When they finished their meal, they agreed to meet in the lobby at nine the following morning, said good night, and retired to their rooms, which were across the corridor from each other. It was as though they were back home in London.
Alice sat at the little desk, found some stationery, and started a letter to Carol. She described the day’s events and wrote about the feeling of leaving England behind, ending with the night at the opera. She finished, read the letter to herself, then folded it in half and threw it in the wastepaper basket.
Alice and Daldry met the following morning and took a taxi back to the airport, which was visible in the distance long before they arrived.
“I can already see our plane,” said Daldry. “The forecast is good, so we ought to leave on time.”
He tried to make small talk to fill the silence that had reigned since they left the hotel.
Alice didn’t say a word for the rest of the trip. As soon as the plane took off, her eyelids drooped and she dozed off. A patch of turbulence jostled her head onto Daldry’s shoulder, and he froze, not knowing how to react. When the stewardess passed, he turned down his meal tray so as not to wake Alice. Deep in sleep, she gradually relaxed, slumping across Daldry with one of her hands on his chest. She seemed to call out to somebody in her sleep, but nothing she said was intelligible. Her body pressed up against his. Daldry coughed nervously, but nothing woke her. About an hour before they were scheduled to land, she opened her eyes and Daldry immediately closed his, pretending to have dozed off as well. She was mortified to realize that she had more or less been sleeping in Daldry’s arms and prayed he wouldn’t wake up, righting herself as delicately as she could.
As soon as she was sitting up, Daldry simulated a yawn and shook his left arm. It had fallen asleep under Alice’s weight. He asked for the time.
“I think we’re arriving soon.”
“It feels like we just left,” lied Daldry as he tried to massage some life back into his left hand.
“Oh, look,” cried Alice, her face glued to the window. “So much water.”
“I suppose it must be the Black Sea, although from here I can only see your hair.”
Alice leaned back to share the view.
They soon landed. As she stepped out of the plane, Alice thought of her friends back in London. She had only been gone for two days, yet it felt like weeks. She realized how far away she was from her flat and felt a pinch in her heart as she came to the bottom of the stairs and set foot on Turkish soil.
Daldry collected their bags. At passport control, the Turkish official asked them about the reason for their visit. Daldry told the officer they were in Istanbul to find Alice’s future husband.
“Your fiancé is Turkish?” he asked, taking a second glance at Alice’s passport.
“To tell the truth, we’re not entirely sure yet,” Alice admitted. “He may be, but the only thing we’re relatively certain of is that he lives in Turkey.”
The officer looked suspicious.
“You come to Turkey to marry a man you don’t know?” he asked Alice directly. Before she could reply, Daldry confirmed that this was indeed the case.
“You don’t have good husbands in England?”
“Yes, probably,” said Daldry. “But none that are good enough for Miss Pendelbury.”
“And you, sir? Have you also come to find a wife in our country?”
“Heavens, no. I’m just her chaperone.”
“Please wait here.” Daldry’s explanation had perplexed the officer, who went to a glassed-in office behind his counter to discuss the situation with his supervisor.
“Did you really have to tell that ridiculous story?” hissed Alice under her breath.
“What do you expect me to say? That’s the reason for our trip, isn’t it? I hate lying to the authorities.”
“It didn’t bother you when we needed our passports.”
“Well, at home, yes, but here we’re in foreign territory. I’m expected to behave like a gentleman.”
“Your joking around is going to get us in trouble. I can just feel it.”
“Don’t be silly. It always pays to tell the truth. You’ll see.”
From where they stood, they could see the supervisor shrug and hand their passports back to the officer, who came back to see them.
“Everything is in order,” he said. “Have a pleasant stay in Turkey, and all our best wishes for your happy marriage. May God see that you marry an honest man.”
Alice forced a polite smile and put her freshly stamped passport back in her bag.
“I hate to be the one to say, ‘I told you so,’ but . . .” Daldry said as they walked out of the airport.
“I still say you could have just told him that we were on holiday.”
“I don’t think they would have liked that. We have different surnames on our passports.”
“You’re impossible, Daldry,” said Alice as she climbed into yet another taxi.
“What do you think he looks like?” Daldry asked as he got in next to her.
“Who?”
“The mysterious man we’ve come all this way to meet.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I came here to make a new perfume.”
“And now you’re in a bad mood.”
“I’m in a perfectly good mood, I just don’t appreciate being passed off as some sort of mail-order bride.”
“Well, at least my story distracted him from your monstrous passport photo.”
Alice jabbed him with her elbow and turned away to look out of the window.
“And you say I’m a grump,” he teased. “You must have been a pretty difficult child yourself.”
“Perhaps, but at least I have the good manners to admit as much.”
The journey through the sprawling outskirts of Istanbul distracted them from their banter. As they neared the Golden Horn, they gazed down the narrow streets, where the wooden houses rose in colorful, staggered levels. Streetcars and taxis did battle in the main avenue, and the city teemed with activity.
“It’s strange,” said Alice, “but even though we’re far from London, this all somehow feels very familiar.”
“It’s probably just my company.”
Their cabdriver pulled up to the curb on a broad avenue. They were in front of the Pera Palas Hotel, a grand, Western-style stone edifice that dominated Me?rutiyet Street in the Tepeba?i neighborhood. They were in the heart of the European quarter. Six domes lined with glass tiles formed the ceiling of the grand lobby. The hotel’s decor was an eclectic mix of English wood paneling and Byzantine mosaics.
“Agatha Christie was a frequent guest here,” Daldry told Alice.
“First the Sacher and now this? We could have stayed in a small family-run hotel, you know.”
“The exchange rate is in our favor,” retorted Daldry. “And I’m afraid if I’m going to waste my inheritance in a reasonable amount of time, it means I have to take drastic measures.”
“I stand corrected,” said Alice. “I think that your temper has probably only got worse with age.”
“Revenge is a dish best served cold, and believe me, I intend to present my childhood with a heaping platter of it. But enough about me, let’s go and get changed. Shall we meet in the bar in an hour?”
About an hour later, Daldry wandered into the hotel bar and met a Turkish guide named Can, who was sitting alone on one of the four barstools, his gaze idly wandering over the empty room. He looked to be about thirty, perhaps a year or two older. He was well dressed in a pair of dark trousers and a white silk shirt worn under a waistcoat and an elegantly cut jacket. His eyes were a sandy-gold color that glinted from behind the round lenses of his wire-framed glasses.
Daldry took a seat on the stool next to him and ordered a raki. Can smiled at him and asked in surprisingly good English if he’d had a pleasant journey.
“Yes, it was quick and comfortable, thank you.”
“Welcome to Istanbul.”
“How did you know that I was English and that I had just arrived?”
“Because you dress like an Englishman and because you weren’t here yesterday,” said Can.
“It’s a beautiful hotel.”
“I don’t live here. My home is on Beyo?lu hill. But I often come here in the evening.”
“For business or for pleasure?” asked Daldry.
“How about you? What brings you to Istanbul?”