start over.
“Thus it goes. I shan’t bore you with details, when you can readily visualize them. For example, sometimes he marries and raises a family, which is pleasant—or if it happens not to be, will pass, so all he needs is patience. This does complicate his little deceptions, hence he spends other periods in tranquil bachelorhood, varied by discreet indulgences. He is never in any danger of being found out. His position in the archives enables him to make cautious but’adequate insertions, deletions, emendations. Nothing to harm the state, nothing to enrich himself, no, never. He simply avoids military service and, in general, covers his tracks.” Saygun snickered. “Oh, now and then he might slip in something like a letter of recommendation for the young recruit he plans to become. Please remember, though, that he does do honest work. Whether he puts stylus to wax, pen to paper, nowadays types or dictates, he helps maintain the memory of the state.”
“I see,” McCready whispered. “But states come and go.”
“Civilization continues,” responded Saygun. “The Princi-pate hardens into the Empire and the Empire begins to crack like drying mud, but people go on getting bom and getting married, they ply their trades and die, always they pay taxes, and whoever rules must hold the records of this or he has no power over the life of the people. The usurper or the conqueror may strike off heads at the top, but he will scarcely touch the harmless drudges of the civil service. That would be like chopping off his own feet.”
“It has happened,” McCready said bleakly.
Saygun nodded. “True. Corruption rewards its favorites with jobs. However, certain jobs are not especially tempting, while at the same time their holders would be hard to dispense with. Then occasionally barbarians, fanatics, megalomaniacs attempt to make a clean sweep. They cause desolation. Nevertheless, more often than not, some continuity endures. Rome fell, but the Church preserved what it could.”
“I suppose, though,” McCready said, word by word, “this man ... you are imagining ... had moved to Constantinople.”
Saygun nodded. “Of course. With Constantine the Great himself, who necessarily expanded the government offices in his new capital and welcomed personnel willing to transfer. And the Roman Empire, in its Byzantine incarnation, lasted another thousand years.”
“After which—”
“Oh, there were difficult times, but one manages. Actually, my man was stationed in Anatolia when the Osmanlis overran it, and did not get back to Constantinople until they had taken it too and renamed it Istanbul. Meanwhile he had fitted into their order of things without many problems. Changed his religion, but surely you can sympathize with that, and with a certain recurring necessity that an immortal Muslim or Jew faces.” Saygun half grinned. “One wonders about possible women. Recurrent intactness?”
His mien went back to mock professorial: “Physically, this man would stay inconspicuous. The original Turks were not very unlike the people here, and soon melted into them the same as Hittites, Gauls, Greeks, Romans, countless nations had done before. The sultans reigned until after the World War. In name, at any rate; frequently not in fact. It made small difference to my man. He simply helped maintain the records.
“Likewise under the republic. I must confess I—my man prefers Istanbul and looks forward to his next period of working there. It is more interesting, and alive with ghosts. But you know that. However, by now Ankara has become quite liveable.”
“Is that all he wants?” McCready wondered. “Shuffling papers in an office, forever?”
“He is used to it,” Saygun explained. “Perhaps it actually has a trifle more social value than soaring hopes and high adventure. Naturally, I wanted to hear what you had to say, but—forgive me—the situation you describe is ill- suited to one of my temperament. Let me wish you every good fortune.
“May I have your card? Here is mine.” He reached in his pocket. McCready did likewise. They exchanged. “Thank you. We can, if you so desire, mail new cards to each other as occasion arises. The time may possibly come when we have reason to communicate. Meanwhile, absolute confidentiality on both sides, agreed?”
“Well, but listen—”
“Please. I detest disputes.” Saygun glanced at his watch. “My, my. Time flies, eh? I really must go. Thank you for an evening I will never forget.”
He rose. McCready did too and, helplessly, shook hands. Having bade goodnight, the bureaucrat, still relishing
