Alan Furst - Blood of Victory

“Rental of office space.”

“I thought Goldbark gave us this place.”

“He does. But we pay the rent and he donates the money. It helps him with his taxes, he says. Turks are old-fashioned about taxes. The strangling cord may be out of style, but the point of view hasn’t changed.”

The following pages were given over to loans and gifts, it went on and on, small amounts, the names not only Russian but Ukrainian and Jewish, Greek and Tatar, many others, a history of migration, a history of flight.

“So many,” Serebin said, subdued.

“People wounded in the war. Sick. Drunk. Or just broken. We come from a brutal place, Ilya. The list would double, if we had the money.”

Serebin knew. In Paris, he gave more than he could afford.

“What we try to do,” Kubalsky said, “is to help the Russian community as a whole. The Turks are basically fair-minded people, cosmopolitan. Hospitality to strangers is a religion with them. That’s what Kemal was all about. He outlawed the fez, changed the alphabet, kept Islam out of government. Everybody had to have a last name-they had lists of suggestions nailed up in the public squares. Still, foreigners are foreigners, and Russia and Turkey have always fought wars. So, the community is suspected of harboring Stalinist agents, the NKVD is active here, and every time some plot blows up and hits the newspapers, we all get blamed. Old story, right?”

Kubalsky sighed. Why did life have to go like this? “Christ,” he said, “you have to live somewhere.”

The yacht club was in the village of Bebek, just north of the city, where Istanbul’s wealthiest citizens had summer homes. Serebin, with Marie-Galante’s note in his pocket, visited a bar by the ferry dock in Eminonu, thought about not going, then decided he might as well. It had been a long, long day in the world of the International Russian Union. He had left Kubalsky to have lunch with Goldbark, followed by a visit to the eighty-five-year-old General de Kossevoy, in a tiny room so hot it made him sweat, and by the end of the afternoon he’d had all the emigre business he could bear. He stood at the rail of the crowded ferry, watching the caiques and the feluccas sliding through the water, the oil lamps on their sterns like fireflies in the darkness.

He found the yacht at slip twenty-one. Sixty feet of teak and polished brass. La Nereide — Tangier was painted in gold script on the bow and two crewmen, in green uniforms with the yacht’s name on the bands of their sailor hats, waited at the gangplank. He wondered about the nationality of the Nereide, sea nymph, but Tangier, in the Vichy French colony of Morocco, could have meant anything, and he knew, from talk on the docks of Odessa, that some yachts never called at their home ports. A flag of convenience — the legal words better, for a change, than poetry.

One of the sailors led him onboard, down a corridor, and into the salon. The 16th Arrondissement. At least that, Serebin thought. Black lacquer tables, white rattan furniture. The cushions had red tulips on a pale red background, there was lemon-colored Chinese paper on the walls. People everywhere, a mob, chattering and yammering in a dense fog of cigarette smoke and perfume.

The aristocrat who hurried toward him-he could be nothing else-wore blazer and slacks. Trim body, sleek good looks, ears tight to the head, graying hair combed back and shining with brilliantine. The Duke of Windsor, as played by Fred Astaire. “Welcome, welcome.” An iron grip. “We’re honored, really, to have you here. It must be Serebin, no? The writer? God I thought you’d be, older.” The language French, the voice low and completely at ease. “I am Della Corvo,” he said. “But Cosimo to you, of course, right?”

Serebin nodded and tried to look amiable, was a little more impressed by the whole thing than he wanted to be. His life drifted high and low, but up here he found the air a trifle thin.

“Marie-Galante!” Della Corvo called out. Then, to Serebin: “A Bulgarian freighter. Extraordinary.”

Marie-Galante broke through the edge of the crowd, a drink in each hand, a cigarette held between her lips. “You’re here!” His stunning caramel. Little black dress and pearls. She raised her face for bisoux and Serebin kissed each cheek in a cloud of Shalimar.

“We’re having Negronis,” she said, handing Serebin a glass.

Campari and gin, Serebin knew, and lethal.

“You’ll take him around?” Della Corvo said.

Marie-Galante slipped a hand under his arm and held him lightly.

“We must talk,” Della Corvo said to Serebin. “All this…” A charming shrug and a smile-he’d invited all these people, now, here they were. Then he disappeared into the crowd.

“Shall we?” she said.

The beau monde of emigre Istanbul. Like a giant broom, the war had swept them all to the far edge of Europe.

“Do you know Stanislaus Mut? The Polish sculptor?”

Mut was tall and gray and irritated. “So nice to see you.” How about I choke you to death with my bare hands?

Why?

Marie-Galante introduced him to the woman at Mut’s side. Oh, now I see. Mut had found himself a Russian countess. Anemic, a blue vein prominent at her temple, but sparkling with diamonds. She extended a damp hand, which Serebin brushed with his lips while waiting to be throttled.

As they escaped, Marie-Galante laughed and squeezed his arm. “Does romance blossom?”

“I think it’s glass.”

A short, dark man spread his arms in welcome.

“Aristophanes!”

“My goddess!”

“Allow me to introduce Ilya Serebin.”

“Kharros. Pleased to make your gububble.”

“I often read about your ships, monsieur. In the newspapers.”

“All lies, monsieur.”

A tall woman with white hair backed into Serebin, a red wave of Negroni burst over the rim of his glass and splashed on his shoe.

“Oh pardon!”

“It’s nothing.”

“Better drink that, ours.”

“What in God’s name did that man say?”

“Poor Kharros. He’s taking French lessons.”

“From who?”

She laughed. “A mad language teacher!” Laughed again. “How would you know?”

Monsieur Palatny, the Ukrainian timber merchant.

Madame Carenne, the French fashion designer.

Mademoiselle Stevic, the Czech coal heiress.

Monsieur Hooryckx, the Belgian soap manufacturer.

Madame Voyschinkowsky, wife of the Lion of the Bourse.

Doktor Rheinhardt, the professor of Germanic language and literature. Here there was conversation. Rheinhardt had come to Istanbul, Marie-Galante explained, in the mid-’30s migration of German intellectuals-doctors, lawyers, artists, and professors, many of whom, like Doktor Rheinhardt, now taught at Istanbul University.

“Serebin, Serebin,” Rheinhardt said. “Have you perhaps written about Odessa?”

“A few years ago, yes.”

“The truth is, I haven’t read your work, but a friend of mine has spoken of you.”

“What subject do you teach?”

“Well, German language, for undergraduates. And some of the early literatures-Old Norse, Old Frisian-when they offer them. But my real work is in Gothic.”

“He is the leading authority,” Marie-Galante said.

“You are too kind. By the way, Monsieur Serebin, did you know that the last time anyone actually heard spoken Gothic it was not far from Odessa?”

“Really?”

“Yes, in 1854, during the Crimean War. A young officer in the British army-a graduate of Cambridge, I believe-led a patrol deep into the countryside. It was late at night, and very deserted. They heard the sound of chanting, and approached a group of men seated around a campfire. The officer, who’d taken his degree in philology, happened to recognize what he’d heard-the war chant of the Goths. It went something like this…”