Istanbul Passage

“Told him what?”

“Surmeli. The landlord in Laleli. He thanked me for referring you. He thought I sent you to him.”

“Georg, later. The stretcher’s here.”

“No, now. In case. That’s how you knew him, remember? He owned the office building. In Beyazit. So when you took the flat- I never told Melnikov. But I knew. Why would you take a flat? A woman, Surmeli thinks. Not you, a woman in a flat. So I knew. But I never said. Your friend, you understand?” He opened his eyes wider. “I never said.”

Leon looked at him, then nodded.

“We have to get him on the stretcher,” one of the attendants said in Turkish.

“Georg? You ready?” Leon said.

“So it’s safe,” Georg said, still somewhere else. “I never said.”

“Okay, here we go. Just hold on to me.”

They lifted him, one smooth, fluid movement, and covered him with a blanket, placing an oxygen tube in his nose. The rest of the guests stood watching as the attendants moved out to the landing, Georg still grasping Leon’s hand, Kay following. Obstbaum was waiting in the boat.

“Where’s Lily? Here, take his hand,” Leon said to Kay, slipping gently out of Georg’s grip. “I’ll be right back. Hold on to her,” he said to Georg. “And behave yourself.”

Georg smiled faintly. Obstbaum looked up, uncomfortable, Kay’s presence some awkward test of loyalty.

Leon hurried back into the house. The party was now breaking up, people milling around the fountain. A houseboy pointed him to the telephone room, a small study in what had been the selamlik. The door was already open and he pushed it wider. Altan was hanging up the phone, turning to Lily, both voices low. Leon froze. Not just talking, intimate, their faces close. A couple. What’s he like? she had said. Leon remembered her eyes at the Pera Palas, brushing past him. Now talking just to each other, the way people did in bed. Leon stepped back. How long?

He waited another minute, then knocked. “Lily?”

“Yes, yes, coming,” she said, at the door in seconds.

“We’re off. Oh-” Taking in Altan.

“These phones,” Lily said. “But finally, the clinic. They’ll meet you on the other side.” Her voice easy, leading them out of the room, as smooth as the attendants lifting Georg. “How is he?”

“The same.”

“You don’t mind, I come with you?” Altan said as they walked. “There’s room?”

“Yes, but now.”

“I’ll tell Halit,” Lily said. “So he won’t look for you.”

“A pleasure, Madame Nadir. Thank you for the evening,” he said politely, as if his face had never been close to hers. “I’m sorry that-”

“Yes, such a terrible thing. Leon, you’ll call? Let me know how he is?”

They were at the landing now, being helped in, the boat rocking in the wake of some larger ship, so that everything, even her voice, seemed to be shifting, unsteady. He turned to her. A woman who arranged things. How much did Altan tell her? Faces close, whispering. His old friend, her hair golden in the lamplight. Before he could answer, the boat pulled out onto the dark water.

“Keep the tube in,” Obstbaum was saying to Georg. “You need the oxygen.”

“On the Bosphorus,” Georg said, but closed his eyes, obeying.

The air, in fact, was sharp and fresh. The freighter’s wake had passed and the water was calmer, their headlight slicing across the surface, the opposite shore twinkling.

“My father had an attack like this,” Kay said, her hand still in Georg’s. “He’s getting his color back, see?”

“Leon,” Georg said, motioning him closer again.

“Don’t talk. You have to stay quiet.”

“I didn’t say,” he whispered, his eyes closed. “I didn’t say anything to Melnikov.”

But he would, his mind filled with it now, brimming, maybe not intending to but letting it slip out.

“What does he mean?” Kay said.

“Nothing. Ssh.” Patting Georg’s hand to quiet him. Not here. Not anywhere. What if he talked in his sleep, unaware, sedatives loosening the last restraint?

“You are old friends?” Altan said.

“Old. Like a son,” Georg said, his voice faint, eyes moist. “I didn’t say.”

“Ssh,” Leon said, brushing the hair off his forehead, soothing a child, feeling Kay watching him.

“Kosterman says it’s the second time,” Obstbaum said, taking Georg’s pulse again. “So it’s dangerous.”

“My father survived two,” Kay said.

“But not the third,” Obstbaum said, blunt, dismissing her presence.

And the landlord didn’t talk only to Georg. A whole neighborhood of friends, eager for news, the sort of gossip Altan’s men were bound to pick up. The ferengi renting a flat for his woman. Whom nobody had seen. Imagine the expense. A flat, not a hotel. Someone who couldn’t be seen. He could almost hear the voices, a sibilant buzzing, Surmeli smoking a water pipe, the center of interest. If Georg had heard, it would be just a matter of time before someone else did, whether Georg talked or not. Running out of time.

He looked at Kay holding Georg’s hand, wisps of hair blowing across her face in the breeze, a nurse’s calm. Obstbaum deliberately not looking at either of them. How could he bring her to the clinic, Anna down the hall? Georg was mumbling something again, too indistinct to be heard above the running engine.

“Good. They sent the ambulance,” Obstbaum said, seeing it on the quay ahead.

Move Alexei, the sooner the better. Not a hotel. Somewhere private. He thought of the house he and Anna had rented one month on Buyukada. Pine forests and empty coves, no one else in sight, afternoons just walking and looking at the Sea of Marmara. An easy exile-Trotsky had stayed there-but also a trap, no fast way off the island if someone found out. Better to hide in plain sight, even the Cihangir flat, the last place they’d expect. Unless someone was already watching it. He glanced over at Altan. His new colleague, expecting a report.

“Be careful,” Obstbaum said, waiting for the driver to tie up before they lifted the stretcher.

“You think I’ll break?” Georg said, then gave an involuntary moan as the stretcher jerked, the last heave up to the quay.

They loaded him into the back of the ambulance. Obstbaum opened the black bag an assistant had brought and took out a syringe, filling it from an ampoule.

“What’s that?” Georg said. “Kosterman-”

“Prescribed it. This will pinch. But it’ll feel better, the pain. Just keep calm. We’ll need to monitor you at the clinic, your rhythm’s still irregular.”

“But Kosterman-”

“On his way. He’ll meet us there.” He looked up at Leon, standing at the door. “You coming?”

Kay started toward him, but Leon turned, stopping her. “No, don’t wait. It could be all night. I’ll just make sure his doctor gets here. Colonel Altan, will you see that she gets home? The Pera.”

“But-” Kay started to protest.

“Really. You’d just be sitting in the waiting room.” Down the hall. “There’s no point. I’m sorry the evening had to-”

“Nobody’s fault,” she said vaguely, trying not to look wounded.

“I’ll call tomorrow,” he said. “Let you know how he is.”

She looked at him, eyes still puzzled. “Not the best timing, was it?”

“Things just happen sometimes.”

She nodded. “And sometimes they don’t.”

“Now, please,” Obstbaum said from inside the van.

Leon climbed up, closing the door behind him. He looked back through the oval window as the ambulance pulled away, Kay in her party dress with Altan, boats bobbing behind them, and for a second he wanted to open the door and jump out, then Georg moaned and when he looked again she had got smaller, too far away.

At the clinic, Georg was put on a gurney and wheeled into one of the medical rooms where nurses attached electrodes to his chest from a bulky machine next to the bed.