Away from this place, she can. She can imagine any number of things, in fact: that his agreement to treat the boy is merely another assertion of superiority. She can convince herself he will use this favour for leverage in some manner. She thinks of her brother – incarcerated for four years in a British jail. Something inside Kerem is broken. And whatever it was that caused it happened in the war, or perhaps in that very jail, at the hands of Englishmen like this.
Away from this place she can convince herself that she must remove the boy from his care immediately, no matter the consequences. Because for her to even look at an Englishman – let alone speak to him, drink coffee with him – makes her a traitor to her own family.
And yet confronted by the reality of the doctor, this infuriating affability, she finds that she cannot hold onto her convictions with the same vigour. It would make it so much easier, she thinks, if he could be a little less pleasant. If he could provide her with something to dislike that she could feed and water until it grew into hatred.
He has said something, she realises. ‘Pardon?’
‘He tells me that you play backgammon.’
‘Not now. I used to play with my father.’
‘How does he know about it?’
Because he knows about everything, Nur thinks – he misses nothing. Sometimes she wishes he were just a little less observant. ‘I have a set in the house. It was one of the things I took from here when we left. I should have sold it, but I couldn’t.’
‘No one wanted it? I’m surprised.’
‘No, I suppose I mean that I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t sell it.’
‘Ah.’
He leads her through to the boy. She sees that he is sitting up in bed, and that he is eating: a plate of eggs, with the softest white bread, the sort that is impossible to find in the city now. There is a new fullness in his face. He looks almost better than he did before the illness. He looks like a different child. He has not noticed her yet: he is too intent upon his breakfast.
She glances at the doctor and finds that he is watching her. It seems that he sees everything. That whilst this transformation should make her happy, she feels instead an urgent sadness.
‘I need to step outside,’ she whispers to the doctor, stiffly. ‘I apologise.’
She looks toward the sweep of the Bosphorus, changeable by the hour and yet in the essentials unchanged. Her breath returns gradually to its rhythm, the central calm restoring. It has passed. She would like a mirror, to see how visibly this thing has marked itself upon her face, but perhaps it is a good thing that she cannot see herself.
A selfish sadness, she thinks. It should not matter to her that she herself has been unable to enact this change in the boy – only that someone has, and that he is so much improved for it.
The door opens.
‘I don’t mean to intrude …’ he steps carefully. ‘I wanted to check if there was a problem.’
‘Yes, of course. It was a surprise, to see him looking so well. I am – very happy.’ It sounds like a lie, which is absurd.
‘I have to congratulate you,’ he says. ‘He is a clever child, but he has been taught excellently, too.’
She does not want this kindness. She feels its power to destabilise.
‘Thank you,’ she says, as coldly as she is able. Then, unable to help herself. ‘I have not seen such bread in this city since before the war.’
‘Pardon?’
She almost says the thing she has been thinking: I supposed that if one has occupied a place, one has access to the very best of everything. Her sense of preservation prevents her.
He is watching her, frowning, as though trying to decipher her expression. She will not allow it. She makes her face a mask.
‘I will take you back to him,’ he says.
‘If you do not mind, I would like to speak to him alone.’
‘Of course.’ He inclines his head. If he is insulted he makes pains not to show it.
This is how it should be; the coffee was a mistake – or, rather, the recognition of a debt owed. A singular instance, not to be repeated.
She sits down beside the boy and takes his hand – warm, faintly clammy.
‘I hear you’ve been learning to play a game?’
‘It’s called dominoes,’ he says, patiently. ‘I’m good at them. I’ve beaten George four times out of six.’
‘George?’ She is confused by the name. Then she understands – the doctor. So, he and the boy are using first names. Again the sense of trespass.
‘Your friend.’
‘My friend?’ She reminds herself that he is only a child, he cannot understand fully. Still, his interpretation profoundly worries her.
‘The doctor is not a bad man … so far as his kind go,’ she says. ‘But he is certainly not my friend; he is not your friend. He is our enemy.’
‘The war is over now.’
‘But our city is occupied by their army. Do you understand? He is an Englishman, and you are an Ottoman boy.’
‘No I’m not.’
This gives her brief pause. She has never heard him refer to himself in this way, had not thought the distinction mattered to him – because it has not signified anything to her. It once mattered to her grandmother, of course, as it does to so many. The war made people see one another differently, that was the thing. She thinks, and then tries not to think, of the terrible acts Hüseyin spoke of. It cannot be true. A war changes people, yes, but it does not turn them into animals.
‘Next time,’ she says, ‘when he asks you to play dominoes, tell him that you would prefer to read.’ And before he can protest, ‘Look, I’ve brought you a new book.’ It is a collection of fairy tales, some of her favourites. ‘I loved these when I was young.’
He does not look
