Finally, through the translator, he begins to talk. He denies everything. But the fact of his talking is in itself a weakness, a yielding, one step nearer to a confession. The crowd feel this, George senses them scenting blood.
— What had he been doing that evening, at that hour, if not up to no good?
He had been attempting a night-fish, the translator explains for him, with a lantern. He has a household to feed; they must understand.
A pause is left, just long enough for the absurdity of this answer to sink in.
— But of course it would make sense that you should have to go fishing at night. As you are so busy during your days meeting members of the Karakol at the coffeehouse?
— I meet with my friends. Can a man not have friends?
The pugnaciousness only seems to delight his interrogator.
— You must admit that you have an interesting, and rather specific, choice in friends.
It goes on like this, and George feels the sympathies of the room harden further against the defendant. There is something like excitement in it, too, he feels – several times an order for quiet has to be barked. If they had their way he senses there would be jeering, heckling. He wonders what these upstanding gentlemen would say if one told them how much they have in common with a group of Russian peasants observing a bear-baiting.
He can find no entertainment in it. He alone, save perhaps the arsonist himself, knows exactly what is at stake. He only wants it all to be over.
Nur
It would have to be now, of all mornings, that her mother should decide to regain some of her lucidity.
‘Where is Kerem?’ she asks her daughter, as Nur combs the thin skein of hair before the mirror. ‘I wanted him to accompany me for a drive to the city walls.’
Not quite lucid, then, Nur thinks. Enough, though, that Nur has to lie to her, which she had not been prepared for.
‘He has gone out early,’ she says. ‘And he came back late last night – after you were asleep.’
She sees a shiver of suspicion in her mother’s gaze, before her eyes lose their clarity.
‘Well. We must make sure to have something nice for him to eat when he returns. Tell Fatima to go to Mahmut Paşa.’
Her grandmother is silent, as though the roles have been reversed. She may have heard what was said when the Turkish police came to the apartment and informed Nur – some intimating sympathies with the prisoner – of what had transpired. If not, she suspects something. For the first time, Nur thinks, she looks truly old.
George
‘It is not him.’
There is a collective intake of breath. George does not blame them: he is surprised even at himself. He did not know until a second before he spoke that this was going to be his answer.
Until then he had believed exactly what he had told her; that he could not do it, because of all that was at stake.
— I suppose you mean that you do not recognise him.
He can hear the relief. Ah yes. Not the same thing at all as a total rebuttal. It can be overcome.
— Considering the circumstances, the danger in which you found yourself, it is hardly surprising.
The way back is offered up to him. And perhaps he could now retreat, and allow them this possibility. He has not gone so far yet that the decision cannot be reversed. It isn’t really a decision after all, when one considers it, only the impulse of a moment. But he knows within his own mind that there is no turning back; it is done now.
‘No,’ he says, and clears his throat, so that there can be no mistaking his next words. ‘This is not the man I saw that night. I do not recognise him because it was not him.’
There is a long silence.
His questioner goes to speak, makes a small noise like a hiccough, and seems to think better of it.
He does not look once at the man in the dock. He has not done this for him.
That evening he has a visitor.
‘You saved him. He told me what you said.’
‘I do not want to talk about it.’
This seems to throw her. ‘I can understand that,’ she says, regaining her poise. ‘What you did for him – it was extremely brave.’
‘Was it?’
‘I believe it to be so.’
‘I am not certain that it was, though.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I think, in fact, it might have been a kind of cowardice.’
‘I do not see how it could have been that.’
‘You don’t?’
‘No.’
‘Well. What if I told you that in the end I did not do it because of my sense of good and bad, but for you?’
She does not answer.
He does not know what makes him do it. Perhaps it is the whisky; more of it than he would normally drink, and earlier. It makes things seem possible. He raises his hand – she is only a couple of feet away – and places it against her warm cheek.
She is very still.
Neither of them speak.
Where his fingertips brush her neck he can feel the rhythm of the pulse beneath the skin.
He wants her to look at him.
She clears her throat. She keeps her eyes trained upon some unknown spot on the floor. ‘I understand that there is a great debt. First the boy, and now my brother. I see this. I know it. It is not accepted lightly. I understand how much I owe to you. I do not know how I could ever repay you. But I understand that you have been a long time from home… without a woman’s company.’ She swallows. ‘If—’
He withdraws his hand as quickly as if she had burned him.
‘What are you saying?’
‘I – I am not sure.’
‘There is no debt.’ He wants to take her by the shoulders and say it, but he will not risk touching her again. ‘I
