Chapter 36
Without anything else to do but look out of the window at the dusty street and flip idly through the books on the little bookshelf in the corner of her room, Saffron took every opportunity to speak to anyone who came to her door.
Mr. Feldman did not furnish much conversation, and he continued to supervise her visits, whether it was Mrs. Henry and Mrs. Demirel or Alexander.
He also inspected her food trays before and after her meals.
She was allowed a knife, and she was sure to put it in plain sight when he and the maid came back to collect the tray each time.
She didn’t want him to think she was preparing an escape attempt or planning to harm someone.
The maid was a small woman who couldn’t be older than Saffron’s age.
She was a local girl with a persistent bright smile and black hair usually covered in a white handkerchief, and she always made some attempt at conversation with Saffron when she came to the room.
Her English was not quite fluent, but it was far better than Saffron’s Turkish, and they always managed a pleasant exchange.
The first day, she had asked Saffron bluntly, “You kill that man?”
Nonplussed, Saffron had responded with an adamant “No,” and the girl had nodded once, like that was all she needed to be at ease serving her.
“Eggs and toast and tea,” Kadriye announced as she entered with the breakfast tray on the third day of Saffron’s captivity. “I hope you like.”
Saffron replied with a phrase the pregnant woman from the hammam taught her, which meant something like “God bless your hands,” and Kadriye beamed at her.
“We cook good English food,” she said, stepping away from the table. “You eat, please.”
“Truth be told,” Saffron said a little shyly, taking her seat, “I wouldn’t mind Turkish fare. I haven’t had much chance to have a truly local meal.”
Kadriye’s brow puckered. “That is very sad, hanim.” Her eyes brightened. “I bring you the dolmas of Feldman efendi.”
Saffron glanced at the door, where Feldman was clearly not paying attention to them.
He never did, usually drifting to stand near the door while she spoke with her visitors.
“Mr. Feldman makes dolmas?” Alexander had taken her for dolmades, a Greek dish of grape leaves stuffed with savory fillings, in London and she guessed it was something similar.
She couldn’t imagine the very upright Mr. Feldman cooking anything, let alone wrapping meat and rice into leaves.
Kadriye laughed, putting a hand to her belly. “No, no! I get for him at Büyük Balik Han.”
A han was the only place she was likely to get the sort of food she was hoping to try. “I would like that very much.”
Kadriye was as good as her word; that afternoon Saffron received a lunch tray with not only dolmas, but a number of other divine-looking Turkish dishes.
The maid set out rice, fish, and vegetables on the little table in her bedroom like a banquet for a king.
If this was what she had been missing by taking all her meals at the hotel or in the mess tent, it was an additional reason to despise whoever had killed Martin and framed her.
“This is extraordinary,” Saffron told the maid gratefully.
“Büyük Balik Han is very good. Far away, but …” She shrugged as if to say it was worth the effort, and Saffron was inclined to believe it.
“I go there for Feldman efendi. Every week, like a clock. I bring dolmas on pazar.” She paused in perfecting the alignment of the plates on the table and cast her brown eyes toward Saffron. “That is Sunday, yes?”
Saffron nodded. “I think so.”
She beamed. “I practice, you know. Sir Randolph wants that we speak English.”
At the front of the house, the bell rang. Kadriye glanced at Mr. Feldman, who stood at Saffron’s open door, and he jerked his head as if to command her to answer the door bell. Kadriye dipped a curtsy to Saffron and left with Feldman.
Saffron’s disappointment at being left alone lasted only as long as it took Kadriye to walk to the door and back, and she returned escorting someone.
“Mrs. Demirel,” Saffron said in surprise, getting to her feet.
“Hello, Miss Everleigh, how do you do?” The older woman scurried into the room, extending her gloved hands to squeeze Saffron’s.
Her eyes swept over Saffron and over the table ladened with food.
“Oh my, you do have quite a feast here. What delicious-looking fare! I see why Mr. Ashton was so keen to have you stay here rather than the jail, if this is what you are served at meal times!” She tittered.
“Kadriye was so kind to bring me some of the local foods, so I might not miss out on the chance to try them,” Saffron explained. “Won’t you join me? I surely cannot eat this all myself.”
“Oh.” Mrs. Demirel bit her lip. She didn’t look disturbed by the idea, not like when Mrs. Henry offered her a cigarette, but rather fascinated. “I would … I would like that, yes, thank you. Thank you very much indeed.” She fussed for a moment getting settled with a napkin draped over her lap.
Kadriye served them in smiling silence, including when she took a small plate of dolmas to Mr. Feldman at the door, but spoke when it came time for Saffron to take her first bite of what looked to be a dumpling.
“You must eat manti this way,” Kadriye said, and demonstrated how to arrange a bite so the dumpling, glistening with butter, was covered in equal parts rich tomato sauce and a white sauce she explained was yogurt.
“Yogurt?” Saffron repeated, eying the thick sauce with suspicion.
“It is ours, Turkish,” Kadriye said proudly, dolloping a generous helping onto Saffron’s plate. “With sarimsak, very good.”
She offered the carefully constructed bite to Saffron. She ate it, chewed experimentally, and sighed with delight. The flavors of moist lamb tangy with tomato and rich with garlic filled her mouth. “Oh my,” she murmured, and accepted another bite from Kadriye.
Spice exploded over her tongue, shocking but delicious. “What did you add to it?” she wheezed.
Kadriye shrugged with a smile. “Hot oil.”
“Goodness,” she said, patting her mouth with her napkin. “Mrs. Demirel, do you eat like this every day?”
Mrs. Demirel paused in her own chewing, looked down at the spoon already containing her next bite of perfectly sauced dumplings topped with silky red oil, and smiled sheepishly.
She, too, patted her mouth delicately before saying, “If you can believe it, I’ve never cooked Turkish food for my husband.
I ask that our cook stick to good, plain English cooking.
It’s so healthful for the children, you know.
” She looked longingly at the dishes still gently steaming on the table. “But for the adult palate …”
Kadriye took that as her cue to pile more food on Mrs. Demirel’s plate with plenty of the hot oil, since Mrs. Demirel could tolerate it, until the older woman was begging to be excused from another bite. When she could no longer keep up with Kadriye’s generosity, Saffron, too, admitted defeat.
As they sipped tea and ate sweet, tawny-colored orbs of helva, Mrs. Demirel gave Saffron the usual report of who’d announced what interesting find or theory from the dig site, then soon departed.
Saffron couldn’t help but feel the meal had done Mrs. Demirel some good; her cheeks were flushed with color, and her eyes still drifted to the food even after Kadriye finally acquiesced and took away her plate.
Perhaps this trip to Turkey was exactly what Mrs. Demirel needed to come out of her shell.
Maybe she had a hint of a gourmand in her that needed only a little nudge to indulge.
When Saffron’s door was locked once again, she sighed.
The hearty food had lifted her spirits, but she would have very much liked to experience such a meal at the han itself.
She would go there with Alexander when she got out, she resolved.
Even as the days passed, she refused to doubt that she would be released. Alexander was doing all he could.
That thought usually buoyed her, but with seemingly endless hours of lonely boredom stretching out before her, it did not. She felt useless, stuck in this little room with no information but the tidbits given to her.
Alexander had told her that the lab results would be back soon. With all luck, they would know what killed Martin. That, at least, she might have some insight into.
When Alexander happened by the mess tent and found it occupied by Dr. Henry, Clark, and Wakefield, alarm bells went off in his mind. Dr. Henry was frowning, and Clark was speaking to him in a singularly adamant way suggesting something serious.
Alexander stepped into the tent without a second thought and caught the tail end of Clark saying, “… see this as the opportunity that it is, Henry. Keep the dig—” He broke off when he noticed Alexander, his earnest expression darkening with annoyance. “Ashton.”
“Clark,” Alexander said stiffly. “What’s going on?”
Clark’s jaw ticked, but he said nothing.
Henry and Wakefield exchanged a look so laden with guilt that Alexander had no doubt they’d been discussing something unsavory.
He’d already heard Wakefield’s enthusiastic commentary on prostitution being legal in this country.
He hated to think of newly reformed Dr. Henry being caught up in Wakefield’s ideas of “opportunities.”
“You need something, Ashton?” Dr. Henry finally asked.
“No, sir,” he replied, not bothering to hide his disapproval before he left the tent.
Mr. Apak hailed him from across the pit, and Alexander went to meet him.
“A man is at the gate for you, Mr. Ashton,” he said. “The guard just informed me.”
Alexander turned to look across the field in that direction. A large man in a light-colored suit stood just beyond the gate, and as Alexander squinted at him, he raised a hand in greeting. That had to be Nick.