CAFE CAVALIER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22206, 5 September 1935, Page 19

CAFE CAVALIER

BY ERNEST HTDE

Very mysterious it was. this -ort of thing happen in Constantinople it n( , w ? ]n old romantic times she might havo suspected a plot to entice her into some pasha's harem; but sure ly this sort of thing could not take place nowadays. It was true she was young and pretty, but these cruises, it a trifle bHtant, were as respectable., after all, as Brighton or Blackpool. Weren't they? It would not, she reflected, be ' good for the cruising industry if young British widows, however merry, wore liable to bo kidnapped' tnose too-attractive shore excursions. it was most mysterious, Marian reflected. It was their socond day in Istanbul. They had been at Port Said, where many of the "cruisers" succumbed to the !tires of Simon Arzt, that brilliant local emporium, and others were dulv swindled by the postcard touts. How l otlflver those fellows were in selling their wares to retired grocers without the (also retired) wives observing the transaction I At Jaffa they had been off-loaded jn launches and boats —to see the new oranges-and-lemons game that Palestine Is so profitably. playing, and to have a at Tel-..4viv, where the young Jews and Jewesses sun-bathe and practise the cult of the near-nude. At Haifa th'"y saw the beginnings of the '(■ great port that will one day dominate the Levant. , But thoy were glad to get away from i Palestine, with its petty British rostric- ; tions. Thß French, more easy-going in all the affairs of pleasure-mongering, had, they found, made Beyrout a feasant and lively place. Some of the men had sat up all night at the cabarets, buf. had found the buying of champagne (so-culled) for the young gold-digging; dancers an expensive pastime. A party had done the hairraising trip acrons the Lebanons to Damascus, where they, too, had had an entertaining time. " We saw a girl being taken away by < & sheik," one of the young men on B deck had told her. This desert romance, however, turned to be nothing more than the arrival ilone of a young man in white Arab robes and his departure, accompanied. So here they were iia Istanbul. Marian had escaped the crowd and gone off on her own. She sipped her morning colfee 0:11 the terrace on the Park Hotel. There was their ship, the Luxuriantic, lying in the Bosphorus below;. a white Vanderbilt jacht out of the Black Sea was anchoring ahead of she keep the "appointment" K, mvstcriously made, accept whsitever imitation ib might conceal? Marian could not make up her mind at once. The Park Hotel verandah gives one of the loveliest viewn of this lovelist place on earth. G ilata below, the old quarter of StambDul with its bazaars and quaint streets across the Golden Horn. Behind it the old'palace of the Sultans and the mighty dome of St. Sophia—that ancient- -Christian Church of the Holy Wisdom, now for nearly 500 years a mosque. Away beyond, the blue Marmora dancing in- the sun, with th«i hills of Asia like a gigantic purple back- : ground. " Yes, she thought, it would be rather a lark to gD back and see what happened. Marian lit another cigarette and took a little card from her bag: » "You are so charming. Please be at • the same table at the same time tomorrow." That wins all. It was written in French, in the spidery French hand, and in the anaemic mauve ink that Latins affect. She had examinee! the card many times already, but once again she turned it over and about; held it up to this light. Still no, clue to the author. Who could it have been ? She 1 held the card, iis diagonal points against thumb and finger, and blew on it so that it rotated swiftly like a fan or a windmill. She remembered the cafe well enough, a little cafe in Pera, where she had a cockts.il before dinner last aight. But how hi:d the card reached her? When she collected her bag and p;loves as she was going out, she had found the card among them. Had the waiter been tipped to drop it there? She could think of no other solution. There had been a tall, dark, Spanish-looking man, not unlike some film star, at another table who had seemed to be interested. He had kept looking acirons; could it have been he? All these southern people, she reflected, were supposed to have the coming-on disposition highly developed; in them the R.S.V.P. eye was to bo seen at ite best Her widowhood, she knew it well, sat lightly upon her, and the men on the cruise were a rather boring crowd. " I've a good mind to go," she thought, unwilling to admit that she had already made up her mind. She spent the rest of the morning looking at the shops and decided to have lunch itt Abdullah's. She had hit on Abdullah 1 s by chnnce. She did not perceive, until she had nearly finished her meal,, hew fascinating is this very ordinary-looking restaurant But she went to the window and chase her fish —a golden-red enormity it looked as :it lay therci, but it camp up well >n the cooking The waiter recommended quail* and pilau. She trok his word for it and was glad. I ivo tiny quails, the most delicious things she had ever tasted, <»n a heap of ritv« had concealed shavings of almonds unci other nuts. She had yet get to like the thick, sweet Turkish coffee; so siie had the thin French sort' She dawdled over it. then paid ' her bill, and walked down to •lokatlian's. where she powdered her nose When she came out a Hispano-Smza was at the kerb, driven by an elegant young man, of somewhat swarthy appearance, elegantly dressed and (she thought) probably scented. This was the third time this car and its owner had happened to be waiting for her. as J t appeared. Could this be the unknown cafe cavalier? He looked a bit of a dago, she thought, but he was goodlooking. She hailed a taxi and got the hr * porter to tell the driver to take her to Topkapu where the Old Seraglio overlooks the blue waters. This pathetic habitation of thousands of ghosts chilled her. From pavilion to pavilion sh? was directed by the attendants. Kiosks, they appeared to call them, and she wondered about their secrets, the loves they had seen, the intrigues and the dark crimes. For four hundred Jears those walls had seen the most intimate life of the Sultans, their Women, the grand viziers, the mamejiikes and janissaries, the eunuchs and the dancing girls, the dwarfs and jesters land prisoners. The mummified hand ot John the Baptist repelled her, and the rest of the displayed treasures did not hold her littention. There was also a party from the ship, but she kept ahead of them. After about an hour she went to get a taxi and there behold! was the His-pano-Suiza aid its elegant owner. He looked a trifle weedy, she now thought; " bit unhealthy, too. Lack of games, <ihe decided. She wan peeved rather

A SHORT STORY

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than interested now, jumped into the taxi, and told the driver to get back to the Park Hotel, where she decided to have tea Jn her best French she told the driver that he must shake off the big car. This, it appeared,' would be a matter of considerable difficulty, unless,' of course, mam'selle would make it worth while. Thus it was arranged, and thus it happened. For after n trafiic hold-up near Galata Bridge, the taxi took the low road to Pera and the Hispano, having lost sight of them, assumed that they had gone the usual way round by the American and British Embassies. So Marian arrived, as she had started out, alone. The tea. with its lemon, was refreshing. Should she keep the appointment? she asked herself, with the fatuity that otherwise intelligent women develop when thoy imagine they are undecided though all the time they know well! that their minds are made up quite definitely. It was still rather early for cocktails, but she could go to the cafe and take up a post of vantage. Also, if she went earlier, she could if it became necessary demonstrate her independence and show her contempt bv walking out at the .appointed time. The little cafe was empty. At least there were no customers. A waiter was polishing glasses*, a dirty-looking housewench was busy polishing the brass rail on the little service bar. The proprietor was sitting writing at a table near by. There had been no sign of the Hispano. She told the waiter she would wait. He held a match for her cigarette and retired to resume his polishing. The proprietor had a big book like a ledger in front of him, but he did not appear to be writing in it. But he was writing most assiduously, breathing hard the while, being a fat man, and twice spitting on the floor. A shave, too, was indicated for him But Marian was charitable enough and wise enough to remember that, after all, she had arrived in their off-time. But the crowd would soon be gathering. The dirty house-wench had picked up her impedimenta and gone. There were only two or three more glasses to polish, the proprietor closed the big book and collected in a small pile a number cf little white cards. In a minute or two she would order a cocktail. A Bronx, she was thinking, as the proprietor, with his book and his cards, his pen and his ink, rose from the table where he had been writing and made for the inner precincts. As ho passed her table the book slipped from under hiii arm, and in trying to sa.ve it his little handful of cards scattered over the floor. One fell on the corner of Marian's table, writing uppermost. She had no intention of reading the man's business, but :the card fell in such a way that she had read it before she realised her rudeness.

" You are so charming " (she read, in French)*. "Please be at the same table at the same time to-morrow." Th,o laugh was clearly with the proprietor. Mariin called for her cocktail.