“After which—”
“Oh, there were difficult times, but one manages. Actually, my man was stationed in Anatolia when the Osmanlis overran it, and did not get back to Constantinople until they had taken it too and renamed it Istanbul. Meanwhile he had fitted into their order of things without many problems. Changed his religion, but surely you can sympathize with that, and with a certain recurring necessity that an immortal Muslim or Jew faces.” Saygun half grinned. “One wonders about possible women. Recurrent intactness?”
His mien went back to mock professorial: “Physically, this man would stay inconspicuous. The original Turks were not very unlike the people here, and soon melted into them the same as Hittites, Gauls, Greeks, Romans, countless nations had done before. The sultans reigned until after the World War. In name, at any rate; frequently not in fact. It made small difference to my man. He simply helped maintain the records.
“Likewise under the republic. I must confess I—my man prefers Istanbul and looks forward to his next period of working there. It is more interesting, and alive with ghosts. But you know that. However, by now Ankara has become quite liveable.”
“Is that all he wants?” McCready wondered. “Shuffling papers in an office, forever?”
“He is used to it,” Saygun explained. “Perhaps it actually has a trifle more social value than soaring hopes and high adventure. Naturally, I wanted to hear what you had to say, but—forgive me—the situation you describe is ill-suited to one of my temperament. Let me wish you every good fortune.
“May I have your card? Here is mine.” He reached in his pocket. McCready did likewise. They exchanged. “Thank you. We can, if you so desire, mail new cards to each other as occasion arises. The time may possibly come when we have reason to communicate. Meanwhile, absolute confidentiality on both sides, agreed?”
“Well, but listen—”
“Please. I detest disputes.” Saygun glanced at his watch. “My, my. Time flies, eh? I really must go. Thank you for an evening I will never forget.”
He rose. McCready did too and, helplessly, shook hands. Having bade goodnight, the bureaucrat, still relishing his cigar, departed. McCready stood in the hall door till the elevator bore him off, down into the city and its crowds of the anonymous.
XVII Steel
THIS WAS not the forest of old, but there was cover aplenty for a hunter, oh, yes, and all too much quarry. First, though, Katya had open ground to cross. She went from the battered yellow brick of the Lazur Chemical Plant on her belly. The pavement beneath her was as rough, after nearly three months of war. It felt colder against her palms than did the wind on her face. Clouds and a little snow had slightly warmed the November air.
She slipped forward a meter or so at a time, stopped, peered about, before the next advance. Heaven rested heavy, hiding the sun behind its gray. Sometimes it let fall a thin white flurry for the gusts to scatter. On Katya’s left the ground sloped to the Volga. Ice floes drifted, bumped together, churned and turned on their way down its steel-hued stream. No boats dared moved among them. Scant help could come to the Russians from the east until the river froze hard. The shore opposite seemed deserted, steppe reaching, wan with winter, on and on into Asia.
To her right, beyond the railroad tracks, Mamaev Hill rose a hundred meters aloft. Its slopes were black. Shells and boots quickly beat snow into mud. She identified two or three gun emplacements. Silence brooded. The soldiers who had contested that height for weeks must be catching their breath or a few moments’ sleep, briefly brothers in exhaustion and wretchedness, before the next combat erupted.
The stillness foreboded. It was abnormal to hear no fire, anywhere, for this long a stretch. War waited—eyes and gunsights wholly upon her?
Nonsense, she snapped to herself, and moved onward.
Nevertheless, when she came in among walls, breath shuddered from a breast cage that had begun to ache.
She rose and stood crouched. These were not truly walls, after what had happened to them. Concrete blocks still Itfted sheer, but doorless doorways and glassless windows yawned on emptiness. A heap of rubble had spilled into the street.