As her plane lifted off the ground in Washington, Augusta closed her eyes and leaned back into the comforting heaviness of her seat. She was exhausted after the whirlwind preparations of the previous 24 hours. Adrenaline had gotten her through the morning of packing, double-checking and then re-checking that the mysterious old book was still nestled at the bottom of her carry-on bag. She had said goodbye to her grandmother, given her mother a tearful hug at the airport security check, and then stepped—uncertainly at first, and then a bit more bravely—through all the security apparatus. On her way to a strange new place.
Augusta still couldn’t believe where she was and what she was doing. Eyes closed, she mentally reviewed the events of the past two days. The mysterious phone call. The break-in at her grandmother’s house. The unsettling conversation with her mother and grandmother, followed by the arrival of the plane tickets. She had long dreamed of getting on a plane and flying somewhere more interesting than her small town in North Carolina, but this was definitely not the way she had imagined it happening. In her mind, it had always been with a breakthrough art exhibition—in Switzerland, perhaps, or Rio de Janeiro, or even Venice—but never with an ancient leather book in her bag and a shadowy museum agent awaiting her arrival.
She opened her eyes, glancing out the window at the late summer sunset enfolding the sky. A sudden surge of grief coursed through her body as she remembered all the sunsets she had spent with her grandfather. His strong, skilled hands shaping a piece of wood into a walking stick, or a pipe, or a trinket for her to play with. Patient, never hurried, always knowing exactly where he was going, the wood springing to life beneath his gentle touch.
“How do you make it look so good, Grandpa?” she would always ask him.
His blue eyes twinkled even in the dimming light of dusk.
“Do you want to know the secret?”
Of course she did. Always.
“You work with the grain of the wood, not against it. Listen to the wood. Feel what it’s telling you. It was once alive, you know, and it still has the vitality of a living thing. You have to respect that. Respect its dignity. It will reveal its own secrets to you.”
Then he’d wink conspiratorially. “And the other secret is a good, sharp knife.” They would laugh together—his hearty bellow underscoring her girlish giggles. She missed him so much.
Secrets. Augusta sighed again at the word, thinking how many times Grandfather had said it. He had secrets of his own, she now knew, which he had chosen not to share with her. Why had he never confided in her? Why didn’t he trust her? He had never told her about the valuable old book, about what it meant to him or why he had it.
She tried to think hard about every conversation they had ever had, screwing up her face in concentration as she gazed at the fading sunset. Maybe he had told her, but she didn’t understand at the time. Maybe he had dropped hints, or made oblique references. In her mind she returned to those sunset conversations on the porch, following them as far as she could remember, but they usually ended with her grandmother bringing a plate of fresh biscuits for the three of them to share. Mmm. Strawberry preserves and sweet, amber honey. Buttery biscuits melting in her mouth while the cicadas sounded off loudly around the porch. Augusta’s stomach rumbled. She rummaged in her bag for a snack.
Chewing thoughtfully, Augusta’s mind turned to her grandmother. Why didn’t she know anything about the book? It now struck Augusta as very odd that her grandfather wouldn’t have confided in his beloved, lifelong partner, the woman he called “my life,” the woman whose homemade biscuits he ate every day. Her grandparents were the happiest couple she had ever known. The devastation of losing their only son had only brought them closer together, and they had redoubled their efforts to care for their daughter-in-law and young granddaughter. Of course, Augusta couldn’t remember her father’s death at all, so she didn’t know if it had changed them, or if they had always been that way. What were things like before? How would life have been different if her father were still alive?
She shook her head, forcing her mind into a different direction. She had been down that path before, in school when she had been bored, or during idle moments in her studio. There was no point in thinking about it. Whenever she raised the question at home—what if?...—her mother just waved it away. “There’s no point in speculating,” she would say. “What’s done is done. We need to live in the present, not the past.”
“But I’m not talking about the past!” Augusta often pointed out. “I’m talking about an alternative present. What do you think life would be like if Dad were still with us? Would we still live next door to Grandmother and Grandfather? Would I be different? Would we all be rich and famous?”
Augusta’s mother would usually smile and give her daughter a hug. “I can definitely tell you we would not be rich and famous. And you would still be just as smart and kind. Your father would tell you every day how proud he is of you.” As always when she spoke about her husband, Augusta’s mother felt for the locket around her neck and raised it to her lips. “I wish you could have known him. What a wonderful man—I’ve never met anyone like him. Honorable, generous, kind. And so smart. I miss him every day.” It was now Augusta’s turn to wrap her arms around her mother. They sat for a moment in the silence of understanding, one remembering fondly the husband she had lost, the other speculating about the father she had never known.
Feeling drowsy now, her head churning with memories, Augusta propped her head on a pillow against the plane window. Beneath her closed eyelids, she could feel hot tears asserting themselves down her cheeks, as she searched for answers amidst the mysteries of her life. All the what ifs and whys swam through her mind, blending into each other and no longer making sense. She didn’t know where she was going, and she didn’t even really know where she was coming from. Is this grief? Augusta wondered. Or is this just life?
Somewhere over the mid-Atlantic, her mind full of old books and strawberry preserves, Augusta fell asleep.
******
Hours later, after a turbulent night of not-quite-sleeping and not-quite-waking, Augusta rubbed her eyes as the captain announced their descent toward Istanbul. She noticed she had missed breakfast, but it didn’t matter. She probably couldn’t eat anything right now anyway. Her stomach was twisting in knots as she thought about what came next. Augusta envisioned herself stepping off the plane into an unknown airport, wandering around until she bumped into someone holding a sign that read Augusta Carter. Like in the movies. She had seen a few movies where the sign-at-the-airport trope resulted in mix-ups and misunderstandings. They had always seemed so corny, but now she realized, as she was preparing to meet a complete stranger in a completely strange land, that a mix-up was a very real possibility. She just hoped he was there. And that he wasn’t a deranged lunatic, waiting to stuff her in a sack and run off with the old book.
She reviewed the safety procedures she had decided on before she left.
One. If he looks like a murderer, turn around and buy a return ticket back home. But what does a murderer look like? Mean, squinty eyes? A physique like a bouncer? Scars? Scowls? She knew murderers probably looked like normal people, but she figured she would know one when she saw him.
Two. Stay in public spaces. Don’t go to anywhere other people couldn’t see her. That’ll be easy, thought Augusta. Just hand him the book, get the cash, and go find a hotel. With a safe. She figured she would do some sightseeing while she was in Istanbul—why come all that way and not see anything? But nothing too crazy. Just the main tourist sites, which were bound to always be crowded and guarded. Safety in numbers. She wouldn’t have to worry about all the cash. It would be securely under lock and key at her very normal, very non-murderous hotel. In a safe.
Three. Was there a three? Augusta scanned her brain but couldn’t come up with anything else. One and two were probably enough. Avoiding murderers was her top priority, but she was also curious about what else she might see. What little she did know of Istanbul, gleaned from a quick trawl through the internet the day of her departure, was both historical and colorful. From the website of the Ottoman History Museum, where her mysterious contact worked, she had gathered that the city was the seat of many empires. Founded by ancient Greek sailors. Made capital of the Roman Empire in 330 AD. Leading city of the Byzantine Empire for centuries, before being captured by the invading Turks in 1453.
What a history, Augusta thought. It made her own humble hometown seem positively juvenile. And the pictures she had seen were incredible. A beautiful, wide river seemed to separate the two parts of town, the European side of the city from the Asian side. A city split between two continents. On one side of the continental divide, a large palace perched above the harbor, its thick walls once keeping out hordes of invaders and now welcoming in hordes of tourists. The pencil-like spikes of minarets poked up from mosques all around the city. There were domed bath-houses where the sultans had once bathed, and blue-tiled fountains where their horses had stopped for a drink, and a spice market where their cooks had replenished vast stores of exotic spices from all over the world.
Augusta shifted to look out the window as the beautiful sea came into view below. Glistening dark blue, with tiny, white ruffs of waves just visible, the sea seemed both incredibly remote and comfortingly near. The afternoon sun glinted off the swells as her plane dropped down closer and closer, skimming over the huge cargo ships radiating out from the shore. To her left, patches of brown field and narrow ribbons of highway were giving way to more and more sand-colored buildings, which jutted up intermittently from the countryside like jagged teeth. As the plane skimmed ever lower, the buildings became denser and taller. Augusta could see cars, trucks, and buses gliding along the roads far below.
For the first time in her life, Augusta thought to herself, she was completely on her own. Of course, she had been by herself before in a physical sense. She wasn’t a child. She had her own apartment, even her own sculpting studio, and it seemed that she spent an increasing amount of time these days alone in her studio. Prepping, sculpting, just thinking. That wasn’t what she meant. Here, there was no one to catch her if she fell, no one looking over her shoulder murmuring wise suggestions if she needed inspiration or guidance. Her mother’s words echoed through her mind. Your father will be watching over you. Was her father an angel? Augusta wondered. A spirit? She didn’t know what her mother meant, but at the moment she would be very grateful to have a guardian angel, real or imagined.
In the distance, the city came into view. The orderly suburban blocks had been left behind, replaced by a hodgepodge of tiled roofs, a jumble of criss-crossing roads, piles of buildings all sitting on top of each other. She had never seen so many buildings crammed together, as if they were vying with each other for the same space. It was completely unfamiliar to her.
Augusta’s stomach lurched as she realized how little she knew about this place, about the task now facing her, about the strange old book, even about her own grandfather. And how little she knew about the man waiting for her—or not?—just a few minutes away. What would Erol Yilmaz be like? Hopefully not a murderer, but what else? Tall, short, old, young, nice, weird? On the phone he had sounded not-old and not-weird, but it was hard to tell. She supposed she’d know it when she saw it.
As her plane touched down on the runway, a shiver of anticipation ran down Augusta’s spine. The pilot braked hard and she leaned forward in her seat, carried by the plane’s momentum, unable to hold back the inexorable force propelling her toward Istanbul. They slowed to a taxi, and the captain’s voice crackled through the cabin, welcoming them to this new—or rather, very old—world. Augusta pressed her palms into the seat in front her and sat up very straight, sturdying herself for what she was about to do.
This is it, she told herself. You’ve got this. She tried to look not-nervous as she stood up and collected her bags, but she doubted the effort was very successful. Taking deep, steadying breaths, she trundled her beaten-up duffel bag down the aisle to the front of the plane. And within a moment, Augusta had stepped—unmistakably, irrevocably—out into Istanbul.