Ghosts by Gaslight (9 page)

Angelos shook his head, which seemed to take an enormous effort from him. “That is not what happened, Mr. Emanetoglu. I dismantled my generator more than two weeks ago”—a crooked half smile at the silent surprise of the others—“without informing these gentlemen, since it was my decision alone to make. Yet we all still keep hearing the voices of people who cannot have lived here, people who can have had nothing to do with this house, this time—perhaps even with London itself. I cannot tell you anything more useful than that. I would if I could. I can only beg your forgiveness, and say that we will do all we can to make things right again.”

Mr. Emanetoglu looked slowly around at Scheuch and Vordran, seeing Griffith crossing the landing to join them. Each was obviously as fatigued as Angelos, exhausted down to his bones, and to the soul beyond. He said, “You are all hearing the . . . these voices, then?”

Griffith and Vordran nodded without answering. Scheuch said, “Mine, last night . . . mine was a child, I could tell that much. I think it was being killed. It went on and on.” He began to cry, weakly, without making a sound.

Angelos looked at Mr. Emanetoglu, but did not speak. Mr. Emanetoglu said heavily, “I see. Yes, I do see. And I do not know what to do about all this, no more than you do.” He paused, lowering his head almost to his chest and then raising it again. He said, “I will not be collecting the rent today. Tomorrow, at two o’clock—will that suit all present?”

Everyone nodded without replying. Mr. Emanetoglu said, as brightly as he could, “Well, then—ta, all?” He could never keep the slang phrase—so jauntily British, so important—from coming out slightly questioning, but he did his best. Then all four men said, as he could not remember them ever saying to him together, “Ta, Mr. Emanetoglu.”

He went on home then, to the little courtyard in Haringey, greeted Ceylan—Ismail being in the neighborhood coffee shop with his best friends, as was his custom on Saturday—and waited for Ekrem to come home from playing football in the street with older boys, who always trampled him, but never made him cry. When he could, Mr. Emanetoglu helped Ekrem clean off the worst of the game before his mother noticed the blood and the bruises. Mr. Emanetoglu worried sometimes about the fact that he considered his five-year-old nephew his own best friend; but then he would remind himself that in only a few years the boy would have no time for him. Which would undoubtedly be as it should—Mr. Emanetoglu knew that.

When Ekrem did arrive, Mr. Emanetoglu took him aside as soon as Ceylan had scolded and released him, and asked him earnestly, “Nephew, would you say that the
hodja
would know how to deal with ghosts? Think carefully before you answer.”

Superfluous advice: Ekrem always thought things through with great precision. He replied, “How many ghosts, Uncle?”

Mr. Emanetoglu had no idea, and said so. “Maybe a lot—maybe only one. I suppose we had better assume there would be a good many.”

Ekrem shook his head decidedly. “Then no. Not for a lot of ghosts, not the
hodja
. I am sorry.” He read the disappointment in his uncle’s face and brightened suddenly. “But the
hodja
has a
hodja
himself, did you know that? I think the old
hodja
would know all about ghosts.”

“The
hodja
’s
hodja
?” Mr. Emanetoglu felt as though he had not laughed in years. Ekrem himself laughed delightedly at his amusement, very proud of himself for causing it. Mr. Emanetoglu said, “Tell me, boy, where does the old
hodja
live, then?”

“I will take you there right away.” Ekrem scratched his head solemnly. “You know, Uncle, maybe it would be a good idea for you to bring them both to see the ghosts. Two
hodjas
. . . they could surely fight all the ghosts in London, couldn’t they?” He spread his arms as wide as he could. “All the ghosts in
England
!”

“I will be happy if they can help me get rid of all the spirits in your father’s house. One or a thousand, however many there may be.” Mr. Emanetoglu patted his nephew’s shoulder. “Thank you, Ekrem. I knew you would find a way.”

So it came about that Mr. Emanetoglu, dressed, not in English clothing but in his finest summer
mintan
and
salvar
trousers, was standing on the doorstep of the Geraldine Row house at two o’clock the next afternoon. Behind him, folded hands hidden in the sleeves of their long robes, stood two bearded old men, one notably older and taller than the other. The second man, on the other hand, was notably plumper, and still had a scattering of black in his chest-long gray beard, while the first man’s beard was closer trimmed, and as white as his hair. Both
hodjas
had an air of scholarly command about them, but each wore it lightly, as though they had no reason to parade overweening knowledge or virtue. They were looking, not at the front door, nor at Mr. Emanetoglu, but at each other, their hands already weaving empty cat’s cradles in the air, as though they were trying to capture the soft, wild grieving that all three men had heard all the way up the street. Mr. Emanetoglu wanted badly to cover his ears with his own hands, but in the presence of the
hodjas
he dared not.

The old men bowed to Griffith, who opened the door at Mr. Emanetoglu’s knock, without speaking. Mr. Emanetoglu said politely, “God save the Queen and Princess Maude. I am honored to present
Hodja
Abbas”—indicating the older man—“and
Hodja
Cenghiz.” He added something poetically insulting in Turkish and walked calmly past Griffith, followed by the two old men.

Angelos was coming down the stair to greet him, followed by his two other housemates, each looking that much more worn than the day before. Mr. Emanetoglu introduced the
hodjas
to them all.

Angelos bowed himself, as only Scheuch beside him did, saying, “I am most pleased to meet you both,” and, to Mr. Emanetoglu, “Do they speak any English?”

Mr. Emanetoglu replied, “They understand quite well, but speak poorly. I shall translate as necessary.” He watched the old men moving in the vestibule, heard them whispering to each other, saw them raising their heads, just as he had done—only a day ago?—flaring their nostrils to sample the lightning taste of the air.
Hodja
Abbas turned to look straight at him, and Mr. Emanetoglu felt himself cringe inside, like a schoolboy who knows an answer is wrong even as he gives it.
Little Ekrem would never feel like that, but I do. What is the good of being grown?

Hodja
Abbas spoke in Turkish, and Angelos looked questioningly at Mr. Emanetoglu. “Was he speaking to me?”

Mr. Emanetoglu nodded. “He wishes to know whether you have had any training in the philosophy of magic. Magic of any sort—even English.” He could not keep from smiling at the expression on Angelos’s face—nor on the ancient shaman’s stern countenance either. “I am of the opinion that
Hodja
Abbas does not think very much of English magic.”

Angelos almost laughed, but looked over at the tall old Turk and muffled the sound into something like a sneeze. “Tell him
no
—tell him I’ve no training at all, except in medicine, and not much of that. We English haven’t studied magic since Merlin, tell him. We believe in machinery, just like the Germans. Tell him that.”

Mr. Emanetoglu translated, plainly with a certain trepidation.
Hodja
Abbas’s lean face lost all color; even his dark eyes seemed to pale. He began to speak very fast, his normally deep voice rising in pitch until the words clattered and rang against each other like swords. Mr. Emanetoglu had trouble keeping up with the right English words, but he did his best.

“He says that you are a magician born . . . and the biggest fool he has ever met. He says that he would kill you here and now and bury you under a lime tree, to protect the world from your—forgive me, Mr. Angelos—from your stupidity”—Angelos was not the only one who had noticed the curved dagger in the old man’s belt—“if it were not that since he went to Mecca he has sworn never again to take a life.”

“Decent of the old boy,” Griffith snickered wearily. “Bet he’s left a few flourishing lime trees behind him in his time. Along with assorted wives and babas.” But the words lacked his usual scornful snap, and he sank down on the stair, leaning his head against the balustrade.

Hodja
Abbas appeared to have finished his tirade, but then he burst out again in a further spittle-embroidered rant, which Mr. Emanetoglu did not bother to pretend he was not censoring as he went along. “He says he wants to see your rooms, the place where you do your . . . stupid work. He thinks he knows what you have . . . ah, where you have gone wrong, and there is a chance that he and
Hodja
Cenghiz may be able to help. But he must see where you . . . did it.” He looked wretchedly apologetic when he finished, saying, “I am sorry, Mr. Angelos. He is a very old man.”

Angelos laughed outright, but it took the remaining strength in his body, and he actually lurched against Mr. Emanetoglu. He said, “Old and tactless he may well be—and downright vulgar, that too—but of course he’s absolutely right. But I do wish he’d tell me exactly what it is I’m supposed to have done, so I can apologize for it. Please ask him that, when he calms down a bit.”

Mr. Emanetoglu did ask, but
Hodja
Abbas refused to comment further outside of Angelos’s rooms. So they climbed the long stair, Englishmen and Turkish sages crowded together, and
Hodja
Abbas strode in the lead.
Hodja
Cenghiz, who had not yet said a word during the entire visit, and who clearly had bellows to mend, toiled in the rear, breathing hard and distinctly wheezing. Scheuch fell back beside him, impulsively offering the small old man his arm. But
Hodja
Cenghiz smiled, showing a full set of brown teeth, and said gently, “I thank you, no. It is good for fat old men to sweat in the middle of children. I shall survive.”

“I didn’t know you spoke English.” Scheuch was frantically going back over his behavior toward both old Turks. “I’m sure I would have—I don’t know—paid more attention, if I’d known.”

“Yes,” said
Hodja
Cenghiz. “I am sure you would have.”

The stairway funneled the monstrously suffering voice—as Scheuch had long since come to think of it—making it sound louder than he knew it was. He said as much to
Hodja
Cenghiz, who responded simply, “It is loud enough.” Pausing momentarily on the stair to catch his breath, he added, “Loud enough to shake the sun loose in the sky. I sometimes wonder why this has never happened.” Scheuch did not know how to respond.

At the top floor, prowling in Angelos’s rooms,
Hodja
Abbas moved impatiently from instrument to instrument, device to homemade device, muttering to himself as a curious counterpoint to the haunting, horrible wailing that rose and fell and rose, and never went away. Mr. Emanetoglu, embarrassed but determined, stayed on his heels, translating a jeweled chaplet of Turkish obscenities as
Hodja
Abbas cursed several generations of Angelos’s ancestors backwards and forwards for bringing such an imbecile to birth. Angelos himself, not knowing the language, and being more exhausted than even he recognized, only smiled feebly and made sounds that he was certain were words. It was Mr. Emanetoglu who finally plucked up enough courage to demand of the
hodja,
“What has he done, after all? What crime have his experiments committed?”

The two old men looked at each other for a long moment before
Hodja
Abbas spoke again—this time, surprisingly in hoarse, limited, but comprehensible English. “Sorrow . . . Heart of Sorrow . . . he have prowoke—awake—no . . .” He shook his head irritably, groping for the right word. “
Touch
. He have
touch
in deep, deep place, world place. The Sorrowheart. We call.” He turned toward
Hodja
Cenghiz for confirmation.

Griffith, having seated himself in the one armchair when Angelos opened his rooms, had promptly fallen asleep, mouth open and his hands futilely covering both ears, since the voice was always more pervasive here, though no stronger.
Hodja
Cenghiz said, “What you are hearing—what Mr. Angelos has reached, roused, by accident—is the grief at the center, the heart of the world. It is just as old as human beings, to the minute, and it is always a woman’s voice. We Turks call it
Sorrowheart—
other times, other languages, some other name. But always a woman.” He bowed to Angelos, slightly but unmistakably. “How Mr. Angelos reached it, touched it with his little electrical researches, I have no idea—only a very few of our poets have ever done that before. Most of them went mad.” He sighed and shrugged. “I sincerely congratulate you, Mr. Angelos.”

In the silence, Scheuch’s sharp ears heard Angelos’s laughter begin, impossibly deep in his belly, well before it ever billowed into daylight. It was not loud laughter, nor did it last very long; but it woke Griffith, and caused even
Hodja
Abbas to take a step backward and regard him with the same anxiety—though less of it—as Mr. Emanetoglu. Angelos said at last, “So. Let me understand. We here, we will all continue to hear these voices?” The two
hodjas
looked at each other and then back to him without answering. Angelos asked, “Forever?”

Vordran echoed him. “Forever? For the rest of our lives?”

Hodja
Cenghiz answered him slowly, “Not all the voices. Only the one. And not all of you: only for him.” Angelos stared back at him, not laughing now, his tired eyes as blank as walls.
Hodja
Cenghiz said, “The other voices, they are a different matter—whoever they were, they will pass on ahead, causing no trouble, only showing us the way we will go in our turn.
Hodja
Abbas can make certain that no one living in this house, now or in future, will any longer hear or listen to them. That we can promise in good faith.” Angelos nodded.