Unknown—Reputedly a trader in pearls, from Beirut
Z. Karaglu—Mayor of Izmir
Y. Karaglu—His nephew, director of Municipal Tax Authority
W. Aynsworth—British subject resident in Izmir
At 00:42, a taxi entered the courtyard of the club, but no passenger was observed. The taxi left at 01:38, without passengers. The driver, known only as Hasim, is to be interrogated by Unit IX personnel from the Izmir station. The proprietor of Club Xalaphia, Mme. Yvette Loesch, states that Subject visited the room used by S. Marcopian, where he remained for thirty minutes.
Respectfully submitted,
M. Ayaz
K. Hamid
Unit IX
The ceilings in the Club Xalaphia were lost in darkness, so high that the lamplight never reached them. The walls, a color like terra cotta, were covered in frescoes, painted a century ago, he guessed, when the city was still Smyrna. The dreamer’s classical Greece: broken columns, waterfalls, distant mountains, shepherdesses weaving garlands. The madam liked him—he felt himself subtly adopted, lost soul in the whorehouse. “I am French,” she explained, speaking the language, “and German, but born in Smyrna.” Then, for a moment, melancholy. “This was a grand restaurant, owned by an Armenian family, but then, the massacre in 1915. They disappeared.”
So, now, it was what it was. In the still air, heavy perfume and sweat, soap, jasmine, tobacco, garlic, disinfectant. “You are welcome here,” she told him. “And, whatever you can think up, of course...”
Serebin knew that.
She rested a hand on his arm. “Don’t worry so,” she said. “She’ll come back.”
The girls liked him too. Lithe and merry, veiled and barefoot, they teased him from a cloud of musky scent, wobbling about in gauze balloon pants. The
harem
. With a trio of musicians, in costume, sitting cross-legged behind a lattice screen. Two Eastern string instruments and a sort of Turkish clarinet with a bulbous end, like the horn played by a snake charmer in a cartoon.
A strange way to go to war.
He’d returned to his hotel after three, tired and sad, certain that morning sun would burn off the midnight heroism but it didn’t. So he stood at the window. In the light that covered the sea, the white gulls wheeled and climbed.
You can talk to Bastien,
he’d thought. Talk is cheap. See what he has to say. Thus, later that morning, Helikon Trading, a young Lebanese in a dark suit, a phone call in another room, an address in Izmir.
“Sophia,” the girl said, pointing to herself. “Sophia.” She sat on his lap.
Soft.
Across the room, seated in a grandiose leather chair, a man wearing a tarboosh gave him a knowing smile and a raised eyebrow.
You won’t be sorry!
Perhaps a Syrian, Serebin thought, Kemal had outlawed the hat for Turkish men.
“He will find you there, or along the way,” the Lebanese had told him. Excellent French, conservative tie. And what did Helikon Trading trade? That wasn’t evident, and Serebin didn’t ask. No trumpets, no drums, an office on Akdeniz street. But it had never been dramatic, this moment. Never. In 1915, age seventeen, a newly commissioned sublieutenant in the Russian artillery, his father had simply shrugged and said, “We always go.” Next, the revolution, his regimental commander requisitioned a passenger train and took the regiment to Kiev. Then, inevitably, civil war, and he joined the Red Army, setting off drunk with two friends from the Odessa railway station. He was twenty years old, what else? 1922, the war with Poland, ordered to serve as a war correspondent by the office of the commissar. And, finally, Spain. A spring afternoon in 1936, the editor of
Izvestia
taking him to a
valuta
—foreign currency—restaurant in Moscow. “Have whatever you want,” he’d said. Then, “Ilya Aleksandrovich, I have to send you to Spain, and you have to go. How’s your Spanish?”
“Nonexistent.”
“Fine. This will give you objectivity.”
Gone, two years later. Worked to death in a
Z. Karaglu—Mayor of Izmir
Y. Karaglu—His nephew, director of Municipal Tax Authority
W. Aynsworth—British subject resident in Izmir
At 00:42, a taxi entered the courtyard of the club, but no passenger was observed. The taxi left at 01:38, without passengers. The driver, known only as Hasim, is to be interrogated by Unit IX personnel from the Izmir station. The proprietor of Club Xalaphia, Mme. Yvette Loesch, states that Subject visited the room used by S. Marcopian, where he remained for thirty minutes.
Respectfully submitted,
M. Ayaz
K. Hamid
Unit IX
The ceilings in the Club Xalaphia were lost in darkness, so high that the lamplight never reached them. The walls, a color like terra cotta, were covered in frescoes, painted a century ago, he guessed, when the city was still Smyrna. The dreamer’s classical Greece: broken columns, waterfalls, distant mountains, shepherdesses weaving garlands. The madam liked him—he felt himself subtly adopted, lost soul in the whorehouse. “I am French,” she explained, speaking the language, “and German, but born in Smyrna.” Then, for a moment, melancholy. “This was a grand restaurant, owned by an Armenian family, but then, the massacre in 1915. They disappeared.”
So, now, it was what it was. In the still air, heavy perfume and sweat, soap, jasmine, tobacco, garlic, disinfectant. “You are welcome here,” she told him. “And, whatever you can think up, of course...”
Serebin knew that.
She rested a hand on his arm. “Don’t worry so,” she said. “She’ll come back.”
The girls liked him too. Lithe and merry, veiled and barefoot, they teased him from a cloud of musky scent, wobbling about in gauze balloon pants. The
harem
. With a trio of musicians, in costume, sitting cross-legged behind a lattice screen. Two Eastern string instruments and a sort of Turkish clarinet with a bulbous end, like the horn played by a snake charmer in a cartoon.
A strange way to go to war.
He’d returned to his hotel after three, tired and sad, certain that morning sun would burn off the midnight heroism but it didn’t. So he stood at the window. In the light that covered the sea, the white gulls wheeled and climbed.
You can talk to Bastien,
he’d thought. Talk is cheap. See what he has to say. Thus, later that morning, Helikon Trading, a young Lebanese in a dark suit, a phone call in another room, an address in Izmir.
“Sophia,” the girl said, pointing to herself. “Sophia.” She sat on his lap.
Soft.
Across the room, seated in a grandiose leather chair, a man wearing a tarboosh gave him a knowing smile and a raised eyebrow.
You won’t be sorry!
Perhaps a Syrian, Serebin thought, Kemal had outlawed the hat for Turkish men.
“He will find you there, or along the way,” the Lebanese had told him. Excellent French, conservative tie. And what did Helikon Trading trade? That wasn’t evident, and Serebin didn’t ask. No trumpets, no drums, an office on Akdeniz street. But it had never been dramatic, this moment. Never. In 1915, age seventeen, a newly commissioned sublieutenant in the Russian artillery, his father had simply shrugged and said, “We always go.” Next, the revolution, his regimental commander requisitioned a passenger train and took the regiment to Kiev. Then, inevitably, civil war, and he joined the Red Army, setting off drunk with two friends from the Odessa railway station. He was twenty years old, what else? 1922, the war with Poland, ordered to serve as a war correspondent by the office of the commissar. And, finally, Spain. A spring afternoon in 1936, the editor of
Izvestia
taking him to a
valuta
—foreign currency—restaurant in Moscow. “Have whatever you want,” he’d said. Then, “Ilya Aleksandrovich, I have to send you to Spain, and you have to go. How’s your Spanish?”
“Nonexistent.”
“Fine. This will give you objectivity.”
Gone, two years later. Worked to death in a
Similar Books
