in new uniforms, secular weddings, solemn young circumcision boys in round hats and white satin cloaks. In some of the older pictures the men still wore fezzes, steamed and pressed for the camera, already artifacts. According to a small sign, Enver Manyas offered a choice of backdrops-a garden pavilion, Seraglio Point, Bosphorus views-but most of his customers seemed to have opted for less expensive plain canvas.
A bell tinkled when Leon opened the door, bringing out a short, round-shouldered man with wire-rimmed glasses. At first a look of surprise, then a guarded dip of his head.
“
The man nodded, still wary.
“I have some work for you. For Mr. King,” Leon said in Turkish.
Manyas stared at him, keeping his face composed, noncommittal.
“We’re alone?” Leon said.
Another nod, waiting. Leon reached into his pocket, pulling out Alexei’s passport.
“Mr. King is dead,” Manyas said.
“Yes. I’ve taken his place.” He held out the papers. “Are you interested? Same price.”
Manyas glanced at the passport. “He didn’t use it.”
“Change of plans.”
“Romanian. Traveling through Turkey. You have a new picture?”
“Same picture. Now a Turk. Traveling to Greece.”
Manyas looked up at him, putting this together, the man in the picture still here.
“How long will it take you?”
Manyas examined the picture, fingering the raised seal. “Still a Jew?”
“If that makes it easier for you.”
“It’s of no consequence to me. It’s a matter of the spacing. The length of the name. A Turkish Jew. Barouh. Sayah,” he said, offering names.
“Barouh,” Leon said, ordering up an identity.
“First. Izidor. Nesim. Yusuf.”
“Nesim, I guess.”
“So. Nesim Barouh. Going to Greece. Same everything else?” He looked up. “Same man?”
“Same everything else,” Leon said. “How long?”
“The seal has to be matched. On the photo.”
“Tomorrow?”
“There is some hurry?”
“Half now? Half tomorrow?” Leon said, taking out his wallet.
“And the other one?” Manyas said, watching him count out the bills.
Leon looked up at him.
“Of course, I understand now it’s not- But the work was done. You’ll pay me for the work? Two hundred liras outstanding. If I hadn’t done the work, but as it is-”
Leon waited.
“A moment,” Manyas said, going to the back room and returning with an envelope. “I thought, you know, when I heard, there’s no money now. But it’s special paper for these, an expense. And the black market-it’s not possible for this one. Not now.”
Leon took the passport out of the envelope. American.
“You can see the engraving is excellent-no difference.”
Leon opened it. Russell Brooks, born Pennsylvania, an engraved stamp over the man in the picture. Tommy. Leon stared at it, trying to keep his face blank. Something Tommy had ordered for himself. He could feel the quiet in the shop, suspended, like dust.
“Two hundred?” he said, to say something.
“It was agreed. No studio work, so a saving. Duplicate prints. If we hadn’t been able to use the same picture-”
“The same picture?”
“As the others. The other two.”
“The other two,” Leon said slowly, feeling his way. “Different names?”
“Yes, of course, different.”
“Tommy had three passports?” Leon said, thinking out loud.
“It’s useful, no?” Manyas said simply. “In his work.”
Leon looked back at the passport. “Does he owe for them too?”
“No, no, that was last year. Just this one now. If you want-as a favor, no charge, since he’s dead-I can change the picture. The passport is good work. A shame to waste-”
“I’ll let you know,” Leon said, putting it back in the envelope. “I’ll bring the two hundred tomorrow. I don’t have that much on me now. That all right?”
“Of course,” Manyas said, bowing his head, his voice formally polite, like a dealer in the Bazaar. “And whom do I have the pleasure of serving now?”
“It’s still Tommy. It’s still his account.”
He stood outside for a few minutes clearing his head. Why did anyone need another passport? To be someone else. To cross a border as someone else. But Tommy was going home, as himself. Unless something went wrong at Bebek. Prepare for the unexpected, an ace up your sleeve if you had to get out fast. As someone else. But he hadn’t picked it up yet, so he’d have had to use one of the old ones. Which meant they were still around somewhere, more Tommys. Not in his office desk. At home, then, with Barbara? He wondered if she knew. But no passports had been made for Barbara. If Tommy had needed to bolt, get out of Turkey, he was planning to do it alone.
Leon took a taxi to his bank in Taksim and drew out enough money to cover Manyas and the trip to Edirne, then walked down Tarlabasi Caddesi to a garage he’d used before. His car needed a tune-up. If he brought it in did they have another he could use for a day or two? Who had cars to spare these days? But somehow, for a fee, they could. He thought of Frank, smug, the land of baksheesh after all.
He walked back uphill to the consulate, feeling the passport in his breast pocket. Why an American passport, something conspicuous? But what else could Tommy be? A Bulgar in a fleece hat? Jianu could shift nationalities in a minute, a chameleon. Tommy could never be anything else. A hopeless defector, if it came to that. Where would he go, Russell Brooks?
At first, a jarring second, he thought it was Alexei leaning over Tommy’s secretary’s desk-the same cropped gray hair and straight military back, the jacket in fact a uniform, how Alexei must have dressed once. Voices pitched low, private. It was only when they heard him at the door and turned that Leon could see his face, fleshy, almost without definition, not like Alexei at all, except for the gray.
“Mr. Bauer,” Dorothy said, jumping a little, flustered.
A closer look now, navy jacket filling out at the waist, too old for active duty, but evidently not for making a pass. Dorothy was in her thirties with glasses and hair rolled up on top, maybe glad of the attention.
“My husband,” she said.
“Jack Wheeler,” he said, offering a hand. “Didn’t mean to- Just got in from Ankara so thought I’d stop by.”
Leon nodded.
“Jack’s Naval Attache,” Dorothy said, explaining.
“In Ankara?”
“I know,” Wheeler said, a familiar question. “Not too many ships. But lots of admirals. You have to be where the orders are cut. But I get to go back and forth, so we pass in the night once in a while,” he said, head toward Dorothy, who looked away at this, flustered again. “Navy wives. At least I’m not at sea. And once they wrap things up here at Commercial Corp.-how long’s your brief?” What everyone in the consulate wanted to know.
“They didn’t say.”
“One thing when the war’s on. You do your part. But now they’ll be bringing new girls over, let the wives go home. You’ll be in Ankara before you know it.”
“Yes,” Dorothy said evenly.
