A Dead Man in Athens (8 page)

‘I think they may be trying out a new fitting.’

He told Orhan Eser about the ailerons and about his visit that morning.

‘They’re just young men. Rich amateurs playing with their toys.’

‘The Government has ordered them more machines. And they won’t be flown by amateurs.’

Chapter Six

Aphrodite, sitting beside him in a small restaurant in the Plaka, was questioning him about the Sultan’s harem. How did those poor women manage to exist? How could they bear to go on living like that? It really brought it home, she said, how it must have been in the old days, seventy years before, when Greece was still part of the Ottoman Empire and the Ottomans ruled in Athens. Suppose she had been alive then: how would she have fared? Might she herself have been in a harem somewhere? Her father would have fought against it, she was sure. But would he have had any choice? Suppose some powerful Ottoman had come along and said, ‘I’ll have her.’ What could he or she have done about it? She would have finished up in a harem just like those poor creatures Seymour had been telling her about. Phew, there was a thought!

They had just come down from the Acropolis. The previous evening, at the Metaxases’, Seymour had mentioned his desire to see something of the city while he was here. Back in London, when Old Tsakatellis had suggested this, Seymour had thought he might be too busy. ‘Too busy,’ Tsakatellis had said incredulously, ‘to see the Parthenon?’ On reflection Seymour had thought that would be, indeed, to put too narrow a construction on his duties. The Metaxases had supported him. The Acropolis, the Parthenon – why not? And why not at sunset? And why not with Aphrodite to show him round? Why not, indeed, thought Seymour.

He was warming to Aphrodite. When he had first encountered her, looming over the table, dressed all in black, arms folded, commanding her father, she had put the fear of God into him. On further acquaintance, though, it became clear that there were other sides to her: that business, for example, of wanting to be a Bl´eriot mechanic! And training to be a doctor! Even going to university. Back in England no one went to university except people like the Secretaries at the Embassy. Certainly no one in the East End went to university. And no woman had a hope of becoming a doctor.

Seymour, who had occasionally daydreamed of going to university himself, was sufficiently well read in the newspapers to suspect that he was meeting a specimen of ‘the New Woman’. The newspapers and journals back in London were full of her. Down in Whitechapel, however, New Women were few on the ground. Except, possibly, his sister, who didn’t count. How odd that he should have to come to Greece to find one! (This was one of the treasures of Greece that Tsakatellis had not mentioned.) Having come across her, though, Seymour was disposed to pursue the acquaintance further. And what better place for scientific enquiry than the Parthenon at sunset?

Aphrodite, too, a genuine scientist, after all, felt that she should not let slip this opportunity of studying a male of a different species than those she was accustomed to, particularly one who came from so exotic a place as . . . Whitechapel, was it? She knew little about London’s East End but took it for granted that the chapel
was
white, like the Parthenon, perhaps, only, obviously, since that was Greek, less beautiful. Anyway, the subject was worth pursuing, especially at the Parthenon at sunset, and an hour or so later they descended the hill having established a close, if not entirely scientific, rapport.

The restaurant was complete with candles and vine leaves and on each table was a little Greek flag: a new fashion, said Aphrodite and one which always put her father in a rage.

‘He must be often in a rage these days,’ said Seymour, for all along the street there were flags, hanging from windows, draped from balconies and suspended from the street lamps.

‘Oh, that’s because of the soldiers,’ said Aphrodite.

‘They’re leaving tomorrow.’

‘Leaving?’

‘For Salonica. They say. My father says not. He says they’ll stop when they get two miles out of town and all the crowds have turned back. They’ll sit on the ground in the shade and have a drink. There is, he says, a saving spirit of realism in Greeks which usually, but always at the eleventh hour, stops them from doing anything too stupid.’

Later in the evening a baggy-trousered musician came in from the street and began playing a pipe. On closer inspection Seymour saw that the pipe was made from the barrel of a gun.

‘A sign of the times?’ he suggested.

Aphrodite frowned.

‘A sign of the eternal Greek ability to put things to better use,’ she said.

But Seymour wondered if it was also a sign of the eternal Balkan ability to find a pretext for fighting one’s neighbours. At the Parthenon Aphrodite had shown him the still evident damage caused by the great explosion of 1687 when a stray shell from the besieging Venetian forces had ignited the power magazine that the Ottomans, who happened to be occupying the Parthenon at that time, had casually stored within its columns.

The next morning Seymour thought he had better go to the Embassy and check.

‘Oh, yes,’ said the First Secretary, ‘they’re definitely moving out. But probably not very far. There’s an element of posturing in Greek politics. It comes from them being a democracy. They have to work up popular feeling before they can do anything. Usually the feeling subsides before they get to doing it.’

‘So there isn’t going to be a war?’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. It’s just that there may be a prolonged period of sparring first. And that, of course, is where you come in.’

‘Me?’

‘The cat business. The manoeuvring around the Sultan.

’ ‘You think that won’t come to anything?’

‘Oh, it might. But the longer it goes on without coming to anything, the better, from our point of view. The greater the chance of peace. They need a pretext, you see, for going to war. It looks bad to go to war without an excuse.’

‘I’m sorry. I still don’t see where I come in.’

‘Well, look, old chap, the cat is hardly important, is it? So the more time everybody spends on it, the better. It sort of deflects their energies from more dangerous things.’

‘So you don’t really want me to find out –’

‘Oh, we do, old boy, we do. Only not too quickly.’

Despite that, Seymour returned to the Sultan’s residence, where he was now on familiar terms with the soldiers guarding, the kitchen staff, and Orhan Eser.

‘How is the Sultan this morning?’

‘He has, I am afraid, a severe attack of stomach cramps.’

‘Ah, well, this must be a relief to you.’

‘Relief?’

‘After your fears. That it might be something worse.’

‘It does not end the fears. For what gave rise to the stomach cramps? That must be looked into.’

‘Well, yes, I see.’

Fortunately, he, Seymour, wasn’t going to be doing the looking.

He asked if he could speak to the maid, Zenobia.

* * *

‘You are Zenobia?’

‘That is true.’

‘And you serve in the harem?’

‘That also is true.’

‘And whom do you serve particularly?’

‘The Lady Fatima.’

‘I want you to cast your mind back to the day when the cat was poisoned. Do you remember that day?’

‘Oh, yes, Effendi. Who would not!’

‘Could you tell me where you were when the cat was feeding?’

‘I was with the Lady Fatima, helping her to dress.’

‘And at some point, I understand, you saw the cat. Is that right?’

‘Yes, Effendi.’

‘And where was it?’

‘I saw it twice, Effendi. The second time it was dead.

’ ‘And that was in the room where Miriam had put the bowl?’

‘Yes, Effendi.’

‘But that was not where you saw the cat the other time?’

‘No, Effendi.’

‘Where was that?’

‘In the room next door.’

‘And what was the cat doing?’

‘It was sitting on the Lady Irina’s lap.’

‘And what was the Lady Irina doing?’

‘She was feeding it chocolates.’

‘Did you see the chocolates?’

‘See the chocolates?’

‘Was she taking them from a box?’

‘Yes, Effendi. On the table beside her.’

‘Could you find the box for me?’

‘I am sorry, Effendi. I do not think so. The box is no longer there.’

‘Where do you think it could be?’

‘I do not know, Effendi. Perhaps all the chocolates have been eaten.’

‘You are sure the box is no longer there?’

‘Yes, Effendi. Because later that day I went to find it. I thought I would like a chocolate myself, and those were very good chocolates, better than the ones the Lady Fatima has.’

‘And the box was no longer there?’

‘No, Effendi.’

‘Perhaps the Lady Irina had it?’

‘It may be so, Effendi.’

‘Was she doing anything else when she was with the cat? Apart from feeding it chocolates?’

‘No, Effendi.’ She hesitated. ‘At least . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘She was talking.’

‘Ah! Who to?’

‘The cat, Effendi.’

‘And what was she saying?’

‘“Eat that, you filthy brute! Go on, stuff yourself!”’

‘That was what she said?’

‘Yes, Effendi, I remember it well, for I said to myself, “That is no way to speak to the Sultan’s cat!” But so it was.’

‘And then?’

‘The Lady Fatima called, and I went back to her. And the next time I saw the cat, it was dead.’

‘Would you like a chocolate?’ asked the Lady Irina: and burst into laughter. ‘You are going to ask me about the chocolates, aren’t you? I guessed as much as soon as I heard that you had been talking to that little bitch, Zenobia.’

‘Well, all right, then: what about the chocolates?’

‘I wanted to stuff the brute until it would be sick. All over him!’

‘His Highness?’

‘Naturally. I wanted him to come in and find me sitting with the brute on my lap. As I told you. His Highness loves that sort of thing. Beauty and the Beast. No, not that. Beauty and Beauty, rather. He really thinks that nasty cat is beautiful. He likes to see us together. A touch of the domestic, I think he thinks. As if a Sultan could ever know anything about the domestic! When I came into the harem I expected to have to live out his fantasies. But I thought they would be nude on a tiger-skin, that sort of thing. Not nursing a bloody cat! When all the poor man was wanting was someone to be kind to him on a cold winter’s evening.’

‘Let’s get back to the chocolates.’

‘Well, as I say, I was sitting there with the nasty brute on my lap. I knew he’d love it when he came in and saw us. I would hand the brute to him, saying, “Now, my dear, go to your master,” holding him carefully so that he wouldn’t be sick until he got there. And then it would all come out, and he would have to go away and change, and wouldn’t bother me again for the rest of the day.’

‘You really expect me to believe all that?’

‘Certainly!’

‘You weren’t feeding the cat the chocolates for some other purpose?’

‘Other purpose? You don’t think I would be feeding him them because he liked them, do you?’

‘No, I wouldn’t go as far as that. I was just wondering if the chocolates were still as they had been when they came to you.’

‘Still –? Oh, I see what you mean. You mean, had I put poison in them? Well, it wouldn’t have been worth it, would it? If, as I suspect, you suppose I had poisoned the milk already.’

‘Did the chocolates have marzipan in them?’

‘
Marzipan
!?’

‘Perhaps to disguise the taste. Of the milk.’

‘Well, I’d never thought of that. Marzipan? No, I don’t think so. As I recalled, they had cherry liqueur, and brandy, and –’

‘Have you any of the chocolates left?’

‘Alas, no. That filthy brute devoured them all. Or almost all, I believe. I gave some to His Highness as well. Why, would you like some? I expect I can find –’

‘No, thank you. Lady Irina, this is a fine story but it is not quite the same as the story you told me originally. When I first talked to you, you told me that you had gone into the room, the room where the milk was, to pick up the cat so that you could have it on your lap when the Sultan came.’

‘That’s right. And I did pick it up, and that’s when I started giving it the chocolates.’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘You told me the first time that you
didn’t
pick it up, that it was already starting to be sick, and that you left it and went back to your own room.’

‘Did I say that? Well, good heavens! I must have remembered it wrongly. But which account was wrong? Look, it doesn’t matter much, though, does it: one of them must have been right.’

‘Or both wrong.’

‘Perhaps I had better try and remember again?’

‘Don’t bother. Or, rather, yes, do bother. But start from a different point. Let me help you. You went into the room, as you told me the first time. But the cat wasn’t being sick. It had, in fact, rejected the milk, perhaps because of its smell or taste. You picked it up and took it into the other room, where you started feeding it chocolates. Possibly with marzipan in, which would disguise the smell and taste, and then you put it back into the first room, where it drank the milk. And then it was sick.’

‘Well, I’m blessed! So the chocolates weren’t poisoned? And the milk was? So it wasn’t me who did it, after all! It was someone else, Talal, for instance, who had put the poison in the milk –’

‘My Lady!’ protested Talal. ‘I was having breakfast!’

‘Conveniently. Along with your accomplices.’

‘No, no, no –’

‘I have an idea,’ Irina said to Seymour, ‘which may help you. What you need to do is find someone who saw me pick up the cat the first time and take it into the other room, and then saw me put it back before it started on the milk. Not someone who saw me giving it chocolates, there’s no dispute about that. And I think I know someone you might talk to. Try Zenobia. Who has such a close, very close, relationship with the Lady Samira. And such an unblemished reputation for honesty. Hasn’t she, Talal?’

‘Well . . .’

‘Hasn’t she?’

As the morning wore on, Seymour became increasingly conscious of the activity of the Bl´eriot machines. Even inside the house you could hear them. They swooped repeatedly low over the house; or perhaps they were circling over the city and just happened to be turning at that point. Several times Orhan Eser went out to look and once Seymour went with him.