nationality—it’s a wilderness of voices, that’s all I can tell you. If any of you can explain it to me any better, I should certainly appreciate it.”
The room was silent. Angelos began to gather up the teacups and uneaten biscuits. Griffith left without speaking. Scheuch said, “Well, then, cheery-bye,” and followed him out. Vordran, however, stood in the doorway for a long moment before he turned and said, “This is a bad idea, Angelos.”
Angelos blinked in apparent puzzlement. “Idea? It’s not an idea at all, Vordran, it’s barely an experiment. I’m only listening, as best I can—listening to people talking as I might overhear them in the street, at the next table in a restaurant. Eavesdropping, if you like. Nothing more structured or scientific than that.”
“Eavesdropping,” Vordran repeated. “Yes. And you do remember what they say about eavesdroppers, Angelos?”
Angelos’s long sigh was dramatically elaborate. “Why, no, Vordran, I don’t remember what they say about eavesdroppers. Do enlighten me.”
“That sooner or later they hear something they don’t like at all. Sooner or later.” Vordran was gone.
Ramadan came early that year, the moon giving its blessing on the eleventh of August. For all the country’s postwar fascination with everything Turkish, the monthlong holiday had not yet made its way onto the calendar of the United Kingdom; but Griffith groused daily about the fact that Simpson’s-in-the-Strand, fabled home of good English roast beef and saddle of mutton, always carved at your table, was now offering kebabs and hummus, along with kofte, doner, kokorec, borek and gozleme . “Not to mention their bloody sweets—rot your teeth just looking at them. I promise you, I’d quit the damnation job in two shakes, if there were something else going fit for a white man.” But Mr. Emanetoglu, coming for the month’s rent, also brought delicacies from his family’s celebration, and at least three of his four roomers consumed all their share, without ever learning the dishes’ names.
When he climbed, panting slightly, to Angelos’s top-floor rooms, he shook his head in wonder, as he always did, saying, “My goodness, how do you ever find what things you need?” And Angelos, as always, made his usual joking response. “Oh, I never do, Mr. E. Instead, I find wonderful things I didn’t know I needed. Remarkable, the way that happens.”
“Well and good,” Mr. Emanetoglu customarily replied, “so long as you can pretend you are not looking for the rent, so that you can find it for me.” And they laughed together, loudly enough to annoy Vordran, who lived on the floor below.
But on this occasion, Mr. Emanetoglu felt himself curiously oppressed by the air of Angelos’s rooms. Or perhaps neither oppressed nor air was the correct word: the effect on him, rather, was of being somehow overcrowded, pushed in upon, whether by clutter, which had never particularly disturbed him before, or by Angelos’s obvious distraction and poorly concealed disquiet. He was not even offered a cup of tea, a drink which Mr. Emanetoglu was determined to like, however long it took him. He asked hesitantly, “Is all well with you, Mr. Angelos? You are not perhaps troubled in some way?”
Angelos, fishing hastily in his purse for the monthly payment, reassured him that all could not be better, calling him “old man” in the process, not once but twice. Mr. Emanetoglu pondered this development as he pattered down the stair. Old man . . . there was an expression that meant something to the English: an admission to a certain closeness, if any dark-skinned foreigner could ever be said to be close to an Englishman. Mr. Emanetoglu knew himself to be a naïve soul, quite often feeling out of place in this bewildering country, but he was not a fool.
“I know how many of them see every Turk as that dog Griffith does,” he said that night at dinner in Haringey, where he lived with his elder
The room was silent. Angelos began to gather up the teacups and uneaten biscuits. Griffith left without speaking. Scheuch said, “Well, then, cheery-bye,” and followed him out. Vordran, however, stood in the doorway for a long moment before he turned and said, “This is a bad idea, Angelos.”
Angelos blinked in apparent puzzlement. “Idea? It’s not an idea at all, Vordran, it’s barely an experiment. I’m only listening, as best I can—listening to people talking as I might overhear them in the street, at the next table in a restaurant. Eavesdropping, if you like. Nothing more structured or scientific than that.”
“Eavesdropping,” Vordran repeated. “Yes. And you do remember what they say about eavesdroppers, Angelos?”
Angelos’s long sigh was dramatically elaborate. “Why, no, Vordran, I don’t remember what they say about eavesdroppers. Do enlighten me.”
“That sooner or later they hear something they don’t like at all. Sooner or later.” Vordran was gone.
Ramadan came early that year, the moon giving its blessing on the eleventh of August. For all the country’s postwar fascination with everything Turkish, the monthlong holiday had not yet made its way onto the calendar of the United Kingdom; but Griffith groused daily about the fact that Simpson’s-in-the-Strand, fabled home of good English roast beef and saddle of mutton, always carved at your table, was now offering kebabs and hummus, along with kofte, doner, kokorec, borek and gozleme . “Not to mention their bloody sweets—rot your teeth just looking at them. I promise you, I’d quit the damnation job in two shakes, if there were something else going fit for a white man.” But Mr. Emanetoglu, coming for the month’s rent, also brought delicacies from his family’s celebration, and at least three of his four roomers consumed all their share, without ever learning the dishes’ names.
When he climbed, panting slightly, to Angelos’s top-floor rooms, he shook his head in wonder, as he always did, saying, “My goodness, how do you ever find what things you need?” And Angelos, as always, made his usual joking response. “Oh, I never do, Mr. E. Instead, I find wonderful things I didn’t know I needed. Remarkable, the way that happens.”
“Well and good,” Mr. Emanetoglu customarily replied, “so long as you can pretend you are not looking for the rent, so that you can find it for me.” And they laughed together, loudly enough to annoy Vordran, who lived on the floor below.
But on this occasion, Mr. Emanetoglu felt himself curiously oppressed by the air of Angelos’s rooms. Or perhaps neither oppressed nor air was the correct word: the effect on him, rather, was of being somehow overcrowded, pushed in upon, whether by clutter, which had never particularly disturbed him before, or by Angelos’s obvious distraction and poorly concealed disquiet. He was not even offered a cup of tea, a drink which Mr. Emanetoglu was determined to like, however long it took him. He asked hesitantly, “Is all well with you, Mr. Angelos? You are not perhaps troubled in some way?”
Angelos, fishing hastily in his purse for the monthly payment, reassured him that all could not be better, calling him “old man” in the process, not once but twice. Mr. Emanetoglu pondered this development as he pattered down the stair. Old man . . . there was an expression that meant something to the English: an admission to a certain closeness, if any dark-skinned foreigner could ever be said to be close to an Englishman. Mr. Emanetoglu knew himself to be a naïve soul, quite often feeling out of place in this bewildering country, but he was not a fool.
“I know how many of them see every Turk as that dog Griffith does,” he said that night at dinner in Haringey, where he lived with his elder
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