Chapter Four At Marletto’s Café
Four
At Marletto’s Café
Lyra had never seen a city so elegant, so much at ease with its prosperity, so welcoming to strangers.
Tree-shaded streets were lined with cafés and fashionable shops; the men and women, the citizens of this happy place, were smartly dressed in silk suits or floral dresses, and among the gleaming limousines and the yellow taxis, market traders with camels or horses mingled with people from every part of the world, it seemed: curious travelers taking their time to look around, busy merchants or public officials; and everyone with an air of contentment or even outright happiness on this spring morning.
“Is Aleppo always like this?” said Lyra, gazing around.
“Like this in what particular, Miss Silver?” said Ionides, from his camel an arm’s length to the left of hers on this busy street.
“Busy, peaceful…Everyone seems to have things to do, but they’re not in a hurry. And sort of relaxed and confident. Not like Seleukeia, or Constantinople, or Smyrna. There doesn’t seem to be that sort of tension here.”
“In Aleppo everyone has good time. Here they make music, they study architecture, they sell books, is a world-famous center of the cultured and artistic mind. Also they like very much making money.”
“When I was in Constantinople,” she said, “I heard about some people called the men from the mountains. D’you know—”
His right hand reached for her wrist and gripped it suddenly, wrenching her broken hand with a slam of pain that nearly made her scream.
“What are you doing?” she gasped.
He held it more gently, but didn’t let go. “Lucky for you we are speaking English and not French,” he said with quiet intensity.
“Why? What are you talking about? Please let go.”
“Many more people speak French than English here. You must not use that phrase again, Miss Silver, that expression. I beg your pardon for hurting your hand. In my anxiety to save your life, and mine too, I forgot the wound you sustained. Forgive me, please.”
Lyra moved to take back her hand, and he loosened his own with great gentleness. She had to breathe deeply and regain her balance on the camel, which wasn’t easy; while her hand was throbbing so painfully it was hard to think about anything else.
“Will you tell me more when we’re out of the crowd?” she said.
“I expect it will be possible at some time. Your hand will remind you of the peril and danger.”
“Hmm,” she said.
After another few minutes Ionides said, “Very soon, Miss Silver, we shall be outside Marletto’s Café. What is your desire, now that I have all but fulfilled our contract?”
“I shall need somewhere to stay. A cheap hotel. Then I shall pay you the rest of your fee.”
“I know the very place. Furthermore, the owner is a friend of mine, and I shall negotiate a price that is even beyond the reach of a great trader like yourself.”
“I want to ask you some more questions,” she said, because she had become used to his presence on their journey, and even begun to trust him a little.
She liked his never-failing fluency, the ironic tone that underlay his flattery, the sense he gave of a wide and well-stocked memory, which he was always prepared to embellish.
She’d be sorry to leave him behind, she realized.
“Questions, Miss Silver? Never in my life have I had to answer so many questions, and of such a boundless variety. I am only a humble dragoman, please not to forget.”
“But you always answer with such confidence,” she said as he led them out into a busy square where magnolia trees were in full bloom.
“What else I got?” he said. “No fortune, no beauty, no family. I am a poor wanderer over the surface of the earth, having to earn a meager living by doing whatever is useful to travelers more important than myself. No confidence, no living. Look, Miss Silver, on your right: there is Marletto’s Café. ”
The café was an elegant establishment, with the air of having been transplanted from Saint-Germain-des-Prés or the Piazza San Marco.
The tables on the pavement in front were shaded by two great cedar trees, the largest Lyra had ever seen, and the place was busy; waiters in long white aprons moved from table to table with trays nonchalantly held high over their shoulders on the palm of one hand, and the customers sipped their coffees or aperitifs and nibbled their pastries as if the world was a fine place, and they had the freehold of it.
“It looks expensive,” Lyra said.
“Money is not wasted when spent well. The hotel I mentioned is in the street over there—under the palm trees—the Hotel de las Palmas.”
Two minutes more, and she was glad to get off the camel and stretch her back and her legs.
The reception area of the hotel was shabby, but clean enough, she thought as she sank into a large leather armchair and let Ionides deal with the camels and haggle over the price of a room for her.
She was tired; it would be easy to lean back, let her head droop, close her eyes.
She had almost done so when Ionides turned away from the owner and came to her with a satisfied smile.
“All settled, Miss Silver. I have agreed a most economical rate, which I can assure you would not be matched by any other hotel in the city. Here is the key of your room. Please take all the time you need. I shall be waiting to escort you to your meeting at the celebrated Marletto’s Café.”
Lyra lifted her rucksack and climbed the stairs.
She was still surprised every time she slung it over her shoulder—surprised at how light it was.
The alethiometer had been nearly everywhere with her for half her life, and it was heavy; how had the young child Lyra carried it so far?
And without dropping it or losing it, apart from the time in Will’s world when it was stolen from her?
And what had she been thinking, to lose it so easily in Madinat al-Qamar?
But of course she had to. Everything had unfolded with the speed of a dream, and just as in a dream, she was helpless. And now, there was no doubt about it, her rucksack was lighter; she couldn’t bring herself to use the word burden, but she was certainly free from something.
Her room was like the hotel lobby, modest but clean, and she was perfectly content with it.
She changed her clothes without having to decide what to wear, because there was only one other skirt, one other blouse.
She’d noticed that women in this city had the freedom to dress lightly and go unveiled if they chose; in fact, she had seen no more than two women whose faces were covered.
But she’d have to buy something else to wear, and get these things laundered.
She washed herself as well as she could in the little basin with its lukewarm water, and looked in the mirror dispassionately.
The bruises on her face were fading, but she was tanned by the sun, and her cheeks and the bridge of her nose not far off from being actually burned, so she must find some cream or ointment to deal with that. A broad-brimmed hat would help too.
She spread a very little of the rose salve on her nose and lips, her cheekbones and forehead. Then she sat down and thought about Ionides.
He’d been very helpful so far, but could she trust him any further?
This part of the world was completely new to her, whereas Ionides was at home with the languages here, and the customs, and the modes of travel.
Could she manage without his guidance? She could probably afford it.
She still had most of the gold that Farder Coram had given her.
Ionides hadn’t let her down yet, and besides, she liked him.
The man at Marletto’s, this Mustafa Bey, whom Bud Schlesinger had recommended.
She didn’t know what to do. The alethiometer would have helped her decide, of course; even without the books, and without risking the sickness and disorientation of the new method, she’d have gained something from it; her knowledge of the symbols was much greater than it had been, and just to hold it would have given her thoughts something to focus on. And now it was gone.
But she still had the glass, and the needle.
If she didn’t find something safe to keep them in, though, she might not have them for long.
The glass was merely a glass (she supposed), but the needle…
She took it very carefully out of the pocket it was in, and laid it in the center of a piece of scrap paper, which she folded over and over till the needle couldn’t slip out, and put it in a compartment of her rucksack.
Then she thought of the old gentleman on the train, and the cards he’d given her.
She took out the pack and shuffled it and spread the cards facedown on the bed beside her.
Now what could she do? The alethiometer worked by blending the meanings of three symbols.
Should she pick three cards? Or just one? Or what?
She chose one and turned it over. It showed a man behind a barricade trying to defend it from a group of soldiers, against a background of gunfire and bursting shells. She looked at it despondently for a minute or so, and gathered the cards together again.
—
Ionides sprang to his feet as soon as he saw her come downstairs.
“Miss Silver! Now I am your guide and guardian for the journey to Marletto’s Café. May I ask if you are hoping to see the well-known and respected Mustafa Bey?”
“How did you know that?”
“It was a guess purely and entirely. A traveler of your consequence would of course wish to pay her respects to such an important gentleman, and Marletto’s is where he is to be found. It is as good as a headquarters for his multitude of enterprises.”