Last Letter from Istanbul. Lucy Foley

short while later. A mercy, some said. But what message to bring back to his mother? The standard, of course: He died with a smile upon his face, in proud service of the Empire.

      Some of the men were huge brutes, farmers and fishermen with skin like leather and corded muscles in their arms. They towered over him. And they were already half-broken. When he stood next to them in his mind’s eye he saw not a man, but a small boy, gripping his bayonet with hands too small to reach, emerging from a uniform ten sizes too big to fit.

      Suddenly a new sound, a hiss of air. At first he believed it was some new intensification of the snow. Then the man beside him fell, a little yelp of surprise. He looked down. The peculiar beauty of the colour in the white, spreading fast like ink upon tissue. Such a very true red, almost the red of the Ottoman flag itself. He envied the man his expression of absolute peace. By the time he had understood that he should call for help, and could summon the words with which to do it – he had not spoken for hours, days it seemed – it was far too late. The enemy had come for them.

       The Traveller

      As we leave the shelter of the station the rain begins, as though it has been waiting for us. Some say rain spoils everything. I say it depends on the position of the beholder. Now, as water spreads itself in filmy sheets against the glass, the austere train carriage is transformed into a hallowed space; sanctuary from the onslaught without. The light seems to change in defiance of the bleakness, to kindle; the winter-pallid faces about me gain new colour. Beyond the glass the drear suburbs and the formidable distant shadows of the banlieues – the backstage of Paris – acquire the romance of a watercolour.

      I prop the suitcase on the couchette next to me. From the cushioning of a scarf I unwrap a photograph in a tin frame. I have looked at it so many times through the years, trying to understand the sequence of events that changed everything, that changed my life.

      A building, surrounded by dark trees. It is slightly out of focus, lending the house a blurred, provisional appearance so that it does not appear made of wood and stone but something evanescent, a structure of vapour and light. It looks more like the idea of a house, a phantasm that has alighted on the bank and is making up its mind as to whether it should stay. But I recall tangible things. Painted tiles, a stone fountain, fine objects, white linen, voices echoing in high-ceilinged rooms. Hard to believe … that for a short span of time it was something like a home to me.

      I bring the photograph so close to my face that my breath steams the shielding pane of glass, hoping to catch some evidence of life within. For the merest fraction of a moment I think I have seen something in the lower row of windows: a small face, looking out at me. But it must have been merely the creation of a hopeful imagination. When I look again the windows are blank-eyed and dark, withholding their secrets.

       Nur

      Morning. She feels renewed, the humiliations of the day before have lost their sting. The streets are still empty enough at this hour that they can stride through them quickly. She enjoys the pull and stretch of her muscles, the sound of her shoes ringing upon the cobblestones. The lesser note of the boy’s feet as he follows behind: two steps to her every one, and even then he struggles to keep up. He is still so small. But he is also, she knows, distracted by the scents that reach them from the bakeries and cafes they pass, his nose aloft in that feline way.

      She is aware of the looks. In these narrow streets they pass near enough to see the glimmer of eyes through latticework screens and one woman pulls her shutters closed with an ostentatiously violent clatter. Odd, that it should be the women that seem most outraged by her bared face, by her presence in the street. The older ones are worst of all, understandably. She still feels the sting of their glances. At first they were almost enough to send her running back to the apartment for her veil. Now she steels herself against her own sense of shame. Because for all that the war took from her – and it was more than she ever thought she would have to give – there is this one thing that it gifted her. Her city. And she is not ready to give it up. The liberation of walking these streets that have always been her home and yet for so long have been beyond the limits of her knowledge.

      She is not alone; much of a generation has joined her. Barriers shifted, dissolved entirely. Young women who had remained hidden indoors behind filigree screens ventured out into the streets. They appeared bare-faced. They took on the work of men – her grandmother is still outraged by the appearance of trouser-clad female street sweepers.

      The boy is dawdling.

      ‘Come on, hurry up – we’re going to be late.’

      She sees what has caught his attention; the same sight that she has been avoiding looking at. A group of French officers, in their blue uniforms, smoking their cigarettes and lounging against an old tree that has forced its way out of the cobblestones.

      Children, she has noticed, are disloyally fascinated by the soldiers. Now, with building horror, she sees one of the men drop his cigarette, stub it out with a smartly polished boot, and come toward them.

      ‘Hello,’ he says, to the boy, in French. From the crowds passing them Nur feels a low hum of disapproval, levelled as much at her as at the man, as though they assume she must have done something to encourage him. And with it there is a certain sense of shame, as though she really has.

      ‘I have a little son like you, at home,’ he says now. ‘Do you know what he likes best?’ He does not wait to see if the boy has understood. ‘Caramels! Would you like one?’ He fishes a gold-wrapped sweet from his pocket.

      ‘No, thank you—’ But Nur is too late, the boy has already taken one.

      ‘I hope,’ the man’s eyes go to Nur’s uncovered face now, and remain there, ‘that you tell your mother how beautiful she is every day.’

      She seizes the boy’s hand, and marches him away from the officers as fast as she can, without a backward glance. Ribald laughter follows them.

      When they have put a little distance between themselves and the officers she puts out her hand. ‘Spit it out.’

      ‘But—’

      ‘Do it, please.’ She knows what a cruelty it is to take food from a child like him. But the French officers are still watching, and this is a point of principle.

      With an expression of profoundest agony, the boy does as she says. She throws it down, and within seconds a street cat has emerged from somewhere to sniff at it.

      Now she feels as though a layer of skin has been removed, not merely a thin gauze of material. The city now seems to thwart her at every turn: the cobblestones turn her ankles, the crowds press against her. She has become clumsy and conspicuous.

      She understands that she is an object of curiosity for such men, who have come expecting veiled forms. She knows that they see her – her hair covered but her face exposed, wandering about the city as she chooses – and make suppositions. She tries to remind herself that it must not matter. To wait until a day when one might not be reminded with every step of one’s difference might mean waiting for a hundred years. More.

       The Boy

      He can still taste the buttered sugar of the sweet, shards of it hidden in the small crevices between his teeth. Lucky that he managed to swallow half of it before she made him spit out the rest. He still hurts from the loss. He knew that he had no choice, though. There had been a dangerous look in her eye. She had already changed into her schoolteacher self.

      Nur hanım is different at school. She seems to grow by about a foot. She transforms into a new, more powerful version of herself, like a very subtle shape-shifting djinn. He can nearly forget the version of her that burns almost every meal she cooks, and sometimes sings out of tune while she cleans the apartment. Who sometimes, rather like Enver,