The Water Diviner Read online

  He moves to the porthole. On this side of the ship there’s little to see. Faint lights glitter along the distant shore, and the inky shadow of hills are outlined against the early dawn sky. The source of the sound is unclear.

  Connor grasps a brass door handle damp with sea mist, turns it, and steps out onto the deck. He looks towards the ship’s prow. His fellow passengers stand in a cluster at the rail.

  The sky behind them glows peach as sunrise approaches, illuminating the city that lies ahead. On the horizon, Connor sees an endless procession of domes and thin, pointed towers reaching heavenward. Teetering ruined walls encircle the steep hills and stretch out of sight along a low, sweeping plain.

  Connor turns to a deckhand. ‘What’s that sound?’

  ‘Can’t rightly say, sir. Haven’t been to Constantinople before. Who knows what they’re on about? Bloody infidels, pardon my French.’

  Seagulls swoop and squawk, skimming the small schools of fish left floundering in the wake. The ship banks to the left towards a narrower channel and heads for the dock. On either shore, myriad sea vessels cluster in an impenetrable mass, bobbing and banging together in the waves. Rigging creaks as a thousand sails sway in the wind; motor launches roar, kicking up sea spray and carving a wake that tips the brightly painted caiques off course. Captains and crew members gesticulate as small fishing boats dart expertly between the larger ships, narrowly avoiding collision.

  As his steamer approaches the wharf, Connor counts more people than he has ever seen in one place. They throng along the docks, climbing on or off boats, loading and unloading cargo, scurrying from one place to another like ants on a dead beetle. Behind this waterfront circus lies the city. Nothing in his forty-six years living in rural Australia could have prepared Connor for the pace, or the chaos, of modern Constantinople.

  Buildings on a scale Connor can barely comprehend cover the steep hills, dwarfing the thousands of people who scuttle in their shadows. Ancient domed mosques, a twin-tiered aqueduct and grand palaces create a baffling visual maze of colour and texture.

  Connor feels a nervous anticipation rising in his gut. He clenches his fists, lifts his shoulders and inhales a long deliberate breath.

  The city may have been built by the Greeks, Romans and Byzantines, and the British are in charge now. But for five hundred years it’s been Ottoman.

  For Joshua Connor, it is, and will always be, enemy territory.

  Connor grabs at the railing to steady himself as the boat slams against the side of the dock. Sailors toss weathered, salt-stained ropes to shore where dockhands loop them around massive brass bollards, arms straining as they struggle to secure the bucking ship against the temperamental ebb and flow of the current in the Golden Horn.

  The boat’s arrival attracts a hoard of vendors and touts. A thousand voices babble in countless tongues, guttural and incomprehensible. Porters shove and scrabble, elbowing each other aside to grab at the cases and trunks being lowered from deck to shore.

  Beetle-browed, swarthy men shout, waving at the disembarking passengers. Laden with implausibly enormous loads, these human beasts of burden take off at alarming speed towards donkey-drawn carts and covered hackney carriages led by pairs of well-groomed horses.

  Connor hangs back, grasping the handle of his own small suitcase in a determined grip. The air is warm, sultry. Waves slap against the dock, sending spray into the air. It beads and dries, crystalline, on Connor’s hands. He closes one fist and feels the powdery salt crumble in his palm like Mallee dust. He sidles down the gangway, his wide-brimmed hat set squarely upon his head. He does his best to avoid the grasping hands and shouts of the rabble squabbling for custom below.

  ‘Mister, mister!’

  ‘Sir! Here, sir!’

  ‘Welcome Constantinople, sir! My name is?’

  Weaving between their legs is a scruffy-headed boy, dodging repeated clips to the ear from competitors. He has fixed on Connor, knowing that the more senior touts will fight over the well-outfitted, well-heeled travellers in preference to the tall, solitary man who steps down onto the dock clinging to a single battered suitcase.

  ‘Mister, hello for you. Very clean, very cheap. Hot water I have. My name is, sir?’ The boy waves a creased photograph of a two-storeyed building under Connor’s nose.

  Ignoring the child’s entreaties, Connor presses into the mass of humanity. He clutches his case to his chest and edges towards a rudimentary desk set up on the dock that seems to serve as the local customs office. A Turkish official wearing a fez and pince-nez glasses takes his proffered passport and inspects it in a cursory fashion, one hand stroking his luxuriant moustache. At his side a jaded British officer leans back against the wall, indifferent to the chaos that reigns around him.

  The official stamps Connor’s document with a flourish and hands it back, then gestures to the next foreigner in line.

  Connor stands firm, palms pressed against the desk.

  ‘Gallipoli? The boat to Gallipoli is where?’

  At his back, the persistent cries of the young boy continue unabated.

  ‘Sir! Sir! Best hotel in Constantinople. Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Grand Bazaar. Sir! Sir?’

  Eyes hooded, the Turkish official peers at Conner over the rims of his pince-nez.

  ‘Ne?’

  ‘Gallipoli. Come on. GA-LLIP-OLI. Don’t tell me you don’t know where that is.’

  The kid breaks free of the pack and comes to stand at Connor’s side, tugging at his sleeve. He sticks the photo in front of Connor’s face.

  ‘Clean sheets, sir. Hot water. No Germans.’

  Connor’s patience is wearing thin. He feels fury and frustration building behind his eyes.

  ‘Not now! Clear off!’

  He turns back to the official, whose arm is outstretched to reach for the next passport.

  ‘You understand? GALLIPOLI!’

  The man’s impassive Turkic face is uncomprehending. Connor looks to the British soldier at his side, disturbing his reverie.

  ‘Excuse me. Can you help? I’m going to Gallipoli.’

  The soldier stares at Connor incredulously.

  ‘No you’re bloody not. No one goes there without a permit. Check with the War Office. Sultanahmet.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Old City. Up the hill.’ He indicates a vertiginous, cobblestoned street with an idle flick of his wrist.

  The child holds up his photo. ‘Sultanahmet. We go.’ He grabs Connor’s suitcase from his hand and darts off into the crowd.

  The soldier watches him disappear. ‘I’d watch your case if I was you. Shifty little bastards, the lot of them.’

  Connor charges after his luggage. ‘Oi! You! Come back!’

  Still struggling with his sea legs, the ground shifts beneath Connor’s feet. He fights to quell a rising tide of panic. The child has melted away into the amorphous mass of people jostling and shoving each other along the docks. He has made off with nearly everything Connor owns.

  How could I be so bloody stupid?

  Instinctively he slips his fingers into his breast pocket. Relief. The photo. His boys are still there. Then he remembers.

  Art’s journal.

  Connor feels sick to the stomach. He’s pushed to one side as a group of regal-looking men outfitted in brocade turbans and billowing robes sweeps past. Servants and porters wearing peculiar baggy trousers and ornately decorated silk sashes follow in their wake.

  Connor catches his heel and falls backwards on a worn marble step turned grey from the passage of hundreds of years of feet. He stumbles, throwing out a hand, and finds purchase on a steep stone staircase behind him. He finds his feet and bounds up it. There, elevated above the tumult at street level, he can see the child tearing across the open square. He is heading towards a two-storeyed building, its façade a lattice of coloured stone like red and white humbugs. Connor sees his suitcase held aloft, like a trophy, as the boy scampers towards one of the three massive arches that make up the grand entrance. />
  Connor vaults down the stairs, two at a time. An elderly man sits on the bottom step, a tin of wheat in his hand. At his feet, a flock of grey pigeons coo and cluck, pecking at the grain the man tosses across the grey stone pavement. Connor charges past and the birds erupt in a feathery cloud, soaring skyward. He stumbles through the crowd towards his prey, eyes fixed on the boy’s narrow shoulders and scruffy, thick black hair. The farmer darts and weaves past vendors selling plump cobs of buttery corn and others with trays full of circular bread rings stacked in pyramids on top of their heads.

  Reaching the building, the child glances back. Seeing Connor in hot pursuit, he runs inside.

  ‘Oi! You! Get back here!’

  Connor sprints into the arcade, slowing as his eyes adjust to the dimly lit interior. A warm and intoxicating cloud washes over him. Temporarily stupefied, he stops in his tracks. More scents than he can process at once – a riot of alien aromas – waft through this space. Heady, pungent, the fragrance is so thick he can taste it at the back of his throat. An earthy smell, moist and loamy like damp soil; another as woody as freshly hewn pine; scents heavy with the bitter tang of incense, and the lilting sweetness of a handful of jasmine crushed in the palm.

  Sacks filled with neatly stacked cones of coloured powder – marigold orange, raspberry red, buttercup yellow, moss green – line the narrow passage. High above, arched windows admit columns of light that are given form by the fragrant dust that fills the air.

  Connor becomes aware of a sudden silence. A young man wearing a long blue robe gazes at him cautiously, frozen mid-action with a scoop of blood-red powder poised above a set of scales suspended from a timber brace. On all sides, people stop what they are doing, scrutinising the foreign invader. Connor pushes forwards, wanting more than anything to be out of this place. His head spins, his senses strung as tight as piano wire. Peering along the hazy corridor, he sees the little thief’s embroidered red vest as he darts ahead.

  Connor gives chase. Faces turn towards him silently, watching him pass. Black eyes, green eyes, eyes the colour of amber; skin as brown as a buffed pair of work boots, skin pale and translucent as porcelain; ancient backs as bent as a bow, gnarled hands clutching walking canes; ramrod-straight backs in gilt-buttoned woollen military tunics; thickly kohled eyes pooling black beneath fringed and embroidered headdresses; faces hidden behind diaphanous veils; shapeless hooded forms gliding through the market in groups.

  Ahead, daylight is framed by an arched doorway. The boy looks back, sees Connor, and raises his hand. A victory salute? Rage rises in him like bile.

  He’s mocking me? I’ll show the little bastard.

  Connor bursts into the bright spring sunshine and looks ahead up a steep cobbled street. Striped awnings lend it the appearance of a country fair. But that’s where the familiarity ends. Stalls spill into the street, stacked high with produce: flimsy timber crates stuffed with squawking birds and squealing rabbits; copper urns, tankards, jugs, pots hanging from hooks; dried vegetables strung like garlands; skeins of rainbow-coloured silk stacked in teetering piles; baskets of unidentifiable dried flowers and fruits; handcarts piled high with plump and glossy vegetables. And, everywhere, people. So many people.

  The boy has slowed and is now dragging Connor’s case along the cobbles.

  Pressing forwards into the crowd, Connor elbows his way past merchants who grab at his sleeve, gabbling loudly. He shakes them off.

  ‘No! Get out of it, for Christ’s sake!’

  His leather-soled boots slip on the cobbles as he charges up the steep hill, watching as his suitcase disappears around a corner. Rounding the bend, he runs straight into a street festooned with washing hanging from lines, which zig zag festively up the hill. Branching off the central lane is a bewildering network of tiny alleys. Not a sign of the boy.

  He looks around desperately and spots an attendant at a street café who stands stoically, eyes on the foreigner. Connor turns to him.

  ‘A boy? My suitcase?’

  Confounded, the man shrugs his shoulders, raises his eyebrows and clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. No.

  Well. That’s that, then.

  Connor stops, hands on hips, unsure what to do or where to go next.

  ‘Where you going, sir?’ Behind him, the boy waves from the entrance to one of the myriad lanes.

  Realisation washes over Connor and his anger slowly subsides. Not a thief, then. Overcome with relief, he strides over to the child and takes his case firmly from his grasp. He turns and starts to walk down the hill.

  ‘Hey, sir! Wrong way. Hotel this way.’

  Connor looks back at the boy. Weary to his core, resigned and reluctant, he submits. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Me? Orhan, sir. My name is?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘My name is, sir?’

  ‘Oh. My name. My name is Joshua Connor.’

  ‘Merhaba, Joshua Connor Bey. Welcome my city.’

  ‘So, Orhan. Do you really have a hotel? With hot water? I really need a bath.’

  ‘Yes, Sir Joshua Connor Bey. Best hotel in all Constantinople. Come!’

  Orhan leads Connor through a maze of tiny streets that wind their way up a hill. They pass between tall, timber terraced homes with the upper storeys overhanging the street, poised as if ready to topple at any moment. Connor looks up at the sliver of sky visible between the rooftops where swallows swoop and chirrup.

  Rounding a corner, they pass a row of barbers set up in the street. Well-dressed men lean back in armchairs, crisp white robes protecting their lapels from the foamy lather the barbers apply liberally to their chins. One strops a cutthroat razor along a heavy leather strap affixed to the leg of the chair and pulled tight with a sinewy forearm. Further up the hill, a wall is covered in a filigree of hastily scripted Ottoman slogans. For Connor, their meaning is obscure, but the scorched effigy of a soldier wearing a British Army uniform and lynched from a grapevine nearby makes the message clear. Tales told by the boat’s captain on the voyage out were unequivocal; tempers in Constantinople are frayed, driven to fever pitch by the unwelcome Allied occupation in the wake of the Great War. Besieged by the Greeks to the west, the Russians to the east, and set upon by English and French troops in their capital, the Turks are on the brink of rebellion or civil war.

  Orhan grabs Connor’s sleeve and drags him up another laneway. He gestures towards a grand mansion on the crest of the hill ahead.

  ‘There, sir. My hotel.’

  The once opulent building has seen better days. The approach is shaded by towering trees – chestnut, cypress, plane – all that remains of what must have been, in its prime, a well-tended and manicured garden. Fresh rose-pink and white paint disguises the deep fissures in the concrete render covering the brickwork on the lower storey. But the mask slips above street level. Here, the old paint fades and peels and the plaster is riven by a crazed lattice of cracks and crevices. A spill of weeds cascades from the mossy tiled roof and pigeon-dropping stalagmites teeter above the top edges of the window frames. At the entrance, a faded oval sign is penned in curlicue Ottoman script and English: ‘Otel Troya – Troy Hotel.’

  Although the building now lacks any pretension, Connor can’t quell a hot flush of intimidation. He has seldom seen, far less entered, such a stately building.

  ‘Sir! You are welcome!’

  Orhan darts up the stairs and holds the front door ajar, gesturing for Connor to enter.

  He raises his hand to his head, mops the beads of sweat from his brow. It was Lizzie – always Lizzie – who gave him strength. She would have hooked her arm in his, held her head high and led him through that door. She was just a country bride, but when she entered a room she was a queen. Heads turned to watch her pass. While Connor stood back, stoic, silent, Lizzie held court. Where he stumbled and faltered, confounded by small talk and social niceties, Lizzie warmed to strangers and they warmed to her. Within minutes of meeting someone, she’d lean in, resting a gentle hand on t
heir forearm, inviting them into a conspiratorial aside. When the evening ended and they climbed back up into the buggy to take the long ride home, Lizzie would do so having made a handful of new friends. She had a warmth about her that was foreign to Connor. He is a man who finds more comfort in solitude and silence than in the company of others.

  Standing on the hotel’s bottom step, he is petrified. He feels the void at his side. She is never far from his thoughts. But now, he needs to feel her hand on his, gently urging him forward.

  ‘Come in, sir! You are home!’

  He shuts his eyes, mounts the stairs.

  If only I were.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The foyer of the Otel Troya is silent.

  It has taken four years but the war has quietly, unwittingly suffocated this hotel. Keys hang on hooks behind the counter like cocoons; dusty, dormant and waiting for the long winter to pass. Walls that once were white are now tobacco-yellow and the lace drapes are stained and beginning to fray. A group of Thomas Cook tourists wave from a picture frame behind the reception desk. Beside it a photograph of an Ottoman patron with a proud moustache, and another of a band of musicians brandishing their instruments, recall happier times at the Troya. Absent are the familiar aromas of oriental hospitality: roasted coffee beans, eggplant baking and lemon cologne liberally splashed on the hands of guests. All lingering traces of the life that once filled these rooms have been trampled into the fraying rug at the base of the stairs. Despite the bleak times, the hotel ledger lies optimistically open on the desk, pen poised by its inkwell. A vase of pink damask roses staves off the musk of dust and desperation.

  From upstairs comes a giggle and a hurried ‘Shh.’

  A woman bedecked incongruously in blonde wig, black beaded cocktail dress, stockings and patent leather high-heeled court shoes backs out of a doorway and into the first-floor hallway. Natalia is hopelessly overdressed for the morning, let alone the job at hand. She is carrying one end of a rolled-up carpet. A nudge from the opposite end punches her in the midriff and pushes her into the corridor, tottering in her heels.