“So was Hitler. To millions. It depends where you sit. Christ, Georg. You brought him to Lily’s?”
“She asked me to bring him.”
“Someone like that?”
Georg shrugged. “She arranges meetings. That’s what her parties are. So people can meet.”
“And who wants to meet him?”
“I don’t know. You give your old friend too much credit. Would they tell me?” He looked up, a faint smile, a peace offering. “Please, such things. You know where I sit. I’m a Marxist.”
“He isn’t. He’s a thug. Or can’t you tell the difference anymore?”
Georg took a step back. “You’re upset. He said something?”
“Do you know what he is? You must, running errands for him.”
“Leon.”
“Part of the dialectic, is that it?”
“To accept contradictions? Yes.”
“He threatened to kill me. I’m your friend. How do you reconcile that one?”
“Threatened you?”
“He also seems to think I’ll do anything if he waves a dollar bill in my face. Where’d he get that idea? You? Did you tell him he could buy me?”
“Buy. Some information comes to you. A piece of luck. Why shouldn’t you profit from that?”
“My fucking four-leaf clover.” He looked over. “Buy, Georg. You made the same offer. It must be what you think.”
“He asked me to. Not such a nice character. As you say. So I did.” For a second neither said anything, a willed slowing down.
“Why do you still do it?” Leon said finally. “People like that.”
“He’s nothing,” Georg said. “But the war- I wanted to help.” He looked up. “Didn’t you?”
“Help who? That country in your head?”
Georg’s face went slack.
“It’s not Russia, the one up there,” Leon said. “It’s not real.”
“Maybe to me,” Georg said quietly.
“He is, though. And the people he’s killed. That’s what it is there now.”
Georg stared at his drink. “Not here,” he said, a finger to his temple. “You don’t know how it was. How much we were going to do. You know I knew Rosa? Luxemburg? The current of history, that’s what she said we had. We could sweep away-” He stopped. “Then they came, the Melnikovs. Maybe they were always there. I knew after Trotsky. But the idea, to keep that alive- So was it right? I don’t know. But it’s too late now. To find another one.” He paused, then finished his glass. “Don’t be offended. It’s not personal.”
“You were the first friend we had in Istanbul.”
Georg put his hand on Leon’s arm. “And I’m the only one who’s changed?”
Leon said nothing, suddenly aware again of the voices around them, the Turkish musicians playing in one of the alcoves.
“It was different before,” Georg said. “Everything was different. Now, what’s the same? Maybe Anna. Only she’s the same.”
Leon moved his arm, the name like some physical intrusion, separating them. The noise of the party seemed to get louder.
“You should take her home,” Georg said, his voice an echo of Melnikov’s, the same bait, what they’d agreed.
Leon stared at him, white hair and apple cheeks, caught now too, everyone different, except Anna.
“Where would I get the money?” he said, still staring, until Georg looked away, embarrassed.
He walked across the big room to the garden entrance, a low-railed seating area with divans and an arched ceiling glowing with mother-of-pearl. Two men smoking a water pipe looked up, waiting until he passed before they started talking again.
The garden was colder than he expected. He lit a cigarette, looking back at the bright, busy house. People passing in and out of the dining room, standing with meze plates, servants with trays of glasses, flutes of champagne, fruit juices for the observant. One of Lily’s parties. Where you could arrange an import license or plant a story in
The old parties had seemed more frivolous, flashbulb occasions for the newspapers, but maybe they’d always been the same, little marketplaces, people bargaining, Leon too naive to notice. Both of them naive, relieved to be out of Germany, the flowers and soft Bosphorus night part of a larger happiness. Inside, a skirt rushed by one of the dining room windows, and he saw Anna’s dress, the one she’d bought for that first party. “How do I look?” Pleased with herself, buoyant, thinking the dress was a success, when it was really the shiny skin, just being young.
“Everyone is so nice,” she’d said, “don’t you think?”
“They like a new face.”
They were standing by an umbrella pine, the air heavy with fresh resin.
“And you? Not so new to you.”
“No,” he said, putting his hand up to her cheek, just brushing it.
She leaned into his hand, a cat’s movement. “Oh, it’s wrong to be so happy.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Think of my parents.”
“They’ll get out.”
“Buying dresses. Going to parties. Champagne. Who gets to do these things now?”
“You do,” he said, stroking her cheek.
“Isn’t it terrible? I’m so happy.” She looked up at him. “I don’t want anything to change. And it will.”
“What?”
“Things. Everything changes.” She looked up, a smile. “Maybe not you. So stubborn. So that’s lucky, yes?” she said, her voice throaty, a German inflection, something she would always have, like a fingerprint. She looked back toward the party. “How does she know so many people?”
“Her husband’s rich. That makes you a lot of friends.”
“No, they like her. You can tell.”
Everyone charming then in their new eyes, the room dancing with light. Maybe they simply hadn’t been aware of it, the quiet introductions, the plotting, any of it. Just the sound of dresses swishing, voices spilling out, lapping at the garden.
“It’s really true? She was in the harem? To meet someone like that.”
“You could be in a harem,” he said, his face closer, already wanting to go home, those days when they couldn’t get enough of each other.
“Oh, a dancing girl. With those pants you can see through. Me, a
“You’d have found someone else.”
“No. I’d have waited.”
“Yes?”
She nodded. “I’d have waited.”
For an instant, the memory was so real that he felt her breath on his face. He dropped the cigarette. Before all the luck had run out. But maybe it hadn’t, not all of it. Isn’t that what Georg called it, a piece of luck, meaning something else? Turn the board around. Tommy was gone and no one knew. One word, an address to Melnikov, and Alexei would disappear and no one would know that, either. Money in the bank, a fresh start, for a man not worth saving. A fresh start for Anna. Maybe a chance for her to come back. And Leon still lucky, in the clear, while Frank turned the consulate inside out, every trail getting colder. None of them leading to Leon. He moved the men around the board in his head, looking for the flaw. A straight play, no piece lurking on the side. Except Melnikov, who would
