She heard footsteps behind her.
‘Excuse me?’ In English.
Nur kept her gaze down, hurried her pace. Another misstep; her ankle turned on itself, an arrow of pain lancing up.
‘Bakar mısınız?’
She hesitated, surprised by the Turkish, clumsy though it was. In her moment of hesitation, he had caught up with her.
‘You dropped this.’
She turned. She saw, on looking up, a khaki form, the vague oval of a face. This was all her glance allowed time for; she could not have said with absolute certainty that there had also been eyes, a nose, a mouth. Because the thing about the foreign soldiers is that one does everything one can to avoid looking at them. Not to pretend that they don’t exist; that would be impossible. After three years of occupation they have come to seem as much a part of the city as the thousands of stray dogs that roam its streets. Just like those dogs they have made it their own; taken possession, taken liberties. But one avoids looking at them to avoid trouble. From a man a too-long glance might seem a threat; many have been thrown into Allied prisons on smaller pretexts. From a woman, it might seem an invitation.
She took the thing he was holding out to her, though to do so seemed in itself like a weakness. His fingers brushed hers, an accident, and she snatched her hand. It was her red notebook, the one in which she plans out her lessons. She pushed it beneath her arm with the others, turned, walked away.
She realised after ten more steps that she had not thanked him. Well, she thought. One small act of defiance for the vanquished.
‘It was you, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It was me.’ If he is expecting her to thank him, he will have a long wait.
He smiles. She thinks how much she would like to hit him, or spit at his feet. ‘How is your ankle?’ he asks.
‘There is nothing wrong with my ankle.’ She hears the edge in her voice. Careful, must not push it too far. He is smiling, but these invaders can turn in an instant. And yet she refuses to show that she is afraid of him, especially here, in this place. ‘Why are you here?’ she asks.
‘This is a hospital,’ he says. ‘I am the doctor here. This man, Lieutenant Rawlings, is one of my patients.’ Then, almost to himself, ‘Who should not be out here, in fact.’ He turns to the robed figure. ‘Why are you out, Rawlings?’
‘I came here to smoke my pipe. Can’t have the damn thing inside – Sister Agnes complains about it.’
‘Well, I would return post haste if I were you, or you will have to answer to her. I think she will find this a worse crime.’
The man seems about to retort, then thinks better of it. Flushing, he extinguishes the pipe and begins an unsteady retreat toward the property. But she sees that he does not enter – he remains on the edge of vision as a silent audience.
‘I’m sorry for the lack of courtesy.’ The doctor’s voice is gentler. ‘We don’t have many visitors here, as you see.’
She knows that this is British dissemble. Some sort of explanation is still required, he is waiting for her to make it. She would not know how to do it even if she felt he deserved one. Instead, she asks, ‘This is a hospital?’
‘Yes. It was a house, originally, the owners have since left.’ Something occurs to him. ‘Perhaps you knew them?’
‘No.’ He is still waiting, she knows, for her explanation. There is nothing threatening in his voice or manner, but then the threat is sewn into the very uniform he wears.
‘I have family,’ she says, ‘a little further down this shore. I knew of the path, I thought I would come this way, along the water.’
He frowns. She is fairly sure he is not convinced. And yet she suspects that his courtesy will not allow him to call her out in the lie.
‘Do you know why this house was abandoned? What happened to the owners? I only ask because it feels as though they did not leave long ago.’
‘I never knew them.’ She draws herself together. ‘If you will excuse me …’ She steps toward him. It is the closest she has ever been to one of them, and she feels the clench of fear again in her stomach.
For the first time he seems to realise that he is blocking her path back to dry land. He steps aside.
She walks slowly back the way she came, not caring that he will think it odd; that if her tale were true she should be walking in the other direction, past the house, not back in the direction of the ferry terminal. Her hands are trembling; she clenches them into fists.
Behind her she hears: ‘Well, that was all rather confounding—’
‘What I’m more confounded by, Rawlings, is why you are still outside.’
It could be worse, she supposes. It could have been turned into a barracks, or a nightclub like those that have sprung up in Pera, the European district. A hospital is at least less shameful than that. But her home has been colonised. All of their memories, the intimate, private life of the family. She feels the loss of it a second time. And that smiling Englishman, with his quizzical politeness. Somehow it would have been better, almost less insulting, if he had spoken to her with the abrupt rudeness of the other man.
Her mind fills with fantasies. She sees herself lunging toward him as he moved aside for her on the jetty. Pushing out with both
