The Silence of Scheherazade Read online

  ‘Bonjour, ma chérie.’ Juliette leaned over to kiss her daughter’s right cheek, glanced at the newspaper over her shoulder, and then asked in a vivacious voice, ‘Did you sleep well?’

  Edith nodded without raising her head. There had been a strong earthquake in the capital of Jamaica. The streets of Kingston were filled with the debris of ruined buildings and people with terrified eyes. She peered intently at the paper so as to see the black and white photographs more clearly.

  ‘Just look at the weather – how dark it has become! It is as if not clouds but threatening armies are approaching. I declare I am in distress this morning.’ Juliette took her place at the table and placed a smile upon her face, which looked naked without its make-up. ‘Have you seen your brothers or had they already left when you got up? Where are Gertrude and Marie – still sleeping?’

  Edith glanced around at the empty chairs and shrugged. She had only now noticed that her sisters-in-law had not come down to breakfast that morning.

  Without waiting for an answer, Juliette continued. ‘Ah, bien sûr, I remember now. They were going into the city today. Gertrude’s cousin has arrived from Amsterdam. They were to meet at the Café de Paris. You should have gone with them, my dear Edith. Gertrude and Marie must be considered your sisters now. But isn’t the weather horrid. Krima! What a shame! Listen to what I propose. After breakfast, let’s go up and see the baby together. What do you say? She’s begun to smile, did you know that, Auntie Edith? Between you and me, she’s looking more and more like your brother. I haven’t said as much to Marie, in order not to hurt her feelings, but little Daphne is the picture of her father. She even looks rather like me, I think. After all, your brother greatly resembles me.’

  Edith murmured something unintelligible. Juliette reached for the bell which was sitting on the dining room table beside her silver fork. One of the servant girls immediately dashed out of the kitchen with a thermos of coffee and stood beside Juliette. Her white cap had slid to the side a bit, over her right ear. Noticing her mistress’s glance, her hand went nervously to her head. After her husband’s death, Juliette had ordered that all the servants must wear a uniform. Bringing a tailor from Smyrna, she had had uniforms sewn just like the ones she had seen in a Good Housekeeping magazine in the American settlement in Paradiso. The white caps and aprons were to be washed daily, the navy-blue uniforms twice weekly.

  Zoe, standing at attention with the thermos of coffee in her hand, prayed that her mistress would not notice the ink stain on her frilly white apron. That morning, she’d gone to light the candles in Monsieur Lamarck’s study and had just sat down at his desk to write a brief letter to her sweetheart on the island of Chios when she’d heard laughter in the hallway. It was Gertrude and Marie, preparing to catch the 8 a.m. train into Smyrna. Zoe had jumped up anxiously and the inkwell had spilled into her lap.

  At any rate, this morning Juliette was in no state to bother herself with the stain on Zoe’s apron. Without the daughters-in-law at the table, the tension between Edith and herself was all too apparent. She felt like a wild animal caught in a snare. Furthermore, the crease between her daughter’s eyebrows depressed her. She reached for her coffee cup as if her life depended on it.

  ‘Merci, Zoe. You may bring in my breakfast. Edith, have you eaten, dear?’

  ‘I have not eaten, nor will I eat.’ Finally, Edith raised her head. ‘Zoe, would you please refresh my coffee. Then kindly go into the garden and ask Sidika to roll me two cigarettes. Thin ones, please.’

  ‘Certainly, Mademoiselle Lamarck.’

  Juliette, hoping to revive her fading smile, rotated the circular wooden platter in the centre of the table. Jams – sour cherry, rosehip, strawberry – honey and butter revolved in front of Juliette, but there was nothing there that she desired.

  ‘And why not, my dear Edith? Drinking coffee on an empty stomach is not healthy. At least eat a croissant. And where did this cigarette business come from? What would your father say if he saw you lighting a cigarette at the table like a nightclub hostess?’

  She waved her silver spoon at the oil portrait hanging over the gramophone. Inside the gold-plated frame, the tiny buttons on Monsieur Lamarck’s jacket strained against his considerable belly as if they might burst. He was turned towards Edith, his eyes fixed on the corner where the enamel stove stood.

  ‘But he can’t see me, can he? So I’m okay.’

  Juliette observed her daughter over the rim of her china coffee cup. In spite of all the nervousness, the coffee drunk on an empty stomach, the cigarettes, even that damned crease between her eyebrows, Edith maintained the freshness of her nineteen years. Something between jealousy and pride stirred inside Juliette. If Edith gained some weight, held herself straighter, rubbed some rouge on her cheeks and went out into society, she could easily land a fortune. Perhaps it was not even necessary to wait until Edward returned from New York. She herself could talk to their neighbour, Helene Thomas-Cook, and the two of them could arrange an engagement between the children. Or had Edward received news of the scandal and was this what was delaying his return? To be sure, the shame had happened right under his nose.

  Zoe came into the dining room through the garden door, put the cigarettes right next to Edith’s plate as if she were hiding them, and sped out again. Sidika had also sent in a plate of orange-flavoured biscuits. Edith took an ivory cigarette-holder from the pocket of her black dress; she’d worn nothing but black for two years in order to spite her mother, who had opened wide the curtains and windows and filled the house with guests as soon as the obligatory forty-day mourning period had come to an end. Edith inserted the cigarette into the holder, lit it with the gold lighter she had taken from her father’s study, and exhaled smoke through her delicate nostrils.

  ‘You could at least smoke American cigarettes, daughter. Must you smoke the tobacco of peasants? Next week, let us go together to Paradiso and buy you some decent cigarettes, since you enjoy the evil stuff. And you have not yet seen Paradiso. You will be amazed at the beautiful city the Americans have created.’

  ‘And where do you think American tobacco comes from, Maman?’

  Lowering her eyes, Juliette cracked the top of her egg with her silver spoon. She had no idea how to forge a relationship with this rebellious daughter. It was exhausting. Since Edith’s childhood, she had tried to love her but somehow had never been able to find favour. She had dressed Edith in Parisian frocks and emerald-studded combs, had taken her to eat pastries at Café Kosti and accompanied her on carriage rides along the quay. Anything Edith desired from the toyshops on Frank Street had been bought without hesitation.

  When Juliette’s elder daughter, Anna, returned to the Bournabat mansion from her studies in France for the summer holidays and saw silk scarves the like of which had never been purchased for her, and rosy-cheeked dolls piled in a corner of her little sister’s room, she threw a tantrum. ‘It’s so unfair! I had only two dolls and had to wait until Christmas for a third. You tied my hair back with ribbons, not emerald combs. I can’t believe you would do this, Maman. It’s because I’m not as beautiful as Edith, is it not? There’s not a scrap of fairness in your heart.’

  Anna was right. It hadn’t even occurred to Juliette to dress Anna up and take her to the quay to eat cake. She was a stout, heavy-boned girl, with hair like a mouse’s. When Juliette had been handed her as a swaddled newborn, she’d taken one look at baby Anna, saw that she resembled a Breton peasant with her red face and potato nose, and began to cry. Meline, then a novice midwife, had found it very moving that a young mother would cry upon holding her first child and left them alone in the room. Whereas Juliette was actually crying because she had agreed to marry a man her father’s age and had given birth to a child who looked exactly like him.

  She was still very young. With two sons following closely after Anna, each born one year apart, all her energy was used up. When Edith was born seven years after the younger son, Jean-Pierre, Juliette not only had all the time in the
world but also an adorable daughter whom she could play with like a doll. However, Juliette never held her, kissed her, inhaled her smell. In spite of her cuteness, Edith was not a cuddled child. ‘A child needs compassion as well as love. Without compassion, she becomes ill-tempered,’ Charles used to say. Juliette did not understand what he meant. She gave this daughter whatever she wanted, took her with her everywhere. What more should she do?

  Mother and daughter sat for a while without speaking. The ticking of the wall clock was irritating. Placing her jam knife on the edge of her plate, Juliette rose to her feet. Feeling Edith’s eyes upon her, she walked towards her husband’s portrait. Taking Mendelssohn off, she put on ‘Nobody’, a record she had recently bought in Paradiso. She turned the handle to rotate the turntable. After a few crackling sounds, from the tulip-shaped mouthpiece came Bert Williams’ entreating song.

  ‘Voilà! A very appropriate piece. Perfect for today, when life seems full of clouds and rain. What do you say – am I wrong?’

  Edith was absorbed in the smoke rising from her cigarette to the chandelier on the ceiling. One day she would board a ship from Smyrna harbour and escape to Marseille. From there she would go to New York – the New World – alone, with a single suitcase and a one-way ticket. One morning, without telling anyone, she would slip out of this house. Then, just like in the song, she would get lost in the crowd and become Nobody. Not a Lamarck, not a Levantine, not a French lady nor a European one. Naked. A person must first become a nobody and after that they could become anything.

  Juliette raised her birdlike voice. ‘Guess who’s coming to afternoon tea.’

  When no sound was forthcoming from Edith, Juliette answered her own question joyously, as if each syllable spelled happiness.

  ‘Avinash Pillai.’

  Edith continued blowing smoke into the emptiness. Juliette’s chin twitched involuntarily. Whenever Edith used to drift off like this as a child, Juliette would want to slap her face. And now that urge was swelling inside her again. She would clasp her hands behind her back and satisfy herself by yelling.

  ‘Snap out of it, young lady! Given the privileged life you lead, you have no right to wear such a sour face. Go to the poor districts of Smyrna and see the babies who have not so much as a piece of cloth to cover their bare bottoms and then tell me if you have anything to sulk about.’

  Except for that one time, she had always managed to curb her anger, had never laid a hand on her daughter. That last time though… Oh, Monsieur Lamarck, how he had spoiled this girl. How much shame had she brought! How much! Ah, Dieu.

  ‘Yes, oui. I have invited Avinash Pillai to dinner this evening. I hope you will join us. You know who he is, of course.’

  ‘Yes, a gemstone merchant.’ Edith’s alto voice became thicker after smoking.

  ‘Ah, yes, that’s what you think!’

  She waited in vain to see if her daughter’s interest had been piqued, and then, unable to endure the silence that hung in the air like the cigarette smoke, she continued.

  ‘His precious-stone business is just a front. It is true that he has an assistant who shuttles between Smyrna, Alexandria and Bombay, bringing trunks filled with rare gems. What diamonds, emeralds and rubies there are in those trunks! Also therapeutic stones – blue agates, quartz, apatite – which is why sorcerers gather at the dock whenever one of his ships is unloading. The witches begin their bargaining even before the rowboats have thrown over their ropes. There’s a lot of trade among the Muslims, and even the Sultan’s men know of his fame. I requested that he bring us a few pieces. If you like something, we will buy it. He came to a tea party given by Auntie Rose the other day and we spoke then. A very interesting individual. Can you believe it, he lodges at an inn in the Muslim district. He’s been here over a year, but we’ve only just learned of it – for obvious reasons. Listen to me now; guess what the jewel seller is really occupied with!’

  Edith closed her eyes. Was there somewhere in the world where one was not allowed to speak a word until noon? Maybe she should hide herself away in a nunnery. Ha, ha, ha! They had thrown her out of a Catholic high school and now she wanted to shut herself up in a nunnery!

  ‘Edith mou, listen. The man is a secret agent! A real-life spy! Do you hear me? And do you know who he works for? The British! I couldn’t believe it either at first, but it seems that British spies can come from India. They even choose Indians on purpose, so that they will arouse less suspicion when they mingle with Muslims. This one is actually an Oxford graduate as well. I didn’t realize that Oxford even accepted Indians, but it seems they have done so for quite some time. Monsieur Pillai told me this himself. The rest Auntie Rose heard from a reliable source.’

  Edith blew out a stream of smoke.

  Juliette was buzzing with the pleasure of so much gossip; her cheeks, already shiny with the geranium oil that she applied every morning, had got pinker, and her blue-green eyes were wide. ‘So what do you say – an interesting case, no? Wouldn’t you like to meet this gentleman tonight?’

  ‘I would not.’

  As she watched Edith extinguish her cigarette on her plate, Juliette sighed. She had lost her appetite. She wouldn’t even be able to eat the flaky pastry Zoe had placed in front of her.

  ‘Why not, Edith dear? What will you do instead – continue pacing around upstairs like a ghost? Are you aware that your complexion has turned a ghastly white, like an Englishwoman’s, because your skin never sees daylight? I honestly don’t know what I can tell people any more when they ask about you. It’s been a year…’

  Edith finally lowered her gaze from the chandelier and turned towards her mother in a fury. Her whole face – her small mouth, retroussé nose, high cheekbones, slanting black eyes and thick lashes – had hardened. ‘Why don’t you just tell the truth!’ she fumed, her voice unexpectedly deep for one with such delicate features.

  Juliette clashed her cup into its saucer and exhaled. Her voice had already assumed the deep tone she used with the servants, and her chin had sharpened.

  For no particular reason, Edith felt she had won a victory.

  ‘Look, daughter, my patience can last only so long. I have been careful, I have shown sensitivity, but I get nothing from you. What is the purpose of so much anger? Yes, I know we went through a very difficult time. But…’

  Her daughter’s eyes blazed.

  ‘One can’t die with the dead. One can’t question God’s will. It’s time for you to get yourself together, resume your life. You are not a child. It is to your benefit to show yourself in society. You heard yourself a few days ago that Lucy Gillard has become engaged. At your age, eligible bachelors can disappear in a moment. If we wait too much longer, you’ll be left on your own, I swear it. Come, let us see a small smile.’

  Juliette pushed back her chair, wiped her mouth with the linen napkin and walked over to Edith. She reached out her hands. Before she could touch her, Edith sprang back like a cat. She knew what would happen next. When she used to pout as a child, her mother would pinch her cheeks and tighten them, forcing her to smile. She deftly grabbed the second cigarette that Sidika had rolled, her ivory holder and the gold lighter, crossed to the other side of the table and hurried out into the hall. The biscuits remained on the dining room table.

  Just as she reached the stairway, the front doorbell rang. Halfway up, she waited, listening.

  At the door, a foreigner was asking, ‘Is Mademoiselle Edith Sofia Lamarck available? It is necessary that I speak with her on an extremely important matter.’

  Katina’s Dream

  Grocer Akis took one last sip of his coffee. His waterpipe had gone out. The coffeehouse apprentice appeared beside him, holding tongs to stir up the coals.

  ‘Not necessary. I’m going.’

  Everyone in the coffeehouse objected as he stood up.

  ‘Hey, stay for one more game, vre Akis! Your shop won’t run away. God’s share is three. You’ll see – maybe this time around your luck will change.’

&nb
sp; Akis looked at the open backgammon board beside the cup holding the black dregs of his coffee. He had just lost two rounds. Rubbing his black beard, he stuck his head out the door and glanced in the direction of the British Hospital. Except for the halva seller passing with his tray, there was no one in sight. He turned back to the coffeehouse. It was buzzing inside and smelled of burned coffee, apple peelings and feet.

  ‘Endaksi. All right. One more round. Just one, then I have a lot of work to get on with.’

  ‘Malista, Akis mou. Sure. We all have work to do. Let’s play this round and then we’ll all leave together.’

  The men sitting idly and drowsily in the coffeehouse were relieved that Akis was staying. His neighbour, Hristo, called to the apprentice. ‘Pavli, my boy, run and refresh Kyr Prodromakis’s waterpipe and his coffee.’

  Akis gave his hand that was holding the dice a kiss. ‘Ade. Good luck.’

  When Katina appeared in the square with the baby on her back half an hour later, Akis had won the third round and begun the fourth. He didn’t notice his wife under the arbour knocking on the steamed-up window. Katina’s headscarf had slipped down around her neck, her damp red hair was sticking to her head, and her cheeks and nose were red with cold. On the other side of the steamed-up window, the men were rolling dice as if they had forgotten the world outside. At the risk of waking her baby, Katina took the ring off her finger and tapped the glass.

  Pavli left the coffee on the coals and came out to the arbour.

  ‘Kalimera, Kyra Katina. How are you?’

  Katina gave no answer. Pavli hastened inside.

  ‘Kyr Prodromakis, Auntie Katina is outside.’

  This time no one said a word when Akis got to his feet. It was ten thirty. Clearly the rain was not going to stop. Three labourers who were laying cobbles on Menekse Street left the coffeehouse with Akis. Akis, a former wrestler, led the way. Katina, small enough to fit in his pocket, walked beside him with the baby on her back. Behind them were the three seasonal workers from Chios with pickaxes on their backs.